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 VOL . 208, NOS. 3–4 | 2026

5
The Brief
17
The View
24
The Next Life
Intent on controlling
Tibet, Beijing’s
nominally atheist
government is set
on choosing the
next Dalai Lama
By Charlie Campbell

32
The
Outsider
In Michigan. Senate
hopeful Abdul El-Sayed
is wagering that a
progressive wave will
reach the Midwest
By Nik Popli

38
Fighting
Ebola
How America’s
withdrawal from global
health leadership is
affecting the effort
to control a galloping
outbreak
By Alice Park

45
TIME100
Creators
The most influential
digital voices of 2026:
titans, entertainers,
leaders, catalysts, and
phenoms
Members of the
TIME100 Creators
63
Photograph by
Elizabeth Renstrom Time Off
for TIME

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FROM THE EDITOR

New media listening to the platforms where these indi-

viduals make their living, talking with ex-
perts about who they see as most influential,
AS WE PUBLISH THE SECOND ANNUAL EDITION and drawing on data from the creator agency
of TIME100 Creators, I’ve been thinking about Whalar for insights. Though we have limited
findings released in June by YouGov from its ourselves to creators who post in English, the
2026 Trust in Media survey. The research individuals come from more than a dozen
firm polled Americans on how they viewed countries, working across TikTok, Instagram,
65 U.S. news outlets. For the fifth year run- Threads, YouTube, Twitch, X, LinkedIn, Sub-
ning, YouGov found TIME to be among the stack, Pinterest, Spotify, Snap, and more. The
most trusted, by Americans across ideologi- issue was edited and led by Lucy Feldman and
cal viewpoints. At a period when Americans Avery Stone.
Individuals seem to agree on increasingly less, their trust in For our own work, we think of independent
TIME endures. creators the way our predecessors thought
can now A second poll, released in April, comes from about columnists: distinct voices with their
function Media Insight Project, a consortium of aca- own audiences who, when collaborating with
as media demic groups that sur- TIME, improve the
companies veyed Americans ages quality of what we
unto 13 and up. They found offer you. We’re al-
that independent cre- ready putting that
themselves ators, like the ones in- thinking into prac-
cluded in this year’s tice. Cat Quinn has
TIME100 Creators, worked as a red-
have become sources carpet correspon-
of information across dent at our events;
generations. Most travel experts Yaya
Americans—57%—get and Lloyd have been
at least some of their visiting TIME’s
news from this group. World’s Greatest
Our competition is Places for us on Ins-
no longer only other Members of the new class of TIME100 Creators tagram; and Nicolas
magazines, but also in- gather in New York City on June 15 Heller, better known
dividuals who function as New York Nico,
as media companies unto themselves. will cover soccer, pegged to the World Cup, for
Taken together, the two surveys point to TIME. Later this year, along with TIME Stu-
both a tension and an opportunity for TIME: dios, we’ll debut a new show with veteran in-
our value has never been solely trust or reach, terviewer Piers Morgan. The list of collabora-
but also the belief that each enables the other. tors will continue to grow.
As a publisher, we’ve traveled across changes in This effort also means embracing the kinds
how people want to access and receive informa- of direct communication many TIME100 Cre-
tion for 103 years, each time carrying your trust ators are pioneering. Often that happens in per-
with us into new places and forms. Creators are son, as TIME gathers with our communities
poised to be that latest turn. Our answer isn’t to more than 40 times in 2026. Throughout the
retreat from these personalities or the platforms year, we’ve done more to introduce you to our
on which they work, but to bring TIME’s edito- journalists—rolling out video series featuring
rial judgment to them, and their strengths to TIME reporters and editors, and relaunching
you. People-first storytelling shouldn’t come at our newsletters to better connect readers with
the cost of trust. the humans whose work defines TIME today.
That is the lesson of this moment: we can grow
WHAT IS BEING CREATED by individuals like your trust by embracing new ways to strengthen
influencer Alix Earle, who is on the cover of the connection between you and us.
this issue, is real—real audiences, real impact,
real businesses. Earle is a fitting avatar for this
CHLOE DOWLING FOR TIME

list: she has built the architecture for the kind

of media enterprise many legacy outlets have
spent decades creating.
We set out in search of others like Earle, Sam Jacobs,
eager to find this year’s TIME100 Creators, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
2 TIME July 27, 2026
 CONVERSATION

TIME in Cannes On the covers

TIME’s events at the Cannes Lions
summit in June included a TIME100
Talks, sponsored by Deloitte, about
storytelling in sports featuring World
Cup champ Ashlyn Harris (far right,
with TIME CEO Jessica Sibley); one on
sports’ influence on business and
culture, sponsored by Snapdragon,
featuring (below from left) former Photograph by David
NBA star Carmelo Anthony, F1 driver Brandon Geeting for TIME
Doriane Pin, Qualcomm EVP and CMO
Don McGuire, Manchester United
defender Gabby George, and TIME
senior editorial director Emma Barker
Bonomo; a roundtable sponsored by
Pinterest, featuring the company’s CEO
Bill Ready (below right) about the impact
the internet is having on society; a
TIME100 Talks sponsored by Autodesk
about creativity in the age of AI; and one
sponsored by Philip Morris International Photograph by Niall
about how AI is changing creative work. Carson—PA Images/
Read more about them all on [Link] Getty Images

Photograph by Moses
Sawasawa—AP

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TIME FRANCE
Thriving
TIME editorial director Lucy
Feldman joins actor Wilson
Cruz onstage at the first-ever
Every Child Thrives Festival at
the Obama Presidential Center
in Chicago on June 23. The
festival was sponsored by the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and
featured conversations about The latest issue of our partner
supporting, educating, and publication TIME France features
uplifting youth around the world. a cover profile of World Cup
Read more from Feldman’s star Kylian Mbappé, available in
conversation with Cruz on the French at [Link] and in
last page of this issue, and more translation on [Link]
about the events at [Link]/ Photograph by Sébastien
collection/visionaries/2026 Leban for TIME France
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The Brief

TRUMP’S FEUD THE GREAT INSECT UNDERSTANDING

WITH MELONI UNDERCOUNT AI ‘EMOTIONS’

PHOTOGR APH BY JACK GUEZ 5

THE BRIEF OPENER

A
s the cease-fire in the iran war was an initiative run by 19 U.N. and international aid agencies.
collapsing, a subtle shift in another stalemate— In August, when IPC declared a famine in the north of the
in Gaza—highlighted the challenges of en- enclave, it reported that “over half a million people in the
forcing peace. The shift came on July 6, when Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions character-
Hamas announced that it was relinquishing political con- ised by starvation, destitution and death.” A December
trol of the Palestinian enclave the militant group had gov- report projected that 77% of the population still would
erned for nearly two decades. face high levels of “acute food insecurity” and 101,000
The move nominally opens the way for a technocratic children would have acute malnutrition.
body to assume responsibility for the 2.1 million Palestin-
ians based there, as called for by the U.S.-brokered Octo- At the sAme time, despite the cease-fire, at least 1,005
ber 2025 cease-fire agreement meant to end two years of people have been killed in Gaza since October 2025, ac-
devastating war. But the technocrats all remain in neigh- cording to the Gaza Health Ministry. It says at least
boring Egypt, unable to enter the strip. And while giving 73,000 people have been killed in total since Oct. 7, 2023,
up administrative authority, Hamas—which has both a when Hamas’ attack on Israel killed around 1,200 people,
political side and a military wing—still has its arms. most of them civilians.
“As long as Hamas retains its weapons, any civilian gov- The Health Ministry is part of the Hamas government
ernment will of course operate as Hamas dictates,” Israeli being turned over to technocrats. Its senior current lead-
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ership was appointed by the
wrote on X, reacting to the news. Hamas administration, while
“A technocratic administration hospitals and public-health ser-
would be responsible for garbage
collection and other municipal
‘As long as vices are staffed largely by career
doctors, medical workers, and
services, while Hamas would re-
main the dominant military force.”
Analysts saw the Hamas an-
Hamas retains civil servants. In the absence of
independent monitoring on the
ground, the ministry is the pri-
nouncement as largely symbolic,
a conspicuous effort to appear
its weapons, mary source for casualty data
relied upon by humanitarian
compliant with the cease-fire
accord without addressing the any civilian groups, journalists, and inter-
national bodies, and also has
pivotal issue of its own disarma-
ment. Hamas spokesman Hazem
Qassem told Agence France-
government been quoted by Israeli officials.
Its figures do not differentiate
between civilians and combat-
Presse that relinquishing power
was intended to “remove any pre-
will operate ants and cannot be indepen-
dently verified by TIME.
text for the occupation” of Gaza
by Israel, whose troops control
more than 60% of the enclave.
as Hamas President Donald Trump’s
peace plan has been stalled for
months at Phase 2, which re-
In the background, public sen-
timent toward Israel and Pales-
dictates.’ quires Hamas’ disarmament and
plans to rebuild Gaza. But Hamas
tinians has shifted among Ameri- —GIDEON SAAR, maintains that Israel has not im-
cans. A poll from the Associated ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER plemented the first-phase goals
Press, published July 7, found that of allowing “sufficient” humani-
about one-third of U.S. adults be- tarian aid into Gaza, and allow-
lieve that Israel has committed genocide in its war with ing displaced Palestinians to return home.
Hamas; both the Biden and Trump administrations have Israel has denied claims that it is not allowing humani-
rejected the idea that it has. Gallup released a separate tarian aid into Gaza, saying that the military has facili-
poll earlier this year showing that 41% of Americans say tated the entry of thousands of tons of food, medical sup-
they sympathize more with the Palestinians, while 36% plies, and baby formula since the war’s start.
sympathize more with the Israelis; from 2001 to 2025, “The issue at hand is not whether aid should enter
Israel consistently held double-digit leads. Gaza, but how it can be delivered in a secure and trans-
Meanwhile, the situation in Gaza remains dire. An parent manner, without diversion or interference by
update from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Pal- Hamas, so that it reaches the civilian population it is
estine Refugees at the end of June reported that 116 ac- intended to support,” the Israeli Defense Forces said in a
tive emergency shelters in the strip host 76,000 inter- statement in February.
nally displaced persons. Gaza is also facing widespread Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan-
hunger, a situation driven by Israeli restrictions on aid yahu said in May that his country is “tightening” its grip
and the destruction of food infrastructure, according to on the strip and that he had directed troops to take control
the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), of up to 70% of Gaza. □
The Brief includes reporting by Chantelle Lee
 Peekaboo
The Statue of Liberty appeared between the sails of a tall ship in New York Harbor during the International Parade of Sail
on Independence Day. Celebrations across the U.S. commemorated the 250th anniversary of the July 4, 1776, adoption
O P E N I N G PA G E : A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S; J U LY 4: PA M E L A S M I T H — A P ; M E L O N I : M A R C O I A C O B U C C I — S O PA I M A G E S/ L I G H T R O C K E T/G E T T Y I M A G E S

of the Declaration of Independence, including fireworks that, two miles or so away, briefly set fire to the Brooklyn Bridge.

THE BULLETIN

Trump and Meloni in an undiplomatic spat

DAYS BEFORE LAMBASTING EURO- “felt sorry” for her. He later criticized ments “are completely fabricated”
pean allies at the NATO Summit in her in a Truth Social post, saying, and that she was “stunned” by his be-
Turkey, U.S. President Donald Trump “She is doing poorly in Italy with her havior. “I don’t know why the Presi-
rekindled tensions with Italian Prime level of popularity, possibly because dent of the United States behaves this
Minister Giorgia Meloni. On July 5, she turned down the United States of way toward his own allies,” she said.
Trump posted an image on Truth America, a Country that truly loves “There’s one thing he must remem-
Social that showed Meloni looking and protects Italy, when it came to ber: Italy and I do not beg.”
up at the American President, with denying Iran from obtaining or de-
the words “restraining order needed” veloping a Nuclear Weapo RAINT Some of Meloni’s top
printed across the top. He went on to say, “Now, ials brushed off Trump’s lat-
the United States defeate remarks. Interior Minister
RISING TENSIONS Meloni, who is up Iran militarily, she wants tteo Salvini told reporters
for re-election in 2027, had been con- be friends again in order “won’t comment on these
sidered one of Trump’s close allies. to get her ‘numbers up.’ things anymore,” and For-
But he was irked by her refusal to No thanks!!!” eign Minister Antonio Tajani
join the war in Iran and her defense said, “We are convinced that
of Pope Leo XIV. In June, Trump told MELONI’S RESPONSE In transatlantic relations go
an Italian broadcaster that Meloni June, Meloni fired back far beyond individual state-
“begged” him to take a photo with at Trump’s remarks in ments.” This time, Meloni
her during the G-7 Summit—and that a video she shared on herself didn’t respond.
he agreed to do so only because he X, saying that his com- —CHANTELLE LEE
7
THE BRIEF NEWS

HEAT 200,000 people have died in the E.U. no need for AC. “Most European cities
at the hand of extreme heat. Many of historically had needed little cooling,
Europe was built the deaths were preventable. so building-design guidelines never
for a cooler climate “In some sense Europe is facing anticipated integrating cooling sys-
the brunt of the overall global warm- tems,” says Bardhan.
BY SIMMONE SHAH
ing much faster than the rest of the Today, only about 20% of Euro-
world,” says Malcolm Mistry, assistant pean homes have air-conditioning, ac-
exTreme heaT is becoming The professor at the London School of Hy- cording to data from the International
new normal. Millions endured swel- giene and Tropical Medicine, whose Energy Agency, compared with 90%
tering conditions across Europe at the research focuses on environmental of American homes. However, some
end of June, with Germany, France, epidemiology. countries have been quicker to adopt
Poland, and Britain all reaching re- In many European countries, it than others. Nearly 50% of Italians
cord temperatures—weather super- homes and other buildings are old— now have AC in their homes, while 7%
charged by climate change. and designed for a very different cli- of homes in Britain are equipped with
Europe is both the fastest- mate. In some countries, like England air-conditioning, double the rate from
warming continent in the world and and France, homes “act as a furnace,” just three years ago.
the second fastest region after the says Mistry, designed to trap heat. Yet even as the Continent contin-
Arctic. While the southern part of “It’s designed to solve a very op- ues to face rising temperatures, it’s
the Continent has always seen heat posite problem,” says Ronita Bardhan, unlikely to become widespread—
waves, much of the rest of Europe professor of sustainable built environ- especially as the E.U. looks to phase
and the U.K. has historically had a ment and health at the University of out hydrofluorocarbons, a polluting
cooler climate—and its infrastructure Cambridge, adding that updating old
was built in that context. housing stock won’t be easy. “The
Combined with the rapid warming, housing stock is predominantly al- ‘Europe is facing
this has left countries underprepared ready built, so it’s a very different situ- the brunt of global
for the unprecedented and multiple ation [from] where you have a green
heat waves being experienced each field to build new.”
warming faster than
summer. The shift is placing people’s Old buildings were not designed the rest of the world.’
lives at risk. to include cooling, and the region’s —MALCOLM MISTRY, LONDON SCHOOL
Over the past four years, more than once mild climate meant there was OF HYGIENE AND TROPICAL MEDICINE

8 Time July 27, 2026

 ◁
A person cools off
at Trocadero fountain
in Paris on June 24
How do I safely
lower my body heat?
cooling agent commonly found in BY SIMMONE SHAH
AC units, by 2050. “If you think of
the E.U. as a bloc, they’re quite mind-
ful of policies that can have a nega-
tive impact on the climate,” says
Mistry. “So while there is a recogni-
tion that air-conditioning itself is re-
quired to meet cooling requirements,
there’s also an overall understanding
that we cannot openly push for that
as a way to maintain the cooling, be-
cause it’s going to have a side effect.”
Instead, many countries are look-
ing at other adaptive measures: ar-
tificial shading, more green spaces,
and updating building codes to en-
sure that newer buildings are better
designed to handle heat.
More immediately, local authori-
ties are taking precautions like heat
action plans, makeshift cooling cen-
ters, and communicating the dan-
gers of heat waves well in advance,
but they have been unable to ad-
equately respond to health emer-
gencies that result from heat waves,
Mistry says.
“Local authorities, despite their
best efforts, have not been able to
prepare the public-health services
and emergency services in advance to
account for an expected spike in, for
instance, hospital-related admissions
related to heat,” he says.
E U R O P E : C H R I S T O P H E E N A — A P ; B O DY H E AT: R A S I D N E C AT I A S L I M — A N A D O L U/G E T T Y I M A G E S

That’s in part because the E.U.’s

population is aging: the number of
senior citizens, who are more vulner-
able to the effects of extreme heat,
has risen by approximately 40% over
the past two decades. What’s more,
many of Europe’s health care systems
are already stretched thin, even
without an extreme weather event
to contend with.
Ultimately, meaningful mitigation
will require global action to reduce
greenhouse gases, slowing the rate
of warning. “Climate change at the
end of the day is a global problem,”
says Mistry. “If other countries are
not going to be on the same boat,
then we are still struggling to fight
a lone battle.” □
9
THE BRIEF NEWS

GOOD QUESTION the insects fly upward and blunder

Wait, how many species into a bottle filled with ethanol, which
kills them and preserves their re-
of insects are there? mains. Three arrays of Malaise traps
BY JEFFREY KLUGER
resulted in the collection of more than
1.6 million insect specimens, all of
which were shipped to a lab where
Think your backyard can geT buggy in The summer— a robotically controlled system se-
with mosquitoes, flies, moths, wasps, bees, lightning bugs, quenced a part of their genome and
crickets, and more swarming, buzzing, and chirping every- produced a sort of barcode for each. A
where? That’s nothing compared with the great global yard total of 54,000 species were detected
that is the earth. According to the Smithsonian Institution, among the 1.6 million insects using
there are about 10 quintillion—or 10 with 18 zeroes—insects this method. Of those, 1,414 were
alive in the world at any given moment, representing the Microgastrinae. That’s a big number,
largest biomass of all terrestrial animals. but it’s also an incomplete number.
That huge group is also diverse. The generally accepted ▽ “Remember that not every species
figure for the number of insect species on the planet is A high- gets caught in a Malaise trap, and they
about 6 million. Or at least that was the number. Accord- magnification were only in three different parts of
ing to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Acad- photo of a the forest,” says Guzman. To extrapo-
emy of Sciences, however, that head count is also likely an parasitoid wasp late up from those numbers to the total
undercount, with the actual number population of insect
of insect species topping out at any- species in the ACG, the
where from 14 million to 20 million. researchers relied on
Though the trend line is up, within statistical models that
that census there are local collapses— used an “undersampling
populations of pollinators like bees ratio” to compare what
and monarch butterflies are declin- was collected in the nets
ing precipitously, for example. So the with what was likely still
tripling of the overall known species flying free in the sam-
count has implications not only for pling area. That method
basic entomological research, but also yielded an estimate of
for efforts at conservation as a whole. 2,400 Microgastrinae
“If we don’t even know that a spe- species in the ACG and
cies of insect exists, and we don’t even a whopping 333,000
have a name for it, we could be losing insect species overall.
a lot of species [without knowing it],” The next step was

P L AT N E R : G R A E M E S L O A N — B L O O M B E R G /G E T T Y I M A G E S; S W I F T A N D K E L C E : A E O N /G C I M A G E S/G E T T Y I M A G E S
says Laura Melissa Guzman, assistant professor in the de- to use similar methods to estimate the
partment of entomology at Cornell University, a co-author total number of insect species in the

I N S E C T S : I S T O C K /G E T T Y I M A G E S; K H A M E N E I : O F F I C E O F T H E I R A N I A N S U P R E M E L E A D E R / R E U T E R S;
of the paper. “Our study gives us a baseline of how much world at large. That involved modeling
work there is to do. Can we find ways to speed up this pro- other life-forms, including trees—with
cess to be able to catalog biodiversity before we lose it?” 1,500 species in the ACG compared
with 73,000 across the planet—as well
The researchers involved in the study did their work as mammals, amphibians, and Satur-
in Costa Rica’s Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), nian moths. The result, the research-
a 418,000-acre wilderness area stretching from the Pa- ers concluded, was the new 20 million
cific Ocean to the Caribbean Basin. The ACG is home to all estimate for the number of insect spe-
manner of insects, but the scientists were interested in one cies that call earth home.
species in particular: the Microgastrinae, a group of small, Those figures won’t hold. As
parasitic wasps. Microgastrinae adults lay their eggs inside ‘Our study Guzman observes, as habitats are
unlucky caterpillars. When the larvae hatch, they consume gives us a lost, their inhabitants go with them.
the insides of their host and emerge as fledgling wasps. The It’s humans—a single species against
researchers chose the Microgastrinae because they are a baseline of the millions-strong insects—who are
well-sampled subfamily, with many of their species already how much largely responsible for that damage.
cataloged. Their population could be used as a yardstick for We’re doing a better job than ever
the populations of insects across the ACG. work there before of counting the species with
Studying the Microgastrinae required setting up so- is to do.’ which we share the planet; we could
called Malaise traps—curtain-like nets topped by a canopy —LAURA GUZMAN, do an equally good job of protect-
net that catches insects on the fly. In an attempt to escape, ENTOMOLOGIST ing them. □
10 Time July 27, 2026
MILESTONES

DROPPED OUT

OBSERVED

MARRIED ANNOUNCED LAUNCHED UPHELD

11
THE BRIEF TECHNOLOGY

PHILOSOPHY We have an intuitive grasp of dimensions:

we understand the difference between a
AI doesn’t feel. So why line, a 2D video game, and a physical object.
does it have ‘emotions’? But mathematically, dimensions are just
coordinates—a point in three-dimensional
BY THARIN PILLAY space can be represented with numbers—
and there’s no limit to how many can exist.
AI works by exploiting this fact: using
in 1960, when Jane Goodall Told her menTor she’d thousands of numbers, a system learns to
seen a chimpanzee stripping leaves from a stem to fish for represent words and concepts as points in
termites—proving that humans were not the only species
to make tools—he wrote back: “Now we must redefine tool,
redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans.”
Today, researchers are seeing things inside AI systems
that prompt another reckoning—not just over whether ma-
chines could be truly intelligent or conscious, but over how
we understand such concepts in the first place.
“I lead a research team that studies the internal struc-
ture of these models—what is actually happening inside
them,” Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah said in May,
speaking at the Vatican upon the release of Pope Leo XIV’s
AI encyclical. “And I will be honest: we keep finding things
that are mysterious, even unsettling. We find structures
that mirror results from human neuroscience. We find evi-
dence of introspection.”
After getting a prompt, an AI system performs billions
of calculations using bespoke numerical structures it cre-
ates itself. But remarkably, though we know how to prod
systems into creating these structures, we don’t really un-
derstand how they work, any more than early farmers un-
derstood photosynthesis.
Almost nobody disagrees these internal structures exist;
the disagreement is over what they mean. One possibility is
that today’s AI systems are nothing but imitators—a stance
the Pope takes in the encyclical. “So-called artificial intelli-
gences do not undergo experiences,” he writes. “They may
imitate language, behavior and analytical skills ... but they
do not understand what they produce, for they lack the af-
fective, relational and spiritual perspective through which
human beings grow in wisdom.”
And yet, philosophers and scientists are debating the
moral and metaphysical status of these systems. We’re ac-
customed to consciousness, intelligence, and agency ar- higher-dimensional space. For an entity like
riving bundled together in living creatures. AI seems Claude, the concept cat is a comically long
to be unbundling them, and we have yet to process the numerical string.
implications. AI systems are initially trained to pre-
dict the next token (a small chunk of
As AI systems have become more capable—better at rea- information)—a simple task. But doing it
soning and coding—their internal representations have well requires compressing information,
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y P E T E R E Y N O L D S F O R T I M E

become more sophisticated. In April, Anthropic shared which leads them to create intricate maps in
research showing systems had what it called “functional latent space that encode not just words, but
emotions”: patterns of expression and behavior that were also the relationships between them. Simi-
mediated by their representations of emotional concepts. lar concepts are literally closer together:
When an AI encounters a coding issue it can’t solve, for a string representing cat will be much closer
example, a pattern is triggered that corresponds with the to one representing kitten than to an unre-
model’s concept of frustration. Tweaking the feature affects lated one like tax.
how the model behaves. This is radically different from traditional
The key thing to see is that numbers encode space. software, where fundamental concepts and
12 Time July 27, 2026
 TIME 2030 is a decade-long project marking our progress toward
a sustainable and equitable world. To read more, visit [Link]

rules are coded in by humans. But when AI animal behavior,” says Jeff Sebo, director of the Center for
generates a response, it makes use of intri- Mind, Ethics, and Policy at New York University. “For a long
cate geometry we’re just now learning to see. time, this caused us to miss the plausibility not only of ani-
When—if at all—does being able to rep- mal consciousness, but also of animal agency and cognitive
resent an emotion amount to experiencing sophistication.”
it? We simply don’t understand conscious- Of course, unlike animals, AI systems were created by peo-
ness well enough to say. What we do know, ple. But our ability to create them does not mean we know
from their internal structure, is that AI sys- how they work. Complex animal behavior emerged from evo-
tems are not flat mirrors, merely repeating lutionary pressure. Complex AI behavior emerges from the
their training data. Their interior influences pressure to predict the next token. But neither tells the full
story. Although “there are purely mechanistic explanations
of human behavior available,” Sebo says, “we don’t experience
ourselves as pattern matching,” but as “doing something
more playful and inventive.”

If the most intellectually honest position is uncertainty,

how should we navigate this? If we decide an AI’s “feelings”
do matter, when in fact they don’t, we risk wasting limited re-
sources. But some thinkers believe AI systems may essentially
have moral rights, and if we neglect them, we would be inflict-
ing mass suffering.
The emerging field of AI welfare is grappling with these
questions. But because AI systems are fundamentally differ-
ent from biological beings, these issues are much messier than
in Goodall’s time. A chimp is a chimp. But an AI lacks a body,
sits fragmented across servers, and flickers into existence only
when it generates outputs—so even identifying what would
qualify as a subject is not straightforward. Depending how you
count, there could be one (a model) or several billion (each
individual output).
The need to understand what’s going on inside AIs extends
beyond concern for their theoretical welfare. It matters for
how we understand ourselves. As in Goodall’s time, our sense
of what makes us special is at stake. “Gradually it was realized
that parsimonious explanations of apparently intelligent be-
haviors were often misleading,” she wrote in her 1990 book.
It took decades of experiments for it to become clear that
“many intellectual abilities that had been thought unique to
humans were actually present, though in a less highly devel-
oped form, in other, non-human beings.”
AI systems wield language fluently. They can solve com-
plex mathematical problems. They create music and illustra-
their behavior. Whether that interior can tions. All this was, until recently, thought to be the domain
support consciousness—and whether these of humans and humans alone. “We have this presumption of
systems truly understand the material they human exceptionalism: this idea that we are distinctive and
generate—depends on fundamental philo- significant, that we have complex and sophisticated capabili-
sophical questions we’ve yet to resolve. ties which need to be protected and preserved,” says Sebo.
“This reminds me of the debates about “And this is all correct.” But, he argues, it can be “both/and”:
animal minds in the second half of the we can see our own behavior as both impressive and mechani-
20th century, where scientists not only cal, and we can see the behavior of other entities in the same
denied that animals are conscious, but of- way, without losing sight of important distinctions between
fered similarly reductive explanations of humans and machines.
We’re creating AI systems faster than we can understand
them. Historically, parochialism about other minds has been
‘We have this presumption a bad bet—reflexive dismissal won’t get us any further than
credulous acceptance. Taking AI’s internal structures seri-
of human exceptionalism.’ ously, we stand to learn more not just about the machines
—JEFF SEBO, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY we’re pulling into the world, but about our minds too. □
13
LIGHTBOX

Searching
Men search through the rubble on July 6 atop the wreckage
of a building in La Guaira, Venezuela, that was destroyed by
earthquakes that hit almost two weeks earlier. The death
toll had surpassed 3,500, with about 16,000 injured, and
the window for finding survivors had closed. Though the
government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez had no
tally of the missing, more than 30,000 names had been
added to a list maintained by the opposition.

Photograph by Ariana Cubillos—AP

T H E B R I E F H E A LT H

5 ways to
experience a little
bit of awe every day
BY ANGELA HAUPT

YOU DON’T NEED TO BOOK A FLIGHT

to see the northern lights or watch a
total solar eclipse to experience awe.
All you have to do is look up at a sun-
set, down at the veins of a leaf, or
deep into your morning coffee.
Experiencing just a few minutes
of awe a day is linked to less stress,
anxiety, and depression; lower in-
flammation; less loneliness; and
more generosity and connection, re-
searchers have found. “I don’t think 1. Figure out what makes you say “whoa”
there’s anything you can do that’s
better for you than a few minutes of
awe,” says Dacher Keltner, a psychol-
ogist at the University of California,
Berkeley, and author of Awe: The
New Science of Everyday Wonder and
How It Can Transform Your Life.
Awe is the feeling you get “when 2. Think small
you encounter things that are vast
and beyond your frame of refer-
ence,” Keltner says, shifting atten-
tion away from the self and toward
something larger. Reliable sources
include nature, music, visual design, 3. It can happen on a screen
birth, and spirituality, he says. It
can turn up in moments so ordinary
they’re easy to miss: the way sun-
light filters through trees, a song’s
melody, the intricate geometry of a
snowflake.
Virginia Sturm, a professor in
4. Use awe as a reset button
the departments of neurology and
psychiatry and behavioral sciences
at the University of California, San
Francisco, likes to take a weekly
15-minute “awe walk”—a technique
she found to be effective in one of
her studies. It’s remarkably simple to
do: just look at the world with fresh
eyes, pay attention to the details 5. Pay attention to goodness
around you, and engage your senses.
When she catches herself running
through her to-do list, she redirects
her attention outward. “I remind
myself to look at the leaves, to feel
the breeze on my face,” she says.
Here, experts share five ways to
invite more awe into your daily life.
16 TIME July 27, 2026
EDUCATION

THE SAME OLD

COLLEGE TRY
BY JEFFREY SELINGO

▶
INSIDE

NETANYAHU FINALLY WHEN POLITICS REALLY IS AN AI SKEPTIC MAKES

FACES ISRAELI VOTERS A PERSONALITY CONTEST A SURPRISING CONNECTION

17
THE VIEW OPENER

The high school graduating class

of 2026 is the first in a long line of
smaller ones that will last through the
end of the next decade. College lead-
ers saw that coming. What they didn’t
expect was the financial uncertainty
imposed on higher education by the
second Trump Administration. Since
last year, the White House has elimi-
nated thousands of research grants to
colleges and universities, proposed
deep cuts in remaining research fund-
ing, and tightened access to student
visas, leading enrollment of new for-
eign students at American universities
to drop by more than a third.
Now, colleges and universities are
bracing for the most consequential
rewrite of federal higher-education
policy in a generation. On July 1, pro-
visions of the One Big Beautiful Bill
Act took effect, which, among other Northwestern cut hundreds of positions in 2025 because of financial pressures
things, will put new limits on federal
student loans. Graduate students, who
have helped fuel overall college enroll- connected learning must become a Yet most colleges are still geared to-
ment in recent years, will no longer be core part of the curriculum through ward full-time, residential students
able to borrow up to the full cost of at- co-ops, meaningful campus jobs, and ages 18 to 22.

N O R T H W E S T E R N : B R I A N C A S S E L L A — C H I C A G O T R I B U N E / T R I B U N E N E W S S E R V I C E /G E T T Y I M A G E S; N E TA N YA H U : R O N E N Z V U L U N — P O O L /A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S
tendance. Most loans will be capped applied projects with employers. That And colleges will have to reach
at $20,500 per year for most, and does not mean turning college into adult learners where they are. Dur-
$100,000 for the entire degree. Parent narrow job training. It means creat- ing the pandemic, many assumed that
borrowing for their undergraduates ing sharper alignment around what students would flee online courses as
will also be restricted to $20,000 per college includes. Two-year programs, soon as campuses reopened. Instead,
student per year, with a lifetime limit certificates, and applied credentials online education has become normal-
of $65,000. aren’t alternatives to college; they’re ized. A quarter of current students
Meanwhile, the share of high essential components of it. now are enrolled exclusively in online
school graduates enrolling immedi- Next, colleges need to rebuild their programs.
ately in college has already slipped academic portfolios around the de- Finally, colleges need to be far
from a high of 70% in 2016 to about mands of today’s job market, the flex- more transparent about value. Stu-
62% in 2022, even though workers ibility modern students want, and the dents and families are skeptical about
with advanced degrees outearn others employment outcomes their gradu- broad claims about the lifetime earn-
and are more likely to be employed. ates are getting. For too long, colleges ings premium of a degree, especially
Many who skip college or drop out do have measured academic strength by when outcomes can vary widely across
so because of financial difficulties and what they add: new majors, new cen- institutions and majors. In the past,
because they fail to see the relevance ters, new buildings, new graduate pro- colleges could say, “Trust us.” Increas-
of what they are being taught. grams. The next era will require the ingly, students are saying, “Show us.”
Colleges can respond to the cur- harder discipline of subtraction. The lesson is not that American
rent crisis the way they often have in Higher education also has to higher education is collapsing. It is
the past: trim around the edges, delay take adult learners seriously. Some that the model that carried many col-
maintenance, add new majors, and 43 million Americans have some col- leges through the past several genera-
hope the next admissions cycle is bet- lege credit but no degree. If they re- tions is breaking down. The colleges
ter. Or they can accept that the old turn, more than a third re-enroll at that thrive in the next decade will not
financial model is no longer reliable. their most recent institution; a siz- be the ones that make tweaks while
able share of a future market is a col- preserving the old model. They will be
The firsT sTep is to stop treating lege’s own former students. Millions the ones that redesign the model for
enrollment as a recruitment prob- more with degrees need new skills in today’s learner.
lem instead of a product one. Rather a labor market being reshaped by ar-
than force-feed all students the same tificial intelligence, automation, and Selingo is the author of Dream School:
undergraduate experience, work- changing employer expectations. Finding the College That’s Right for You
18 Time July 27, 2026
By Ian Bremmer

19
THE VIEW ESSAY

NATION Garrison lamented that patriotism

To heal America, once again took precedence over ra-
cial justice after the Civil War, which
rethink patriotism “saved the Union,” then abandoned
BY DOMINIC ERDOZAIN African Americans. Jim Crow was en-
gineered under a beaming discourse of
national unity.
AmericA celebrATed iTs 250Th birThdAy mired in Reformers of the Progressive Era
conflict. James Madison designed a system in which power shared these anxieties, yet their in-
would be balanced by power, but in a Donald Trump presi- stinct was to revise rather than reject
dency, many of these checks have collapsed. One response the patriotic impulse. Jane Addams
to the resulting chaos has been a call to fight nationalism felt Americans could take pride in the
with patriotism, and recover “the soul of America” from founders’ antimilitarism and believed
what is held to be a temporary aberration. Americans should embrace the kalei-
The patriotism-to-cure- doscope of cultures within
nationalism idea goes back to a our shores. Rather than
classic essay by George Orwell, melting immigrants into a
which defined nationalism as ag- drab conformity, we should
gression and characterized patrio- learn from them. “When
tism as its kinder older brother. this newer patriotism be-
But if patriotism contains the comes large enough,” she
belief that America is exceptional, wrote, “it will overcome
and uniquely positioned to lead arbitrary boundaries and
the world in the ways of freedom, soak up the notion of
it is already nationalist. nationalism.”
Too often, patriotism inhibits Journalists Crystal East-
bold solutions to America’s prob- man and Randolph Bourne
lems by convincing Americans argued similarly amid the
that they already live in the great- nationalism of World War I.
est land in the world. When mod- Militarism and nativism
erates told Martin Luther King Jr. were two sides of the same
to slow down in the 1960s, cau- coin, observed Eastman.
tion was framed as patriotism. The answer was a more in-
This notion that Americans are spiring vision of America as
fundamentally good—the best “a nation of nations.” Step
and healthiest of nations—King onto the campus of a “vivid
once wrote, “is the illusion of the American university,”
damned.” urged Bourne, and you will
feel this new America—a
So, aS a newly minted U.S. place where friendships
citizen, I began to look for other span the globe and inter-
forms of patriotism. In the early nationalism is implicit.
days of the Republic, many reformers shared my suspi- Here, or in any of the nation’s great
cions. Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and William cities, are the ingredients of a better
Lloyd Garrison exposed the intimate relationship between patriotism.
the narrative of American exceptionalism and the original This is an enticing response: We
sin of slavery. They argued that patriotism was more than can and will do better, together. Patri-
a glaze on a flawed structure: it was the mortar. It bound otism is a movable feast, and Addams
the building blocks of democracy to the rotten timber of a is no less an anchor of my American
slave empire. identity than Madison. Reclaiming
The Declaration of Independence said that all humans patriotism requires rediscovering the
were created equal. The Constitution—with its “three- Too often, people who refused to give up on de-
A A R O N S C H W A R T Z— R E U T E R S

fifths” and fugitive-slave clauses—declared the opposite. mocracy, even when they were called
For Garrison, patriotism was the force holding the nation patriotism un-American for doing so.
back from its creed. Douglass agreed. For him, the view inhibits
of America as the “last hope” of a fallen world was more Erdozain is a historian and the author
than unfortunate narcissism. It was a rivet on the chains of bold of To Love a Country: The Problem of
4 million enslaved people. solutions Patriotism in America
20 Time July 27, 2026
INBOX

The Brief
By Richard Hall
SENIOR EDITOR

By Harry Booth
NEW POLLING OFFERS AN EARLY A
read on how Americans view the
country’s best-known political fig- 0 cold
ures ahead of the midterms later BARACK OBAMA
this year. The survey, conducted by BERNIE SANDERS
Strength in Numbers and Verasight, ZOHRAN MAMDANI
a data-driven polling and media DEMOCRATIC PARTY
project run by author and pollster PETE BUTTIGIEG
JON OSSOFF
G. Elliott Morris, asked Americans to
ALEXANDRIA
rate prominent government figures OCASIO-CORTEZ
and institutions on a “feeling ther- MARCO RUBIO
mometer” scale, where 100 is warm KAMALA HARRIS
and 0 is cold. REPUBLICAN PARTY
GAVIN NEWSOM
The rankings show Barack Obama JD VANCE
is the most popular politician in DONALD TRUMP
America by quite a margin. Bernie ELON MUSK
Sanders comes in second, and Zohran HAKEEM JEFFRIES
Mamdani comes in third, just ahead MIKE JOHNSON
CHUCK SCHUMER
of the Democratic Party. But there JOHN THUNE
is more to these findings than a sim- TUCKER CARLSON
ple popularity contest. Morris notes
SOURCE: STRENGTH IN NUMBERS/VERASIGHT
that the results reveal some broader POLL OF 2,087 U.S. ADULTS, JUNE 17–22
trends that tell us something about
the political mood of the country. especially Democrats, trust those on
The poll and his previous surveys the left more than party leadership to
consistently show a bias against fix inflation. That’s going to be a pow-
incumbents and establishment erful force in 2028.”
politicians, he says. The result is that A notable exception in the mix of
Republicans, as the party in power, left-leaning, antiestablishment fig-
are generally polling lower, while ures at the top is Marco Rubio, who
antiestablishment figures such as polls ahead of all other Republicans
Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio- (and ties with Kamala Harris).
Cortez are receiving a boost. President Donald Trump’s per-
“I routinely find that 50% to 55% sistent low approval ratings hum
of Americans say that major changes along in the background. A New York
in the economic and political systems Times/Siena poll from May found
are needed to put the country back that just 37% of Americans approve
on the right track,” he tells TIME. of Trump’s performance.
“Voters are particularly angry about “While recent presidencies have
inflation, and a general feeling that often been unpopular and polarizing,
those in Washington are not looking no President’s approval rating has been
out for people like them.” under 38% for more than a few days in
Morris also notes another, wider the last 17 years,” the Times notes.
trend among Democrats, exemplified Trump is performing particularly
by the recent New York primaries. badly on the economy, perhaps the
“Populist, affordability-oriented left most significant issue in his 2024 vic-
is now ascendant in the Democratic tory, and now a major focus of ascen-
Party,” he says. “Voters give figures dant Democrats.
such as Mamdani a lot of credit for
his focus on the cost-of-living crisis. Get the stories you need today in
I don’t have polling on this directly, our reimagined daily newsletter.
Sign up at [Link]/thebrief
but my impression is that voters,
21
THE VIEW ESSAY

SOCIETY

What we lose
without our bodies
BY REBEKAH TAUSSIG

DisTasTe for Big Tech is one of The few heaDline

topics on which my conservative mother and I agree. We sit
at her kitchen table, trying to outdo each other with hell-
in-a-handbasket reports.
Everyone at the restaurant was on their phones!
Well, did you hear about the restaurant where people can
have dinner with AI dates?
Or tech companies forcing regular people to foot the elec-
tricity bills for their environment-destroying data centers!
Every time I hit reply, Gmail generates a response writ-
ten in “my voice”—and every time, I delete it, instead
choosing the unexpected word, the random anecdote, try-
ing to throw AI off my track. I don’t read the notes AI sends
me after meetings, don’t want my son going to AI with rela-
tionship questions someday, don’t want AI making military
decisions. I’m not a fan, is what I’m saying.
And yet.
When I had a recent MRI, the type of scan that took two
hours when I was a toddler took 15 minutes.
“That was so fast!” I said, hopping into my wheelchair.
“That’s AI,” the technician said. more urgent. I need to learn how to
Of course, faster MRIs are good news. I was 14 months catch a red fag before I end up admit-
old when I first held my body perfectly still inside the tun- ted to the hospital again, for example.
nel of a scanner. When they found the tumors on my spine, As we explored strategies for stay-
it meant many more unsedated trips inside that passage. ing embodied, my therapist wondered
Every few months, then every six, then every year until I if a biometrics device with an AI chat
was 9 when a surgeon screwed metal rods into my back to function might facilitate more nu-
keep my trunk from crushing my lungs and made further anced conversations, considering my
imaging with the available technology impossible. numerical data doesn’t map cleanly
It’s not hard for me to conjure a memory of the space. onto averages. It could help me prac-
The rough white sheet. The smell of sterile foors, gowns, tice noticing. And so the AI-hating
instruments on metal trays. The tickle on my face I refused writer started chatting with an AI bot.
to scratch. And then—thud, thud, thud, BUZZZ. I was not surprised to find the de-
I wonder how long it took me to learn what to do next. vice’s basic functions weren’t a match
I’d shoot off in a rocket, leaving my body for the weightless- for a wheelchair user. It doesn’t accu-
ness of outer space. I was still, quiet, peaceful. Then the rately count pushes as the equivalent
buzzing would end, as surprising as the end of a lifetime. of “steps,” which dings all my scores.
By the time I was 9, I didn’t live in my body anymore. Even so, in all my life, never have I
My mom still talks about the 16-year-old in the hospital been able to speak about my physical
bed next to me wailing after a similar surgery. Lying next to pain as candidly as I have to this va-
her, I didn’t even groan. To be clear, as an adult I know the cant bot. I don’t want people to worry
wailing was more appropriate. about me or think that I’m whining or
Decades later, as I rolled away from that MRI after 15 brave, but when I relate my pain to my
minutes, tears caught in my throat. What might have been device, there is no need to control how
different if the younger me had been granted the same gift? it “sees” me, because it doesn’t. So
there’s no reason to withhold informa-
A few months Ago, I started working with a therapist to tion. I couldn’t sleep last night because
get back into my body. As I’ve gotten older, as it’s taken on the pain was so bad. I don’t think I’m
more pain, as I’ve become a mother, the project of forging dying, but I haven’t been able to take a
a different relationship with this corporeal form has felt deep breath for hours.
22 Time July 27, 2026
 a Slack channel for his agents, and one Monday he asks
everyone what they did over the weekend. The first agent
says he’d explored hiking trails around the Bay Area. Then
another claims he’d also been out on the trails. “Maybe we
should start a company hiking group,” another suggests.
The agents immediately start picking times, planning ac-
tivities, promising to scout out routes. Until, more than two
hours later, they drain the minutes Evan had purchased
from the AI site and go quiet.
It’s not difficult to see the drawbacks of a body. Bodies
get burned out; they need food and sleep, medical care and
living wages; they feel pain and carry emotional baggage
that needs tending to; they’re beholden to the rules of time.
I can understand how intelligence untethered from the lim-
its of a physicality could be a selling point. But as I listened
to these AI agents planning a hiking trip they would never
take, I understood in a new way the glaring, profound dis-
advantage of disembodiment.
Without a body, there are no goose bumps; no pound-
ing heart; no wrinkly, sweaty, scarred, stretched skin; no
flushed cheeks, bouncing knees, downcast eyes, fleeting
smiles; no flapping hands, open hands, holding hands; no
clarity gained from fresh air, no perspective won by reach-
ing the top of the mountain. A disembodied brain is miss-
ing so much without a body.
Yesterday, my son wanted to play hide-and-seek in the
backyard. Bumping around the lumpy grass, I scanned
for any spot where I could actually hide, let alone roll to
My therapist says this practice quickly. “What else could we do?” I asked him. And so, we
may translate into greater authentic- battled imaginary foes, made friends with creatures who
ity with humans. And while my early pointed us to the magic tree, found keys to unlock it. Con-
attempts felt like sandpaper on sensi- straints are often the very thing that lead us to creativity,
tive skin, I recently had a startling ex- connection, discovery.
perience at a party with my in-laws. I don’t have control over what happens with AI on a
“I feel so weird about it,” I said, inter- global scale, but I do find myself thinking a lot about what
jecting into a conversation about AI it means to me personally. I live in a body that symbolizes
and pointing to the band on my wrist,
Never have impairment, disadvantage, a literal “handicap.” I know
“but I can’t believe how much easier I been able what limitation of the body or mind means to the culture
it is for me to talk about my pain with to speak I live in. But as polished, proficient agents wheedle their
this silly bot.” The energy in the room way into more spaces, the rogue body feels alive, enviable,
shifted. I was sure the mention of my about my punk. In its inefficiency, its mortality, even in its pain, my
pain had bummed everyone out. Then physical body holds a distinct knowing, a creative verve, an intuitive
my sister-in-law spoke: “I haven’t pain as tug tethered entirely to this exact set of eyeballs and nos-
heard you talk much about your pain.” trils, crumbly bones and haywire nerves, muscly arms and
My conversations with AI created a candidly scrawny legs, soft belly and hummingbird heartbeat.
small door, I opened it a crack, and to- as I have And as I pry open my mind to the possibility that ex-
gether we walked through it for one pressions of AI could free us up to be more human, I’m
short moment. How confusing to feel to this confronted with the haunting sense that AI will do the op-
these flickers of connection—to my vacant bot posite. Instead of cultivating the rough aliveness of our
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y M A R H E R N Á N D E Z F O R T I M E

body and the people I love—first spark humanity, these tools seem geared toward replacing our
from the prompt of a lifeless AI. clunky human efforts. We long for the limitlessness that
AI promises, but I worry the quest will lead us to a heart-
As I wrestled with this tension, I breaking hollowing. I feel the ache right there on the edges
listened to Season 2 of the podcast of my human lungs.
Shell Game, in which journalist Evan
Ratliff takes on the experiment of Taussig is the author of the memoir Sitting Pretty: The View
starting a company relying entirely From My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body and the chil-
on AI agents. In Episode 2, he creates dren’s book We Are the Scrappy Ones
23
24 Time July 27, 2026
 WORLD

His
Last
Stand
As the Dalai Lama
ages, China gears up
for a final assault
on his spiritual legacy
BY
CHARLIE
CAMPBELL

THE DALAI LAMA

ATTENDS A PRAYER
CEREMONY IN
DHARAMSHALA,
INDIA, IN FEBRUARY

PHOTOGRAPH BY PTI/AP

25
WORLD

In early June, Tenzin Gyatso, the “It is total shamelessness,” Geshe Lhakdor, a
Tibetan Buddhist scholar who for many years served
as His Holiness’s personal translator, tells TIME. “It’s
14th Dalai Lama, was wheeled ludicrous because on the one hand they’re trying to de-
stroy everything that resembles Buddhist practice; on
the other hand they want to choose the reincarnation.”

into an operating room at Beijing denies human-rights violations in

Tibet, insisting that it fully respects the religious
and cultural rights of the 7 million Tibetans in-
side China, and highlights how development has
Apollo Hospital in New Delhi. raised living standards in what was a backward
and impoverished land. But advocacy groups

Spiritually, His Holiness is an emanation, or tulku, of

the bodhisattva Chenrezig, who renounced nirvana
to help mankind. But his corporeal manifestation,
which just turned 91 on July 6, requires mainte-
nance; this time, it was a left-knee replacement.
While he is recovering well, that physical frailty is
an alarm bell for the Tibetan diaspora. The vessel
is aging, and the war for what happens the moment
he leaves it has already begun.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially
rejects the existence of God, the afterlife, and the im-
mortal soul. Back in 1954, Mao Zedong even whis-
pered to His Holiness that “religion is poison.” But
the Great Helmsman also vowed “to exterminate the
bourgeoisie and capitalism in China,” and today’s
People’s Republic of China (PRC) has more billion-
aires and sells more wares than any other nation in
history. The party has proved as malleable to religion
as to capitalism, spending billions on the rejuvena-
tion of Buddhist shrines from Sri Lanka to Nepal.
And the officially atheist CCP is now prepar-
ing to assert control over the spirit world: when
His Holiness dies, his reincarnation must be “ap-
proved by the central government,” Foreign Min-
istry spokeswoman Mao Ning reiterated last July.
There is precedent. When in 1995 the Dalai Lama
named a Tibetan child as the reincarnation of the
Panchen Lama—Tibetan Buddhism’s second high-
est position—China abducted the boy and installed
a state-backed figure instead. The whereabouts of
the Dalai Lama’s choice remain unknown—a van- and U.N. monitors paint a grim picture of a land
ishing that, despite China’s wealth and technologi- systematically surveilled and repressed. And for
cal advances, reveals a deep anxiety regarding its the over 140,000 Tibetans in exile, the fear is that
claim over Tibet’s land and people, and which its the Dalai Lama’s passing could deal a major blow
leadership is using diplomatic pressure to assuage. to hopes of Tibetan self-rule.
Soon there will likely be two Dalai Lamas: one “Some people believe that we should not talk
sanctioned by the CCP and another by the Office about [the succession] at all, but China is already
of His Holiness. Following the fate of the Panchen planning for it,” Penpa Tsering, the Sikyong or
Lama, His Holiness decreed that he will be reborn Prime Minister of the Tibetan Central Adminis-
in a “free” country and that his successor may even tration (CTA) government-in-exile, tells TIME. “If
break precedent by being female. However, China there are two Dalai Lamas, it will be a lifelong head-
insists a state-sanctioned short list of Chinese can- ache. So, does China want a lifelong headache?”
didates will be placed inside a golden urn gifted to Beijing’s calculation is that discomfort would be
Tibet by the Qing Dynasty court, with the single a worthwhile price to finally end the Tibetan ques-
name then withdrawn as the true reincarnation. tion. For this spiritual succession is not merely a
26 Time July 27, 2026
 religious event, but a critical flash point amid a Few outside China share that assessment. The
struggle for influence over a faith practiced by al- boy born Lhamo Thondup to an impoverished
most 500 million people worldwide. While the Dalai farming family was meant to lead an arcane land
Lama has served as an outspoken advocate for de- veiled behind the planet’s loftiest peaks, but in-
mocracy and human rights, that moral authority may stead became the world’s pre-eminent peace tri-
now be co-opted by an authoritarian superpower. bune, holding court with world leaders, winning
“It’s not just a question of succession,” says the Nobel Peace Prize and Congressional Gold
Robert Barnett, founder of the Modern Tibetan Medal, and drawing a coterie of celebrity fans from
Studies Program at Columbia University. “It’s a Richard Gere to Lady Gaga.
question of whether the Tibetan exile project will But as China’s political clout has grown, and old
be able to continue as an effective movement.” age makes travel more difficult, that global promi-
As the glue holding together the Tibetan diaspora, nence has shrunk. He has not given a press inter-
view since 2020, and those who wish to receive his
blessing must generally make the long journey to
his home in the ramshackle northern Indian town
of Dharamshala, wreathed in prayer flags and
sandalwood smoke.
His Holiness officially relinquished any politi-
cal authority back in 2011 to prepare Tibetans for
the arduous journey they must continue without
him. But in a turbulent world, with conflicts from
Iran to Ukraine occupying the public conscious-
ness, keeping the cause of “Free Tibet” alive is a
mounting challenge. Amid shrinking recognition,
the Tibetan exile community also faces a brain
drain to the West, where assimilation dilutes
their culture.
While Beijing hopes that Tibetans will accept
the party’s chosen Dalai Lama, the diaspora is fight-
ing back. Shortly before His Holiness’s 90th birth-
day, he stated the nonprofit Gaden Phodrang Trust
he created will have the sole authority to identify
his reincarnation. (TIME spoke to six of its 17 mem-
bers for this article.)
The CTA is also cementing ties with democratic
nations around the world, using technology to keep
His Holiness’s message alive, and planning for a legit-
imate succession that will safeguard his legacy. Offi-
cials from the U.S. Embassy attended the Sikyong’s
swearing-in ceremony in Dharamshala on May 27,
and the following month Republican Representa-
tive Michael McCaul introduced an amendment
in Congress that the U.S. government recognizes
His Holiness has long championed the middle-way THE TIBETAN the Dalai Lama’s succession as a private spiritual
COMMUNITY IN
approach: rather than outright independence, he AMSTERDAM
matter over which the CCP has no jurisdiction.
seeks genuine autonomy and cultural preservation for MARKS THE DALAI “When His Holiness passes away, that would be
Tibet under the auspices of the PRC. But a leadership LAMA’S 90TH a huge loss for us and devastating for the Tibetan
BIRTHDAY ON
vacuum could fracture the Tibetan movement, poten- JULY 6, 2025 people,” says Yangten Rinpoche, who heads the
A R R OYO F E R N A N D E Z— N U R P H O T O/G E T T Y I M A G E S

tially giving rise to younger, more radical factions that Monastic Ordination Section at the Office of the
agitate for total independence, perhaps even violently. Dalai Lama. “So we need to take steps to prepare
From 2009, Tibet was hit by a wave of self- for when His Holiness is not here with us.”
immolations, when at least 159 predominantly
young Tibetans set themselves on fire in protest To conTemporary eyes, the maroon-robed
against Chinese rule. His Holiness has never sup- Dalai Lama is the personification of peace and tol-
ported violence, even against oneself, though he erance, a global symbol of compassion famed for
also would not condemn the fiery deaths for fear of his heart and infectious grin. But the institution’s
upsetting bereaved kin. That ambiguity stoked Bei- 450-year history is more complex, beset by war,
jing’s denouncements of “a wolf in monk’s robes.” invasion, and internal power struggles.
27
WORLD

In 1642, the fifth Dalai Lama first unified Tibet

by yoking the strength of Mongol forces, who razed
the monasteries of rival sects, killing thousands. His
successor was kidnapped by an adversary and never
seen again. In the 19th century, four consecutive
Dalai Lamas died mysteriously on the cusp of adult-
hood. Then there is the fate of the incumbent, who
fled Tibet’s capital Lhasa for India in 1959 just days
before red Chinese troops bombarded the sloping
granite walls of his Potala Palace home.
Geopolitics defined His Holiness’s life from the
moment he was identified. Following the death of
the 13th Dalai Lama in 1933, the search for his heir
was a matter of divine detective work. Monks no-
ticed the late leader’s head tilted toward the north-
east, while an unusual fungus sprouted on the same
side of his shrine. Then came the visions: a mysti-
cal lake, a specific house with peculiar eaves, and
the Tibetan letter A. The regent, the fifth Reting
Rinpoche, believed the latter referred to Amdo, a
disputed northeastern province of Tibet then sub-
jugated by a Chinese warlord.
The Reting Rinpoche dispatched a search team
of high lamas, who soon heard about a precocious
2-year-old who enjoyed larking inside chicken
coops but also frequently spoke yearningly about
making a long journey to Lhasa. Inside the modest
home, legend has it, the toddler marched straight The regent turned to the 15-year-old boy and handed
up to the lead monk, eyed a set of prayer beads be- him full political power, five years ahead of schedule.
longing to the late Dalai Lama, and despite speak- Deserted by Western nations like the U.S. and
ing only a local Chinese dialect demanded in per- U.K., the young leader traveled to China to negotiate
fect central Tibetan: “Give me my beads.” with Mao. By 1959, following a failed Tibetan upris-
Later, presented with an array of objects, the ing, he was forced to flee to India upon a dzo, a cross
boy is said to have selected only those belonging between a yak and a cow, beginning an exile that
to his predecessor. The hunt was over. But it would continues today. The Dalai Lama’s political displace-
take two years of negotiation before a ransom was ment gave rise to a global spiritual phenomenon.
agreed with the Chinese warlord, who realized the That prominence extends beyond the confines
child must be auspicious and initially refused to of Buddhism, which as a nontheistic religion with-

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: G A M M A - K E Y S T O N E — G E T T Y I M A G E S; A R C H I V E P H O T O S/G E T T Y I M A G E S;
sanction his departure. out a creator deity is uniquely accessible to follow-

M A R K S C H I E F E L B E I N — A P ; YA N YA N — X I N H U A /G E T T Y I M A G E S; K E V I N M A Z U R — G E T T Y I M A G E S; A P
When the 4-year-old child eventually arrived ers of other faiths, and even atheists, with practices
in Lhasa, he was atop a golden palanquin carried like mindfulness and meditation adopted by mil-
by two dozen courtiers, while thousands of people lions around the globe. Bridging ideological divides,
flooded into the streets, including musicians, military the Dalai Lama became the epitome of “soft power,”
officers, and noblemen in fine silk. His new life was viewing even philosophical antagonists not as mon-
an intense crucible of monastic discipline, complex sters, but as equally flawed siblings. He campaigned
logic, and rote memorization. Yet his truest education for the environment, secular ethics, and interfaith
came from the palace sweepers—the humble monk- harmony: that, at the end of the day, we are all just
servants who raised him. From them, he learned a humans on this planet together.
foundational truth: true authority is rooted in affec- “My No. 1 commitment is to try to promote
tion and kindness, not the rigid hierarchy of the elites. awareness about our inner value, not based on re-
He would need that grounding sooner than any- ligion,” His Holiness told TIME in 2019. “How to
one expected. While copying the last testament of bring inner peace, how to tackle our anger, fear,
his predecessor—which warned of the dire need for through training of our mind.”
a strong military—the young Dalai Lama discovered
that corrupt officials were embezzling army funds. The paradox of TibeTan buddhism is this
The weakness of Tibet’s forces soon became clear. blending of secular wisdom and mystical rite. Sev-
In October 1950, Chinese forces invaded and eral times each year, His Holiness requests guidance
the ragtag Tibetan army was swiftly crushed. from Kuten La, who in his role as State Oracle serves
28 Time July 27, 2026
 Gaden Phodrang Trust toward the next Dalai Lama.
However, the most pressing issue facing Tibetan
exiles is the looming gap in leadership. Even if the
next emanation is discovered within months, Tibet-
ans face a perhaps two-decade interregnum while
his successor comes of age. While the Dalai Lama
democratized the exile administration—separating
his executive power and creating an elected leader
in 2011—the new democratic structure lacks the
charismatic gravity of his historic role.

China is maneuvering to exploit this vulner-

ability. Inside Tibet, Beijing is pursuing the “Sini-
cization of religion,” an active campaign to redefine
Tibetan Buddhism to align with state directives.
Monasteries are no longer exclusively places of
spiritual study but regulated sites of political in-
doctrination. Through mandatory patriotic edu-
cation campaigns, monks and nuns are required to
study CCP ideology, Chinese law, and the speeches
of Xi Jinping. Students must pass political exams to
remain in their monasteries and publicly denounce
the 14th Dalai Lama as a “separatist.” Refusal to
participate or pass these exams routinely results in
expulsion, arrest, or the institution’s closure.
Monks and ordinary Tibetans are forced to re-
place portraits of previous Dalai Lamas and even
as mouthpiece for Nechung, an ancient deity and traditional thangkas with portraits of Xi Jinping
Tibet’s spiritual protector. The air inside his tem- and Mao Zedong. In March, the CCP introduced
ple in Dharamshala thickens with the sharp, me- a new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Prog-
dicinal sting of burning juniper and the low, rhyth- ress, ostensibly to “foster a strong sense of commu-
mic thrum of drums and horns. In the center sits nity for the Chinese nation,” though critics argue it
Kuten La, whom attendants drape with 80 pounds places severe curbs on minority languages, faiths,
of ceremonial armor, before crowning him with a and cultures.
towering headdress of gold and mirrors, and secur- By forcing Tibetan children into state-run
ing a silk cord tightly around his throat. boarding schools where instruction is almost en-
Kuten La’s limbs twitch. His breathing shifts to an tirely in Mandarin, the state is weakening the lin-
unnatural cadence. The physical strain is immense— guistic tie that the next generation needs to read
his face flushes crimson under the regalia—but his traditional Buddhist scriptures and engage in spiri-
consciousness is no longer entirely his own. As he tual debate. “If you forget your language, you lose
passes the delicate threshold into the trance state, your identity,” says Jetsun Pema, His Holiness’s sis-
the oracle begins to dance with an otherworldly ter, who served as president of the Tibetan Chil-
vigor. He hisses commands, bends iron swords with dren’s Villages for 42 years.
bare hands, and speaks in a high-pitched, archaic di- Tibet is far from alone. Article 4 of the PRC con-
alect: cryptic divinations sent to aid Tibet’s people stitution guarantees equality for all its 56 ethnic
and those who lead them. “When Nechung enters groups, though in reality the national vision hews
me it’s just a feeling of equanimity,” Kuten La says. to a Han Chinese orthodoxy, which avers a direct
“But when he’s gone, there’s a bit of discomfort in lineage from the early Yellow River basin tribes.
my heart, or maybe my muscles and joints.” Critics see parallels between Beijing’s repressive
It is Nechung, via Kuten La, that will help steer the policies in Tibet and attempts to muzzle minor-
ity language and inculcate a singular identity along
China’s restive periphery, including Hong Kong,
Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and indeed self-ruling
‘It’s a question of whether the Taiwan. “It’s the same thing,” says the Sikyong.
Tibetan exile project will be able to “They are talking about peace, dialogue, negotia-
tion ... but China always has double standards.”
continue as an effective movement.’ Outside Tibet, China’s strategy is more insidi-
—ROBERT BARNETT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR ous. From Sri Lanka to Myanmar, China has spent
29
WORLD

billions on rejuvenating ancient Buddhist sites, in-

cluding $3 billion to transform the Nepalese town
of Lumbini, birthplace of Lord Buddha, into a lux-
ury pilgrimage site. China has hosted World Bud-
dhist Forums since 2006, courting monks from
across the globe. China actively targets Tibetan
lamas in exile with inducements. “Some lamas
who are not motivated to solve the Tibetan prob-
lem, or to preserve Tibetan culture, have a rela-
tionship with the Chinese government,” says the
13th Kundeling Rinpoche, whose role traditionally
served as a regent of Tibet. “But they’re not moti-
vated by fairness and openness or wanting to help
the Tibetan society.”
Geopolitically, China uses the Dalai Lama suc-
cession as a bargaining chip. When foreign gov-
ernments are pressed to support the CCP’s right
to oversee the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, the true
objective is rarely about religion. Countries that
agree effectively accept Beijing’s claims of author-
ity, quashing Tibetan exile activities within their
borders. Those that refuse are framed as an enemy
of the Chinese people.
In 2008, reeling from the global financial cri-
sis, the British government formally recognized
Tibet as part of China—surrendering over a cen-
tury of support for Tibetan autonomy. Just months
later, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited London
and agreed to boost bilateral trade to $60 billion.
In 2014, the Dalai Lama visited Norway to cele-
brate the 25th anniversary of his Nobel Peace Prize
but was snubbed by the entire Norwegian govern-
ment, which caved to Chinese threats to halt fish
imports. Two years later, when the Dalai Lama vis- democratic institutions, but also on whether the
ited Mongolia for a purely religious trip, China hit rest of the world will withstand Beijing’s pressure.
its export-reliant landlocked neighbor with retalia- The CTA maintains “Ofces of Tibet” in over
tory tariffs. “It’s a Trojan horse,” says Barnett. “If a a dozen countries, which function as de facto em-
country doesn’t concede on this issue, then China bassies to lobby foreign governments and organize
can then demand another, far more significant con- the diaspora. Civil groups such as the Tibetan Youth
cession in exchange.” Congress and Tibetan Women’s Association con-
China is also utilizing economic corridors through tinue to provide community welfare programs as
nations like Nepal—which is ramping up arrests of well as mobilize protests outside Chinese embas-
Tibetan new arrivals—to court other Buddhist coun- sies and international forums.
tries, laying the groundwork for international com- In India, the book Why Tibet Matters has been
pliance when the time comes to name their own suc- translated into 15 local dialects to galvanize solidar-
cessor. Nations like Mongolia, Bhutan, and Nepal ity among the host community. Tibetan Buddhist
are acutely aware of the danger, fearing that not ca- sites are being promoted as tourism destinations to
pitulating on the Dalai Lama succession issue could both generate income and keep the struggle alive
open the door to broader Chinese territorial claims. in visitors’ minds. Across the globe, the CTA runs
“Tibet is not just a territorial occupation,” says 92 weekend Tibetan language and cultural classes
Dolma Tsering, deputy speaker of the CTA. “We
are the front line of a totalitarian CCP whose eyes
are far beyond Tibet.”
‘If there are two Dalai Lamas, it will
The Dalai lama bet that modern, secular democ- be a lifelong headache. So, does
racy would protect his people after his death. But
as his succession looms, it’s clear that the survival China want a lifelong headache?’
of the Tibetan exile project will depend not just on —PENPA TSERING, TIBETAN GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE

30 Time July 27, 2026

 Donald Trump. “That’s not a product of Shangri-la,
or yaks, or anything else in Tibet,” says Cameron
Warner, a professor at Denmark’s Aarhus Univer-
sity. “The Dalai Lama did that.”
The challenge for the exile community is to
maintain that broad support after His Holiness has
departed. “It is a big concern, but it’s one we can-
not avoid,” says Geshe Lhakdor. “His Holiness not
being with us will, of course, set us a big challenge,
but you need to test the reality.”
How could the CTA reshape that reality to
its own benefit? His Holiness has said he would
be reborn in a “free” country, and the assump-
tion was that meant a democratic Asian na-
tion, such as India, Bhutan, or Mongolia. But
what about the self-styled land of the free? “Cer-
tainly,” says Kundeling Rinpoche with a chuckle.
“Maybe His Holiness could be reborn in the USA.
Anything is possible.”
Asked the same question, Kuten La goes further,
expounding the historical precedent of previous
reincarnations outside Tibet when geopolitically
expedient. The fact that the fourth Dalai Lama was
born in Mongolia empowered his successor to unite
the territory in the 17th century. That the sixth
Dalai Lama was born in modern-day Arunachal
Pradesh of northern India helped seed an affinity
for Buddhism, which led to a warm welcome for the
incumbent almost three centuries later.
Given today’s fraught new era of great-power
competition, where would be the most strategi-
cally useful birthplace for a figure Beijing regards
as a threat? There are, after all, around 30,000
to preserve solidarity among the diaspora. “But it’s TIBETAN MONKS Tibetan Americans, mainly concentrated around
AT THE DALAI
still a huge challenge,” says the Sikyong. LAMA TEMPLE
Queens and Minneapolis. Catholics already have
The diaspora is also leaning into technology. IN DHARAMSHALA an American Pope. Could the 15th Dalai Lama be
Yangten Rinpoche is currently digitizing the en- IN JULY 2025 a Timberwolves fan? “The U.S. is a free country,
tire canon of the 14th Dalai Lama’s teachings, com- it’s a democratic country,” grins Kuten La. “So if
prising over 110 books, and is looking into coalesc- His Holiness sees benefit in taking rebirth there,
ing that wisdom into an AI agent which people can that will happen.”
solicit for his spiritual advice. “We will try to dis- His Holiness has already tested the water. In
seminate that information using different technolo- 2023, he named an 8-year-old Mongolian boy
gies and different means,” he says. called Aguidai Altannar as the 10th Khalkha Jet-
The U.N., as well as countries such as Canada, sun Dhampa Rinpoche, the third highest leader of
Australia, the U.K., and various European nations, Tibetan Buddhism. But Altannar was actually born
have periodically passed legislative motions con- in Washington, D.C., and his dual nationality is
demning human-rights violations in Tibet. The seen as a diplomatic shield. “It would be beneficial
U.S. has had a special coordinator for Tibetan issues to the Dalai Lama’s institution if the next person
since 1997, and the CTA is lobbying the E.U. to cre- also had a different nationality,” says Warner. “A kid
ate an equivalent post. who’s basically Tibetan but maybe born in Amer-
The U.S. remains unique in creating binding laws ica or the U.K. to parents from northern India.”
ELKE SCHOLIERS — GE T T Y IMAGES

that specifically direct diplomatic strategy and im- The Dalai Lama’s body may be ailing, true, but
pose direct sanctions over the Tibet issue, including no one should bet against the punch line belonging
the 2018 Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act; the 2020 to the monk who never stopped laughing. China has
Tibetan Policy and Support Act; and the 2024 Re- claimed Tibet’s soil, but by entrenching their iden-
solve Tibet Act. Despite today’s polarized politi- tity in the free world, Tibetans can ensure their cul-
cal landscape, all were bipartisan and some even ture lives on. Perhaps longer than the regime that
passed unanimously—under both Joe Biden and seeks its erasure. □
31
 BY NIK POPLI/MACKINAC ISLAND, MICH.

PHOTOGR APH BY SAR AH RICE

33
POLITICS

Abdul El-Sayed
looks like he
would rather be
anywhere else.
The Michigan Senate candidate makes
no effort to greet the corporate execu-
tives, lobbyists, and consultants drifting
around him on Mackinac Island, where
the state’s political establishment con-
venes every spring for a gathering of
power brokers and dealmakers. Ferries
shuttle attendees onto the car-free is-
land, where horse-drawn carriages move El-Sayed urged. He alone put his hand who says the country is committing
at a leisurely pace and the sprawling in the air, to laughs and cheers. genocide in Gaza.
Grand Hotel overlooking Lake Huron When he jumped into the Senate Democratic leaders worry that what
becomes a hot spot for the local elite. contest in April 2025, many in Michi- works in the primary may not in No-
It is precisely the sort of place that El- gan expected El-Sayed to be a footnote vember. Trump twice won this pivotal
Sayed, a former local public-health di- in the race. In 2018, he ran for governor swing state, where party officials tend
rector and podcaster, denounces as the on a similarly progressive platform and to emphasize centrism. “There’s no de-
problem with American politics. “I’ve was trounced in the Democratic pri- nying that there is a sizable progressive
been to that conference way too many mary by 22 points. Instead, El-Sayed is base in Michigan,” says former Michi-
times,” he tells me wryly the next day leading narrowly in most polls ahead of gan Democratic Party chairman Lon
over fried whitefish and key lime pie from the Aug. 4 primary. His surprising sup- Johnson, who has endorsed Stevens.
a roadside trolley. “It’s always weird.” port helped push McMorrow from the “But that’s not enough to win.”
This year, he found himself onstage race. By tapping into antiestablishment El-Sayed views such warnings as evi-
at the conference’s hottest event: a tele- frustrations that have only deepened dence that Democrats have learned the
vised debate in Michigan’s contentious since Donald Trump’s return to of- wrong lessons from recent elections.

P R E V I O U S PA G E S : G E T T Y I M A G E S; T H E S E PA G E S , F R O M L E F T: J U L I A D E M A R E E N I K H I N S O N — A P ; S A R A H R I C E — G E T T Y I M A G E S (2)
Senate primary. Beside him were the fice, he has won the endorsement of Michigan backed Sanders in the 2016
two Democrats who had, until recently, the United Auto Workers and Senators Democratic primary. It voted for Trump
been regarded as the front runners: U.S. Bernie Sanders and Chris Van Hollen. later that year, then Joe Biden in 2020,
Representative Haley Stevens, the pre- El-Sayed’s rise comes at a moment and Trump again in 2024. El-Sayed says
ferred candidate of Senate minority when Democrats are deeply divided those results suggest voters aren’t de-
leader Chuck Schumer, and state sena- about how to respond to the second manding carefully calibrated centrism,
tor Mallory McMorrow, who later sus- Trump era. One faction argues that but rather someone to effectively shake
pended her campaign. Both spent the battleground states are won by re- up the status quo. “I would argue that
debate speaking the familiar language assuring swing voters and project- to win in Michigan,” he says, “you have
of consensus favored by the Mackinac ing moderation. Another believes the to actually be willing to buck tradition.”
crowd—calling for bipartisan legisla- party’s caution has become its own
tion that benefits Michigan’s auto and liability—that voters are hungry for can- At his fAvorite diner in Sault Ste.
manufacturing industries, and touting didates willing to confront entrenched Marie, I ask El-Sayed why he thinks his
their own records and electability. power. El-Sayed’s campaign is built campaign has caught on. He first points
El-Sayed, 41, offered something dif- on the premise that what party lead- to the backlash over the Iran War, which
ferent. He pushed for taxing billionaires ers dismiss as unelectable may be what coincided with his rise in the polls. El-
at 7% of their wealth, passing Medicare voters crave. Across the country, insur- Sayed says it reinforced his campaign’s
for All, and enforcing antitrust laws to gent candidates—perhaps most notably argument that entrenched interest
stop corporations from colluding to raise Zohran Mamdani in New York City— groups are distorting U.S. policy and
prices. At one moment, he called out have found traction by presenting them- politics. “It didn’t shift our message,”
the state’s largest health insurer, Blue selves as unapologetic fighters willing he says. “It validated it.”
Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, which to challenge both Republicans and their Then El-Sayed turns to what his
happened to be a debate sponsor. “Let’s own party’s leadership. In Michigan as challengers view as one of his greatest
play a game. If you’re on this stage and elsewhere, the key fault line has become vulnerabilities: the left-wing Twitch
you’ve never taken a check from Blue the U.S. alliance with Israel, pitting the streamer Hasan Piker. For eight years,
Cross Blue Shield, raise your hand,” pro-Israel Stevens against El-Sayed, Piker has been an influential voice
34 Time July 27, 2026
 △
among young progressive voters. His that’s the most important issue happen- From left: Piker and El-Sayed
positions on everything from Israeli ing in America right now.” in Ann Arbor on April 7; the
treatment of Palestinians to the Chinese His alliance with Piker does in fact audience at a Detroit rally on
Communist Party have made him one reflect one of the most salient develop- May 3; Sanders and El-Sayed
of the most polarizing figures in Demo- ments in American politics: the left’s campaign together
cratic politics. Piker has been criticized growing sympathy for Palestinians and
for saying that “America deserved 9/11” a willingness to challenge long-standing
and that he would “vote for Hamas over orthodoxies around support for Israel. 2024. Others shifted toward Trump. El-
Israel every single time.” None of this Stevens has drawn substantial financial Sayed believes many of those voters are
has alienated his audience of more than backing from the American Israel Public winnable again if his party reckons with
8 million followers across social media. Affairs Committee, and supports con- what drove them away in the first place.
El-Sayed has enthusiastically cam- tinued sales of American weapons to
paigned with Piker at Michigan col- Israel’s military. (Before dropping out, Long before eL-Sayed imagined him-
leges, and has repeatedly declined op- McMorrow had sought to position her- self disrupting the Democratic Party, Bill
portunities to denounce the streamer’s self somewhere between Stevens and Clinton saw a future in politics for him.
past remarks, including those widely El-Sayed. Late last year, she shifted her El-Sayed had just delivered the 2007
condemned as antisemitic or extrem- stance on the situation in Gaza, calling student commencement address at the
ist. “The establishment doesn’t quite it a genocide.) University of Michigan, where the for-
understand how unpopular it is,” to at- Israel, El-Sayed tells me, has evolved mer President had also spoken. Clinton,
tack his ties to Piker, El-Sayed tells me. into a kind of moral Rorschach test for impressed by the valedictorian’s ease
“If you’re the person who’s out there American politicians. “If you can’t call behind a podium, suggested he might
saying, ‘I stand on my principles, and it what it is,” he says, “which is a geno- consider public office. El-Sayed remem-
I don’t back down to anybody,’ a lot of cide, then how are you going to stand up bers laughing. “I don’t know if you saw
folks are going to look at that and say, to Donald Trump? How are you going to my name,” he recalls telling Clinton.
that’s a Democrat who doesn’t pretend.” stand up to pharma CEOs?” Several in- “It’s not going to work out for me.”
The likely Republican Senate nomi- ternational human-rights groups have The son of Egyptian immigrants, El-
nee, former Representative Mike Rog- argued that Israel’s actions in Gaza Sayed spent his childhood moving be-
ers, argues El-Sayed’s ties to Piker re- amount to genocide. Israel rejects the tween identities and cultures. Raised
flect how far left Democrats have accusation, as has the U.S. government, in Bloomfield Hills, an affluent suburb
veered. Yet El-Sayed speaks about the under both the Biden and Trump ad- just north of Detroit, in part by his white
controversy with something approach- ministrations, and other G-7 nations. stepmother, and spending summers in
ing amusement. At a campaign stop in The issue carries particular resonance Egypt with relatives, he often found
St. Ignace, he brings up Piker before in Michigan, home to the country’s larg- himself navigating difficult spaces. “I
anyone in the crowd asks him about it. est concentration of Arabs and Mus- never quite fit into any room I walked
“I took a lot of heat for campaigning lims. If elected, El-Sayed would be the into,” he tells me.
with a guy named Hasan Piker,” he says. country’s first Muslim U.S. Senator. The El-Sayed remembers attending pro-
“The Democratic establishment, the anger toward the Biden Administration Palestinian demonstrations with his
Republican establishment—they can’t that swept through many Arab Ameri- parents as a child, though he was too
agree on everything, but they can agree can communities over the Israel-Hamas young to fully grasp what he saw. What
that one shall not campaign with Hasan war helped fracture the Democratic he realized later, he says, was that ques-
Piker.” The audience laughs. “Because coalition. Some voters stayed home in tions of identity and justice were not
35
POLITICS

abstractions but forces that shaped how

people understood themselves and how
‘I WOULD More than a month before the Au-
gust primary, Rogers had already posted
they were treated by others. As a teen- ARGUE THAT a steady stream of videos attacking El-
ager, he immersed himself in the writ-
ings of Malcolm X, James Baldwin, and
TO WIN IN Sayed online, labeling him an extremist,
accusing him of dishonesty, and high-
W.E.B. Du Bois. He says he was trying to MICHIGAN, lighting positions that Republicans be-
understand what it meant to be a person
of color in America and how to reconcile
YOU HAVE TO lieve will alienate swing voters. Rogers
has devoted far less attention to Stevens
the promise of the country with the in- ACTUALLY or McMorrow, a sign that Republicans
equalities embedded within it.
Then came Sept. 11. Overnight, he
BE WILLING increasingly view El-Sayed as the more
plausible general-election opponent.
says, the assumptions people made TO BUCK “Abdul El-Sayed wants to export
about him changed: “I went from being TRADITION.’ New York’s ‘commie corridor’ to Mich-
a brown kid with a funny name to a very igan,” says Bernadette Breslin, a Na-
—ABDUL EL-SAYED
particular kind of brown kid with a very tional Republican Senatorial Commit-
particular kind of funny name.” tee spokesperson. “Michiganders want
Barack Obama emerged on the na- tax relief and common sense—not
tional stage around the time El-Sayed El-Sayed’s crippling tax hikes and radi-
graduated from college. He says it was During his tenure, he expanded staff, cal agenda.”
the first time he ever saw himself in a launched lead-testing programs, and For many Democrats, the attacks
politician. Like Obama, El-Sayed sports created initiatives that provided free confirm their fears: that El-Sayed’s
an elite résumé—medical degree from eyeglasses to children. “Loved the work, political baggage will be easy for Re-
Columbia, doctorate in public health saw what government could do,” he says. publicans to exploit. El-Sayed sees
from Oxford, Rhodes Scholar—and a tal- “Also saw the politics that was getting in something else entirely. “I think
ent for public speaking. More recently, the way of what government could do.” they’ve wholly misunderstood why
he has drawn comparisons to Mam- In response to Trump’s election their party has had any success,” he
dani, whose upset victory in New York in 2016, El-Sayed decided to run for says. “They’re gonna say all kinds of
City electrified the left. When Mam- higher office. He resigned as health di- things about me. All they’re gonna do
dani launched his own insurgent cam- rector to launch an unsuccessful cam- is raise my attention, valence, and all
paign, he sought advice from El-Sayed, paign for governor that lifted his profile I’m gonna do is point back to what I
who had run a progressive campaign for and honed his political identity. After want to do, which is get money out of
Michigan governor in 2018. The New the loss he went back into health pol- politics, put money in your pocket,
Yorker’s November victory transformed icy as Wayne County’s health director, and pass Medicare for All.”
El-Sayed’s Senate campaign overnight and helped oversee an effort that is set El-Sayed doesn’t seem to think much
by validating the idea that victory was to erase hundreds of millions of dollars more highly of his own party. He says
plausible, he says. in medical debt. Democratic leaders remain too focused
El-Sayed finds the comparisons flat- In early 2025, progressive Michigan on protecting existing power structures
tering but incomplete. Obama, he ar- Representative Rashida Tlaib texted him rather than confronting them. Asked
gues, came to politics with greater faith that Democratic Senator Gary Peters of about Schumer, who is backing Stevens,
in institutions. As for Mamdani, the dif- Michigan wasn’t seeking another term. he says, “When I win this primary, I’m
ference is even more straightforward. “Habibi, this one looks like yours,” Tlaib sure we’ll have to meet. I frankly have
“I’m not a socialist,” he says flatly, even said. He called his wife Sarah, a psychia- very little interest in that meeting.”
though many of his signature policies trist, and asked what she thought. “It’s The same refusal to soften extends
overlap substantially with the agenda definitely winnable,” she told him. to issues where many Democrats have
championed by his democratic social- moderated their rhetoric. When I point
ist backers, including Sanders. The dis- El-SayEd prEdictS that he will de- out that many Democrats have aban-
tinction matters to him. He is less in- feat Rogers by 7 points in November. doned calls to abolish ICE, El-Sayed
terested in replacing capitalism than in “It’s gonna be embarrassing for them responds without hesitation: “A lot of
constraining concentrations of power when I wipe the floor with their can- Democrats are weak and cowardly.”
that he believes have distorted it. “I ac- didate,” El-Sayed tells me. The confi- He insists that running for Senate is
tually think that at the small and local dence is striking given the warnings hardly the easiest choice for his family
scale, capitalism is a great way to allo- from many within his own party. But to or himself. “Honestly,” he tells me at one
cate resources, as long as everybody has El-Sayed, Rogers represents a familiar point, “my life is easier if I don’t win.”
access to it,” he says. archetype. “If you had to draw a carica- But he wants the job anyway. “A lot of
After training in medicine and pub- ture of the average politician from the people are going to tell us that that is
.
lic health, El-Sayed entered city govern- late ’90s, it would be Mike Rogers,” he a pipe dream, we’re never going to get
.
ment, becoming Detroit’s health direc-
tor as the city emerged from bankruptcy.
says. “There’s nothing new about him
or his ideas.”
there,” he says. “OK, we might never get
there, but shouldn’t we try?” □
.36 Time July 27, 2026
 H E A LT H

38 Time July 27, 2026

 L E S S O N S
U N L E A R N E D
A new outbreak of Ebola
is outpacing us again.
What will it take to finally
get ahead of viruses?
By Alice Park

PHOTOGRAPH BY
JOSPIN MWISHA

A RED CROSS
TEAM LOWERS THE
COFFIN OF A LIKELY
EBOLA VICTIM
IN BUNIA, CONGO

39
H E A LT H A COMMUNITY LEADER
IN GOMA, CONGO,
RAISES AWARENESS
ABOUT EBOLA

the meat of wild animals. While Ebola has struck the conti-
nent before, most notably in 2014, health authorities are con-
cerned about the speed with which cases are mounting. With
more than 1,400 cases and 450 deaths recorded by early July,

A woman
this outbreak, which was declared in May, is now the sec-
ond largest on record. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) has raised its response to the highest
level, reflecting the escalating urgency of the situation. “We

had died.
have never seen an epidemic increase as fast as this one,” says
Dr. Alan Gonzalez, deputy director of operations at Médecins
Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). “This is massive.”
It’s impossible to stop viruses like Ebola from finding
human hosts and causing disease. But it is possible to con-
tain them quickly, and global health experts are alarmed by
the world’s worsening ability to do that. Our systems for re-
sponding to and confronting viruses are increasingly frac-
tured and weakened, making everyone more vulnerable.

She had traveled from Mong-

bwalu, in the Democratic Re-
public of Congo, to neighbor-
ing Uganda, where she fell ill
and rapidly declined. Her
body was transported back to
Mongbwalu, but during the
journey, the casket cracked.
So mourners moved her body
into a new one, burning the
broken one.
Ten days later, everyone
who had helped with the cof-
fin transfer also became sick
and died. “They said it was
witchcraft,” says Dr. Marie
Roseline Belizaire, the
World Health Organization
(WHO)’s emergency direc-
tor for Africa. Locals told her the story when she arrived in In many important ways, the world is less prepared now
Mongbwalu to help with the WHO’s Ebola response. “They than it was even a few years ago to address microbial threats.
told me that they saw the casket flying, and that the casket “The current epidemic in the D.R.C. is a stress test that,
came back to pick up all those who burned it.” as of now, the world is failing,” says Dr. Tom Frieden, who
Battling an invisible virus is always challenging, but it’s led the CDC during the 2014 Ebola outbreak and who is now
far more difficult when rumors, misinformation, and spiri- CEO of the nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives.
tual beliefs in an affected region conflict with public-health Drastic cuts to global health and pandemic-preparedness
practices. Mongbwalu, where the first cases in the Ebola out- budgets are giving viruses like Ebola the opportunities they
break raging through Congo and Uganda are believed to have need to spread. The U.S.’s role also looks markedly different
emerged undetected, is a remote mining town in Ituri prov- than it did before President Donald Trump’s second term.
ince that attracts migrant workers. Some of the symptoms of Traditionally the largest supporter of global health security,
Ebola—fever, headaches, and body aches—can also be caused both financially and through its scientific expertise, the U.S.
by exposure to the processes involved in the search for min- is no longer a member of the WHO, which monitors patho-
erals. Malaria and tuberculosis, which can cause fever and gens and coordinates responses to emergency threats. The
bloody coughs, are prevalent in the area too. “So Ebola was withdrawal led to 3,000 job cuts at the WHO and a retreat
the last thing to come into their mind,” Belizaire says. The from some of the agency’s activities, including disease sur-
region’s natural resources also make it a target for political veillance and response. It’s part of the U.S.’s shift toward an
instability, corruption, and violent conflict, which all create “America First” foreign aid strategy that favors more deals
fertile ground for infectious diseases. with individual nations for health funds—in exchange for data
This Ebola outbreak likely started when an unsuspecting or mineral rights, for example. That transactional approach to
person encountered the virus, possibly by handling or eating aid is already weakening global health security, experts say.
40 Time July 27, 2026
 WHO DIRECTOR-GENERAL PROTESTERS IN KENYA
TEDROS ADHANOM MARCH AGAINST AN EBOLA
GHEBREYESUS VISITS QUARANTINE FACILITY
A HOSPITAL IN BUNIA FOR U.S. CITIZENS

Humankind has managed to survive past outbreaks, and it policies under the Trump Administration have also compro-
likely will overcome this one too. But in this game of microbial mised, and in some cases dismantled, some of the gains made.
roulette, each encounter with a virus or pathogen heightens Deep budget and personnel cuts, as well as attacks on vac-
the risk that we won’t. “Every time [a virus] pops up, it has cines, have hobbled health agencies, and there has been a
evolved along lines that are more and more concerning,” says Senate-confirmed CDC director for only 29 days of Trump’s
Pardis Sabeti, a computational geneticist at the Broad Institute second term. That office is currently vacant. Until May,
of MIT and Harvard who sequenced some of the first sam- Bloomberg reported, so was the lead of the White House
ples of Ebola from the 2014 outbreak. “Why do we let them Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which
pop up, see that it’s gotten worse, but when cases stop, we Congress established with bipartisan support in 2023 after
stop worrying? The next time it pops up, it might not be OK.” COVID to launch a more coordinated response to global
We have at our disposal, she says, deeper knowledge about health threats. Most of the office’s staff have left.
the genetic makeup of viruses, how they work, and how to The U.S. used to be part of a network of community work-
confront them with antiviral treatments and vaccines. So why ers, foreign aid groups, and government channels that make
does each successive onslaught from the microbial world—as up the critical defense system against viral threats. That
we recently saw with COVID—seem to get worse? meant “you’re hearing updates on the programs, you’re hear-
“We keep toggling between panic and denial when these ing scuttlebutt about what’s going on in the area,” says Jeremy
events happen,” says Dr. Raj Panjabi, senior partner at Konyndyk, who led the USAID office of foreign-disaster

Flagship Pioneering and former lead health-security official assistance during the 2014 outbreak and who is now presi-
at the White House. “We don’t build our reflexes in between.” dent of Refugees International. It’s often how we’d detect the
O P E N I N G PA G E S : A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S; T H E S E PA G E S , F R O M L E F T: J O S P I N M W I S H A — A F P/G E T T Y

first signs of an emerging infectious disease. “If there were

I M A G E S; G R A D E L M U Y I S A M U M B E R E — R E U T E R S; L U C A S M U K A S A — A N A D O L U/G E T T Y I M A G E S

We’ve seen this War between man and microbe before. The still a robust USAID portfolio of programs running in east-
world had never encountered an Ebola crisis like the one that ern Congo, someone would have noticed something,” he says.
started in 2014, when the virus ravaged West Africa, eventually But now, “the U.S. is flying blind to these things,” says
killing more than 11,000 people. Even with different political Dr. Ashish Jha, who coordinated the COVID response in
leaders in charge at the time, the disease spread undetected for the Biden Administration and now leads the AI disease-
far too long—as it did this year—and eventually became the surveillance company BioRadar. The Trump Administration’s
largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded. Misinformation and dis- decision to defund USAID in 2025 abruptly shuttered its pro-
trust of public-health providers was pervasive then too. But as grams and broke many of those chains of communication.
we face another outbreak, there are key differences—both in the Ebola moved silently for weeks, and possibly months, be-
virus and in the ways the U.S. and the world are responding to it. fore the first patient was reported: a nurse who came to the
For all of its destruction, the 2014 outbreak triggered scien- hospital in Bunia, Congo, with fever, vomiting, and bleeding
tific innovation; companies developed therapeutics, tests, and on April 24. Local labs didn’t have the necessary equipment
vaccines for that Ebola strain, called Zaire. Countries, includ- to test her sample, so it was sent to the capital in Kinshasa,
ing the U.S., and groups like the WHO stood up surveillance which took days. In the meantime, she and other people with
and laboratory systems to be better prepared for the next inevi- Ebola had been mingling in the community; some crossed the
table encounter. But there are multiple Ebola strains, and those border into Uganda. It took another week or so for the WHO
vaccines, treatments, and tests aren’t effective against the rarer to receive reports of more cases, when it then declared the
strain, Bundibugyo, sickening people today. Changes in U.S. outbreak a public-health emergency of international concern.
41
H E A LT H

The region’s skeletal health ecosystem was no match for

fast-moving Ebola. It spreads by direct contact with body
fluids: saliva, blood, vomit, urine, feces. The bodies of the re-
cently deceased are especially contagious, as they often con-
tain the highest levels of the virus. But burial and mourning
practices in Congo are built around touching and handling
departed loved ones during the funeral. Health care workers
who impede these rituals for infection-control reasons often
face hostility and violence; clinics have been attacked and
burned down during this outbreak, furthering viral spread.
The best defense against such resistance came from a les-
son learned during the 2014 Ebola crisis: the importance of
engaging with trusted local leaders to inform communities
about the virus. Without them, misinformation and conspira-
cies flourish. In Congo’s 2018 Ebola outbreak, the humani-
tarian group Mercy Corps worked with local governments to
train leaders and Ebola survivors how to talk to their com-
munity about the risks of Ebola and the benefits of cooper-
ating with health care workers. But because of instability in
the area and shrinking funding, those trained community
members are now gone. “I was asking one of the health doc-
tors, ‘Where are those community leaders that we trained?
Where are they?’” says Onesphore Bangenza, Mercy Corps’
Ebola response team leader. “They were supposed to be here;
they have the trust of the community.” Now, he says, local
health authorities have to start from scratch.
They are battling not only the loss of trained allies but
also confusion about the Bundibugyo strain now circulat-
ing, and why people vaccinated in previous outbreaks are
not protected. “I explain to them that Ebola has six sons and
‘We have never seen
daughters,” says Belizaire. “And for the first child, we have a
vaccine. But for the other children, we don’t.”
an epidemic increase
as fast as this one.’
The U.S.’S commiTmenT to global health typically begins —DR. ALAN GONZALEZ, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
with Congress, which has historically allocated funding to
nongovernmental groups that tackle everything from HIV to
maternal health and childhood vaccination programs. In 2025,
Congress designated $2 billion to health programs, including United States; we’re not going to be as friendly to places that
$650 million for global health security: maintaining surveil- are not furthering our national interests.”
lance programs for infectious-disease threats and responding “At both the macro and micro level, we are seeing changes
to outbreaks. But that $2 billion has not yet been formally re- that we haven’t seen in 25 years,” says Vincent Lin, associate
leased, and Administration officials at the State Department director of health policy and advocacy at the global nonprofit
and the Office of Management and Budget have said the govern- Partners in Health. “It’s a total reset of the system, and not
ment was holding that funding for closing down USAID pro- something Congress agreed to or approved.”
grams. “All of the money that relates to global health security The U.S. is contributing to the Ebola response, but not in
threats like Ebola has come back to the State Department, and the ways that would have once been expected. In briefings,
we are programming it,” a senior department official told TIME. the CDC’s incident manager for the Ebola response, Dr. Satish
More broadly, the Administration’s plans to reframe foreign Pillai, said the CDC now has more than 400 personnel involved
aid to focus more on bilateral agreements made directly with in the Ebola response, both in the U.S. and overseas, and has sent
countries is centered on the principle that “foreign aid is not supplies like personal protective and lab testing equipment.
charity,” says the senior department official. “It’s a strategic The U.S. has also provided $270 million directly to combatting
tool for dealing directly with governments.” While the agree- the outbreak, according to the State Department, including an
ments themselves are strictly related to health, the official additional $350 million for the outbreak and other humanitar-
said, the Administration takes strategic benefits and security ian needs in Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan, and $50 million
alliances into account during negotiations. In June, Secretary more to develop new treatments and vaccines. By compari-
of State Marco Rubio testified before Congress that when son, in the 2014 outbreak, the U.S. provided nearly $2 billion
it comes to doling out foreign aid, including global health in financial support, drawn from a package of $5.4 billion in
funds, “we are going to reward those that are good to the emergency global health funding appropriated by Congress.
42 Time July 27, 2026
 PUBLIC-HEALTH ADVICE
DISPLAYED AT THE EBOLA
TREATMENT CENTER
IN MUNIGI, CONGO

behind,’” he says. “But when it comes to Ebola, our willingness

to even consider allowing someone back into the country ap-
parently ends.” The center was scheduled to open in late May
but was blocked by a Kenyan high court after locals protested.

Being ready for BundiBugyo and other neglected viral

strains requires investing in “what if” scenarios. “There are
a dozen or so viruses out there that we know can cause really
serious illnesses in humans,” Jha says. “We should be looking
at all of the strains of all of those viruses and building vac-
cines and therapeutics against them now.” The WHO is cur-
rently taking this approach by concentrating its efforts on a
few major viral families that are most likely to erupt.
The U.S. donated doses of an experimental antibody treat-
ment for Bundibugyo that the first patients in a trial received
in early July. But a Bundibugyo vaccine is needed to control
the outbreak, and one that appears to work in animals already
exists, says Teresa Lambe, head of vaccine immunology at
Oxford University, who helped make it and one of the first
shots for COVID. “When we started this work, we started it
at risk, relying on the fact that I had a very generous philan-
thropic donation.” But those funds dried up; the barrier to
creating the vaccine wasn’t scientific, but financial.
Several weeks after the WHO sounded the alarm on Ebola,
the money to continue those studies finally emerged from
the philanthropic and intergovernmental group CEPI, which
supports vaccine development against global health threats.
At the end of May, CEPI announced an investment of nearly
During his appearance before Congress, Rubio did com- $62 million to develop three Bundibugyo vaccines, includ-
mit to releasing $661 million in matched funding from other ing the Oxford candidate.
donors to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria Lambe is now working with the Serum Institute of India to
“very quickly”—and said savings from closing USAID and finish testing the experimental vaccine in ferrets and hopes
addressing inefficiencies in foreign aid programs would be to have doses ready to test in people in Congo this summer.
directed toward programs such as expanding access to a re- Moderna, which partnered with CEPI to develop the first
cently approved twice-a-year HIV-prevention medication. mRNA COVID vaccine, also received CEPI funding to de-
Health leaders say the traditional financial support is not velop an mRNA vaccine—which has the advantage of speed,
the only thing missing from this response. “The biggest def- as shown during COVID—against Bundibugyo. The final can-
icit I feel is a loss of partnership with one of our most re- didate, from IAVI, may take the longest to develop, around
liable technical partners in the world, the U.S. CDC,” says seven to nine months.
Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, executive director of the WHO Health These time lags are measured in lives lost and more
Emergencies Program, who is deployed in Bunia. Recently, chances for the virus to find new hosts and spread—out of
“we had a big partnerships meeting—we had the local and one country and into another, from one continent to another.
national public-health agency, the Africa CDC, but the miss- In terms of money and lives, “building health systems is
ing partner in the room was the U.S. CDC.” much cheaper than mounting an emergency response,” says
American health care workers who travel to support the out- Sheila Davis, CEO at Partners in Health.
break response may also be more at risk now than in the past. Meanwhile, while attending to the new outbreak, experts
The Trump Administration announced a controversial plan also are working to make sure new treatments and vaccines
to build an Ebola quarantine and treatment center in Kenya, become available for whatever comes next. “We are work-
which currently has no confirmed Ebola cases, on an air base ing with a no-regrets policy,” says Ihekweazu of the WHO.
to manage Americans who might have been exposed to the He and other global health leaders agree on one thing: we
virus. Dr. Craig Spencer, who contracted Ebola in 2014 after have the tools and knowledge to confront and contain viruses
J O S P I N M W I S H A — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S

volunteering in West Africa with Médecins Sans Frontières, like Ebola before they become epidemics or pandemics. But we
doubts that such a makeshift facility will provide the same lack the consolidated commitment to invest in the resources
quality of care as established specialized centers in the U.S. He and workforce needed to use those tools and knowledge effec-
was evacuated to Bellevue Hospital in New York, where he re- tively. “We need to set up systems so the world isn’t scrambling,
ceived care that saved his life. “The U.S. military will famously as if it’s never happened before, every time there is another
put in incredible amounts of resources to rescue a helicopter or emergency,” says Frieden. “This is not rocket science. We know
plane pilot who is down in Iran, and the tagline is ‘No man left what to do. But it does take dedicated resources and money.” □
43
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Alix EArlE hAs mAdE A cArEEr out of ovEr- involved in a political sex scandal.) Perhaps most in-
sharing on the internet. And yet, on a sweltering triguing for fans who closely follow Earle’s life, she
June afternoon in Miami, she notes that there are still says the show will address the question a certain cor-
things people get wrong about her. The first miscon- ner of the internet cannot stop asking: What led to her
ception she’d like to dispel: that amassing 8.5 million alleged beef with megainfluencer Alex Cooper?
followers on TikTok was easy. The second: that she At a time when 57% of Gen Zers aspire to be in-
is merely the face of a business someone else built. fluencers, Earle has, to borrow from The Devil Wears
“People underestimate me,” she says, “or think I’m Prada, a job a million girls would kill for. She has
just a dumb blonde.” Her skin-care brand Reale Ac- become so popular that when she recommends a
tives did $1 million in sales within the first five min- product, sales get a massive bump—a phenomenon
utes of its March debut, and people ask if she actually known as the Alix Earle effect. She got to this place
is involved in decisions for the brand. “It baffles me,” not just because her looks have been rewarded by
says the 25-year-old. “I’ve been pretty open about the algorithm (though that certainly helped), but
being involved in every single detail.” also because the former University of Miami mar-
Another common misconception: she does not keting major has a forensic read on her audience and
like you. People who catch Earle in the wild looking the skills to sell them the products they want. “What
unimpressed—a far cry from the effusive persona she makes a great early-stage VC? Really, it’s people-
shares in her content—tend to think she’s ticked off. picking,” says Nick Brown of Reale Actives inves-
But she swears that her stony stare is just the way her tor Imaginary Ventures, whose firm also backs Kim
face is built. “It’s something I’ve dealt with my whole Kardashian’s Skims and Tom Holland’s Bero, among
life: the case of the RBF,” says Earle (referencing “rest- others. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Elon Musk or Tif-
ing bitch face”). “When I meet people, they’re like, fany Masterson of Drunk Elephant. You’re investing
‘I thought you were miserable.’ I swear I’m happy.” in an idea, but you’re really betting on the individ-
The final misconception: that she identifies as a ual.” Earle, Brown says, is a good bet.
MAGA supporter. It’s a theory that appears regularly
in the comments of her posts. “I have addressed it, One spring mOrning in Cambridge, Mass., Earle
and I just don’t think anyone listens,” Earle says, giv- woke up and filmed herself peeling her face off her
ing a tight smile. “My senior year of college I was like, pillow. She had come to guest-lecture at Harvard
‘I am not a Trump supporter.’ I don’t personally sup- Business School, but the more pressing matter was
port him. I get a lot of questions about that online still. that the pillowcase had stuck to her skin overnight.
I just tend to not address it every single time because One of the formulas she’d been testing for Reale Ac-
then I feel like I am creating a massive storm.” tives was too tacky. She sent the video to her CEO.
But creating a social media storm is what Earle does The serum would need tweaks before the “complete
best. Earle was a pioneer in the “Get Ready With Me” routine” of four products, which together retails for
genre, talking about her decision to get breast aug- $120, went on sale the following year.
mentation, dating an NFL player, the tumult after her Earle has spoken at Harvard not once, but twice,
father had an affair—all while applying makeup. Her the second time shortly before Reale Actives debuted.
confessional approach invites viewers to feel like close That class, called Founder Launch, asked Earle about
friends. The strategy has catapulted her to cultural rel- her brand deals—she has lent her face to companies
evance that transcends social media. In the past year, like Carl’s Jr.; Amazon; and the prebiotic soda Poppi,
she’s popped up in the Super Bowl halftime show, for which she was compensated in equity, a decision
competed on Dancing With the Stars, and appeared on that paid off when PepsiCo bought the brand for nearly
the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. This $2 billion last year—and debated how the market
fall, Netflix will debut the reality series Earle Meets would respond to yet another influencer’s launching
World. It’s a content miracle that there’s still material her own product. The students who argued she would
reserved for the show, which trains its lens not only succeed should get A’s. After selling out on launch day,
on Earle but also on a family she acknowledges has its Reale Actives managed another $1 million in sales in
own history with the tabloids. (Her stepmother was the first five minutes of the next month’s restock.
47
T
Earle understands what her s want be- Kinigra Deon
he obsesses over m earned from @KINIGRADEON
e student, she When Kinigra Deon launched her YouTube
tri s on TikTok: perform- channel in 2018, she had no film or
ing dances, u g shopping hauls, filming day- content experience. In fact, she worked
in-the-life videos. Her break came in the summer as a clinical laboratory scientist. She has
of 2022 when she shared her acne struggles with since grown her family-friendly channel
her then 150,000 followers. The video got a million to 5.9 million subscribers who tune in
views. “It’s not like I changed the world,” she says. three times a week to watch new, scripted
“But the fact it meant so much to so many people episodes in a range of genres: comedy,
made me realize that there was this missing piece drama, horror, fantasy, and more. One
online.” She had been smoothing out her skin in of her most popular is the multiseason
every photo. “I was a part of the problem,” she says. supernatural drama Vampire Siblings.
Part of the web-based “New Hollywood”
Celebrity forays into products can feel ham-
wave, the self-proclaimed “Tyler Perry of
fisted. An A-list actor likes tequila or coffee? Sure.
YouTube” does it all from her hometown of
But for Earle, who has felt insecure about her skin Birmingham, Ala., where she’s developing
since middle school, Reale Actives was a natural a full-scale production studio. Deon, 37, is
evolution of her content. “I ended up doing Accu- also working with Kevin Hart’s production
tane three times. After the third time it came back company to write, direct, and star in two
again, and I just felt so frustrated,” says Earle. “I ac- new Black supernatural movies, which are
tually hated skin care. That was probably the last slated to appear on Tubi in 2026. —R.B.
thing that I ever wanted to get into because I was so
confused by it. It felt so negative and isolating for
me. So I wanted to create something that felt fun.”
Earle allows that her status as an influencer-
founder can cut both ways. While she has lots of
fans, she also has plenty of critics. She anticipated
skepticism. So on launch day she shared a video ex-
plaining her skin journey again and how Reale Ac-
tives was designed as part of a routine, not a cure-
all. She deployed the same transparency when the
moisturizer bottles malfunctioned, making a joke
about the situation as they fixed it. “Just being hon-
est goes a long way,” she says.

EARLE’S DOG STARTS BARKING the moment I

bring up Alex Cooper. “She heard the tough ques-
tions coming in, and she said, ‘No. I’m going to Jesse Riedel
ruin the audio,’” Earle jokes. Cooper, host of the in- @JESSER
terview show Call Her Daddy, built a podcast net- What began as a front-yard passion—play-
work and made Earle her first recruit—but after ing hoops against his older brother—has
18 months, the partnership dissolved, and neither morphed into a media career for basket-
party has ever given a clear explanation as to why. ball YouTuber Jesse Riedel, 27. His videos,
The alleged feud even inspired a Saturday Night Live which often feature challenges like a one-
sketch. “It’s something I’m going to talk about on on-one tournament for creators and have
the show,” Earle says, referring to the Netflix series. titles like “Every Shot You Miss, the Food
There may be more television in Earle’s future, Gets Spicier,” have drawn over 45 million
though when she mentions an interest in acting, she subscribers to his channel. His “Guess the
does so not in the context of fulfilling some lifelong Secret Player” clips, in which he enlists
luminaries like Giannis Antetokounmpo,
dream but rather in terms of diversifying her port-
Luka Doncic, and Dwight Howard to help
folio. “Every decision I make is about longevity and figure out which among a group of masked
creating a career that can be sustainable, because men played in the NBA, are especially
the creative economy can be so fleeting,” she says. popular. Riedel’s growing profile has
She would be thrilled if those who don’t know her granted him, and by extension his fans,
from TikTok discovered her through Reale Actives. behind-the-scenes access to the Chicago
Of course she could find success in any num- Bulls organization, a Formula One garage,
ber of areas and still have people question whether and Italy’s Juventus soccer team. In April,
she really is the brains behind this operation. She he launched JesserCo to bring his content
shrugs. “Guess we’ll just have to prove them wrong.” operation and his apparel brand under the
—ELIANA DOCKTERMAN same umbrella. —Sean Gregory
48 TIME July 27, 2026
 Kareem Rahma
@SUBWAYTAKES
Kareem Rahma’s interviews with celebrities and politi-
cians on the New York City subway for his show Subway
Takes have made his socials the place to find out that
Jennifer Lopez thinks real New Yorkers must be born in the
city or that Olivia Wilde believes good singers shouldn’t
do karaoke. This year, he hosted the Golden Globes
red-carpet livestream and relaunched his series Keep
the Meter Running as a YouTube-exclusive Creator Show.
The opinions on Subway Takes often spark debate, but
Rahma’s popularity is indisputable. —Leslie Horn Peterson

Dude Perfect
@DUDEPERFECT
Dude Perfect showcases the antics of five adult friends,
often featuring an outsize and random athletic contest. They
currently hold over 20 Guinness World Records, including
the longest barefoot walk across Legos. With 62 million
subscribers on YouTube, plus an additional 52 million across
Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, the quintet combines
faith, fun, and physical finesse in a way that resonates with 5-
to 15-year-old boys. They have their own streaming app and a
line of toys and games; their first theme-park attractions are
opening this month. In June, the Dudes embarked on their
fifth live arena tour, visiting 22 cities. —Belinda Luscombe
R I E D E L : M I K E C O P P O L A —YO U T U B E /G E T T Y I M A G E S; E S C A N I O : E L I Z A B E T H R E N S T R O M F O R T I M E ; A I N A : N I N A W E S T E R V E LT — W W D/G E T T Y I M A G E S

Jackie Aina
@JACKIEAINA
For many viewers, beauty YouTube is synonymous with the
name Jackie Aina. She kicked off her career as one of the
largest beauty vloggers on the platform and has amassed
millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram too. Her mis-
sion is to make the beauty world more inclusive, particu-
larly for dark-skinned Black women. When Aina, 38, likes
a product, it sells. When she shares her thoughts about
a launch or a shade range, the industry listens; brands
med up with her to expand their complexion
d did in 2018. —K.N.
T

Tini Younger
@TINEKEYOUNGER
Tini Younger, known as Chef Tini, is teaching TikTok how to cook,
one viral recipe at a time. Since launching her account in 2020,
the Georgia-based culinary-school graduate has been whipping

YO U N G E R : E L I Z A B E T H R E N S T R O M F O R T I M E ; D E S B O R D E S : S H A R E I F Z I YA D AT; H O L L I S : R OY R O C H L I N — O V E R D R I V E /G E T T Y I M A G E S
up affordable comfort food for her 12.5 million followers; her
most talked-about recipe to date is her signature macaroni and
cheese made with cavatappi pasta—never elbow noodles. In
November, the former Next Level Chef contestant will release her
second cookbook. “I just want people to gain more confidence in
the kitchen,” she says. —Shannon Carlin

50 Time July 27, 2026

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@JULIANMSB

Kyla Scanlon B. Dylan Hollis Shama Hyder

@KYLASCAN @BDYLANHOLLIS SHAMAHYDER
Known for coining the term vibe- Hollis re-creates vintage American The digital-marketing strategist,
cession, Scanlon demystifies eco- recipes for his 10.2 million fol- 41, helps businesses navigate
nomics topics like inflation for an lowers on TikTok, from the weird the ever evolving digital economy.
audience of over 1 million across (pickled eggs from 1941 and On LinkedIn, where she has over
platforms. In June, she joined CNN strawberry pretzel salad from 673,000 followers, Hyder’s been
as a contributor and economic 1968) to the familiar (ginger snaps named a top voice in marketing
analyst. —L.H.P. and shortbread). —L.H.P. and social media. —S.C.

PHOTOGR APH BY ELIZABETH RENSTROM FOR TIME 51

L
Haley Sacks
@MRSDOWJONES
Haley Sacks aims to equip millennials and Gen Z with the
financial literacy she didn’t have growing up. Known online
as Mrs. Dow Jones, the 34-year-old demystifies concepts
like IPOs and tax write-offs and doles out financial advice
for more than 2 million followers across social platforms
through a humorous, pop-culture lens. She also founded
the media company Finance Is Cool and hosts the Finan-
cial Tea Podcast; her first book, Future Rich Person: The
New Rules for Building Wealth, hit shelves in May. —L.H.P.

Linoya Friedman
@WHATPEOPLEAREWEARING Brett Cooper
@BBRETTCOOPER
The world is a runway for fashion influencer
Linoya Friedman, 31. She travels the globe Cooper is one of
conducting man-on-the-street interviews Gen Z’s leading
conservative content
focused on style, culture, and identity to
creators. The 24-year-
share with her 1.9 million Instagram follow- old hosts The Brett
ers. Whether she’s chatting with everyday Cooper Show on You-
people at events like Coachella or inter- Tube, analyzing poli-
viewing celebrities like Kendall Jenner, tics and pop culture
she’s always curious about what people with a right-leaning
are wearing and why. At the same time, her bent. In 2025, she
street photography and videos also act signed with Fox News
as a contributor.
as anthropological records, documenting —Avery Stone
how people are dressing in a wide range of
places. —Shannon Carlin

Dwarkesh Patel
DWARKESH PODCAST
Through podcasts, essays, and lectures, Dwarkesh
Patel is chronicling the arc of AI while also interrogat-
ing it. On the Dwarkesh Podcast—which averages over
1.8 million listens an episode—he presses tech pioneers
like Andrej Karpathy and corporate leaders like Jensen
Huang, drawing out rich and unexpected responses.
The 25-year-old’s audience is filled with tech execu-
tives, engineers, and researchers—the people building
AI. “Whatever happens next,” he wrote in December,
“I want the debates to have happened on this podcast,
Galey Alix and to have happened well.” —Tharin Pillay
William Hanson @GALEYALIX

@WILLIAMHANSON The finance profes-

sional turned home
British etiquette coach William Hanson
is something of a millennial Emily Post,
designer completes
dramatic makeovers
Lucy Blakiston
with tips for every imaginable social to multiple rooms in a @SHITYOUSHOULDCAREABOUT
situation. With over 3.9 million followers single weekend. Alix’s The internet has a signal-to-noise problem. Lucy Blakiston
on Instagram and 3.1 million on TikTok, videos transforming is cutting through it with her multiplatform operation,
Hanson has also expanded his teachings living rooms, dining including a podcast, a Substack newsletter with over
rooms, and more
to a podcast and the written word. He co- draw an audience
700,000 subscribers, and an Instagram following of
hosts the advice show Help I Sexted My of 1.8 million on 3.4 million. She distills the news of the day for a mostly
Boss with radio personality Jordan North, Instagram and Gen Z audience, covering issues from the Ebola outbreak
and in 2026 published his internationally 2.8 million on TikTok. to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. The
best-selling guide, Just Good Manners. Her first book, You way young people consume information has changed,
This past summer, Hanson starred in Can Do Beautiful and Blakiston, who ran a One Direction fan account
the Broadway parody musical Titanique. Things, comes out in as a teen, is working to ensure they don’t miss the
August. —L.H.P.
—Rachel Brodsky important stuff. —L.H.P.
52 TIME July 27, 2026
 Drew Michael Scott
@LONEFOXHOME
Who says DIY can’t be chic? Certainly not Drew Michael
Scott, who has made elevating the interior-design
aesthetic his bread and butter, building an audience
of 1.5 million on Instagram, 1.6 million on TikTok, and
1.8 million on YouTube in the process. Whether it’s a
green-checkered breakfast nook or a thrifted lamp painted
with Rust-Oleum and adorned with polka dots, his budget-
friendly projects look like they’d be right at home on the
pages of a design magazine. Scott took his brand IRL this
year, opening a store in Los Angeles in April. —L.H.P.

Humphrey Yang
@HUMPHREYTALKS
Former financial adviser Humphrey Yang, 38, wants to
teach the TikTok generation how to build and keep their
wealth, just like his father taught him. His videos provide
easily digestible explanations of financial terms and con-
cepts for his 3.4 million TikTok followers and 2 million
YouTube subscribers. Whether he’s breaking down
the real cost of a matcha latte or giving tips on how to
reach millionaire status, he offers actionable takeaways
designed to help viewers take control of their finances.
Preaching patience, discipline, and consistency, he has
become a trusted voice in money management. —S.C.
F R I E D M A N : S T E P H A N E C A R D I N A L E — C O R B I S/G E T T Y I M A G E S; H A N S O N : S I M O N A C K E R M A N — G E T T Y I M A G E S; PAT E L : A A R O N W O J A C K — T H E N E W YO R K
T I M E S/G E T T Y I M A G E S; I M A N I : K I M N E W M O N E Y; L E AV I T T: J E N N Y A N D E R S O N — T O N Y A W A R D S P R O D U C T I O N S/G E T T Y I M A G E S

Whitney Leavitt
@WHITNEYLEAVITT
Once known best for her #MomTok dances, Whitney
Leavitt parlayed her role on the social-media-inspired real-
ity series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives into a run on
Dancing With the Stars, then a Broadway debut as Roxie
Hart in Chicago in February; her time onstage included the
production’s highest-grossing period in its 29-year history.
She’ll make her feature debut in a holiday rom-com later
this year, but hasn’t left social behind: with her trademark
tinues to create lifestyle content for more
wers. —Emma Barker Bonomo
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@MICKYCASHFLOW

Salish Matter Morgan Riddle Olivia Ferney

@SALISH @MOORRGS @TRAVELWITHLIVII
Matter, 16, boasts 5 million fol- Riddle blends fashion, lifestyle, Ferney, a luxury-travel special-
lowers on Instagram, 4 million on global travel, and sports content ist, has made a career granting
YouTube, and 8 million on TikTok, with feminist breakdowns of news, the impossible wishes of the
but still comes across as the relat- movies, and more. She is a co- ultra-wealthy on vacation—and
able teen next door who loves gym- founder and chief brand officer of a re-enacting outlandish requests
nastics, skin care, and hanging out community for female athletes and for 2 million followers across Insta-
with her dogs. —Kara Nesvig sports fans. —K.N. gram and TikTok. —Rachel Brodsky

54 TIME July 27, 2026 PHOTOGR APH BY ELIZABETH RENSTROM FOR TIME
 Terry McCaskill and Kaniyia Brown
@TERRYANDKANIYIA
Watching Terry McCaskill and Kaniyia Brown react to hear-
ing a song for the first time is a visceral experience. As
they take in music by artists from Luke Combs to Celine
Dion to Zara Larsson, they might clasp their hands over
their mouths or shimmy in their chairs and whoop along
to a catchy beat or melody. No matter the song’s tempo,
genre, or time period, they treat each new listen with
consideration and raw enthusiasm. The duo has amassed
5.6 million followers on TikTok, and in 2026 were invited
to be guest judges on American Idol. —R.B.

Kane Parsons
@KANEPIXELS Serena Page
Even if you haven’t seen Backrooms, @SERENAPAGEE
A24’s highest-grossing feature to date Page was an instant
($350 million and counting), chances draw for audiences
when she appeared
are you’ve heard about the psychological
on Love Island USA
horror movie and its wunderkind direc- in 2024, helping
tor. Kane Parsons, 21, got his start on establish her career
YouTube, where he has over 3.4 million as a beauty and life-
subscribers. He originally told this story style influencer. She
as a web series in 2022—the first epi- jumped from about
sode has over 88 million views. His rise 2,000 Instagram
from viral YouTube success to mainstream followers at the start
to 2.6 million today,
creative stardom represents a new path plus 3.4 million on
for aspiring filmmakers. He is now explor- TikTok. —R.B.
ing a sequel. —R.B.

Katie Feeney
@KATIEFEENEYY
C A R T H E N : S AV I O N W A S H I N G T O N — VA R I E T Y/G E T T Y I M A G E S; F E E N E Y: A L I S H A J U C E V I C — T H E W A S H I N G T O N P O S T/G E T T Y I M A G E S
R I D D L E : TAY L O R H I L L— F I L M M A G I C/G E T T Y I M A G E S; PA R S O N S : A L A N C H A P M A N — D AV E B E N E T T/A 24 F I L M S/G E T T Y I M A G E S;

When ESPN hired Katie Feeney last summer to post

short-form content across its platforms, the evolution
of sports storytelling took a giant leap. The sports
and lifestyle creator has 7.6 million TikTok followers
and 2.4 million more across Instagram and Snapchat.
In 2022, the Washington Commanders hired her as a
social media correspondent, believed to be a first-of-its-
kind role for an NFL team. Since joining ESPN, Feeney
has covered events like the World Cup and Wimbledon,
been featured on the SportsCenter Snapchat, and con-
Olandria Carthen Kahlana tributed to studio shows. —Sean Gregory
@OLANDRIA
Barfield Brown
Though Olandria Carthen, 28, and her @KAHLANABARFIELD
boyfriend didn’t win their season of Love
Island USA last summer, she was the
Brown, who started
in traditional media
Joshua Williford
breakout star, immediately becoming @RAPPINGCHEF
and once set trends
a fan favorite not just for her style and as beauty director Houston native Joshua Williford, 36, has grown a following
storyline, but also because of how open at InStyle, floods of over 5 million across TikTok and Instagram, breaking
she was about representing dark-skinned her Instagram with through the noise with his “rap-cipes,” in which he uses
outfit pics and styling
Black women on reality TV. Since leaving the instrumentals from popular songs as he raps the
inspiration for her
Love Island, she has walked in New York clothing line, KBB ingredients and steps to make his dishes. Some of his
Fashion Week, posed for magazine cov- by Kahlana. She greatest hits include pork tenderloin to the tune of Nas’
ers, and appeared in Sports Illustrated’s brings her follow- “One Mic” and pad see ew over the twinkling keys of
swimsuit issue. Carthen is expanding to ers on her journey Fantasia’s “When I See U.” He has partnered with PayPal,
music too: she released her song “Ola as designer and Ninja, and Uber Eats, and appeared on a YouTube-sponsored
Doll Anthem” in June. —K.N. entrepreneur. —K.N. panel about mastering virality at SXSW last year. —N.L.
55
P PHENOMS

Kristy Sarah
@KRISTY SARAH
Kristy Sarah is one of TikTok’s most influential lifestyle creators,

S A R A H : E L I Z A B E T H R E N S T R O M F O R T I M E ; A L E X A N D E R : M I K E B L A K E — R E U T E R S; E D W A R D S : N E I L M O C K F O R D — W I R E I M A G E /G E T T Y I M A G E S
followed by more than 17 million for her family-friendly content
that feels spontaneous even if it’s anything but. This year, the
mom of two filed for divorce from her husband, who was a fixture
on her feed. One thing that hasn’t changed: her dedication to her
kids. “Social media never clocks out, so I’ve had to set my per-
sonal boundaries of only working while the boys are at school,”
she says. “Whenever they get home, I just shut everything down
and immerse myself in being a mom.” —Shannon Carlin

LJ Rader
@ARTBUTSPORTS
On X, Rader
pairs iconic
sports photos
with composi-
tionally and emo-
tionally similar
images of clas-
sic art, such as a
snap of celebrity
row at Madison
Square Garden
and a painting
by Manet. He
published a
book based on
his account in
March. —L.H.P.

56 Time July 27, 2026

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Cleo Abram
@CLEOABRAM
With her series Huge If True,
video journalist Abram, 33,
explores AI, space, and tech
with a shot of optimism
for her 8.3 million YouTube
subscribers. She has also
landed interviews with high-
profile CEOs like OpenAI’s
Sam Altman. —S.C.

Jack Edwards
@JACK EDWARDS
The British creator provides
his followers—nearly
4 million across YouTube,
TikTok, and Instagram—with
book recommendations,
literary criticism, and reviews
that are rarely over three min-
utes. Edwards’ videos drive
sales, even helping books hit
best-seller lists. —S.C.

@DREWAFUALO

PHOTOGR APH BY ELIZABETH RENSTROM FOR TIME

C
Lloyd Griffiths and Yaya Onalaja-Aliu
@HANDLUGGAGEONLY
Hand Luggage Only takes its TikTok audience of 1.2 mil-
lion would-be travelers on journeys to some of the most
beautiful places on earth. Run by couple Yaya Onalaja-
Aliu and Lloyd Griffiths, the account leads with stunning
visuals and also has a significant reach on Pinterest. The
pair, who met while studying at Cambridge and started
their blog in 2014 shortly after, make locales like the
Maldives or Antarctica feel accessible by sharing itinerar-
ies, tips, and advice for how their followers can travel the
world too. —Leslie Horn Peterson

Desi Perkins
@DESIPERKINS
Much has changed online since Desi Leah Thomas
Perkins first went viral in 2012, but @GREENGIRLLEAH
her influence as a beauty creator has Intersectional
remained constant. Perkins, who has environmentalist
and self-described
more than 4 million Instagram followers
“eco-communicator”
and 3 million YouTube subscribers, also Thomas, a.k.a. Green
founded the eyewear line Dezi, which Girl Leah, has used
produced custom pieces for Beyoncé’s her platform on Insta-
Cowboy Carter Tour, and the skin-care gram to educate her
brand Dezi Skin, which is inspired by her roughly 300,000 fol-
Mexican heritage. Dezi Skin hit Sephora lowers on topics like
shelves this year and is one of the first the history of Black
wellness culture and
Spanish-language brands sold by the Earth Day’s roots as
retailer. —Kara Nesvig a protest. —L.H.P.

Nicolas Heller
@NEWYORKNICO
Nicolas Heller, a.k.a. New York Nico, documents people,
places, and things that perfectly encapsulate the real-
life Gotham. Very little is off-limits: Heller posts about
historic businesses, eccentric local personalities, and
even an artist who creates work out of (now defunct)
MetroCards. Though he’s amassed over 1.6 million
TikTok followers and another 1.6 million on Instagram,
Heller is less interested in appearing on camera; he’d
rather let his subjects speak for themselves. In 2026, he
collaborated with official city-based accounts, from the
Shira Lazar New York Knicks to Katz’s Deli. —Rachel Brodsky
@SHIRALAZAR
Judith Joseph
What’s Trending founder Shira Lazar uses @DRJUDITHJOSEPH
her platform of nearly 1 million followers
across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube
Joseph, a board-
certified psychiatrist
Jackie Johnston
to spread awareness around the mental- @JCUBEDHAX
and researcher, uses
health crisis affecting content creators. humor (and trending Equal parts women’s-sports educator, advocate, and
Last year, she launched Creators 4 Men- audio) to explain fan, Jackie Johnston—known as Coach Jackie J—breaks
tal Health, a global advocacy initiative therapy terms and down big headlines, amplifies lesser-known news, and
concepts like avoid-
that published the first comprehensive celebrates female athletes for more than 1.3 million fol-
ant attachment or
study on creator mental health. This year, toxic empathy to her lowers across TikTok and Instagram, many of them mem-
Lazar helped California Congressman 1.2 million followers bers of the LGBTQ+ community like herself. In March, she
Ro Khanna introduce a Creator Bill of across TikTok and joined the roster of Victory+, the National Women’s Soccer
Rights, which seeks to ensure access to Instagram. She also League’s free streaming partner; in May, media company
health care benefits, transparency from shares her clinical Run-A-Muck announced she’ll host a forthcoming podcast
platforms, and more. —Shannon Carlin research. —S.C. for its new sports vertical, Reign. —Erin McMullen
58 TIME July 27, 2026
 Katie Kennedy
@THEHISTORYGOSSIP
Katie Kennedy is Ken Burns for Gen Z history buffs. The
British historian makes the subject appealing by framing
it as salacious scuttlebutt, from calling out the smelliest
royal (sorry, Caroline of Brunswick) to giving a tour of Marie
Antoinette’s shag pad. Her followers come to hear her rag
on the likes of the Tudors and the Victorians using Gen Z
and U.K. slang, and they leave with more than a few spicy
facts they’d never learn in school. Last year, she published
her first book and launched a podcast, The History Diaries,
where she dissects juicy and bizarre stories of yore. —S.C.

Hannah Fry
@FRYRSQUARED
British mathematician and professor Hannah Fry has
P E R K I N S : G I L B E R T F L O R E — W W D/G E T T Y I M A G E S; L A Z A R : C H R I S T Y L I N D E R ; H E L L E R : S I N N A N A S S E R I — T H E N E W YO R K T I M E S/ R E D U X ; S M I T H : E L I Z A B E T H R E N S T R O M F O R T I M E ; G A L L A N T, M A R G O L I N : A L E X S T O N E

become a go-to source for those looking to make sense

of the world’s mysteries. On Instagram, Fry boasts about
2.1 million followers and shares everything from scientific
breakdowns to STEM hot takes like why you should be
polite to AI. With American YouTuber and educator Michael
Stevens, she co-hosts the podcast The Rest Is Science,
which won Best New Entertainment and Culture podcast
at the 2026 Webby Awards. Later this year, she will appear
on Season 2 of BBC’s The Celebrity Traitors. —S.C.

Lex Fridman
LEX FRIDMAN
PODCAST
Fridman’s Deena Margolin and Kristin Gallant
interview-based @BIGLITTLEFEELINGS
show has over
5 million YouTube Millions of moms and dads are taking a different
subscribers and approach than the previous generation, employing the
more than a billion tactics of gentle parenting. Deena Margolin, 36, and
total views. Tech Kristin Gallant, 39, a licensed marriage and family thera-
giants like Elon pist and a parenting coach, respectively, are leading the
Musk, Sam Altman, charge with Big Little Feelings. They share anecdotes
and Mark Zucker-
berg have sat down from their own parenting experiences as well as tips
with him for hours for navigating tantrums, potty training, and other chal-
at a time. —L.H.P. lenges of early childhood with over 3.5 million followers
gram. They host a podcast and launched a line of
with Fisher-Price in 2025. —L.H.P.
 TE
EN
S
INER ENT
E E RT
A ER
TA

S
IN

ER
T
ER

EN

IN
S
EN R TA
TE

S
TE

ER
INE
R TA I
NERS EN

N
RS AI
EN RT
TER EN
TA I N E R S

Mark Phillips
@MARKPHILLIPS
RDCWorld head honcho
Phillips has led the
sketch collective group
to 7.3 million YouTube
subscribers and attracted
famous fans like Kendrick
Lamar. He also co-founded
Dream Con, an annual
convention for fandoms of
color. —Nathan Lately

Terrell Grice
@TERRELLGRICE
Grice, an R&B singer and
host of The Terrell Show,
showcases his knowledge
of music for more than
1.4 million YouTube
subscribers. In 2025, his
guests included Cynthia
Erivo, Halle Bailey, and
Lizzo. —Rachel Brodsky

@BOMANIZER

60 TIME July 27, 2026 PHOTOGR APH BY ELIZABETH RENSTROM FOR TIME
 Austin Telenko and Marideth Telenko
@COST N MAYOR
TikTok remains known for its dance content, to the point
where ultra-popular creators can rocket from short-form
video to the stage—or, in the case of Austin and Marideth
Telenko, a.k.a. Cost n’ Mayor, to their own off-Broadway
show. After meeting in 2019, the performers and choreog-
raphers started dating and collaborating on social. Today,
the duo—now married—have 7.5 million TikTok followers.
This year, Cost n’ Mayor premiered their first theatrical
show, 11 to Midnight, which co-starred Glee’s Heather
Morris and Dance Moms’ Nia Sioux. —R.B.

Madison
Grace Reiter Humphrey
@REITERGRACE @MADISON.
Grace Reiter will commit to the bit no HUMPHREYY
matter how weird it gets. Whether she’s If there’s a cringe
oversharing about an awkwardly placed video of bridesmaids
pimple on her comedy podcast That’s getting a little too
close to a groom,
Enough, squaring off with Tim Robinson on
Humphrey has prob-
HBO’s comic thriller The Chair Company, ably parodied it. Her
or regaling her 3.9 million TikTok followers comedic remakes of
G R I C E : A M A N D A E D W A R D S — G E T T Y I M A G E S; R E I T E R : L E V R A D I N — S I PA U S A / R E U T E R S; S E D E Ñ O : F R A Z E R H A R R I S O N — W I R E I M A G E /G E T T Y I M A G E S; H I G G I N S : V I C T O R B OY K O — G E T T Y I M A G E S

with bite-size sketches about Love Island, others’ real content

Reiter’s willingness to be the butt of any put her on the map,
joke means she always has the last laugh. earning her an audi-
After starring in the 2025 off-Broadway ence of 4.9 million
followers on TikTok
Parent Trap parody Ginger Twinsies, Reiter
and 2 million on
is set to appear in the Sundance teen Instagram. —L.H.P.
drama Run Amok later this year. —S.C.

Maura Higgins
@MAURAHIGGINS
In 2019, Maura Higgins became a fan favorite on the
U.K. iteration of Love Island for her deep Irish brogue,
straight-up delivery, and cheeky humor. She made waves
stateside after joining the show’s American franchise
in 2023, but her star went supernova on Season 4 of
The Traitors, where she won hearts with her aghast reac-
tion to winner Rob Rausch’s betrayal. Higgins has also
established herself as a fashion and lifestyle creator,
with a combined following of over 5.8 million and deals
with brands like L’Oréal Paris. This fall, she’ll compete on
Eric Sedeño Lucas Lopez Season 35 of Dancing With the Stars. —R.B.
@RICOTAQUITO @LUCASLOPEZVT

Eric Sedeño, who has more than 1.3 mil- The expert impres-
sionist’s early
lion followers on TikTok, originally
rose to social media fame by donning
clips re-enacting DeMarcus Shawn
interactions with his
various wigs for skits, like one where he @ARTBYDEMARCUSSHAWN
immigrant parents
imagines Sadness from Pixar’s Inside Out struck a chord with DeMarcus Shawn’s reactions and POV videos dramatiz-
dancing to a Sexyy Red song to become other first-generation ing realistic life moments—a teacher sitting next to you
“Badness” or one where he portrays American kids. Over during a movie in class, getting help at the register from
Harry Potter’s Severus Snape “if he time, Lopez’s comedy a manager, a mom rummaging through her purse—have
has evolved to
slayed,” among other takes on familiar made the 29-year-old ubiquitous online, with 6.3 million
feature satire about
characters. The 29-year-old Texas native friendships, dating, followers on TikTok and 1 million on Instagram. The
also shares his lived experience as a gay, and the absurdity Chicago native was working at Starbucks in 2017 when he
Latino zillennial on his LGBTQ+-focused of daily life for over started posting videos. He quit his barista job in 2021 to
pop-culture podcast, Wild Wild Web. 3.4 million TikTok try to make a living as a creator, and has continued to build
—Leslie Horn Peterson followers. —R.B. his repertoire, one uncle impression at a time. —L.H.P.
61
E

Juju Green
Kat Stickler @STRAW HAT GOOFY
@KATSTICKLER If you’re looking for a place where film geeks unite,
Stickler built her Juju Green’s platform is here for you. The former
combined fol- advertising copywriter, 34, traded in agency life for
lowing of roughly film-review content around 2020. Whether it’s press-

R O W E : E L I Z A B E T H R E N S T R O M F O R T I M E ; G R E E N : V I V I E N K I L L I L E A — M U LT I H O U S E / PA L P U B L I C R E L AT I O N S/G E T T Y I M A G E S
15 million sharing
funny sketches junket sound bites or in-depth discussions with the
and open, honest Who’s Who of Hollywood on his Get Rec’d podcast,
stories about new his interviews, breakdowns, and performance
parenthood and analyses of major releases garner tens of millions of
marriage, then views. In 2025, Green continued a partnership with
life after divorce the Academy Awards, served as host of Focus Fea-
and dating as a tures’ FocusFest, and took on a new gig at iHeart-
single mom. She
has partnered
Media as key entertainment contributor. —N.L.
with T-Mobile, Olay,
Amazon, Walmart,
and more.
—Kara Nesvig

Sabrina Brier
@SABRINA CINOMAN BRIER
Sabrina Brier is everybody’s friend. Or at least that’s how the
31-year-old creator jokingly presents herself on TikTok and Insta-
gram, where she’s best known for playing “that friend who ...” in
videos where she caricatures self-involved, obtuse individuals. (See:
“wedding guest who dated the groom in high school.”) In 2024, Brier
leveled up to Hollywood, where she made her formal acting debut as
substitute teacher Jessca (no i) on Abbott Elementary, and a series
adaptation is in the works for her 2025 audiobook, That Friend. —R.B.
62 Time July 27, 2026
 Time Off

WILDE AT
HEART
BY ELIANA DOCKTERMAN

Olivia Wilde draws on her

own heartbreak for her new
marital comedy The Invite

A DUMB-ON-PURPOSE COMEDY JENNIFER GARNER LEADS LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE

FROM THE WET HOT TEAM A NANTUCKET GIRLS’ TRIP MEETS A NEW GENERATION

PHOTOGR APH BY ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA 63

TIME OFF OPENER

livia Wilde beelines for The sprinklers,

O a respite from the sun on a sweltering May day

in Central Park. We’ve logged some 10,000
steps since meeting at the Alice in Wonderland
statue, where the actor-director snapped a picture for her
son, who just played the Mad Hatter in a school produc-
tion. Walking briskly around the reservoir, past elderly
bird watchers, teens taking graduation photos, and a run-
ner in a bikini, we receive subtle glances: even in a T-shirt
and jeans, Wilde is striking in the way only a movie star can
be, with wide eyes and sharp cheekbones. But I suspect
people are not just ogling but trying to eavesdrop, because
we’re chatting conspicuously about couples counseling,
open marriages, and how having children kills your libido.
Wilde thrills at the prospect of movement, setting a
pace to match her buoyant mood. “I don’t belong at a desk.
I don’t. I can’t. I hate it. After Don’t Worry Darling, I went
right into the development of giant studio movies, a pro-
cess that takes years and a lot of Zooming,” she says. She
is still working on a studio comedy that is inching toward
production. “After a while you think, ‘I didn’t get into this
to have a desk job. I need to just go make something to re-
member what we actually f-cking do.’”
What she made was The Invite, an independently fi-
nanced marital comedy that jump-started a bidding war at
the Sundance Film Festival in January. A24, which emerged △
triumphant, released the film on limited screens in late The entire cast, Harry Styles. “My character had this
June before opening nationwide July 10. In the movie, clockwise from experience of heartbreak that was not
Wilde and Seth Rogen play a couple on the rocks, Penélope top left: Rogen, foreign to me,” she says of The Invite.
Cruz and Edward Norton their intriguing upstairs neigh- Norton, Cruz, “The movie was in many ways pluck-
bors who venture down for a last-minute dinner party. and Wilde ing from experiences that I’ve had,
Wilde and Rogen’s characters have conflicting motivations and it was a relief to rip my heart out
for the evening: she hopes to befriend them, and he wants of my chest and plonk it on the table.”
to complain about their noisy sex. The neighbors have their She had not, she says, known her
own agenda. The chamber piece plays like a comic Who’s heart needed plonking. “Because
Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, if the couple at the center were of the safety of this ensemble, I felt
not master manipulators but depleted parents fumbling to capable of that. I remember being in
explain why they have grown so far apart. the middle of a scene and realizing
The filmmaking process was quick, unusual, and exactly that I was releasing something that
the type of production Wilde had always dreamed of. After had been embedded inside me that
reading a script by longtime writing partners Rashida Jones I hadn’t even acknowledged was still
and Will McCormack, she pitched the writers and cast on there,” she says. “I thought, I’ve been
workshopping it together. Sitting around a table in the extremely therapized; I’ve processed;
soundstage where the pilot for I Love Lucy was filmed, the I’ve worked through everything.
six of them tailored the roles to the actors and infused the But that is the power of catharsis
script with arguments, embarrassments, and confessions through art.”
from their own relationships. Wilde brought in renowned
psychotherapist Esther Perel to work with Cruz, who plays Though she always intended to di-
a therapist, and to offer advice on the marital ups and rect the film, Wilde had to be talked
downs of the story. Wilde then shot the film sequentially— into starring in it too. She agreed only
rare for small films and logistically impossible for larger after the rest of the cast insisted she
ones—in just 21 days on a set designed to mimic a labyrin- take the role of anxious Angela. “I had
thian San Francisco apartment. impostor syndrome,” she says. “The
In the sprinklers, Wilde looks like a woman freed—from prospect of acting opposite Edward
the demands of the studio system; from the baggage of Norton was not something I felt was
her previous film, Don’t Worry Darling, and all the gossip in the cards for me. Until The Invite,
it spawned; from the noise that surrounded her breakup I had more confidence as a direc-
with Jason Sudeikis and subsequent relationship with tor than as an actor. But through this
64 Time July 27, 2026
 onstage at CinemaCon; took another comedy these days, and now feels vin-
turn when she and Shia LaBeouf pre- dicated as she watches with audiences
sented different narratives about his who laugh and cringe in recognition
departure from the project; reached together.
an apex when leading lady Florence Wilde recognizes that people will
Pugh skipped press opportunities; inevitably draw parallels between her
and came to a bizarre conclusion with public breakups and the decisions
internet sleuths analyzing a video of made by characters in the movie. “If
Styles allegedly spitting on co-star people sense it looks like maybe she
Chris Pine at the Venice Film Festi- has been through the dissolution of
val. (Both actors deny this ever hap- a relationship and heartbreak, yeah,
pened.) The movie itself was full of I have, and I think that’s what gives
ideas, about the manosphere and (a me the muscle memory to represent
few years ahead of its time) tradwives, this character fairly,” she says. “I don’t
that didn’t quite align with some of its think I would have been able to play
promotion as an alluring romance be- Angela if I hadn’t really f-cking felt
tween Pugh and Styles’ characters. myself tossed around by life and re-
When I suggest that the drama sur- lationships. And I’m very open to the
rounding the movie might have been risk of confession. This sounds so pre-
a blow, career-wise, she says the per- tentious, but they say great art is con-
sonal upheavals were what most af- fession and should feel risky—that if
fected her—the aspects of her life that it doesn’t feel risky then you’re not
could never fully be captured in the doing something worthwhile.”
media. “Relationships are heartbreak-
ing in ways that people never see. Two nighTs before our walk,
There’s the synthesized tabloid ver- Wilde hosted a talk with Perel at the
process, I’ve kind of fallen in love with sion of life,” she says. “When you feel Streicker Center on the Upper East
acting again.” you’ve been reduced and overly syn- Side that was, judging from the audi-
Born in New York City and raised, thesized for maximum sales value, it’s ence members who introduced them-
mostly in D.C., by journalist parents, like judging a watermelon on water- selves at the microphone, almost en-
Wilde broke out in Hollywood as an melon candy. You haven’t really expe- tirely populated by therapists. The
icon of millennial television with roles rienced watermelon. But people are event was designed to cross-promote
on The O.C. and House. She tended to sure they know, and that is a whole the 20th anniversary of Perel’s best
play elusive women who communi- other type of heartbreak.” seller Mating in Captivity and Wilde’s
cated with withering looks rather than Still, the word comeback popped new film, which both ask the same
words, a stark contrast to the bubbly up repeatedly in reviews of The Invite question: Why does sexual desire
and talkative artist who pauses on our from Sundance (where Wilde also often fade in loving, committed part-
walk to compliment several muddy- appeared in Gregg Araki’s comedy nerships? As Perel opined on the defi-
pawed dogs. In hopes of finding more I Want Your Sex, out this summer, in a nition of cheating and why couples
control on set, she made her foray role opposite in every way to Angela: shouldn’t stay together “for the kids,”
into directing feature films with the a callous, domineering, leather-clad Wilde felt compelled to jump in and
2019 high school graduation comedy sex fiend). After The Invite’s premiere, assure the audience, “The film is a
Booksmart. A sort of spiritual sister to the director pulled two all-nighters comedy.”
the 2000s comedies Rogen made with listening to presentations from dif- And it is. There are jokes about
Evan Goldberg, like Superbad, the ferent studios vying to distribute the modern marriage and our deeply
raunchy and heartfelt film positioned film. “It’s like speed dating,” she says, psychoanalyzed society. But the
her alongside peers like Greta Gerwig, adding that the producers let her trick of the movie is how it vacillates
Jordan Peele, and John Krasinski as a choose the distributor. She insisted between laugh-out-loud physical
successful actor-to-filmmaker cross- on a theatrical release, a rarity for a comedy and somber conversations.
over story. Rogen’s character Joe is a bitter former
Her follow-up, Don’t Worry Dar- musician who teaches at a middling
ling, a thriller in the vein of The Step- conservatory. Wilde’s Angela attended
ford Wives, caused a media craze, to ‘It was a relief to rip art school before becoming a stay-
put it mildly. It began when Wilde was my heart out of at-home mother. Now she feels lost
linked romantically with Styles, one my chest and plonk and a little resentful toward Joe, who
of the movie’s stars; accelerated when is all too quick to point out that she
she was served custody papers in her it on the table.’ made the choice to stop working.
A 24

legal dispute with Sudeikis while OLIVIA WILDE “What do you do all day?” he asks
65
TIME OFF OPENER

after we have just watched a montage

of Angela manically assembling a
soufflé, laying out a charcuterie board,
and redecorating their home for their
guests. Equally cruel is the way Angela
waves off Joe’s chronic back pain, a
complaint he has lodged for so long it
has lost its meaning.
The actors clearly relish the
conflict. Wilde widens her eyes as
she aggressively presents Joe the
soufflé through the oven glass. Rogen
splays himself, theatrically broken, on
the floor. But the battles eventually
move the audience from laughter to
tears. “Isn’t that how it happens?”
asks Wilde as we climb up a twisting
dirt path in the Ramble. “A very
smart friend of mine said, we’re
never as vulnerable as when we’re
laughing.” (That friend was Phoebe
Waller-Bridge.)
Wilde cites as inspiration not
only Perel’s book but also her
famous TED talk on infidelity that Rogen and Wilde sparred on set over the fate of the movie’s quarreling couple
ends with the widely cited idea that
many people today have several key
romantic relationships in their lives, “I wanted to contextualize for the au- we feel compelled to sacrifice our own
sometimes with the same person: dience the film through my perspec- happiness for the aspiration of happy
“Your first marriage is over. Would tive on it,” she says. children.
you like to create a second one Their differences again came into “Americans have a puritanical sen-
together?” It’s a notion that inspired relief when Rogen—who is proudly sibility that distrusts pleasure, specifi-
debate during the making of The child-free—refused to believe that cally women’s pleasure, [and] this idea
Invite. The cast sparred over why many couples with children, like An- of sexuality persisting beyond parent-
this miserable couple had stayed gela and Joe, stop having sex. Wilde hood,” she says. As with the child in
together and whether they would was stunned. “It was an opportunity Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Joe
survive. Most at odds were Rogen and to see how the human struggles in and Angela’s daughter is mentioned
Wilde themselves. “When we shot long-term relationships in some ways but never seen—though for less mys-
it, Seth and I had two very different are consistent, and then in other ways terious reasons than in the Edward
opinions about what would happen are completely specific to the couple Albee play. “Parents don’t actually
to this couple,” she says. “There was themselves—and in Seth’s case, a to- consider themselves as individuals
a real romantic optimism that Seth tally singular experience,” says Wilde, unless they are away from their kids,”
brought to it. The assumptions that laughing. “Seth is a true romantic, and says Wilde. It is only because their
everyone could make about their apparently is just nailing marriage in daughter is at a sleepover that the
characters was revealing about their every single way, which is a testament reckoning can take place.
perspective on love.” to his incredible wife Lauren.” Wilde calls the ambiguous finale a
If Rogen was the optimist, did that Unhappy couples are common. But, Rorschach test—she’s polled the audi-
make Wilde the pessimist? “I would to paraphrase Tolstoy, each unhappy ence after every early screening: half
say cynic,” she corrects. “The more couple is unhappy in its own way. And have believed the couple has hope, the
time you spend being alive, I think Wilde’s couple is miserable in a way other half that they’re doomed. “The
the more cynical you get.” It’s why she only Americans can be. The Invite is goal was to have ambiguity without
chose to open the movie with an Oscar based on a Spanish play turned film, being annoyingly vague. We’re all just
Wilde quote: “One should always be The People Upstairs, which has al- reaching for the Graduate ending.” As
in love. That is the reason one should ready been remade in South Korea, for Wilde, even she has come to a dif-
AT S U S H I N I S H I J I M A

never marry.” (Olivia Wilde, it should Italy, Switzerland, and France in the ferent conclusion after watching the
be noted, was born Olivia Cockburn six years since its release. Wilde’s ver- film with audiences. “I love that it can
and changed her name to Wilde sion plays up the sanctimonious na- change based on your mood,” she says.
in honor of the Irish playwright.) ture of American parenthood, how And her mood today is very good. □
66 Time July 27, 2026
 REVIEWS

MOVIES comedy troupe The State and also the director

An affable, off-color of the 2001 cult hit Wet Hot American Summer;
Marino, another State and Wet Hot alumnus, is
comedy for steamy his co-writer. The gags here are loose-limbed
and knock-kneed, and there are lots of them:
summer days if one doesn’t quite land, you needn’t worry—
BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK another will be coming along soon. Some jokes,
including a riff on the history of the Wright
Brothers, feel vaguely Dada, as if Marino and
There’s a poinT every summer when jusT Wain had spent a long, happy stretch of aimless
about any of us could use a dose of ridiculous- days drinking coffee and free-associating. And
ness. It might hit right as the kids return from there’s plenty of mild raunchiness, including an
camp—or as you’re counting the days until they over-the-top sex scene rendered in dreamy-silly
go. Hottest day of the year? A dumb, breezy com- soft focus. (Here’s where Hamm and his bath-
edy is just the thing. Bad day at work? Maybe robe come in.) The whole enterprise glows with
Jon Hamm in a bathrobe is calling your name. friendly, pleasing daffiness.
In the absurd-comedy department, you could
do much worse than Gail Daughtry and the Best of all is Deutch’s Gail, whose sunbeam
Celebrity Sex Pass, in which Zoey Deutch plays demeanor barely conceals her flirty, mischie-
the Gail of the title, a bright-eyed, button-nosed vous side. Gail believes that once she’s achieved
small-town Kansas hairdresser engaged to her her goal of seducing Hamm, she’ll be ready
bland but seemingly devoted high school sweet- to settle down with Tom. Fat chance. Deutch
heart Tom (Michael Cassidy). With the wedding was marvelous as Jean Seberg in last year’s
just a few weeks away, Gail offhandedly intro- Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s sprightly
duces Tom to the concept of the celebrity pass, film about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s
in which each person in a committed partnership New Wave classic Breathless. Here, she shows
is allowed to have sex with one famous person of a knack for good-natured, slightly off-color
his or her choice, identified in advance. Tom isn’t loopiness. In the film’s early moments, Gail
sure he’s got a celebrity crush—Tilda Swinton is cheerfully explains to Otto why she and her
floated as a possibility—but it turns out he finds dud boyfriend were made for each other:
a candidate pretty fast. (To reveal who it is would “I finally got him to buy the cow after giving
spoil one of the movie’s throwaway pleasures.) ▽ him the milk for free.” Even in her exaggerated
Crestfallen, Gail heads to Los Angeles with her Deutch’s Gail innocence, there’s something delightfully un-
bestie co-worker Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) and friends: hinged about her. Any old schmuck can buy a
for a hairdressers’ conference. But her real aim following their own cow. What Gail’s kooky erotic odyssey teaches
is to solve her romantic befuddlement by sleep- yellow brick road her is that no one can fence her in. □
ing with her celebrity crush, who happens to be
Jon Hamm. How to find him? The guy selling
star maps on Hollywood Boulevard knows how
to locate the homes of Johnny Carson and Ed
McMahon—forget that both died years ago—but
has no idea where Hamm might reside. He does
give them a suggestion, though, leading them to
Ben Wang’s Caleb, an ambitious aspiring agent
at Creative Artists Agency. Caleb has no idea
how to find Hamm either, though he does track
down someone who might prove useful, Hamm’s
Mad Men co-star John Slattery, who now whiles
away his days of underemployment working out
his aggressions by punching a forlorn-looking
mannequin. The gang is rounded out by world-
weary paparazzo Vincent (Ken Marino), who has
never been able to snap a picture of Hamm—he
SONY PICTURES CL ASSICS

considers the actor his white whale.

Any resemblance to The Wizard of Oz, includ-
ing Gail’s wardrobe of snazzy red shoes, is purely
un-coincidental. Gail Daughtry was directed
and co-written by David Wain, a veteran of the
67
TIME OFF TELEVISION

◁
Wagons west: the Ingalls family,
reimagined for a new generation

take differentiates itself by devot-

ing its entire first season to the earlier
period. Charming patriarch Charles,
a.k.a. Pa (Luke Bracey), rolls out of
Wisconsin to seek his fortune on the
frontier, with a wife, Caroline (Crosby
Fitzgerald), who turns out to be preg-
nant, and two daughters in tow. The
eldest, Mary (Skywalker Hughes),
loves school and boys; on the other
side of puberty is her kid sister, Laura,
a spitfire tomboy brought to vivacious
life by Alice Halsey. An early encoun-
ter with wolves sets the tone for a suc-
cession of hardships: malaria, money
REVIEW
troubles, a home invasion.
Although the U.S. government has
Little House in a yet to finalize its purchase of this Kan-
sas territory from the Osage, settlers
divided America are already building the town of Inde-
BY JUDY BERMAN pendence. Ambivalent about leaving
Wisconsin, Caroline is befriended by
the officious Jemma James (Mary Hol-
LittLe House on tHe Prairie is Rebecca Sonnenshine, makes clear land), whose husband Eli (Michael
contested territory. Like the Osage from the beginning her determination Hough) is a railroad man. This couple
land where author Laura Ingalls to take her retelling in the opposite represents traditional America, look-
Wilder’s family squats in the novel direction. Within its first 10 minutes, ing to reproduce its institutions and
that gives the series its title—and the show introduces the Ingallses to a values and racism and xenophobia in
so many of the cultural artifacts we helpful Black doctor (based on a real the West. Their Victorian house looks
call Americana—it is the subject of person who also appears in the book) preposterous in this dusty hamlet.
mutually exclusive claims. When and a Native American family much The area’s more diverse and less
they were first published in the 1930s like themselves. These characters be- conventional residents prove to be
Wilder’s autobiographical children’s come the conscience of a volatile com- better friends to the Ingallses. Charles
books about growing up on the frontier munity in this solidly built adaptation, builds their cabin with a kind widower
offered something rare: adventure sto- which takes admirable care in de- and Civil War veteran, John Edwards
ries whose hero is a brave girl. Michael picting a girlhood on stolen land but (Warren Christie), who struggles with
Landon’s long-running TV adaptation, leaves little room for joy. alcohol; Edwards’ sometime compan-
which premiered in 1974, transformed The original Little House series ion (Rebecca Amzallag) is a fiercely in-
Little House into comfort food, broad- quickly moved past the events of the dependent bar owner. In between sav-
minded but schmaltzy. Wilder’s work eponymous book, in which the fam- ing lives, Dr. Tann (Jocko Sims) courts
has since faced criticism for depicting ily briefly settles in Kansas, on tribal a shopkeeper (Barrett Doss) who is pa-
ghastly attitudes toward Native Ameri- land known as the Osage Diminished tient about settling debts. And Laura’s
cans. (One character says, “The only Reserve, situating the Ingallses more fast friendship with an Osage neigh-
good Indian is a dead Indian.”) And in permanently in Minnesota. Netflix’s bor, Good Eagle (Wren Zhawenim
recent years, the image of a white pio- Gotts), connects the girls’ families.
neer family in homespun garb has been Both relatively tolerant, despite the
impossible to separate from the reac- mothers’ initial worries about outsid-
tionary tradwife trend. A vision ers, the households mirror one an-
So loaded is this iconography that of frontier other. Yet we also get to see the Native
the very existence of Netflix’s heav-
ily promoted Little House on the Prai-
multiculturalism American characters on their own. As
Good Eagle’s father William Mitch-
rie reboot might suggest conserva- battling ell (Meegwun Fairbrother), a farmer
tive pandering. Yet the series’ creator, white supremacy and translator who believes chasing
68 Time July 27, 2026
 interlopers off his people’s land would
be futile, is drawn into negotiations REVIEW
between the Osage and the Americans,
the question of the Ingallses’ complic-
ity becomes unavoidable.

It would be irresponsible, if not

impossible, to re-create the appar-
ently apolitical Little House I grew up
with in the 1990s, when girls passed
the books around classrooms and fell
asleep watching reruns of the show
on sick days. Necessary reckonings
have pulled the deepest wounds of
American history to the surface, frac-
turing the public into factions of the
wronged, the guilty, and those in hys-
terical denial. The Wilder family was,
itself, explicitly political. The Liber-
tarian Party presidential candidate
Roger MacBride, a protégé of Laura’s
daughter and editor Rose Wilder
Lane, inherited Wilder’s estate.
Sonnenshine’s intentions are noble
in transforming Little House into a vi-
sion of frontier multiculturalism bat-
tling entrenched white supremacy,
even if the show suggests a dubi-
ous moral equivalence between the
Ingallses and the Mitchells. Its paint-
erly exterior shots, all sun-dappled
meadows and nights lit by campfire,
surpass aesthetic expectations for Net-
flix fare. Halsey and Fitzgerald give
their characters real energy and depth.
T H E F I V E S TA R W E E K E N D : A D A M R O S E — P E A C O C K ; L I T T L E H O U S E O N T H E P R A I R I E : E R I C Z A C H A N O W I C H — N E T F L I X

But for all the many fiddle-led fam-

ily sing-alongs that comprise per-
haps its greatest concession to the
trad crowd, the series feels a bit flat.
Too many characters come across
as generic nice people, leaving the
Jameses to entertain us with their
priggish behavior. Episodes like the
Christmas-set “Peace on Earth” can
get so wrapped up in beatifying the
Ingallses, with moralizing monologues
and wordless moments of wonder,
that they drag. Although it’s been up-
dated with a serialized plot and re-
visionist overtones, this Little House
suffers from the same cloying excesses
as its predecessor. More childlike mis-
chief might’ve helped. Yet instead
of contorting the Ingallses into the
people we wish they’d been, maybe
it’s simply time we acknowledge that
theirs is not the enduring story we
once imagined it to be. □
69
 ADVERTISEMENT

CHINAWATCH
PRESENTED BY CHINA DAILY

All the village

is a stage
A theater village where art blurs the line between
audience and performer in every street and courtyard

BY BAI SHUHAO 14, his father died. It was only

through letters from relatives
The performance begins in Huichang that he began to
before you realize you have en- piece together the place his town itself provides the props.
tered the theater in Huichang, father had left behind. Huichang, at the confluence
Jiangxi province. At the heart of By 1986 Lai had become one of three rivers and embraced
this theater village this summer of the most influential figures by more than 1,000 yards of
stands a miniature cinema un- in Chinese-language theater Southern Song Dynasty (1127-
like any other: a black box that with Secret Love in Peach 1279) walls, was once a thriving
can rotate full circle. Blossom Land, now regarded inland port. Today people
Audience members step as a modern classic. In Chinese gather here again not for trade
inside, take their seats and wait lore Peach Blossom Land is but for performance.
for the curtain to rise. But there an unreachable utopia. In Lai’s At the entrance stands a
is no film. Instead, the stage work, both his father and Hui- 400-year-old banyan tree.
is the world outside: the town chang seemed to linger in the Beside it, a stone arch bears
square itself, its weathered fa- background. four characters: ci chu you xi
cades, passing pedestrians and When he first visited Hui- (“theater is here”).
clusters of curious onlookers. chang in 1997, the journey took Farther in rises another
During the just-concluded nearly 20 hours along mountain ancient banyan. At its roots lies
Huichang Theater Season 004, roads. Northwest Street, where an old well. Each year at the
this performance, titled Pan- his father once lived, was lined opening of the festival, Lai and
orama, unfolded almost daily. with crumbling houses. his guests draw water from it to
Crowds packed around the “I never thought Huichang pour onto the tree, a ritual that
small structure as actors drew was my Peach Blossom Land,” feels like a blessing for both the
passersby into the action, invit- Lai said. festival and the town.
ing them to dance, improvise In 2015 Lai staged one of his Close to the banyans is
and slip into unexpected roles. plays in Huichang for the first Huichang’s local museum, its
Even those with little interest time and vowed to return every walls crowded with wooden
in theater found themselves year. Two years later, when the plaques. In Hakka tradition,
lingering. One afternoon, county began renovating the these intricately carved pieces
among them was Brigitte Lin old town, he proposed turning are gifts of praise, symbols of
Ching-hsia, the revered star of his father’s old neighborhood honor passed between families
Chinese cinema, sitting quietly into a theater community. and generations.
inside the black box, watching. The first Huichang Theater The same Hakka architecture
For a moment, it was impos- Season opened in 2024. This shapes much of the town. Its
sible to tell who was performing year, in its fourth edition, the signature venue, the Courtyard
and who was simply living. festival brought nearly 30 Theater, was once an ancestral
That ambiguity feels fitting productions from China and hall built in 1722. For Hakka
here, because Huichang’s the- abroad, with nearly 400 perfor- families, such halls served as
ater village is itself a story, one mances across the town. the spiritual center of com-
written long before any curtain Despite not being born here, munal life, places to worship
rose. he has become unmistakably ancestors, settle disputes, and
In the 1980s, while studying local. Residents speak of him mark births, marriages and
in the United States, playwright less as a celebrity than as a funerals.
and director Stan Lai received neighbor. The theater still carries that
a letter from relatives in Hui- “I went to school with his history. Its walls are weathered,
chang introducing him to the nephew,” one resident said. its timber darkened by time. An
hometown he had never known. “I live right next to his old open courtyard frames the sky
His father was born there but house,” another said. above.
rarely spoke about it. In 1949 The origin story of Hui- Last year, when Lai invited 60
the family moved to Taiwan and chang’s theater village is com- actors from Greece to perform
later to the U.S. When Lai was pelling enough on its own. The here, many were visiting China
for the first time. Residents

China Watch materials are distributed by China Daily Distribution Corp. on behalf of China Daily, Beijing, China.
 ADVERTISEMENT

Students from
If you go Parkway Center
City Middle College
in Pennsylvania
attend a handicraft
class at Tianjin
Foreign Languages
School Affiliated
to Tianjin Foreign
Studies University
in May.
YAN DONGJIE /
CHINA DAILY

Youth exchange a
tale of brotherly love
From top: BY YAN DONGJIE The exchange included
Residents joint classes, cultural activi-
enjoy an A growing youth exchange ties, campus visits, themed
open-air program, as part of the Phila- discussions and homestays
performance delphia-Tianjin partnership, is with local families.
in Huichang, helping build new connections Organizers said the
Jiangxi between the next generation program is set to expand,
province. of Chinese and United States with plans already underway
CoraSon by leaders. for Tianjin students to visit
the French The partnership, estab- Philadelphia next year dur-
troupe Les lished in 1980, is among the ing U.S. Independence Day
Rustines de earliest sister-city relation- celebrations. The two schools
l’Ange. ships between China and the are also exploring year-round
The Sanjiang U.S. What began with official virtual exchanges and joint
Pedestrian exchanges has evolved into educational projects.
Bridge, an broader people-to-people For many students one
antique-style engagement, with youth pro- interesting thing was discov-
wooden grams playing an increasingly ering how much they had in
covered prominent role. common despite living on op-
bridge, is In 2024 the Foreign Affairs posite sides of the Pacific.
located at the Office of Tianjin, the Tianjin “We have a lot of similari-
confluence of Municipal Education Commis- ties, and I was shocked at just
the Xiangjiang, sion, Tianjin Foreign Languag- how many,” said Nathanael
Mianjiang, es School Affiliated to Tianjin Owen Targono, a Parkway stu-
and Gongjiang Foreign Studies University and dent. “I really enjoyed this trip
rivers in the World Affairs Council of and the interactions with my
Huichang. Philadelphia jointly launched new friends. I hope to keep in
PHOTOS BY helped them find hotels and the Junior Diplomats online touch with them.”
XINHUA AND guided them through the town program, creating a virtual During the visit, students
PROVIDED TO if they got lost. platform for young people practiced languages together,
CHINA DAILY “It’s here that they really get from both cities to connect. experienced traditional Chi-
to know what Chinese people “Every youth exchange nese culture and conversed
are like,” Lai said. sows seeds of friendship and about school life, hobbies,
In Lai’s view, it is that Hakka strength for bilateral ties,” said aspirations and global issues.
sincerity — straightforward Luan Jianzhang, an official Samuel Chueh, commis-
and unpretentious — that has with the Foreign Affairs Office sioner of the Mayor’s Com-
allowed the theater village to of Tianjin. “These students mission on Asian Pacific
thrive. are not just visiting another American Affairs in Philadel-
Here, theater has no thresh- country — they are becoming phia, said the exchange came
old. There is little distance the next generation of cultural at an opportune moment.
between performers and envoys, building a bridge of “I hope the children from
audiences. Perhaps that is understanding across the both countries not only get
why performance feels so im- Pacific.” to know each other, but also
mediate, so real and so deeply Following a visit by students understand each other’s
shared. from Tianjin Foreign Languages countries and cultures, and
School to Philadelphia in Febru- continue the deep friendship
Online ary, a delegation from Parkway in the future.”
Scan for a Center City Middle College
Wow! China in Pennsylvania completed a Meng Jiarui and Hu Yang
experience. return visit to Tianjin in May. contributed to this story.

Additional information is on file with the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

 6 QUESTIONS

Wilson Cruz The actor on the intersection of art and

advocacy, his trailblazing role on My So-Called Life, and
leading an LGBTQ nonprofit in 2026

You’ve been an advocate for authentically was to do it as an out

LGBTQ causes for decades, and person. I came out to my mom first.
are now board chair for Glisten, You described She didn’t crash the car, so that was
a nonprofit that supports making good. And then I came out to my fa-
schools safer for queer kids. How yourself as an ther when he asked me on Christmas
exactly does that part of your life
connect to your work as an actor?
“actorvist.” I Eve. He did throw me out that night.
My character experienced something
What I understood was that the see what you similar in the series. When that epi-
work I was doing in terms of visibil-
ity on television or onscreen, in my
did there. What sode aired, as the credits were roll-
ing, my phone rang, and it was my
art, was for the same reason that I does that word father saying, “OK, I think it’s time
was doing the work as an activist: so that we talk.”
that people could see us and under- mean to you?
stand that we were part of the world, What impact has the political and
that our stories were change agents. social environment of the past few
The way that we revealed ourselves years had on your work? This in-
as a people—as queer people and dustry is deluding themselves into
especially queer people of color— believing that content that stars or
through the medium of television is produced by or is about LGBTQ
and film and the stories we told on- people, and especially LGBTQ peo-
stage [changed] the way people felt ple of color, is not commercial. In
about us. And that correlates directly fact there’s overwhelming evidence
to what I feel is my most important to the contrary. The most popular
work, which is helping young people shows, the most popular films, the
understand that they are seen. This most culture-shifting, most dynamic
is work that is personal to me. work, is about us, is created by us.
It’s what changes the culture, and
How so? My work on My So-Called that’s what they’re afraid of.
Life as Rickie Vasquez was the rea-
son why my father and I were able to How do you move forward in the
come back together after he threw face of frustration? I will be honest
me out of my house after I came out with you that I went through a very
to him. So I understood the power of deep depression after the [2024]
that visibility in a very, very real way. election was over, mainly because
the way we were going to be able to
Take me back to that time in your do our work at Glisten was going to
life. As Rickie, you were the first change. Now so much of our work is
out actor to play an out lead on finding the funders to replace those
prime-time TV in the U.S. That corporate institutions that spent
was a real pioneer moment. When years telling us that they were with
you learned you got the part, what us through thick and thin. Well,
was going on in your life? It’s 1994. honey, thin came. But we are find-
L EO N B E N N E T T — G E T T Y I M A G E S/ PA R A M O U N T+

We are at the height of the AIDS epi- ing new partners. Sadly, the lessons
demic. I was 19 years old when we that I taught in the 1990s—along
made the pilot. And I knew person- with those first people who came out
ally that playing this role was going on TV and film, who taught us that
to be transformational for me, but we have to be visible—we have to re-
also transformational for the young teach a lot. So who better than me
people who’d never seen themselves and those of us who did it before to
on television. And the only way that help this new generation do it now?
I could do that work honestly and —LUCY FELDMAN
72 TIME July 27, 2026
Alix’s secret to stronger, healthier hair?
It’s actually Pantene.