FBI Arrests Milwaukee Judge Accused of Helping a Man Evade Immigration Agents

MILWAUKEE — The FBI on Friday arrested a Milwaukee judge accused of helping a man evade immigration authorities, escalating a clash between the Trump administration and the judiciary over the Republican president’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

FBI Director Kash Patel announced on social media the arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, who he said “intentionally misdirected” federal agents away from a man they were trying to take into custody at her courthouse last week.

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“Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public,” Patel wrote.

Dugan was taken into custody by the FBI on Friday morning on the courthouse grounds, according to U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Brady McCarron. She appeared briefly in federal court in Milwaukee later Friday before being released from custody. Her next court appearance is May 15.

“Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety,” her attorney, Craig Mastantuono, said during the hearing. He declined to comment to an Associated Press reporter following her court appearance.

Dugan is charged with “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest” and obstructing or impeding a proceeding. She’s accused of escorting the man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, and his lawyer out of the courtroom through the jury door on April 18 as a way to help avert his arrest, according to an FBI affidavit filed in court.

The affidavit suggests that Dugan was alerted to the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the courthouse by her clerk, who was informed by an attorney that they appeared to be in the hallway.

The affidavit describes Dugan as “visibly angry” over the arrival of immigration agents in the courthouse and says that she pronounced the situation “absurd” before leaving the bench and retreating to her chambers. It says she and another judge later approached members of the arrest team inside the courthouse, displaying what witnesses described as a “confrontational, angry demeanor.”

She asked one of the officers if they had a judicial warrant and was told that the warrant was instead administrative. After a back-and-forth over the warrant, the affidavit says, she demanded that the arrest team speak with the chief judge and led them away from the courtroom.

After directing the arrest team to the chief judge’s office, investigators say Dugan returned to the courtroom was and was heard saying words to the effect of “wait, come with me” before ushering Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer through a jury door into a non-public area of the courthouse. The action was unusual, the affidavit says, because “only deputies, juries, court staff, and in-custody defendants being escorted by deputies used the back jury door. Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.”

Dugan’s arrest comes amid a growing feud between the Trump administration and the judiciary over the president’s executive actions on immigration and other matters. Trump administration officials have sharply criticized what they have described as “activist” judges they say claim have overstepped their authority and unfairly impinged on the president’s executive powers by blocking many of his efforts.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who represents Wisconsin, called the arrest of a sitting judge a “gravely serious and drastic move” that “threatens to breach” the separation of power between the executive and judicial branches.

“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a Democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said in an emailed statement. “By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this President is putting those basic Democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.”

The case is similar to one brought during the first Trump administration against a Massachusetts judge, who was accused of helping a man sneak out a back door of a courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent.

That prosecution sparked outrage from many in the legal community, who slammed the case as politically motivated. Prosecutors dropped the case against Newton District Judge Shelley Joseph in 2022 under the Democratic Biden administration after she agreed to refer herself to a state agency that investigates allegations of misconduct by members of the bench.

The Justice Department had previously signaled that it was going to crack down on local officials who thwart federal immigration efforts.

The department in January ordered prosecutors to investigate for potential criminal charges any state and local officials who obstruct or impede federal functions. As potential avenues for prosecution, a memo cited a conspiracy offense as well as a law prohibiting the harboring of people in the country illegally.

“No one is above the law,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social media post Friday.

Dugan was elected in 2016 to the county court Branch 31. She also has served in the court’s probate and civil divisions, according to her judicial candidate biography.

Before being elected to public office, Dugan practiced at Legal Action of Wisconsin and the Legal Aid Society. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981 with a bachelor of arts degree and earned her Juris Doctorate in 1987 from the school.

—Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker in Washington contributed.

source https://time.com/7280489/fbi-arrest-judge-hannah-dugan-accused-helping-man-evade-immigration-agents/

Tesla Is No Longer the Only Benchmark for EV Success

It didn’t take long for Elon Musk’s political advocacy and work in the Trump Administration to erode Tesla’s position as America’s uncontestable electric vehicle leader. As left-leaning consumers and outraged moderates complained about his crusade to remake the U.S. government, Tesla’s car sales declined in the first quarter of 2025 from the previous year. And, on Tuesday, the company reported a 71% decline in net income for the same period. All of this has been reflected in a share price that has declined more than 40% since its peak last December.

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Not too long ago, Tesla’s struggles would have been seen as a warning sign for broader EV takeup—and the push for decarbonizing transportation more broadly. The company was the first in the U.S. to market an electric car with mass appeal and remains the biggest purveyor of such vehicles stateside. 

But the bigger picture has evolved: the success of EVs is no longer tethered to Tesla’s success. EV sales in the U.S. increased year-over-year for nearly every other automaker. In Europe, Volkswagen’s EV sales overtook those of Tesla, making the German company the continent’s top EV producer. Globally, Chinese automaker BYD was the best selling EV brand in the first quarter. Projections vary, but analysts still expect EV deployment to continue at pace—in the U.S. and around the world.

Tesla forged the path to EVs, but it may not be the leader that takes the U.S. all the way to an electric future. 

Just from looking at the numbers, it would be easy to roll your eyes at the suggestion that Tesla has lost any of its prowess. Despite the decline in sales, the company remains far and away the biggest seller of EVs. And, at the time of writing, it has a formidable financial position with a market cap of $880 billion—worth more than 20 times the Ford Motor Company.

“The future of the company is fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large-scale, large volume, vast numbers of autonomous humanoid robots,” Musk said on the earnings call.

But there’s more to Tesla’s market cap than EVs. On the company’s earnings call this week, Elon Musk and other senior executives did discuss the planned release of a new, lower-priced model, but much of the focus centered on plans for autonomous vehicles and AI-powered robots. Indeed, its valuation, which is more than 140 times its earnings, can in large part be interpreted as a bet that the company will have new technology breakthroughs beyond just selling EVs. 

Meanwhile, the picture for other automakers is complicated, to say the least. Many have pulled back on their EV ambitions, nixing some of the most ambitious plans for new factories amid evolving consumer sentiment and political whiplash in the U.S. as the new administration pulls back supportive policies. Even still, legacy automakers continue to roll out new models to fight for market share—including a range of lower-priced EVs aimed at attracting less wealthy consumers. Chevrolet, Ford, and Rivian all have models coming down the road aimed at the middle of the market—and do so without the political baggage that Musk has attached to Tesla. Globally, Chinese EVs have entered new markets at a price point well below those of any Western manufactured cars.

There’s no question that the path ahead remains complicated for EV deployment—and decarbonization of the transport sector. But, for the first time, looking to Tesla may not provide such a representative view.

To get this story in your inbox, subscribe to the TIME CO2 Leadership Report newsletter here.

This story is supported by a partnership with Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners. TIME is solely responsible for the content.

source https://time.com/7280460/tesla-no-longer-only-benchmark-ev-success/

7 Signs It’s Time to Take Your Memory Issues Seriously

If the neurologist Dr. Daniel Lesley sees 10 patients a day, at least half ask him the same question: Are the brain lapses they’re experiencing a normal part of aging? Or should they be worried?

“People have an absolute terror of losing their memory and thinking they’re losing themselves,” says Lesley, who works at Remo Health, a virtual dementia care company. “They don’t know what’s normal, what’s potentially a sign of something bad, and what’s reversible.”

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Just like every other organ in the body, the brain changes as you get older. Occasional, subtle memory problems—like not remembering where you parked at Costco—are usually no big deal. “Part of normal aging is paying less attention to details, and more attention to patterns and dynamics,” Lesley says. “It may also become more difficult to access things quickly,” like names and certain words.

When sporadic trouble becomes a regular occurrence, however, and other memory issues pop up—like repeating questions or missing appointments—it’s time for an evaluation. If you’re not sure, ask a spouse, friend, or adult child, suggests Dr. Zaldy S. Tan, director of the memory and healthy aging program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “Have a conversation: ‘Have you noticed me repeating anything or asking the same questions? Have you noticed me misplacing things more often?’ Because we’re not necessarily the best judge of our memory—we don’t remember what we forget,” he says.

If you decide to make an appointment, it helps to be prepared. Don’t just tell your doctor you’re getting forgetful, Tan advises; everyone has the occasional senior moment, no matter their age. Log your memory problems in a journal that you take to the visit. That way, “you can be specific about what you’re forgetting, how often it happens, and how consequential these things are,” he says.

We asked brain health experts to share the signs that it’s time to take your memory problems seriously.

You have trouble with familiar tasks

Young people often love to multitask, jumping between texting and watching TikTok videos and cooking dinner. That’s perfectly doable, because their brains are more plastic—able to easily change and adapt—than those of older folks, and their attention spans tend to be more robust, Tan says. Once you get to middle age, your capacity for paying attention starts to decrease; plus, you’ll probably have a lot more on your plate. That means that one day, when you’re making breakfast, you might blank on how to use the toaster oven. “I liken it to having a lot of balls in the air,” he says. “I used to be able to juggle five balls, and now I’m only able to juggle four. Guess what? The fifth is the toast, and it’s burned.”

Read More: 9 Things You Should Do for Your Brain Health Every Day, According to Neurologists

If you’re not multitasking, however, and you suddenly can’t remember how to use the washing machine, or you forgot to turn off the stove again and it caused a small fire, that’s more worrisome. “If you were distracted, I would say, ‘Hey, maybe you should pay more attention to what you’re doing,’” Tan says. But if that task was your sole focus, and you still ruined the clothing because you washed it in bleach, consider seeking an evaluation.

You miss your usual commitments

If you start dropping the ball on routines or activities you’ve been doing for a while, something more serious than normal aging could be at play. One of Tan’s patients, for example, had picked up her grandchildren from school for years, but suddenly forgot to do so one day. “I think she thought it was a Saturday, not a Friday,” he recalls. “In and of itself, it’s not like, ‘Oh, you have dementia.’ But it’s certainly something worth noting.” 

When to worry depends on your baseline, he adds. For some people, forgetting one important commitment might be so out of character that it warrants at least mentioning to a primary care doctor. Others, however, may realize they were stressed or especially busy when it happened, and probably don’t need to take it too seriously until it becomes a pattern.

Your personality or mood changes

Several symptoms that aren’t memory-related are associated with early Alzheimer’s and dementia, including irritability, depression, anxiety, and apathy. “You can see some of these changes beginning years before the diagnosis of dementia is confirmed,” says Dr. Gary Small, chair of psychiatry at Hackensack University Medical Center. “People tend to think of this as a cognitive disease, but it’s a behavioral disease, too.”

You misplace important belongings

If you’re walking in the door and talking on the phone—while making a beeline to the fridge for a snack—you might set your keys down and forget exactly where you put them. That’s because you were multitasking, Tan says. Misplacing things becomes much more concerning, he adds, if it happens frequently, which all depends on your baseline. Some people are naturally scatterbrained, while others are highly organized, so if they suddenly start losing things, it’s a red flag.

Read More: The Best Way to Treat Insomnia

Tan always asks patients: Did you forget something important? For example, maybe you left your credit card at a restaurant or your wedding ring at the Pilates studio. Making a habit of misplacing those types of items, which people usually pay close attention to, is more alarming than forgetting where you tossed your keys, he says. Once it happens a few times, or enough that it’s causing a real headache in your life, bring it up with your doctor.

You repeat certain questions

Some people are notorious for telling the same stories over and over again—and in those cases, it may be little more than a (sometimes annoying) personality trait. Yet one of the most common complaints Tan hears about is that people ask the same questions or repeat the same stories—and it usually comes from their spouse, friend, or adult child. “They’ll say, ‘My mom keeps repeating the same questions, or telling me the same stories,’” Tan says. He responds by asking what the allegedly forgetful person was doing the first time around. If they were driving and listening to a podcast while asking what time the birthday party at cousin Tom’s was the next weekend—and then they asked again a few days later—that’s usually no big deal. “But if there’s no reason to believe that they just weren’t paying attention, then that is of concern,” he says. It really comes down to their usual state: If your mom has always been a repeater, that’s just her. But if it’s a new development, it’s worth investigating.

You get lost in familiar places

Following directions is based on visual-spatial memory. As Tan explains: “To get to the grocery store, I know that I have to turn right here, and then left there, and then there’s a drugstore on the corner, and that’s when I make a sharp left.” When people start getting lost in familiar places, it’s usually because their visual-spatial memory is affected. Provided you’re paying close attention to where you’re driving, “That’s a red flag, unless a place has changed a lot,” he says.

Your parent developed Alzheimer’s at the same age

Age of symptom onset tends to be consistent within families. If your mother developed dementia at 85, and you’re occasionally misplacing your keys in your early 60s, you’re probably experiencing normal aging, Small says. If she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 62, on the other hand, there’s more reason to take your slip-ups seriously.

Read More: 9 Ways to Set Healthy Boundaries With Your Parents

Over the years, Small has treated plenty of people with mild cognitive impairment, and many remain relatively stable with interventions like lifestyle changes and medication. “There’s a lot of pushback to finding out,” Small says. “But you can do a lot to keep your mind healthy, and even if you do have a diagnosis of early dementia or mild cognitive impairment, it’s not a reason to run away. It’s really a reason to be proactive.”

source https://time.com/7280005/memory-issues-red-flags/

OpenAI Wants to Go For-Profit. Experts Say Regulators Should Step In

In the latest development in an ongoing struggle over OpenAI’s future direction—and potentially the future of artificial intelligence itself—dozens of prominent figures are urging the Attorneys General of California and Delaware to block OpenAI’s controversial plan to convert from its unique nonprofit-controlled structure to a for-profit company. 

In a letter made public April 23, signatories including “AI Godfather” Geoffrey Hinton, Harvard legal professor Lawrence Lessig, and several former OpenAI researchers argue the move represents a fundamental betrayal of OpenAI’s founding mission. 

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“The proposed restructuring would eliminate essential safeguards, effectively handing control of, and profits from, what could be the most powerful technology ever created to a for-profit entity with legal duties to prioritize shareholder returns,” the letter’s authors write. It lands as OpenAI faces immense pressure from the other side: failing to implement the restructure by the end of the year could cost the company $20 billion and hamstring future fundraising.

OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a non-profit, with its stated mission being to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) “benefits all of humanity” rather than advancing “the private gain of any person.” AGI, which OpenAI defines as systems outperforming humans at most economically valuable work, was seen as potentially world-changing but also carrying clear risks, especially if controlled solely by a for-profit company. By 2019, believing they’d need to attract outside investment to build AGI, OpenAI’s leadership created a “capped-profit” subsidiary controlled by the original nonprofit—a hybrid that has allowed the firm to take on over $60 billion in capital over the years to become one of the most valuable startups in history. CEO Sam Altman himself testified to Congress in 2023 that this structure “ensures it remains focused on [its] long-term mission.”

Then, in December, OpenAI proposed dismantling that unique arrangement, morphing its capped-profit arm into a public benefit corporation, which would take control of OpenAI’s operations and business. The original nonprofit, while relinquishing direct control, would become—through owning a significant equity in the new company—a massively endowed foundation; it would hire its own leadership to fund and pursue separate charitable work in fields such as science and education. OpenAI says the new arrangement would enable them to “raise the necessary capital with conventional terms like others in this space.” Indeed, the need for such terms appears already baked into recent deals: investors from OpenAI’s most recent $40 billion fundraising round, finalized in March, can withdraw half that amount if OpenAI doesn’t restructure by the end of this year.

“Our Board has been very clear: our nonprofit will be strengthened and any changes to our existing structure would be in service of ensuring the broader public can benefit from AI. Our for-profit will be a public benefit corporation, similar to several other AI labs like Anthropic – where some of these former employees now work – and xAI, except that they do not support a nonprofit,” an OpenAI spokesperson told TIME via email. “This structure will continue to ensure that as the for-profit succeeds and grows, so too does the nonprofit, enabling us to achieve the mission.”

Under the restructure, board members would still legally have to consider OpenAI’s founding mission—albeit it would be downgraded, having to be weighed against profits. “The nonprofit has the authority to basically shut down the company if it thinks it’s deviating from [OpenAI’s] mission. Think of it as an off-switch,” Stuart Russell tells TIME. Russell is one of the letter’s signatories and a UC Berkeley computer science professor, who co-authored the field’s standard textbook. “Basically, they’re proposing to disable that off-switch,” he says.

That OpenAI’s competitors are for-profit is besides the point, says Sunny Gandhi, vice president of political affairs at youth-led advocacy group Encode Justice and one of the letter’s signatories. “It’s sort of like asking a conservation nonprofit why they can’t convert to a logging company just because there are other logging companies out there,” he says. “I think that it would be great if xAI and Anthropic were also nonprofit, but they’re not,” he adds. If OpenAI wants to prioritize competitiveness over its original mission, Gandhi says “that’s the problem that their original structure was trying to prevent.”

The open letter’s targeting of the Attorneys General Rob Bonta of California and Kathy Jennings of Delaware is strategic. In March, Elon Musk lost his bid for an immediate preliminary injunction that would block OpenAI’s conversion, but the decision turned largely on Musk’s questionable legal standing—or interest in the case—not the conversion’s inherent legality. The judge indicated Musk’s argument that the for-profit shift breaches OpenAI’s charitable charter is worthy of further consideration, expediting the trial to this fall. Unlike Musk, however, California and Delare’s Attorneys General have a clear legal interest in the case.

California’s Attorney General Rob Bota’s office is reportedly already investigating OpenAI’s plans, and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings has previously signalled she intends to scrutinize any restructuring. Neither responded to TIME’s request for comment on the letter specifically. But how they act may set a precedent, signaling whether corporate governance structures designed to preserve a company’s ideals can withstand the financial gravity of the AI gold rush, or will ultimately buckle under its weight.

source https://time.com/7279977/openai-for-profit-letter-elon-musk/

You Didn’t Have to End This Way

The hit thriller You, whose fifth and final season just dropped on Netflix, managed to be both chameleonic and consistent. Each season, a romantic psychopath named Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) moved to a new place and projected his fantasies on a new woman, only to attain her and find himself dissatisfied with the flesh-and-blood person in front of him. Why were these women not flattered by his willingness to kill for them? (Never mind that some of those murder victims were their friends and family.) Why did they feel the need to exert their own wills? They, inevitably, needed to be locked up. From there, their fates were sealed.

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In this final season, a woman ridiculously nicknamed Brontë (Madeline Brewer) purposefully attracts Joel’s attention. A onetime student of Joe’s Season 1 victim Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), Brontë tries to entrap Joe and prove his guilt, only to briefly doubt he could truly be evil and fall for him. The writers apparently intend for Brontë to be a stand-in for the audience: A woman who knows Joe’s murderous past but is simultaneously susceptible to his charm. They also grant her the reward of executing the ultimate punishment for Joe: Shooting off the misogynist’s manhood, humiliating him in a public trial, and sentencing him to a fate worse than death for a self-styled romantic—a lonely life spent in a prison cell.

If that all sounds rather blunt, it’s because You dispenses with any sense of subtlety in its final season. The show assumes its audience—like Brontë—forgets that Joe, a serial killer whose modus operandi amounts to locking people in a box, is a bad guy, or that the love he professes to have for his female victims is really just a violent, obsessive form of objectification. Which left two of its longtime fans on the TIME culture team feeling a bit disappointed and condescended to. So, after groaning our way through the finale, we regrouped for a postmortem.

Judy Berman: I was an early fan of You, back when it was airing on Lifetime and no one seemed to know it existed, before it showed up on Netflix and became such a hit that the streamer saved it from cancellation. Seasons 1 and 3, in particular, strike a really exhilarating balance between twisted thrills and social satire—but I even had fun with the weaker seasons. So it pains me to say that I found these last 10 episodes to be a repetitive slog, culminating in a scoldy, didactic finale that insulted my intelligence. “No, really, serial killer Joe Goldberg is a bad person” is not exactly the mind-blowing revelation it’s presented as being throughout Season 5.  

In retrospect, the writing was on the wall by the fifth episode, when Joe and his new “you,” Brontë, talk about the dark romance genre and she insists, “I am not your trope.” It’s like she’s speaking right to the viewer. Though there were plenty of twists left to come, that was the moment I realized the show was preparing to sacrifice its sharp wit in order to leave viewers with a Very Important Lesson. Eliana, at what point in the season did you start to despair?

Eliana Dockterman: I was frustrated from the first episode. Each season, Joe has wormed his way into a different elite group—New York literary society, L.A. wellness gurus, suburban Stepford Wives, the landed gentry of England—and skewered that particular genre of wealthy folks. It was hard not to delight in Joe’s murdering sprees when the focus of his ire was so often on the entitled and cruel—even if innocent people died along the way. 

This meandering final season did not have a specific group as its target. Instead, it turned an accusatory finger at the audience for indulging in Joe’s past exploits. The writers assumed a lack of sophistication from the audience—that we cannot at once enjoy an “eat the rich” narrative and acknowledge that misogynistic serial killers are bad people—that frankly felt a little insulting. Badgley has made no secret of the fact that he was discomfited by fans online begging Joe Goldberg to lock them in cages. But Season 5 of the series takes these thirsty tweets at face value rather than with the sense of irony with which they were likely written.

And so Joe gets punished in the most literal way possible. Let’s just say it, in the finale, Joe is shot in the penis. Subtle!

JB: That was bonkers. And of course we had to then see people on the internet roasting Joe for, er, losing a few inches… or whatever the actual damage was. As if we couldn’t have figured out on our own that this is a guy whose sexual exploits deserve nothing but our derision.

To go back to what you were saying about past seasons, one of the things I always liked about You was that it was smart enough—and it trusted its audience to be smart enough—to satirize more than one thing. On one hand, you had these sendups of rich, elitist social worlds that made Joe’s murder sprees kind of frictionless. And in later seasons there was the added element of genre parody; Season 3 took the piss out of Real Housewives/Desperate Housewives type entertainment, while Season 4 spoofed the Agatha Christie-style whodunits that have been everywhere over the past few years. At the same time, especially in Season 1, you had the character of Joe as a thought experiment: What if the bookish, hopelessly devoted guy—like Badgley’s own breakout character, Gossip Girl’s Dan “Lonely Boy” Humphrey—who is the hero of so many rom-coms were a real person? Wouldn’t he be kind of a delusional, nightmare stalker? Put all those elements together, and the show remained fun and witty and insightful despite all of its darkness because viewers never got attached to any one character.

Season 5 broke that pattern by speaking solely to the contingent New Yorker critic Emily Nussbaum has called “bad fans”—viewers who fundamentally misunderstand the shows they love by actually rooting for psycho protagonists like Breaking Bad meth kingpin Walter White. Are there really women out there who want Badgley to put on his Joe Goldberg cap and choke them? Probably! But, as you said, Eliana, most of the chatter to that effect surely comes from fans who a) have a sense of humor about what often used to be a very funny show; and b) understand the difference between fantasy and reality. So why would you end a great run with an utterly humorless lecture to a small group of bad fans? Breaking Bad and The Sopranos and Mad Men didn’t need to condescend to their viewers, and neither does You. 

ED: My theory is someone came up with the final monologue of the series, and they constructed the entire season around getting Joe to a place in which he could utter that last line. 

The series ends with Joe Goldberg sitting in prison reading a lusty fan letter. He muses, “Why am I in a cage when these crazies write me all the depraved things they want me to do to them? Maybe we have a problem as a society. Maybe we should fix what’s broken in us. Maybe the problem isn’t me. Maybe it’s you.” 

Cue: Radiohead’s “Creep.” Again, subtle. Not only does Joe outright state the thesis of the show for anyone too busy folding laundry or cooking dinner to have paid attention to the last five seasons, but he says the title of the show! Out loud! Get it?? Someone got too excited by that prospect. What did you think of this coda, Judy?

JB: I hated it, Eliana. Hated it. Not because I don’t think there’s any truth to it. Joe’s final voiceover is so broad and vague and easy that you can’t really argue with it. Obviously “we have a problem as a society.” We have many of them, no small number of which cluster around the eons’ worth of ambient misogyny that shaped norms around heterosexual love! Obviously we all need to do some introspection about this stuff. This is, in fact, the basic premise from which You sprang, not the destination it should’ve reached after a fully circular five seasons.

There’s a somewhat more specific line in this vein earlier in the finale, when Brontë and Joe are having their final showdown in the woods. “The fantasy of a man like you is how we cope with the reality of a man like you,” she tells him. I think there’s actually something worth considering in what she’s saying there. It made me flash back to Joe killing Clayton, who was supposed to be Brontë’s ally in taking down Joe but couldn’t restrain himself from trying to hurt her once their plan went sideways. Do women obsess over serial killers and vampires and “fairy smut” (as Joe calls it at one point in the season) because there’s so much violent misogyny in the world that we find ourselves drawn to the violent misogynists who promise to cherish and protect us? 

For me, that line begins to express an idea the season could’ve explored with depth and nuance. It could’ve shown how that sort of Stockholm Syndrome psychology manifests rather than just telling us about it, as an afterthought. I found that to be a real missed opportunity.

ED: I am intrigued by that theory about why women are attracted to stories of true crime and would have happily watched an exploration of that topic. But the show feels like a remnant of the #MeToo era in which it premiered—one in which toxic men masquerading as nice guys were something we’d just started discussing rather than an omnipresent political force.

In that vein, I want to touch on Joe’s son, Henry. As a person currently pregnant with a boy, who doomscrolls articles about the growing influence of the “manosphere” before she falls asleep at night, I’m deeply interested in—and anxious about—how boys are drafted into the online toxic hellscape. Henry commits an act of violence early in the season, and the implication is he’s picking up on his dad’s anger. I wish Henry’s psychology had been explored more, but ultimately he’s largely relegated to pawn status in the legal battle between Joe and his wife. I guess not every show can be Adolescence.

source https://time.com/7279979/you-season-5-series-finale-recap/

Trump Criticizes Putin in Rare Rebuke, Urging Russian Leader to ‘Stop’ After Deadly Attack on Kyiv

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday offered rare criticism of Vladimir Putin, urging the Russian leader to “STOP!” after a deadly barrage of attacks on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.

“I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”

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Russia struck Kyiv with an hourslong barrage of missiles and drones. At least nine people were killed and more than 70 injured in the deadliest assault on the city since last July.

Trump’s frustration is growing as a U.S.-led effort to get a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia has not made progress.

Trump lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday and accused him of prolonging the “killing field” by refusing to surrender the Russia-occupied Crimea Peninsula as part of a possible deal.

Zelensky has repeated many times during the war that began when Russia invaded in February 2022 that recognizing occupied territory as Russia’s is a red line for Ukraine. Zelensky noted Thursday that Ukraine had agreed to a U.S. ceasefire proposal 44 days ago as a first step to a negotiated peace, but that Moscow’s attacks had continued.

Trump’s criticism of Putin is notable because Trump has repeatedly said Russia, the aggressor in the conflict, is more willing than Ukraine to get a deal done.

“I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelensky,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “So far it’s been harder, but that’s OK. It’s all right.”

In his dealings with Zelensky and Putin, Trump has focused on which leader has leverage. Putin has “the cards” and Zelensky does not, Trump has said repeatedly. At the same time, the new Republican administration has taken steps toward a more cooperative line with Putin, for whom Trump has long shown admiration.

Trump is set to meet later Thursday with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre to discuss the war in Ukraine, U.S. tariffs and other issues.

Norway, a member of NATO and strong supporter of Ukraine, shares a roughly 123-mile (198-kilometer) border with Russia.

Gahr Støre said in a social media post Thursday that he would underscore during the talks that “close contact between Norway and the USA is crucial.”

“We must contribute to a lasting and just peace in Ukraine,” he said.

The White House announced Tuesday that Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, would visit Moscow this week for a new round of talks with Putin about the war. It would be their fourth meeting since Trump took office in January.

source https://time.com/7279918/trump-criticizes-putin-public-rebuke-deadly-kyiv-attack/

The Story Behind Japanese Action Thriller Bullet Train Explosion

Trains have been popular in cinema arguably since the beginning of film, when the Lumière brothers’ “The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station” became one of the first movies ever made and commercially screened in 1896. From the silent Civil War movie The General to Alfred Hitchcock’s suspenseful Strangers on a Train to the quiet romance of Before Sunrise, trains propel narratives across genre and time. For the Japanese filmmaker Shinji Higuchi, an interest in trains on screen dates back to at least 1975, when he saw The Bullet Train as a fourth grader. Fifty years later, it remains one of his favorite films and he has directed its sequel: the action thriller Bullet Train Explosion, out April 23 on Netflix.

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Shinji recalls being particularly affected by The Bullet Train’s depiction of Japanese National Railway staff members. In the film’s press notes, he writes, “I liked watching ordinary workers, who had a strong sense of duty to do something about the unbelievable situation, give everything they had to perform their jobs.” 

Speaking with TIME through an interpreter, Shinji says he wanted to make sure to give the original story its due when making the sequel. 

“I really had to grapple with how I wanted to approach the themes that would be depicted in this film,” Shinji says. “It was quite an arduous task for me, and I had to put my all in it.” 

Let’s break down the deep cinematic roots of Bullet Train Explosion, and how Shinji brought one of film’s first subjects into the modern action movie world.

Bullet Train Explosion’s direct inspiration

Netflix’s Bullet Train Explosion is a sequel to 1975’s The Bullet Train, which was directed by Junya Sato and stars Ken Takakura, Sonny Chiba, and Ken Utsui. The original film tells the story of a perilous trip undertaken by Hikari 109, a high-speed, first-generation bullet train traveling from Tokyo to Hakata. Shortly after Hikari 109’s departure, the railway security head is informed that a bomb has been planted. If the train slows below 80 kilometers per hour (roughly 50mph), it will explode. Railway staff and the police work to keep the 1,500 passengers safe, while a $5 million ransom is demanded.

In Bullet Train Explosion, Shinji keeps the same general premise as The Bullet Train, but ups the ante and expands the focus. In the 2025 sequel, the train’s speed can’t dip below 100 kilometers per hour or roughly 62 mph (the train can reach a top speed of 320 kilometers per hour, or roughly 199 mph), and the ransom is a whopping 100 billion yen (roughly $710,360,000). The mysterious ransomer asks the sum to be raised by the general public, depicting a social media culture that moves faster than the fastest of trains. Unlike the 1975 film, which focuses more on? we spend more time with those passengers, which include a scandal-embroiled politician (Machiko Ono), a YouTube celebrity (Jun Kaname), and a gaggle of teenage schoolchildren. On the staff side, train conductor Kazuya Takaichi (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) is as close to a hero-protagonist as we get in a story about the efficiency of working together.

Shinji’s adoration of both the original film and its depiction of Japanese railway culture shines through in Bullet Train Explosion, which eschews the classic arc of a Hollywood action movie for a Japanese tale of collective problem-solving and the benefits of being good at one’s job. It’s what Spider-Man 2 might have looked like if, instead of Peter Parker stopping a careening “L” train with only his sticky webs and superhuman strength, he was aided by an idealistic train conductor, a sleepy mechanic, and a dedicated team back at the Chicago Transit Authority—and if that was the whole movie.

With Bullet Train Explosion, Shinji also makes an effort to deepen the mechanical realism of the franchise, saying in the film’s press notes that the original movie was criticized for the way it portrayed trains.  “As someone who likes both movies and railroads, I was really upset by this response,” he writes. “So when we started this project, I wanted to make something that wouldn’t face this same criticism. I talked to experts knowledgeable about bullet train designs and researched the actual mechanisms.” 

Unlike the original film, the Netflix production included support from a major Japanese railway company, the East Japan Railway Company. “The [JR East] staff knew about the original film and wanted to show real bullet trains to people around the world,” Shinji explains in the press notes. “This feeling matched well with our intent to show real bullet trains on the screen.” 

When filming on a real-size bullet train carriage was not possible for a scene, Shinji used miniature models. “As much as the budgeting allowed, we would make models that were as big as possible, model trains that would probably fit on maybe two tables,” he tells TIME. “And then we would wreck those models.”

How is Bullet Train Explosion connected to Speed?

If the shared premise of Bullet Train and Bullet Train Explosion sounds familiar, then you’ve probably seen Speed, the 1994 Hollywood action movie classic starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. In it, an LA bus is held hostage by a bomber threatening to blow up the vehicle if it drops below 50 mph (80 kilometers per hour), or if a ransom of $3.7 million isn’t paid. The 20th Century Fox film was the fifth highest-grossing film of 1994, and had a 1997 sequel. 

It seems hard to believe, but there is no direct connection between 1975’s The Bullet Train and 1994’s Speed. Speed screenwriter Graham Yost has gone on record saying the idea for Speed came from a 1985 American film called The Runaway Train. The film was recommended to Yost by his father, Elwy Yost, a Canadian TV personality who hosted TVOntario’s Saturday Night at the Movies from 1974 to 1999. The Runaway Train was directed by Andrei Konchalovsky and stars Jon Voight and Eric Roberts as two incarcerated men who escape prison only to end up on a train without brakes, careening across the frozen Alaskan wilderness.

The plot thickens because Runaway Train was based on an original screenplay from Japanese film legend Akira Kurosawa, known for medium-defining works such as Rashomon and Seven Samurai. In the 1960s, Kurosawa wrote a script, alongside frequent collaborators Hideo Oguni and Ryūzō Kikushima, about a runaway train. Kurosawa was set to direct the international co-production in New York in late 1966, but shooting was canceled at the last minute due to difficulties with American financial backers. The script would be used for Runaway Train two decades later. 

Shinji notes that a 1966 American TV movie called The Doomsday Flight was an inspiration for 1975’s The Bullet Train. Written by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, the film follows an airliner threatened by a bomb that will detonate if the plane drops below 4,000 feet. The Doomsday Flight was very popular. When it aired on NBC in December 1966, it became the most-watched TV film ever, up to that point.

A Japanese movie for global audiences

“I love bullet train carriages, so I regard the bullet train as a star in my film,” says Shinji. “How to aesthetically approach shooting the bullet train was very important to me.” From the perspective of someone living in the U.S.—where we’re still waiting for the launch of our next generation of high-speed trains, initially planned for 2021—the trains and train culture depicted in Bullet Train Explosion can feel like a science fiction film.

Shinji notes that the celebration of efficiency and teamwork is something that exists in the 1975 film. “It is [a theme] that we also aspire after [in Bullet Train Explosion]: people who are diligent, people who follow the rules, and people in uniform,” says Shinji. “Maybe it’s a very Japanese thing. Maybe the youngsters now are a bit different, but for boys of our generation, there was something wonderful about looking towards the same goal and growing up.” 

While Shinji recognizes that, in some ways, Bullet Train Explosion is a Japanese story, he is not worried about its relatability for global audiences. “Of course, it is a domestic story, but I didn’t want to make something that would only resonate with the Japanese audience,” he says. “I wanted a universal touchstone in the emotions.”

Compared to some of the previous films Shinji has worked on, such as the live-action Attack on Titan or Shin Godzilla, it was easier to ground the story in a reality diverse audiences could recognize. “[With previous films], it was all about, how do I connect that gap between reality and something that’s far out there,” he says. “But this is something that could happen in reality. There are perhaps some eccentric characters in this film, but these are very real people that you would see next to you.” 

It helps that, at its center, is a mode of transportation that is so thrilling, whether it is part of your culture or not. “It is indeed an extraordinary and exciting journey on the bullet train ride,” says Shinji. “So it’s quite different from other means of transportation, and we hope that we are able to deliver that excitement to you.” 

source https://time.com/7279569/bullet-train-explosion-netflix-history/