22 Essential Works of Indigenous Cinema

Indigenous people have been telling stories for centuries longer than the film industry has existed. Yet historically, Hollywood has ignored them. Throughout the 20th century, American movies largely portrayed indigenous people in limited, often non-speaking roles, and mostly confined them to narratives about the 19th century period of frontier expansion. In 1998, Smoke Signals—the first film with a national theatrical release written, directed, co-produced, and acted by Native Americans—inspired a wave of indigenous filmmakers to produce films about their communities set in the present day. About 25 years later, more indigenous filmmakers than ever before are getting the greenlight to make TV shows and movies.

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The current golden age of indigenous films is the result of activism, including the viral Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline from 2016 to 2017 and a push to make more films that represent the diversity of American life after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. This golden age has also been bolstered by the success of shows like Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls, comedies that closely observed contemporary Native American life, that debuted in 2021.

TIME asked indigenous filmmakers and film historians from around the world about the essential films that reflect upon and give insight into indigenous life. The list includes thrillers, documentaries, horror movies, and love stories.

“So many films are getting made, and so many voices are being heard,” says Sterlin Harjo, a Seminole and Muscogee filmmaker and the creator of the Emmy-nominated Reservation Dogs. “I’ve seen short films recently that are going to blow people away. We finally have the freedom to be ourselves and tell our stories.”

The Exiles (1961)

Director: Kent Mackenzie

In 1952, the federal government created the Urban Relocation Program to enable Native Americans to move off reservations and into urban areas like Los Angeles, but it didn’t necessarily give Native Americans the resources they needed to make such a big move. The Exiles is about three Native American youths who struggle to find their way in Los Angeles, but also don’t feel like they fit in on their reservation anymore. The issue of relocation became more widely known when the film finally got its first theatrical release in 2008, says filmmaker Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation). It’s a film that deals with the “complicated ideas of assimilation.”

Where to watch: Criterion, Amazon Prime

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993)

Director: Alanis Obomsawin

In 1990, there was an armed standoff between the Canadian military and indigenous protesters over plans to build a golf course on Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) lands in Oka, Quebec. Filmmakers went behind the barricades to profile the people fighting for the indigenous people, the Quebec police, and the Canadian army. In the end, the Canadian government took over the land to prevent further private development. It led to a 1991 government commission on improving relationships with indigenous communities. “It forced Canada to start taking indigenous concerns seriously,” says Karrmen Crey, (Stó:lō, Cheam First Nation), an associate professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. At the 1993 Toronto International Film Festival, Kanehsatake became the first documentary to win the award for best Canadian feature.

Where to watch: National Film Board of Canada’s website

Smoke Signals (1998)

Director: Chris Eyre

The first film written, directed, co-produced and acted by Native American people to get a national theatrical release has a somber premise, focusing on two men from the Coeur d’Alene Indian reservation in Idaho who are road-tripping to Phoenix to retrieve the ashes of a father figure who has passed away. But it tells the story by cracking a lot of jokes along the way. Smoke Signals is a buddy comedy featuring contemporary Native Americans playing basketball and dressed in blue jeans and t-shirts. “Showing that Native people are funny is a very significant contribution to Native representation,” says Jacob Floyd (Muscogee [Creek]/Cherokee), an assistant professor in the Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies at New York University.  

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Fandango, Google Play

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)

Director: Zacharias Kunuk

The film is in the Inuktitut language, and the cast is all from the Inuit community in Igloolik, Nunavut, in the Canadian arctic. At the center is a complicated polygamous love story. Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq), also known as Fast Runner, takes a wife, Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu), and a second wife, Puja (Lucy Tulugarjuk). Drama ensues when Puja is caught making love to Atanarjuat’s brother Amaqjuaq (Pakak Innuksuk). The winner of the 2001 Caméra D’Or award for best debut feature at the Cannes Film Festival, it showed that a film in an indigenous language could have broad appeal. “It put indigenous filmmaking on the map,” says Joanna Hearne, a scholar of indigenous films and professor at the University of Oklahoma.

Where to watch: Apple TV+

Four Sheets to the Wind (2007)

Director: Sterlin Harjo

Harjo’s debut film raises awareness about the high rates of suicide on reservations. The film starts out with Cufe (Cody Lightning) mourning his father, as a friend recalls how his father heeded a tornado warning by dancing and singing in his front yard—and the tornado never came. Cufe    leaves his reservation in the hopes of starting over in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where his sister Miri (Tamara Podemski) lives. He ends up hitting it off with her neighbor Francie (Laura Bailey), and sparks fly. 

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Sling, Tubi

Older Than America (2008)

Director: Georgina Lightning

Between 1819 and 1969, thousands of Native American children were abducted from their communities and sent to more than 400 government-funded, church-run residential boarding schools. Students endured physical abuse, and were not allowed to speak their Native languages. Filmed around the Fond du Lac reservation in Minnesota, the drama focuses on the lasting effects of the abusive residential boarding schools on one Native American family. Bradley Cooper plays a geologist who helps Native Americans preserve their past.

Where to watch: AMC+

Reel Injun (2009)

Director: Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge, Jeremiah Hayes

The documentary is the definitive overview of depictions of Native Americans in 20th century Hollywood films and how these movies perpetuated negative myths about Native Americans. The directors road-trip to sites of significance to Native American tribes, and in one painful scene, the camera films grade-school students at the Crow Agency as they watch the scenes of Indians being slaughtered in Little Big Man. Diamond interviews Clint Eastwood about evolution of Native Americans in Westerns and as well as various indigenous activists, filmmakers, and Navajo elders who worked as extras.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Tubi

Samson & Delilah (2009)

Director: Warwick Thornton 

Samson & Delilah stands out for the way it tells a love story with almost no dialogue. Samson and Delilah are teenagers who met in an aboriginal community in the Central Australian desert and are attempting to start a new life in a city. Samson is dealing with a huffing addiction while Delilah tries to sell her paintings to get by. To Harjo, it’s a film about “the strength of love in a really, really, really dark situation” and how aboriginal people who endure obstacles like addiction and homelessness manage to “sustain their love and their beauty.”

Where to watch: IndiePix Unlimited

Boy (2010)

Director: Taika Waititi 

This coming of age story filmed in a Maori village in New Zealand centers around a Michael Jackson-obsessed boy (James Rolleston)—who simply goes by “Boy”—reuniting with his father Alamein (Taika Waititi), who left their home years ago. The father mainly came back to look for a stash of money he hid, and the film follows the guys as they get to know each other after years apart. 

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Fandango

Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013)

Director: Jeff Barnaby

Inspired by the true stories of children who were kidnapped from their communities and forced to attend North American boarding schools, this story focuses on an indigenous teenager who is seized from her reservation and sent away to an abusive Canadian boarding school. Her parents, who suffer from drug and alcohol abuse from their own traumatizing experiences at the school, had paid off an agent, but the money was stolen.

Where to watch: Fandango, Fandor, Google Play, Tubi

Drunktown’s Finest (2014)

Director: Sydney Freeland 

The title is a reference to an ABC 20/20 episode that referred to Freeland’s hometown of Gallup, New Mexico, as Drunktown USA because of its alcohol epidemic. Set on the Navajo reservation, it focuses on three characters whose lives intersect in surprising ways. A father-to-be who goes by “Sick Boy” (Jeremiah Bitsui) finds solace in drinking, which threatens to jeopardize his job in the military. Adopted by white parents, Nizhoni (Morningstar Angeline) is yearning to learn more about her birth family and culture. And Felixia (Carmen Moore) is a transgender woman who makes a living engaging in prostitution and is auditioning to be a model for a calendar. It’s a rare example of a film directed by an openly transgender indigenous filmmaker and features an openly queer indigenous main character.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Fandango, Google Play, YouTube

Mekko (2015)

Director: Sterlin Harjo

In this drama, Mekko (Rod Rondeaux) is living on the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma, after serving a prison sentence for killing his cousin in a drunken bar brawl. Creek tribe chiefs won’t forgive him for the killing, so he befriends a group of vagrants who call themselves “street chiefs.” One street chief kills another homeless man, and Mekko is haunted by visions of his own death. The film is about how he tries to survive.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Roku, Tubi

Sami Blood (2016)

Director: Amanda Kernell

The film is inspired by Scandinavia’s indigenous Sami people and examines the discrimination that they endured in the 1930s. The film opens with an elderly woman Christina (Maj-Doris Rimpi) who travels from the city to her hometown of Lapland to attend her sister’s funeral and disparages the Sami culture the whole time. In fact, she grew up in a Sami household, and the film flashes back to her fourteen-year-old self, born Elle-Marja (Lene Cecilia Sparrok), who grew up herding reindeer. The film tracks Elle-Marja’s attempts to run away from an abusive boarding school for Sami children, where scientists measure their heads and take photos of the children naked.

Where to watch: Apple TV+, Google Play, Peacock, Viaplay, YouTube

Blood Quantum (2019)

Director: Jeff Barnaby

Blood quantum is a term that refers to how much Native American blood one has, and different tribal nations require different measurements for citizenship. In this horror film, the characters who are indigenous fare better in a zombie invasion than white people do. Floyd says Blood Quantum “wasn’t the first Indigenous horror or even the first zombie movie, but it was the one that broke through and brought attention to Indigenous horror.”

Where to watch: AMC+

N. Scott Momaday: Words from a Bear (2019)

Director: Jeffrey Palmer

The documentary is a biography of one of the most influential Native American writers of all time, N. Scott Momaday—the first Native American winner of the Pulitzer Prize 1969 for his novel House Made of Dawn. That was the same year that Native American protesters took over Alcatraz Island, so the Native American rights movement was especially visible at that time. The director Palmer, like Momaday, is a member of the Kiowa tribe, and the film profiles how his childhood on several reservations in New Mexico shaped his writing. As Floyd describes Momaday’s significance, “he made non-native people aware of what Native writers were doing [and]…indigenous people in general.” 

Where to watch: Apple TV+, PBS 

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019)

Directors: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn 

Aila (Tailfeathers) is a well-off indigenous woman in Vancouver who meets on a bus a struggling pregnant woman named Rosie (Violet Nelson) who is also indigenous and fleeing an abusive boyfriend. While Aila isn’t ready to have kids—she’s featured getting fitted for an IUD contraceptive device— she instantly takes Rosie under her wing and escorts her to a safe house. The two women are from different worlds, but bond through their shared heritage.

Where to watch: Kanopy

Beans (2020)

Director: Tracey Deer

The plot is a dramatization of the director’s experience growing up during the 78-day standoff in Oka, Quebec, in 1990, over the building of a golf course on lands meaningful to the Mohawk community. In this coming-of-age story, middle schooler Tekehentahkhwa (Kiawentiio), nicknamed Beans, is applying to enroll at a predominantly white private school amid the turmoil. She has to deal with both immature Mohawk preteen bullies flinging insults and white mobs flinging rocks while she and her mom stand tall behind the barricades.

Where to watch: Hulu

Malni: Towards the Ocean, Towards the Shore (2020)

Director: Sky Hopinka

This documentary explores the Native American experience in the Pacific northwest, featuring the Chinuk wawa language. As Adam Piron, director of The Sundance Institute Indigenous Program, explains the significance of the film, “Some of the work being made from indigenous folks filmmakers is very Hollywood, mainstream-facing…Sky’s films are very much for an indigenous audience—where a film can just be a film. It doesn’t have to be in reaction to Westerns.”

Where to watch: Kanopy

Night Raiders (2021)

Director: Danis Goulet

A prime example of a sci-fi indigenous film, told in both the Cree language and English. The plotline of a mother trying to rescue her daughter from a government-run, militaristic institution “has many allusions to the historical boarding school experience,” says Renae Watchman (Diné and Tsalagi), a scholar of  indigenous film and literature at McMaster University.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Fandango, Google Play, Hulu, Netflix, Pluto TV, Tubi

Frybread Face and Me (2023)

Director: Billy Luther

Parents send their young son Benny (Keir Tallman), who has grown up in San Diego, to live with his grandmother on the Navajo reservation for the summer. His cousin, nicknamed Frybread Face (Charley Hogan), shows him around and acts as a translator with the grandmother who does not speak English. In this charming coming-of-age story, Benny gets a crash course in rug weaving, sheep herding, bull riding, and even a driving lesson. 

Where to watch: Netflix

Fancy Dance (2023)

Director: Erica Tremblay

Playing an indigenous woman named Jax, Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) becomes her niece Roki’s guardian in the wake of her sister’s disappearance. She tries to balance raising her niece on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma and driving around searching for her sister in the backcountry. As Jeffrey Palmer, associate professor of performing and media arts at Cornell University, (Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma) explains, “thousands of people just disappear off of the planet and nobody talks about them…Fancy Dance highlights that particular issue in a really, really smart way.”

Where to watch: Apple TV+

Rez Ball (2024)

Director: Sydney Freeland

Billed as the indigenous version of Friday Night Lights, Rez Ball sheds light on the importance of basketball on Native American reservations. The filmmakers even made sure to recruit actors who could actually play basketball. The drama is centered on the players of the Chuska Warriors in Chuska, NM, who are all working to overcome various personal tragedies to win the state championship title.

Where to watch: Netflix 

source https://time.com/7081344/essential-indigenous-movies/

The Penguin’s Rhenzy Feliz on Nailing Vic’s Big Finale Moment

Spoiler alert: This piece discusses the finale of The Penguin.

Rhenzy Feliz didn’t grow up the biggest comic-book fan; outside of video games, he only really became exposed to the superhero world via Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, which were “the coolest thing on the planet” to him. But following his TV debut in the underrated Hulu dramedy Casual, Feliz’s biggest opportunities on the small screen have come in the form of shows set in sprawling superhero worlds: Marvel’s Runaways and now The Penguin on HBO.

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In a cast of ruthless mob bosses and psychopathic killers, Feliz’s character stands out: a soft-eyed 17-year-old with a stutter who’s still mourning the family he lost in a flood (thanks to the Riddler in the 2022 film The Batman, which also first introduced Colin Farrell’s iteration of the Penguin to this cinematic world). But over the course of eight episodes, we’ve seen the influence of Farrell’s aspiring criminal kingpin Oz Cobb transform Victor Aguilar into a more confident and quick-thinking version of himself—and a more dangerous one, for better or worse.

TIME spoke with Feliz about acting opposite Farrell, perfecting Vic’s stutter, and filming that finale scene this whole season has been building up to.

TIME: Colin Farrell is the main actor you play off on the show. How did you develop the chemistry between your characters?

Feliz: I think Colin and I got lucky. He and I work in a pretty similar way. Victor and Oz are meeting each other on camera for the first time as well, and their relationship is growing, and that really resembled what me and Colin were going through: we met each other on set and our relationship grew as the show went on. As he and I got closer, so did Vic and Oz, and we got to play off that and use that same feeling as real life.

Since Colin was wearing prosthetics all the time during filming, did it feel like you were speaking to somebody else when you spoke off set?

I mostly got to know him as Oz. He would mostly use this hybrid accent. Even when he broke out into the Irish accent, it had little glimpses of Oz in it. I’ve spoken to Colin’s face maybe less than seven times, six times. Maybe now it’d be eight or nine. Whenever I speak to Colin now, he looks at me like we know each other, and we do, but I feel like I’m not looking at the guy that I know. I didn’t totally get it until they sent me the episodes. When I saw Oz for the first time on camera, it kind of hit me, and I was like, “Oh my god, there’s the guy I’ve been spending months and months and months with. I’ve missed this guy.” It’s a weird thing to put into words.

He really is unrecognizable, especially with the accent.

Even apart from the accent and the prosthetics—even down to his mannerisms, the way he moves his face. If Colin’s confused, he’ll make a different face than if Oz is confused. I got to see it up close, and I was in awe the entire time, but seeing it as an audience member is when I really got to take it all in.

What was it like working with a fluency consultant on Vic’s stutter?

That was what I was most worried about: trying to do the stutter in a thoughtful, honest way. I felt like maybe people would be upset about it. But thankfully, the response I’ve gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. I worked with this fluency consultant, Marc Winski, and he himself has a stutter. He was such an open book. One of the things that was most useful wasn’t necessarily the technical aspects: the repetitions or the blocks or how my mouth is supposed to move. It was more the psychological aspect of what’s going on inside your mind.

Did you consciously shift the stutter as the show went on?

The stutter does change throughout the show, but not because he gets more confident. That’s a misconception: for some people it goes away as you get older, and for some people, it doesn’t. Victor is one of the people whom it doesn’t go away for. It’s not necessarily about when he’s more confident or nervous or angry or sad. A stutter can be really inconsistent. Sometimes when you’re really angry, you won’t have one, but sometimes when you’re really angry, you’ll have it more than you ever had it before. There’s no rhyme or reason sometimes.

What does change is your comfort with speaking in general. You’ll notice that when Vic is around Sofia for the first time in Episode 3—me and Marc worked on this a lot and incorporated it into the script—a lot more “uh,” “um,” those filler words. If she hears him stuttering, she’ll think he’s nervous and hiding something. In order to not stutter, you’re pretending to think: “ummm,” “uhhh.” She doesn’t hear you get blocked on a word. So it does change based on who he’s talking to: if he’s on the phone or not, if he’s meeting someone for the first time or fifth time, if he’s comfortable with them or not. It lives and breathes on its own.

In this finale, we see Vic really coming into his own as a worthy sidekick, mobilizing Link and people from these different criminal empires against the Maronis and Gigantes. What is it that makes Vic well-suited to this, and how does he pull it off?

Victor is constantly learning from one of the better minds in the underground crime world. Oz thinks on his feet and makes the right moves over and over again. Sometimes he lets his anger get the better of him, and he’s impulsive, but when he’s moving chess pieces, there’s nobody better. Vic will sit there and watch and listen and observe and take in the information. At the beginning of Episode 6, Oz tells Victor, “These people, we have their loyalty. Do you know why? Because we pay them.” Later on in that episode, what does Vic do to figure out the Squid situation? He tries to pay him off.

So when it comes down to that moment of “God, how are we going to make this work?” he doesn’t just sit back and take orders. He’s learning to be proactive and figure things out for himself. Victor has been able to see that Link and these other guys have this respect, and that seconds-in-command are ambitious as well. This is their moment to rise.

Of course, the biggest Vic moment in the finale is his death at the hands of Oz, moments after calling him “family.” How did you talk through that scene, and how early did you know this was Vic’s fate?

[Showrunner Lauren LeFranc] and I talked about it even before I showed up in New York to start shooting. We knew there would be this arc, this big moment at the end. There was a lot of conversation about leading up to it, just in terms of physically what it was going to be like and feel like and look like. That day was something Colin and I had both metaphorically circled on our calendars. I remember a week before, he was kind of like, “You ready? Got a scene in a week.” And I’m like, “I know, I know, I know.” And then three days before, he’s like, “You know, three days,” and then the day before, “Tomorrow’s the big day!”

The important part of nailing it for Victor is the first half of that scene: this incredibly vulnerable state that he allows himself to get to. It’s pretty soft. It’s slow, and it takes its time, and it’s paced out. Victor is telling Oz, in their own words, “I love you,” basically. That’s the subtext. They’re too macho to say those words to each other, but that’s the feeling. When I read it, I thought it was beautiful, and I wanted to give it air and space. Me and Colin’s coverage was shot at the exact same time, so it all feels very organic and back-and-forth and sweet … right before it isn’t.

How was the experience of filming?

It took all night. We were outdoors, it was a cold winter day in New York. We shot that on Roosevelt Island on the riverbank. It was real silent. It’s gruesome, and it’s brutal. Toward the end of the show, those light moments kind of dissipate and we’re left with something pretty dark and twisted. We’re witnessing Oz turn into something kind of irredeemable. Being on set that day, everyone felt sullen. There was a darkness in the air, there was a hush.

As I watched this season, I kept worrying about Vic. He feels like a tragic character. I was like, “Oh god, don’t kill off this guy, he’s the heart and soul.”

Maybe I’m just cynical, but I thought maybe people wouldn’t care much about Victor since he’s not such a badass. Even Francis is kind of badass, telling Sofia off in that scene. It’s fun to watch. Oz is a badass, Sofia is a badass. Victor is a little bit more sensitive and soft. You can see how much it hurts him to kill Squid, someone he’s known for years. Of course, given more time, he’s changing. I think at the end, if he had to shoot Sofia when she’s about to take out her gun, he wouldn’t feel as bad as he did the first time. But I was afraid people wouldn’t connect with him in that way, because he’s not as “cool” as the others.

But in the responses I’ve gotten so far, people do care about him. I care about him a lot. He’s just a kid in this very crazy, psychotic world where he has to dismember people and murder people. That’s not a normal thing for a 17-year-old kid to go through.

On Runaways, you worked with a lot of younger actors, so this seems like a different beast.

For sure. [At 27] I’m [among] the youngest on this thing, so it was different, but I couldn’t have asked for anything better. It feels like everyone’s on their A game, and to be around that is inspiring. All you’re trying to do is just not be the weak link—just be on par with everybody else’s excellence. I know how hard everyone worked on this show, from the writers to the producers to the cast and crew. Seeing how hard everyone worked, while still being so great at what they do—I don’t want to ever get to the place where I feel comfortable enough to just coast.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

source https://time.com/7174484/the-penguin-finale-rhenzy-feliz-interview/

Haiti Replaces Its Interim Prime Minister Amid Tumultuous Democratization Process

PORT-AU-PRINCE — A transitionary council created to reestablish democratic order in Haiti signed a decree Sunday firing interim Prime Minister Garry Conille and replacing him with Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, a businessman who was previously considered for the job.

The decree, set to be published on Monday, was provided to the Associated Press by a government source. It marks even more turmoil in an already rocky democratic transition process for Haiti, which hasn’t held democratic elections in years in a large part due to the soaring levels of gang violence plaguing the Caribbean nation.

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Fils-Aimé is the former president of Haiti’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry and in 2015 ran an unsuccessful campaign for Senate. The businessman studied at Boston University and was previously considered for the position as a private sector candidate for the post before Conille took the seat.

Conille, a longtime civil servant who has worked with the United Nations, served as prime minister for only six months.

The transitional council was established in April, tasked with choosing Haiti’s next prime minister and Cabinet with the hope that it would help quell turmoil Haiti. But the council has been plagued with politics and infighting, and has long been at odds with Conille. Organizations like the Organization of American States tried and failed last week to mediate disagreements in an attempt to save the fragile transition, according to reporting from the Miami Herald.

The process suffered another blow in October when a three of members on the council faced corruption accusations, from anti-corruption investigators alleging that they demanded $750,000 in bribes from a government bank director to secure his job.

The report was a significant blow to the nine-member council and is expected to further erode people’s trust in it.

Those same members accused of bribery, Smith Augustin, Emmanuel Vertilaire and Louis Gérald Gilles, were among those to sign the decree. Only one member, Edgard Leblanc Fils, did not sign the order.

The move by the transitional council came under fire by some in Haiti like former Justice Minister Bernard Gousse, who told local media that Conille’s dismissal was “illegal” because the council was over-extending its powers and because of the corruption allegations levered against them.

—Associated Press reporter Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City.

source https://time.com/7174781/haiti-interim-prime-minister-garry-conille-alix-didier-fils-aime/

Drones Strike Moscow as Top U.K. Official Highlights Russian Casualties in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine — A massive drone strike rattled Moscow and its suburbs overnight into Sunday, injuring several people and temporarily halting traffic at some of Russia’s busiest airports, officials reported. Meanwhile, a huge nighttime wave of Russian drones targeted Ukraine.

This came after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a pact with North Korea Saturday night, obliging the two countries to provide immediate military aid using “all means” if either is attacked. The agreement marks the strongest link between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War.

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Earlier this week, Ukraine reported that its troops engaged for the first time with North Korean units. U.S. officials earlier confirmed the deployment of at least 3,000 North Korean troops to Russia, while Kyiv has repeatedly said the number is far higher. This has fueled concerns of a marked escalation in Moscow’s war on Ukraine, and tensions spilling over into the Asia-Pacific.

U.K. estimates Russian troop losses at 700,000

Both Moscow and Kyiv have kept a tight lid on casualty figures since the start of the full-scale war despite regular reports of Russian forces taking huge losses following “human wave” attacks that aim to exhaust Ukrainian defenses.

However, the chief of the U.K. defense staff, Tony Radakin, told the BBC that Russian forces had suffered their worst month of casualties in October since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He said Moscow’s troops suffered an average of 1,500 dead and wounded per day, bringing their total losses in the war to 700,000.

According to Radakin, ordinary Russians were paying “an extraordinary price” for the war, even as a grueling, monthslong Russian offensive in Ukraine’s industrial east continues to eke out gains. He did not say how U.K. officials had calculated the Russian casualty figures.

“There is no doubt that Russia is making tactical, territorial gains and that is putting pressure on Ukraine,” he said. But he added that they were “tiny increments of land,” and Moscow’s mounting defense and security spending was putting an increasing strain on the country.

Radakin insisted that Ukraine’s Western partners should stand by it for “as long as it takes” to beat back Russian aggression, even as allies of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have signaled that Kyiv may have to cede territory to seek peace.

Russia is cautiously optimistic about Trump’s forthcoming presidency

On Sunday, the Kremlin’s official spokesman voiced cautious optimism about Trump’s upcoming presidency, saying: “At least he talks about peace. … He does not talk about confrontation.”

“The signals are positive. Trump, during his election campaign, said that he perceives everything through deals, that he can make deals that will lead everyone toward peace,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters at a briefing.

“He does not talk about a desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, and this favorably distinguishes him from the current (U.S.) administration,” Peskov said.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday insisted that “strong decisions” from Kyiv’s Western partners are needed to stop the “terror” of Russian drone and missile strikes, and secure “reliable peace” for Ukraine.

“The killing of children, the loss of family members cannot simply be forgotten,” Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

“Without strong decisions, there is no security from terror, and this is equally clear in every country. There is no reliable peace without justice,” he said.

Continuing fighting causes damage and casualties on both sides

Fierce fighting has continued near the eastern Ukrainian cities of Toretsk and Kurakhove, Ukraine’s General Staff reported Sunday. Between 700 and 1,000 residents remain in Kurakhove, a front-line city surrounded on three sides and battered into ruin. Most of them live underground with no running water, heating or electricity.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said a total of 84 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight in Russian territory, following what it called a “mass strike on civilian infrastructure.” A man died under rubble after drones struck his apartment block in Russia’s Belgorod region, just kilometers from the Ukrainian border, local Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported.

Five other people were injured in the Moscow suburb of Ramenskoe and a nearby village, according to local officials. Russian channels on the messaging app Telegram carried eyewitness reports of drone debris setting fire to suburban homes.

Russia’s aviation authority said flights were briefly grounded at major international airports including Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo. At least 14 flights bound for Moscow were rerouted to Nizhnyi Novgorod, a city over 490 kilometers (300 miles) east, airport representatives there reported.

Ukraine’s General Staff claimed on Sunday that Ukrainian drones caused a fire at an arms depot in Russia’s southern Bryansk region, near Ukraine and Belarus. The online update featured a photo showing thick plumes of reddish smoke rising into the night sky. The AP could not verify the circumstances in which it was taken, and there was no immediate comment from Russia.

Separately, Russia’s emergencies ministry on Sunday said that a major fire broke out at a warehouse outside of Moscow. There were no immediate reports of casualties, and it was not clear whether the blaze was linked to the Ukrainian drone strikes.

Russia overnight launched a “record” 145 drones at Ukrainian territory, according to Ukraine’s air force, 62 of which were shot down. A further 67 were “lost,” the air force said, a likely reference to electronic jamming that caused the drones to veer off course.

At least one person was injured as Russian drones struck residential areas in Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa, local Gov. Oleh Kiper reported. And at least five civilians, including a 17-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy, were injured by falling drone debris and shelling in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region Sunday, its Gov. Oleh Syniehubov and local prosecutors said.

Russia later on Sunday said that it had struck a large deployment of Ukrainian soldiers in the Kharkiv province with thermobaric rockets, but didn’t immediately provide evidence.

source https://time.com/7174762/drones-strike-moscow-uk-official-highlights-russian-casualties-in-ukraine/

Meet Susie Wiles, the Incoming Trump-Appointed White House Chief of Staff

President-elect Donald Trump’s first key appointment since his victory this week came with a historic choice. He appointed Susie Wiles to be his White House chief of staff, making her the first woman appointed to the position.

Wiles, Trump’s campaign manager for his 2024 run, has been widely credited for his victory. The New York Times described her as “perhaps the most significant voice inside Mr. Trump’s third presidential campaign.” 

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Democratic Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz has highlighted the effectiveness of Wiles’ strategy, both in Trump’s case and in previous campaigns throughout Florida. “If you don’t know her, you soon will, but Susie will go down as one of the greatest campaign strategists,” he said via social media. “To the Democrats’ detriment she has been a part of all the winning campaigns in Florida.”

Read More: What Donald Trump’s Win Means For Immigration

Trump also thanked Wiles during his early victory speech on Tuesday night. “Let me also express my tremendous appreciation for Susie and Chris—the job you did. Come, Susie,” Trump said, calling over Wiles and referencing her co-campaign manager, Chris LaCivita. “Susie likes to stay in the back, let me tell you. We call her the ice maiden.”

Here is what you need to know about Wiles, who has cemented herself as one of Trump’s most trusted advisors and will hold the President-elect’s ear as he returns to the White House.

Wiles has a long history working for Republican politicians and their campaigns

The 67-year-old has a decades-long history as a Republican strategist and campaign staffer. 

She worked under the late former New York Rep. Jack Kemp back in the 1970s before working on  Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign. She went on to work for Jacksonville Mayors John Delaney and John Peyton.

Wiles became a well-respected and well-versed strategist in campaigns in Florida, running Sen. Rick Scott’s successful campaign for Governor of the state in 2010. 

She also had a brief stint running the 2012 presidential campaign of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who later sharply criticized Trump after the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

After Trump’s victory in 2016, Wiles chose to stay in Florida and managed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ successful campaign for Governor. Yet, she has also been credited for why Trump eventually became the GOP’s 2024 primary candidate, not DeSantis. The day DeSantis ended his presidential bid, Wiles posted “Bye, bye” on X (formerly Twitter).

Read More: What Donald Trump’s Win Means for the Economy

Wiles helped Trump win Florida in 2016 and has only grown in importance since then

Wiles joined Trump’s 2016 campaign in Florida, specifically running operations that ultimately helped him win the state, landing a key victory in his win over Hillary Clinton.

Though Wiles rarely speaks publicly—Trump said in his victory speech on Tuesday evening that she “likes to stay in the background”—she spoke to the Tampa Bay Times during the 2016 election cycle, explaining that she chose to work for Trump because he represented the changes in Washington she believed were necessary. She felt other candidates represented a Republican status quo she didn’t want to continue with.

“I said, ‘I don’t want this to continue.’ I think it seriously will damage our republic and who among that group can really have the fortitude to shift what I’ve seen happening over all these years?” Wiles is quoted as saying. 

In 2019, it was reported that DeSantis attempted to have Trump cut ties with Wiles—and succeeded.

But Wiles returned to Trump’s inner circle, running much of his operations in the Sunshine State, growing to her role as senior campaign manager during the 2024 campaign. Her importance has reportedly made her a target to foreign agents.

Read More: What Trump’s Win Means For Crypto

Wiles’ life away from campaigning 

Born in New Jersey, Wiles came from a family of prominence, long before her political work began. Wiles’ father is the late legendary NFL player-turned-broadcaster Pat Summerall. 

Wiles married fellow Reagan staffer and Republican consultant Lanny Wiles, and the two relocated to a suburb of Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra Beach. The couple share two daughters and divorced in 2017, according to Politico.

source https://time.com/7174721/meet-susie-wiles-the-future-trump-appointed-white-house-chief-of-staff/

Biden and Trump Will Meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the White House Says

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will host President-elect Donald Trump for a traditional postelection meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the White House said Saturday.

Such a meeting is customary between the outgoing president and the incoming president, and is meant partly to mark the start of a peaceful transfer of power under America’s democracy.

But Trump, a Republican, did not host Biden, a Democrat, for a sit-down after the 2020 election, when Trump lost his reelection bid.

Trump sought the presidency four years later, and this week he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat. Trump is the first former president to return to power since Grover Cleveland regained the White House in the 1892 election.

The White House said Biden called Trump this past Wednesday to congratulate him and invite him to meet in the Oval Office.

In a speech Thursday, Biden said he had assured Trump “that I would direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. That’s what the American people deserve.”

Their upcoming meeting is set for 11 a.m.

source https://time.com/7174704/biden-and-trump-will-meet-in-the-oval-office/

What Trump’s Win Means for LGBTQ+ Rights

As the reality of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory begins to settle, LGBTQ+ rights groups and individuals are grappling with the realities of what that means—especially now that he has a GOP-majority Senate to back him on his policies. 

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Throughout his campaign, Trump showcased an anti-trans rhetoric across his speeches, ads, and written platform policies. One of his advertisements stated that his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is for “they/them—not you.”

Republicans spent nearly $215 million on anti-trans ads this election cycle, according to data released by Ad Impact. Trump’s inflammatory words against LGBTQ+ Americans—most notably aimed at trans persons—is not new. In his first term as President, Trump put forth several policies that attempted to repeal protections for LGBTQ+ Americans. 

Now that he has won a second term, LGBTQ+ Americans are wondering what policies are most likely to affect their rights once he returns to the White House in January.

On Trump’s official website, he outlines a 20-point platform, his roadmap to “Make America Great Again,” called Agenda 47. There, he states his priorities to roll back LGBTQ+ rights, including his plans to “keep men out of women’s sports”—targeting the small number of trans women who choose to join teams that match their gender identity—and “cut federal funding for any school pushing…radical gender ideology.” Beyond that, through his speeches, Trump has laid out his plans to roll back particular President Joe Biden-era discrimination laws and enact new laws targeting especially trans individuals.

TIME has reached out to the Trump campaign about its proposed policies and how they might impact the LGBTQ+ community.

Katie Eyer, a professor at Rutgers Law School, emphasizes that Trump’s presidency could lead to more conservative court appointments, and thus difference in how courts interpret cases on the federal level.  So, while appeals courts have often been ruling in favor of transgender people fighting discrimination, this may change during a Trump presidency.

“Constitutional law is the backdrop to discriminatory laws,” Eyer tells TIME. “But of course, if you have a court that is unwilling to enforce equality rights vis-à-vis LGBT people, then that backdrop stops being a meaningful one.”

Here are three key areas in which Trump’s presidency could impact LGBTQ+ rights.

A ban on transgender persons in the military

During Trump’s first term in office, he formally instructed the Department of Defense to reverse a 2016 order allowing transgender individuals to serve openly in the military, something he blamed on the cost of gender-affirming surgeries. The policy immediately triggered a slew of lawsuits against the Administration.

The Biden Administration overturned this order in 2021, but experts like Eyer believe that a reinstatement is very likely to happen early on in Trump’s presidency, and a similar slew of lawsuits are bound to follow. 

Health care restrictions

In the past few years, there have been a number of state-led initiatives to ban gender-affirming care for transgender and gender nonconforming minors. In August, the Human Rights Campaign reported there were 26 states with  a ban or policy against gender-affirming care for minors and that 39% of transgender youth lived in states that have passed bans on gender-affirming care. 

Trump has expressed that his Administration would follow the lead of these states, and attempt to halt gender-affirming medical care for adolescents nationwide, particularly by threatening to deny federal funding for hospitals that provide this care. This would make it incredibly hard for youth with gender dysphoria to access what many doctors and psychiatrists consider life-saving care.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has already brought multiple cases to court, challenging these state law bans, and in their press release regarding Trump’s potential plans for LGBTQ+ issues, they have stated they will “continue to litigate this issue in courts across the country should a second Trump Administration further restrict this care.”

According to Tara McKay, co-founder and Director of the Vanderbilt LGBTQ+ Policy Lab, this could also just heighten the issue and lead to more bans on the state level, especially since much health care and policy is decided and implemented by the state level, despite being partially federally funded.

“States have control over health care, so if [Trump] pursues a full federal ban [on gender-affirming care for minors], your progressive states will immediately challenge it, and it will be in court,” McKay says. “I think very similar to the abortion landscape, we will end up with states that are mobilizing protections and states that are becoming incredibly hostile and life threatening for folks who are targeted.” California Governor Gavin Newsom has already called a special session, which he has confirmed is in part due to a desire to protect the LGBTQ+ community upon the news of Trump’s victory.

Trump’s plans will also significantly depend on the outcome of Tennessee’s ban on gender transition care for minors—United States v. Skrmetti—which is about to be decided by the Supreme Court. The ruling could establish a larger precedent not only on transgender medical care but also on broader issues of civil rights, including access to public facilities and participation in sports.

McKay also emphasizes another aspect of health care that is already being affected by Trump’s upcoming return to power: LGBTQ+ mental health. She points to new research in her lab, showing that exposure to negative news and media coverage on LGBTQ+ people and policies increases suicidal ideation among LGBTQ+ teens and young adults. Since the election was called in the early hours of Nov. 6, the Trevor Project has also reported a 700% increase in call volume to its crisis hotline.

According to Imara Jones, an American political journalist and transgender activist, the main question in relation to transgender health is “how are people going to stand up?”

“Are states like New York, states like California, going to push back against some of the administrative rules that are changing?” she says. “How much do groups that say they are trans allies actually stand up and support? How are trans people going to work to form community and form support for people who are going to be hardest hit by these laws?”

Dismantle Title IX protections, education standards, and identification options

Trump has specifically latched onto language against trans women competing in sports. During a rally in Virginia on Nov. 2, Trump said he will “of course keep men out of women’s sports.” His Agenda 47 also states that he will ask Congress to interpret Title IX as prohibiting trans women from participating in women’s sports. He already worked to rollback Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students in his first term in office.

Biden worked during his term to expand Title IX protections to LGBTQ+ youth, reforming changes from Trump’s first term that narrowed the scope of the 1972 law but sidestepped issues regarding transgender athletes. He has said that on “day one” of his presidency he plans to reverse these Title IX protections. If Trump were to rollback Biden’s expansions which did protect transgender students, he would not need Congress to do so.

According to Simone Chriss, a civil rights attorney and the Director of Transgender Rights Initiative at Southern Legal Counsel, the fear here is not just about transgender athletes, but rather restrictive Title IX definitions of sex and gender that could affect large portions of the LGBTQ+ community.

“I think the overarching goal is redefining sex across the board in a way that excludes transgender people,” Chriss says. “And we’re seeing states like Florida redefine sex for purposes of our entire K-20 education code to make sex determined by, you know, reproductive function.”

This dovetails with Trump’s plans referenced to shift funding for schools based on how they teach about gender identity and sexual orientation. In a filmed address in January 2023, Trump vowed to “cut federal funding” to schools that discuss “gender ideology.”

For Chriss, one of the major fears is that Trump could follow Florida’s lead in redefining sex, and that this could affect transgender people’s abilities to access identification services that allow them to utilize their correct gender.

Earlier this year, a memo from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles shared that Florida residents would no longer be allowed to change the listed gender on their driver’s licenses or state ID. If this is expanded federally to passports, Chriss says the ramifications could be devastating for the transgender community.

“Lack of access to identification documents that reflect who you are is something that impacts every interaction a person has, and ability to get employment and housing and all these things,” she says. “Every transgender client I have, if they don’t have a passport, or if their passport still says the wrong gender marker or name, I’m like, ‘Update it as fast as you can, because we have till January.’”

source https://time.com/7174687/what-donald-trump-win-means-for-lgbtq-rights/