The Grim Reality of the Conflict Between Iran and Israel

In the early hours of Friday morning, Israel launched a sweeping military campaign against Iran. The ongoing operation, which was reportedly planned to unfold over several days, is targeting a list of nuclear and military facilities, as well as senior regime officials, that grows longer by the hour. Iran has thus far retaliated with drones and a substantial missile barrage that could see Israel expand its targeting further still.

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In a region that has seen endless bloodshed since Hamas’s October 2023 attacks, the grim reality is that things may get much worse before they get even worse.

Under the Islamic Republic that took power in 1979, enmity toward Israel has been a core ideological tenet of Iranian foreign policy and a key driver in its regional policy. Over decades, their rivalry played out mainly through indirect actions by Iran and by covert operations from Israel.

That dynamic changed last year. In April and again in October, the two sides engaged in direct hostilities, with Iran twice launching massive missile salvoes largely repelled by Israeli and allied air defenses. After the second strike, which came shortly after Israel severely degraded the upper ranks of Hizbollah in Lebanon—the most powerful of Iran’s proxies—Israel targeted Iranian air defences and missile production facilities, facing little resistance or response.

But while Iran’s regional power projection was diminishing and its arsenal of missiles and drones twice proved largely ineffective, a third concern—a nuclear threat which Israel considered existential—was still growing. Tehran had been steadily expanding the scale and scope of its nuclear activity ever since President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal during his first term; President Joe Biden’s Administration sought and failed to revive it. In March, Trump announced that he had reached out to Iran’s leadership to negotiate a new deal, and his administration conducted five rounds of talks in Muscat and Rome in attempts to reach one.

For Iran, which sought sanctions relief for its embattled economy, the success of negotiations with the U.S. hinged on concessions it has long opposed: Dismantling its nuclear program altogether or even ceasing the domestic enrichment of uranium. For Israel, eliminating, rather than merely restricting, the production of fissile material that could be used to fuel a weapon has been paramount. For President Trump, the prospect of a military strike by Israel seems a means of strengthening Washington’s hand in a diplomatic agreement in which he still remains interested.

But at the moment, the question may be less a matter of whether diplomacy can succeed than how grievously the situation could escalate. The worst-case scenarios are dire: A cycle of Israeli and Iranian counterstrikes that draw in the U.S., Iran’s non-state allies, and regional states, cause grievous harm to civilians on all sides, and inject profound uncertainty into global markets. Over time, Iran’s regime could attempt to reconstitute its nuclear activity from the rubble, only with an explicit aim of fashioning a weapon in the shortest possible time as a means of deterrence in the future. Another disastrous scenario is that the regime in Tehran falls and there is a protracted war for power and chaos or an even harder line regime armed with nuclear weapons.

Is there a path out of this deepening crisis? Perhaps, though not a particularly promising one. Trump’s stated objective—even as the fire is exchanged in two directions—remains a deal with Iran, and Tehran could offer concessions on the stipulation that it also involve an immediate cessation of hostilities with Israel. Were Iran to concede on its red lines in an effort to stave off greater destruction, perhaps Trump would be keen enough to avert a widening conflagration to also press Israel into ending the escalation cycle as well. 

Iran’s government has previously demonstrated that when facing particularly inauspicious circumstances, especially those that might threaten the very foundations of the regime itself, it can make concessions necessary for its survival. But facing perhaps the gravest crisis it has faced since the eight-year-long war with Iraq in the 1980s, it may end up doubling down to the detriment of its people and the region.

source https://time.com/7294202/grim-reality-conflict-iran-israel/

Materialists Is a Romantic Comedy That Takes Romance Seriously

The decline of the romantic comedy began around the era when people began referring to these movies as “rom coms,” a term drawn from the hokey industry slang used in olden times by trade publications. Romantic comedies have always existed almost solely for pleasure’s sake—that’s what’s great about them. But they don’t deserve the degrading slangy shorthand they’ve been slapped with, which feels like marketing terminology that we’ve openly welcomed into our everyday language. Movies are commodities, sure. But also: the romantic comedy might be the most sublime entertainment genre devised by humankind. Why do we insist on sanding down its dignity to a manageable niblet?

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In the public spheres where people argue about such things—namely, social media—people who have seen Celine Song’s mournful-delightful Materialists are eager to warn people that despite how the trailer makes the movie look, it’s not a romantic comedy. But maybe it is a romantic comedy—it’s just not a rom-com, the kind of Kate Hudson–Matthew McConaughey laugher-weeper-laugher where the heroine falls off a boat, or breaks the heel of her shoe, or goes through a whole box of tissues to dry her tears after the wrong-guy-whom-she-thinks-is-right dumps her. It’s more subtle than that, spikier, and certainly a lot less hilariously funny. But whether intentionally or not, Song, who wrote and directed the film, seems to be applying the principles of the finest romantic comedies, like those made by Ernst Lubitsch or Preston Sturges. Materialists is more bittersweet than sweet—which is what makes it so wonderful, in a wistful, elusive way.

Read more: Celine Song’s Journey From Matchmaking to Materialists

Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, an ambitious New York matchmaker who listens carefully to what her clients want in a partner and then locates a corresponding human who possesses as many of those qualities as possible. She promises one prospective male client that she can help him meet “high quality women.” Almost all the guys who come to her want a woman who’s fit, though their definition of that is alarmingly restrictive. Nearly all the women want a guy 6 feet or taller; they also, unsurprisingly, want a guy who makes money. Lucy is happy to go shopping for them, and she’s honest—maye a bit too honest—about the transactional nature of finding a mate. “Marriage is a business deal, and it always has been,” she tells a panicky client, a bride-to-be already dressed in her finery, who has gotten cold feet. These people, the women especially, have been more forthright with her about their hopes and desires than they have been with their therapists. One client in particular, Sophie (Zoe Winters), is simply a nice person who’s been rejected by too many of the men Lucy has set her up with. Lucy urges her to stick with the program—she’ll find Sophie a guy.

Meanwhile, we know very little about what Lucy herself wants. After she persuades that reluctant bride to walk down the aisle, she tries to relax and enjoy the wedding. The groom’s best man—lo and behold, it’s Pedro Pascal in a tuxedo, playing a self-made millionaire named Harry—strikes up a conversation with her. She sees dollar signs when she looks into his eyes, but not for herself. She thinks he’d make an ace partner for any of her most demanding clients. He’s rich, gorgeous, well-mannered—she calls him a “unicorn.” But he’s interested only in her. Before she can even think to flirt with him, her ex shows up at her table with her go-to beverage order, a beer and a Coke. That ex is Chris Evans in regulation black-pants-and-white-shirt catering gear, playing a character named John; he plunks the drinks in front of her like a challenge. She’s surprised to see him—but despite itself, her face lights up like a carnival Ferris wheel. They agree to meet after the wedding, where they have a serious discussion in his beater of a car—who keeps a car in New York? she still wants to know—about why they broke up in the first place. As they talk, the traffic around them magically hushes, and Johnny Thunders’ “You Can’t Put Your Arm Around a Memory” wafts from the car stereo. By definition, the past is a thing you can’t hang onto, but these two insist on trying.

Then Harry begins seriously wooing Lucy, who wants many of the same things her clients do, though she’s reluctant to admit it. He takes her to dinner at nice places, instead of just sauntering back from the halal truck with a crinkly bag of rice-and-stuff. Meanwhile, John, chronically underemployed as an actor, keeps resurfacing. What does Lucy really want? She doesn’t even dare ask that question. But Harry’s apartment—one of those anonymous high-rise spaces that people with taste supposedly want, even though they practically scream “no taste”—sure is nice. And John still lives in some deeply unfashionable far-flung New York neighborhood, with roommates. There’s no contest between these guys.

Read more: Never Underestimate the Power of Dakota Johnson

Except there is. Materialists isn’t laugh-out-loud funny. Even so, some of Lucy’s pronouncements are so truly awful that a blunt snort of laughter is the only response. Song wrote plays for years before making her debut film, 2023’s Past Lives, a gorgeous, tender picture about a Korean-Canadian immigrant in New York (played, marvelously, by Greta Lee) who’s shaken when her childhood crush reemerges in her life. Materialists is markedly different in mood and tone. But like Past Lives, it’s all about the things we don’t dare to want. How do we ever know we’re making the right choice? Song seems to want to reassure us that we don’t. Certainty is a game for fools.

Song was inspired to write Materialists after working herself, for a time, as a matchmaker. If you have to categorize it, Materialists is closer to what Stanley Cavell called the comedy of remarriage, movies in which people who are already married separate, ostensibly on their way to divorce, and flirt with other partners before returning to the person who is, for them, home. But unlike Materialists, those movies—pictures like Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth or Preston Sturges’ The Palm Beach Story—emerged in a time when Hollywood censors were keeping a close eye on movies’ ideology, determined to protect audiences from unwholesome influences. The comedy of remarriage created a safe place for fantasy out-of-wedlock flirtations, because, in the end, the genre reaffirmed that sticking with the partner you originally chose is your best bet after all.

Materialists riffs on the same idea, but for other reasons. The comedy of remarriage rose in popularity at a time when people—especially women—suddenly had more autonomy, relatively speaking, and didn’t necessarily have to succumb to arranged marriages, or marry as a way of uniting family fortunes. With Materialists, Song shows us how far, and yet not-so-far, we’ve come. Women aren’t just encouraged to work, we’re expected to—yet our salaries are statistically still far lower than those of men. We may pretend not to want or really need all that much money, but even a cursory peek at Instagram reveals ostensibly ordinary women doing their daily stuff, only they’re wearing the $600 sweatpants outfit, not the Old Navy one, and burbling about how they just bought their first Birkin (new). What’s up with that? Often, sure, those women have made that money themselves. People inherit money, too. But when there’s a male partner in the picture, it’s normal to be curious about who has the real earning power. We shouldn’t care, but how could a young woman on her own, struggling just to make rent, not wonder?

That’s the world Materialists takes place in, and Song sees what’s funny and what’s terrible about it at once—even as she acknowledges that it’s human to yearn for beautiful things, and for comfort. She’s chosen the perfect actors for this enterprise. Evans breathes both charm and originality into the character of the classic New York actor-cater-waiter. We may think of them as stereotypical, but they’re more just a fact of life. They’re a real thing, and they’re everywhere—Evans shrugs right into this character as if it were the rumpled shirt he threw on the floor last night. Pascal, as the tall, rich guy who keeps saying he just wants love, is adorable with just a hint of danger. On one of their early dates, at a sleek, obviously expensive restaurant, Harry brings Lucy a whole pot of flowers; it’s overkill, but he just can’t see it. He’s that kind of guy. Pascal captures his winsomeness, even as he forces you to ponder whether you’d really want to deal with that level of anxious-to-please attentiveness your whole life. Wouldn’t it become exhausting?

But Johnson is Song’s real not-so-secret weapon here. She’s a rarity among modern performers: there’s no desperation in her, no overt eagerness for likes. She’s both breezy and matter-of-fact. Lucy has come to loathe her job, but she’s good at it; she loves the guy with no dough, but she can’t help aspiring to the comfy brownstone life—who wants to live in a place with a cruddy kitchen, a leaky roof, and an unresponsive-landlord? Song, along with the character she and Johnson have shaped together, understands the weight of those questions, and she refuses to dismiss them outright. In that sense, Materialists is as far from rom-com territory as you can get. But in its understated, clear-eyed intelligence, it’s like Myrna Loy—the co-star, with William Powell, of the Thin Man comedies, among the most elegant and observant movies about marriage ever made—in movie form. This is a movie about question marks, not sure bets. And what is long-term, committed partnership but an ever-unfolding series of question marks, to which the answer is a sometimes-grudging, sometimes whole-hearted Yes? Materialists takes the risks seriously, without ever underselling the rewards.

source https://time.com/7294007/materialists-review/

How F1 Went Hollywood

Formula One teams treat their trade secrets like matters of national security. In a motor-sport where milliseconds separate champions from also-rans, hiding technical know-how from opponents is as key as a fresh pair of tires. So when Joseph Kosinski, director of F1 the Movie—the summer-blockbuster hopeful starring Brad Pitt and hitting theaters and IMAX on June 27—tried to gain access to the inner workings of Formula One, a rush of déjà vu hit him. After all, Kosinski made Top Gun: Maverick, the 2022 naval-aviator smash that grossed $1.5 billion, with the support of the U.S. Department of Defense. “It was the same level of security,” he says, “that I experienced when I went to some secret bases.”

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Kosinski spent a year bugging Toto Wolff, team principal of the Mercedes–AMG Petronas F1 team, for permission to film at the Mercedes race simulator. Most Mercedes employees themselves can’t access this space at headquarters, 70 miles northwest of London. But Wolff finally relented. So in the movie viewers will see Pitt and Damson Idris, who respectively play Sonny Hayes and Joshua Pearce, drivers for the fictional APXGP team, practicing on Mercedes’ high-priced toys. “We were keen on contributing to making this a success,” says Wolff, who along with F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali is credited as an executive producer. “And that means you cannot be half pregnant and say, ‘Yeah, we’re playing along, but no, we don’t want to let you into our factory.’”

The F1 filmmakers still made post-production alterations to protect Mercedes’ intellectual property. All sides had to compromise, and deliver, in unique ways to bring F1 to life. It was all part of a delicate balancing act between a big-budget production team, led by Jerry Bruckheimer, used to calling its own shots, and a $3.4 billion sport with a dedicated global fan base, whose participants could not afford distractions just to appear in some Hollywood fantasy. Sure, F1 was allowed to bring its cast and crew to actual races across the globe. But they’d have to film during downtime at the track, or just blend into the background. “The live sport,” says Domenicali, “I cannot touch.” 

The stakes were similarly high in a movie industry where original stories struggle to compete with familiar IP; box-office success would be meaningful for future original ideas. And the involvement of Apple, whose studio arm backed the film—which will live on Apple TV+ after F1’s Warner Bros. Pictures–distributed theatrical run—added another element of complexity. “It was very, very complicated trying to have Apple and F1, two massive organizations that are very controlling of their own brands, to play along,” says Kosinski. “But the fact that Stefano had the vision for the film, and Apple took the gamble on this movie, here we are, four years later. We’re about to take it out to the world.”

Read more: The 37 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2025

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F1’s origin story begins a decade ago, when Kosinski was developing a script called “Go Like Hell,” which later became the 2019 Oscar-winning auto-racing hit Ford v Ferrari. Kosinski had Tom Cruise and Pitt attached to the roles that would eventually be played by Matt Damon and Christian Bale. Cruise and Pitt even did a script read at Cruise’s house. But Kosinski dropped out, mainly over budget conflicts, and turned his attention to Top Gun with Cruise and Bruckheimer. During the pandemic, Kosinski caught the racing bug again while bingeing Formula One: Drive to Survive, Netflix’s series chronicling Formula One’s behind-the-scenes intrigue. Kosinski emailed seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, a cinephile who planned to join the Top Gun cast before realizing he couldn’t swing that and chase championships. Kosinski told him he needed his help making the most authentic auto-racing movie ever.

Kosinski got Hamilton—a producer on the film who makes a cameo—Bruckheimer, and Pitt on board. The goal was to gain access to F1 races and factories so they wouldn’t have to CGI the whole thing. In early 2022, Kosinski, Bruckheimer, and Pitt met with Domenicali in London. Domenicali accompanied Kosinski and Pitt at a private Top Gun screening, to give the F1 boss a taste of the whizbang effect such a film could bring to his sport. He saw the potential. A movie fronted by Pitt could corral a mass audience and leave them wanting to know more about F1. “This has always been the strategy,” says Domenicali. “To connect with new people, new markets.”

Read more: How Lewis Hamilton Finally Got His Ferrari Red

Still, some F1 race teams remained skeptical. They were nervous about being portrayed in an unflattering light. “Somebody’s got to be the villain,” says Bruckheimer. And while there is a minor character, unassociated with any actual F1 race team, who emerges as a foil to Hayes, Bruckheimer made clear that the story centers on the tension between two drivers, the aging Hayes and the up-and-comer Pearce, on the same fictional team. That’s a familiar dynamic: both drivers are seeking individual success, and want to beat the pants off the other guy. At least nominally, however, they’re supposed to play nice on the track. At Mercedes, for example, Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, the 2016 F1 champion, famously clashed. “It became real hostile,” recalls Wolff. 

Mercedes helped convert cars from Formula Two, the minor-league circuit, into machines that could pass for F1 cars. The filmmakers had a half-dozen at their disposal: if they wanted to film a scene in which Pitt’s APXGP car passes a Ferrari, they’d stage that action with their own cars at an F1 track between practice and qualifying sessions before a race. Later, they would “skin” the Ferrari design over the production car to make it look like a Ferrari on the screen. (Kosinski used this skinning technique with the Top Gun jets.) They could also capture actual race footage and skin the APXGP car over the Red Bulls and Ferraris. The production team installed 15 camera mounts on its cars, filming with up to four at once, to capture Pitt and Idris in their cockpits, and action on the track. “Brad Pitt, he’s driving the car,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services. “It’s not blue screen or CGI.” Both actors learned to drive as fast as 180 m.p.h., not too far off from real F1 drivers’ top speeds of around 220 m.p.h.

“These guys were fast,” says Javier Bardem, who plays Ruben Cervantes, the owner of the struggling APXGP team who recruits Pitt’s Hayes, at a Florida coin laundry, in a Hail Mary attempt to lift his squad. “The first time I saw them racing, I said to Joe, ‘What’s insurance got to say about that?’ Joe goes, ‘What insurance?’”

F1 filmed at 14 races during the 2023 and 2024 F1 seasons, across three continents. The production reportedly cost more than $200 million. During some races, APXGP had their own garage, paddock, and perch along the pitwall, where the fictional team principal, technical director, and race engineers sit. “We designed it ourselves,” says Bruckheimer. “One of the Mercedes designers came in there and said, ‘Sh-t, I’m going to lose my job.’”

Much like the actual Formula One drivers, the actors needed to be on their games—even the ones who never sat in the driver’s seat. Right before the start of the 2023 British Grand Prix, F1 shot a scene in which Cervantes introduces Hayes to a team board member, played by Tobias Menzies. It was like performing a live stage play in front of more than 150,000 spectators: Formula One wasn’t about to hold up the race for repeated takes. “It was terrifying,” says Bardem. “I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t f-ck it up, Javier. Don’t f-ck it up.’” He didn’t.

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The production crescendoed in Abu Dhabi last December, when, after the actual podium celebration recognizing Lando Norris’ victory, Charles Leclerc of Ferrari, Mercedes’ George Russell, and one of the APXGP drivers mounted the podium to celebrate the fake F1 finish. Wolff filmed his cameo in Abu Dhabi: he tells Idris’ Pearce to call him if he wants to jump ship to Mercedes. Wolff wasn’t impressed with his own work. “I don’t think I’m going to follow Arnold Schwarzenegger as the next big Austrian thing,” he says with his pronounced accent. 

While the film puts a premium on authenticity to please the carheads, it also strives to attract general moviegoers, with its soaring Hans Zimmer score, high-speed crashes, the Hayes-Pearce conflict, and a romance between Hayes and the team’s technical director, Kate McKenna (Oscar nominee Kerry Condon). The sensitivities surrounding a workplace relationship between F1’s (fictional) first female team tech director and one of her drivers—which would seem quite scandalous if it went public in real life—did cross Kosinski’s mind. But when he floated it to F1 insiders, no one objected. Romances within the tight-knit world are relatively common. “I’m not worried,” says Domenicali. “And by the way, it gives you the right Hollywood touch.”

The producers insist feedback has been positive. According to Domenicali and Cue, when test audiences unfamiliar with F1 are asked, after watching, if anyone would now be interested in attending a race, hands go up. Stakeholders also hope it gives diverse audiences the itch to work in the industry. “It’s going to inspire female engineers and mechanics,” says Hamilton. “It’s going to inspire people from all over, from all different backgrounds.”

Sounds like lofty expectations for popcorn fare. But the F1 portrayed on the big screen—globe-trotting from Italy to Japan to Vegas to the Middle East, with its fireworks on and off the track—undoubtedly has its upsides.

Aerodynamics lesson, anyone?

source https://time.com/7292741/f1-the-movie-joseph-kosinski-brad-pitt-formula-one/

Is L.A. Still Under Curfew Amid Mass Protests? Here’s What You Need to Know

The leaders of Los Angeles are trying to wrangle back control of the city that has now been marked by protest and control of federal troops. Mayor Karen Bass put a curfew in place for a portion of the downtown area of Los Angeles on Tuesday. This came as Bass declared a local emergency as a result of the escalating protests in the city.

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“Curfew remains in effect tonight… for downtown Los Angeles to stop bad actors who are taking advantage of the President’s chaotic escalation,” Bass said via a social media update on Wednesday evening. “If you do not live or work in downtown L.A., avoid the area and follow guidance from law enforcement.”

“Vandalism and violence will not be tolerated,” she emphasized.

Over 350 people have been arrested in L.A. since protests began on Friday. While reporters on the ground say that many of the protests that have occurred have been peaceful, others have descended into violence.

Read More: L.A. Protests Rage On After Curfew Remains in Place for a Second Night

The city is now bracing for the arrival of the Marines, deployed by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who are likely to arrive on the streets by Friday, and would be authorized to detain anyone who interferes with immigration officers on raids or protesters who confront federal agents.

The active-duty Marines are set to join around 2,000 National Guard members deployed by President Donald Trump. He notably federalized the state officials without a request being made by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has strongly criticized the move.

“The military’s simply not needed. But what he [Trump] is doing is trying to gin things up to create problems,” Newsom said in a new interview on a New York Times podcast, released on Thursday, adding that the arrival of the National Guard flared tensions between authorities and protesters. “We had to defend the National Guard. We had to use our own law enforcement to protect them… Just think about how perverse that is.”  

Trump’s choice to send in the National Guard has also been challenged legally by the state of California. On Thursday, a federal court is scheduled to hear the case over California’s request to block the Trump Administration from using troops in L.A. to quell unrest sparked by ICE raids. The hearing comes after an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order filed by Newsom on Tuesday was denied.

As protests continue, with demonstrations since spilling out into other cities across the U.S., here’s what you need to know about the curfew in place for L.A.

What are the exact parameters of the L.A. curfew?

Under Mayor Bass’ instruction, the curfew lasts from 8 p.m., local time, until 6 a.m. the following morning.

The one-mile-radius curfew covers a portion of downtown Los Angeles. Parts of Chinatown, Little Tokyo, the Fashion District, and the Arts District are within or near the curfew’s boundaries.

You can see the curfew’s parameters in full, below:

Read More: Veterans Condemn Trump’s ‘Misuse of Military Power’ Amid L.A. Protests

How long is the L.A. curfew expected to last?

According to Bass’ original notice, the order will hold true until the local emergency declaration is terminated—which remains in effect as of June 12.

Bass said in a press conference with other local leaders on Wednesday that the curfew’s stay will likely be dependent on how long ICE raids continue in the city.

“The emergency declaration that I signed yesterday does not have a time limit to it, and so the curfews will go on as long as they are needed,” Bass said. “But, it’s really kind of interdependent on what the response is from the federal side. If there are raids that continue, if there are soldiers marching up and down our street, I would imagine that the curfew will continue.”

Bass also said that there were over a hundred arrests on the first night of curfew, though not for looting or violent charges, just for “failure to disperse and curfew violation.”

source https://time.com/7293512/la-curfew-parameters-locations-what-to-know/

Can Air Conditioning Make You Sick?

At the height of the tuberculosis epidemic in the 19th century, doctors began advising people to venture outside to escape the “bad air” in their homes. In the 1960s, by contrast, AC became widespread in the U.S., increasing the appeal of staying inside. These days, many of us—the so-called “indoor generation”—spend summer mostly inside, relying on AC to beat the heat.

This technology saves lives; our sealed, climate-controlled spaces keep us healthy during dangerous heat waves. AC also helps many people avoid pollution outside. But did the 19th century physicians have a point about the downsides of stale indoor air?

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It depends. “Multiple studies show that spending too much time in air-conditioned rooms can lead to more respiratory symptoms,” says Dr. William Checkley, a pulmonary and critical care physician and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Here are the benefits, risks, and simple ways to make AC healthier this summer.  

The many benefits of AC

AC is key to getting through summertime without a heat-related illness—or worse. “The statistics on deaths from extreme heat are shocking, especially for the elderly and immunocompromised,” says Jeffrey Siegel, professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto. From 1999 to 2023, heat-related deaths in the U.S. doubled.

AC’s benefits go beyond its cooling effect. A well-working AC system filters the air to reduce intake of dust, pollen, and airborne pathogens, Checkley says.

Read More: 7 Things You Need to Do Before Air Conditioner Season

AC is also critical in areas with pollution. Its filters can cleanse the air of particulate matter 2.5, a toxin shed in vehicle exhaust, industrial activity, and wildfires. Research shows that PM2.5 enters homes and contributes to heart and lung disease—but these effects aren’t as severe in places with more AC use. “Every time the AC system operates, it’s pulling some particles out of the air,” says Brent Stephens, professor of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology.

Cranking up the AC also makes the air less humid, reducing the dampness that contributes to bacterial growth, mold, and dust mites, which can contribute to—or, in rare cases, even cause—conditions like pneumonia, asthma, and COPD.

Too much of a good thing

Now, some big caveats. If you overdo it with AC, the air becomes too dry. If you’re inhaling a lot of dry air, the human body adds water vapor to the inhaled air to maintain your internal humidity level, Checkley says. When you exhale, that moist air leaves your body with every breath. 

Ultimately, this dries out your respiratory tract, Checkley explains. The airways become irritated and inflamed, causing coughs, sore throat, and nasal congestion—a condition known as “sick building syndrome.” 

Another consequence of air that’s too dry: the lungs’ natural defenses to microbes weaken, increasing susceptibility to disease, especially among kids and the immunocompromised. Viruses may be more likely to circulate in drier conditions. Think of how often people get sick right after long trips inside a dry airplane. It’s the same effect in people’s homes or offices.

Read More: The Best and Worst Way to Remove a Tick

This may seem like a no-win situation: dampness leads to mold and dustmites, and dryness leads to cold-like symptoms and disease. However, there’s a sweet spot. “The ideal humidity in a home is between 40% and 60%,” Checkley says. 

Bacteria and viruses thrive both below and above these thresholds. “There are indoor air conditions we can’t perceive, which can be good or bad for us—it’s not all about comfort,” says Dr. Stephanie Taylor, a clinician and consultant on healthy indoor environments.

So how do you keep your home in the optimal humidity zone? Checkley advises buying a thermostat with a humidity sensor, called a hygrometer, to track the level. Many are inexpensive yet accurate. If humidity drops below 40%, give the AC a rest. If humidity tops 60%, crank it back up. 

Maintain your unit

The AC may also pose health risks if it’s working sub-optimally, even if it’s not outright broken. “What really matters is the condition of your air conditioning,” Siegel says.

Much of this comes down to homeowner fundamentals like remembering to change your AC filter. With an old dirty filter, the AC coil and ducts could become “cesspools of mold, bacteria, and allergens,” Taylor explains—which tag along with the AC’s airflow. Slide in new filters every 1-2 months during peak AC use. The cost of additional filters is worth keeping up your home’s air quality, Checkley says.

Look for filters with minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) ratings of 11 or 13. They’re effective at trapping dust, mold, and other particles.

In addition, calendar a yearly visit from an HVAC specialist. “People think of AC as this magic black box that makes cold,” Siegel says. “We only think about servicing it when it’s not making cold anymore.” Even if the cold magic still works, a specialist should occasionally inspect the coil and ducts to ensure they’re clean. In addition to regular assessments, get one after any major leak or other moisture problem, which can result in a dirty coil, Siegel adds.

Read More: The Healthiest Way to Clean Your House

You can also install a UV light in your AC system. This device emits radiation that damages the cells of microorganisms like bacteria and mold—keeping the coil and interior components clean. Quality varies; make sure to work with a reputable manufacturer and contractor, and choose a light with a safety certification from UL or ETL, two independent organizations that test and certify products like lights for safety. Lights without these certifications may generate harmful byproducts, Taylor notes.

Proper AC maintenance will also amplify AC’s benefits, like thinning out PM2.5 from the air. “With a decent filter, you reduce exposure to a ton of things we know have very serious health effects,” Siegel says. 

For a window AC, don’t move it straight from the closet to the window when summer starts. “Open it up and clean it first,” Taylor says. 

Use air purifiers

Although your AC can—if it’s working on all cylinders—clean PM2.5 pollution from outdoor sources, it does not clean another type of toxin that originates inside the home: volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. If the AC is on constantly, and you rarely open windows, your air may be rife with these chemicals.

Potentially harmful VOCs are emitted by many home products such as furniture, cleaning supplies, and air fresheners. They’ve been linked to headaches, throat irritation, hormone disruption and, with long-term exposure, chronic diseases.

VOCs play a role in what experts increasingly view as a building’s microbiome, Taylor says. Indoor spaces, just like the human body, harbor communities of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes. With optimal humidity and AC maintenance, your indoor microbiome supports healthier, more diverse microbes. But VOCs can suppress or kill these microbes and promote the growth of pathogenic strains and imbalanced communities.

Read More: Should You Take a Fiber Supplement?

Counter toxic VOCs by occasionally turning off the AC and opening windows. Indoor air has 2 to 5 times more VOCs than outdoor air, Stephens says. 

Another strategy: buy a portable HEPA air purifier. The best versions have carbon filters with porous surfaces that trap the gas molecules of VOCs, taking them out of the air. Purifiers also help remove about 50% of PM2.5. Stephens has one purifier on each level of his townhome. He keeps the purifiers’ fan speeds on low or medium constantly to filter the air without having to think about it—but changes the speed to high when there’s pollution, such as during rush hour when PM2.5 comes from outside, or when he’s cleaning with chemicals that produce VOCs inside. 

VOC levels may be higher if your home is tightly sealed, trapping the chemicals inside. “Every home is an absolute unicorn,” Stephens says. A professional air sampling measures VOCs. A number of VOC monitors are also available for people to buy, but Stephens says these consumer-grade devices can’t detect levels of specific VOCs, so they won’t tell you the potential toxicity or health risk. 

However, he adds that low-cost monitors for particles like PM2.5 have become much more accurate in recent years. An even less expensive, relatively simple humidity monitor combined with good AC maintenance will help ensure that you stay both cool and healthy this summer.  

source https://time.com/7293248/can-air-conditioning-make-you-sick/

What to Know as Air India Flight to London Crashes, With All 242 On Board Feared Dead

A passenger plane heading to London, England, carrying 242 people, crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad, India, on Thursday. Footage shows the Air India Boeing 787-8 plane flying low above a residential area before crashing, resulting in a ball of flames emerging from the impact site.

Police believe there are no expected survivors from the crash, per the Associated Press. Local media has reported that the plane crashed into local medical college accommodation, south-west of Ahmedabad’s airport. Five people at the accommodation building are believed to have been killed in the crash, as well as many others injured.

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Air India confirmed on Thursday morning that the passenger aircraft was carrying 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian.

How did the crash in Ahmedabad unfold?

The plane took off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 1:38 p.m local time. Initial warning signs came after Air India announced the aircraft had been “involved in an accident.”

FlightRadar, which displays live updates for flights worldwide, shows that the path of the plane ended shortly after takeoff. The signal with the aircraft was reportedly lost at around 625 ft.

A large ball of flames could be seen rising from the crash site, followed by clouds of dark smoke as emergency services rushed to the scene. Images of the crash site show extensive damage to buildings in the vicinity, with charred rubble and parts of the plane scattered across the landscape. The rear of the aircraft could be seen partially intact on top of a nearby building.

What are the details of the flight?

There were 242 people onboard the Air India plane, including 10 crew according to local media.

The flight was scheduled to land at London’s Gatwick Airport at approximately 6:25 p.m. local time on Thursday evening, according to the airport.

Aviation expert Julian Bray has said that the pilot made a mayday call before the crash, indicating that the crew was aware of a problem with the aircraft.

Local news outlet NDTV is reporting that pilot Sumeet Sabharwal had 8,200 hours of flight experience, and co-pilot Clive Kundar had 1,100 hours, citing the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

It is also the first ever Boeing 787-8 plane to crash, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. A Boeing spokesperson has provided an initial response, saying: “We are aware of initial reports and are working to gather more information.”

However, generally speaking, Boeing has a history of high-profile crashes. This latest incident comes a month after the aircraft company agreed to pay $1.1bn in a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid prosecution over two crashes in 2018 and 2019 that together killed 346 people.

Just hours after the most recent crash, as of around 4 p.m. local time, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport has reopened and is operational once again, according to India’s civil aviation ministry.

How are lawmakers and other leaders reacting?

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the crash a “tragedy” and said he is “stunned and saddened.”

“It is heartbreaking beyond words. In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected by it. [I] have been in touch with Ministers and authorities who are working to assist those affected,” he said in a statement via social media.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has also offered his condolences, calling the situation “devastating.”

“I am being kept updated as the situation develops, and my thoughts are with the passengers and their families at this deeply distressing time,” Starmer said.

King Charles III has offered his “deepest possible sympathies” in an official statement. “My wife and I have been desperately shocked by the terrible events in Ahmedabad this morning. Our special prayers and deepest possible sympathies are with the families and friends of all those affected,” His Majesty said. “I would like to pay a particular tribute to the heroic efforts of the emergency services and all those providing help and support at this most heartbreaking and traumatic time.”

India’s Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said he is “deeply shocked and saddened” by the incident, adding that “all aviation and emergency response agencies have been directed to take rapid and coordinated action.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney relayed that he was “devastated” to learn of the incident. “My thoughts are with the loved ones of everyone on board. Canada’s transportation officials are in close contact with counterparts and I am receiving regular updates as the response to this tragedy unfolds,” he said.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro also reacted to Thursday’s crash. “It was with deep dismay that I learned of the tragic plane crash in India, in which seven citizens with Portuguese nationality were travelling,” he said. “On behalf of myself and the Government, I would like to express my condolences and deep solidarity with the families of the victims.”

source https://time.com/7293469/india-london-bound-airplane-crash-boeing-fatalities/

I Was Undocumented for 21 Years. This Is Why I Tell My Story

For 21 years, I was undocumented. While I am an American citizen now, this fact still remains the boldest and most dangerous thing I can say out loud.

The danger of being undocumented, of course—greatly heightened by President Donald Trump’s administration—is of deportation. When my family entered this country, my parents warned me of the possible consequences. “If you tell anyone you’re illegal, they’ll report you to Homeland Security,” they’d say. I was four years old.

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There’s an existential power that deportation holds over the undocumented community. It is another form of death, never to see your loved ones again from home. That’s how it felt for me—too young to remember my birth country of Brazil. It’s no wonder The Wonderful Wizard of Oz transfixed me as the first book in English I stayed up late to read; it made an image of what deportation might be like: a sudden and violent transport to an unknown realm (or so I’d been told about Brazil, compared to Queens, N.Y., since I could barely remember it when parents came to America) where one’s only mission is to return home.

Though I claimed no citizenship in the U.S. at the time, I found citizenship in literature. Literature is an easy place to make a home, and my schoolteachers and librarians invited me out of Oz and onto the American prairie, the English drawing room, and to poetry. They directed me toward Homer, Emily Dickinson, and Audre Lorde. They assigned writing, too; for poetry is never solely to be read. They showed me that part of literature’s generosity is that one may try a hand in creating it, in joining the great conversation that crisscrosses generations, cultures, languages, and people—the glorious and the meek. As I became a poet, literature—and the power of the language—continued to be my most stable home.

Read More: Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Operation

Growing up, I wanted to be like Jack Gilbert, Elizabeth Bishop, even Adrienne Rich, poets who I imagined bore traits I perceived as quintessentially American: so cheerful, I thought, in their privileges that they had to conjure their artistic melancholy. So, at the writing table, I pretended my fears were not mine, but of a stranger; and that I was a typical Asian American, whose problems were “merely” bigotry and, say, filial piety. Problems that I too confronted but felt safer to discuss on the page than my status. Generations of immigrant writers had demonstrated how one writes on such troubles, and it would be expected of me, since I look like an Asian American. Instead of writing about my whole undocumented self, I pretended I was an actor of heroines, like Joan Chen and Gong Li. Someone who surely had no legal problems to obscure from my classmates.

But dishonesty of this nature does not yield good art—at least, not truthful art. And my poems were skittish, little creatures. Like blindfolded sheep, they bumped around the fields of my page, grazing, stumbling, and ultimately beset by the wolves that were my bewildered classmates, who were keen enough readers to notice that these poems weren’t quite working, but without the context to understand why.

And how could they? A lifetime of pretending I was just another American meant that when I tried to speak honestly, I couldn’t actually do it. Ostensibly, I had much to write about. I could’ve written about how my father had designed hydroelectric dams in Brazil and then labored at a laundromat in New York City. Or how both my parents survived civil war and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Or how, in the U.S., my mother sought refuge in Dami Mission, a doomsday cult that prophesied a mass rapture to heaven. But these were all unavailable to me; I couldn’t write about any of it. I first needed to feel secure to tell my story.

Perhaps it is surprising to learn that even as a naturalized citizen, I remain wary to this day. My green card arrived when I was 27. Yet I did not travel abroad for another seven years, and that was to Canada. The outside world had become forbidden fruit—and an object of dread.

My writing, however, was impatient to change. The year I received my green card, Irish poet and professor Eamon Grennan counseled me. He said: “Esther, lay bare the narrative field.”

What he meant was, tell the story. Tell my story.

Slowly, I did. My first decent poems imagined parts of my mother’s life. What I guessed about her feelings. I wrote about being her daughter. I described my father’s voyage from Hong Kong to Brazil by way of Africa. I wrote about Queens. Eventually, I wrote about my own experience of being undocumented. I followed Grennan’s advice: I laid bare the narrative field. My first book, titled Cold Thief Place, reads like a memoir in poems. A memoir was not necessarily my intention, but the book does tell the stories of how my mother frog-leaped from marriage to marriage to defect from China. Of how I muddled through my own marriage, which made me eligible to apply for a green card. Of how two signs, “European only” and “Black only,” at a post office in South Africa baffled my father.

Telling stories allowed for another discovery: just as I fell in love with the raw, fickleness of the English sentence, its straightforward subject-predicate structure began to enchant me, too. I like a brutally direct poem, with unembroidered language and simple, but elegant, syntax. Such a structure means I cannot hide or delay the revelation of things that are painful but true. I laugh when one of my poems emerges especially dark. It’s dark because I was truthful. Sometimes, there is no solace.

Unlike African American poets, we undocumented poets do not hold centuries of literary tradition, with great names like Phillis Wheatley, Lawrence Dunbar, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Among the general population, we cannot identify who is undocumented or a citizen—it is taboo to ask casually what an immigrant’s visa status is, or it should be taboo to ask about such private, life-determining matters. Like the LGBTQIA+ community, we undocumented may or may not be “out” about our status.

Happily, though, there is a “we.” In 2015, three poets formed the Undocupoets, an organization that I now co-run, with two other formerly undocumented poets, Janine Joseph and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo. Our organization awards three $500 fellowships each year to other undocumented poets and raises awareness within and without the literary world. As of this writing, Janine has published two books of poems, most recently Decade of the Brain, and Marcelo has published a book of poems and a memoir, titled Children of the Land. My first book, titled Cold Thief Place, came out in March. So this is a young tradition.

Our other work is ensuring that undocumented people and citizens know of this tradition. We don’t wish to pass as simply American, as if we do not hold a uniquely American story. Rather, we wish to help archive undocumented art, because we are a fundamental part of this country’s history. And we wish to let undocumented writers know that they too are part of a we (if they wish); and that our community is larger than we think. We are vocal; we are present.

source https://time.com/7293467/formerly-undocumented-immigrant-poet-essay/