Less than a month after making their debut, the WH-1000XM6 are on sale at Amazon in black, blue, and platinum with a $30 gift card for $448. It’s not a straight cash discount, sure, but if you were already debating picking up Sony’s latest pair of noise-canceling headphones, it makes the $50 price hike over the last-gen XM5 easier to stomach.
If you were to ignore the steep price hike, the new XM6 are a welcome improvement over the XM5 in every way. They’re outfitted with Sony’s latest noise-cancellation chip, which allows them to do a better job at drowning out the ambient noise you might encounter on the street, at your local coffee shop, or on your next cross-country flight. Their transparency mode is as natural-sounding as ever, too, and thanks to a new set of drivers, they deliver clearer vocals and the same dynamic, rich sound for which the XM series is known.
Design-wise, they also represent an excellent return to form, albeit with a few minor tweaks for added comfort and convenience. They sport a wider headband that’s designed to alleviate pressure during longer listening sessions, along with a redesigned power button that’s easier to distinguish from the onboard ANC button. More importantly, however, they once again collapse with the aid of a joint in each arm, allowing them to take up less room in the included carrying case. As someone who frequently travels with the XM5 — the only pair in the XM series that can’t fold down — I can say the change is greatly appreciated.
LAST OCTOBER, SEVEN months after a heart transplant saved his life, 11-year NBA veteran Scot Pollard was back in the hospital. But this time, the visit was not for him.
Ozzy Pollard, the third of his four children, was a senior and played tight end for the high school team. Midway through the season, he’d injured his ACL and meniscus and needed an operation to repair both.
The Pollards were well prepared to manage the stress of surgery; Scot had spent the past three years fighting genetic heart disease.
During his playing days at the University of Kansas, and his time in the NBA, Scot became something of a cult favorite across the league, gaining the adoration of fans for his one-of-a-kind personality, carousel of flamboyant hairstyles and dogged competitiveness.
More than a decade into retirement, though, Scot’s spirit slowly faded, his days taken up by doctor’s visits, tests and questions.
At 48 years old, a man who just a few years ago had been a public face of peak physical might and condition was in active heart failure.
“I do remember feeling like, ‘If this is it, I’m going to be OK,'” he said. “‘But if it’s not, I’ve got a lot to do.”
He paused.
“I’m really glad I have a lot to do.'”
Scot received a new heart on February 16, 2024.
Organ donation operates under a strict standard of anonymity. Neither donor family nor recipient is provided details about the other, unless the transplant patient chooses to initiate contact following the procedure.
Scot spent five months reflecting on his transplant experience before deciding to send a letter to his anonymous donor family.
In it, he called his donor a hero.
My name is Scot, he wrote. I live in Indiana and I’m writing this letter to express mine and my family’s unending appreciation for your loved one’s gift of life. My wife, myself, our four children, our extended family and friends are all forever grateful!
He continued.
We would love the opportunity to meet at some point if you’re amenable to that idea. We want to let you know that your loved one’s heart is going to be loved and cared for and will give love back.
We have already begun raising donor awareness in our community and are going nationwide. I’ve already connected with multiple donor networks in various communities to assist them in promoting becoming a donor.
Your loved one is our hero and he will live on forever through me and our efforts of getting more people to be selfless heroes like him.
If you don’t feel comfortable responding, I completely understand. I just wanted you to know my lifelong appreciation for him. He truly is my hero.
Scot passed the letter on to his hospital, which then passed it on to the donor’s hospital, which then passed it on to the donor’s family.
It was up to them to decide how they wanted to reply, or if they wanted to at all.
“I can very much understand how a lot of people would say, ‘I don’t want to know that person that got a kidney, or lungs, or eyes. It’s just too much,'” Scot said. “And so the transplant programs prep you for that, that most people do not respond.”
Days passed, then weeks. His hopes to hear back from the family who saved him dimmed.
Three months after he’d sent his letter, as his family sat in the hospital with Ozzy, Scot checked his email.
They’d written him back.
ON FEBRUARY 6, 2024, Scot Pollard was dying.
The day before, he and his wife, Dawn, had arrived at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, for a three-day heart transplant evaluation.
Scot had already been registered on transplant lists in Indianapolis and Chicago. He was aiming to get on the list in Nashville — 300 miles south of the Pollards’ Carmel, Indiana, home — hoping another transplant region meant a greater opportunity for a match.
Dr. Jonathan Menachem, a cardiologist at the hospital, placed his hands on Scot’s wrist.
“Your pulse is slow,” he told him. “Is it always pretty slow?”
Scot then laid down on a bed, where Menachem took his stethoscope and placed it on Scot’s chest.
“Do you get short of breath just laying like this?” he asked him.
Scot closed his eyes and nodded.
“Seeing someone lay down like that and getting so short of breath that quick is concerning,” Menachem said.
Scot was in end-stage heart failure. He was admitted to the intensive care unit, and an emergency search for a transplant began.
“He was filled with fluid and didn’t have enough blood flow going around his body,” Menachem said. “They thought they were going home to Indiana.
“We looked at each other,” Menachem said of him and his colleague as they reviewed Scot’s prognosis. “We were like, ‘This guy cannot go home.'”
Scot’s heart was failing. He’d been suffering from cardiomyopathy, a disease that makes it difficult for the heart muscle to pump. With more strain on the muscle, and more blood required for his large frame, he weakened by the day.
“I’m really attached to this heart,” he said in the hospital. “I feel like it’s the best one. That’s the one I was born with. And the biggest fear is that the next one isn’t going to be good enough.”
As he prepared for additional tests, various nodes were attached to his chest and fingers, a heart monitor’s looming beeps serving as a second-by-second reminder of what was to come.
“I’m not really scared of anything,” Scot said. “Now, when you’re sitting here, waiting for a new heart, the unknown can be terrifying.”
SCOT INHERITED HIS height from his father, Pearl, who stood at 6-foot-8. And when he was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, he realized that was inherited, too.
In 1952, Pearl’s father moved the family from Montana to Utah with the hope of making his son a boxer. But, as Scot tells it, the basketball coach got to Pearl first.
Pearl played center for Jordan High School, just south of Salt Lake City, and was quickly christened “Poison” Pollard for his deadly hook shot. He won back-to-back state high school championships with the Beetdiggers, setting the state tournament scoring record in 1955.
Earlier that year, he appeared alongside Wilt Chamberlain in a Life magazine spread featuring the tallest high school basketball players in the country.
Pearl went on to play for the University of Utah from 1956 through 1959 and was the team’s leading scorer for the 1958-59 season.
“He was a giant of a man in every single way possible,” Scot said.
When Scot was 12, the family moved from Utah to San Diego, where he first noticed his father’s health begin to decline. Three years later, Pearl was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, at the age of 53. He was put on the heart transplant list but needed an organ donor similar in size.
Given his towering height, finding one would be nearly impossible.
“We knew it was a death sentence,” Scot, who was the youngest of six children, said. “I was just thinking, ‘God, I’m going to grow up without a dad.'”
One morning in October 1991, Scot was making his way up from the beach after surfing in gym class. Pearl happened to drive by in his white, city-issued pickup truck and stopped for a quick chat with his son.
A few hours later, Scot received a phone call from a friend. He said Pearl’s truck had crashed into a country club parking lot and paramedics were on the scene.
Pearl had suffered a heart attack behind the wheel.
He died on the transplant list.
Scot was 16. He was the last of his family to see his father alive.
SCOT NEVER FORGOT his father’s fate. Following a healthy playing career, he continued to check his heart regularly.
In January 2021, he visited the doctor for an annual physical. This appointment, like all the others before it, went without concern.
One month later, though, Scot received a flu shot, and he says doctors believe it released a “genetic anomaly” that triggered his heart failure.
“A couple days later, I got the flu,” Scot said, “and it attacked my heart. I couldn’t walk across the room.”
“We’re never going to know for sure what happened,” Menachem said, “but he clearly was predisposed to having a heart that was not going to function well for his entire life.”
What came next was an increasingly frightening three-year stretch of appointments and treatments and hospital visits, culminating in the realization that he would need a heart transplant to survive.
Doubt that he’d find one, and guilt that he deserved one, overwhelmed him.
Someone would have to die to give me life.
Scot had experienced and lived more than most, he thought: a meaningful college basketball career that had led to an admirable NBA career, which had helped him build his beloved family and pursue their dreams. Surely there were stronger candidates for this chance at life-saving surgery.
Of the former, Dawn, too, was skeptical. But she needed to convince her husband of the fallacy of the latter, reminding him of his responsibilities as a husband and father, of how much they still had to live.
He listened — and eventually agreed.
“How dare I even think about doing the same thing to my kids that my dad unintentionally did to me?” Scot thought.
“He didn’t want me to grow up without a dad to be there and teach [me],” Ozzy said. “And I love him for that.”
The next step was finding a heart strong enough to support his body.
“You can’t put a Ford Festiva engine in an F-150 and think it’s going to work well,” Menachem said.
While Pearl died waiting for a same-sized donor, Scot had hope. Medical technology had advanced to allow for greater variation in size.
On Scot’s 49th birthday, his sixth day in the Vanderbilt Intensive Care Unit, he received word of a potential donor. He called family members to the hospital. He shaved his head and beard in preparation for the surgery.
But doctors determined the prospective heart wouldn’t be viable.
Another option arose soon after.
That, too, was declined.
PAMELA ANGELL AND Megan Tyra were sitting in a hospital in East Texas when they were told they had 14 days to make the most devastating decision of their lives.
Pamela’s husband, Casey, had been intubated, no longer able to breathe on his own.
Casey and Pamela had met in 2009 while working at Walmart. He was someone who could “talk a stranger’s ear off,” she says, and he often did.
When Pamela was pregnant with their son, William, Casey found a new position as a forklift operator. But exposure to elements on the job — in addition to a history of smoking — had taken a toll. In February 2024, a bout of pneumonia had sent the 45-year-old to the hospital, where he drifted in and out of consciousness.
Days went by. Then a week. Then more. Angell had failed to show any signs of improvement — or life. On day 11, Pamela and Megan, Casey’s sister, made the decision to let him go.
Shortly after, the hospital’s organ donation liaison approached them.
“He said, ‘Look, guys, Casey had a really big heart,'” Megan said.
“Yeah, we know,” Megan’s husband, Clint, responded.
“He said, ‘No, man, you don’t understand. He physically had a big heart.'” Megan said. “And I’m like, ‘Is that important?’
He’s like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s important.'”
Angell was a hearty 5-foot-11. In 1991, that would not have been large enough to save Pearl Pollard. But in 2024, it would be large enough to save Scot.
Pamela and Megan agreed to the anonymous process of organ donation — and watched Angell’s heart leave the hospital.
“You’re losing your best friend,” Pamela said, “but somebody else is gaining your best friend, in a way.”
On the morning of February 16, as Angell’s heart traveled from Texas to Tennessee, Vanderbilt staff began to prepare Scot for transplant surgery.
Physicians gathered the endless tubes and wires tethering him to his hospital room, and rearranged them for the short journey to the operating room.
Amid the steady heart-monitor beeps, Scot began his goodbyes.
“Who’s my favorite fourth kid?” Scot said, hugging his youngest child, Icean.
“Me?” Icean said.
Scot leaned in. “That’s right,” he said, putting the pair forehead to forehead. “You.”
Then Dawn took her husband’s head in her hands and bent over the bed for a kiss. “I love you,” she said, smiling through her tears.
“I love you forever,” Scot said, running his fingers through her long, dark hair. “I love youforever,” she told him.
Scot was pushed through the halls of the hospital, Dawn following as far as she was allowed. She squeezed her husband’s hand before he passed through a set of double doors, beyond her grasp.
“I was thinking, ‘OK, what if he doesn’t wake up?’ she said later. “That’s when it finally hit me.”
“I was thinking what life would possibly be like … without him.”
Just after 11 a.m., Scot was taken into surgery.
At 1:08 p.m., a black SUV pulled into the Adult Emergency Entrance at the hospital. In the trunk, doctors pulled out a white cooler and raced inside. Inside a smaller plastic container was Angell’s heart.
At 1:16, doctors removed Scot’s heart from his body.
“Now, there’s no heart in there,” said Dr. Ashish Shah, one of the heart surgeons who performed the operation. “There’s a giant, gaping hole, and when that old heart came out, you see an enormous, unhappy organ.”
Thirteen minutes later, his new heart was sewn in and blood was restored to it.
By 5 p.m., the procedure was complete.
“In some respects,” Shah said, “it was just the right heart for him.”
ONE MID-OCTOBER EVENING last year, Scot and Dawn stood on the sideline of the Carmel High School football field. It was senior night. As the sun set behind the stands, they waited to hear Ozzy’s name called.
It was just two weeks after his knee operation, so he couldn’t play, but Ozzy walked across the field in celebration, his dad by his side.
“It’s like I have my dad back from when I was younger,” Ozzy said.
Yet the Pollards are keenly aware that their relief, their joy, had come at an enormous expense.
On the day of Ozzy’s surgery, inside the hospital room, Scot checked his email. And there it was, the response he so hoped he’d get.
As soon as Pamela received Scot’s letter, she called Megan and they decided to write back, interested in learning more about the man carrying Casey’s heart — and sharing more about the man from whom it came.
Scot read the letter aloud.
Dear Scot, thank you so much for reaching out to us.
Scot, you warmed our hearts with your kind words concerning your donor, who was loved beyond measure. February 16, 2024, was an incredibly hard day for those of us that loved your donor, Casey.
When we knew that we were going to have to let him go, and were approached about organ donation, there was never a pause or a doubt that Casey would have wanted to help.
So the answer was simple, and it was a yes.
Scot’s voice began to break.
He continued to read.
Casey was a loving husband, dad, uncle, and the best baby brother anyone could ask for. Even though he was the baby, he towered over us all.
Thank you for caring for that big heart of his. And we are grateful to know he is loved and will continue to give love. It means the world to us. He has inspired people in his own family to donate and be a hero like him.
And we, as his family, though small, would love to meet you whenever you are ready to do so.
Megan wrote that Angell was a “gentle giant” who was always happy to help those in need. “We are blessed to know that even in our greatest tragedy we stayed true to who he was,” she wrote, “and we are so glad that because of our hero, you can continue to be a blessing to your family and others.”
The families first spoke on the phone on November 9, on what would have been Angell’s 46th birthday. After exchanging texts, they decided to meet in person.
On March 17, 2025, Scot and Dawn were in Lindale, Texas, a small town about 90 miles east of Dallas.
As the pair stepped out of their hotel room, Dawn took her husband’s hand.
“Ready?” she asked softly, smiling up at him. “Ready,” he responded.
Hand-in-hand, they walked down the hall toward the room where Angell’s family was waiting.
As they turned the final corner, they spotted the family through an open door, breaking into nervous laughter before exchanging hugs with Pamela, William, Megan and Clint.
“Hi, gang,” Scot said, before he and Dawn extended their arms.
Scot learned William was 12 when his father died, and that he was “the love of [his father’s] life.”
“We’re grateful that Scot’s here, with Casey’s heart,” Pamela said. “And William has another person to look up to, as a father figure.”
William told stories of their afternoons together fishing, or watching horror movies, describing his dad as gentle and a giant, too. Casey and Scot both had dragon tattoos, William’s Japanese zodiac sign.
“There was a connection there that I felt,” Scot said. “I know how that feels as a child, to lose your father.”
“You look like your dad,” Dawn told William.
“Copy and pasted, that’s how we put it,” Megan replied.
Pamela showed Dawn and Scot Casey’s wedding ring, which she wears on a chain around her neck, and shared the story of how they met. Megan explained that while she and Casey had other siblings, the two of them were the closest.
“He was my bubba,” she said.
Before leaving for lunch together, Pamela took out a stethoscope she’d brought.
Scot stood and unbuttoned his shirt while Pamela positioned it right on his chest.
As she listened to the beating heart inside of him, her eyes filled with tears.
Megan went next. “My turn,” she said.
She softly placed the stethoscope just to the right of a lengthy, vertical scar, a lasting reminder of what was given — and what was lost.
With Scot looking down at her, she bowed her head and listened.
“Hey, Bubba,” she said, weeping.
ON MEMORIAL DAY weekend, under sunny skies, the Pollards, Angells, and Tyras sailed through the streets of downtown Indianapolis, waving to an enthusiastic crowd.
A year after Scot’s transplant, he had been named grand marshal of the Indy 500 Festival Parade and invited his heart donor’s family to join him on the float.
It had been only a few months since their first in-person meeting, but Megan says getting to know the Pollards has helped her family heal. Today, at 50, Scot is doing well, but his future is fraught with unpredictability.
He’s the tallest transplant recipient in the history of Vanderbilt’s Medical Center, and doctors aren’t sure how his life will progress. Still, whatever doubt had coursed through Scot prior to the surgery has now diminished entirely.
“The fact that I get to be Dad for as long as I can was completely worth it,” he said.
While Scot says his doctors do not think the new heart will be affected by the genetic disorder, they do believe his children are at risk of heart disease.
But in the meantime, he will be there to support them on their own journeys. Ozzy, 17, will soon begin his freshman year at Marian University, a school just 30 minutes from home. Icean, 9, will enter fourth grade in the fall.
And in Texas, William, 13, plans to play for the junior high football team, just like his dad.
Fate fused the paths of the Pollards and the Angells — each, in their own way, helping the other mend.
“What we hope for moving forward,” Scot said, “is just that I can keep living a good life because of their gift.”
As Megan looked out at the cheering crowd, she thought of Casey.
“It’s an honor to let everyone know how proud we are of him, and who he was, and what a good man he was,” she said of her brother. “We miss him every day, but Scot helps with that.”
ESPN E60’s Jeremy Schaap, Dan Lindberg, and John Minton contributed to this story.
The company building the HS2 rail line between London and Birmingham has reported one of its subcontractors to the tax authorities over possible fraud.
Whistleblowers made allegations over the way pay was handled for some construction staff on the high-speed line.
HS2 Ltd said last month it was conducting its own investigation, looking into two firms who supplied it with workers. The company has now also referred the matter to HMRC.
The firms in question were providing workers to Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV), a contractor for HS2.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is expected to raise the issue in Parliament this week. It is the latest difficulty to beset the troubled giant rail infrastructure project.
HS2 has faced myriad challenges and spiralling costs since it was first announced in 2009.
It was originally designed to boost capacity on the railways between the north and south of England but the last, Conservative, government decided to scrap the second phase of the project, which included building lines to Manchester and Leeds.
Earlier this year whistleblowers flagged concerns over the way some subcontracted staff were being paid. They said self-employed workers had been falsely declared as salaried staff, with “fake” payslips submitted at a higher payrate. The allegations were first published in the i newspaper in May.
One of the labour suppliers is understood to remain suspended from new contracts while inquiries continue.
An HS2 spokesperson said: “We treat all whistleblower allegations seriously and are continuing to conduct our own investigation.”
The firm said it encouraged anyone with relevant information to report it via confidential internal channels.
The Department for Transport said last month it had “a zero-tolerance attitude towards fraud, bribery, and corruption” and would ensure any claims of wrongdoing were thoroughly investigated.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s moves to upend decades of vaccine policy could hit patients hardest in their wallets, as shifting guidance over shots could make insurance coverage confusing and scattershot.
For decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) independent advisory panel recommended which shots Americans should get and when.
The Affordable Care Act requires all insurance companies to cover, for free, all vaccines the panel recommends. Those recommendations also help states decide which shots should be mandated for schoolchildren.
Kennedy’s most recent move to purge the entire advisory panel and replace them with his own handpicked members, including several vocal vaccine critics, is throwing that process into doubt.
“If we have a system that has been dismantled — one that allowed for open, evidence-based decisionmaking and that supported transparent and clear dialogue about vaccines — and then we replace it with a process that’s driven largely by one person’s beliefs, that creates a system that cannot be trusted,” Helen Chu, a newly ousted member of the panel and professor of infectious disease at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said during a press conference.
Vaccine prices vary, but without insurance, coronavirus vaccines can cost nearly $150, the MMR shot ranges from $95 to nearly $280, and the HPV vaccine can exceed $300, according to CDC data. Individual pharmacies could charge even more.
Candace DeMatteis, policy director at the Partnership to Fight Infectious Disease, said she worries about creating a two-tiered system.
“Out of pocket costs for vaccines become an issue where we could end up with a system where some people can afford vaccinating themselves and their families and others cannot,” DeMatteis said.
Prior to enactment of the Affordable Care Act, vaccine coverage varied significantly depending on the type of insurance a person had. If the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) changes recommendations for existing vaccines or doesn’t recommend new ones, maintaining access will be difficult.
“It’s a seismic shift, if you will, away from facilitating access by removing coverage and cost barriers, to one where there’s great uncertainty and coverage and cost issues become barriers,” DeMatteis said.
It’s not clear what the vetting process was for the eight people Kennedy appointed to the ACIP, or how prepared they will be for their first meeting, which is scheduled to occur in less than two weeks.
According to a Federal Register notice, the panel is scheduled to vote on recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines as well as meningococcal, HPV, influenza, and RSV vaccines for adults and maternal and pediatric populations.
Health experts said they have serious questions about what direction the new panel will take and whether Americans will still have access to free vaccines, including the coronavirus shot, in time for fall respiratory season.
If the ACIP is no longer a reliable, independent authority on vaccines, it “will be replaced by a patchwork of different policies by different states, and each state will have to make its own decisions,” Chu said.
“Washington state is a place where we have experts and scientists who work together. There are other states where this may not exist, or where they may not choose to recommend vaccines. So that is going to create a lot of chaos,” she added.
Some state health officials have already begun taking steps in that direction.
The Illinois Department of Health said on social media it will be convening its own vaccine advisory committee and national experts “to ensure we continue to provide clear, science-backed vaccine guidance for our residents.”
When Kennedy unilaterally changed the COVID-19 vaccine guidance earlier this month to remove recommendations for pregnant women and change the open recommendation for children, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services said it would continue to recommend the shots for every person at least 6 months old.
“The recent changes in CDC guidance were not made based on new data, evidence, or scientific or medical studies, nor was the guidance issued following normal processes,” the agency said in a statement.
Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said her organization as well as other major medical groups including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics Academy have been speaking with insurance companies to urge them to continue paying for shots, even if the panel changes recommendations.
Tan mentioned an initiative launched in April by a group of public health experts called the Vaccine Integrity Project, which is working to create an alternative process to maintain vaccine access.
The initiative is funded by a foundation backed by Walmart heiress Christy Walton and led by Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
Federal law is specific that insurance provisions are tied to the ACIP. Specialty organizations may have expertise to make their own recommendations, but they will still require the cooperation of insurance companies. States are also more limited, and they don’t have the same power as the federal government to force coverage.
“I think it remains to be seen what the insurers are going to do,” Tan said. “However, hopefully, with the discussions going on, they can get the insurers to understand that vaccines are extraordinarily safe and effective and are the best tool that we have to protect persons of all ages against serious vaccine preventable diseases.”
While focusing on saving can seem safer than potentially losing money in mutual funds, stocks and bonds, finance expert Ramit Sethi believes that this approach could leave you broke.
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A 2024 report by Janus Henderson Investors found that 48% of Americans had no investments. While some people cited a lack of investment expertise, the need to pay off debt or limited financial means as the reason, 38% simply preferred putting cash in regular bank accounts.
While you might think you’re making progress by saving money, you’ll eventually find yourself off track from your retirement goal, even if you contribute a large sum each month.
First, a typical savings account usually earns a much lower rate than the average investment return, so your money grows much more slowly. Then, there are hidden factors you might forget, like taxes and inflation, that lead to being unable to buy as much with your savings.
Sethi gave an example of someone who spent 30 years stashing away $1,000 each month. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation data showed the national average savings account rate was 0.42% in May 2025, while Sethi said the historical average annual investment return (after inflation) was 7%.
According to Sethi, the person who saved would have around $383,000 after 30 years, compared to nearly $1.2 million for the investor. So, the saver would have missed out on about $817,000.
The annual inflation rate reported in April 2025 was 2.3%, which was 1.88% more than the 0.42% average savings account rate. So, while your savings balance looks like it’s growing each year, inflation is likely robbing you of some of your money’s value.
For example, if you had $1,000 in your savings account, you might earn $4.20 over the year, but lose $23.00 to inflation. So, your money’s purchasing power would have gone down by $18.80, meaning you’re not really getting ahead.
Sethi explained that many people mistakenly believe that saving is the safe and virtuous route, but as the example showed, it actually makes it harder to grow money efficiently.
He said, “In order to build wealth, you have to go way beyond saving, and you have to invest.”
While still saving cash for emergencies and upcoming purchases is smart, prioritizing investing is a better approach for preparing for retirement and building wealth. Sethi discussed how you can invest without making it complicated, and suggested ways to come up with more cash to contribute.
First, he recommended a three-step strategy of taking advantage of 401(k) matches, contributing to a Roth IRA and buying target-date funds. This combination gives you free money from your employer, tax advantages and simplicity.
To ensure you stay on track, Sethi suggested automatically transferring 5% of your pay to both your 401(k) and Roth IRA accounts. Then, you should set up automatic target-date fund purchases so you don’t forget them.
Finally, Sethi said you should take three steps to get more money rather than focus on cutting expenses, which will eventually come to a limit. These include asking for a higher salary, taking on a suitable side gig and focusing on gaining and improving valuable skills.
Sethi explained, “If you focus on earning more, you will give yourself a massive advantage in building your rich life.”
Justin Bieber is only going to tell you this one time.
Indeed, when a media outlet spelled his and Hailey Bieber’s 9-month-old son Jack Blues Bieber’s name wrong on social media, the “Baby” singer didn’t hesitate to call out their mistake.
After Complex posted a series of pics of Justin and his son on Instagram June 13 alongside the caption, “Justin and Jack Blue Bieber,” the 31-year-old quickly took to the comments to correct the misspelling.
“It’s jack blues,” Justin wrote, adding a middle finger emoji to the end of his message.
“WELCOME HOME,” Justin wrote on Instagram Aug. 23 alongside photo of Hailey holding the little one’s foot. “JACK BLUES BIEBER.”
But since welcoming their son last year, the “Beauty and a Beat” singer’s relationship with the Rhode Beauty founder, as well as concerns about his health, have become the subject of online rumors.
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
The attrition that has plagued the Los Angeles Dodgers was most stark Tuesday night, when Matt Sauer, a 26-year-old journeyman, was called on to pitch bulk innings and wound up throwing 111 pitches, a career high and at least 29 more than he had tallied at any point in the past two years. He was followed by Enrique Hernandez, the team’s effervescent utility player, who recorded the final seven outs of a lopsided loss to the San Diego Padres by throwing crossbody cutters that barely reached 50 mph, marking the first time in at least 67 years that a Dodgers position player had been called on for more than two innings.
Such is the state of the Dodgers’ pitching staff. Its injury rate is once again alarming, the team’s division lead has become miniscule because of it — and the anticipation around Shohei Ohtani‘s return to pitching continues to intensify.
Ohtani took part in his third simulated game hours before the Dodgers deployed the bottom of their depth chart against their biggest rivals, ramping all the way up to 44 pitches. His first start since Aug. 23, 2023, might only be a month away. But the Dodgers vow to remain cautious, no matter how short-handed they might be. Ohtani’s bat is too valuable. His two-way future is too precarious.
“Viewing it on a shorter-term horizon, it’s easy to want to be aggressive and push — I think both from him and from us,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “But we set out to view this as putting him in the best position to pitch over the next nine years and prioritizing longevity, and this first year back, it’s really important for that long-term aspect to not be too aggressive right now.”
Ohtani, though, is forcing the issue. At around 2 p.m. Tuesday, he completed three innings and compiled six strikeouts against a couple of low-level minor leaguers, darting his fastball in the mid- to upper-90s and unleashing a handful of nasty sweepers. Later, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pinned Ohtani’s chances of joining the rotation before the All-Star break at “north of zero” — a sign that the timeline might have accelerated, even if only slightly. Ohtani’s two-way designation affords the luxury of an extra pitcher, allowing the Dodgers to bring him back before he is fully stretched out. The command he is already displaying has only made that more appealing.
But as this process has shown, things can change.
After navigating through a pitching progression toward the tail end of the 2024 regular season, the Dodgers carved out a plan in which Ohtani would essentially stop throwing during the playoffs and pick back up relatively early in the winter. Then Ohtani tore a labrum in his left shoulder in Game 2 of the World Series, necessitating offseason surgery and prompting spring training to essentially qualify as his offseason throwing program.
He paused leading up to the season-opening series in Japan around the middle of March, then built up slowly after the Dodgers returned to the United States. Later, when unforeseen circumstances emerged — an extra-inning game in New York, unfavorable weather in St. Louis — his throwing sessions were pushed back. Ohtani still must extend into the neighborhood of 70 pitches before the Dodgers can even think about unlocking him as a pitcher, even if he won’t initially throw that many in a game. When he does return, he will either be 22 or 23 months removed from a surgery that typically comes with a 12- to 14-month timeline.
His recovery has forced the Dodgers to be nimble, but most of all, to be patient.
“We need him to be healthy,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “They’re moving slow, and we’re all happy about that. We obviously want him to be pitching, but we want him to be healthy first and foremost. When you’re doing what he’s doing, it’s so unprecedented that I don’t know if there is a proper timeline. He might be moving faster than what he should be moving right now; we don’t really know that because it’s just never really been done before.”
For as dominant as Ohtani has proved to be as a pitcher — he posted a 2.84 ERA and compiled 542 strikeouts in 428⅓ innings from 2021 to 2023 before suffering a second tear of his ulnar collateral ligament — his impact on offense has become too important to risk.
Since the start of the 2023 season, his last with the Angels, Ohtani ranks first in the majors in homers (121), second in OPS (1.042), fifth in batting average (.304), sixth in stolen bases (90) and within the top 1% in average exit velocity, barrel rate and expected slugging percentage. Last year, he chartered the 50/50 club while becoming the first full-time designated hitter to win an MVP. This year, he’s slashing .292/.386/.625 while on pace for 54 home runs, matching a career high he set the season before.
His stolen-base rate, though, is down to 26 — 33 fewer than what he tallied in 2024. Ohtani stole his 11th base on May 20 and hasn’t recorded one since. His caution on the bases has coincided with the escalation of his pitching rehab. Roberts said he didn’t know if there was a direct correlation, and Ohtani, who rarely does interviews, hasn’t been made available to speak on it. But the drop-off emphasizes the endurance required to hit and pitch simultaneously.
The Dodgers have been guided by that thought.
“I can’t imagine how tiring it is to do both,” Friedman said. “It’s one thing when you’re in that rhythm of it and you are in shape for that. But it’s been a while since he did both, and this is pretty uncharted because we’ve never been around a guy that does both at this level. And so it’s just trying to do everything we can to build up the muscles in the right arm but also build up the endurance from a body standpoint of doing both and not fatiguing him in a way that makes his offense suffer.”
When Ohtani first joined the Dodgers and began his hitting progression in the spring of 2024, almost all of his swings were precisely 70 mph. Later that summer, when he began to play catch with more intensity, he made a habit of guessing the precise velocity of his throws and was almost always right. Brandon McDaniel, who was the Dodgers’ strength and conditioning coach and director of player performance before being elevated to the coaching staff this season, has spent two decades working with elite athletes and has never met one as in tune with his body as Ohtani.
“It’s almost like he has a monitor to his engine, in front, like a dashboard,” McDaniel said.
Most are good at following the scripts mapped out for their rehabs, McDaniel explained, but Ohtani doesn’t seem to need one. His feel for what his body requires in a given moment is unparalleled. And so for as careful as the Dodgers have been with Ohtani’s pitching progression, they’ve also become unafraid that he’ll go too hard and set himself back. Through that, a trust has developed.
“He obviously wants to push; he’s been pushing,” McDaniel said. “But it’s just been such a great balance of taking very calculated strikes of when we’re going to push and when we’re going to add velo and when we’re going to add spin, things like that. And ultimately, because he’s a two-way player, we don’t have a clock. And so when he feels like he’s ready, that’s the first part of the conversation.”
The Dodgers deployed a franchise-record 40 pitchers during the 2024 season, then rode a three-man rotation and continual bullpen games to a championship. This year was supposed to be different, and yet it has been eerily similar. Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki, three starters who were expected to front one of the best rotations in the sport, are all out with shoulder-related ailments, joining 11 other pitchers on the injured list. The Dodgers have already used 30 players to pitch, more than any other team in the sport. Their bullpen leads the majors in innings by a wide margin.
But Ohtani looms in the background, his pitching return quickly becoming close enough to envision. The buildup alone has been remarkable. His simulated games, which will continue to grow in volume on a weekly basis, usually end roughly four hours before the first pitch, after which Ohtani navigates a maintenance program on his left shoulder and right elbow while the rest of the Dodgers’ hitters prepare for that night’s starting pitcher. Then, like he used to so often, he grabs a bat and flips a switch.
Ohtani is 4-for-11 with a home run following his three simulated games this season, a snapshot of what’s to come.
“It’s fun to watch him because he enjoys the game so much,” Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia said. “He loves baseball. And when you’re doing both, you have to love it the way he does.”
As President Donald Trump kicked off a birthday military parade on the streets of Washington, DC, what’s estimated as roughly 2,000 events were held across the US and beyond — protesting Trump and Elon Musk’s evisceration of government services, an unprecedented crackdown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and countless other actions from the administration in its first five months. Held under the title “No Kings” (with, as you’ll see, one conspicuous exception), they’re the latest in several mass protests, following April’s Hands Off events and a wave of Tesla Takedown demonstrations in March.
As The Verge’s Tina Nguyen went to downtown DC, we also sent reporters to No Kings demonstrations spanning the country, plus a “No Tyrants” event in the UK. How would they unfold after promises of “very heavy force” against protesters in the capital, after the deployment of thousands of military troops in a move a judge has bluntly called illegal, and after promises to “liberate” the city of Los Angeles from its “burdensome leadership” by local elected officials? What about the overnight killing of a Minnesota Democratic state representative and her husband, and the shooting of a Democratic state senator and his wife?
The answer, at the events we attended, was fairly calmly — even against a backdrop of chaos.
Downtown Los Angeles, California
An inflatable baby Donald Trump, dressed in a diaper, hovered over throngs of people rallying outside of Los Angeles City Hall. Demonstrators outnumbered clumps of California National Guard members in fatigues posted up along sidewalks.
“Go home to your families, we don’t need you in our streets,” one young person wearing a long braid down her back tells them while marching past. “Trump come catch these hands foo!” the back of her sign reads. I can’t see what the front says, but I can tell there’s an empty bag of Cheetos pasted to it.
The big baby joins the march, floating through the streets of Downtown LA over demonstrators. A flatbed truck rolls ahead of it, the band — maybe LA’s own Ozomatli? — singing “We don’t like Trump” to the tune of “We Want The Funk.”
Ducking inside Grand Central Market from the march, I talk to Puck and Twinkle Toes — two demonstrators in line for the public restrooms. Twinkle Toes tells me she’s part of an activist clown collective called Imp and Circumstance, wearing pink and white clown makeup and a striped pink and white bow wrapped around a loose hair bun atop her head. She’s here exercising her right to free speech, she says.
Demonstrators in Los Angeles marched alongside an inflatable Donald Trump baby dressed in a diaper.
“The more people that are out here, the more we know that this is not okay. That we don’t want an autocrat. We want democracy,” Puck tells me, adding that the Pride March in Hollywood last weekend was “nothing but love and sunshine” despite protests and burning driverless cars making headlines in downtown. “The news tries to make you think all of LA is rioting. It’s not.” Puck says.
Back out on the streets, a young man quickly writes “Fuck ICE” on a black wall with white spray paint before a group of older demonstrators wearing floppy hats shushes him away — warning him that tagging will only attract more law enforcement.
Further along, another older man with tufts of white hair sticking out under his Lakers cap walks stiffly and slowly along under the summer sun. A Mexican flag draped across his shoulders, he crosses Hope Street. A young man wearing a Nike cap makes his way over to ask if he wants water; the old man accepts a bottle and keeps walking without stopping. The march has looped around downtown, and is coming to an end back at City Hall. As I make my way to my bus stop, a line of police vehicles — sirens blasting — whizzes past me, back toward the crowd still gathering around City Hall.
Four different “No Kings” protests in the greater Portland area on Saturday drew massive crowds of tens of thousands across the city. Various activists, government officials, and representatives for politicians spoke at the rallies, which also featured music and live performances. (One advertised free drag shows.)
Protesters of all ages came with dogs, strollers, flags, banners, and hand-made signs. At the downtown waterfront, some tourist boats appeared to still be departing, but the bike rental stand (which also sells ice cream) was closed for the day with a hand-lettered explanation reading “No crowns, no thrones, no kings” and “Americans against oligarchy.” Women appearing to be organizers passed out free American flags; many attendees came with their own American flags modified to fly upside down.
Most protesters brought signs expressing a wide range of sentiments on the theme of “No Kings.” Some signs were surprisingly verbose (“If the founders wanted a unitary executive (a king) we’d all still be British”) while others were more succinct (“Sic semper tyrannis”). Others opted for simple images, such as a picture of a crown crossed out, or — less frequently — a guillotine.
Image: Sarah Jeong
The waterfront park area was filled with people from the shoreline to the curb of the nearest street, where protesters held up signs to passing cars that honked in approval. The honking of a passing fire truck sent the crowd into an uproarious cheer.
Portland is about a thousand miles from the border with Mexico, but the flag of its distant neighbor nation has emerged as protest iconography in solidarity with Los Angeles. The rainbow pride flag was flown as often as the Mexican flag. Military veterans were scattered throughout the crowd, some identifying themselves as having seen action in conflicts spanning from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Emanuel, an Air Force veteran, told me that he had turned out in defense of the constitution and due process, saying, “Nobody has any rights if one person doesn’t have any rights.”
Image: Sarah Jeong
Anger was directed at ICE and the mass deportations all throughout the day, in signage, in chants, and in rally speeches.
The previous night, about 150 people protested at a local ICE facility — coincidentally located by the Tesla dealership — a mile south of downtown, near a highway exit. The ICE facility protests, which have been continuous for some days, have been steadily building up. A couple of “No Kings” signs were present on Friday. (The following day, a handful of “Chinga la migra” signs would show up at the “No Kings” protests). Demonstrators stood on the curb urging passing cars to “Honk if you hate fascists,” successfully eliciting car horns every few seconds, including some from a pristine white Tesla.
Federal law enforcement in camo and helmets, their faces obscured, maced and shot at protesters with pepper balls, targeting them through the gates and sniping at them from the rooftop of the building. A handful of protesters — many wearing gas masks and respirators — formed phalanx formations in the driveway, wielding umbrellas and handmade shields.
On Saturday, a speaker at one of the “No Kings” rallies advertised the occupation of the ICE facility, saying, “We’re a sanctuary city.” The crowd — replete with American flags both upside down and right side up — cheered.
Nearly every intersection on Pasco County’s State Road 54 looks the same: a cross-section of strip malls, each anchored by a Walmart or Target or Publix, surrounded by a mix of restaurants, nail salons, and gas stations. It’s not an environment that is particularly conducive to protests, but hundreds of people turned out in humid, 90-plus degree weather anyway. The overall size of the crowd is hard to determine, but it’s larger than I — and other attendees — anticipated, given the local demographics. (Trump won 61 percent of the vote in Pasco County in 2024.)
New Port Richey, FL.Image: Gaby Del Valle
Everyone is on the sidewalk; an organizer with a megaphone tells people to use crosswalks if they’re going to attempt to brave the six-lane highway. Two days earlier, Governor Ron DeSantis said Floridians could legally run over protesters on the street if they feel “threatened.”
New Port Richey, FL.Image: Gaby Del Valle
So far, most drivers seem friendly. There are lots of supportive honks. One woman rolls down her window and thanks the protesters. “I love you! I wish I could be with you, but I have to work today!” she yells as she drives away. Not everyone is amenable. A man in a MAGA hat marches through the crowd waving a “thin green line” flag and yelling “long live the king!” as people in the crowd call him a traitor. A pickup truck drives by blasting “Ice Ice Baby,” waving another pro-law enforcement flag.
The protesters have flags, too: American flags large and small, some upside down; Mexican; Ukrainian; Palestinian; Canadian; different configurations of pride and trans flags. Their signs, like their flags, illustrate their diverse reasons for attending: opposition to Trump’s “big beautiful” funding bill, DOGE’s budget cuts, and ICE arrests; support for immigrants, government workers, and Palestinians. One woman wears an inflatable chicken suit. Her friend pulls an effigy of Trump — dressed to look both like an eighteenth-century monarch, a taco, and a chicken — alongside her.
New Port Richey, FL.Image: Gaby Del Valle
Most of the demonstrators are on the older side, but there are people of all ages in attendance. “I thought it was going to be maybe 20 people with a couple of signs,” Abby, 24, says, adding that she’s pleasantly surprised at both the turnout and the fact that most of the protesters are of retirement age. Abe, 20, tells me this is his first protest. Holding a sign that says “ICE = GESTAPO,” he tells me he came out to support a friend who is Mexican. Three teenagers walk by with signs expressing support for immigrants: “While Trump destroys America, we built it.” “Trump: 3 felonies. My parents: 0.”
As I drive away, I notice nine counter-protesters off to the side, around the corner from the main event. They wave their own flags, but the demonstrators seemingly pay them no mind.
Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles
Wearing a camo baseball cap — “Desert Storm Veteran” emblazoned on the front — Joe Arciaga greets a crowd of about 100 people in Los Angeles’ Historic Filipinotown around 9:00AM.
“Good morning everyone, are you ready for some beautiful trouble?” Arciaga says into the megaphone, an American flag bandana wrapped around his wrist. The faces of Filipino labor leaders Philip Vera Cruz and Larry Itliong, who organized farm workers alongside Cesar Chavez, peer over his shoulders from a mural that lines the length of Unidad Park where Arciaga and a group called Lakas Collective helped organize this neighborhood No Kings rally.
“I’m a Desert Storm veteran, and I’m a father of three and a grandfather of three, and I want to work for a future where democracy is upheld, due process, civil rights, the preservation of the rule of law — That’s all I want. I’m not a billionaire, I’m just a regular Joe, right?”, he tells The Verge.
Joe Arciaga speaks to people at a rally in Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles.Image: Justine Calma
“I am mad as hell,” he says, when I ask him about the Army 250th anniversary parade Donald Trump has organized in Washington, DC coinciding with the president’s birthday. “The guy does not deserve to be honored, he’s a draft dodger, right?” Arciaga says. He’s “livid” that the President and DOGE have fired veterans working for federal agencies and slashed VA staff.
Arciaga organizes the crowd into two lines that file out of the park to stand along Beverly Blvd., one of the main drags through LA. Arciaga has deputized a handful of attendees with security or medical experience with whistles to serve as “marshals” tasked with flagging and de-escalating any potentially risky situation that might arise.
Johneric Concordia, one of the co-founders of the popular The Park’s Finest barbecue joint in the neighborhood, is MCing out on Beverly Blvd. He and Arciaga direct people onto the sidewalks and off the asphalt as honking cars zip by. In between chants of “No hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here!” and rap songs from LA artist Bambu that Concordia plays from a speaker, Concordia hypes up the organizers. “Who’s cool? Joe’s cool?” He spits into the microphone connected to his speaker. “Who’s streets? Our streets!” the crowd cheers.
An hour later, a man sitting at a red light in a black Prius rolls down his window. “Go home!” he yells from the intersection. “Take your Mexican flag and go home!”
The crowd mostly ignores him. One attendee on the corner holds up his “No Kings” sign to the Prius without turning his head to look at him.
A few minutes later, a jogger in a blue t-shirt raises his fist as he passes the crowd. “Fuck yeah guys,” he says to cheers.
By 10AM, the neighborhood event is coming to a close. Demonstrators start to trickle away, some fanning out to other rallies planned across LA today. Concordia is heading out too, microphone and speaker still in hand, “If you’re headed to downtown, watch out for suspicious crew cuts!”
San Francisco, California
1/10Most of the crowd trickled out after 2pm, which was the scheduled end time of the protest, but hundreds stayed in the area.Image: Vjeran Pavic
London’s protest was a little different than most: it was almost entirely bereft of “No Kings” signs, thanks to the fact that about two miles away much larger crowds were gathered to celebrate the official birthday of one King Charles III.
“We don’t have anything against King Charles,” Alyssa, a member of organizers Indivisible London, told me. And so, “out of respect for our host country as immigrants,” they instead set up shop in front of the US embassy with a tweaked message: “No kings, no crowns” became “no tyrants, no clowns.”
London, UK.Image: Dominic Preston
Of the hundreds gathered, not everyone got the memo, with a few painted signs decrying kings and crowns regardless, and one brave Brit brandishing a bit of cardboard with a simple message: “Our king is better than yours!”
London, UK.Image: Dominic Preston
Still, most of the crowd were on board, with red noses, clown suits, and Pennywise masks dotted throughout, plus costumes ranging from tacos to Roman emperors. “I think tyrants is the better word, and that’s why I dressed up as Caesar, because he was the original,” says Anna, a Long Island native who’s lived in London for three years. “Nobody likes a tyrant. Nobody. And they don’t do well, historically, but they destroy a lot.”
For 90 minutes or so the crowd — predominantly American, judging by the accents around me — leaned into the circus theme. Speakers shared the stage with performers, from a comic singalong of anti-Trump protest songs to a protracted pantomime in which a woman in a banana costume exhorted the crowd to pelt a Donald Trump impersonator with fresh peels.
London, UK.Image: Dominic Preston
During a break in festivities, Alyssa told the crowd, “The most threatening sound to an oligarch is laughter.”
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York
The No Kings protest at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza was a calmer affair. Instead of gathering under the picturesque memorial arch, protesters were largely sequestered to a corner right outside Prospect Park, with some streets blocked off by police. The weekly farmers market was in full swing, meaning people cradling bundles of rhubarb were swerving in and out of protest signs that read things like, “Hating Donald Trump is Brat” and “Is it time to get out the pitch forks?” Like during the Hands Off protest in April, New York got rain on Saturday.
Prospect Park, Brooklyn.Image: Mia Sato
The area where protesters were gathered made it difficult to count the crowd, but there were hundreds — perhaps a few thousand — people that streamed in and out. At one point, some protesters began marching down the street alongside Prospect Park, while others stayed at Grand Army Plaza to chant, cheer, and hold signs up at oncoming vehicles. With its proximity to the public library, the park, and densely populated neighborhoods, the massive intersection is a high-foot traffic area. Cars blared their horns as they passed, American flags waving in the chilly afternoon breeze.
Jane, a Brooklyn resident who stood on the curb opposite the protesters, said she isn’t typically someone who comes out to actions like this: before the No Kings event, she had only ever been to one protest, the Women’s March. (Jane asked that The Verge use her first name only.)
Prospect Park, Brooklyn.Image: Mia Sato
“I’m deeply concerned about our country,” Jane said, pausing as a long stream of trucks and cars honked continuously in support of the protesters in the background.
“I think Trump is behaving as an authoritarian. We’ve seen in Russia, in Hungary, in Hong Kong, that the slide from freedom to not freedom is very fast and very quick if people do not make their voices heard,” Jane said. “I’m concerned that that’s what’s happening in the United States.” Jane also cited cuts to Medicaid and funding for academic research as well as tariffs as being “unacceptable.”
Prospect Park, Brooklyn.Image: Mia Sato
The event was peaceful — there were lots of kids present — and people were in good spirits despite the rain. Protest signs ran the gamut from general anti-Trump slogans (“I trust light tampons more than this administration”) to New York City-specific causes like “Andrew Cuomo can’t read” (there is a contenious mayoral election this month). One sign read, “Fix your hearts or die,” an iconic line from the late director, David Lynch’s, Twin Peaks: The Return. And of course, amid nationwide immigration raids that have been escalated by the involvement of the federal government, ICE was top of mind: one sign simply read, “Melt ICE,” and another protester held a large “NO ICE IN NYC” sign.
Though it was smaller and more contained than other events, the protest didn’t lack conviction: attendees of all ages stood in the cold rain, chanting and blowing into vuvuzela, banging the lids of pots and pans. At one point a man stood on the median on the street, leading the group in chants of “No justice, no peace.” Cars laid on the horn as they drove by.
It’s been raining pretty hard the last few days in Akron, OH, so much that I didn’t think there’d be a large turnout for our chapter of the No Kings protest. But I was emphatically proven wrong as the crowds I saw dwarfed the Tesla Takedown protests last month. Officially, the protest was to take place in front of the John F. Seiberling Federal Building on Main Street in Downtown Akron. But the concentration of people spilled over from that small space down Main Street and up Market Street. All told, though there were no official counts, I estimate somewhere between 500 to 900 people in this blue enclave in Northeast Ohio.
The mood was exuberant, buoyed by supporters who honked their horns as they passed. The chorus of horns was nonstop, and when a sanitation truck honked as it went by, cheers got louder. The chants the crowds were singing took on a local flare. Ohio is the home of the Ohio State Buckeyes and anywhere you go, shout “O-H” and you’ll invariably get an “I-O” response. The crowds used that convention to make their own chant, “OH-IO, Donald Trump has got to go.”
There was no police presence here and the crowd was very good at policing itself. Ostensibly out of concern for the incidents where people have rammed their cars into protestor crowds, the people here have taken up crossing guard duties, aiding folks who wish to cross Main or Market Streets. Toward the end of my time at the protest, I saw an older gentleman wearing Kent State gear and holding a sign that read, “Remember another time the National Guard was called in?” His sign featured a drawing of the famous photo from the event in which four Kent State students during a protest of the Vietnam War were killed by National Guard troops. I caught up with him to ask him some questions and he told me his name was Chuck Ayers, a professional cartoonist, and was present at the shooting.
Akron, OH.Image: Ash Parrish
“When I saw the National Guard in front of the federal building in LA,” he told me, “It was just another flashback.”
He did not tell me this at the time, but Ayers is a nationally recognized cartoonist, noted for co-creating the comic strip Crankshaft. He’s lived in Ohio his entire life and of course, drew that sign himself. As he was telling me about how seeing news of the National Guard being deployed in LA, I could see him strain to hold back his emotions. He said it still hurts to see this 55 years later, but that he was heartened to see so many people standing here in community and solidarity. He also said that given his pain and trauma he almost didn’t come. When I asked why he showed up when it so obviously causes him pain he said simply, “Because I have to.”
On a northward drive to Oneonta — population roughly 15,000, the largest city in New York’s mainly rural Otsego County — one of the most prominent landmarks is a sprawling barn splashed in huge, painted block letters with TRUMP 2024. (The final digits have been faithfully updated every election since 2016.) It’s Trump country, but not uniformly Trumpy country, as evidenced by what I estimated as a hundreds-strong crowd gathered in a field just below Main Street that came together with a friendly county-fair atmosphere. Kids sat on their parents’ shoulders; American flags fluttered next to signs with slogans like SHADE NEVER MADE ANYONE LESS GAY, and attendees grumbled persistently about the event’s feeble sound system, set up on the bed of a pickup truck. It was the kind of conspicuously patriotic, far-from-urban protest that the Trump administration has all but insisted doesn’t exist.
Image: Adi Robertson
Beyond a general condemnation of Trump, protest signs repped the same issues being denounced across the country. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine made an appearance, as did Elon Musk and Tesla. A couple of people called out funding cuts for organizations like NPR, one neatly lettered sign reminded us that WEATHER FORECASTING SAVES LIVES, another warned “Keep your nasty little hands off Social Security,” and a lot — unsurprisingly, given the past week’s events — attacked mass deportations and ICE. An attendee who identified himself as Bill, standing behind a placard that blocked most of him from sight, laid out his anger at the administration’s gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency. “I think if it was not for protests, there would be no change,” he told me.
The event itself, supported by a coalition including the local chapter of Indivisible, highlighted topics like reproductive justice and LGBTQ rights alongside issues for groups often stereotyped as Republican blocs — there was a speech about Department of Veterans Affairs cuts and a representative from the local Office for the Aging (whose words were mostly lost to the sound system’s whims). Rules for a march around the modest downtown were laid out: no blocking pedestrians or vehicles, and for the sake of families doing weekend shopping, watch the language. “Fuck!” one person yelled indistinctly from the audience. “No, no,” the event’s emcee chided gently. The philosophy, as she put it, was one of persuasion. “We want to build the resistance, not make people angry at us.”
Image: Adi Robertson
But even in a place that will almost certainly never see a National Guard deployment or the ire of a Truth Social post, the Trump administration’s brutal deportation program had just hit close to home. Only hours before the protest commenced, ICE agents were recorded handcuffing a man and removing him in an unmarked black car — detaining what was reportedly a legal resident seeking asylum from Venezuela. The mayor of Oneonta, Mark Drnek, relayed the news to the crowd. “ICE! We see you!” boomed Drnek from the truckbed. “We recognize you for what you are, and we understand, and we reject your vile purpose.”
The crowd cheered furiously. The stars and stripes waved.
Maria, who turns 38 in two months, is the oldest WTA Tour champion since Serena Williams won the Auckland title in 2020.
She has said she wants to continue until she has played doubles with eldest daughter Charlotte, who often hits with her on the practice courts.
A surprise Wimbledon semi-finalist in 2022, Maria has a game made for a grass court – but even she could not have thought her week would pan out like this.
She arrived in west London on a nine-match losing streak. She leaves as the champion, having moved from 86th to inside the world’s top 50 in the live rankings.
Her slice-heavy style of play, accurate serving and ability to disguise her drop shots have infuriated opponent after opponent, particularly big hitters Anisimova, Keys and Elena Rybakina.
Maria went an early break up in the first set, drawing errors out of Anisimova, before a thumping backhand winner from the American put it back on terms.
However, Maria kept Anisimova on the move, visibly frustrating her, and a netted forehand gave Maria the break back, before she served out the set with ease.
The numbers told the story, with Anisimova committing 10 unforced errors to Maria’s three in the opener, and the momentum stayed with the German as she broke at the first chance in the second set.
A mammoth fourth game saw seven deuces and Maria saving two break points for 3-1, before a brilliant scamper to a drop shot in the next allowed her to go a double break up.
Anisimova, who won the WTA 1000 title in Qatar earlier this year, went for broke, pummelling her shots to rescue a break and keep in touch.
But Maria, backed by the packed crowd, kept her nerve to serve out to 30 and secure her place in Queen’s history.
Maria is due to compete at the Nottingham Open, which begins on Monday, but said she will celebrate with her family first.
“This doesn’t happen every week so we have to celebrate with something,” she added.
“I think the kids will probably want some crepes with Nutella!”
History warns us that the line between security and persecution can be dangerously blurred. The idea of an immigrant registry in the U.S. — a system that tracks people based on their nationality or religion — is not only discriminatory but reminiscent of one of history’s darkest chapters: the Holocaust. When we said never again, we meant never again for anyone.
But here we are, nearly 100 years later, dangerously repeating history.
In 1930s Nazi Germany, one of the Hitler regime’s first steps toward genocide was bureaucratic. Jews were registered, identified and separated from the rest of the population through lists, identity papers and census data. These records made it possible to enforce increasingly repressive laws, restrict the rights of those on the registry or required to register, and eventually, orchestrate mass deportations and murder.
It didn’t happen all at once. The first thing that happened — including to our (Rabbi Mordechai’s) parents — was that their papers were stamped “Jews.” It began with a registry. With “just tracking.”
The parallel we see unraveling is disturbing. The administration’s proposal to create a registry for immigrants, particularly those from Latin and Muslim-majority countries, isn’t about national security; it’s about racism and oppression. We already have extensive immigration tracking and vetting systems. Instead, these ideas are about branding entire populations as suspicious because of their faith or place of birth. It’s not about what people do — it’s about who they are.
That distinction is the root of injustice, and it’s the root of evil. The Torah tells us in Exodus 1, “a new king came to power in Egypt, he was fearful of the power and number of the Hebrew people.” This led to a regime of oppression and forced labor to exert his power over the people. Matthew 2:16 reads, “Herod ordered the extermination of boys under 2 years old in Bethlehem.” The root of this evil was fear. We hear these echoes today of how immigrants are dehumanized and punished.
America is not Nazi Germany, but the administration’s behaviors are leading us down the same road. It would be a grave mistake to assume we are immune to the same temptations that led to its horrors. Germany in the 1930s was a highly advanced, educated society. Its descent into fascism was gradual, built on fear, nationalism and the belief that some people were inherently dangerous. And the incremental isolation that blinded people from the mass horror taking place made the Holocaust sneak into society almost quietly. Many people participated in piecemeal injustice to support the massive force of the Nazi regime.
Normalizing dangerous and discriminatory policies is not hypothetical — it’s historical.
Japanese internment camps were justified as national security measures during World War II. It took generations before we, as a nation, acknowledged that these were shameful violations of American principles.
The Trail of Tears was the forced relocation of tens of thousands of First Nations, including the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole tribes, from their ancestral lands in the southeastern U.S. to designated “Indian Territory” west of the Mississippi River during the 1830s. This brutal journey, carried out under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, resulted in the deaths of thousands due to disease, exposure and starvation. It is estimated that 90 percent of the people of this land were exterminated. The land they were given to settle did not respect their sacred traditions nor their humanity, as they were sent to a land that was not as fertile as where they originally resided.
Registries based on identity lay the groundwork for systemic oppression. They make it easier to target, exclude and ultimately harm. They don’t make us safer — at best they make us smaller, morally and constitutionally. At worst, we lose our own humanity and enact a regime of impunity and total depravity.
America’s strength lies in its diversity and its values: liberty, equality and due process. When we single out groups based on identity, we abandon those values. We trade freedom for fear. And we betray the very idea of democracy.
History has already written the outcome of such paths. We must have the courage to learn from our past — and refuse to walk those paths again.
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling is a board member at Faith in Action, and is the son of Holocaust survivors; all of his grandparents, aunts and uncles were killed.Pastor Julio Hernandez is the executive director of Congregation Action Network, a federation of Faith in Action. He organizes interfaith-rooted communities to protect and uplift immigrant communities through advocacy, accompaniment and collective action.
