Protests are set to take place in Ireland when President Donald Trump attends the Irish Open at his golf course in Doonbeg, County Clare, next month.

Local groups, including the Irish Neutrality League, which advocates for Irish neutrality in international conflicts, and The Irish Anti-War Movement, have expressed their intention to take part in demonstrations.

Irish Labour Senator Nessa Cosgrove has referred to the visit taking place from Sept. 12 to 13 as a “security nightmare” and said she hopes the U.S. President “takes time to learn why people might be exercised" about the trip.

“They are angry about fuel prices, which have spiraled because of his unnecessary war of aggression in Iran,” she told Irish media last week, adding that people are also angry about the “ill-treatment of the Palestinian people by his closest allies in Israel.”

In a follow-up statement to TIME, Cosgrove states that “protecting a serving U.S. President is a serious responsibility, and An Garda Síochána [Ireland's police force] must have the resources necessary to do that safely.”

“We should also be very clear that people have every right to peacefully protest President Trump’s visit. We expect there will be significant protests and many Labour Party members and elected representatives will be joining them,” she tells TIME. "Many people in Ireland have profound and legitimate objections to his Administration’s actions and policies, to put it mildly, and they have every right to make those views heard."

An Garda Síochána told TIME the force does not comment or speculate on operational matters.

Amid much discussion over the trip and the expected protests, here’s what we know so far.

Security concerns mount as protests loom

Planning is already underway for various protests, with one of the most significant demonstrations set to take place in Ireland's capital, Dublin.

The protest is scheduled to start on Sept. 12 at the Garden of Remembrance, a public memorial to those who "gave their lives in the cause of Irish freedom."

Sara O’Rourke of the Irish Neutrality League told the Irish Times that the “protest will be under the banner of no welcome for Trump.”

Protest organizers said they expect a “big” but “safe event,” which they described as a “family-friendly, peaceful protest.”

Paul Murphy of the People Before Profit-Solidarity party said he is expecting a “massive protest” which will have “a broad coalition with a basic theme of no welcome for Trump.”

Another demonstration is planned for Shannon in the west of Ireland. (Trump arrived at Shannon Airport during his presidential visit to Ireland in 2019.) Shannon Airport is used by the U.S. military as a transit, refueling, and logistical hub.

An additional protest is also expected to unfold nearby Trump’s golf course in Doonbeg, which is around 60km from Shannon. A social media post from organizers involved in the planned protests raised issue with some of the Trump Administration’s actions, including the President’s repeated threats to annex Greenland.

Trump's visit has also drawn backlash from some Irish lawmakers.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, a Labour Party lawmaker and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Dublin, released a video on Aug. 3, in which he stated: “Donald Trump is not welcome in Dublin.”

The lawmaker referenced the war in Iran and the U.S.' fractured relationship with the European Union as being among his reasons for opposing the trip.

Ó Ríordáin tells TIME the idea that Ireland would “roll out the red carpet and treat [Trump] with the sort of celebrity and respect that we have done to others in the past, to my mind, makes absolutely no sense.”

“I do believe there's a groundswell of people who don't want this visit, who don't want him here, who would rather he wasn't coming,” he says of the planned protests. “They certainly will make their views known if and when he does arrive.”

Trump’s last official visit to Ireland as President in 2019 drew thousands of protesters to Dublin’s streets. The Trump “baby blimp,” which had previously featured in anti-Trump protests in London, also made a notable appearance.

Trump’s expected itinerary in Ireland

Trump is set to visit Ireland from Sept. 12 to 13, a White House official told TIME.

Although that would mean missing the first two days of the Irish Open, it allows the President to remain in the U.S. for the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Once in Ireland, the President is set to attend an event with embassy personnel and business officials, ahead of attending the Irish Open at Trump Doonbeg.

Details of the trip are still being finalized, however Irish media reports suggest Trump is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Irish Taoiseach [Prime Minister] Micheál Martin at Farmleigh House, the Taoiseach’s official guest residence. Trump is also expected to turn the sod—the ceremonial first digging of earth to mark the start of construction—on the new U.S. Embassy in Ballsbridge, south Dublin, according to BBC NI.

Trump may also visit Irish President Catherine Connolly at her official residence, Áras an Uachtaráin, in Phoenix Park, although such a meeting has yet to be confirmed.

Trump’s relationship with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin

Martin and Trump have established a friendly relationship, with the Irish Taoiseach attending St. Patrick’s Day celebrations at the White House.

The St. Patrick’s Day visit marks a respected tradition when the Irish leader brings a bowl of shamrocks to the U.S. President as both reflect on the importance of Irish-American relations and history.

“We have tremendous business relationships with Ireland and that will only get stronger, and the relationship we have personally, and every other way, is very very strong,” Trump said in March 2025.

However, there have been some tense moments, most notably when Martin defended former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer while seated alongside Trump in the Oval Office in March this year.

Relations between the U.S. and U.K. had deteriorated as Trump repeatedly criticized Starmer for refusing to get actively involved in the Iran war.

“I’m disappointed with Keir. I like him. I think he’s a nice man, but I’m disappointed,” Trump said at the time, repeating his criticism that, “Keir is not Winston Churchill.”

Martin defended Starmer, praising the then-Prime Minister for helping to “reset” the Irish-British relationship.

“I just want to put that on the record,” Martin told Trump. “I do believe that he's a very earnest, sound person, who I think you have a capacity to get on with, and you've got on with him before.”

Martin has also taken a different position from Trump on other key issues. In April 2025, following Trump’s levies, most of which were later struck down by the Supreme Court, Martin said “the imposition of tariffs is bad for the world economy.”

Trump’s first visit since Catherine Connolly became President

This will be Trump’s first presidential visit to Ireland since Catherine Connolly was elected President in October 2025.

Connolly previously expressed “grave concern” over the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February, warning against “the normalization of war” and calling for a return to diplomacy, international law, and the U.N. Charter.

She repeated that message during her St. Patrick’s Day address.

When asked about the Irish President’s concerns, Trump appeared not to know who Connolly was and misgendered her in his response.

“He’s lucky I exist, that’s all I can say,” Trump said in the Oval Office on March 17.

The pair have significant ideological differences, with Connolly largely viewed as a left-wing President.

Connolly pledged “to be a catalyst for change, resist militarization, and work toward a United Ireland—potentially putting her at odds with Ireland’s own government, and its allies in Europe and America,” Irish political correspondent Gavan Reilly wrote in a November 2025 article for TIME.

More than 300 people have been killed and at least 900 are missing after devastating flash floods swept through the Himalayan region along the Nepal-Tibet border, local officials confirmed Thursday.

Severe flooding was reported across the districts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, and Gorkha, north of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu early Wednesday. Much of the flooding occurred along the Trishuli and Bhotekoshi rivers in the north of the country.

The Nepali tourism board said that, based on records from travel and trekking firms, 644 travelers are still out of contact. More than a hundred of those are Indian nationals who were on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a Nepali tourism official is quoted as telling the Associated Press.

Thursday’s count from the tourism board shows 65 missing travelers are from the U.S., and the State Department said it was aware of the Americans impacted by the floods. Among the others still unaccounted for are foreign nationals from Canada, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, and Singapore.

The U.S. embassy in Nepal issued a warning to U.S. citizens in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha, Chitwan, and Tanahun, urging them to “stay away from riverbanks and low-lying areas, seek higher ground, and follow local instructions.” The embassy added that it was working to account for Americans affected by the flooding.

Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah met with local Members of Parliament (MPs) on Wednesday to discuss issues including flood damage, condition of settlements in local areas, rescue and relief work, his office said. 

“The government has intensified the search and rescue operations by deploying security forces in the flood-affected areas,” Shah’s office added.

What do we know about the floods?

It remains unclear what caused the floods, but Nepal is highly vulnerable to the climate crisis.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported initial shaking as an earthquake, though it later determined that the tremors were caused by “a glacial collapse and debris flow that caused subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream.” That event generated seismic energy equivalent to a 5.2-magnitude quake.

The Kathmandu Post reported, citing the country’s national disaster authority, that an initial analysis of satellite imagery from Planet Labs indicated that an avalanche of ice and rock triggered the flood in the Lhende River, about 20 km (12 mi) north-east of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing between China and Nepal.

Nepal has thousands of glaciers, but with the Himalayan region warming, many of them are melting.

How Nepal is responding to the crisis

Data from the disaster risk reduction agency also showed that of the more than 900 missing, 28 are Nepali police, 44 are from the Nepali Army, and 13 are from its specialized paramilitary Armed Police Force.

Nepali Police published details of 66 people hospitalized due to injuries from the flooding, most of whom are from the Nuwakot and Rasuwa regions.

Video shared by police showed catastrophic flooding, with entire buildings swept away in the powerful currents. Other footage shared shows a bridge and multiple buildings on the banks of the Trishuli River destroyed in the flooding. Officials have since confirmed that 32 bridges and nearly 40 km of road were swept away.

Police also issued a warning that they expect the flooding to continue down the Bhotekoshi River into the regions of Dhading and Muglin in the center of the country. 

The Prithvi Highway, one of Nepal's busiest roads that connects Kathmandu to the second-largest city, Pokhara, passes through these regions along the Trishuli River. Police confirmed Wednesday this section of the highway would be closed.

The flooding has also resulted in widespread casualties at the border between Nepal and China’s Tibet region. A mudslide occurred near the Gyirong checkpoint on the border, resulting in at least three deaths and more than 550 people missing in Gyirong County, according to Chinese state media.

Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered “all-out efforts” for search and rescue operations in response to the mudslide, as well as calling for the strengthening of “monitoring and early warning, ensure scientific rescue operations and guard against secondary disasters,” Chinese media reported.

Footage from the checkpoint shows water engulfing buildings as people flee the oncoming currents. TIME has been unable to independently verify the footage.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday floated the idea of renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Canada.

“The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Later that morning, he shared on social media an image of a map depicting the lake, with a red X over “Lake Ontario” and the words “Lake America” above it in large gold letters next to a U.S. flag.

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes in North America, which together compose the largest freshwater system in the world. It borders the Canadian province of Ontario, which was named after the lake, as well as the U.S. state of New York.

Trump’s threat to rename the lake is reminiscent of his previous push to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”

It is possible that Trump could order the U.S. federal government to refer to Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” but he cannot require other nations to adhere to the change. When he signed an Executive Order last year to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” the directive only applied to the U.S. federal government, and other nations continue to refer to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico. Many other entities—such as The Associated Press, which sets style guidelines that many news outlets follow—have also stuck to the original name for the gulf.

The U.S. and Canada also have a 1989 agreement regarding the coordination of names for geographical features shared between the two nations, which emphasizes the importance of both sides using the same name for the same feature “where culturally acceptable,” and says that “it is highly desirable to retain established official names.” According to the document, a name change could be considered “for purpose of conformance to strong local usage or citizen preference, or on special request with strong specific reasons.”

The origin of the lake’s name, which derives from Indigenous words referring to the lake, predates the founding of both countries.

Tough talks

Trump’s threat to rename Lake Ontario comes after trade talks between the U.S. and Canada broke down on Friday. The following day, the Trump Administration’s 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of imported Canadian goods went into effect. On Tuesday, Canada announced that it would impose retaliatory levies—reaching as high as 50% on some items—starting on Sept. 8.

Both countries have blamed the other for trade negotiations collapsing. In a statement on Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney accused the U.S. of wanting “last-minute changes” to the trade deal that he said were “unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”

“In short, they asked too much and they offered too little,” Carney said at a press conference on Saturday.

Trump, meanwhile, has accused Canada of “‘Ripping Off’ the U.S.A. for decades,” calling the northern neighbor “difficult and unreasonable.”

In the days since, tensions have continued to rise between the two allied nations. Trump on Monday threatened to raise automobile tariffs on Canada to 50% beginning in 2027. He’s continued to hurl barbs at Canada, referring to its Prime Minister as “Governor Carney”—a remark that Trump has made before, and one that hints at comments he has made in the past suggesting that he wants to annex the country. At a political event on Monday, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance called Canada a “state,” before claiming it was a “Freudian slip.”

When asked about Trump’s threat to rename Lake Ontario, the province’s Premier Doug Ford said on CNN on Tuesday that he thought it was “a lot of rhetoric” and emphasized the strong trading ties between Ontario and many U.S. states.

“We’re strong believers in being a sovereign country, and when President Trump wants to attack our sovereignty and attack our businesses and people in Ontario, I can’t roll over,” he continued. “My job is to protect Ontario and Canada, and ironically, protecting the American people.”

Canadian Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who oversees trade with the U.S., was also asked about Trump’s Truth Social posts on CNBC, and replied: “We’ve decided as a federal government months ago not to respond to sort of the daily social media posts of either the President or his Cabinet secretaries and so on. We’re focused on doing what we can in Canada to build our economy and to having a constructive relationship with the government of the United States, our most important trading partner.”

Canada has imposed retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on U.S. goods in response to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and amid an escalating trade war between the neighboring allies.

Canada’s Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced Tuesday that effective Sept. 8 the country “will match the United States tariffs dollar for dollar, rate for rate," by imposing counter tariffs of up to 15%, 25%, or 50% on near $20 billion U.S. imports.

“For each product, our tariff would match the American tariff on the same type of Canadian goods,” he said during a press conference alongside Canadian federal officials.

Read More: 'We Don't Need Canada': Trump Escalates Trade War

Tensions between the U.S. and its northern neighbor have deepened after trade negotiations broke down over the weekend, with both sides blaming one another for last-minute changes.

A broad set of 50% tariffs affecting about $20 billion of Canadian exports to the U.S. came into effect Saturday, after which Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to match them “dollar for dollar.”

“Ultimately, the terms proposed by the U.S. Administration were uneconomic, unfair, and ultimately unacceptable. They asked too much of Canada and offered too little in return,” Champagne said.

The tariffs are set to target more than 700 U.S.-made products and, if matched against the U.S. tariffs on Canada, will include everyday purchases such as seafood, cheese, clothing, cosmetics, and toilet paper.

Canadian officials said the goal is not to raise revenue, but to protect Canadian companies and reduce reliance on U.S. imports.

“Canada's counter tariffs are designed primarily to provide protection for Canadian industry impacted by U.S. tariffs and allow them to compete against U.S. products in the Canadian market. It's all about fairness. It's all about level playing field. It's all about supporting Canadian workers and Canadian businesses,” he said.

Trade between the U.S. and Canada totaled an estimated $872.3 billion in 2025.

In Addition to Tariffs, Trump Targets Canada With Taunts

The announcement came shortly after Trump began taunting the Canadian government over a range of cultural issues.

The President said his Administration is considering renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in the latest cultural swipe at Canada amid the broader trade war.

“The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer,” Trump said Tuesday morning.

Lake Ontario is the easternmost of the five Great Lakes and is bordered by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York and Pennsylvania.

Canada’s retaliation also drew Trump’s ire, with the President unleashing a barrage of insults against the U.S.’s second-largest trading partner in goods.

“I deal with many countries, and Canada is easily the most difficult and unreasonable,” Trump said Tuesday before the official counter tariff announcement by Ottawa, adding his repeated accusation that Canada “has been 'ripping off' the U.S.A. for decades.”

Trump announced Monday that, on top of the initial 50% tariffs, the U.S. would raise tariffs on all Canadian cars and trucks, automotive parts, and steel to 50% starting Jan. 1, 2027.

U.S. officials, including the President, have also appeared to publicly undermine Canada by repeatedly comparing the country to a U.S. state.

“They feel entitled, but they are not a State, and will be entitled no longer!” Trump repeated Tuesday.

Similarly, Vice President J.D. Vance referred to Canada as a “state” during a political rally in Maine on Monday, which he claimed was a "Freudian slip.”

Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to annex Canada and make it the 51st U.S. state—an idea Carney has strongly rejected.

Why French Language and Culture Became a Sticking Point in U.S.-Canada Talks

Both sides have blamed the other for the breakdown in negotiations over the weekend, but French language and culture have emerged as a contentious point of tension.

Carney said Monday that U.S. negotiators had raised the discoverability of French-language content on streaming platforms, along with French-language labeling rules, as trade irritants.

"For the Americans, French language, francophone culture, Quebec culture, and Canadian culture, for them these are irritants. Here in Quebec, here in Canada, they are rights—fundamental rights,” Carney said in French while taking questions from the media at an event in Lévis, Quebec.

The Canadian leader added that there was “an enormous gap between the U.S. perspective and Canadian perspectives” during negotiations when it came to French culture.

Trump has moved to deny the accusations made by his Canadian counterpart, framing them as a “lie” by Carney to “to gain political support” from those in Quebec.

“I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French! In fact, I have never even thought of doing such a stupid thing,” he said on social media Tuesday.

Last year, Quebec implemented a law requiring streaming giants to add French-language content and make it more easily accessible to users. The French-speaking province also has strict labeling rules requiring packaging to include French.

Which Canadian Goods Are Hit by Trump’s 50% Tariffs?

The tariffs placed on various Canadian goods affect around 5% of all trade between Canada and the U.S. and cover a wide range of products.

Although the Administration has framed the tariffs into three categories of alcoholic beverages, dairy products, and motor vehicles, these are far broader than at first glance.

A variety of Canadian alcoholic beverages, including beer made from malt, sparkling wine and other grape wines, and various spirits are the primary target of the first list, but this also includes a range of wood-based goods, such as selected wooden kitchenware and decorative products, as well as ice hockey and field hockey equipment.

The tariffs set to target a variety of dairy ingredients include powdered or otherwise concentrated milk and cream, various milk protein and whey protein concentrates, and lactose and lactose syrup.

The lengthy list of “motor-vehicle” related items includes a variety of products beyond vehicles themselves. The list ranges from agricultural and plant goods, including natural honey, feathers, selected animal products, and plant extracts, to salt and baking mixes.

Textiles and clothing are also set to be hit by the tariffs, including silk, wool, cotton, yarn, fabrics, carpets, dresses, trousers, T-shirts, sweaters, coats, padded jackets, suits, blazers, tracksuits, and even wigs. Tech-related goods are also included, such as smartphones, video recorders, and camera and computer equipment, alongside leisure and cultural products including toys, puzzles, arcade machines, and video game consoles. Other technology products covered include television and radio transmitters, cameras, radar equipment, and computer monitors.

Canada's newly announced counter tariffs are set to target similar products.

Iran has pledged to “attack” the U.S. financially after Washington unveiled a sweeping set of sanctions as part of ‘Economic D-Day',  an attempt to further isolate Tehran and curb its access to the global financial system as the war between the two countries drags on. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled the measures as part of President Donald Trump’s announcement of the "most crushing economic operation" against Tehran, labeled “Operation Economic Outcast.”

"D-Day marked a historic campaign with our allies,” Bessent said Monday. “Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran's financial connections around the globe."

After the measures were announced, Tehran’s Economy Minister Seyed Ali Madanizadeh said the government was prepared to counter the newly-unveiled U.S. sanctions.

“They want to launch an economic terrorist attack against us. We also have our own tools, and we know the rules of this game,” he said in response to Bessent’s announcement during a televised interview with Iranian state media Monday.

“This time, they shouldn't think that our approach is purely defensive; they should also expect an attack from us.”

Although the Iranian minister did not elaborate on what such an attack would entail, he said the country had developed plans in preparation for the economic threats.

“Plans have been developed for various scenarios, including what actions should be taken if they attempt to cause damage in the financial sector or in the country's financial relations,” he said, adding that “the global financial system is not structured in a way that allows anyone to claim they can cut off” Iran’s economy.

During the announcement, Bessent stopped short of immediately imposing secondary sanctions on countries that trade heavily with Iran, instead favoring an approach that would give them time to decouple from that trade.

When asked why he was waiting to impose those sanctions, Bessent responded: "Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?"

“We believe that it is important to level set and give people a cure period, but they should know that that will move very quickly, and that we are serious,” he added.

Bessent did not name any countries that could face sanctions, but said "they know who they are."

China, one of Iran's biggest trading partners and the primary buyer of Iranian oil exports, has already pushed back against the threat.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said China-Iran cooperation "should not be disrupted or undermined," noting that it had been conducted in accordance with international law.

“China has made clear on many occasions its firm opposition to illicit unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law or the authorization of the U.N. Security Council. Economic warfare and maximum pressure provide no solution,” Jian said during a press conference Tuesday.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned nearly 60 entities, individuals, and vessels connected to Iran’s regime, while also gaining powers to impose additional sanctions on any person operating within the digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping sectors of the Iranian economy.

Iranian leaders had previously dismissed the impact of extensive economic sanctions on the country and instead sought to highlight struggles within the U.S. economy.

Trump, meanwhile, claimed Monday that Iran is "completely collapsing,” without elaborating on what he based the claim.

Strait of Hormuz attack raises stakes after sanctions announcement

Following Bessent's economic announcement, an oil tanker was hit by a projectile off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a report by U.K. Maritime Trade Operations.

The incident highlights the continued danger for shipping companies attempting to transit the key waterway, through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply passed before the war. The closure of the Strait has rattled energy markets and thrown the global economy into disarray.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi had previously threatened heavy blows against vital U.S. interests and energy chokepoints if Iran’s economy was targeted with sanctions.

"The U.S. President says that he ordered an economic war and launched the most severe economic campaign against Iran,” he said, as reported by Iranian state media Sunday. “We have repeatedly announced that we have scenarios in place for any hostile action by the enemy. One of the enemy’s hostile actions is economic measures and warfare.”

The attack came as a high-level delegation from Pakistan, which has been a key mediator between the United States and Iran, was wrapping up meetings in Tehran aimed, once again, at bringing a return to negotiations and an end to the nearly six-month-old war.

The cease-fire established under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Washington and Tehran expired on Aug. 17, but the agreement had already deteriorated after each side presented differing interpretations of its terms.

Both parties had vied for control of the Strait of Hormuz, eventually leading to tit-for-tat strikes, the reimposition of the American blockade on Iranian ports, and minimal dialogue between Washington and Tehran.

Iran has since released a comprehensive list of demands for the U.S. to meet, which Trump immediately rejected. Both sides have since shown little sign of progress in negotiations, despite relatively limited fighting in recent weeks.

Iran’s currency plummeted in value Monday, hitting a record-low open-market rate of 2.02 million rials to the dollar, amid the White House’s launch of “Operation Economic Outcast,” which aims to force concessions from Iran through isolation and a financial stranglehold.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Sunday that an “economic D-Day” was coming, and he shared a first sense of what that might look like at a press conference the following day.

"D-Day marked a historic campaign with our allies,” Bessent said Monday. “Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran's financial connections around the globe."

The U.S. announced sanctions on more than 60 targets while expanding sanctionable sectors to digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping—which Bessent described as some of the country’s “most vital lifelines.”

The government may also impose secondary sanctions on Iran’s trade partners, Bessent said, adding that those sanctions could roll out in a matter of weeks. 

The threat is meant to deter countries from bolstering the country’s waning economy and “collapse every last option for Iran,” Bessent said, describing it as "economic asphyxiation." 

Read More: The U.S.-Iran War: By the Numbers

Though Bessent didn’t identify which Iranian partners might be targeted by a new round of sanctions, he did name one financial institution: Bank Melli, the Iranian government-owned bank with branches in about a dozen countries. Bessent said that “every branch” of the bank must be “shuttered and dark” or it will lose access to the U.S. dollar. The Treasury has previously claimed that the bank provides services to entities that support Iran’s nuclear and ballistic programs.

Since the start of its war with Iran on Feb. 28, the Trump Administration has applied both military and economic pressure to achieve its goal of dismantling the nation’s nuclear program.

Bessent’s remarks elaborate on President Donald Trump’s announcement on Aug. 19 that the U.S. would launch “the most crushing economic operation ever mounted” against Iran. 

Iran initially dismissed the threat. Its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Sunday called the U.S. “desperate.” And Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told state television on Aug. 22 that Iran would turn against any neighboring Gulf states that yield to the U.S. in what he called an “economic war.” 

“Any country that takes part in imposing economic restrictions on us will be regarded as an enemy,” he said.

Given Iran’s sustained control over passage through the Strait of Hormuz, any retaliation could push Brent crude oil above Monday’s closing price of about $92 per barrel or the wartime high of about $120 per barrel.

In a war that has been largely defined by its threat to the global economy, experts wonder whether sanctions against Tehran’s trade allies will further isolate it—and if that will succeed in forcing Iran to capitulate to the demands of the United States.

Could U.S. sanctions force Iran to end the war?

The Trump Administration has argued that in tightening sanctions against Iran, the country will face unprecedented isolation and economic pain.

But Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, tells TIME that the move doesn’t guarantee compliance. 

“We really need to keep in mind here that Iran has been under U.S. sanctions for the last 40 years, and we've had several moments in which we have done some sort of a major escalation,” he says. “And each time, it has failed to translate into a policy change from Iran.”

Parsi notes that neither Bessent nor Trump has outlined specific demands for Iran—focusing more on maximum isolation rather than defining clear, achievable diplomatic terms. 

Because of this, he argues that Iran is even less likely to succumb to increased pressure.

“What we know of the pattern in the past is that the Iranians will not capitulate—they will escalate,” Parsi says. “This is the same miscalculation Trump made when he thought that the threat of war would cause them to surrender, and instead they prepared themselves for war, and they fought back. And six months later, we're here.”

Further complicating matters is the fact that Iran is meeting with its neighbor, Oman, about regulating passage through the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil formerly passed. Oman’s foreign minister, Sayyid Badr Albusaidi, is visiting Tehran on Tuesday to continue high-level talks on “bilateral and regional issues.”

Controlling the waterway—a pain point for the global economy—has been Iran’s greatest strength in the war. Any agreement could affect Iran’s leverage over the waterway, although Oman has not publicly endorsed Tehran’s broader demands.

Trump last week threatened that the U.S. would target Oman next if it cooperated with Iran on this matter, telling Fox News: “We’ll bomb the s— out of them.” Experts have said, however, that this is an idle threat and that bombing Oman would be a mistake. 

Continuing to enforce its blockade on the Strait does, however, come at a cost to Iran. A June analysis from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies estimated that Iran may be incurring economic damages of about $435 million per day while enforcing it. 

How is the plummeting value of the rial affecting Iranians?

Ryan Costello, the policy director at the National Iranian American Council, tells TIME that implementing additional sanctions may not achieve the desired result—but will likely hurt Iranians. 

“Regrettably, it has had very harsh impacts on ordinary Iranians—pushing millions out of the middle class, which is often seen as an engine for successful democratic change over time,” Costello says. “This currency depreciation has a real cost for ordinary Iranians, making their life ever more unaffordable.”

According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran’s average annual inflation rate is projected to reach 68.9% in 2026. The depreciation of the rial—which was already the world’s least valuable currency before it dipped this week—will strain Iranian citizens who are already struggling to buy groceries and pay for monthly living expenses.

There is a “real risk” of greater global market destabilization the longer the Strait of Hormuz is closed, Costello says. 

“Iran's leadership is signaling that it will respond to intensified economic pressure by further restricting energy flows, and it appears to have the capacity to act on their threat,” Costello says.

In addition to its command of the Strait, he explains: "Iran and other aligned forces are demonstrating an ability to strike energy targets with missiles and drones, both in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. So Iran and/or its allies could target commercial ships, as well as pipelines, ports, refineries, and other critical energy infrastructure."

And there’s a second major risk if the U.S. places sanctions on certain global powers who buy Iranian oil—particularly economic powerhouse China.

“China could take steps to punish the U.S. economy in turn,” Costello explains. 

He says that both risks could be “very damaging,” with economic ramifications that span the globe.

Why Trump is escalating economic pressure on Iran

The U.S.-Iran war is nearing its six-month mark, and peace negotiations have effectively stalled.

The memorandum of understanding established in June—which gave the nations 60 days to work out terms for Iran’s nuclear program and renew uninterrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz—expired Aug. 17. It unraveled in July as the U.S. struck hundreds of targets in Iran, and Tehran retaliated against its allies in the region, including Kuwait and Bahrain. But as the U.S. continued to draw down its munitions stockpiles, Iran held steady with its blockade of the Strait.

Now, Trump has changed his tactics.

“This is where the real problem is: He's going back to economic warfare because military warfare didn't work,” Parsi says. 

If additional sanctions fail to force Iran to yield to some of Trump’s demands, Parsi says the President may be running out of options.

“The only exit out of this is actually through diplomacy,” he says. “Otherwise, the U.S. is just going to go back and forth between economic and military action.”

One route to relief may come by way of Pakistan, which helped mediate the June ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. It dispatched a high-level delegation, led by Field Marshal Asim Munir, to Tehran this week to encourage its leadership to work toward a more lasting peace agreement. 

But Parsi contends that the stream of threats from the U.S. may make Iran even less likely to reconcile, saying: “This does not end up becoming the end of the conflict. It just ends up becoming another cycle in the escalation spiral.”

Volodymyr Zelensky may be under pressure to hold elections in Ukraine, including from his former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, but in remarks over the weekend, the Ukrainian President argued that doing so during the ongoing conflict with Russia would “destroy” the country.

“I believe that in a war like this, elections as such are a huge risk,” Zelensky said in remarks to journalists during a two-hour meeting Saturday—parts of which were made public on Sunday. “Elections right now are a tsunami for the country that will split Ukraine.”

Read More: Zelensky Faces Pressure to Hold Elections. What Stands in the Way?

The renewed push for wartime elections was bolstered by Fedorov, who, in a video posted to social media last week, argued that  "democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia.” Zelensky fired Fedorov, once his longtime ally, in July over disagreements in how to run the war with Russia.

“I believe that if we want to destroy the country, then during such a war we can move towards elections,” Zelensky said. 

Fedorov’s call for elections is the latest leadership test for Zelensky, whose five-year term expired in May 2024 but continues under wartime rules. Elections are suspended under martial law. 

Zelensky recently fired a top aide amid a growing corruption scandal involving members of his office. Zelensky himself has not been implicated, but it has added to his political woes.

For the first time with journalists, Zelensky addressed the ongoing controversy involving Fedorov on Saturday, claiming that the former defense minister’s actions were misguided. 

Zelensky added that “there can be no conflict at such a level between leaders,” referring to Fedorov's conflict with the former Armed Forces commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky. Zelensky also replaced Syrsky last month after Fedorov’s removal spurred massive protests within the military and on the streets of Kyiv.

Syrsky was widely viewed as part of the old guard, while Fedorov had pushed for the adoption of modern warfare technology, including drones.

“I really had and still have a very positive attitude towards Mykhailo [Fedorov],” he said, according to local news outlet Interfax. “We’ve been through a lot together. But I think that he himself is going—or he's being pushed—into the wrong things.”

In a post on X, Zelensky also mentioned that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense was under severe strain with a $27 billion shortfall. 

“At the beginning of the year, decisions were made at the Ministry to use in the first half of the year funds that were intended to be disbursed in the second half, and that money went toward drone production and other needs,” Zelensky posted. “Now, in the second half of the year, those funds need to be compensated for and supplemented.”

Zelensky discussed the defense budget deficit during a summit with Nordic and Baltic leaders in Kyiv on Sunday, where the leaders of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden agreed to continue to provide military and financial support. 

U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham is set to visit Ukraine Monday, in his first international visit. 

“Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve. We will not back down until there is a just and lasting peace,” Burnham said in a statement Monday.

Successive polls have shown a lack of public interest in holding elections during the war. The latest, conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology from July 20 to Aug. 3, shows that 57% of Ukrainians believe elections should be held after fighting has ended, down from 69% in March. Experts have previously said that the invasion, which Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in 2022, nixed the possibility of holding safe and secure elections in Ukraine. 

Zelensky has denied postponing the polls to cling to power, and told reporters on Saturday that holding elections “is impossible under the conditions we have now, when Putin does not want to accept any ceasefire options.”

In the same conversation, Zelensky said he believes Russia will draft an additional 300,000 troops to fight in Ukraine after Russian parliamentary elections, which are scheduled on Sept. 18-20.

Zelensky said Russia could also draft more ​troops in 2027. He expects most of the additional forces to be deployed in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, where military clashes are ongoing.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has acknowledged for the first time that its soldiers opened fire on a vehicle carrying 5-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab and six of her relatives in Gaza, and said it would launch a criminal investigation into the incident.

The admission, issued Wednesday as part of the IDF’s review of roughly 150 “exceptional” incidents involving its troops during the war in Gaza, reverses the military’s previous denial that its forces were in the area when Rajab and her relatives from the Hamada family were killed in January 2024.

In findings published by its General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), an internal IDF body tasked with conducting factual reviews of exceptional operational incidents, the IDF said Israeli troops fired on the Hamada family’s vehicle as it approached them, killing five passengers. 

Rajab and her 15-year-old cousin Layan Hamada initially survived. Twelve days later, their bodies were recovered from the vehicle by rescue workers returning to the area, along with those of the five relatives who had been killed in the initial shooting.

The IDF said it was opening a criminal investigation after its review identified alleged failures in coordinating the movement of a Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance that was sent to rescue the girls. The two paramedics inside the ambulance were also killed.

“In the hours shortly after the firing, following a telephone call to rescue authorities, in which the two girls participated and later Hind alone, the movement of a Palestine Red Crescent ambulance was coordinated for the purpose of evacuating the casualties,” the Israeli military said.

It continued: “According to the allegations raised, upon the ambulance’s arrival at the scene of the incident, a shell was fired toward it, resulting in the deaths of the two paramedics travelling in it. Several days later, the bodies of the seven members of the Hamada family, including the bodies of Hind and Layan, were recovered from the vehicle. In addition, the bodies of the two paramedics were recovered from the ambulance.”

In a statement on Thursday, Hind Rajab’s mother, Wesam Hamada, said, “I do not want a closed military investigation. I want an independent, transparent investigation and genuine accountability for everyone responsible.”

What happened to Hind Rajab

The Hamada family was traveling through Gaza City on Jan. 29, 2024, after Israeli evacuation orders prompted them to leave the city’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, when their vehicle came under fire.

The girls contacted rescue authorities for help. Recordings released by the PRCS in February 2024 captured Layan speaking with an emergency dispatcher before gunfire was heard and the call ended.

When the organization called back, Rajab answered and remained in contact with emergency personnel for hours as they tried to arrange her rescue. In the recording, Rajab tells a dispatcher that everyone else in the car is dead and that a tank is approaching. She repeatedly pleads for someone to come and rescue her, and as daylight fades, says she is afraid of the dark.

The recordings later became central to Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, which uses Rajab’s real voice and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film 2026.

Read More: The Story Behind The Voice of Hind Rajab, the Oscar Contender Pushing a Global Call for Justice for Gaza Victims

“IDF troops fired at a vehicle that was approaching them while travelling contrary to the advanced notice that had been published in an announcement by the IDF Spokesperson to residents of the area,” the Israeli military said in its findings Wednesday. “As a result of the fire, five of the vehicle’s passengers were killed, and two survived: Hind Rajab and her cousin Layan Hamada.”

In the hours after the shooting, the PRCS sought to send an ambulance to evacuate the girls and coordinated its movement to the scene. According to the IDF, allegations reviewed by the FFAM indicated that a shell was fired toward the ambulance after it arrived, killing the two paramedics inside.

“Following review of the findings and due to alleged failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident by Military Police Criminal Investigation Division,” the IDF said Wednesday.

A Washington Post investigation previously found that the PRCS dispatched the ambulance after coordinating with Israeli authorities to secure a safe route. The ambulance came under fire after it reached the area, killing the two paramedics.

Days later, the bodies of all seven members of the Hamada family, including Rajab and Layan, were recovered from the vehicle, while the bodies of the two paramedics were found in the ambulance.

The deaths of Rajab and her relatives were among the most high-profile civilian casualties of the early months of the war in Gaza. Her fate became the subject of international concern as recordings of her calls with emergency personnel circulated around the world and prompted widespread calls for her rescue.

The IDF had previously denied involvement. In February 2024, it told The Times of Israel that “IDF troops were not present near the vehicle or within firing range of the described vehicle in which the girl was found.”

Before Rajab’s body was recovered, the IDF also told the Washington Post that it was “unfamiliar with the incident.” It gave a similar response to CNN, which had provided the military with coordinates supplied by the PRCS. 

What else the IDF announced

The criminal investigation into the Rajab case was one of five decisions announced Wednesday involving incidents examined by the FFAM.

The IDF said a second criminal investigation would examine the deaths of 15 Palestinians, including medical personnel and a U.N. employee, during three shooting incidents in Tel al-Sultan, a neighborhood in Rafah, on March 23, 2025.

“They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives. This should never have happened,” said Jonathan Whittall, then head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, who helped coordinate the recovery mission.  Whittall said that a U.N. vehicle, an ambulance, and a fire truck had been crushed and partially buried and that the bodies had been recovered from a mass grave.

Referring to the incident, the IDF said Wednesday that its soldiers had been conducting an ambush against suspected Hamas operatives when they opened fire on the vehicles. “It later became apparent that the vehicles struck in the first and second shooting incidents were a fire truck and ambulances, and that the vehicle struck in the third shooting incident was a Palestinian UN vehicle,” the military said. It said six of those killed were identified as members of Hamas.

The IDF also acknowledged that after the shooting, troops “decided to crush the vehicles and to cover the bodies with metal mesh.” The Military Prosecution, the legal body responsible for reviewing FFAM findings, concluded that “the firing conducted during the incident raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct,” prompting the second criminal investigation.

The Military Prosecution declined to launch criminal investigations into three other incidents reviewed by the FFAM: the Israeli strikes that killed seven World Central Kitchen employees in April 2024; an IDF strike on a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) building in Khan Yunis on Feb. 20, 2024, that killed two employees; and an incident in Gaza City on Nov. 18, 2023, in which two MSF employees were killed.

In the World Central Kitchen case, the IDF said its review found “serious failures” that led Israeli forces to mistakenly conclude that Hamas operatives were traveling in the aid group’s vehicles, but determined that commanders’ decisions did not raise a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct. Two officers had previously been removed from their positions and three others formally reprimanded over the strike.

The five cases are among roughly 150 incidents that the IDF says the FFAM has reviewed since the war in Gaza began after Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.

More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. In the absence of independent monitoring on the ground, the ministry is the primary source for casualty data relied upon by humanitarian groups, journalists, and international bodies. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants and cannot be independently verified by TIME. Data from the IDF suggests a Palestinian civilian death rate of 83%. 

Israeli rights groups have long questioned the effectiveness of the military’s system for investigating alleged wrongdoing by its own forces.

An analysis by the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din of complaints involving soldiers’ conduct in the West Bank between 2018 and 2022 found that just 0.4% of cases in which a Palestinian was killed and the fatality was brought to the military’s attention resulted in a prosecution—one prosecution for every 219 fatalities. B’Tselem, another prominent Israeli human rights organization, has cited Yesh Din’s 0.4% prosecution rate, saying it demonstrates the failure of Israel’s military and civilian legal systems to hold soldiers accountable for killing Palestinians.

Iranian officials have dismissed President Donald Trump’s threat to launch what he called  the “most crushing economic operation”against Tehran, as the nearly six-month war enters a new phase of economic pressure and negotiations between the two countries remain stalled.  

Trump announced the campaign late Wednesday, threatening consequences for countries that continue to provide Iran with access to global trade and financial networks. 

“This will be economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale,” he said. “Any country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face tremendous economic consequences.”

Trump did not specify what specific measures would be imposed on countries that continue to do business with Iran. TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.

The President also called on U.S. allies to impose additional restrictions on Tehran in order to “cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide.”

“This will be an economic D-Day, and we need all of our allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat,” he said. 

D-Day commonly refers to June 6, 1944, Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy, France, which opened a major Western front against Nazi Germany. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday the United States ​will impose "maximum economic pressure" on Iran.

"It ⁠is a one-two punch. We have the blockade (on Iran), and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history," Bessent told CNBC. "It is going to work in Iran and we are going to collapse this regime."

How Iran responded

Iranian officials rejected Trump’s threats and instead pointed to the strains the conflict has placed on the U.S. economy.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the move a “diversion from America's own crisis: unprecedented debt & surging interest costs.”

“Doubling down on failed policies will only bring further defeat—and enmity of Iranians. U.S. economic terrorism threatens global economy and sovereignty worldwide,” he said Thursday morning.  

The U.S. national public debt surpassed $40 trillion threshold this week.

Iran's deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi similarly took aim at Trump’s rhetoric, arguing that the President’s threats have become less relevant as the conflict, which began on Feb. 28, approaches its six-month mark.

“They claim Iran is on the brink of collapse and hanging by a thread, yet they beg all their allies to help them! The problem is the wrong calculations that, each time to cover them up, they’re forced to create a bigger failure for themselves,” he said Thursday on social media. “The military war didn’t yield results, so now they’ve named the next failure “economic war”.”

Trump has repeatedly used maximalist rhetoric during the war, previously warning that a “whole civilization would die” if Iran failed to meet a deadline for a deal in April and, more recently, weighing a "massive attack” against Tehran at the end of July.

Neither threat resulted in the action that Trump initially described.

The latest warning came a day after the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a major regional trading hub with Iran, announced that it would suspend trade with Iran following reported missile strikes.

Since the start of the war, the U.S. has imposed additional heavy economic sanctions on Iran as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign intended to restrict funding for Tehran’s military capabilities.

Some Iranian officials have responded by calling for the country to abandon its international nuclear commitments. 

“The best response to Trump's escalation of the economic war is to withdraw from the NPT,” said Iranian member of parliament Ebrahim Rezaei.

The NPT, also known as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is an international agreement aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

The Islamic Republic of Iran signed the treaty in 1968 and ratified it in 1970, committing as a non-nuclear-weapon state not to manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons.

Trump has repeatedly cited preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as a justification for U.S. military action 

“They have to get rid of it completely. They have to get rid of nuclear weapons. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump repeated Wednesday during the unveiling of the new White House helipad.

Where U.S.-Iran negotiations stand

Trump’s renewed economic threats come as negotiations between Washington and Tehran appear to have stalled amid disagreements over the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed by both countries on June 17.

The document outlined commitments aimed at ensuring the full, toll-free reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and established a  60-day cease-fire intended to allow technical talks to take place, including over Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Before the war, roughly a fifth of the world's global petroleum liquids consumptions passed through the waterway.

But  Washington and Tehran have since offered differing interpretations of the agreement, and fighting resumed before the diplomatic process produced a broader settlement.  

The dispute over the Strait has since reignited, with Iran releasing a list of six key demands that it says the U.S. must meet before the waterway can reopen.

Senior Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Azizi on Thursday reiterated one of Iran’s demands to end America's “presence in the region immediately” and warned that “any further mistake or miscalculation will carry consequences far greater than before.”

Trump has dismissed the demands and instructed his representatives to seek compensation "for all of the people" that Iran has "killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts."

The 60-day threshold has now passed and there is  little sign of a renewed cease-fire agreement.

Trump has also increased pressure on Oman, a longtime U.S. security partner that had reportedly been nearing a deal with Iran over  commercial shipping through the Strait, repeating threats to bomb the country

“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh-t out of them,” Trump told Fox News reporter Trey Yingst on Monday.

China could present an even greater test of Trump’s economic strategy. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated that the country remains Iran’s largest trading partner and the primary buyer of Iranian oil.

When asked whether the sanctions would target China, Bessent responded: “Many conversations are best to have in private, and we are confident that everyone wants the Strait (of Hormuz) re-opened, and for energy prices to come back down,” adding “it would do them a big service to get with the program.”

Trump’s warning that countries doing business with Iran could face economic consequences raises questions about how the policy could affect Beijing as Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to visit the U.S. next month. 

Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are expected to move back to the United Kingdom later this year, after six years of living in the U.S. during a period of estrangement from the rest of the Royal family. 

The couple are set to move with their children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, to a non-royal residence that is said to be outside of London, with both children enrolled to start at a British school in September. The news was first reported by the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, with multiple outlets since reporting similar details. 

The move follows years of Prince Harry arguing that the security arrangements provided for his family in the U.K. were insufficient. In May 2025, Prince Harry lost an appeal after the British government downgraded his security arrangements following his decision, along with Meghan, to step back from Royal duties in 2020. 

Asked on Thursday about the move and if the British government would pay for the family’s security, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the issue was “a private matter” and that he “wishes them well in the move that they are making.”

King Charles III was reportedly informed of the couple’s move on Sunday, and in line with their wishes, the Duke and Duchess will not return to their duties previously held as members of the Royal family.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex last visited the U.K. in July and were hosted by Charles and Queen Camilla at their private residence, Highgrove House, in Gloucestershire, west England. 

Prince Harry also spent time attending events across the country linked to the Invictus Games, a sporting event established by the Duke involving injured or sick international servicemen and women.

Neither the Royal family nor Harry and Meghan have responded publicly to the reports. When asked about the speculation during a roundtable event in Washington on Wednesday, Harry said he had “nothing to say,” per the Associated Press. 

TIME has reached out to Buckingham Palace, as well as representatives of the Duke and Duchess for comment. 

Harry and Meghan’s break from the Royal family 

Harry and Meghan initially lived and worked in the U.K. following their wedding in May 2018. But amid intense media scrutiny and other issues, they soon expressed desires to pull back from public-facing Royal duties. 

In October 2019, the couple said they would be taking “family time” away from their duties towards the end of the year, CNN reported.  

Then in January 2020, the Duke and Duchess announced their decision “to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent.” The couple said they would split time between the U.K. and North America, to “enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter.”

The late Queen Elizabeth II issued a statement in support of the decision after “constructive discussions” with the family, and following a 12-month review, Buckingham Palace confirmed in February 2021 that Harry and Meghan would not be returning as working members of the Royal family. 

“While all are saddened by their decision, The Duke and Duchess remain much loved members of the family,” a statement read. 

The next month, Harry and Meghan sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a now-infamous interview during which they detailed their decisions to move away from the Royal family and the apparatus around it, which Meghan referred to as “The Firm”.

In the interview, Harry said the decision to withdraw from public duties and move to California was both due to the amount of tabloid press scrutiny and harassment, as well as a lack of support from “The Firm.”

Tabloid headlines focused on Meghan have included descriptions of the Duchess as “gangster royalty” and coming from a “crime-ridden neighborhood.”

In 2023, Harry published his memoir, Spare, outlining details of Royal life. In his book, the Duke revealed how he learned of his grandmother’s death, Queen Elizabeth II, via the BBC, and how his father, Charles, did not hug him following the death of his mother, Princess Diana, in 1997.

While in the U.S., the couple have launched a number of business ventures, including several with Netflix. In December 2022, the couple released a six-episode docuseries on Netflix detailing more details about the early days of their relationship, as well as discussions around racism and stereotypes experienced by the Duchess since the start of their relationship. 

Harry’s battle with the British press

Speaking in 2021 the Duke also detailed his relationship with the British media which has been dominated in recent years by a number of legal battles. Most recently Harry lost a lawsuit against Associated Newspapers Ltd., the publisher of The Daily Mail, with a judge ruling a lack of proof for privacy invasion claims against the paper.  

Before the legal defeat, expected to be the Duke’s last challenge against tabloids, the publisher of the Sun newspaper was forced in January 2025 to pay Prince Harry “substantial damages after using “unlawful techniques” to acquire information on his private life. 

The Duke also won 15 claims in December 2023, accusing Mirror Group Newspapers of unlawfully gathering information for stories published about him through phone hacking and other methods. 

Meghan’s struggles

During the March 2021 interview, the Duchess also opened up about her suicidal thoughts while pregnant with their first child, Archie, in 2019. 

“I just didn’t want to be alive anymore,” she said. “And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.” Meghan added that when she approached Royal staff about seeking outside support, her request was refused. 

The Duchess also relayed conversations between Harry and family members, during which they raised concerns with the Duke about how dark Archie’s skin might be. 

Harry said such conversations took place at the start of his relationship with Meghan. “There were some real obvious signs before we even got married that this was going to be really hard,” he said. 

In 2016, when the couple began dating, a statement from Harry’s communications secretary denounced the wave of racist and sexist comments targeting Meghan, as well as the tone of some of the media coverage about her. “Some of this has been very public—the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comment,” the statement from the Duke’s communications secretary read. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is facing a major internal political challenge after a recently dismissed defense minister called for a wartime presidential election. But holding an election during an ongoing war would pose enormous legal and logistical challenges—and it may not be possible at all.

Ex-Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov's challenge comes amid an ongoing war with Russia. While Zelenskyy’s five-year term was scheduled to end in May 2024, elections have been suspended under martial law since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Fedorov posted a nine-minute video online Tuesday, demanding that Ukraine “restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war.”

Read More: Chalk One Up for Ukraine

“Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia. We are fighting precisely because we want to remain a free European state,” Fedorov said. “We must find a legal, safe, and ‌realistic mechanism which will allow Ukraine to renew its full democratic process even in the conditions of ​a long war.”

Fedorov, 35, was a longtime ally of Zelenskyy before he was abruptly fired in July amid mounting friction with military leadership, and his departure sparked days of protests. On Wednesday, Yevhenii Khmara was confirmed as the new defense minister.

Although Fedorov did not mention Zelenskyy in the video, he issued a blistering critique of Ukrainian leadership, saying that the country is in a “systemic crisis of governance” and alluding to corruption. The accusation comes just after Zelenskyy fired deputy chief of staff Iryna Mudra on Wednesday amid a money-laundering investigation. 

This is not the first time that Zelenskyy has come under fire for the suspended elections. Last year, President Donald Trump attacked him as a “dictator without elections.” However, the Ukrainian President has steadfastly denied that he is using the war to cling to power and said he would be open to an election if it could be safely and securely held.

“I am now asking—and I am stating this openly—for the United States, possibly together with our European colleagues, to help me ensure security for holding elections,” he told reporters on WhatsApp at the end of 2025. He said there would need to be “guarantees” from the United States and Russia to ensure safe voting practices.

Zelenskyy had yet to respond to the comments from Fedorov as of Wednesday afternoon, but experts say it is unlikely that an election can take place in Ukraine.

What stands in the way of holding elections in Ukraine?

Historically, very few countries have held elections in wartime, Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, tells TIME, adding that it's very unlikely for an election to happen in Ukraine.

A ceasefire would first be needed—but Sonin says it’s unlikely that Ukraine would trust any assurances from Russia.

“I cannot imagine that Ukraine would rely on any kind of guarantees from Russia to have elections,” Sonin tells TIME. “[Concerns about] Russian election interference are half of the problem.”

Sonin says that there are also many “practical limitations” to putting the necessary technology and infrastructure in place for a secure vote.

“The main limitation is that it's difficult to count votes from the occupied territories,” he says. 

Russia occupies roughly 19% of Ukraine. According to Ukrainian figures from January of that year, there could be as many as 4.5 million adults living in those occupied territories. Millions more Ukrainians have been internally displaced.

Who could challenge Zelenskyy?

It’s unlikely that any challenger would successfully unseat the Ukrainian President amid the ongoing war, Sonin says.

“Zelenskyy won elections in 2019, defeating the incumbent, and since then navigated an extremely complex terrain of Ukrainian politics,” he says. “He would defeat any other candidate.”

Sonin says in years past there were potential presidential alternatives—including General Valerii Zaluzhnyi—who might have been perceived as someone who could “prosecute the war better.”

Zaluzhnyi long held that he had no political ambitions; however, in July, Ukrainska Pravda reported that Zaluzhnyi told Zelenskyy he would run if elections were held in the fall, citing sources close to both men. Sources told the outlet that Zaluzhnyi had changed his mind because he didn’t want to disregard the trust that people had placed in him.

“Ukraine is not losing, and there is so much hope,” Sonin says. “I do not see how Zelenskyy would not win these elections.”

Recent polling, however, complicates Sonin’s assessment. SOCIS, a polling firm, found that Zelenskyy would finish first in the first round in an election against Fedorov, Zaluzhnyi, and Kyrylo Budanov—the current chief of staff for the President, who has not publicly expressed any intention to run. Zelenskyy would capture 22% of the vote as compared with Zaluzhnyi’s 21% and Fedorov’s 13%. 

Because none of the candidates would command the majority, which is required in Ukraine, the top two contenders would move on to a runoff election. And if the vote did reach a second round, the poll projected a loss for Zelenskyy. He ranked behind Fedorov, Zaluzhnyi, and Budanov in the prospective runoff modeled by SOCIS.

Recent developments in the war could also shift those political dynamics. In the past few weeks, Ukraine has expanded its aerial war against Russia. It started ramping up production of long-range missiles that can travel up to 1,500 miles (2,400 km) from the border and has already targeted several key retail and energy hubs in and around Moscow.

According to Ukrainian media, Zelenskyy’s approval rating has dipped since the war started, but still remains close to 60%.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Wednesday that Seoul was given no notice before President Donald Trump announced that he would be scaling back joint military operations between the two countries.

“Neither our government nor U.S. officials knew what President Trump wrote on his Truth Social," Cho told the National Assembly Committee on Foreign Affairs and Unification. "We were not notified in advance.” 

Cho added, however, that Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back was in “close consultation” with his U.S. counterparts regarding the reductions to South Korea-U.S. military exercises. 

Read More: Trump’s South Korea Shift Tests a Key U.S. Alliance

Trump on Sunday announced in a Truth Social post that he had instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” joint military exercises with South Korea, citing the country’s refusal to participate in the U.S.-Israel war against Iran and his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 

Trump called the joint exercises “costly” and “totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said has been “unthreatening and respectful” throughout his presidency. 

Both the Pentagon and South Korea have confirmed that joint operations have been reduced following Trump’s announcement.

A Defense Department official tells TIME that the U.S. has “substantially reduced” Exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield—an annual, large-scale training dating back roughly 50 years that combines multiple sectors of the military designed to prepare a U.S.-Korean joint response to international threats. The Ulchi exercise began on Monday and was supposed to last for 11 days, but will now end on Aug. 21, one week earlier than originally scheduled, the official says. 

“Associated live-training events have been reduced, with certain events canceled or converted to simulations,” the official adds, noting that “training that enhances tactical capability” will continue. “These adjustments preserve essential readiness and training objectives. There will be no degradation to U.S. training objectives.”

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff also confirmed that it had agreed to the reductions at the request of the U.S.

North Korea has largely shrugged off the reductions, saying that they don’t change the geopolitical posture of either the U.S. or South Korea towards itself. 

"We are paying greater attention to the reality that joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea have continued and are still ongoing, and this is an unmistakable expression of hostility toward North Korea," Kim Yo Jong, the sister of the country’s leader, said on Wednesday, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. She added that Pyongyang had “no interest whatsoever" in Trump’s announcement and that “reducing the scale or duration of the drills does not change the provocative and aggressive nature of the military exercises.”

Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday, following his order to the Pentagon, that he had spoken with Kim Jong Un about a scheduled conversation. Kim Yo Jong said on Wednesday, however, that she was "unaware" and knew “absolutely nothing” about recent communication between Trump and Kim Jong Un. 

On Wednesday, Trump said that he would meet with Kim Jong Un this year, but did not elaborate further. 

“He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons,” Trump said to reporters on the White House grounds, referring to North Korea’s arsenal. “Should have never allowed it to happen, they should never have allowed it. If I were president, I never would have allowed it.”

Trump, who met Kim Jong Un face-to-face three times during his first term, has maintained a friendly relationship with the North Korean leader throughout his presidencies. "I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un,” Trump said in August of last year. “I hope it stays that way, I think it will. I have a very good relationship. I understand him.” 

Amid his cordial relations with Kim Jong Un, Trump has repeatedly demanded that North Korea suspend its nuclear arms program, a request Pyongyang has said is off the table. Trump seems determined to negotiate towards that goal with the North Korean leader. 

The President’s recent move to halt joint exercises resembles one he made in his first term.  Following a summit in Singapore in 2018 during which Trump met with Kim Jong Un, making him the first sitting president to hold a summit with a North Korean leader, Trump suspended the Ulchi exercise with South Korea in the name of diplomacy with North Korea. 

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced Tuesday that “all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice,” alleging that Iran had fired two ballistic missiles toward it. 

The country’s foreign ministry said the decision comes “in light of regional escalations that undermine regional and international peace and security.”

Earlier Tuesday, the UAE’s Ministry of Defense reported that two missiles launched from Iran toward the country, both of which fell into the sea. The statement said it “affirms its readiness to respond to any threats and to resolutely counter any attempts to undermine the security of the country or the safety of maritime navigation in the region.”

Read More: Trump Again Threatens to Bomb Oman

Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, rejected the Emirati claim on Tuesday, saying that it “undermines ongoing efforts to strengthen trust between countries in the region and prevent the escalation of insecurity,” according to the semi-official Fars news agency. 

“The impact on the Iranian economy could be significant,” Simon Henderson, director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at the Washington Institute, tells TIME. “The UAE is one of the top non-oil trading partners with Iran.”

As of April, the UAE accounts for 12.5% of Iran’s exports and 30.43% of its imports, according to Iranian news agency WANA. 

Iran’s dollar currently ranks as the least valuable currency in the world, and its government told a Russian news agency in April that the war has already cost it some $270 billion in direct and indirect damages.

Regional instability amid the war in Iran

Stability in the region is fragile, as a number of incidents have been recently reported in the Strait of Hormuz. On Tuesday, a vessel reported that it had been struck by an unknown projectile, causing damage to the engine room and a crew casualty, according to the U.K. Trade Maritime Operations Centre (UKMTO). Last Thursday, a separate vessel was struck by a drone. 

The UAE has previously reported the detection of missiles coming toward it, most recently on July 12, when it confirmed that a missile fell outside of its borders.  

In May, the defense ministry reported that it had intercepted six unmanned aerial vehicles within 48 hours that “attempted to target civilian and vital areas in the country.”

One drone, launched from the direction of the UAE’s western border, struck an electricity generator near the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant on May 17. Its origin has not been confirmed and is under investigation.

During the first few weeks of the conflict, Iran launched a series of more aggressive strikes on targets in the UAE, hitting military, energy, and civilian infrastructure. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) vowed at the time to “punish aggressors throughout the region,” pointing toward U.S. military assets stationed in the country, as well as other Gulf states. 

Tehran resumed targeting U.S. allies in the Middle East, including Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain during the return to hostilities in early July, when negotiations based upon a Memorandum of Understanding collapsed. 

Where do peace plans between the U.S. and Iran stand?

Peace talks between the United States and Iran have made little progress in recent weeks.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that “there are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled,” between the U.S. and Iran. He also reaffirmed that the naval blockade on Iranian ports and vessels remains in place, amid ongoing claims that the Strait of Hormuz is “open and operating.”

Marine traffic data suggested Wednesday that some ships were indeed passing through the Strait, but still at significantly lower levels than before the conflict began. 

Earlier this week, the President also threatened to “bomb the s---” of Oman, a U.S. ally and mediator between Washington and Tehran, should it “get in the way” of U.S. attempts to gain  effective international control of the Strait of Hormuz. 

Oman and Iran have reportedly been working toward an agreement to manage traffic through the Strait, which carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply. 

The U.K. government has indicated its willingness to reconsider its digital services tax amid increasing pressure from the Trump Administration.

The concession came in response to an interview published Monday in which U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told The Times that President Donald Trump’s threats to scrap a trade deal with Britain and impose a 100% tariff were “not a bluff.”

When asked if the interview might lead Downing Street to change its stance on the tax, a government spokesperson told TIME, “We remain open to discussing U.S. concerns and working with partners internationally.”

The digital services tax imposes a 2% levy on the revenues of “search engines, social media services, and online marketplaces which derive value from U.K. users.” Several other European countries, including Portugal, Spain, and Poland, have also implemented similar taxes.

Greer said Britain was using American companies as “piggy banks” and that he was “not going to tolerate that.”

“We have very good relations with the U.K. We’ve had very constructive relationships, we’d love to keep talking to them about this issue. The President is quite serious about digital services taxes all over the world,” he said.

Read More: Why Trump Is Threatening to Impose a ‘Big Tariff’ on the U.K.

“This tax is about making sure that businesses pay their fair share of U.K. tax based on the value they derive from U.K. activities. It is an interim measure, and we are still committed to removing it once a global solution is in place,” the spokesperson said, adding that both countries “share a strong trading relationship.”

A White House official tells TIME that “the Administration continues to address digital services taxes and other tech issues with our trading partners.”

Rising trade tensions between the U.S. and the U.K.

The U.K. and the U.S. agreed to a “groundbreaking” Tech Prosperity Deal in September 2025, which was expected to bring billions of dollars in investment from U.S. tech companies into the U.K. technology sector.

However, relations between the two countries have splintered since the onset of the Iran war.

"This is not Winston Churchill we're dealing with," Trump said of former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the height of tensions in March, as he accused the former U.K. leader of "ruining" relations.

Trump later warned the U.K. that he would implement a “big tariff” in April if the country did not drop its digital services tax on U.S. tech companies. And in June, he threatened to impose a 100% tariff on imports from any country that taxes digital services provided by U.S. companies.

“This tariff will supersede trade deals made with the country, whether implemented, signed, or not,” Trump said June 26.

The Trump Administration has not yet made any official tariff announcements linked to these threats.

However, the U.K. government, which has recently come under new leadership, has signaled that it is open to discussions.

Burnham aims to bridge relations between the two nations

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took office in July, has indicated intentions to mend the relationship between the two countries.

Asked whether there was a deadline for discussions with the new Burnham government, Greer declined to set one, instead emphasizing cooperation with the U.K.

“I don’t set artificial timelines. All I know is the President is eager to enforce our trade policy, he’s eager to make sure our companies aren’t discriminated against,” he said.

Since taking office, Burnham has appeared keen to repair relations with Trump. The two have spoken by phone, and Burnham extended an invitation for Trump to visit Manchester in the future—where the 2027 G20 summit is rumored to be taking place and where Burnham served as mayor before becoming Prime Minister.

But he may be hesitant to remove an important source of revenue for the U.K.

Between 2021 and 2025, the tax generated more than £2.4 billion ($3.2 billion) in revenue for the British government.

Read More: ‘We Won’t Be Bullied’: U.K. Responds to Russian Threat Over Ukraine Drone Support

Trump has pushed the U.K. on policy in the past, including his consistent calls for Britain to allow new North Sea oil and gas licenses—something the Starmer government intended to ban.

On the eve of Burnham’s entry to Downing Street, Trump claimed: “The people of Aberdeen, in Scotland, are dancing in the streets because the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has stated that he will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil."

Burnham has signaled that he is open to reconsidering Britain’s access to North Sea oil and gas.

“I’ve got something of an open mind, you know. I don’t have a sort of fixed position,” he said in early June.

Trump has continued to tout the new British Prime Minister’s willingness to reconsider the issue.

“One of the things he is going to do, I think he's going to open up the North Sea. That'll make the U.K. pretty rich,” Trump said on Monday in the Oval Office.

Burnham, however, has yet to make a final decision.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) said Wednesday that it “deplores” sanctions imposed this week by the U.S. State Department on its president, Judge Tomoko Akane, and Abdoulaye Seye, a Senegalese senior trial lawyer for the Office of the Prosecutor.

The State Department announced the sanctions Tuesday, accusing Akane and Seye of having “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction.” 

The sanctions include the freezing of assets in the country, blocking financial transactions, and prohibiting entry to the U.S. They were imposed under an Executive Order issued by President Donald Trump in February 2025, which reads: “The United States unequivocally opposes and expects our allies to oppose any ICC actions against the United States, Israel, or any other ally of the United States that has not consented to ICC jurisdiction.”

Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a state party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that founded the ICC and went into effect in 2002, and therefore do not recognize the jurisdiction of the court. 

Read More: Trump Administration Vows to Dismantle the International Criminal Court

“These sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution which operates pursuant to the mandate conferred by its states parties,” the ICC statement said. “Such measures targeting judges, prosecutors and staff who work towards the fulfilment of the mandate that was conferred to the ICC by states undermine the rule of law.”

The Court further warned that the sanctions put “international legal order” at risk.

In his first term, Trump imposed sanctions on ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and another senior official, Phakiso Mochochoko. These were later lifted under the Biden Administration. 

The ICC says that nine of its 18 judges are now under sanctions from Washington, as well as both deputy prosecutors, a former prosecutor, and one other member of staff. 

Why does the Trump Administration oppose the ICC?

Announcing the sanctions on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the ICC a “corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court.” He accused it of repeated attempts “to assert authority over nationals of the United States and other countries that have not consented to its jurisdiction or ratified the Rome Statute.”

The Trump Administration has long pushed back against the ICC’s investigations and charges against nationals from both the U.S. and Israel. February’s Executive Order said the ICC’s recent actions against both countries “set a dangerous precedent.”

The State Department also launched a campaign in July to “dismantle” the ICC’s jurisdiction, saying it will “systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.” 

But the tensions trace back to Trump’s first term, when the ICC sought to investigate possible war crimes committed by the CIA and military personnel in Afghanistan. Bensouda requested authorization in 2017 to investigate those allegations. Trump then brought sanctions against her in 2020.

The U.S. has also rebuked its actions in recent years against Israel.

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the recently dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Both were accused of “crimes against humanity and war crimes" pertaining to the ongoing Israel-Hamas War, including “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.”

The conflict was ignited by Hamas’s terror attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which left some 1,200 people dead and 250 taken hostage. Since then, over 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza—1,262 of whom have been killed since a cease-fire began last October, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Public Health on Aug. 15. 

The prosecutor also pursued arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, and Yahya Sinwar, all of whom have since been killed. 

During Rubio’s Senate confirmation hearing in 2025, he addressed the warrant for Netanyahu. “This is a test run. This is a trial run to see, ‘Can we go after a head of state from a nation that’s not a member?’” he said, adding: “If we can go after them and we can get it done with regards to Israel, they will apply that to the United States at some point.”

Israel has denied the ICC’s war crimes accusations and challenged its jurisdiction. The Pre-Trial Chamber initially rejected that challenge, but in April 2025 the Appeals Chamber sent it back for reconsideration. The arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant remain in effect.

Netanyahu commended Rubio’s sanctions announcement on Tuesday, describing the ICC as “a kangaroo court that cloaks its abuse of power in the language of international law while undermining the very principles of justice.” 

Literacy rates have steadily risen around the world over the last decade, according to a 2025 UNESCO report—important progress on a key UN Sustainable Development Goal, as the ability to read, write, and use numbers is “crucial for thinking critically and navigating information-rich society and economy in a safe, effective and responsible manner.” Access to digital learning has largely been associated with higher test scores for students globally. As technology continues to advance, tech companies have pounced upon the opportunity to bring education systems around the world up to speed with the ever-more connected digital world and the proliferation of new tools like generative AI. 

To assess the top EdTech companies in the world, TIME partnered with Statista on a data-based research project evaluating the thousands of companies in the space on strong financial performance and industry impact. The end result is a list of the 500 top-performing companies in education technology.

Methodology: How TIME and Statista Determined the World's Top EdTech Companies of 2026

The top ranked company on the list is Duolingo, which was also the top-ranked EdTech company in the U.S. this year. The company, which started as a language learning app, has expanded into math, chess, and music. Duolingo now has over 60 million daily active users and generated more than $1 billion in bookings last year. As UNESCO advocates for more multilingualism, which can offer social, cognitive, and economic benefits, Duolingo’s chief product officer, Cem Kansu, believes that there are still more language learners the app has yet to reach. Roughly 15% of Duolingo’s users are in the U.S., with the majority distributed globally and Asia as one of their fastest growing regions recently. “Asia for English learning especially is a huge market,” Kansu says. Around half of Duolingo’s users are under 25, and use the app as an educational supplement—a lesser known product called Duolingo For Classrooms is designed specifically for teachers to assign Duolingo lessons as homework for students. 

Duolingo stands out among other language learning tools with engaging designs that motivate users to return and practice every day (more than 20 million users have a streak longer than one year); micro-lessons that use implicit learning rather than drilling grammar rules; and keeping its free tier to bring in new users.

“It is extremely important that we provide a very extensive free user experience because Duolingo was built around the idea of providing access to education,” says Kansu. “If someone that had to immigrate from Syria to Turkey had to learn Turkish to integrate, we want to provide access to them. On top of that, an excellent free product provides an amazing growth flywheel for Duolingo.” 

Word of mouth has certainly made Duolingo mainstream, but the company broke through the noise through its unconventional marketing tactics and its capitalization on cultural moments like the World Cup (daily learners studying Norwegian on Duolingo were up nearly 19% globally and 24% in the U.S. compared with the previous month), shows like Squid Game (Season 1 of Squid Game drove a 40% increase in new U.S. Korean learners on Duolingo immediately after its premiere), and Bad Bunny performing in the Super Bowl halftime show (engagement with Spanish jumped 35% the week after). 

While platforms like Duolingo are driving interest in learning and lowering the barrier for entry globally, in the U.S., where there appears to be a “learning recession” as standardized scores for math and reading drop, there are rising concerns about the use of technology in classrooms and too much screen time for children.

Emily Weinstein, a researcher at the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard, says some students are using up to seven different apps to manage everything from grades to sports team schedules. Kids have reported feeling constantly tethered to these tools to monitor the “endless stream of notifications about what they're supposed to know and do,” which can add to the academic pressures they’re already experiencing, Weinstein says. Educators have also told her that these tools often arrive without the necessary onboarding. 

“Whenever you're thinking about technology in education, you should really think about it like a three-legged stool. You have the actual technology, you have the person using it, and then you have the place where they're using it,” says Stephen AguiIar, an associate professor at the USC Rossier School of Education. “In an ideal world, the technology works, the person knows how to use it, and it's used in the place where it's helpful or where it actually makes a difference. 

I think a lot of the backlash is about poor fit, where you have AI or EdTech companies entering a space they frankly know very little about, and then you have backlash from people who see things just not working. And what's a little unfortunate is that it doesn't always have anything to do with the core technology.”

A central problem is that educational institutions in the U.S. have been underfunded for decades, which creates strains in the system. “Whenever you put a system in strain, one of the things that happens is administrators rightly look for ways to cut costs and to become more efficient, even though education isn't an efficient enterprise,” says Aguilar. “Education is not this thing where you drop off your kids, they sit there for a little bit, knowledge gets poured into them, and then they come out a little smarter. That's the business way of looking at it, and it is fundamentally incorrect. Companies that do a little bit of a better job, they're really thinking about what teachers need to execute their work better.”

As some AI tools fuel the proliferation of digital cheating, there's a reckoning that's happening among educators about how they’re evaluating and assessing learning through traditional assignments, papers and homework, as well as how they’re teaching, experts say. Some leading EdTech platforms like Canvas-owner Instructure (no. 45) and Inspera (no. 31) have rolled out tools to deter AI cheating, including resources to help instructors understand the culture around cheating and how to change their focus from catching students cheating to creating an environment that encourages academic integrity. 

“The systemic issue is we don't have a sense of trust and integrity around the work, then we're trying to layer on EdTech as a solution, and kids are finding ways around it because they're missing the core thing that is going to give them pride in the work,” says Weinstein. “One of the things that we collectively need is to use this AI moment to have conversations in our classroom and school communities about what the purpose of learning is.”

From her research, Weinstein has found that listening more to student perspectives could fundamentally change how we understand what it looks and feels like to be a student in this context, and how these different technologies are shaping learning trajectories. “When you're talking to a young person, you can suddenly see that their good intentions are not always enough in a context where the market forces and design features are pulling them this way and that,” she says. “When I sit down with a kid and look at their ChatGPT logs, I can see such a difference in when they have turned to an EdTech tool for learning and when they have turned to it for a grade.”

Duolingo’s Kansu says that even though Duolingo For Schools’ dashboard for teachers had fairly good adoption, designing products for schools is not easy. “What we're realizing is if we just continue teaching better, Duolingo will become a great complement to classrooms anyway,” he says. “I'm hoping that Duolingo is always put in a bucket of good screen time…Meaning, any minute you spend on Duolingo, you are doing something good for yourself. Any fun minute you spend is also of extremely high learning value.”

Rising Stars

This sub-ranking highlights companies 10 years or younger with the highest revenue growth rates over the past three years out of those who submitted company data via the online application process.

Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Syrian White Helmets and the architects of the Iran nuclear deal are among the oddsmakers’ favorites to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which is due to be announced on Friday.

The award is given annually to a person or people who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.

The official list of nominations remains a secret, however the committee has said that there are 318 nominees.

Here are the top candidates, based on betting odds from William Hill and Ladbrokes.

1. Pope Francis

Pope Francis has been tipped to win the award each year since he became Pope in 2013. This year he has continued to be vocal in calls for compassion towards refugees and migrants, and is a progressive voice in the Catholic Church, a historically conservative organisation. He was TIME’s Person of the Year in 2013. British betting company William Hill told TIME that Francis had received more bets than any other candidate.

2. Angela Merkel

In the years since German Chancellor announced that she would allow one million refugees into Germany during the height of Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015, she has been high on the list of Nobel favorites. This year she said she had no regrets about the policy despite the political cost, which was made manifest in last month’s German elections where she came out with a reduced majority. In 2015, TIME named her Person of the Year.

3. White Helmets

Widely predicted to win the prize last year, only to be pipped by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, the White Helmets or the Syria Civil Defense are a volunteer organisation that came to prominence pulling civilians from bombed-out buildings in Syria. Named after the iconic white helmets that are often their only protection, the group claims to have saved 99,000 lives since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.

4. Federica Mogherini & Mohammad Javad

The EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and her Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad are the architects of the Iran nuclear agreement, a deal reached in 2015 that de-escalated tensions between the U.S. and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program. Under the agreement, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of potentially weaponizable uranium, and allow international observers to oversee the country’s nuclear program, in exchange for the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions.

5. ECOWAS

An outsider choice with 5/1 odds from Ladbrokes is the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional union who this January intervened in Gambia to ensure a peaceful transition of power after the incumbent president of 22 years, Yahyah Jammeh, refused to relinquish power to democratically elected Adama Barrow. The military intervention forced Jammeh to step down and go into exile, with a number of troops remaining to assist Barrow with his consolidation of power and establishing Gambia’s new democratically elected government. The intervention was bloodless, although a number of people fled the political instability in the Gambia during the crisis. The last troops are expected to leave the Gambia this year.

The Nobel Peace Prize is announced at 6am E.T. on Friday.