Meghan Markle told her estranged father he would never meet her children after learning of allegations of sexual abuse involving minors as Philippine authorities investigate claims that child sexual abuse material was found at his former home.
The Duchess of Sussex reportedly sent Thomas Markle Sr., 82, a final letter in December 2025, while he was hospitalized following a leg amputation. Sources close to Meghan told the BBC that she confronted her father about the allegations, told him authorities were aware of them and said she would never contact him again.
The revelation comes as Philippine Interior Minister Jonvic Remulla warned that evidence gathered so far raised the possibility of serious criminal wrongdoing. “Right now all signs point to a possible sex offender of the grossest kind,” Remulla told The Guardian, emphasizing that forensic examinations must be completed before investigators reach definitive conclusions.
Philippine police are examining materials reportedly discovered by Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr., while clearing out their father’s former home in Cebu. The materials allegedly included hundreds or thousands of images depicting child sexual abuse, along with electronic devices. Remulla said investigators expect forensic results within approximately a week.
Thomas Markle Sr. has emphatically denied the allegations, calling them “sick lies.” He told the Daily Mail that he had nothing to hide and welcomed forensic examination of the devices.
Meghan’s half-sister, Samantha Markle, has also defended their father, accusing their brother Thomas Jr. of fabricating the allegations for financial gain and claiming the computers had been outside their father’s possession for two years.
The investigation has also raised questions about British authorities’ handling of earlier warnings.
London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed Saturday that it received a letter in January 2019 containing allegations of offending outside the United Kingdom. Officers shared the letter with Meghan and Prince Harry’s office but did not forward the allegations to other law enforcement agencies. The department is reviewing its response and considering whether to refer itself to Britain’s police watchdog.
Meghan, who has been estranged from her father since before her 2018 wedding, said Friday that she had kept him away from Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet to protect them. “I am deeply distressed,” she said, expressing concern for any children who may have been harmed.
The FBI has confirmed awareness of the allegations and offered assistance to Philippine authorities. No charges have been announced, and investigators have not publicly established that Markle Sr. possessed the alleged material.
To camp with kids makes me question my sanity. I crush tasks. Setting up the tent, laying out the bedding, stacking coolers on a bench. The picnic tables are skeined with leaves after a season of rain. I peel and drape their skeletal outlines over a nurse log. Forest doilies. We brought bikes. Our sons pop wheelies in the parking lot, safer than it sounds because few campers have braved late spring at Seaquest State Park.
On the drive along Spirit Lake Highway to Mount St. Helens, the houses are few and well-priced. I marvel; Brian scoffs. That’s because this whole place was destroyed forty years ago. Having timed our trip to the eruption’s anniversary, we ascend through what had been a trail of devastation. Once seared by lahars, the landscape has greened into a wildlife corridor that winds around the Toutle River.
Scientists didn’t think life would come back this fast. Scant weeks after the blast, fireweed poked its green head through the ash, sending purple flowers skyward by July of 1980. The next year, I was born. We don’t always know where hope resides. I spent four decades guarding a secret. Quietude is a fertile state. Sure, I published hundreds of articles with my byline. But I rarely disclosed my own truths.
To this sunny weekend, I had invited a couple that Brian and I met in Seattle. Like him, they’re from the Midwest. Friendly people. She sang at our wedding with her two sisters, one of whom was our officiant. They moved to Portland a year after we met. We have stayed friends, which says something because I have lost contact with people who live in north Seattle. Together we decide on the Hummocks Trail. It’s only 2.5 miles long. I used to burn for monthlong expeditions, but it’s a good length for short legs.
I had never heard of hummocks before, which is the privilege of choosing one’s encounter with destruction. Hummocks are pieces of the mountain blown off by the eruption and carried downhill by a landslide. By the time we arrived, they had settled into place.
Seeds grow best when given space. To heal from my origin so that I could become myself and a mother, I have accepted estrangement as necessary. My parents are unable to reconcile our facts. They prefer façades. But to remain in relation with falsity is too deep a strain. My narrative belongs to me.
Upon these chunks of rock, ecosystems arise. Beneath the alders, bushy green horsetails wave in the unaccustomed sun. Their bright stalks, notched like bamboo, are topped with long fronds that grow in a feathery circle, like squirrel tails. With more than 300 million years of evolutionary strategy in the making, horsetails are hard to remove when they take root. It doesn’t matter how many times you pull them. I was charmed when they touched down in my garden. There, like here, they grow high enough to tickle my children’s hands along the path.
Our boys throw sticks into the ponds. Called the lifeblood of the hummocks by helpful plaques I read at a gallop to keep the kids in sight, the ponds are more like seeps. Or rainfall catchment basins. They were born when chunks of shattered glacier melted, forming pits filled by water then buried in ash. No longer held together by the mountainside, the hummocks slumped apart. Water dribbled through gray crannies. Now exposed to the sky, the ponds are thick with algae and cattails. Damselflies and dragonflies lay their eggs in the stillness. In springtime, the toad and frog eggs hatch into tadpoles which wriggle through the murk.
The ponds are unstable and evaporate quickly. To survive their home, the creatures must reproduce early and often. By the time I birthed our boys, I was in my thirties and had fortified my self-regard. Each autumn, the frogs and toads bury themselves in the muck to wait for spring. I had no knowledge of such metaphors when I was a girl. But I waited for my season to come.
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(Steve Terrill/Getty Images) Mount St. Helens erupting
Fireweed has many uses. I can only name a few. Epilobium angustifolium fights inflammation, bacteria and aging, among other properties. What I can say about fireweed — I know what it is to harden in resistance, to become a seed that flowers in adversity. I work to overcome a tendency toward hypervigilance and its attendant crises of critique and anxiety. My husband has a hard time getting me to relax.
He is practiced. I am wary of his wiles. But Brian loves the prickly spine of me. He did not show up just to harvest the blossoms. He takes time to water the roots. He opens channels to the sun. He accepts sudden rains for the blessings they bring. I married an easygoing man. He trusts eventuality. Our sons scamper down the path with their friends, secure in their innocence.
Called Lawetlat’la, Loowit, or Louwala-Clough, which means smoking mountain, Mount St. Helens didn’t remake itself overnight. The eruption began on the same day in March that our eldest was born and that the Attis passion week concludes. Lavatio. A public ceremony that washes the image of the mother goddess, following Hilaria, a time for celebration. Few continue to worship Cybele, if any, but her rituals persist in other guises. Images of the Madonna are promenaded through the streets of Catholic towns throughout Europe and South America. She is showered in petals gathered from the hills, just like in pagan times. Carried in procession, her image is exposed to public view so that she may confer protection upon that community. With sorrowful eyes and an enigmatic smile, she tells them a story about themselves.
Mount St. Helens collapsed in three separate blocks, the first of which hurtled toward where we are hiking. Standing in the sun, passing snacks, it is hard to imagine the ground — which feels solid under my feet — as it had been, spinning down the mountain at up to 155 miles per hour.
A few seconds after the first block slid, the second block broke through, powered by the blast of released pressure and the magma welling from beneath. Before Mount St. Helens erupted, scientists didn’t know how far away to keep onlookers. Geologists thought the volcano would blow its top upward, rather than sideways. The mountain did not perform according to plan. For this and other reasons — some decided to wait it out — fifty-seven people perished that day in May. Decades of subsequent study have shown that the earth held this knowledge for us, but we did not see it.
Scientists had noticed mounds near other volcanoes, but they believed the hills had formed from mudflows or glaciers. But they were, in fact, evidence of catastrophe. In New Zealand 23,000 years ago, Mount Egmont’s debris avalanche traveled 19 miles. Closer to home in California, Mount Shasta’s debris avalanche traveled 30 miles. In 1888 Japan, a debris avalanche traveled 7 miles from Mount Bandai and became a hilly forest that people now call home. Glistening in the sun, the scooped cone of Mount St. Helens’ summit can be seen from these hummocks which came to rest 14 miles from their source. Snowmelt unfurls from the crater like tentacles.
My home in Seattle is 3,093 miles from the island of my youth. It would take forty-six hours to drive that distance, or forty-two days to walk the diagonal across a country which has not always felt great enough to protect me. I hew to my beloved jagged coast. This place helped make me who I am, a woman who carries stories for our descendants. May they know greener times.
Seeds grow best when given space. To heal from my origin so that I could become myself and a mother, I have accepted estrangement as necessary. My parents are unable to reconcile our facts. They prefer façades. But to remain in relation with falsity is too deep a strain. My narrative belongs to me.
When this book is published, I anticipate my birth family will not speak to me again. While the pull toward my parents is real, separation brought relief to my body. Do these hummocks miss their brethren shoved against the valley walls? Their silt and silica trickle downhill together, grain by grain.
While the pull toward my parents is real, separation brought relief to my body. Do these hummocks miss their brethren shoved against the valley walls? Their silt and silica trickle downhill together, grain by grain.
Most entanglements are quantum. The braids of Toutle River are akin to the Missoula Flood patterns, visible from astronomical heights which reveal our land’s history: A mighty ice dam gave way, again and again, to the water it held in abeyance. I have worked hard to pry apart the fractals that have locked my kin into repeating errors at various orders of magnitude. To move forward, I have relinquished the belief that my happiness depends on our unity. They don’t have to show kindness for me to heal. They have their reasons for being puzzles I no longer need to solve. Forgiveness does not imply reconciliation.
Releasing them has freed me to hold space for my own story. My liberation has stoked resentment and dissent. You’re hurting us, they accuse, meaning, You’re hurting our idea of us, and this idea is all that we are. In these pages, I remain in relation to forebears who no longer define my future. Our shared memories make us a family the way rivers carry snowmelt to the sea.
It can be hazardous to leave the path that was planned for you. Here on the hummocks, in full view of the mountain which mothered them, I step off trail and slide down scree that skins my shin into a shining ruby constellation. I don’t bother to shield my legs from the sun. My scars remind me: Forging a desire line can be dangerous. So is failing to follow your hope. When I think of my family now, I look for roots I’ve grown into the earth. Sturdy enough to bear witness, they send signals of welcome to you whose presence I embrace, unseen.
With our communion comes responsibility for what happens next. That, too, is mine to accept, though not control. The route to the goddess unmakes you. Our journey was never meant to be linear. Find the whole in the fragments.
Dusk cloaks the grove around our tents. A cinder cone rebuilds herself on a horizon I cannot see. Here I feel safe to revel in the gloaming. Evenings are ceremonial for parents. We remain open to the world in defiance of routines which structure our days. Rituals are made through repetition. We feed our children and tell stories. Not much remains to be done. In the forest, there is no bathing, except in beauty.
Our kids stay up. The campfire warms their small faces. Wet wipes provide the semblance of clean hands after s’mores. The fathers are tasked with bedtime. With kisses good night, my sons step into our tent. My husband zips up the door. From the fire circle, I hear their murmurs and laughter amidst the slight rustle of sleeping bags. My friend smiles, her eyes agleam with patient hope. She is ready for our song time. The night stills but for the crackles of sap. We sip from metal cups, our sparks spiraling toward the stars.
“Desire Lines” is available in print from Red Hen Press or as an audiobook narrated by the author, who is currently on a book tour.
Actress Selma Blairwas arrested Sunday night after allegedly attempting to open an airplane door midflight and assaulting two flight attendants aboard a Delta flight from Los Angeles to New York, according to multiple reports.
Blair, 54, allegedly punched one flight attendant and bit another during the confrontation, TMZ first reported Monday.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that officers responded to Delta Flight 938 after it arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport around 11 p.m. Sunday. Two flight attendants reported injuries, and one was transported to a hospital for further evaluation.
Blair was taken into custody and transported to a hospital for evaluation. The FBI is investigating the incident.
A representative for the actress told TMZ that she had experienced a medical emergency. “Selma experienced a medical emergency that led to the alleged conduct,” the representative said. “Upon landing, she received immediate medical attention and is currently in stable condition.”
The nature of the reported medical emergency has not been disclosed.
Blair, known for her roles in “Cruel Intentions” and “Legally Blonde,” publicly revealed her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2018. She has since become an advocate for people living with the chronic neurological disease. In April, Blair said she remained in remission but continued to experience fatigue and other lasting symptoms. There is no confirmed connection between her MS diagnosis and Sunday’s incident.
Delta said in a statement to Variety that it has “zero tolerance for unruly or unlawful behavior,” adding that passenger and crew safety is its priority.
The airline said the flight landed ahead of schedule despite the incident.
There’s nothing subtle about a movie where Nicole Kidman crawls on her knees to lick milk out of a saucer. And yet, Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl” is perhaps the most thematically complex and provocative film of the year, kitty-play and all — one that will continue to reveal its multitude of layers long after Sky Ferreira’s scorcher of an end credits song has dulled its blaze.
It’s a cornucopia of titillating treats, best exemplified by the film’s centerpiece scene, which features the most memorable orgasm since “When Harry Met Sally.”
That dissonance between Reijn’s deliciously clever writing and her narrative’s more forthright eroticism is encapsulated by the film’s outré promotional rollout. To tantalize and tease prospective viewers, the marketing team behind “Babygirl” has leaned all the way in, emphasizing the movie’s Christmas Day release in promotional materials that demand audiences “get everything you want” this holiday. Trailer drops and sneak peeks have been accompanied by milk emojis, while official stills flaunt Kidman’s costar Harris Dickinson’s back muscles.
It’s no shock that, for a film that plainly features kinky sex, the “Babygirl” marketing team would want to stress the movie’s raw eroticism to get curious viewers in theater seats. It’s a trick almost as cunning as the one Reijn pulls off in the movie itself, as she disguises a stirring work about controversial pleasure and cerebral expansion as a kind of elevated “Fifty Shades.” Once audiences get eyes on “Babygirl,” they quickly find that the movie is so much more than milk emojis, gold chains and rippling back muscles. Rather, it’s a cornucopia of titillating treats, best exemplified by the film’s incredible centerpiece scene, which features both the most memorable orgasm since “When Harry Met Sally” and gobsmacking bits of screenwriting and acting that will force you to reconsider good sex as you know it.
By the time we arrive at this moment, Kidman, Reijn and Dickinson have done a good bit of work to make the payoff so satisfying. Kidman’s character, the incredibly successful and even more brilliant automation industry magnate Romy Mathis, has inadvertently found herself locked into a sizzling affair with Dickinson’s character Samuel, an intern at Romy’s company. During their first meeting as part of a new company-wide mentorship program, Samuel matches Romy’s slippery intensity, and his reluctance to ingratiate himself intrigues her. The pair soon engage in a series of high-stakes games where Samuel is in control. They play with one another under everyone’s noses, yet never consummate their dynamic with more than a kiss. That is until things between Romy and Samuel become so heated that neither party can ignore the magnetic pull any longer.
Samuel arranges for Romy to meet him at a seedy hotel room, a far cry from the luxury that Romy is used to and expects. She arrives before he does, and when he opens the door to meet him, she chides his behavior. “Leaving me notes, texting me, calling me, sending me milk, are you f**king insane?” Romy asks. “Keeping me waiting in this disgusting hotel? I mean, I don’t wait for anything.” Romy got to the top of her field by ingeniously developing ways for fleets of robots to automate repetitive tasks, and her sexual exploits are no different; waiting around is time wasted and money lost.
But the line between sensual restraint and true inconvenience is one that Romy has never established, and her annoyance is only confusing for Samuel, who we soon realize is just as unfamiliar with this particular energy as Romy is. He can’t tell if Romy’s vexation is genuine or just another part of their game, and tries to figure it out with a command. “Get on your knees,” he orders. When Romy immediately objects, Samuel laughs in response, himself confused about where Romy’s desire ends and where it begins. “I don’t know how to . . . is that what you want? Be honest.”
Romy tells him that she worries about his age and about hurting him, and Samuel — the shrewd student that he is — reads between the lines. “Hurt me?” he asks with a smirk. “I think I have power over you, because I could make one call and you lose everything. What, does that turn you on when I say that?” Romy holds his gaze, silently communicating her arousal, and Samuel responds by once again telling her to get on her knees. She begins, but stops herself, getting up and gathering her things to leave before stopping at the door and running back into his arms. Samuel, however, doesn’t want reluctance. He wants certainty.
When he pushes Romy off of him, the two wrestle to the ground, playfully slapping each other and grunting. It’s a brilliantly uneasy moment, and Reijn ensures that the viewer will never quite know where it will go until it’s over. Kidman giggles and then grows timid. Suddenly, the fear that something violent will happen becomes very real, but Samuel only subdues Romy and tells her to stop so they can figure out what’s happening. He clamps his eyes closed, and when he refuses to open them at Romy’s request, she reaches up to pry open his eyelids, causing him to smile.
By now, the scene already feels like a masterwork in erotic tension, with most audiences undoubtedly on the edge of their seats. The banter between Samuel and Romy is mischievous and childlike, at once sexy and threatening before turning around again to feel wholly loving. Much in the way that Romy is desperate to understand what exactly it is she wants, so is Samuel. The lines are blurred again later in the film, when the threat of ruining Romy’s life becomes more than a seductive trick, and that inevitable turn wouldn’t be nearly as gratifying for the viewer if it weren’t for the intense intimacy established in the remainder of this scene.
Samuel helps Romy off the floor and positions her in the corner of the room, like a child in time-out. This is Reijn’s most explicit image of Romy working through her incontrovertible Freudian shame, a humiliation that has troubled her for her entire life and which has no identifiable source — despite her attempts to pinpoint it through every therapeutic treatment known to man. At this stage, Romy is unwilling to remove her clothes, so Samuel circumnavigates the traditional nude image of sex to find a different route to her pleasure. He asks her to get on her knees before unwrapping a piece of hard candy and placing it into his hand. Romy crawls forward and picks it up with her mouth, allowing Samuel to pet her like a dog. Gently, he places Romy onto the dirty hotel room floor, facing away from him, and reaches into her skirt to finger her.
It’s a brilliantly uneasy moment, and Reijn ensures that the viewer will never quite know where it will go until it’s over.
What comes next (no pun intended) is one of the most startlingly crude and incontestibly incredible sex scenes in recent memory. Reijn’s camera closes up on Kidman’s face while Samuel works in the background, out of focus. We watch as Romy moves through pleasure, fear, bliss and confusion. Here, Kidman is using her powers as both a grade-A movie star and a true artist to mesmerize us, fully in service of Reijn’s vision. It’s a staggering bit of genius and one of the most unforgettable scenes in any film this year, a truly affecting look at the heady pursuit of physical euphoria. As Romy nears her orgasm, she’s terrified, and when she objects and tells Samuel that she “doesn’t want to pee,” we realize that she has no experience physically ejaculating. He quells her worries and brings Romy to orgasm, and she is immediately stricken with a massive wave of grief and guilt.
But Romy’s remorse doesn’t just stem from the fact that she’s cheated on her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas), it comes from her realizing that her husband — the person she loves the most, with whom she shares two children — has never made her feel such full-bodied pleasure. Samuel bears a power that takes hold of Romy, the kind of hypnotic sway that she’ll have to contend with eventually. But first, she sobs, crumpling into Samuel’s arms while he holds her close.
It must be said that this scene demands everything of Kidman, and she bares herself entirely without any nudity at all. It is positively thrilling to see someone act at this level, so much so that Kidman’s performance demands that the viewer shed all pretenses. It’s impossible not to admire the complex, sophisticated work in this scene, which is so beautifully constructed that it defies whatever vulgar, less refined terms that may be used to define it going forward. Here, “Babygirl” graduates from to inviting to important, blowing past the tactics that marketers used to get people to pay the price of admission. Reijn’s film is more than just an erotic thriller, it’s a landmark piece of mainstream erotic cinema that, like Samuel and Romy, relishes the opportunity to push the boundaries.
Since moving to Italy from the U.S., I’ve noticed how much more spontaneous social interactions are here. It’s common for me to run into someone I know and have them invite me to coffee on the spot. Instead of receiving a text, I’m more likely to get a voice message or a phone call from someone I just met. But this is only true of the friends I’ve made here. When communicating with friends back home, I text them or send voice messages. But mostly, I do the dance of having to schedule a catch-up like it’s a work meeting. So when The Cut writer Kathleen Walsh published an essay recently about feeling like she should be able to cold call her friends, it resonated with me deeply. “In the past 20 years, a new social boundary seems to have calcified among people my age,” Walsh wrote. “It is no longer appropriate to pick up your phone and call your friend whenever you feel like it.”
In February 2026, a YouGov survey found that 68% of surveyed Americans said text messaging had replaced at least some of the phone calls they used to make. More than one-third of those surveyed said text messaging had replaced most of their calls. While there isn’t any data to quantify its frequency, as Walsh pointed out, if a phone call does happen, it’s becoming increasingly more common to text before you call. But in a time when loneliness has been declared a public health crisis, Americans are saying fewer words to each other, and it’s trendy to be nostalgic for the ’90s – why isn’t the friendly cold call making a comeback?
There are a few reasons. Despite all the public discourse around loneliness and the need to connect, the cold call violates some of the communication norms we’ve spent decades developing. Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communications at the University of Kansas, said one reason is simply that phone calls are sometimes disruptive to people’s lives. “There are lots of reasons people shouldn’t or normatively don’t take phone calls, and they’re totally valid,” he said. For example, when someone is at work or in a public setting. In fact, Hall added, when mobile phones first became more widespread, there was a backlash against taking private calls in public. Texting first, to arrange a phone call, is now seen as the more polite approach.
In a time when loneliness has been declared a public health crisis, Americans are saying fewer words to each other, and it’s trendy to be nostalgic for the ’90s – why isn’t the friendly cold call making a comeback?
Adding to the phone-calls-may-be-disruptive argument, Hall said in today’s digital-heavy world, people are constantly being bombarded by notifications on their phones. A friendly cold call could be viewed as yet another interruption, and a demanding one. Then there’s another reason at play: humans love to screen phone calls. From the invention of the answering machine to caller ID, Hall said people “really enjoy” having the ability to control when, and whether, they answer the phone.
“I think that the politeness norm is actually a sign of good relational practice to say that I’m respecting the fact that there are lots of times not to take a call, and I’m also going to show this person some respect by doing so,” Hall said. “But when we use texting to replace important, meaningful conversations, or long catch-ups, because we do not want to put the effort of time into maintaining our relationships, that I think, is the big loss.”
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That doesn’t necessarily mean this new social norm of having to text before you call has serious consequences, or that phone calls are the only way to maintain friendships. Throughout history, every new form of communication has generated some type of anxiety. The rise of phone calls once led people to worry about in-person interactions. However, Hall says he believes phone calls are better than texting when it comes to connecting meaningfully with people. But is there something lost when they no longer feel spontaneous?
“Most of our communication is spontaneous,” Matt Abrahams, a professor and author of “Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You’re Put on the Spot,” said. “And good things happen in spontaneous communication.” He used small talk as an example, which can lead to a deeper understanding, deeper trust, and connection for people. “I do believe we miss out on things when we’re not allowing ourselves to have some of these spontaneous interactions.”
But for many people, a cold call from a friend or family member has become synonymous with an emergency. “A ringing phone now reads as an emergency, and most of us have been conditioned to meet surprise with a small spike of alarm,” Christa Smith, a psychologist in Georgia, said. Smith agreed, a pre-arranged call is “courteous,” but it has also turned connection into an appointment. “And appointments get postponed.”
“Spontaneity is how a relationship says ‘I thought of you for no reason,’” she said.
“A ringing phone now reads as an emergency, and most of us have been conditioned to meet surprise with a small spike of alarm.”
Beyond experts in communication, the trend of having to text before you call is also divisive. Melanie Tornroth, a 45-year-old working mom, said she absolutely expects people to text before calling first. “Receiving cold calls from friends and family is now a huge pet peeve of mine,” she said. “The only person I will cold call is my mom because I know she prefers it and will always answer the phone.” When someone calls her out of the blue, it can feel intrusive and give her a lot of anxiety. “I have so much on my plate on a daily basis,” she said. “If a family member or friend calls, I feel pressure to answer, but I am rarely just sitting around doing nothing with time to chat.”
Conversely, Jackie Domanus, a 44-year-old mom of three in California, prefers spontaneous phone calls. In fact, she is known for cold calling her friends. “I just call,” she told me. “I’ve stopped sending or answering texts for the most part; I’m just over it,” she added. Domanus emphasized that she works alone and misses people and their voices, which could be part of her don’t-text-just-call stance. “Call me, or it’s not that important,” she said.
Mary Westheimer, a 71-year-old in Phoenix, Arizona, also prefers phone calls over texts. “Please do not text me to ask if you can call me,” she said.
For people who are tired of having to schedule calls with their friends, Smith suggested agreeing with two or three of your closest people that a text before a call is never needed. “Some people are anecdotally growing tired of having to schedule calls with friends,” she said.
Kissy Black, a 50-something in Nashville, was one of those people. She said she and her daughter got into a habit of texting to schedule a call, which “created some perceived hurdles to keeping in touch.” But recently, they instituted a “cold call rule” allowing them to call each other anytime, day or night, without texting first.
“Now, when one of us calls, we just say ‘cold call, cold call,’ which immediately makes us both laugh and kicks off our conversation,” Black said. “As a result, we are talking at least 300% more than we used to.”
As for me, any friends or family reading this can expect more cold calls. And if you can’t answer, no problem. I am personally team bring the friendly cold call back.
When Tim Tebow announced Friday that he was pausing his relationship with Christian wealth-building company Life Surge, the former football star said he had been caught off guard by allegations that the organization used predatory sales tactics to push Christians into expensive financial education programs.
But for some Life Surge customers, Tebow’s relationship with the company was part of the reason they trusted it in the first place.
“I am so devastated that Christians like Tim Tebow made me trust in something that has taken so much money from me,” one customer wrote in a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission obtained by Mother Jones and journalist Pablo Torre.
That trust is at the center of a controversy that has quickly spread beyond allegations about Life Surge’s business practices to questions about what happens when a celebrity known as much for his faith as his fame lends his name to a company.
Tebow, a Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL quarterback, has spent nearly two decades as one of America’s most recognizable Christian athletes. His public persona has remained closely intertwined with his evangelical faith, from the Bible verses he famously wore beneath his eyes at the University of Florida to the Christian ministry and humanitarian work of the Tim Tebow Foundation.
Tebow was hardly the only famous face lending his name and credibility to Life Surge.
The organization’s sprawling roster of speakers and performers has included prominent Christian leaders and musicians such as Priscilla Shirer and Chris Tomlin, Hollywood actors including Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Quaid, athletes including David Ortiz and Russell Wilson, business personalities and political figures including former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and former Housing Secretary Dr. Ben Carson. Life Surge currently promotes its roster as “influential voices in faith & finance alongside leading worship artists.”
“I am so devastated that Christians like Tim Tebow made me trust in something that has taken so much money from me.”
Investigators have also looked beyond Tebow. Journalist Pablo Torre said his team sought comment from 14 sports figures who had been paid to speak at or promote Life Surge.
But Tebow’s relationship was unusually extensive. He was reportedly scheduled to appear at more than 20 Life Surge events this year, earning between $50,000 and $100,000 for each appearance. Life Surge’s own website shows him appearing at an event in Portland as recently as Sept. 19, less than a week before the investigation was published.
There is no evidence that Tebow knew about the sales practices alleged by former customers, and the presence of other celebrities at Life Surge events does not establish that they knew about or endorsed the company’s financial programs.
But the sheer breadth of Life Surge’s celebrity roster raises a larger question than whether one famous Christian athlete adequately vetted a speaking engagement: What happens when an organization can borrow credibility from dozens of people its audience already trusts?
The company holds Christian events combining worship, motivational speakers and financial education under a mission it calls “Kingdom Impact.” Attendees can pay relatively little to see celebrity speakers before being offered a $97 three-day financial course. From there, according to the Mother Jones investigation, customers can be offered programs costing tens of thousands of dollars.
Former customers told the outlet they were encouraged to take on significant debt to participate in the programs, including through credit cards and home equity. Mother Jones and Torre also obtained 49 complaints filed with the FTC about Life Surge.
Those complaints are allegations, not findings of wrongdoing by the agency.
Life Surge has strongly disputed the characterization of its business as predatory. The company says it does not encourage customers to assume debt they cannot afford, provides disclosures explaining the risks of investing and has spent millions of dollars on compliance efforts.
It has also rejected comparisons to the prosperity gospel, the Christian theological movement that connects faith with material or financial rewards. Life Surge says its teachings instead focus on biblical stewardship and using financial success to make a greater impact through Christian ministry.
Life Surge says headline speakers such as Tebow are not hired to sell its financial programs. Tebow said Friday that his purpose at the events was to share his faith and encourage attendees.
But the Mother Jones investigation found that Tebow’s role wasn’t entirely disconnected from Life Surge’s programs. In audio from a 2023 event, Tebow encouraged people who had signed up for additional classes to follow through with the commitment.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has long warned about “affinity fraud,” in which scammers exploit trust within religious, ethnic or other close-knit communities. Regulators warn that respected community or religious figures can sometimes lend legitimacy to financial opportunities without realizing they are doing so.
There is no finding that Life Surge is operating an affinity fraud, and the company denies wrongdoing. But the SEC’s warnings illustrate why the identity of the person standing onstage can matter so much.
“I’m not here to judge or condemn. I want to seek the truth.”
Tebow’s decision to pause his relationship with Life Surge therefore does more than remove another celebrity from the company’s roster of speakers. It removes one of the most recognizable symbols of Christian credibility from its stage.
Tebow said his representatives are now investigating the allegations before he reaches his own conclusions about Life Surge.
“I’m not here to judge or condemn,” Tebow said Friday. “I want to seek the truth.”
For the people who trusted Life Surge in part because they trusted him, what Tebow discovers may matter nearly as much as what regulators do.
Confession: I was never a Beatles girl. Put away your pitchforks, people – a lack of love doesn’t preclude appreciation. After all, without The Beatles, The Monkees wouldn’t exist. And in one of those head-to-head, “One has to go” challenges the internet is so fond of, I’d tell Ringo and the rest to kick rocks every time.
Not long ago some music purists would have called that sacrilege. Some still would, I’m sure. Bear in mind that I didn’t grow up in a household where a Beatles album ever graced a record or CD player. But we had TVs in the kitchen, the family room, and my parents’ bedroom, and that meant that on any given weekday after school, you could find me in one of those places hanging out with Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork,Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones.
I’ve had The Monkees on my mind recently because yellow buses are rolling through my neighborhood again, and because this month marks the 60th anniversary of their show’s 1966 series premiere. But I was also reminded of their cultural impact all these years later by a Rolling Stone story that came out this week titled “Seven Reasons Why You Should See Harry Styles Right Now.”
Styles is one of the 21st century’s pop supernovas whose musicianship and charisma evolve with the times – “the kind of pop spectacle that leaves feathers all over the floor and hysteria lingering in the air,” gushed the magazine’s Rob Sheffield in his May review of the performer’s tour-launching show in Amsterdam. He’s also the most successful member of One Direction, a boy band created by and for the British edition of “The X Factor.”
That show didn’t magically endow Styles with talent, but it gave him one of the world’s biggest stages to showcase his gifts. That’s similar to the way producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson brought together four unknowns and accidentally formed one of the last century’s most influential pop bands.
Nobody expected that, though. Schneider and Rafelson initially sought to build a show around Jones – the Harry Styles of his generation – and recruited the rest of the band with a Hollywood Reporter ad that read, “Madness!! Auditions. Folk & Roll Musicians-Singers for acting roles in new TV series. Running Parts for 4 insane boys, age 17-21. Want spirited Ben Frank’s types. Have courage to work. Must come down for interview.”
Tork, Nesmith and Dolenz were among the 437 who responded. They also happened to be talented musicians.
The once-in-a-century specialness of The Monkees, a made-for-TV creation that became a pop culture force, cannot be overstated. For example, years after “The Monkees,” NBC tried to capture some of The New Kids on the Block’s audience share with the short-lived sitcom “The Guys Next Door.” It only takes listening to a few of their songs to realize why most people don’t remember they ever existed, which probably suits recording artist Damon Sharpe just fine. Before he became a Grammy- and ASCAP award-winning producer, songwriter and DJ, he paid the rent with this short-lived gig.
That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Many boy bands are created by enterprising producers looking to manufacture stardom using renditions of a well-worn formula of dreamboat archetypes. They are live performers first, though.
(Michael Ochs Archives via Getty) Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, Mike Nesmith, Davy Jones
In Schneider and Rafelson’s initial vision, Peter, Mike, Micky and Davy were simply characters living out whimsical two-dimensional adventures built around musical interludes. Ask me to describe any episode’s plot off the top of my head, and I couldn’t. But their music is forever.
“The Monkees” ran for only two seasons, from 1966 to 1968. During that period, the quartet disparagingly nicknamed the Pre-Fab Four made music history, even influencing movies with their post-TV series feature “Head,” the Jack Nicholson-written and produced film that eventually achieved minor cult status.
People still sing along to the Neil Diamond-penned “I’m a Believer,” “The Last Train to Clarksville” and “Daydream Believer,” all of which shot to No. 1 on the charts. Those interludes also foreshadow the music videos that defined the 1980s.
But the musical cuts that earned them cred as stealthy proto-punkers are “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” and Dolenz’s “Randy Scouse Git,” thrashers that had grade school kids leaping off their parents’ couches for reasons they may not have understood until many years later.
These details are crumbs of the fascinating lore surrounding The Monkees. What impresses me most is their ripple effect on TV and music. Without them, “The Partridge Family” may never have rolled out of their driveway. The Archies and Josie and the Pussycats may never have become American animation classics, with the former snagging a radio hit with 1969’s “Sugar, Sugar.”
Much of the appeal of “The Monkees” was that its live-action stars were as animated as every other show in the after-school TV blocks that programmed it. They were eternal cool kids, which people celebrated and mourned when Jones’ sudden death in 2012 sparked a multitude of ruminations on what he and the band meant to a generation. Tork died in 2019, followed by Nesmith in 2021, leaving Dolenz to carry the band’s legacy to this day. He’s still touring.
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However, in a recent interview with AARP, Dolenz emphasized that The Monkees were never a group in the conventional sense. “It was a musical comedy television series about these four guys that wanted to be a band,” he said.
He noted that on the TV show, the band never actually became famous. “It was the struggle for success that was important, and I think helped endear it to all these kids around the world,” he said, “which does, of course, beg the question of how we could afford a Malibu beach house. But that’s Hollywood.”
A battlefield dominated by fully autonomous drones capable of selecting and engaging targets without human intervention sounds like a dystopian sci-fi plot. And while that scenario has not yet arrived, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has moved modern warfare a notch down that road.
In recent years, both nations have deployed semi-autonomous drones in combat and are rapidly racing toward fully autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles.
Given these developments and the pace of Russian and Ukrainian drone production, a battlefield with hundreds to thousands of fully autonomous drones operating is plausible within the next few years. Yet, the technology underpinning autonomous warfare risks outpacing the Russian and Ukrainian frameworks for maintaining some degree of human control over weapons.
As an expert on weapons technology, I worry that the battlefield incentives to deploy more autonomous drones will completely push aside human targeting decisions related to using proportional force, avoiding strikes on non-combatants and limiting collateral damage.
The creeping drone war
Both Ukraine and Russia have increasingly prioritized the use and production of drones since the war began in February 2022. Unable to produce large numbers of one-way attack drones at first, Russia turned to Tehran for technological assistance – and has steadily developed its own capacity. Ukraine had a nascent drone industry and has grown it using private defense firms and technological innovation.
As the war has progressed, both sides have added autonomous features to existing drones, as well as developed new drones with autonomous capabilities. Specifically, both Russia and Ukraine have deployed drones with autonomous functions using AI on the battlefield to recognize targets, navigate and self-guide to targets.
In November 2025, a Ukrainian first-person-view drone used an AI-assisted guidance system to strike a probable Russian tank after the drone’s communications link with its operator was disrupted. A human operator selected the target, but the drone itself guided the final stages of the attack.
Reliable estimates of the numbers of these drones on the battlefield are unavailable. However, reports on their usage suggest they represent only a small percentage of the millions of drones both sides have deployed to date.
At the advanced end of the spectrum, Russia reportedly fielded at least one model of a fully autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle in early 2025. Ukrainian analysis of recovered Russian V2U drones revealed a small Nvidia computer designed to run AI-enabled decision-making software. Variants recovered in late 2025 no longer contained the external communications systems suggestive of operator control.
Autonomous targeting
The V2U’s technical systems are configured to enable autonomous selection and engagement of targets without operator intervention following launch.
Human operators have generally selected intended targets or target areas for moral reasons, highlighting the significance of the V2U’s ability to carry out these missions autonomously.
The onboard AI utilizes computer vision, allowing the drone to analyze images from its onboard sensors. It can autonomously recognize objects, track them, navigate and select potential targets.
In July, Russia employed a different AI-enabled drone in combat that demonstrated a less comprehensive form of autonomous targeting. The strike, on a gas station in Zaporizhzhia, killed three Ukrainian civilians. Human operators selected the gas station as the target area, while onboard software independently picked the final aim point.
Russia is also integrating versions of a similar technology into its Geran series unmanned aerial vehicles, which are based on Iran’s delta-wing Shaheed-136 attack drone. Some Gerans include a seeker guidance package that allows the onboard computer to guide the drone in the final flight phase, after a human operator initially selects the target.
Ukraine, for its part, has focused on modular AI-driven packages, including chips with embedded software and sometimes cameras, that it can install widely across drone and other platforms. It has fielded drones that use onboard AI to identify targets and guide them in their final flight phase.
One such module tracks targets and guides the drone the final 500 meters to them. The company that makes the computer advertises more advanced modules, which it claims will provide additional and even full autonomy.
Ukraine claims to have used more advanced autonomous drones on the battlefield as well. Former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in July that Ukraine used a drone that autonomously chooses targets with no radio connection to a human pilot in strikes in Russian-occupied Crimea at an unspecified date. He added that Ukraine has not mass-produced this drone.
Ukraine also reportedly employed what have been dubbed fully autonomous quadcopter drones two years ago against Russian forces near Bakhmut, Ukraine, killing Russian soldiers. However, reports that the drones were preprogrammed raise questions about whether the drones independently selected the targets.
Battlefield advantages, ethical concerns
Russian and Ukrainian drones with autonomous capabilities already have had battlefield impact, even though Kyiv and Moscow have not yet deployed the most advanced systems in large numbers.
The benefits of deployment are clear. Drones with autonomous functions reduce their dependence on communications links and can continue despite jamming and other forms of electronic warfare. These capabilities help enable strikes deep into each other’s territory.
Autonomous navigation and guidance in the final portion of flight can also improve drones’ ability to engage moving targets. Deployment of fully autonomous drones at scale could reduce the personnel required to operate large numbers.
But autonomous drones come with serious ethical concerns.
A major risk is that the development and employment of this technology leapfrogs the ability of Russia and Ukraine to maintain some type of human control over autonomous weapons. Ukrainian Ministry of Defense rules require keeping humans in the loop for “combat” decisions, meaning that humans verify targets in the “final stages of interception.”
In contrast, Russia’s arms control positions provide insights into its views on human control. Russian officials highlight “human control,” with a focus on the ability to alter the system, deactivate it or provide limitations, such as on the types of targets that it can engage. But Moscow does not stress that a human has to be in the loop for verifying targets before they strike them.
As worrying as that sounds now, the next step in AI drone warfare is even more concerning: Swarming drones that can hunt in packs of a few to thousands and autonomously alter their behavior based on communicating with one another present a frightening challenge to maintaining human control.
Digital journalism is as subject to fads as any other medium. Snarky fisking — responding to an article line-by-line — gave way to the quiz boom, which was consumed by the personal essay before the long decade of short-form video. But if you squint, you can see the outline of the type of stuff that always works.
Gossipy reported pieces on scams and relationships, such as the latest news about Donald Trump’s aide Natalie Harp or The Cut’s regular output, are always a safe bet. Fightstarters over ambiguous issues — the annual argument over “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” the internet-breaking Dress, countless poorly written math equations on Facebook — are evergreen. Barring that, it never hurts to channel Helen Lovejoy from “The Simpsons”: You won’t go broke thinking about how we should all think of the children.
Over the weekend, one such piece tore through the well-meaning liberal corners of the internet — meaning Bluesky and Threads, mostly — and prodded at the gap between educational idealism and the hyper-competitive reality of schooling in America.
In a column for the New York Times Magazine titled “In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?”, Nikole Hannah-Jones agonizes over her decision to walk the walk with regard to her belief in robust, well-funded public schools for all children. The journalist made the decision to send her child to a Brooklyn public school whose student body was predominantly Black and impoverished, believing that her well-resourced family could help push for better education for all the city’s children from within. She wrestled with the struggles her daughter faced while trying to get ahead and deciding to test into one of New York’s ultra-selective specialized public high schools.
In her column, Hannah-Jones grapples with the ways underfunded schools leave even talented students feeling pre-emptively defeated — a sense that the city’s elite schools are beyond their grasp, even if their own test scores might indicate otherwise. Overworked and burnt-out staff teaching the children of overworked and burnt-out adults isn’t a recipe for educational success, and Hannah-Jones’ recollection of her repeated frustrations and conversations with educators paints a heartbreaking picture of a systemic issue that no one family could reverse. She makes herself sick with guilt over her choices, reaching out to activists and her daughter’s former educators to help her make sense of the problem and her response to it.
But Hannah-Jones is ultimately unsuccessful. As the principal of her daughter’s struggling middle school puts it, “there’s no model out there for holding all of these truths, these complex truths, all at once.
“We are working within the system that we know is not working, while trying to recreate and reimagine a new system, while working with young people who have all this potential, who’ve not been given the opportunities for that potential to thrive and be unleashed,” the educator says.
In the end, Hannah-Jones’ daughter succeeded against the odds, landing in a great test-in school. But it’s hard to come away from her story believing that such a result would be attainable for others.
But the dilemma pokes at what has long been a sore spot for well-heeled liberals. Does sending your child to the best possible schools make believers in a better world for all big, fat hypocrites?
Once the column hit the web, it quickly devolved into a fight over whether wanting the best for your child is a betrayal of egalitarian ideals. Hannah-Jones is a gifted writer, and her piece isn’t as flat as that argument implies. But the dilemma pokes at what has long been a sore spot for well-heeled liberals. Are the exceptions that every parent would make for their child morally permissible? Does sending your child to the best possible schools make believers in a better world for all big, fat hypocrites?
I’ll let you in on another bit of digital journalism that always holds true: Questions explored in commentaries are either unanswerable or the answer is “no.” We should have well-funded schools for all American children, where success isn’t so tied to where you call home and the relative affluence of your neighbors. We don’t, though and kids only get one shot at raising their children.
Like Hannah-Jones and her husband, I was the product of well-funded public schools. Private school was never an option for my working-class parents, but living close to the vacation homes of wealthy people boosted the quality of public schooling. The coastal county where I was raised is even wealthier and more populous now, but Florida’s rightward turn to school choice, along with a post-COVID crackdown on classroom curriculums that might be deemed “woke,” has left those same public schools poorer and its teachers less free to do their jobs. The state is currently in the midst of a property tax revolt that may further gut local school funding. A rabble-rousing, union-advocating teacher friend of mine came out of the same public schools as me, and she now teaches at a private school, primarily to pay for the discounted tuition her daughter receives.
I’ll soon have skin in this debate myself. I’m expecting my first child at the end of this year, and if I didn’t live hundreds of miles away from Florida, I would be looking into the academies, charters and parochial schools that serve the county’s booming population of wealthy remote workers trying to pull the ladder up behind them.
Living in New Orleans, I’m lucky in a way. My child will be born into a city that has no traditional public school system; New Orleans went all-charter in 2019. The scramble to get kids into the best schools is baked in, with parents entering their grade-schoolers into school choice lotteries with little regard to geography, making it unlikely that my child will go to a school that mirrors the demographics of our neighborhood. That decision was made for us years ago. While I believe that public education should be funded at the state level, with equal per-student distributions of tax dollars coming from the top, I won’t be required to back that belief in equality up with action any time soon.
Hannah-Jones’ experiment might be novel, but the fight that broke out around it is familiar. You can see it anytime an outwardly progressive politician or commentator benefits from their personal wealth. If you really believe that America is in the grips of a homelessness crisis, why haven’t you opened your own home to the down-on-their-luck? How can an elected official like Sen. Bernie Sanders push for affordable healthcare for all, while benefitting from the Cadillac health plans afforded to Congress? If you’re such a believer in public schools, why would you balk at sending your child to a failing and underfunded institution?
Such arguments are meant to pare down complicated, systemic issues into a series of individual choices. They may vary on the specifics, but the intent is the same. Critics of progressive policy pushers want activists to shut up about privilege because it makes them uncomfortable. Having to think about the advantages and disadvantages baked into the system strays too far from the preferred framework of school choice advocates and other conservatives — that all people are equally free to choose the life they lead, and that failure to wring a good education out of our flagging system is entirely the fault of the individual.
It’s not a frame that public school advocates, Medicare for All true-believers or affordable housing rabble-rousers need to accept. The gap between progressive beliefs and reality is right there in one of its oldest and most popular bits of sloganeering: Another world is possible. Admitting that it’s not here yet is the first step to fighting for it.
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