James' World 2

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Where Things Stand

• Government reopens: With the end of the longest shutdown in U.S. history, federal workers were back in their offices, national parks were fully reopening, and the government was returning to normal operations. Some workers were getting $10,000 bonuses for their work during the shutdown. But the size of the federal bureaucracy meant it would take time to get back up to speed, and some workers were said to be unable to log back into their computer systems. Several states restarted food stamp payments, but millions of Americans were still awaiting the November deposits that the Trump administration resisted paying out in full.

• Boat strike: The U.S. military killed another four people accused by the Trump administration of trafficking narcotics by sea, Pentagon officials said. The known death toll in the administration’s lethal campaign on boats to 80 since early September. Read more ›

• Retribution campaign: A federal judge has begun reviewing whether the U.S. attorney handpicked by President Trump to prosecute two of his most prominent political opponents — James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general — was lawfully appointed to her job, which could have serious consequences for the cases.

The Justice Department joins a suit challenging California’s new congressional maps.

The U.S. Justice Department has joined a Republican lawsuit challenging new congressional maps that California voters approved last week to favor Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.

The case asserts that the maps, which were championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, are unconstitutional because they improperly use voters’ race as a factor in determining district boundaries. It was filed last week by the California Republican Party, and on Thursday, the Justice Department announced it had filed to intervene in the suit, asking the courts to block the maps.

The Trump administration prepares tariff exemptions in a bid to lower food prices.

The Trump administration is preparing broad exemptions to certain tariffs in an effort to ease elevated food prices that have provoked anxiety for American consumers, according to three people briefed on the actions.

The change would apply to certain reciprocal tariffs the president announced in April, including on products coming from countries that have not struck trade deals with the administration, the people said, discussing a pending announcement on the condition of anonymity.

Noem begins handing out $10,000 checks to T.S.A. workers who ‘went above and beyond’ during the shutdown.

Air traffic controllers with perfect attendance through the shutdown are not the only government employees getting bonuses for working unpaid during the longest federal spending freeze in U.S. history.

The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, announced on Thursday that an unspecified number of Transportation Security Administration officers would also be awarded checks of $10,000 for going “above and beyond” during the shutdown, acting days after President Trump recommended $10,000 bonuses for air traffic controllers who never missed a shift during the shutdown, while seeming to prod those who were absent to quit.

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A tour guide at the United States Capitol in Washington on Thursday, as the federal government reopened following the longest shutdown in its history.Credit…Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

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Stella was eight years old when she stopped eating solid foods. She went from being a “foodie” to strictly consuming liquids, says Briana, Stella’s mother. That diet soon became problematic for Stella, too: later, she removed chunks from her soup and struggled to drink smoothies that contained small seeds. She grew so afraid of swallowing that she’d spit out her saliva. “She said she had a fear of choking,” Briana says. (The last names of Stella and Briana have been withheld for privacy.)

In less than a month, Stella became so tired and malnourished that her parents took her to the hospital. Doctors put her on a feeding tube, and they were concerned that the rapid weight loss for her age might cause heart issues. Within 24 hours of being hospitalized, a psychologist diagnosed Stella with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, or ARFID, a serious eating disorder that’s become steadily more prevalent globally in recent years. Health care providers and psychologists are now trying to untangle ARFID’s causes, signs, and disconcerting rise.

Clinicians emphasize that ARFID is much more than a dislike of certain foods. It’s developmentally normal for many kids to go through a picky eating phase between ages two and six. But ARFID presents as a food avoidance so persistent and pervasive that it can cause adults to drop below the minimum health body mass index, or BMI (a hotly debated measurement that links a person’s weight to their height), or to lose so much weight that they experience symptoms of malnutrition, such as vitamin deficiencies, irregular menstrual cycles, low testosterone, hair loss, muscle loss and a constant feeling of being cold. In kids, drastic weight loss from ARFID can cause children to fall off standard U.S. growth charts for healthy development. Developmental issues linked to the loss in weight and calories often spur doctors to recommend supplemental nutritional intake.

“We’re not just trying to treat kids who don’t like broccoli. It’s the kid who is malnourished as a result of their food choices,” says James Lock, a psychiatry professor and director of the Child and Adolescent Eating Disorder Program at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

An Increasingly Recognized Disorder

ARFID was formally recognized as a feeding and eating disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 2013. That enabled clinicians to put a name to a condition that had been around but had gone undetected for some time.

“Probably there were people who had this syndrome, but they didn’t really talk about it because there’s a stigma around it,” says Jennifer Thomas, co-director of the Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, who has treated people with ARFID.

Wider recognition of the condition is partly driving the recent increase in cases. Real-world data on ARFID cases are lacking, but some studies have reported a global prevalence ranging from 0.35 to 3 percent across all age groups. Certain countries and regions report much higher numbers: a recent study in the Netherlands, for example, found that among 2,862 children aged 10, 6.4 percent had ARFID. The eating disorder clinic, Equip, that provided specialized care to Stella after she was hospitalized, says it treated more than 1,000 people in the U.S. with ARFID in 2024—a 144 percent jump from 2023.

“I think that’s one of the things that has made ARFID a challenging eating disorder [to diagnose]—because it is a lot of different things.” —Jessie Menzel, clinical psychologist

And the National Alliance for Eating Disorders has found that ARFID now accounts for up to 15 percent of all new eating disorder cases. People can experience ARFID at any age, although recently diagnosed cases have mostly been in children and teens. The average age of diagnosis is 11 years old, and 20 to 30 percent of cases are in boys, a higher percentage than other eating disorders, according to the alliance.

Signs and Symptoms

Unlike other eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, ARFID doesn’t appear to be associated with body image. The problem—and seeming cause—is the food itself and the emotional and physiological response toward it.

People with ARFID generally fall into one or several of three categories. According to one study of adults with ARFID, 80 percent of respondents said they were uninterested in eating, 55 percent said they stay away from many foods because of sensory issues, and 31 percent said they avoid food because they are afraid of adverse consequences such as choking or vomiting. About two-thirds of the participants were in more than one of these categories.

“I think that’s one of the things that has made ARFID a challenging eating disorder [to diagnose]—because it is a lot of different things,” says Jessie Menzel, a clinical psychologist who treats the condition and other eating disorders.

There are some common signs that signal ARFID, however. In addition to significant weight loss and signs of malnutrition, ARFID’s physical symptoms include gastrointestinal issues, low body temperature, and the growth of a type of soft, fine body hair called lanugo that is typically not present after infancy. Behavioral changes include a lack of appetite, difficulty paying attention, food texture avoidance, extreme selective eating, and a fear of vomiting or choking

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In an effort to combat Alzheimer’s disease, scientists are looking at existing drugs that could treat the condition, and a 2025 study identified two promising candidates that are currently used to treat cancer.

Already approved by regulators in the US – meaning potential clinical trials for Alzheimer’s could start sooner – the drugs are letrozole (usually used to treat breast cancer) and irinotecan (usually used to treat colon and lung cancer).

The team of US researchers started by investigating how Alzheimer’s altered gene expression in the brain.

They then searched a medical database called the Connectivity Map for drugs that reversed these changes in gene expression, as well as cross-referenced records of patients who had taken these medicines as part of cancer treatments. The drugs appeared to have decreased their risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

“Alzheimer’s disease comes with complex changes to the brain, which has made it tough to study and treat, but our computational tools opened up the possibility of tackling the complexity directly,” says computational biologist Marina Sirota, from UC San Francisco.

“We’re excited that our computational approach led us to a potential combination therapy for Alzheimer’s based on existing FDA-approved medications.”

Having picked out letrozole and irinotecan as the best candidates, the researchers tested them in mouse models of Alzheimer’s. When used in tandem, the drugs were shown to reverse some of the brain changes brought on by the disease.

The harmful clumps of tau protein that build up in brains affected by Alzheimer’s were reduced significantly, and the mice showed improvements in learning and memory tasks – two brain capabilities often impaired by Alzheimer’s.

By combining the two drugs, the researchers were able to target different types of brain cells affected by the disease. Letrozole seemed to counter Alzheimer’s in neurons, while irinotecan worked in glia.

“Alzheimer’s is likely the result of numerous alterations in many genes and proteins that, together, disrupt brain health,” says neuroscientist Yadong Huang, from UC San Francisco and Gladstone Institutes.

“This makes it very challenging for drug development, which traditionally produces one drug for a single gene or protein that drives disease.”

It’s a promising start, but there’s more work to be done: Obviously, the drugs have only been directly tested in mice so far, and these medications also come with side effects. These need to be considered alongside the benefits if the drugs are to be repurposed for a different disease than what they were originally approved for.

One of the next steps should be clinical trials for people with Alzheimer’s disease. According to the researchers, this approach could lead to more personalized and effective treatments, based on how gene expression has been altered in each case.

It’s estimated that more than 55 million people have Alzheimer’s, and as the world’s population ages, that’s expected to more than double in the next 25 years. Finding ways to prevent the disease and even reverse symptoms would have a huge impact on global health.

“If completely independent data sources, such as single-cell expression data and clinical records, guide us to the same pathways and the same drugs, and then resolve Alzheimer’s in a genetic model, then maybe we’re on to something,” says Sirota.

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(Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

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Chris Hemsworth is joining a growing list of Hollywood stars opening up about caring for their aging and sick loved ones.

Care advocates gathered at the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 5 for a screening of Hemsworth’s new documentary, “A Road Trip to Remember,” which follows Hemsworth and his father, Craig Hemsworth, on a motorbike trip across Australia. Craig Hemsworth is one of over 55 million people worldwide living with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

“I just find myself wanting to spend more time with him,” Hemsworth says in the film’s trailer.

Hemsworth’s documentary will premiere on National Geographic and be available for streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu on Nov. 23, just six months after Bradley Cooper’s “Caregiving” documentary released on PBS in June. Emma Heming Willis has become the face of spousal caregiving through various media appearances and her new book, “The Unexpected Journey,” where she talks about caring for her husband, Bruce Willis. Seth Rogen produced a documentary that released in January 2025, “Taking Care,” which brought viewers inside his family’s life as he and his wife cared for his wife’s mother.

“For many years, people just didn’t talk about it,” said Jane Root, CEO and founder of Nutopia, the film production company that made Hemsworth’s documentary. “And suddenly, influential people like Chris and Seth and people are suddenly, like, this is something that needs to be talked about. We need to stop being scared of it, we need to take away the stigma of it.”

The United States is at a critical moment where family caregivers are holding up their families and the country’s long-term care system, said Megan O’Reilly, vice president for health and family for AARP government affairs.

“The more that folks are talking about it and sharing their stories, they’re empowering those around them to share their stories,” O’Reilly said. “I’ve increasingly seen it over the last couple of years… this has been building to this moment.”

‘If Chris can do it, I can do it.’

Hemsworth isn’t new to documentaries or the team that helped make “A Road Trip to Remember.” The film is backed by the same creators (including Nutopia) who made Hemsworth’s “Limitless” series, where he investigated various ways to try and live better for longer.

“My Dad and I had always spoken about taking a trip back to the Northern Territory, where our family had lived years ago, but we had never been able to set aside the time to actually do it,” Hemsworth said in a Facebook post on Oct. 16. “More recently, the idea of taking that road trip reemerged with more pressing importance. The result was a more profound, more moving, and more surprising journey than I ever anticipated.”

Charlie Parsons, senior vice president of global development for National Geographic Channel, has worked with Hemsworth since the beginning of his “Limitless” series. He said National Geographic doesn’t look to work with big names for the sake of having a celebrity on a poster. There needs to be an “honest to goodness passion for the subject matter,” Parsons said. And Hemsworth cares deeply about health and his family.

“He was just very vulnerable,” Parsons said. That vulnerability leads to connection, and hopefully will lead to more people sharing their caregiving and Alzheimer’s stories. Parsons said he has found himself opening up more about his own mother’s dementia journey in recent years. “If Chris can do it, I can do it.”

“Now she’s at a point where she doesn’t know who I am,” Parsons said of his mother. “I go in there, and sometimes she’s kind of asleep or kind of dozing off. I just, I hold her hand for 45 minutes, and I tell her I love her.”

Unlike other stories of caregiving that tend to focus on the difficult parts of care and aging, Root said Hemsworth’s documentary is a celebratory story.

“It’s a film that makes you smile,” Root said. “It’s about Chris saying, ‘I want to spend time with my dad.’ And he really enjoyed it.”

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Chris Hemsworth and Dad

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