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Actress Sheryl Lee Ralph is making the most of her first-ever Paris Haute Couture Week. And, lucky for us, she’s documenting every fashionable moment along the way.

The Emmy Award-winning actress took to Instagram to share her excitement, telling followers she’s “having a grand time” during couture week. Between multiple outfit changes and full hair-and-makeup transformations for each show, the 69-year-old style icon joked that the whirlwind schedule is all part of the “fashion fun.”

For Stéphane Rolland, Ralph embraced the designer’s signature sculptural aesthetic in a sleek black, long-sleeved gown featuring a dramatic white chiffon detail cascading from the neckline. She completed the look with architectural platform heels and layered diamond necklaces that added just the right amount of sparkle.

At Georges Hobeika, she leaned into gilded glamour in a gold-toned ensemble adorned with leaf-inspired embellishments. Her monochromatic beauty look echoed the warm metallic palette, while spiral gold earrings, a diamond tennis bracelet, a Rolex watch, and statement rings completed the sophisticated styling.

For her final appearance at the Tony Ward Couture show, Ralph opted for an ethereal gold gown reminiscent of a modern-day Cinderella. The belted silhouette featured champagne-hued underlayers and shimmering silver embellishments throughout. Meanwhile, a sleek, slicked-back bun kept the focus on the intricately detailed dress.

Scroll ahead to see Sheryl Lee Ralph’s stunning looks from her stylish debut at Paris Haute Couture Week.

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The Supreme Court last week expanded the powers of the unitary executive, raising fears among many that the presidency is becoming too strong. Yet as big as the ruling appears to be, it wasn’t even the most concerning news in the past month about the accumulation of unchecked power in the Oval Office.

The day after the court’s ruling, the Trump administration lifted restrictions it had imposed on access to top artificial intelligence models from Anthropic, a leading A.I. company, seemingly on the condition that the company submit to ongoing government oversight. On Tuesday, OpenAI finally announced that it will release broadly its new artificial intelligence model, GPT-5.6, access to which has been restricted at the request of the U.S. government. Only a limited set of customers — those approved by the Trump administration — have been allowed use of the A.I. tool.

These restrictions on the A.I. industry are the latest instance of the White House creating its own parallel administrative state, sidestepping Congress. Congress and the courts must push back.

The right vigorously criticizes government control of private industry as a kind of communist central planning. Many Republicans objected to a rent freeze by New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani — a policy that is being imposed through the public processes of a legally created oversight board. The president’s unauthorized intervention in private business poses an even more direct threat to free enterprise.

True, the Supreme Court’s ruling last week gave the president more authority over agencies that Congress had wanted to insulate from political interference, such as the Federal Trade Commission. But agency leaders must still follow clear rules that Congress has written into the law. By contrast, the Trump White House’s ad hoc interference in private business decisions — exemplified by but not limited to its recent meddling in the A.I. industry — has come without congressional sanction. President Trump is planning product releases and choosing customers of a key industry in our ostensibly free-market economy.

No legislation authorizes the White House’s recent moves to effectively regulate domestic A.I. customers and model release timing. Congress has yet to pass comprehensive A.I. safety legislation, and the Trump administration has spent most of the past year and a half discouraging necessary lawmaking. The White House has filled the gap it helped create with whatever rules it sees fit to impose at any given moment.

In a normal process, an agency such as the Federal Trade Commission exercises powers granted by Congress, subject to various forms of judicial review. If the agency exceeds the scope of its legal authority, the courts nullify its illegal actions. Only Congress writes the laws. The executive carries them out.

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s concurring opinion in last week’s ruling reminded us that the founders feared “when ‘the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person.’” Those fears should be especially great when unitary control is exerted over society-shaping technology.

On A.I., the White House has effectively created and put into effect its own mini-regulatory administration. The Trump administration’s directions to Anthropic and OpenAI follow its release last month of an executive order creating, by fiat, a regulatory framework for identifying “covered frontier models” and steering their release. The order contains some good ideas for Congress to consider, but it does not execute a law passed by Congress; it creates its own.

Apparently recognizing its lack of legal authority to do this, the Trump administration claims that compliance is “voluntary.” Yet few would believe a request from this White House is merely that. The Oval Office commands enormous power to threaten and cajole private companies into compliance. Indeed, the administration has already moved to exile Anthropic products from the Pentagon after the company failed to cooperate with the executive branch’s dictates.

After the Supreme Court ruling, the president has more power over the Federal Trade Commission and other agencies with oversight of these companies. The boost in presidential authority will enhance the White House’s ability to pressure businesses, which will want to avoid regulatory fights — even ones they are confident they would ultimately win in court. This dynamic, however, will not be new.

The A.I. business is not the only industry that Mr. Trump has subjected to his new form of unitary executive. Under pressure, the Japanese company Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel last year granted a special “golden share” to the American government as part of a national security review of Nippon Steel’s acquisition of the U.S. company. According to public reports, the White House now has authority over the company’s plant closures, headquarters moves and job transfers.

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Pete Gamlen

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During World War II, when Allied forces—including those from the U.K., U.S. and Canada—landed on the beaches of Normandy in Operation Overlord, they took a critical step toward liberating Western Europe from Nazi control. But the planning for that maneuver was difficult. One of the challenges was that the Nazis were producing an unknown quantity of new tanks that were more powerful than older models. Intelligence agencies had to determine enemy tank production data, so they enlisted mathematicians.

During earlier fighting, the Allies had recovered several enemy tanks. Upon examination, they discovered serial numbers on some components. Statisticians then analyzed these sequences and made a startling discovery. Although the numbers on the chassis were divided into various unrelated intervals, the transmissions appeared to be numbered sequentially, as were the tank guns, heaters, road wheels, and turret engines. Using all the collected data, the experts could estimate how many new tanks the Nazis produced each month. Ultimately, the mathematical results for this so-called German tank problem were significantly closer to the truth than any other estimates.

We can walk through the math together using a simplified set of numbers. Consider the following scenario: Suppose there are N = 271 tanks, numbered sequentially from 1 to 271. For the purposes of our thought experiment, you don’t know the number N, but you have managed to recover 15 enemy tanks, marked 3, 7, 17, 80, 92, 96, 98, 116, 125, 138, 166, 167, 199, 232 and 242. You can therefore assume that there are at least 242 generic tanks. But there could be more. To estimate N, assume that the 15 tanks captured were completely at random—an arbitrary sample of 15 numbers from N possible numbers.

Four Methods to Estimate the Number of German Tanks

You can estimate N by calculating the sample median. This is the number that lies exactly in the middle of the ordered list. The sample therefore contains as many values smaller than the median as it does values that are larger. In our example of 15 tanks, the median m’ is the eighth number, so m’ = 116. One possible estimate would be that the sample median m’ is the same as the median of the list of all N tanks.

For such an ascending list of N numbers, the median of all tanks, if N is odd, is: m = (N + 1) / 2. Therefore, we can make a first estimate of the total number, N_₁, using the median m’: N₁ = 2m’ − 1 = 2 × 116 − 1 = 231. But the highest number in our sample is 242, so N must be larger.

It might be better to consider the mean rather than the median. In a list 1, 2, 3, …, N, the median and mean are the same, but in a sample, these two values can differ.

The sample mean (or average) is obtained in this case by summing all the numbers (1,778) and dividing by how many there are, that is, 15. In this case, the mean, M ≈ 119. Using the same formula as for the median, a second estimate, N_₂, for the number of tanks can be made: N_₂ = 2M − 1 = 2 × 119 − 1 = 237. Unfortunately, this value is also below 242 and therefore cannot be correct.

To ensure that the estimate is not smaller than the largest number in the sample, you might assume that the same number of tanks were missed at the beginning of the list as at the end. This would mean adding the number of tanks preceding the smallest sample number to the largest number. The smallest number in the sample is 3, so two tanks preceded it, and the largest number is 242. This results in a third estimate: N₃ = 2 + 242 = 244.

The result would be even more accurate, however, if you considered the average intervals of the numbers in the sample. So you calculate the average distance d between each number in the sample: d = 1/15 × [(n_min − 1) + (n₁ − n_min − 1) + (n₂ − n₁ − 1) + … + (n₁₃ − n₁₂ − 1) + (n_max − n₁₃ − 1)] = 1/15 × n_max − 1. The mean distance d, therefore, ultimately depends only on the largest number in our sample: d = 242/15 − 1 ≈ 15. This can now be added to n_max to obtain a fourth estimate: N4 = 257, which is quite close to the actual result (271).

The Allied mathematicians used precisely this method to investigate German tank production with impressive success, compared with intelligence estimates, as this table from a 1947 journal article shows:

 

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To go a step further, you can determine which method is best for these predictions using what mathematicians call Monte Carlo simulations. You set different values of N and randomly select different samples of size n, with which the two estimates N₃ and N₄ are determined. By repeatedly performing the experiment with a computer, you can examine the probability distributions of N₃and N₄, as well as their means and variances (a measure of spread). Doing this, you will find that both means will converge toward the actual value N—though the variance of N₄ is smaller than that of N₃. In other words, the Allied mathematicians picked the best mathematical strategy.

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This has become a central issue for healthcare workers in California, and a report from Cal Matters this week reveals why they have pushed back on how they’re being asked to use AI on the job. 

Former and current nurses at Kaiser revealed that their employer has started monitoring their performance closely with AI, evaluating them on how they responded to calls, and how long they spent on the phone with patients (which the company describes as “average handle time”). If their calls with patients crossed 15 minutes, nurses claimed they would be reprimanded or find that their monthly performance score was impacted. 

Nurses said they were typically supposed to follow a script and offer only a few pieces of advice. Many were concerned that Kaiser’s approach to performance management would negatively affect patient care by forcing nurses to limit the length and scope of calls. They also noted that certain conversations—talking to new parents, for example, or patients who needed a translator—necessitated more time. 

As one nurse told Cal Matters, citing a sensitive conversation with a patient that she felt required more care: “I had to ask myself: Am I going to get disciplined for going off script or saying more than what is necessary?”

According to Cal Matters, Kaiser also allegedly used AI to assess their tone or level of empathy. The tool was reportedly tested on nurses in 2024, but Kaiser stopped using it after nurses protested. Still, union representatives claimed that managers said they might eventually revive the program. 

When reached for comment, a Kaiser spokesperson said the company “uses AI responsibly and with human oversight, always prioritizing patient safety, privacy, and equity. AI tools are designed to support our clinicians and care teams, not to replace them. Medical decisions remain in the hands of our clinicians.”

The spokesperson also denied that nurses were disciplined for taking calls that lasted longer than 15 minutes. “Kaiser Permanente does not use Average Handle Time to assess call response performance or enforce call time metrics. Any tools used in contact center settings support our quality assurance efforts and have human review and oversight. At Kaiser Permanente, our nurses are supported and empowered to take the time needed to deliver compassionate care and fully address each patient’s care needs. Our focus is always on ensuring we provide high-quality care through the use of evidence-based practices to achieve the best possible outcomes for our members.”

It’s not just nurses in California who are coming up against these AI systems. In a 2024 survey by National Nurses United—the largest union of registered nurses in the nation—half of workers said their employers were using algorithmic systems to analyze patient records. A notable number of them said their assessment of patients did not always line up with AI-generated guidance, and very often, they could not change the AI recommendations to reflect their opinion.

Healthcare workers in other states have expressed similar concerns over how AI is being used for performance management and in other ways that could potentially harm patients. In New York, the nurses’ union has repeatedly expressed concerns about the incursion of AI into healthcare. One hospital in New York City has been explicit about its alleged plans to replace nurses with AI-powered software. The widespread adoption of AI has also raised alarm bells in Tennessee, where a major for-profit health system—HCA Healthcare—has a controversial partnership with Palantir.  

In other words, it’s not just office workers who are at risk of increased surveillance or likely to be impacted by AI’s growing role in performance management. 

As one nurse put it to Cal Matters: “I’m not against the use of AI as long as it’s beneficial to the patient. But in this particular use, it’s to increase productivity, improve efficiency, and cut costs. Kaiser is forgetting we aren’t just a call center for customer support. We’re nurses, and we’re there to take care of patients.”

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In the days since, the killing has galvanized thousands of protesters, led to calls from local leaders and Latino civil rights groups for independent investigations, and prompted promises of legal action from President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico.

Mr. Salgado Araujo was killed during a traffic stop by immigration agents who had been searching for a different person, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman. When agents tried to stop the vehicle, the encounter quickly escalated, and an agent shot Mr. Salgado Araujo in the abdomen. He died at a hospital hours later.

Homeland Security officials said Mr. Salgado Araujo had tried to use his vehicle as a weapon, though three men who witnessed the killing disputed that account and said the victim had never tried to run over a federal agent. No video of the shooting has emerged. The agents were not wearing body cameras, the spokeswoman has said.

The Houston shooting has dragged ICE and the tactics used by immigration agents back into the national spotlight. Federal officials are defending their actions as part of highly focused operations, but Latino community leaders and immigration lawyers argue the incident follows a string of violent confrontations that have accompanied the surge in arrests. These clashes, they say, show federal agents are continuing to use their most aggressive tactics.

Federal immigration agents have shot at more than 20 people since September, nearly all of them in their cars. Some of the shootings have been fatal.

The Trump administration is continuing to push for more deportations. A Republican-led package signed by President Trump last month has funded $31 billion for ICE activities, such as supporting local and state authorities that have signed cooperation partnerships with the agency, known as 287(g) agreements. For jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate, the funding package has earmarked another $350 million to expand enforcement operations.

In a period of five days at the end of June, ICE officers arrested more than 10,000 people, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. After a brief lull during the July 4 holiday weekend, arrests picked back up by Tuesday, the day Mr. Salgado Araujo was shot. From Tuesday through Thursday, ICE officers across the United States arrested more than 6,000 people, internal records show, a pace of about 2,000 arrests a day.

The effect of the push is being seen across the country.

In Chicago, immigrant rights groups and Hispanic community organizers in a news conference on Thursday had counted at least 70 people taken in three days, many around courthouses. Many of the immigrants apprehended had been charged with minor traffic violations or had been trying to make their appearances before immigration judges. Calls to one legal aid center alone had more than doubled to 1,700 in that time, organizers said.

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Representative Sylvia Garcia spoke during a news conference on the case of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on Friday. Credit…Ronaldo Schemidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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New York City loves an exclusive. And on just four evenings every year, Manhattan is treated to an iconic sunset display: Manhattanhenge.

On these special days, the sun’s light lines up perfectly with Manhattan’s East-West grid streets as it drops towards the horizon, causing it to appear centered among the corridors of skyscrapers.

The phenomenon is one of New York City’s most anticipated astronomical spectacles. It happens on two days in late May and two days in mid-July—although just one of the July dates will reveal the entire sun framed between skyscrapers. Here’s everything you need to know about the coming Manhattanhenge.

Where Did “Manhattanhenge” Come From?

Astrophysicist and television personality Neil deGrasse Tyson claims to have coined the term Manhattanhenge. The monicker is an apparent nod to Stonehenge, an ancient British monument which may have acted as a solar calendar and was the likely site of ancient rituals celebrating the solstice.

But unlike its namesake, Manhattanhenge has no celestial function. Instead, it is a happy accident of the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, which rotated Manhattan’s street grid about 29 degrees east of true north , to follow the island’s natural orientation.

More than two centuries and many skyscrapers later, that decision is what makes Manhattanhenge possible.

Although we’re taught that the sun rises due east and sets due west, that’s only completely true twice a year, during the spring and fall equinoxes. For the rest of the year, the points at which the sun rises and sets slowly migrate along the horizon as the Earth orbits around the star. Twice each year, those points more or less align with Manhattan’s street grid.

How to See Manhattanhenge

Manhattanhenge will occur on Saturday, July 11 and on Sunday, July 12. On Saturday, viewers will see the entire glowing orb of the sun perfectly framed by buildings on either side at around 8:20 P.M. EDT. On Sunday, viewers will see just half the sun framed in such a way, at about 8:21 P.M. EDT.

For the best view of Manhattanhenge, head to one of Manhattan’s wide east-west streets that has an unobstructed view of the New Jersey horizon. The American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium recommends 14^th, 23^rd, 34th, 42nd and 57th Streets. Of these options, 34th and 42nd offer especially striking views depending on where you are along the street, as the sun can be framed by the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings. It’s best to arrive at least 20 to 30 minutes early: the alignment lasts only a few minutes, and the best viewing spots fill up quickly. A partly cloudy forecast isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker. As long as the western horizon remains mostly clear and any clouds stay high overhead, you still have a good chance of catching the alignment. The moment may be brief, but it offers a rare reminder that even in the middle of one of the world’s busiest cities, the cosmos can stop you in your tracks.

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Following the publication of an initial tranche of documents over the weekend, Tuesday’s release included a number of fully redacted files—similar to earlier disclosures that drew sharp criticism for the extent of their redactions. Nearly all of the files made public Tuesday contain at least some redactions, primarily of names and email addresses.

Unnamed victim alleges Trump raped her

Among the newly released materials is an FBI case file (EFTA00020518) dated October 2020 that contains an allegation of rape involving Trump. The document does not identify the source of the allegation, as names and other identifying details have been redacted.

The file references an account from a limousine driver, whose name has been redacted, who reported a “very concerning” phone conversation involving Trump while driving him to an airport in 1995. According to the document, Trump repeatedly said the name “Jeffrey” during the call and made references to “abusing some girl.”

The document further states that an unnamed individual alleged that “he raped me,” referring to Trump, and that “Donald J. Trump had raped her along with Jeffrey Epstein.” The statement continues: “Some girl with a funny name took me into a fancy hotel or building, that’s how it happened.”

Trump traveled on ‘at least eight’ Epstein flights

The release also includes an internal email stating that Trump traveled on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously had been reported” between 1993 and 1996. According to the email, Trump flew at least eight times during that period, including on one occasion when he was listed as traveling alone with Epstein and a 20-year-old passenger whose name has been redacted.

The email, sent by the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Southern District of New York on Jan. 7, 2020, says Trump flew “at least eight times” during the three-year time period, including when “we would expect to charge in a Maxwell case,” in reference to Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of Epstein who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for trafficking underage girls.

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Donald Trump alongside his wife, Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000.Davidoff Studios – Getty Images

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We have not been talking that much about climate change lately, but that doesn’t mean it has stopped happening. Europe is in the midst of an extraordinary heat wave. The world is staring down the barrel of a powerful El Niño.

And climate politics is in almost total disarray. Donald Trump has gutted the Inflation Reduction Act. His administration is accelerating fossil fuel production and kneecapping green energy.

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Archival clip of Donald Trump: Wind — it doesn’t work, I will tell you, aside from ruining our fields and our valleys and killing all the birds and being very weak and expensive.

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But here’s the possibility, a bit of optimism: The advances in green technology make a new climate politics possible — one that doesn’t just talk about sacrifice and disaster prevention but presents decarbonization and green energy as a way station on the path to somewhere better.

Clean energy abundance, a new form of energetic wealth, the possibility of the left actually offering a future of more and better — not less and worse — was a hard case to make even a few years ago. But now we cannot only imagine it, we can see it, touch it, live in it. It is here.

So how do we talk about it? How do we make it happen?

Bill McKibben is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College, the co-founder of the climate action group 350.org, as well as Third Act, which is organizing people over 60 on climate change. He is a contributing writer at The New Yorker. He writes the Substack, The Crucial Years, and his most recent book is “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.”

Ezra Klein: Bill McKibben, welcome back to the show.

Bill McKibben: Very good to be back with you.

You have a line that people still think of clean energy like Whole Foods energy — it’s virtuous, pricey, a bit of a flex — when, in fact, you say it has become the “Costco of energy.”

Tell me about that.

Cheap, available on the shelf in bulk, ready to go.

The stuff that we spent my whole lifetime calling alternative energy from the sun and the wind is now the obvious, common sense, straightforward way to produce power. Sometime earlier this decade, we passed some invisible line where it became cheaper to produce energy from the sun and the wind than from setting stuff on fire.

That’s a big line, by the way. Darwin said fire and language were the two things that marked our species. But now we live on a planet where the cheapest way to make energy is to point a sheet of glass at the sun.

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Advancements in renewable energy are paving the way for a new climate politics. The environmentalist Bill McKibben articulates some of the possibilities in this new era of energy abundance. CreditCredit…The New York Times

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The evacuation of a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan and the surrounding area was ordered on Tuesday after the building showed signs of potential collapse that may have been caused by overload, experts say.

The Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) said in a statement on Tuesday that it received a call to the building just before 8 A.M. EDT. When the FDNY arrived at 235 East 42nd Street, near Grand Central Terminal, it found at least two steel columns buckling on the 21st and 22nd floors and sagging flooring between the 21st and 26th floors.

Buckling steel columns are a well-known issue among the engineering community, says Gregoy Deierlein, a professor of structural engineering at Stanford University. Deierlein wouldn’t speculate on what specifically may have caused the buckling in this case. But he says it’s not uncommon for columns to become damaged or weakened. That, in turn, can lead floors above the weak points to sag as the column bends, he says.

“Imagine if you’re standing on the floor and you look over—the portion of the floor supported by that column would have dropped a little bit, so it’s going to look like a sagging floor,” Deierlein says.

When buildings like this skyscraper are constructed, engineers erect columns designed to support not just the weight of the building itself but also a certain amount of “live load” per square foot. That extra load includes the people using the building and any other contents. Deierlein says that sometimes the live load limit can be exceeded during renovations because construction materials may be stockpiled inside a building while work is ongoing.

“That could be a very concentrated live load, which could be enough load to overcome the column strength,” he says. “Then the question is, is the column strength enough for what it should have been designed for? Or it could have been a combination of the column wasn’t quite strong enough for what it was designed for, and then you add a lot of load to it.”

While several stories were being added to the building as part of the renovation, Magued Iskaner, a professor in the civil, urban and environmental engineering department at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, says he would be “very surprised” if this wasn’t taken into account during the planning stages.

“One of the most common reasons for increase of load is that the load gets transferred from one area of a building to a new area,” he adds. “All of these people could have done these things correctly, but the presumed capacity of a column is off simply because there was a latent defect that nobody knew about.”

The most likely point of failure for load-bearing infrastructure is at the joints which connect components, says Doug Holmes, an engineering professor at Boston University. Those connections are “where a significant amount of shearing forces are exerted—think a bolt shearing off—and in the buckling of columns. But, of course, if there is corrosion or wear or damage, any of the components along the load path can be a source of failure.”

The 37-story tower, which formerly served as the New York City headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, is in the middle of a $75 million conversion from offices into a luxury apartment project, with some 1,600 units planned.

The conversion from offices to residential is a joint project by David Werner Real Estate Investments and MetroLoft. In a comment reported by the New York Times, MetroLoft said: “The safety of everyone at and surrounding the building is our number one priority.”

In an update sent to Scientific American on Wednesday, a MetroLoft spokesperson said a team had worked with the Department of Buildings (DOB) to stabilize the affected columns, and the DOB had confirmed the structure’s stability. They added that the issue had only affected 30 units and the building was at no time under threat of collapse.

“We are in the process of addressing the issue and will fully rebuild this portion of the building in tandem with ongoing construction,” the spokesperson said. “We remain on schedule, and this work will not delay delivery of the building as it is such a small portion of the project. We are working around the clock so that operations can resume and life in the area can return to normal.”

Gensler, the architecture firm leading the project, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Engineers from the DOB have also been deployed to the scene, and the FDNY is reportedly using drones to further examine the building.

The New York Times and other outlets report that emergency beams and other supporting structures are being installed in an effort take pressure off the affected columns. Deierlein says that these measures are needed in the short term—at least until the cause of the damage can be ascertained. But a permanent replacement of the columns “is not an easy thing in an existing building like this.”

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