For generations, one unspoken assumption shaped the architecture of global politics: despite its flaws, U.S. power would remain the steady anchor holding the international system together. Even when Washington’s unilateral moves frustrated allied capitals, nations ultimately stayed aligned with the United States, convinced that a world without this anchor would carry far greater risk. Today, that decades-old foundation is being tested under the pressure of Donald Trump’s second term, and mounting evidence suggests the old consensus may not survive.
Three interconnected recent developments lay bare the accelerating global shift: a sweeping new round of U.S. tariffs imposed on most of the world, a landmark Pew Research Center survey showing China surpassing the U.S. in global public favorability, and the European Union caught between competing pressure from Washington’s trade agenda and Beijing’s economic clout. Taken together, these events reveal far more than routine diplomatic friction. They signal a fundamental, likely irreversible realignment of global power.
### The New Tariff Shock, A Consistent Pattern of Unpredictability
On July 24, the Trump administration rolled out new tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 global trading partners, covering approximately 99% of all goods entering the U.S. The White House framed the measure as an enforcement action targeting nations that failed to block imports produced with forced labor, justifying the move under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act. This new regime replaces a temporary 10% global tariff implemented earlier in February, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down, ruling Trump had overstepped his authority by imposing unilateral tariffs under a declared national emergency.
For global trade partners, the specific legal technicality matters far less than the pattern it reinforces: this is already the second sweeping tariff regime of Trump’s second term, implemented just months after the first was invalidated by the nation’s highest court. For trading partners ranging from Canada and India to the European Union, the message is clear: the United States can no longer be counted on as a predictable economic partner. A government that reimposes broad trade barriers under a new legal rationale every time the previous one fails in court is one whose long-term commitments cannot form the basis of stable planning for foreign nations.
### Pew Data Confirms a Flipping of Global Public Confidence
This growing unpredictability has directly shifted global public opinion, according to new research. A Pew Research Center report published July 15, 2026, drawn from surveys of more than 42,000 adults across 36 nations conducted between February and May 2026, finds that a majority of surveyed countries now hold more favorable views of China than of the United States. Global confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping has also overtaken confidence in Trump, the survey confirms.
What makes this finding most notable is its geographic breadth: the shift is not limited to the Global South or nations with longstanding grievances against U.S. foreign policy. Pew data shows that even Canada and Mexico, the United States’ closest geographic neighbors, now view China more positively than the U.S. Across seven major European nations — Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom — Xi’s global approval rating outpaces Trump’s by double-digit margins.
This reversal is a recent development, driven by parallel trends: stagnant or slightly improving views of China paired with a sharp collapse in U.S. favorability since the start of Trump’s second term. Just 12 months ago, most surveyed countries still favored the United States; that is no longer the case.
As Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes: “China now outranks the United States in global favorability for the first time in nearly two decades, but the real story isn’t a Chinese soft-power surge — it’s American decline. China’s median favorability rating has barely shifted over the past 10 years; the crossover happened almost entirely because U.S. ratings plummeted.”
Scholar Maria Repnikova echoes this analysis, observing: “China is passively gaining global stature from America’s soft-power retreat, and is now seen by many as the more accessible and reliable great power partner. Beijing has not yet converted this relative advantage into a decisive shift of global public loyalty or a clear, coherent alternative global order.”
The Pew report also finds that populations in middle-income countries across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia are now more likely to describe China as a reliable partner, and less likely to view it as prone to unwanted foreign interference, compared to the United States. This marks a complete inversion of the roles the two powers have held in global public opinion for most of the post-Cold War era.
### South Korea: A U.S. Treaty Ally Pursues Strategic Hedging
Perhaps the clearest example of this shifting alignment among formal U.S. allies is playing out in Seoul, in a development that defies longstanding expectations. On August 16, Trump announced he had spoken with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and asked if South Korea would lend the U.S. “a little hand” with tensions surrounding Iran. When Lee declined, Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the scope of the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises, which launched August 17 and run through August 27.
Lee’s progressive government has centered its foreign policy on what it calls “pragmatic diplomacy,” prioritizing greater strategic autonomy and national economic interest over rigid ideological alignment with Washington. The shift has been sharp enough that South Korea’s conservative opposition has accused the Lee administration of abandoning the U.S. alliance, a critique echoed by American conservative commentators in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed cited by multiple regional outlets.
The specifics of South Korea’s domestic political debate carry broader meaning. Even a treaty ally that hosts tens of thousands of U.S. troops on its territory is now recalibrating how closely it will tie its foreign policy to Washington. This recalibration is being led by a government that campaigned on hard-nosed pragmatic engagement, rather than automatic alignment with either great power — a telling indicator of how the center of gravity in South Korean politics has shifted.
### Europe Caught In a Two-Front Bind
South Korea is far from alone in this new balancing act. No region faces greater tension from competing great power pressure than Europe, which now finds itself squeezed between two competing economic forces at once.
European policymakers have grown increasingly alarmed by Chinese industrial overcapacity, particularly in the electric vehicle sector, which has contributed to an estimated 10,000 industrial job losses per month in Germany alone. This anxiety has generated loud rhetoric from Brussels and Berlin about the need to “de-risk” European supply chains from overreliance on China.
Yet as analyst James Curran recently outlined in the *East Asia Forum*, this tough rhetoric has yet to translate into a coherent, unified policy. The EU wants to raise the economic cost of overreliance on China without inflicting major damage on its own economy, and it has so far failed to build internal consensus on how to achieve that goal.
Compounding this policy paralysis is the simultaneous pressure of the new U.S. tariffs, which apply to the EU alongside 59 other global economies. European officials are now fighting a two-front economic battle: managing exposure to Chinese industrial overcapacity while absorbing new protectionist trade barriers from the United States. For now, the result is stalemate, rather than a clear pivot toward either power. But pressure on Europe is not easing, and the bloc’s eventual compromise is likely to look far less like close alignment with Washington than it would have a decade ago.
### The Data Catches Up To Shifting Rhetoric
Early this year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney publicly articulated what new data now confirms. In a January 20, 2026 address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, delivered one day before Trump was set to speak at the event, Carney declared the world is experiencing “a rupture, not a transition.”
He argued that the rules-based international order underwritten by U.S. power — which guaranteed open sea lanes, global financial stability, and multilateral dispute resolution — will not return, and that middle powers like Canada must prioritize building their own strategic autonomy rather than waiting for the old system to be restored. Carney has repeated this framing repeatedly, including in remarks ahead of the June 2026 G7 summit. What began as one leader’s assessment is now backed by hard empirical data, and points toward a global order that is reconfiguring itself independent of any single U.S. election cycle.
Individually, none of these developments — new tariffs, shifting public opinion, South Korean hedging, European policy paralysis — is enough to trigger a permanent global realignment. Together, they describe an international system where broken trust and eroded credibility take years to rebuild, if they can be rebuilt at all. A global consensus around U.S. leadership built over a generation has eroded in just a few years. U.S. allies are quietly building alternative hedging strategies rather than waiting for U.S. policy to stabilize.
Global trading partners now treat U.S. commitments as transactional, rather than binding. Even if U.S. policy shifts again in the future, under this administration or a later one, the bilateral and multilateral relationships that have already been recalibrated across the world may not simply snap back to the old status quo. That is what makes this moment more than a temporary rough patch for U.S. foreign policy: it is a structural shift in how the rest of the world positions itself relative to American power.
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Trump 2.0 and the unraveling global order
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Why Tesla has been caught up in a massive car recall in China
Concealed, flush-mounted car door handles, a design aesthetic first popularized globally by Elon Musk’s Tesla, have emerged as a focal point of global automotive safety debates after China launched the largest vehicle recall in the country’s history, impacting more than four million mostly electric vehicles (EVs) across multiple brands. The massive recall comes as China implements groundbreaking new regulations that will ban the sale of new EVs lacking dual mechanical door release mechanisms on both interior and exterior door panels starting in 2027, a policy shift spurred by mounting fatal incidents linked to electronic door handle failures.
First adopted by Tesla for its Model S sedan back in 2014, hidden door handles have become a ubiquitous design choice in the global EV industry, valued for their aerodynamic efficiency that extends driving range and sleek, minimalist exterior styling. Industry data shows that roughly 60% of China’s top 100 best-selling new energy vehicles – including both pure EVs and plug-in hybrids – currently feature this design. Yet growing reports of entrapment during accidents have turned this popular styling feature into a major public safety concern.
Shanghai-based automotive industry analyst Stephen Dyer, from global consultancy AlixPartners, told reporters that even experienced drivers often struggle to locate door release controls in unfamiliar vehicles equipped with hidden handles. Beyond usability confusion, safety experts warn that electronically operated hidden handles can fail completely after a crash when a vehicle’s electrical system is damaged, trapping occupants inside and delaying critical emergency rescue efforts.
“A door handle may seem like a trivial component, but it becomes safety-critical in the immediate seconds after a collision,” explained Lyu Chen, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological University specializing in automotive engineering. Chen added that the widespread shift to electronically controlled hidden handles has created tangible, underrecognized safety risks for drivers and passengers.
These safety concerns moved from abstract debate to urgent public scrutiny following two fatal 2025 crashes involving Chinese tech giant Xiaomi’s first electric vehicle, the SU7. Regional Chinese media, as cited by the *Global Times*, documented one fatal highway crash in Tongling, eastern China that killed all three occupants inside the vehicle. Family members of the victims reported that passengers were trapped after the crash because the electronic door handles failed to unlock, preventing escape and delaying rescue. At the time, Xiaomi stated that the SU7 was equipped with power-independent mechanical emergency releases located at the bottom of each door, and that the company was cooperating with police investigations. The brand has since updated newer SU7 models to include power-free manual door opening mechanisms, but has not responded to recent requests for comment on the recall.
Tesla, the brand that pioneered the design, has also faced legal action over its hidden door handle systems in the United States. The company is currently being sued by the sole survivor of a 2024 Cybertruck crash in California that killed three college students. Jordan Miller, the survivor, alleges that the Cybertruck’s door system – which relies on electronic buttons with no exterior mechanical release – trapped passengers inside the burning vehicle after the electronics failed, blocking escape and rescue. “When you design a vehicle with no mechanical way to open doors from the outside, you are gambling that electronics will work perfectly in every scenario, even a high-speed crash followed by a fire,” stated a legal representative from The Veen Firm, which is representing Miller. Tesla has denied all wrongdoing in court filings, noting that the Cybertruck meets all current U.S. federal safety standards. Additional reports from the U.S. have documented multiple other cases of passengers, including young children, being trapped in Tesla vehicles after sudden door handle electronic failures.
In February 2026, China made history as the first country in the world to officially ban non-compliant hidden door handles, with the new regulatory framework set to take effect on January 1, 2027. The rules require all new passenger vehicle designs to include fully functional mechanical door releases on both the inside and outside of every door, and mandate clear visible signage inside the cabin indicating how to operate emergency releases. Dyer notes that China’s move to regulate this safety issue ahead of the U.S. and European Union – regions that typically lead global automotive safety standard-setting – is largely driven by China’s status as the world’s largest EV market, with far more concealed-handle EVs on roads than any other country.
On August 21, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) announced the massive recall, covering vehicles from Tesla and major domestic Chinese EV makers including Xiaomi, XPeng, and Geely. Per SAMR’s order, manufacturers must add prominent warning labels inside vehicle doors to clearly identify emergency release mechanisms. For some affected models, manufacturers will also roll out software updates that automatically lower vehicle windows if a crash is detected, providing an alternative escape route if doors fail to open.
Of the 4 million-plus recalled vehicles, nearly 3 million are Tesla models. SAMR’s official recall notice cites two key defects: the emergency release handles on many recalled models are hard to identify because they match the color of interior trim, and the design can prevent quick door opening after electrical failure, slowing escape and hindering bystander rescue efforts. Xiaomi, XPeng, and Geely together are recalling more than 750,000 additional affected vehicles.
Even with the recall and new regulations in place, some safety and engineering experts argue that the current measures do not go far enough to address core safety risks. Lim Hong Wee, an engineering instructor at the National University of Singapore, points out that the recall fixes do not mandate adding exterior mechanical releases, which means emergency access still depends on functional electrical systems and working software. Gokul Krithivasan, a risk management specialist at Singapore-based consultancy SecureSafe, adds that the recall’s focus on warning labels is an insufficient solution. “When people are panicking after a crash, they rely on instinct, not reading small print in a dark, smoke-filled cabin,” Krithivasan explained. He also noted that current recall measures focus primarily on helping occupants escape, but do not create reliable access for first responders trying to enter a damaged vehicle.
Right now, it remains unclear whether similar recalls will be launched for affected vehicles outside of China. BBC reporting indicates that automakers have not yet notified U.S. regulators of plans for a matching recall, and the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it is still reviewing whether to mandate new emergency door exit requirements for all new vehicles. European regulators have already flagged the safety risks of concealed door handles and have drafted new standards requiring door operation even after total power loss, but have not announced large-scale recalls to date.
Automotive engineering experts note that while hidden door handles remain a common design choice for EVs, the new Chinese regulations are likely to shift global design standards, as most mass-produced vehicles are built for global distribution. “The core principle is unambiguous: emergency entry and exit must remain possible even if a vehicle loses all electrical power,” Lyu Chen said, predicting that China’s new safety rules will eventually be adopted by regulators around the world.
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Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
Months after Australia introduced landmark legislation banning children under 16 from accessing major social media platforms, new usage data reveals that underage engagement with apps including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat has rebounded sharply, nearing pre-ban levels in many age groups. This world-first policy, implemented last December, has been watched closely by governments across the globe, with the United Kingdom, France and other nations already moving to adopt similar restrictions, and New Zealand announcing this week that it will introduce its own strict regulatory bill that could hit non-compliant tech giants like Meta with fines equal to up to 10% of their annual global revenue.
The new usage figures were released Wednesday by Qustodio, a leading provider of parental control software, which tracks anonymized monthly activity from Australian households using its services. The company defines active usage as any child opening an app for at least five consecutive minutes at least once per month. Immediately after the ban went into effect, Qustodio recorded a broad, across-the-board drop in underage social media use. But that initial dip has not been sustained: across the two tracked under-16 age groups — 10 to 12 years old and 13 to 15 years old — usage across all three major platforms has climbed steadily back up.
The rebound is most stark for TikTok, the world’s fastest-growing short-form video platform. Among 13 to 15-year-olds, 25.9% still actively use the app, only 1.1 percentage points lower than the pre-ban baseline. For 10 to 12-year-olds, TikTok usage is just 0.06 percentage points below pre-ban levels, a statistically negligible difference. Alongside major social platforms, the data also shows a growing shift toward WhatsApp, the Meta-owned messaging platform that is not covered by Australia’s current age ban.
Yasmin London, Qustodio’s global online safety expert, outlined multiple potential explanations for the unexpected rebound. Many underage users may be evading the ban’s safeguards by using virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask their location, or by lying about their date of birth during account registration. More critically, London noted that the data suggests the core issue may be that the restrictions themselves are simply not being enforced effectively enough to block widespread access. “It could really be as simple as they’re just accessing these apps because the restrictions aren’t working,” she said.
Australian federal officials have defended the ban, framing it as a critical safeguard to protect young people from well-documented harms including online bullying, mental health distress, and the impact of predatory recommendation algorithms that prioritize engaging, often harmful content to keep users on platform. However, Qustodio’s findings align with earlier independent research: a peer-reviewed study published in June by a team of Australia-based academic researchers found little evidence that the ban had driven a lasting drop in teenage social media engagement.
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AFL 2026: Collingwood coach Craig McRae addresses Scott Pendlebury’s future
One of Australian Football League’s most decorated modern players, Collingwood Magpies champion Scott Pendlebury, remains undecided on whether he will hang up his boots at the end of the current season or extend his legendary playing career, according to Magpies head coach Craig McRae. The uncertain future of the league’s all-time games record holder comes as a recent hamstring injury rules him out of the club’s high-stakes wildcard final clash against the Western Bulldogs this Friday, which will be played in front of a capacity crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Pendlebury, a veteran midfielder who cemented his place in AFL folklore earlier this year when he broke the league’s all-time games record, delivered one of the most iconic Anzac Day match performances in the competition’s history just months ago. He left the field in a hamstring injury against the Brisbane Lions just over a week ago, in what many fans are already speculating could be his final appearance in the black and white stripes.
When asked to share an update on Pendlebury’s thinking around his future, McRae told reporters the 400-game veteran is still weighing up his options, with the outcome of his decision currently too close to call. “It’s probably 50-50, to be honest, I could see opportunities for him to play on and retire,” McRae said. “I’m sure he’s weighing up those things.”
Rumors have circulated in recent weeks that if Collingwood chooses not to retain Pendlebury on its senior playing list for the 2025 season, the veteran could move to a rival club to extend his playing career one last time. McRae declined to comment on that speculation, noting that all future plans are currently Pendlebury’s to evaluate alongside his management team.
“These are decisions he’s obviously weighing up with him and his management,” McRae said. “It is a big story because he is a remarkable player for such a long time, but we will give him respect and the time that he’s asked for.”
McRae emphasized that the club has maintained consistent open communication with Pendlebury throughout the season, and has deliberately stepped back to let the club’s greatest ever player make a decision on his own timeline. He added that the pair held a direct conversation about the future over the weekend, pushing back on narratives that the club was pushing Pendlebury toward an immediate call.
“Yeah multiple times, I spoke to him Saturday about that. I heard some narrative about Pendles letting the player dictate their own decisions for the future,” McRae said. “Having these conversations with Pendles for the last five years around what’s best for him and best for us gives me great comfort that he’ll do what is best for the footy club.”
McRae said he has full confidence that Pendlebury will only choose to continue his playing career if he is confident he can still perform at the elite level that has defined his 18-year career. “He won’t go on and play, in my eyes, unless he can perform at a certain level – so that gives you great confidence, ‘Hey, over to you mate, you make those decisions when you think they’re appropriate’,” he said.
While Collingwood is leading the conversation around Pendlebury’s future, McRae noted the final call is not entirely in the midfielder’s hands, but the club is committed to centering Pendlebury’s input in the process. “(The decision) not entirely in his hands but led by conversations with him. We’re an open dialogue around that – I am giving him space as requested and he will make that decision at the end of the year and we’ll let him have that,” McRae added. For Pendlebury to take the field again this season, Collingwood will need to advance deep into the 2024 finals series, a path that starts without their games record holder this Friday night.
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Turkey won’t abandon Syria or let Israel draw ‘red lines’, Erdogan says
Fresh tensions have roiled the Eastern Mediterranean after Israeli warplanes carried out multiple airstrikes last week on the Abu al-Duhur military airbase in northern Syria, a facility located roughly 70 kilometers from the Turkish border. Israel justified the attack by claiming Ankara was preparing to deploy advanced air defense systems at the site — a move Israeli officials have long framed as an unacceptable “red line,” arguing that a permanent Turkish military presence in northern Syria would curtail Israel’s freedom of operations in Syrian airspace.
The Israeli allegations have been uniformly rejected by multiple parties. Both Turkish and Syrian government officials have clarified that Turkish personnel were only present at Abu al-Duhur to carry out critical repairs to the base’s runway and control tower, with no plans for air defense deployment. This account has even been corroborated by Tom Barrack, the United States ambassador to Turkey, a longstanding NATO ally of Ankara that also maintains close strategic ties to Israel.
Breaking his silence after several days of holiday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a formal response to the strikes during a speech in Ahlat, eastern Turkey’s Bitlis province, following a cabinet meeting on Monday. In a pointed rebuke that notably avoided naming Israel or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly, Erdogan pushed back against claims that Turkey was acting out of self-serving regional interests.
“Let me state this clearly and unequivocally: We will not allow politically moribund, presumptuous incompetents to use us as fodder for their rhetoric,” Erdogan told the audience. Addressing Ankara’s partnership in Syria, he emphasized that Turkey would never forsake allies that have placed their trust in the country. “We will not stop supporting our neighbours in getting back on their feet merely because it unsettles murderous networks with the blood of innocent people on their hands,” he added. “No actor other than the nation itself can dictate Turkey’s course or set the boundaries of its foreign policy.”
Last week, Turkey’s presidency drew a direct link between the airstrikes and Israel’s upcoming October parliamentary elections, where incumbent Prime Minister Netanyahu is widely projected to underperform. Erdogan’s Monday remarks doubled down on Turkey’s rejection of accusations that it harbors a hidden anti-Israel agenda in the region, with many Israeli officials claiming Ankara is bolstering Syria’s new government to eventually use it as a proxy against the Jewish state.
“Today, I wish to reiterate one fundamental truth: Turkey has no purpose, objective or aspiration anywhere in our region other than peace, justice, stability and security,” Erdogan said. “Contrary to what some claim, we have no hidden agenda and no ulterior motives.”
The escalating standoff has prompted concern from the United States, which has pushed to de-escalate tensions. Barrack has publicly called for the creation of a trilateral cooperation mechanism between the relevant parties to prevent further friction that could destabilize the already volatile region.
The tensions have spilled into the legal sphere as well. On Friday, Turkish Justice Minister Akin Gurlek announced that Turkey’s justice ministry had formally requested Interpol issue Red Notices for Netanyahu and another senior Israeli official on charges of genocide. The request stems from ongoing legal proceedings connected to Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, an activist vessel that set sail earlier this year to deliver humanitarian aid to blockaded Gaza, which Israel attacked in international waters.
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How a Chinese film shot in dialect is finding a global audience
BANGKOK, Thailand — A surprise cinematic breakout from China has defied industry expectations this year, topping domestic box office charts and rolling out across international markets as a centerpiece of Beijing’s growing soft power push. What makes *Dear You*’s success all the more remarkable is its core creative choice: nearly the entire film is performed in Teochew, a regional southern Chinese dialect largely unintelligible to most Mandarin-speaking Chinese audiences, who rely on subtitles to follow the story.
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Elton John, Oprah Winfrey and Paul McCartney lead tributes to Dolly Parton
Country music legend and cultural trailblazer Dolly Parton has died at the age of 78, prompting an outpouring of heartfelt tributes from across the political, entertainment and global spectrums that underscores her far-reaching impact beyond the world of music.
Parton’s passing on Tuesday comes after ongoing health complications that forced her to cancel a planned Las Vegas residency earlier this year, ending a decades-long career that redefined country music and earned her a place as one of the most beloved figures in modern culture.
A who’s who of A-list entertainment figures have led the wave of remembrances, with each sharing personal anecdotes that highlight Parton’s unmatched talent, generosity and warm, unapologetic authenticity. Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, who first met Parton in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry just as she was launching her solo career, remembered her as a constantly vibrant, larger-than-life presence. “She was so bubbly and full of life, it is difficult to take in the news that she has passed,” McCartney shared. “Her songwriting, her singing and her philanthropy were unrivaled in the world of country music and it is hard to imagine living in a world without Dolly.”
Elton John, who shared the stage with Parton at the 2005 Country Music Association Awards, echoed that sentiment, saying he was “shocked and devastated” by the news. “A giant of an artist — unique and irreplaceable, with the kindest heart,” the Rocket Man singer wrote of his longtime friend and collaborator.
Media icon Oprah Winfrey recalled her fond memory of sharing a chaotic, joyful moment with Parton on Parton’s self-titled 1980s variety show, where the pair wore sparkling Bob Mackie gowns and “had a hoot and a holler.” Winfrey praised the Tennessee native for building an extraordinary legacy from humble beginnings. “This girl from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee dreamed a life and then lived a life bigger than she could have ever imagined, giving so generously to others in ways we saw and ways we didn’t,” she wrote.
The tributes stretch across every musical genre, proving Parton’s cross-cultural appeal that united fans from country stages to rap arenas. Longtime country collaborator Reba McEntire, who shared a 2017 Academy of Country Music Awards honor with Parton, thanked the late icon for her decades of kindness and creativity. “Your love, your music and you gave so much with your huge huge heart. There will never ever be another you,” McEntire wrote. “We will remember and cherish every memory and every note you ever played and sang. Thank you, Lord, for Dolly. She’s gonna have a blast in heaven singing all her favorite songs with all her family and friends who have gone on before her.”
Even artists who never got the chance to meet Parton spoke to the mark she left on their careers. Rapper Eminem shared a photo of a handwritten note Parton sent him when he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, in which she called him “very special.” “I’m sorry we never got a chance to meet, but getting this note from Dolly really had an impact on me. She definitely didn’t have to take the time to do it,” Eminem said. “Even for a kid who mostly listened to rap music, she was an icon. A superstar in every sense. Rest easy Dolly. And thank you for the kind words.”
A roster of other rock and pop stars added their voices to the remembrances: Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger called Parton a “wonderful songwriter and singer who brought so many people together”; Cyndi Lauper named her a lifelong role model, saying “it was hard for me to imagine the world without Dolly”; and Gloria Estefan noted that Parton’s legacy stretched far beyond her chart-topping hits. “She was a force of nature whose enormous talent was matched by an even bigger heart,” Estefan wrote. “She brought joy, laughter, comfort and inspiration to generations, always with that unmistakable warmth, wit and authenticity that made everyone feel like they knew her.”
Parton’s appeal transcended political divisions, with current and former U.S. presidents from both major parties joining the chorus of mourning. Republican incumbent Donald Trump called her death a “true loss for millions of people” and ordered all American flags across the country be lowered to half-staff in her memory — a rare honor typically reserved for high-ranking elected officials. “There has never been anyone like her, and never will,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “Rest in Peace, Dolly! The World loves you.”
Former Democratic President Bill Clinton echoed that praise, noting that he and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been huge fans of Parton since seeing her perform back in 1974. “One of a kind — a great songwriter and performer who told the stories of everyday Americans with honesty, humility, and heart,” Clinton said, adding that Parton “never forgot where she came from” even as her global fame grew, and remained dedicated to giving back to communities through her charity work.
Even global political figures joined the tributes: Australian Prime Minister Antony Albanese shared his affection for Parton, praising her lifelong advocacy for causes including children’s literacy and women’s health.
Hollywood also mourned the loss of a star who found equal success on the big and small screen, with memorable roles in *9 to 5*, *Steel Magnolias* and *Hannah Montana*. Keke Palmer, who starred alongside Parton in the 2012 musical comedy *Joyful Noise*, shared a photo of the pair alongside the note, “I’m devastated. Truly.” *Halloween* star Jamie Lee Curtis called Parton a personal hero and “a great example for us all,” while Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, who hosted Parton as a guest star on his series *The Orville*, said her kindness was “evident from moment one.”
Across the country music industry, contemporary stars shared how Parton paved the way for their own careers. Kacey Musgraves, who has frequently covered Parton’s work and honored her at the 2019 Grammy Awards, wrote that “the world feels a lot less sparkly all of a sudden.” Country star Blake Shelton, who worked with Parton as a fellow coach on the hit TV series *The Voice*, said Parton was exactly the warm, fun-loving person fans saw on stage. “I can say with absolute certainty that we are all feeling the same heart brokenness today,” Shelton wrote. “I want everyone to know that she was the EXACT person that you think she is. It was like being with the funnest, most loving, most caring and closest member of your family.”
The unprecedented wave of cross-industry, cross-border and cross-partisan tributes confirms what fans have known for decades: Dolly Parton was far more than a country singer — she was a cultural unifier whose talent, generosity and irrepressible joy touched multiple generations of fans around the world.
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Man, 75, arrested after woman found dead in home west of Melbourne
A fatal incident in suburban Victoria has left a woman dead and a 75-year-old man in police custody, following an early morning discovery at a residential address west of Melbourne. Emergency and law enforcement responders were called to the Connor Street home in Bacchus Marsh shortly after 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, where they located the woman’s body.
Authorities have confirmed the victim and the arrested man are known to each other, and have ruled out any other persons of interest connected to the incident. The 75-year-old suspect was taken into custody directly at the scene, but was transferred to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries while remaining under constant police guard.
As of the latest update Wednesday morning, forensic identification work is still ongoing to formally confirm the victim’s identity. No charges have been filed against the arrested man to date, and Victoria Police have not released further details about the circumstances of the woman’s death as investigations continue.
The breaking incident marks the second major developing news story in Australia on Wednesday, following widespread service disruptions across key Sydney train lines that brought chaos to commuters across the city.
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Instagram chief admits touting teen safety tool while omitting it was barely used
A high-stakes antitrust and consumer protection trial against Meta, the parent company of one of the world’s most popular social media platforms, entered its second week this week, with explosive testimony from top Meta executives revealing gaps between the company’s public promises about teen online safety and its internal data.
The case, brought by a coalition of 33 U.S. states that accuses Meta of deliberately designing its products including Instagram to addict young users, harvest their personal data, and mislead the public about the company’s safety commitments, has already exposed sharp contradictions between Meta’s public messaging and internal records. The trial, which opened in a California federal court last week, is scheduled to run through late September, with Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg expected to take the stand at a yet-to-be-announced date.
On Tuesday, Adam Mosseri, Meta’s head of Instagram, acknowledged under questioning from attorneys representing the states that he publicly promoted two flagship teen safety tools, Take a Break and Quiet Mode, when they launched without disclosing that early testing showed just a tiny fraction of teen users actually activated the features. Launched in 2021 and 2023 respectively, the two tools were billed as solutions to excessive teen scrolling and harmful late-night social media use: Take a Break lets users set custom reminders to step away from the app, while Quiet Mode mutes notifications after hours.
In a 2021 blog post published the day before Mosseri’s Congressional testimony on social media’s harm to young people, he highlighted that 90% of teens who activated the Take a Break reminder kept the feature turned on. What the post did not mention, Mosseri confirmed Tuesday, was that only 1% to 2% of all teen accounts had ever activated the tool at all. Internal documents shown to the jury this week put the final adoption rate for Take a Break at 1.8%, while Quiet Mode reached just 8.7% of users. Mosseri pushed back on claims that adoption remains low, noting that the features were added as default settings to the new Teen Accounts with parental controls that Meta rolled out in 2024, but he could not recall if the company has ever publicly disclosed how many teen accounts actually have parental controls enabled.
Francesco Fogu, Instagram’s director of product design, also testified Tuesday, confirming that Meta leadership knew adoption of the voluntary safety tools would remain low if they were not activated by default. Fogu told the court he was unaware of the specific internal adoption numbers, a revelation that appeared to surprise presiding Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who will issue a final ruling guided by the jury’s verdict.
Multiple former Meta employees have already testified that the low adoption rates were not an accident, but a deliberate outcome tied to Meta’s advertising-dependent business model, which relies on maximizing user time spent on the platform. Arturo Bejar, a former Meta engineering director, called Take a Break “a feature that was designed to fail” in his testimony last week. George Volichenko, a former Instagram data scientist who worked on the safety features between 2022 and 2023, told the court Monday that leadership refused to enable Quiet Mode by default for younger teens because the default setting would have caused a measurable drop in user engagement. Volichenko added that the tools’ adoption rates were “very low and disappointing” and that Meta leadership showed no interest in taking meaningful steps to boost usage, calling the tiny uptake “just a drop in the ocean.”
If the court finds Meta liable in the case, the states are seeking roughly $200 billion in financial penalties. A ruling against Meta would also almost certainly force sweeping changes to the company’s core business model for its social platforms, sending major ripples across the global technology industry. Mosseri is expected to continue his testimony on Wednesday, while the timeline for Zuckerberg’s appearance remains unconfirmed.
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West Bank settlers attack AFP journalists
On a Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, a violent confrontation left international news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) bearing the brunt of unprovoked aggression from Israeli settlers, with at least five people wounded and multiple vehicles heavily damaged, according to on-the-record accounts from the reporting team and local medical personnel.
The three-person AFP crew had traveled to Jannatah, a small Palestinian village located just south of Bethlehem, to cover an ongoing local conflict. The assignment centered on Israeli left-wing activists who organize regular solidarity visits to Palestinian communities that have faced consistent harassment from settler groups, who had recently blockaded a key public road in the area.
Tensions boiled over into open scuffling between the visiting activists and local settlers, prompting Israeli military forces to arrive on scene and order all journalists to evacuate the area, which they designated a “closed military zone.” Almost immediately after the order was issued, two additional vehicles packed with more settlers arrived to join the confrontation.
Witnesses confirmed that many of the settlers involved in the attack were minors, who launched a barrage of stones toward both the AFP team and the Israeli activists. One AFP reporter, who managed to dodge an incoming stone, was subsequently struck in the chin by a stick wielded by a young settler, resulting in minor bleeding that required medical attention.
When the violence subsided, the AFP team returned to their parked vehicles to discover extensive damage to both cars: the rear windshields had been completely smashed in, and multiple tires had been punctured. Vehicles belonging to the solidarity activists suffered identical damage in the attack.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society confirmed that five people received medical treatment for injuries sustained during the confrontation. AFP reporters on site observed at least one injured Israeli activist being transported to a care facility in a Palestinian ambulance. During the chaos of the clash, an Israeli soldier temporarily seized the professional camera belonging to an AFP video journalist, though the equipment was returned before the team left the area.
In an official statement following the incident, an Israeli military spokesperson confirmed that the temporary confiscation of the camera is now the subject of an internal review. Israeli law enforcement joined military personnel at the site to collect physical evidence related to the vehicle damage, and the spokesperson confirmed that a full police investigation into the attack has been launched.
The incident unfolded against a long-running backdrop of territorial tension in the West Bank. Israel has occupied the territory since the 1967 Six-Day War, and it is currently home to roughly three million Palestinian residents and more than 500,000 Israeli settlers who have built communities across the area. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current right-wing government has pushed forward with aggressive expansion of settler construction in the months ahead of national elections scheduled for October 27. Independent observers and humanitarian groups have also noted that acts of settler violence against Palestinian communities and their supporters have spiked dramatically since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israeli targets from the Gaza Strip.