When Lawrence and Penny Higgins of Fairfield, Maine, first learned in 2020 that high levels of toxic chemicals called PFAS taint their home’s well water, they wondered how their health might suffer. They had consumed the water for decades, given it to their pets and farm animals, and used it to irrigate their vegetable garden and fruit trees.

“We wanted to find out just what it’s going to do to us,” Penny Higgins said. They contacted a couple of doctors, but “we were met with a brick wall. Nobody knew anything.”

Worse still, she added, they “really didn’t want to hear about it.”

Many clinicians remain unaware of the health risks linked to PFAS, short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, despite rising medical and public awareness of the chemicals and their toxicity. PFAS can affect nearly every organ system and linger in bodies for decades, raising risks of cancer, immune deficiencies, and pregnancy complications.

These “forever chemicals” have been widely used since the 1950s in products including cosmetics, cookware, clothing, carpeting, food packaging, and firefighting foam. Researchers say they permeate water systems and soils nationwide, with a federal study estimating that at least 45% of U.S. tap water is contaminated. PFAS can be detected in the blood of nearly all Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Maine was among the first states to begin extensive water and soil testing and to try to limit further public exposure to PFAS through policy action, after discovering that farms and residences — like the Higgins’ property — had been contaminated by land-spreading of wastewater sludge containing PFAS. Exposure can also be high for people living near military bases, fire training areas, landfills, or manufacturing facilities.

In regions where testing reveals PFAS hot spots, medical providers can be caught flat-footed and patients left adrift.

Rachel Criswell, a family practice doctor and environmental health researcher, is working to change that. She was completing her residency in Central Maine around the time that the Higginses and others there began discovering the extent of the contamination. Her medical training at Columbia University included more than a year in Norway researching the effects of PFAS and other chemicals on maternal and infant health.

When patients began asking about PFAS, Criswell and the state toxicologist offered primary care providers lunchtime presentations on how to respond. Since then, she has fielded frequent PFAS questions from doctors and patients throughout the state.

Even knowledgeable providers can find it challenging to stay current given rapidly evolving scientific information and few established protocols. “The work I do is exhausting and time-consuming and sometimes frustrating,” Criswell said, “but it’s exactly what I should be doing.”

Phil Brown, a Northeastern University sociology professor and a co-director of the PFAS Project Lab, said the medical community “doesn’t know a lot about occupational and environmental health,” adding that “it’s a very minimal part of the medical school curriculum” and continuing education.

Courtney Carignan, an environmental epidemiologist at Michigan State University, said learning of PFAS exposure, whether from their drinking water or occupational sources, “is a sensitive and upsetting situation for people” and “it’s helpful if their doctors can take it seriously.”

Clinical guidance concerning PFAS improved after the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report on PFAS in 2022. It found strong evidence associating PFAS with kidney cancer, high cholesterol, reduced birth weights, and lower antibody responses to vaccines, and some evidence linking PFAS to breast and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid and liver dysfunction, and pregnancy-induced hypertension.

That guidance “revolutionized my practice,” Criswell said. “Instead of being this hand-wavey thing where we don’t know how to apply the research, it brought a degree of concreteness to PFAS exposure that was kind of missing before.”

The national academies affirmed what Criswell had already been recommending: Doctors should order blood tests for patients with known PFAS exposures.

Testing for PFAS in blood — and for related medical conditions if needed — can help ease patients’ anxiety.

“There isn’t a day that goes by,” Lawrence Higgins said, “that we don’t think and wonder when our bodies are going to shut down on us.”

‘Devastating but Incredibly Helpful’

After finding out in 2021 that his family was exposed to PFAS through sludge spread on their Unity, Maine, farm decades earlier, Adam Nordell discovered that “it was exceedingly difficult” to get tested. “Our family doctor had not heard of PFAS and didn’t know what the test was,” he said. A lab technician needed coaching from an outside expert to source the test. The lab analyzing the samples had a backlog that left the family waiting three months.

“The results were devastating but incredibly helpful,” Nordell said. Their blood serum levels for PFAS were at roughly the 99th percentile nationally, far higher than their well-water levels would have predicted — indicating that additional exposure was probably coming from other sources such as soil contact, dust, and food.

Blood levels of PFAS between 2 and 20 nanograms per milliliter may be problematic, the national academies reported. In highly contaminated settings, blood levels can run upward of 150 times the 20-ng/mL risk threshold.

Nordell and his family had been planning to remain on the farm and grow crops less affected by PFAS, but the test results persuaded them to leave. “Knowledge is power,” Nordell said, and having the blood data “gave us agency.”

The national academies’ guidance paved the way for more clinicians to order PFAS blood tests. The cost, typically $400 to $600, can be prohibitive if not picked up by insurance, and not all insurers cover the testing. Deductibles and copays can also limit patients’ capacity to get tested. Less costly finger-prick tests, administered at home, appear to capture some of the more commonly found PFAS as accurately as blood serum tests, Carignan and colleagues found.

Maine legislators recently passed, with overwhelming support, a bill — modeled after one in New Hampshire — that would require insurers to consider PFAS blood testing part of preventive care, but it was carried over to the next legislative session.

“In my mind, it’s a no-brainer that the PFAS blood serum test should be universally offered — at no cost to the patient,” said Nordell, who now works as a campaign manager for the nonprofit Defend Our Health. Early screening for the diseases associated with PFAS, he said, is “a humane policy that’s in the best interests of everyone involved” — patients, providers, and insurance companies.

Criswell tells colleagues in family practice that they can view elevated PFAS blood levels as a risk factor, akin to smoking. “What’s challenging as a primary care doctor is the nitty-gritty” of the testing and screening logistics, she said.

In trainings, she shares a handout summarizing the national academies’ guidance — including associated heath conditions, blood testing, clinical follow-up, and exposure reduction — to which she has added details about lab test order codes, insurance costs and coverage, and water filtration.

Criswell served on an advisory committee tasked with allocating $60 million in state funds to address PFAS contamination from past sludge-spreading in Maine. The group recommended that labs analyzing PFAS blood tests should report the results to state public health authorities.

That change, slated to take effect this summer, will allow Maine health officials to follow up with people who have high PFAS blood levels to better determine potential sources and to share information on health risks and medical screening. As with many earlier PFAS policies, Maine is among the first states to adopt this measure.

Screening for PFAS is falling short in many places nationwide, said Kyle Horton, an internist in Wilmington, North Carolina, and founder of the nonprofit On Your Side Health. She estimates that only about 1 in 100 people facing high PFAS exposure are getting adequate medical guidance.

Even in her highly contaminated community, “I’m not aware of anyone who is routinely screening or discussing PFAS mitigation with their patients,” Horton said. Knowledge of local PFAS threats, she added, “hasn’t translated over to folks managing patients differently or trying to get through to that next phase of medical monitoring.”

Patients as Advocates

In heavily affected communities — including in Michigan, Maine, and Massachusetts — patients are pushing the medical field to better understand PFAS.

More doctors are speaking out as well. Testifying before a Maine legislative committee this year in support of a bill that would limit occupational PFAS exposure, Criswell said, “We, as physicians, who are sworn to protect the health of our patients, must pay attention to the underlying causes of the illnesses we treat and stand up for policy solutions that reduce these causes.”

Even where policy changes are instituted, the physical and psychological toll of “forever chemicals” will extend far into the future. Criswell and other Maine doctors have observed chronic stress among patients.

Nordell, the former farmer, described his family’s contamination as “deeply, deeply jarring,” an ordeal that has at times left him “unmoored from a sense of security.”

To assess the mental health consequences of PFAS exposure in rural residents, Criswell and Abby Fleisch, a pediatric endocrinologist at the MaineHealth Institute for Research, teamed up on a study. In its first phase, winding up this summer, they collected blood samples and detailed lifestyle information from 147 people.

Nordell, the Higginses, and other Central Maine residents sit on an advisory board for the study, a step Criswell said was critical to ensuring that their research helps those most affected by PFAS.

“The urgency from the community is really needed,” she said. “I don’t think I would be as fired up if my patients weren’t such good advocates.”

Criswell has faced what she calls “cognitive dissonance,” caught between the deliberate pace of peer-reviewed medical research and the immediate needs of patients eager to lower their PFAS body burden. Initially she considered inviting residents to participate in a clinical trial to test therapies that are considered safe and may help reduce PFAS levels in the body, such as high-fiber diets and a drug designed to reduce cholesterol called cholestyramine. But the clinical trial process could take years.

Criswell and Fleisch are instead planning to produce a case series on PFAS blood-level changes in patients taking cholestyramine. “We can validate the research results and share those,” Criswell said, potentially helping other patients.

Alan Ducatman, an internist and occupational physician who helped design the largest PFAS cohort study to date, said providers should convey that “there is no risk-benefit analysis” for any of the current treatments, although they’re generally well known and low-risk.

“Some people want to be treated, and they should be allowed to be treated,” he said, because knowing they have high PFAS levels in their bodies “preys on them.”

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The phone rings. It’s the secretary of state calling. Or is it?

For Washington insiders, seeing and hearing is no longer believing, thanks to a spate of recent incidents involving deepfakes impersonating top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration.

Digital fakes are coming for corporate America, too, as criminal gangs and hackers associated with adversaries including North Korea use synthetic video and audio to impersonate CEOs and low-level job candidates to gain access to critical systems or business secrets.

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, creating realistic deepfakes is easier than ever, causing security problems for governments, businesses and private individuals and making trust the most valuable currency of the digital age.

Responding to the challenge will require laws, better digital literacy and technical solutions that fight AI with more AI.

“As humans, we are remarkably susceptible to deception,” said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO and founder of the tech firm Pindrop Security. But he believes solutions to the challenge of deepfakes may be within reach: “We are going to fight back.”

AI deepfakes become a national security threat

This summer, someone used AI to create a deepfake of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an attempt to reach out to foreign ministers, a U.S. senator and a governor over text, voice mail and the Signal messaging app.

In May someone impersonated Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

Another phony Rubio had popped up in a deepfake earlier this year, saying he wanted to cut off Ukraine’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service. Ukraine’s government later rebutted the false claim.

The national security implications are huge: People who think they’re chatting with Rubio or Wiles, for instance, might discuss sensitive information about diplomatic negotiations or military strategy.

“You’re either trying to extract sensitive secrets or competitive information or you’re going after access, to an email server or other sensitive network,” Kinny Chan, CEO of the cybersecurity firm QiD, said of the possible motivations.

Synthetic media can also aim to alter behavior. Last year, Democratic voters in New Hampshire received a robocall urging them not to vote in the state’s upcoming primary. The voice on the call sounded suspiciously like then-President Joe Biden but was actually created using AI.

Their ability to deceive makes AI deepfakes a potent weapon for foreign actors. Both Russia and China have used disinformation and propaganda directed at Americans as a way of undermining trust in democratic alliances and institutions.

Steven Kramer, the political consultant who admitted sending the fake Biden robocalls, said he wanted to send a message of the dangers deepfakes pose to the American political system. Kramer was acquitted last month of charges of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate.

“I did what I did for $500,” Kramer said. “Can you imagine what would happen if the Chinese government decided to do this?”

Scammers target the financial industry with deepfakes

The greater availability and sophistication of the programs mean deepfakes are increasingly used for corporate espionage and garden variety fraud.

“The financial industry is right in the crosshairs,” said Jennifer Ewbank, a former deputy director of the CIA who worked on cybersecurity and digital threats. “Even individuals who know each other have been convinced to transfer vast sums of money.”

In the context of corporate espionage, they can be used to impersonate CEOs asking employees to hand over passwords or routing numbers.

Deepfakes can also allow scammers to apply for jobs — and even do them — under an assumed or fake identity. For some this is a way to access sensitive networks, to steal secrets or to install ransomware. Others just want the work and may be working a few similar jobs at different companies at the same time.

Authorities in the U.S. have said that thousands of North Koreans with information technology skills have been dispatched to live abroad, using stolen identities to obtain jobs at tech firms in the U.S. and elsewhere. The workers get access to company networks as well as a paycheck. In some cases, the workers install ransomware that can be later used to extort even more money.

The schemes have generated billions of dollars for the North Korean government.

Within three years, as many as 1 in 4 job applications is expected to be fake, according to research from Adaptive Security, a cybersecurity company.

“We’ve entered an era where anyone with a laptop and access to an open-source model can convincingly impersonate a real person,” said Brian Long, Adaptive’s CEO. “It’s no longer about hacking systems — it’s about hacking trust.”

Experts deploy AI to fight back against AI

Researchers, public policy experts and technology companies are now investigating the best ways of addressing the economic, political and social challenges posed by deepfakes.

New regulations could require tech companies to do more to identify, label and potentially remove deepfakes on their platforms. Lawmakers could also impose greater penalties on those who use digital technology to deceive others — if they can be caught.

Greater investments in digital literacy could also boost people’s immunity to online deception by teaching them ways to spot fake media and avoid falling prey to scammers.

The best tool for catching AI may be another AI program, one trained to sniff out the tiny flaws in deepfakes that would go unnoticed by a person.

Systems like Pindrop’s analyze millions of datapoints in any person’s speech to quickly identify irregularities. The system can be used during job interviews or other video conferences to detect if the person is using voice cloning software, for instance.

Similar programs may one day be commonplace, running in the background as people chat with colleagues and loved ones online. Someday, deepfakes may go the way of email spam, a technological challenge that once threatened to upend the usefulness of email, said Balasubramaniyan, Pindrop’s CEO.

“You can take the defeatist view and say we’re going to be subservient to disinformation,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen.”

The second, though, pertains to those PRPs themselves. Last July, the Maryland Behavioral Health Administration had to place a moratorium on the growing number of PRPs because there are now so many of them that state oversight of quality was becoming problematic. The pause is still in effect in Baltimore and nine counties.

The first PRPs in Maryland were established in the late 1970s and early 1980s by visionaries who were convinced that, with the proper support, most men and women with even the most disabling mental illnesses could live productive lives in community settings and outside the back wards of state institutions. That has proven to be the case for thousands of Marylanders and for people with psychiatric disabilities across the country.

As PRP services grew over time, advocates, community providers and state agency staff collaborated year after year on enhanced regulations and outcome measures to maximize quality. One of the last jobs I had before retiring at the end of 2015 was to work with stakeholders on procedures to mandate national accreditation for all community behavioral health programs in Maryland.

In my experience back then, achieving national accreditation was rigorous and arduous but, according to the PRPs and other community-based programs that went through it, the process resulted in improved quality and service outcomes and, most importantly, higher consumer satisfaction.

So, 10 years later, I have to ask: What happened? Did all the new PRPs endure the same accreditation challenges as PRPs of the past? Did accreditation standards weaken? Were state quality monitors asleep at the switch? Above all, are Marylanders with behavioral health conditions receiving the services they need and deserve?

A witty colleague once said: If you’re making money in community mental health, you’re not doing it right. I hope money is not the reason there are so many PRPs today.

— Herb Cromwell, Catonsville

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A limited-time, blush-hued “Clueless” suite at the L’Ermitage Beverly Hills boasts a walk-in closet complete with a Cher-worthy wardrobe curated from Bloomingdale’s by costume designer Mona May, according to the hotel.

A stay in the suite — which features fun details like fuzzy pens, a Polaroid camera and “Clueless”-themed turn-down treats — also comes with a $100 gift card to spend at Bloomingdale’s, a VIP in-store styling appointment, a Dior Beauty makeup session or spa session, and access to a white Jeep Wrangler convertible to cruise around Beverly Hills just like Cher.

From July 12 through Sept. 1, the 750-square-foot suite can be booked starting at $1,995 per night. Guests are given a free membership to Fitted, the official virtual “Clueless” closet app of the movie’s anniversary campaign.

“It’s just bright and happy as Cher would love it,” Mona May told The Hollywood Reporter of the closet she filled with designer pieces. “The moment you walk in there you are transformed into the world of ‘Clueless.’”

While some of the items in the updated wardrobe might not be completely in line with Cher’s aesthetic — Birkenstocks and bucket hats? As if! — other items seem to be direct nods to the film’s classic costuming, including a bright red fringe frock that signals to the Alaïa dress Cher wore during a hold-up in the Valley.

Amy Heckerling’s loose adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma” stars Alicia Silverstone as fashionista “virgin who can’t drive” Cher, alongside best friend Dionne (Stacey Dash), ex-stepbrother-turned love interest Josh (Paul Rudd) and new student Tai (Brittany Murphy) finding their footing as teens and young adults.

Speaking to the Daily News in 2020, Heckerling said she was “overwhelmed with how people are always posting different lines” from the beloved film even 25 years later.

“You had to make an appointment with yourself to be by the TV, so it was really special,” recalls Ryfle, an author and co-writer of the Emmy-winning documentary “Miracle on 42nd Street” (and, I’ll note, a friend since our time as young journalists). 

“The Japanese films always appealed to me the most. They were intriguing because they took place in a world that was unfamiliar, a culture that was unfamiliar.”

Godzilla, he says, was especially captivating to a dinosaur-loving kid.

“Of course, when you’re younger, you’re into dinosaurs,” he says. “Godzilla seemed like the greatest dinosaur I’d ever seen, and it did all these crazy things, and I just loved it.”

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But back then, beyond a few fanzines or horror magazines, it wasn’t as easy as it is now to find information about less mainstream interests or connect with like-minded fans. 

“There really wasn’t anything to read about these films in any detail. And I remember as a child asking a bookstore clerk if there were books on Godzilla, and he actually laughed at me and asked why I would ever want to read anything like that,” says Ryfle. “That stuck in my brain.”

Clearly. 

Along with Ed Godziszewski, with whom he co-wrote 2017’s “Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film,” Ryfle is the co-author of the massive new book “Godzilla: The First 70 Years,” a 432-page, nearly 6-pound book filled with stories, interviews, breakout boxes, and more than 900 photos of one of cinema’s most enduring figures. The writing duo will be appearing as part of an overall Godzilla onslaught at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.

The book, which features introductions by “Halloween” and “The Thing” directing legend John Carpenter and recurring Godzilla actress Megumi Odaka, is the culmination of an effort by the publisher and Toho Studios to mark the anniversary with the ultimate English-language book examining the narrative and visual history of the films, says Ryfle.

“Dating back to 1954, Godzilla has, of course, gone through all of these different iterations and evolutions and changes and its motivation and its personality and the way it’s depicted on screen, and even the techniques that are used to bring it to life,” says Ryfle, who points to the recent box office success and critical respect for 2023’s “Godzilla Minus One.” “I mean, who would have thought 70 years ago that a Godzilla movie made in Japan would win an Academy Award? It would have been impossible, and yet here we are.”

“It’s a real evolution from the time when these movies were sort of misunderstood and just relegated to the scrap heap of low-budget cinema they were assumed to be.”

“Obviously, there are interesting stories to tell about these movies and the people who made them,” he says. “It’s really kind of a celebration of the people and the culture that they come from. The people who made these movies were proud of the work that they did, because they were basically, by and large, handmade films.”

Unlike other schlocky midcentury genre movies, the original Godzilla films reflected Japan’s experience during and after World War II. The films were a response not only to the devastation caused by the U.S. detonating atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also to the firebombing of Tokyo in which nearly 300 U.S. planes dropped 1665 tons of napalm on the city, creating a firestorm and killing 100,000 people in what the Truman Library Institute called “the most devastating aerial bombardment in history.”

“Godzilla, at its very heart from the very beginning, is a monster rooted in trauma,” says Ryfle. “It’s also really about that collective experience of the war and the struggle and the hardships that people went through – and also the collective experience of the post-war period when the economy was in shambles and there were food shortages and political unrest and unemployment and deprivation of extreme magnitude.” 

There are images in the original film that directly correspond to wartime destruction, says Ryfle.“When I’m giving talks about the first Godzilla film, I’ll show stills of Tokyo on fire,” says Ryfle, referring to actual photos taken during wartime bombing raids. “I’ll put up these two pictures side by side … it’s almost like a mirror image.”

As well as exploring the film’s inspirations – such as the original “King Kong,” which had been a huge success upon re-release just a few years before the initial Godzilla film – Ryfle and Godziszewski did interviews and scoured archives for fresh insights – and found things that surprised them despite having decades of experience writing about the films.

“Ed and I’ve been writing together for a number of years and working on a lot of different projects. We actually met 30 years ago at the very first Godzilla convention that they had in Chicago,” says Ryfle, praising his writing partner Godziszewski as “a legend” when it comes to knowing the topic and where to dig up information.

Not only did they discover the audio elements of the iconic Godzilla roar – many of the monster cries were made with different musical instruments, says Ryfle – but they also learned something surprising about the changing face of Godzilla over the years.

“From 1954 to, say, 1975, the suit looks different pretty much in almost every film, and I always thought that that was on purpose. But no, they actually made the suits, at least for about the first 15 years, from the same mold. They just came out differently every time,” says Ryfle, who credits the actor inside the suit, Haruo Nakajima, both for his artistry and his superhuman stamina. “The very first suit was almost unusable. It weighed so much and the interior of it was almost inflexible … the guy tried to walk in it and just tipped over.”

“It was impossible to be inside without suffocating if you were in it for more than a few minutes … it was almost a death sentence to do this stuff,” says Ryfle, adding that Nakajima would sweat out dozens of pounds during filming. “They would have to pour the sweat out of the suit every day, and then dry out the interior for the next day, because it was just a sauna in there. 

Though the “man-in-the-suit” aspect could sometimes be viewed as comical, Ryfle says Nakajima’s work was instrumental in the creature’s evolution and popularity.

“I attribute a large part of the success of those movies to Haruo Nakajima, who played Godzilla for roughly the first 18 years of the first cycle of Godzilla films,” says Ryfle, while also praising the original film’s special effects wizard, director and cast. “He was just a wonderful man who died a couple of years ago. He loved his work, and he’s largely responsible for the personality that starts to come through.”

“He turns Godzilla from a walking nuclear bomb into a character over a period of time,” says Ryfle.

While we discussed a range of topics and there’s much more in the book, Ryfle summed up the project as we were concluding the conversation.

“Someone asked me, like, what was your goal at the start of it?” he says. “We wanted to make the best Godzilla book for the widest possible audience. 

“I’ve always felt from the beginning that [the films] were unfairly maligned and misunderstood, and that maybe I could help, especially after I started meeting the creators and realizing what passion they had for their work,and starting to understand how culturally specific these films are.”

But he also understands another reason for Godzilla’s lasting power.

“On a gut level, no matter what’s going on in the film and how quote-unquote ‘serious’ it is as a movie,” says Ryfle, “people really want to see the spectacle of Godzilla destroying things.”

Along with the Comic-Con appearance, the authors will be appearing at Santa Ana’s Frida Cinema on July 28 for a book signing and screening of “Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster!” and at the Japan Center Los Angeles on July 30 for a free talk (registration required) with books for sale from Chevalier’s Books.

NEW YORK (AP) — When Amrita Bhasin, 24, learned that products from South Korea might be subject to a new tax when they entered the United States, she decided to stock up on the sheet masks from Korean brands like U-Need and MediHeal she uses a few times a week.

“I did a recent haul to stockpile,” she said. “I bought 50 in bulk, which should last me a few months.”

South Korea is one of the countries that hopes to secure a trade deal before the Aug. 1 date President Donald Trump set for enforcing nation-specific tariffs. A not-insignificant slice of the U.S. population has skin in the game when it comes to Seoul avoiding a 25% duty on its exports.

Asian skin care has been a booming global business for a more than a decade, with consumers in Europe, North and South America, and increasingly the Middle East, snapping up creams, serums and balms from South Korea, Japan and China.

In the United States and elsewhere, Korean cosmetics, or K-beauty for short, have dominated the trend. A craze for all-in-one “BB creams” — a combination of moisturizer, foundation and sunscreen — morphed into a fascination with 10-step rituals and ingredients like snail mucin, heartleaf and rice water.

Vehicles and electronics may be South Korea’s top exports to the U.S. by value, but the country shipped more skin care and cosmetics to the U.S. than any other last year, according to data from market research company Euromonitor. France, with storied beauty brands like L’Oreal and Chanel, was second, Euromonitor said.

Statistics compiled by the U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency, show the U.S. imported $1.7 billion worth of South Korean cosmetics in 2024, a 54% increase from a year earlier.

“Korean beauty products not only add a lot of variety and choice for Americans, they really embraced them because they were offering something different for American consumers,” Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said.

Along with media offerings such as “Parasite” and “Squid Games,” and the popularity of K-pop bands like BTS, K-beauty has helped boost South Korea’s profile globally, she said.

“It’s all part and parcel really of the same thing,” Lovely said. “And it can’t be completely stopped by a 25% tariff, but it’s hard to see how it won’t influence how much is sold in the U.S. And I think what we’re hearing from producers is that it also really decreases the number of products they want to offer in this market.”

Senti Senti, a retailer that sells international beauty products at two New York boutiques and through an e-commerce site, saw a bit of “panic buying” by customers when Trump first imposed punitive tariffs on goods from specific countries, manager Winnie Zhong said.

The rush slowed down after the president paused the new duties for 90 days and hasn’t picked up again, Zhong said, even with Trump saying on July 7 that a 25% tax on imports from Japan and South Korea would go into effect on Aug. 1.

Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia subsequently reached agreements with the Trump administration that lowered the tariff rates their exported goods faced — in Japan’s case, from 25% to 15% — still higher than the current baseline of 10% tariff.

But South Korea has yet to clinch an agreement, despite having a free trade agreement since 2012 that allowed cosmetics and most other consumer goods to enter the U.S. tax-free.

Since the first store owned by Senti Senti opened 16 years ago, beauty products from Japan and South Korea became more of a focus and now account for 90% of the stock. The business hasn’t had to pass on any tariff-related costs to customers yet, but that won’t be possible if the products are subject to a 25% import tax, Zhong said.

“I’m not really sure where the direction of K-beauty will go to with the tariffs in place, because one of the things with K-beauty or Asian beauty is that it’s supposed to be accessible pricing,” she said.

Devoted fans of Asian cosmetics will often buy direct from Asia and wait weeks for their packages to arrive because the products typically cost less than they do in American stores. Rather than stocking up on their favorite sunscreens, lip tints and toners, some shoppers are taking a pause due to the tariff uncertainty.

Los Angeles resident Jen Chae, a content creator with over 1.2 million YouTube subscribers, has explored Korean and Japanese beauty products and became personally intrigued by Chinese beauty brands over the last year.

When the tariffs were first announced, Chae temporarily paused ordering from sites such as YesStyle.com, a shopping platform owned by an e-commerce company based in Hong Kong. She did not know if she would have to pay customs duties on the products she bought or the ones brands sent to her as a creator.

“I wasn’t sure if those would automatically charge the entire package with a blanket tariff cost, or if it was just on certain items,” Chae said. On its website, YesStyle says it will give customers store credit to reimburse them for import charges.

At Ohlolly, an online store focused on Korean products, owners Sue Greene and Herra Namhie are taking a similar pause.

They purchase direct from South Korea and from licensed wholesalers in the U.S., and store their inventory in a warehouse in Ontario, California. After years of no duties, a 25% import tax would create a “huge increase in costs to us,” Namhie said.

She and Greene made two recent orders to replenish their stock when the tariffs were at 10%. But they have put further restocks on hold “because I don’t think we can handle 25%,” Namhie said. They’d have to raise prices, and then shoppers might go elsewhere.

The business owners and sisters are holding out on hope the U.S. and Korea settle on a lower tariff or carve out exceptions for smaller ticket items like beauty products. But they only have two to four months of inventory in their warehouse. They say that in a month they’ll have to make a decision on what products to order, what to discontinue and what prices will have to increase.

Rachel Weingarten, a former makeup artist who writes a daily beauty newsletter called “Hello Gorgeous!,” said while she’s devoted to K-beauty products like lip masks and toner pads, she doesn’t think stockpiling is a sound practice.

“Maybe one or two products, but natural oils, vulnerable packaging and expiration dates mean that your products could go rancid before you can get to them,” she said.

Weingarten said she’ll still buy Korean products if prices go up, but that the beauty world is bigger than one country. “I’d still indulge in my favorites, but am always looking for great products in general,” she said.

Bhasin, in Menlo Park, California, plans to keep buying her face masks too, even if the price goes up, because she likes the quality of Korean masks.

“If prices will go up, I will not shift to U.S. products,” she said. “For face masks, I feel there are not a ton of solid and reliable substitutes in the U.S.”

AP audience engagement editor Karena Phan in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

This year, we are honored to host the 52nd reunion of my paternal family — the Hathaways — right here in Baltimore, a city that has nurtured my personal and professional journey.

Our family’s journey began on the shores of West Africa, continuing through the Somerset Plantation in Creswell, North Carolina. Through bondage and beyond, our ancestors never lost sight of their North Star: freedom. That freedom was not just physical, but intellectual, spiritual and communal — embodied in our pursuit of academic achievement, economic empowerment, faith formation and civic engagement.

Our careers have touched every corner of society — ministry, education, arts and culture, politics, sports and entertainment and business. The strength of our family has fortified each of us, helping us resist the traps, tragedies and tricks that too often pull others down. In each story of resilience, in every achievement, in all our sacrifices, we find living proof that “knowing your family strengthens each other.”

Family reunions such as this serve a vital role. They are more than social gatherings — they are sacred moments of reconnection. They anchor each generation with pride and purpose, reminding us of who we are and where we come from. We are descendants of survivors, dreamers and doers.

I’ve been blessed with an active career in the life of Baltimore. Any success I’ve achieved is because I’ve been rooted and grounded in a faith tradition passed down through generations — nurtured by my family, upheld by our ancestors. Truly, “we’ve come this far by faith.” And I still believe, “the family that prays together, stays together.”

So, to my beloved Hathaway family: Welcome to Baltimore. Welcome home.

— Alvin C. Hathaway Sr., Baltimore

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This announcement of the Oregon investigation comes after the education department’s Office of Civil Rights received a complaint from a conservative nonprofit group — America First Policy Institute. It alleged the state was violating civil rights law by allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams, according to the Associated Press.

It also comes after accusations against five Northern Virginia counties for allegedly violating Title IX with their transgender bathroom and locker room policies. Earlier in July, the administration sued the California Department of Education for allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said, “It’s just also making girls feel vulnerable. They don’t want to sit there and have boys watch them undress or have boys undress in front of themWe mean business about this. Title IX9 is very important.”

In a related development, U.S. Olympic officials have adopted a new rule banning transgender women from participating in events. The officials say they have an “obligation to comply” with President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February.

U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes in a letter emphasized the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women, according to AP.

Stephanie Turner, a competitive fencer who went viral for taking a knee during a competition rather than face a transgender opponent, expressed relief, saying, “It’s just such a relief now that common sense is prevailing, finally and we can move forward with sports and focus on the amazing talented women who will be completing and be able to showcase female athletic excellence.”

However, the National Women’s Law Center criticized the move, according to AP. Fatima Goss Graves, the group’s president and CEO, wrote, “By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes.”

In Oregon, Jessica Hart Steinmann, executive general counsel at the America First Policy Institute, said the investigation by the Department of Education is a step toward restoring equal opportunities for girls and women in sports.

“Title IX was meant to protect girls — not to undermine them — and we’re hopeful this signals a return to that original purpose,” Steinmann said in a news release.

Have a news tip? Contact Kayla Gaskins at kgaskins@sbgtv.com or at x.com/kaylagaskinsTV.  Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

A federal judge on Monday ruled Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding as the nation’s largest abortion provider fights President Donald Trump’s administration over efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation.

The new order replaces a previous edict handed down by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston last week. Talwani initially granted a preliminary injunction specifically blocking the government from cutting Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood members that didn’t provide abortion care or didn’t meet a threshold of at least $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in a given year.

“Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable,” Talwani wrote in her Monday order. “In particular, restricting Members’ ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs.”

A provision in Trump’s tax bill instructed the federal government to end Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers that received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023, even to those like Planned Parenthood that also offer medical services like contraception, pregnancy tests and STD testing.

In its lawsuit, Planned Parenthood had argued that they would be at risk of closing nearly 200 clinics in 24 states if they are cut off from Medicaid funds. They estimated this would result in more than 1 million patients losing care.

“We’re suing the Trump administration over this targeted attack on Planned Parenthood health centers and the patients who rely on them for care,” said Planned Parenthood’s president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson. “This case is about making sure that patients who use Medicaid as their insurance to get birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment can continue to do so at their local Planned Parenthood health center, and we will make that clear in court.”

The federal department of health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Previously, the department said it strongly disagreed with the judge’s initial order that allowed some Planned Parenthood members to receive Medicaid funding.

“States should not be forced to fund organizations that have chosen political advocacy over patient care,” said the department’s communication director, Andrew Nixon. Doing so, he said, “undermines state flexibility” and “concerns about accountability.”

The premise is straightforward: With Sheindlin presiding as judge and attorneys Larry Bakman and Dan Mentzer as the attorneys facing off, a real court case is recreated on a television set, moot court-style, and interspersed with dramatic recreations of the crime itself. It’s a ripped-from-the-headlines sensibility.

“While we’re not going to recreate the trials verbatim, all the courts’ ultimate decisions are accurate,” Sheindlin says at the top of each episode. “It will be up to you to decide whether the case was fair and the outcome just.” The show’s tagline: “Real cases. Actual lawyers. Surprising verdicts.”

To assess the series, it’s worth thinking about why the original “Judge Judy” remained popular for so long. The schadenfreude of watching her tear into someone who was refusing to take responsibility was a big factor. But I always liked that the show featured a cross section of Americans whose lives are rarely given much attention on TV. Grievances and interpersonal clashes of the poor and working class were taken just as seriously as anyone else’s. All were equal before the withering gaze of Judge Judy.

The show was shamelessly tacky, which was perhaps some of the appeal as well, which has only gotten more pronounced with her subsequent efforts. Perhaps “Justice on Trial” is an effort to combat some of that, because instead of exploiting yet another interpersonal conflict for ratings, the intention here seems focused on helping laypeople understand why, as Sheindlin says in every intro, “justice doesn’t always end up feeling just.”

She’s trying to explain how the law works. Sure. Fine. Great. But the context in which the show is premiering makes this a surreal project, where legal rights and principles we were once told were sacrosanct are being eroded. It’s hard to take anything Sheindlin says seriously, considering the real-world backdrop we’re currently living through.

A disclaimer runs at the beginning of each episode: “Although some details have been altered, the outcomes are very real.” What details have been altered, and why? No information is forthcoming. Some of the cases are more interesting than others. The most fascinating, from the late 1980s, involves an abusive father who is also a diplomat from Zimbabwe who claims he can’t be prosecuted because he has diplomatic immunity. Sheindlin actually ruled on the case before it was appealed to a higher court.

The man is accused of beating his 9-year-old son and the details are gruesome; the boy says he was tied up by the arms and whipped, sometimes with a belt or electrical cord. His mother and sister were allegedly forced to watch. When he collapsed at school, child protective services removed him from the home. The father is seeking his son’s return.

According to international law, Shiendlin says, “high-level diplomats are not subject to the laws of the foreign country where they serve. So they cannot be prosecuted for the crimes they commit. But what about the rights of a child from Zimbabwe living in America and being abused by his father?” The reasons why diplomats have immunity are explained and they make sense, but Sheindlin’s researchers either could not or didn’t bother to follow up and see if they could find out what fate ultimately befell the boy in the years since the case was decided.

Another case involves a traffic stop that led to the discovery of a dead body. The issue at hand concerns evidence that is considered “fruit of the poisoned tree” (a conflict beloved by “Law & Order” writers for decades). Another case centers on a lawsuit that argues hate speech is not protected under free speech. These are all good debates. In theory. But ultimately, this feels like such a hacky exercise. In one dramatic recreation, someone drinking wine gets so upset, their hand contracts into a fist, crushing the glass they’re holding. I’ve never seen this happen in real life, but more to the point, it’s silly.

The courtroom set and lighting are similar enough to that of the other shows Sheindlin produces that it’s likely they’re just being repurposed for this series. The judges from “Hot Bench” are the appellate court. The overall vibe is: Sure, we’re doing this on a budget in an artificial setting — with extras in the gallery as audience — but viewers are meant to take this seriously. The aesthetics, however, are that of a grimier show.

“Justice on Trial” — 2 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Amazon

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.