Today’s Big Story

Trump’s Tariff Turnaround

The president blinked on tariffs, just hours after they went into effect, leaving everyone confused

It was quick enough to give you whiplash. For over a week, President Donald Trump has been urging calm in the face of the financial chaos that he created—telling us to “take our medicine” and ride out the crushing stock market and fears and higher prices. He told fellow Republicans, “I know what the hell I’m doing,” and it seemed like nothing could convince him to rethink his plans. But then, just hours after the sweeping tariffs went into effect, Trump retreated.

Is there no grand strategy for revolutionizing global trade? Is Trump governing through gut instinct? These are questions that even some advisors, who were left in the dark, had on Wednesday when the White House announced a pause on Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs for most countries for the next 90 days. Asked to explain the decision, Trump told reporters: “Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that behind the scenes, the plunge in the stock and bond markets—along with a sustained campaign by executives, lawmakers, lobbyists and foreign leaders—finally convinced Trump to roll back his sweeping tariff plan. “The episode was classic Trump: He took a drastic action, closely tracked the reaction, kept advisers and allies guessing and then changed course.”

Shortly after Trump announced his decision (via social media), the markets rose and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stood outside the entrance to the West Wing and explained that the move to pause some of the tariffs was discussed Sunday when the two men met. “He and I had a long talk,” Bessent said before a crowd of reporters. “This was his strategy all along.” Or as Axios put it: Trump's allies see a genius at work. His critics see a madman steering the economy toward crisis. And Wall Street sees, for the first time in weeks, a president who is receptive to external pain.

So what happens now? Trump’s economic advisers now will engage in a country-by-country negotiation process that will no doubt take months. Bessent says all decisions will be teed up for Trump, who’ll make the final call on each deal. But the facts are tariffs are still much higher than they were a week ago, the U.S. in a full-on trade war with China, and recession is very much still a possibility.

The Cost of American Life

Wealthy Americans have death rates on par with poor Europeans

It’s an unfortunate, but well-established fact that (on the whole) Americans die younger than people in most other high-income, developed nations. For instance, an analysis from 2022 found that the average life expectancy of someone born in Switzerland or Spain in 2019 was 84 years. Meanwhile, the average U.S. life expectancy was 78.8, lower than nearly all other high-income countries, including Canada's, which was 82.3 years. And this was before the pandemic, which only made things worse for the U.S.

And while some Americans may think that this lower overall life-expectancy doesn't really apply to them if they're middle- or upper-class (the type that shop at Whole Foods, for example). But a new study from Brown University, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that Americans have poorer survival rates than Europeans across all wealth levels and detailed factors driving the disparity.

Scientists examined data from nearly 74,000 adults ages 50 to 85 across the United States and 16 European countries over a 12-year period and compared how long people across the wealth spectrum lived during the course of the study. Wealthy Europeans had 35% lower death rates than the wealthiest Americans, whose lifespans were more like the poorest in Northern and Western Europe—which includes countries such as France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. “The findings are a stark reminder that even the wealthiest Americans are not shielded from the systemic issues in the U.S. contributing to lower life expectancy,” lead study author Irene Papanicolas, a professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown, told U.S. News and World Report. The doctors point to factors at play that make Americans uniquely short-lived, such as diet, environmental hazards, behaviors, and stress.

Google Keeps Strengthening Its AI

A faster, more efficient Gemini AI model (that’s also the brains behind Reddit Answers)

Google’s parent company unveiled its seventh-generation artificial intelligence chip on Wednesday. Dubbed Ironwood, Google said it’s designed to speed the performance of AI applications. The processor is geared toward the type of data crunching needed when users ask questions to large language models like ChatGPT. Known in the tech industry as “inference” computing, the chips perform rapid calculations to render answers in a chatbot or generate other types of responses.

Speaking of responses, Mashable confirmed that Reddit uses Google’s Gemini to power Reddit Answers, an internal AI search tool for Reddit users. A beta version of Reddit Answers launched last December. Contrary to some early reports, the tool uses Gemini “to help people more effectively find information, recommendations, discussions, and insights directly from the conversations and communities across Reddit.”

You might remember, Google made waves with the release of Gemini 2.5 last month, rocketing to the top of the AI leaderboard after previously struggling to keep up with the likes of OpenAI. According to ArsTechnica, that first experimental model was just the beginning. Google will be deploying its improved AI in more places across its ecosystem, and the newest Gemini models will choose a “thinking budget” based on the complexity of the prompt. This tactic promises to reduce wait times and processing and increase efficiency.

Chips Are Beefing Up

Your favorite crispy snacks are getting a meaty makeover

Have you heard about the latest flavor of Doritos? They’re called “Late Night Cheeseburger” and the company says the tortilla chips are “bursting with the taste of onion, pickles, ketchup and mustard, two kinds of cheesy flavors and a hint of sweetness.” But Eater’s Amy McCarthy was immediately suspicious. “There’s just no way that a sprinkling of flavor powder could actually replicate the savory beefiness of a burger patty. Or at least that’s what I thought, until this latest generation of Doritos made me realize that American chips are getting uncannily beefy.”

And these aren’t the only meaty chips showing up in the snack aisle of your local supermarket. Ruffles, Pringles, Utz and even the cult-favorite Texas grocer H-E-B’s store brand have taken a stab at turning “cheeseburger” into a flavor. Pennsylvania-based chip brand Herr’s boasts two seasonal steak-flavored chips, along with a baby back ribs flavor. You see? It seems as if meaty chips have finally reached critical mass in the American market.

It should be noted that beefy chips are not exactly new. They’ve long been popular in other parts of the world—beef and onion Taytos in Ireland, luxe Kobe beef flavored Lay’s in Taiwan—but this new generation of meaty chips feels really distinct. Typically, beef flavoring tends to veer more in the beef bouillon direction, more of a semblance of the beef that we know and love than actual replication. But this new generation of beef-flavored chips offers a real flavor upgrade. Instead of tasting like salty beef broth, these chips actually remind you of juicy, grilled or seared beef.

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