DOMESTIC
Michelle Trachtenberg was reported to have been found dead in her New York City apartment by her mother on Wednesday, Feb. 26 at the age of 39. Trachtenberg is best known for her roles in television and movies in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with starring roles in productions like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997-2003), “Gossip Girl” (2007-2012), “Harriet the Spy” (1996) and “Ice Princess” (2005), where she worked alongside some of the industry’s most well-known names. Though Trachtenberg’s death is not currently considered suspicious, as she was found unresponsive with no signs of foul play and did undergo a liver transplant within the last year that it is rumored her body may have rejected, the investigation is considered ongoing by NYPD officers. In recent posts to Instagram, Trachtenberg included selfie-style photos that garnered responses from “fans” and followers who commented on her looks, noting her gaunt and yellowed appearance and largely offering criticism. After the news of her death was announced, social media users flocked to those same posts and commented well-wishes for her and her family. Trachtenberg was born in 1985 and had her first credited television role in 1994; before that, she mainly acted in commercials. Her former co-stars from projects throughout her career have created social media posts expressing their own grief and sympathies.
In a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 26, United States President Donald Trump convened with his Senate-confirmed cabinet staff to devote the better part of an hour-long meeting to Department of Government Efficiency head, billionaire Elon Musk. The president is reportedly excited to see Musk “slash” the government in a manner reminiscent of “a chainsaw.” Cabinet members themselves hardly spoke a word over the course of the meeting—Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, whom the president has previously described as “the most powerful woman in the world,” spoke not once in the entire hour, and Vice President J.D. Vance spoke for a grand total of 36 seconds towards the end of the meeting—as Musk was given the vast majority of the speaking time, speaking an apparent three times more than anyone else present and overall second only to Trump himself. During the remainder of the portion of the meeting that was televised via the assembled press (all save the last 20 minutes), Trump promised he and his administration would not be making cuts to Medicare. House Republicans recently passed a budget proposal, which lawmakers have been encouraged by Trump to support, that included an $880 billion cut to federal healthcare programs over the next 10 years.
INTERNATIONAL
North Korea has recently allowed multiple groups of tourists into its borders, granting them trips into the border town of Rason in the far northern region of the country, which has been classified a “special economic zone.” More recent tours, which have stayed in North Korea for five days at a time and contain about a dozen tourists in any given trip, have come out of a company in Beijing and entered North Korea from China via a land-based route. The tourists themselves held citizenship from over half a dozen countries around the globe. North Korea, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, closed its borders to all tourists, as well as diplomats and most other foreign visitors. The first tourist group they allowed back into the country was made up of about 100 people from Russia in 2024; the country has been slowly reopening its borders since 2022, and tourism is trickling back in.
Quebec is taking steps to limit the number of international students granted admission into the province in coming years in alignment with their goal to increase the percentage of permanent residents to the region and decrease the number of non-residents living for extended periods within the borders. There are reported to be 20% fewer acceptance certificates issued this year, compared to their larger number in 2024 and years prior. The move has been reported to be a deliberate one aimed at reducing the influence and pull of private colleges who effectively sell Canadian citizenship in exchange for enrollment and education as part of their business model. However, it is reported that an international student granted an acceptance certificate does not necessarily actually attend the university to which they were accepted, so as a result, exact numbers surrounding the caps and subsequent international student number changes in the province are difficult to accurately assess.