The 2026 PEOPLE’s World’s Cutest Rescue Dog Contest Presented by the PEDIGREE® Brand - People.com

There was a time, not so long ago, when watching a film was a clearcut experience. There would be a good guy and a bad guy, and you would know who the bad guy was because they would shoot a dog in the face. It happened more times than you might expect. Mad Max 2, dog gets shot. Revenge, dog gets shot. Turner & Hooch, dog gets shot. Red, dog gets shot. Man with the Gun, dog gets shot. Badlands, dog gets shot. Dog Soldiers, you’ll never guess. But how things change. These days – thanks to either political correctness gone mad or basic human decency or whatever – dogs are much less likely to be murdered in films. A study by (of course) pet insurance firm Lassie has discovered that the number of dogs that die in movies dropped by a whopping 80% between 2020 and 2025. It reports that six years ago, 10 of the 100 highest-grossing films featured a dog dying either on or off screen. But by 2025, this number fell to just two. Now, this could be down to any number of reasons. The first, and possibly most important, is that cinema finds itself in a perilous position.

Britain’s Lib Dems are having a mini-meltdown. Here’s what’s going on. A surprise resignation followed by an extremely long show of unity: Britain’s centrist force — a potential key player in a future coalition — doesn’t seem ready to topple its leader just yet.

An eighth person in Kenya has tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola in the country’s first-ever cluster of cases of the virus, as the second-largest outbreak in history kills more than 4,300 and sickens more than 9,000 people in the region. It highlights the diminished role the US has played in the worsening Ebola outbreak by building a controversial quarantine center in Kenya, pulling back health support globally, and banning travelers from certain countries. All of this has also reduced the ability to identify and respond to the outbreak and exacerbated mistrust. The US created a controversial quarantine center at Kenya’s Laikipia airbase, where Americans returning from the Democratic Republic of the Congo would be required to quarantine. The center, opposed by locals, has stirred distrust in the Kenyan government, leading to protests and a Kenyan court ordering a halt to the center.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sparked backlash from U. S. military veterans and several European politicians after suggesting "one or two" U. S.-allied countries were actively involved in combat operations in Afghanistan as the yearslong conflict drew to a close. Hegseth, who completed active-duty deployments in the Middle East, including Afghanistan, told cadets and military recruits at the University of Tennessee on Saturday he recalled dozens of flags on display in Kabul during the two decades of U. S. and NATO-led fighting against the Taliban. "Except there were, like, maybe five that contributed," Hegseth remarked. "It was actually closer to one or two that, by the end, were actually involved in kinetic operations. "A total of 51 NATO and U. S.-aligned countries deployed troops to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission and the U. S.'s Operation Enduring Freedom. ... It is the only time a NATO member has activated Article 5, the alliance's mutual defense clause which obliges all NATO states to defend a member under attack.

Open this photo in gallery:People carry their belongings as they leave their office following a Russian air attack in Kyiv, Monday. Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated PressRussia launched new attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure using ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday, adding that Kyiv again received no early warning of the attack from partner countries that previously shared that intelligence. Zelensky is grappling with recent Washington moves benefiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, including waiving U. S. sanctions on Moscow and signing a deal to import diesel from Moscow. In parallel, limits on Kyiv’s use of the military-grade version of U. S. company SpaceX’s satellite internet service have choked Ukrainian drone operations, according to Zelensky. Also, a severe shortage of American-made Patriot air defence systems has made Ukraine more vulnerable. Western intelligence sharing has helped Ukraine counter Russia’s devastating ballistic missiles and hold back Moscow’s invasion, which began more than 4 1/2 years ago. U. S. President Donald Trump says Washington hasn’t stopped providing intelligence to Kyiv.