Gas reservation policy set for lower house vote today
Australia’s domestic gas reservation is set to be debated and voted on in the lower house today.
Rather than international base companies, determining through algorithms what Australians receive, it empowers people themselves to determine what you receive on your devices, so that you should have that control.
This isn’t about government having a greater role. It’s about people having a greater role, having more control themselves, and it’s deserving of support of this parliament.
Pete Hoekstra, controversial US ambassador to Canada, has also accused Canadian officials of interfering in US elections
The US ambassador has suggested Canada could be blamed if Republicans perform poorly in next week’s midterm elections, the latest intervention from a controversial figure who has been accused of inflaming a bitter dispute that has angered and baffled residents of both countries.
On Wednesday, CTV news reported that Pete Hoekstra told business leaders at a closed door meeting that if a number of swing races – including Maine and Michigan – go to the Democrats, it could make things harder for Canada because Donald Trump might try to blame the loss on it.
Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, a Democrat, speaks at a public exhibit about the Epstein files in Dallas. | Chitose Suzuki/The Dallas Morning News via Getty Images
This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.
Eighteen years after his first conviction, and seven years after his much-debated death, the ghost of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is suddenly inescapable again.
He’s the subject of scores of midterm campaign ads, each more lurid than the last. A second bill mandating the release of the Epstein files is currently kicking around Congress. And on Monday, House Democrats released a new report alleging that the Justice Department helped cover up details of Epstein’s relationship with President Donald Trump, calling — very aspirationally! — for an independent criminal investigation.
Of course, no one really expects Trump’s attorney general to name a special counsel to investigate the Trump administration. In a statement, one White House spokesperson panned the report as “a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans.” (The timing, just one week before the midterms, does seem pretty fortuitous.)
The document, which runs to 50 pages, draws on public accounts and staff interviews with an unspecified number of survivors, including a former pageant queen who alleges that Trump raped her in 1993. The woman had previously accused Trump of groping her, which a Trump spokesperson dismissed at the time as “fake.”
When it comes to Epstein, however, Democrats don’t need a lot of new material to damage Trump. The scandal, and his administration’s handling of it, continue to cast a long, dark shadow over Republicans.
That’s surprising to me, candidly, because the decades-old dealings of even a very despicable sex offender don’t have any bearing on Americans’ day-to-day costs or experiences. And Trump has been able to brush off a lot of other unsavory behavior and associations.
Many of these young voters “resent the fact that Trump’s basically become part of the establishment” and see the Epstein files as evidence of that, the political analyst Rachel Janfaza recently told Vox. Some also feel burned by Trump’s campaign promise to release the government’s investigative files on Epstein…and his about-face once in office.
Democrats, sensing an opening, are hammering the issue. Relentlessly so. According to data from the tracker AdImpact cited by NBC News, there are currently more than 500 campaign ads airing across the country that include the words “pedophile” or “predator.”
Many of them reference Epstein or the so-called Epstein files, and three-quarters are backed by Democrats. One recent ad featuring an Epstein survivor, and targeted at Kansas Republican Roger Marshall, slams the incumbent senator’s September 2025 vote to block a procedural measure that would have released the Epstein files. (The Senate later moved to release the files by unanimous consent.)
Another ad, this one in Maine, claims that Epstein’s “business partner” funneled $3 million to Sen. Susan Collins’s super PAC. (Importantly, the connection between Epstein and this purported partner is so tenuous as to be nonexistent.)
These ads will fade after Tuesday, of course. But you haven’t heard the last word on this. Should Democrats win control of either chamber, they’ll gain the power to subpoena witnesses and documents for yet more Epstein investigations.
Some Democratic leaders in the House are already salivating over that prospect.
One link for later
➨ Ask better questions than “what do you do?” Small talk is often dominated by idle chatter about traffic, weather, or jobs. To actually get to know your conversation partner, try leading with questions that get at their interests: what a friend’s friend is reading, for example, or what a barista’s favorite beverage is. You can even draft a little list of go-to questions in advance to deploy in conversation when you need them. Just don’t treat the exercise like a checklist. The real key to better small talk is being curious.
Before you go…
Did you know…that concrete is the second-most-used material on Earth? (The first is water!) Mixing and pouring concrete is responsible for a huge share of global emissions, but there are efforts underway to make it more sustainable.
Today’s trivia: An arroyo is a stream — or at least, a streambed — found in what type of environment? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked you for the name of the lovable yellow dog in the comic strip Garfield. That would be Odie, whose look evolved over the years as illustrator Jim Davis sought to distinguish him from his iconic canine rival Snoopy.
John Healey raised taxes on banks and landlords to fund a £100 winter handout for 20 million families as official forecasts made clear there is no end in sight for the cost of living crisis.
In his first budget, the chancellor blamed “global economic storms” for the grim outlook, as the war in Iran drives up oil and gas prices.
Effort to loosen rules on unproven peptide drugs, favored by RFK Jr, faced fierce pushback from agency scientists
A plan to give people in the United States easier access to unproven peptide drugs favored by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, was opposed by most Food and Drug Administration scientific staff members, who had limited input in drafting the policy, according to six people familiar with its development.
The document posted online on Wednesday by Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) covers a handful of injectable peptides promoted within the wellness industry for building muscle, healing injuries and boosting energy.
How the Burnham government’s first attempt to ease cost of living pressure pans out for key stakeholders Budget 2026: key points at a glance
Every budget has its winners and losers, and John Healey’s first as chancellor was no exception. While some gained from tax breaks and rule tweaks, others will either pay more, or had their hopes of reforms dashed. Here are some of those with reason to cheer, or sigh:
Prime minister warns cabinet not to express opinions about future relationship with Brussels before review of options
Andy Burnham has warned ministers not to express their opinions about how the government should approach Brexit, as he argued that the Conservatives’ deal with Brussels had been more extreme than that promised in the 2016 referendum.
In another series of announcements connected to his plan to seek closer links with the EU, Burnham told ministers at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the current deal was a bad one, before writing to frontbenchers setting out his hopes to address this.
Constellation Energy will get $5 billion in government loans to modernize nuclear reactors. Most of the new capacity is already committed to Google, Amazon, and Meta.
As the landscape of higher education has evolved from the eras of segregation to the civil rights movement to Trump-era racial politics, Black students have had to adapt on college campuses nationwide as government mandates, school policies, and the dismantling of affirmative action have impacted their education over the years.
Hosted by Kahlil Greene, this video is part of our new series, Kahlil Explains, that unites Vox’s unique brand of explainer journalism with Greene’s expertise in how politics and culture shape society. This first episode traces the history of HBCUs and the experience of Black college students to unpack why Black student enrollment is growing at HBCUs yet declining at other elite institutions.
Read more about HBCUs and race in higher education:
British households face a “pretty grim picture” for living standards as the war in the Middle East drags down growth and triggers a fresh cost of living crisis, the government’s independent forecaster has said.
In a report as John Healey announced his first budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) issued a sharp downgrade for growth in 2027, household disposable incomes and the public finances despite the measures taken by the chancellor.
John Healey promised to steer Britain through “global economic storms” as he announced an energy giveaway of £100 to 80% of households in England, funded by a smaller than expected windfall tax on banks.
In his first budget, the chancellor said 20 million households in council tax bands A to D would receive a £100 payment – a measure he said would cost £2.6bn.
John Healey starts by saying that his budget is “delivered at a time when global uncertainties and pressures are swirling worldwide and hitting people here at home”.
Healey says he will meet the fiscal rule that day to day spending must be covered by tax receipts and the investment rule that government debt, defined as public sector net financial liabilities, must be falling as a percentage of GDP in the third year of the forecast.
The government will have £15bn of headroom in 2029-30 and £20bn in 2030-31, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s forecaster.
Government borrowing will be 4.2% of GDP this year, 3.4% next year, then 2.9% and 2.1% 1.8% by 2030-31, the OBR says.
Predictions of slowing growth were wrong, Healey says. The OBR says GDP will grow by 1.2% this year, 1% next year, 1.6% in 2028, 1.8% in 2029, 1.7% in 2030, 1.6% in 2031. In March the OBR had predicted GDP growth of 1.1% in 2026, rising to 1.6% in 2027 and 2028, and dropping to 1.5% in 2029 and 2030.
Government debt is forecast to be 83.2% of GDP this year, 83.8% next year, and then falling to 83.1%, 82.3% and 81.7% in the following years.
The move to strip citizens of their passports and their rights is not a new one, nor is it limited to the United States and Rep. Ilhan Omar. | Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
What do a Bollywood actor, a member of Congress, and Israeli directors have in common?
It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. The punchline, though, is that governments of India, the United States, and Israel, respectively, think they should be stripped of their national status.
Bollywood star Imran Khan, nephew of Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan, was told he has until October 28(and since extended to November 2) to leave India, where he resides on an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card. India doesn’t allow dual citizenship, but OCI status gives individuals of Indian descent and their family members the right to permanently live, work, and study in India; its revocation uproots its holders from their homes and their lives. Khan had protested in a demonstration demanding the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, India’s chief election commission. He is challenging the order in court.
Earlier this month, US Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home was raided by federal authorities who are reportedly preparing a case to strip her of citizenship, alleging that her father said she was 17 when she was really 18 when he filed her naturalization paperwork. President Donald Trump subsequently said that, because a federal court filing allegedly referred to her as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar,” she should have to resign from Congress.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has intimated that Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, directors of the film NAZA, in which Abraham interviews Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers on Tel Aviv rooftops about how they assessed and decided to kill civilians in Gaza, could be stripped of their Israeli citizenship, saying he would pursue legislation to go after critics of the military who crossed a line. “We will revoke citizenship for anyone who defames IDF soldiers around the world — he will be deeply hurt in his pocket,” said Netanyahu, who cited the filmmakers as a potential example and called their work “intolerable.”
The move to strip citizens of their passports and their rights is not a new one, nor is it limited to these three countries. Perhaps most famously, Jews were stripped of citizenship by the Nazis in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in the 1930s and ’40s. To take a more recent example, over the summer, Russia passed legislation that effectively strips Russians abroad facing domestic prosecution on political grounds of their citizenship (the law takes away their property, freezes their bank accounts, and refuses them consular services).
Still, that three high-profile cases are coming from three countries that claim to be democracies raises the question: Why do reactionary leaders in democracies reach for denaturalization (or quasi-denaturalization, in the case of loss of OCI) as a weapon against political and cultural elites? What do they hope to gain? And, relatedly: What might they lose instead?
It’s not just about the high-profile targets
Reactionary leaders do not typically threaten to make an example of high-profile political opponents or cultural elites as a first step. In each of these cases, there are demographic groups — whole swathes of the population — whose governments have been trying to disenfranchise, denaturalize, or deport them (or some combination of the three) long before the recent spate of high-profile headlines.
In India, there’s currently a politicized election integrity push that experts warn could illegitimately prevent tens of millions of voters from marginalized groups, especially Muslims, from participating in elections. What should have been a routine clean up of voter rolls ended up with 130 million — nearly 10 percent of the population — struck off the lists. The sweeping approach has raised widespread concern from critics that many voters will be incorrectly removed — and deep suspicions that this disenfranchisement is targeted and intentional.
Mukulika Banerjee, a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, noted this happened after the position of chief election commissioner was made partisan and given immunity for life. And while normally in India (unlike in the United States) the onus is on the state, not individuals, to register voters, in this case, the state said that if people were to be put back on the voter rolls, they “had to produce a whole bunch of documents…which by implication affected the socially disadvantaged,” per Banerjee.
That meant women, people from lower castes, rural voters — and, since “the Muslim population amongst the most seriously socially disadvantaged, the likelihood of Muslims falling in this category is very high,” Banerjee, author of Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India, said. In places like West Bengal, where Muslims make up nearly 30 percent of the population, there were some assembly constituencies where, in elections earlier this year, the number of names deleted from the rolls was greater than the margin of victory, and while anti-incumbent sentiment was high and the BJP may well have won anyway, some, per Banerjee, are asking, “was this an attempt to choose the electorate, so to speak.”
In the United States, the Trump administration has made denaturalization a priority, hoping to find people they can make an example of as part of their broader immigration crackdown. They have already filed to strip dozens of Americans of their citizenship by claiming they lied on their naturalization paperwork (“Justice Department Moves to Strip Citizenship from 40 Criminals in Largest Single-Period Filing Under the Trump Administration,” a press release from earlier this month crowed). The White House also tried, unsuccessfully, to revoke America’s constitutional right to birthright citizenship, which could have left future generations far more vulnerable to removal or persecution.
And in Israel, Palestinians have long been made to feel the weight of citizenship — and the heft of its absence. This is not only true in, say, the West Bank, where Jews live as citizens but Palestinians live under occupation and military law, but in East Jerusalem, where most Palestinians are permanent residents, not citizens, meaning they cannot vote in general elections for the Israeli legislature.
“That is a tool that Israel has used in a different way that could easily be transplanted to citizens,” said Mairav Zonszein, senior analyst on Israel at Crisis Group. And if you can strip residency from Palestinians in Jerusalem, maybe you can strip citizenship, too. “If this government is reelected, I could see that becoming a less and less crazy idea” as what was once unthinkable becomes “normalized.” Palestinian citizens in Israel have expressed the same concern.
The chilling effect of deportation threats
How — and why — does an aspiring authoritarian move from threatening the rights and status of demographic groups to going after elites?
Sometimes, the elites are — in addition to being outspoken and high profile — from the demographic group under threat.
Several years before Khan’s OCI status came under threat, the Modi government took journalist Aatish Taseer’s OCI card from him. This happened in 2019 — months after Taseer authored a Time story with “India’s Divider in Chief” plastered across the cover, after which the prime minister himself said, “Time Magazine is foreign. The writer has also said he comes from a Pakistani political family. That is enough for his credibility.” Taseer’s father was indeed a Pakistani political figure, but this was hardly some secret of which Taseer had made offhand mention; Taseer had written about his father and the role his absence and rediscovery in his life, including in his first book, Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey Through Islamic Lands.
And so with Imran Khan, Taseer said in a phone interview, there is an element of, “Just get the Muslim out” (Khan’s mother is Muslim). In Taseer’s own case, he said, he became “the Paki.”
The same is true at least in one high-profile case in the United States: Omar is Muslim and from Somalia, two groups that frequently attract the ire of the Trump administration. Recently, Trump urged Minnesotans to “fight back” against Somali immigrants before the state is “taken over.” Omar is also a prominent and progressive member of Congress.
“It’s got these two levels,” Taseer said. “One is an ethnonationalist agenda. The other is a blunt instrument of coercion.” If you speak out too freely, Taseer added, “you won’t be able to return home.”
The blunt instrument, though, is more narrowly applied than, say, stripping people from voter rolls en masse. It is designed to cause fear among elites: journalists and actors and academics.
And it is meant, Banerjee said, to raise the price of protest.
The government’s first instinct, she said, is to call protesters terrorists and anti-nationals, rather than citizens exercising their rights: “They don’t seem to understand that to peacefully protest is there in…the constitution.”
And by taking a Bollywood star’s OCI status, the government can “make an example and say, look, we can take the biggest and the richest and the most prominent.” It is a message to the rich and the famous and the powerful: Do not think you are bigger than government coercion. You are not.
Whether it works is almost beside the point. Trump is facing an uphill legal battle in proving that an error committed by Omar’s father, if indeed any error exists, means she should lose her citizenship. Omar has said she sees the administration’s goal as exhausting and intimidating her to the point she leaves politics — something she says will not happen.
And, it’s unlikely, Zonszein said, that Abraham and Szor will actually be stripped of citizenship given Israel’s own judicial protections. But, “It’s an empty threat, but one that works, because it chills dissent, it stifles it, it makes people scared.”
It also suggests that, regardless of whether you’re a member of the targeted group, or have some special status that could set you apart, power can come for you, too. That can scare people out of speaking out for the marginalized. It can also alert them into the need for doing so.
“When it happens in a democracy, one has to always keep one’s radar attuned to who is suddenly becoming prey, whether it’s LGBT in Russia or now in Turkey or in this case in India, Muslims, Taseer said. ”It’s sort of — what they’re going to those people, they’re going to eventually do to the population at large. It’s not one of those things where they’re like, ah, let us do this little thing, and then you guys can all live happily ever after. It’s generally always accompanied by a deeper authoritarian turn.”
For example, in addition to threatening Abraham and Szor, Israel has revoked the entry permits of American Jews who volunteered to work with and protect Palestinian farmers during harvests and froze aliyah — the name for the process by which Jews abroad immigrate — of two Jews over their pro-Palestinian West Bank activism, which, as Israeli outlet Haaretz reported, could be a violation of Israeli law guaranteeing the right of all Jews around the world the right to move to Israel and become citizens.
“I mean, anybody with their head on straight would say, if you treat one person this way, it’s not that hard to treat another person this way,” Zonszein said. “That’s pretty basic, obvious stuff.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who is weighing a presidential run, told Vox that he believes Congress “should take action to make sure that every state provides pre-K for 4-year-olds.” | KC McGinnis/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The midterms are racing to their conclusion, but the presidential contest is right around the corner. As the next primaries begin to take shape, how Democratic hopefuls intend to address childcare is already shaping up to be a major question.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who is weighing a run for president, is one of the potential contenders with hands-on experience around this issue. Facing Republican opposition in the state legislature, he recently redirected federal funds to launch a pre-K pilot program, standing up 3,000 new seats since May. And he believes national Democrats should be making a push to expand access to preschool as well.
We wanted to better understand not only how Beshear is thinking about early childhood initiatives, but also his approach to spending on new federal programs more broadly, and what he’s learned from past efforts to expand access to families that failed. On Tuesday, we spoke with Beshear remotely about his work in the state — and his message to Democrats outside of it. Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Since 1991, Kentucky has supported voluntary preschool, yet today still only about a quarter of 4-year-olds can attend the state-funded program. Why has it been so hard to make preschool available to every family who wants it?
Well, it shouldn’t be hard. You know, pre-K is an opportunity for every child to get off to a good start. And right now in Kentucky, because of the history you just mentioned, over half of our Kentucky children show up not ready for kindergarten. So before they’ve ever walked into a public school they are already behind.
So why has it been hard to make that happen?
Well, so at least in my tenure, somehow pre-K has become political. You know, 4-year-olds aren’t registered to vote. They’re not Democrats or Republicans. But I’ve pushed every year to get this in the budget. We can easily fund it given that I’ve produced a surplus every year I’ve been governor, yet our Republican leadership simply will not let it happen.
So, as you mentioned, there have been attempts at expanding this before. What have you learned from those earlier attempts, and what are you doing differently now?
So it’s interesting you bring that up. The same leadership that will not pass pre-K funding in our current budget cycle voted for it under the last Republican governor, but won’t vote for it under me. The last Republican governor vetoed the expansion, and they expressed their displeasure. So the only thing that’s changed here is the party of the person in charge. And what I hear is our Republican leadership saying they don’t want to give me a win, but they’re willing to hand a loss to all of these 4-year olds.
But for me as governor, I don’t get to accept excuses. So what I’ve done is I’ve taken flexible workforce training funds called WIOA funds, which you can use for a lot of different things. They’re used in a number of states for pre-K. And we have launched five pilot programs in different parts of the Commonwealth that are already a stunning success.
The smallest county in Kentucky is called Robertson County and has zero childcare. You have to drive 40 minutes one way or an hour another way just for any form of child care. It’s one of the places we started this and just to see the parents and the impact that it has on them — most of those parents don’t share my political party — but this is a great opportunity for them that they’re embracing.
It sounds like it’s gotten pretty polarized in your state. When you talk with Republican lawmakers privately, what do they tell you about why they won’t support expanded preschool?
Well, many rank-and-file Republicans in our state legislature want pre-K, and a number of them helped us to push for it this time. But leadership that’s been here for far too long and gotten far too partisan is simply blocking it at this point. What we need is for it to get to a vote, because this is the top polling education issue among Republicans. Again, because it’s not political.
If we had ballot measures and we put this on there, it would pass 80-plus percent because everyone wants that opportunity for their children. My hope is now that we have started these pilot programs, including one in Franklin County, which is where the seat of government is, that they can go and see how good this program is and not allow the next set of 4-year-olds or the next set of 4-year-olds or the next set of 4-year-olds to miss out on it. But I’m gonna do everything I can with the funding that I can find to provide as much of this opportunity as possible.
So there’s a lot of speculation about whether you might run for president. Without asking you to make any announcements here, I wanted to ask how you’re thinking about these issues nationally. You recently called yourself a more “practical” candidate when explaining your concerns about Medicare-for-all. When you look at something like childcare or pre-K from a federal perspective, what does being practical mean?
I think it means that there is a role for the federal government, and I’m supporting a number of congressional candidates right now and talking to all of them about pre-K. When people talk about the different sides of the Democratic Party — which I think is an overblown story, but still — like when Elizabeth Warren and I get together, we try to find some different things that we both agree on that we could work together on, and pre-K is one of those areas, so is housing.
“I do believe that Congress should take action to make sure that every state provides pre-K for 4-year-olds.”
I do believe that Congress should take action to make sure that every state provides pre-K for 4-year-olds. That’d be something that would be good for the United States that could actually bring Democrats and Republicans together and lift up people in all 50 states. And wouldn’t that be nice? To do something that is the right thing, that is the smart thing, and to do it in a nonpartisan way.
I know you mentioned pre-K for 4-year-olds. What do you think parents should be able to count on from the government before their kids turn four?
I believe that there is a role for government in childcare, and we’re working on it right now in Kentucky. We launched our first childcare center for state employees, and we’re learning a lot from it. Now I admit that the child care challenge is complex. You know, we have private childcare, we have public childcare, we have nonprofit childcare, and making sure we can get in and understand the real cost drivers of that.
What we would do as a state, or what the federal government could do, is develop an effective understanding of all those different parts and pieces. But just pre-K could put 70,000 more people into our workforce in Kentucky, so think about what better childcare could do to the workforce in our country. And it’s something that we could afford because we would see more dollars coming back in terms of tax revenue from that many more people in the workforce than we would ever pay out in child care.
Representative Ro Khanna recently proposed a federal program that would cover childcare costs for nearly all families with kids under age six, including care by relatives and neighbors, and offer a thousand dollar a month to parents who stay home with children under three. Would you support that kind of program?
Yeah, I haven’t seen the details of it. I think that that would present some real challenges with our current system as it is. What I would see is getting into the complexities of each of the forms of child care and how we can augment it, how we can build out on the system that we have right now, but also to address those child care deserts that I’m not sure this plan would fix. I mean, we’ve got counties that have no options — public, private or nonprofit.
And so I agree that it’s a challenge. I think it’s going to take us being both surgical on the micro and adopting policies on the macro. And I believe it probably won’t all happen at once, even though that sounds great. It’s how do we make improvement after improvement after improvement and expand and expand more as we understand the underlying mechanics better.
When I talk to people about why childcare and universal pre-K fell out of Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, some say that Democrats tried to do too much and that they needed to narrow their agenda and prioritize specific issues more. Others, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, say that Democrats didn’t fight hard enough for child care, for universal pre-K.
What lessons do you take from the last federal child care push?
The federal government has to act with more urgency. We get in a lot of these debates about whether a plan is perfect or if a plan’s only 80 percent perfect. Listen, take the 80 percent and start working it. Provide the American people with some help which they need.
Now, the Biden administration could have had an imperfect plan. But if they’d implemented that imperfect plan, there would be more childcare options right now. And I admit as a governor, I’m practical. You know, getting stuff done is incredibly important. I want to provide relief to all families, but if I can provide relief to a lot of families, let’s start there and then let’s get bigger.
Just to clarify that, what would you have done differently? What would it look like if you had been part of the conversation?
“If it were me, I would push for universal pre-K for 4-year-olds immediately. That is the immediate relief that takes 25 percent of that burden off of working parents.”
If it were me, I would push for universal pre-K for 4-year-olds immediately. That is the immediate relief that takes 25 percent of that burden off of working parents and then I’d work on a bill that addresses childcare, that makes sure that we have all the stakeholders at the table.
Something that I hear in DC while reporting on childcare is that Democrats in Congress are working to make big new plans for 2027 and 2028. But we know they’d also face real pressure to restore things like the billions cut in Medicaid funding.
As you think about the future, where does childcare or universal pre-K fall on your list of priorities?
It’s high on the list of priorities because my priorities are the American people, their well-being, and the ability to chase that American dream. Right? That American dream is about having a job where you can support your family, being able to see a doctor when you’re sick, driving safe roads and bridges, getting your kids the best education possible, and feeling safe in your community. And so pre-K and childcare falls right there. I believe that.
When Democrats retake Congress or when they retake the presidency, we have got to be laser focused on people’s lives and how hard they are right now, but also do it in a smart way that increases the size of our workforce when there are people that want to go back to work, but simply can’t afford to because of the cost of childcare or a lack of those education options.
You recently praised Bill Clinton for running a budget surplus. Do you think that bringing down the deficit should be a priority for the next Democratic president?
Yes, and and I believe that you can and should run a surplus in that job. Now I think what you do is you grow the economy and that helps you pay for those services, but you’ve got to be careful about new spending. That doesn’t mean that you don’t engage in it because there are some things that you could spend on, I believe, like childcare and pre-K that would result in more federal revenue coming in that would allow you to run that surplus. But over time, we’ve got to start addressing the national debt.
Did the Biden administration’s experience with inflation change your thinking about how much the federal government should spend?
Well, I believe the Biden administration was attempting to get us out of the recession that was Covid. Now you saw a huge recession in Covid, and they put these policies in place that shot us out of that recession faster than anyone ever thought was possible, but it probably overshot that target. I think we should have been communicating to the American people about how we had gotten our economy back on track in record time, but it had gone a little too far, and that we were going to make it through. That could have even been a patriotic call because I believe it was a patriotic time. You know, defeating a pandemic that came to kill as many of us as possible.
You’ve talked in this conversation and elsewhere about being pragmatic, acting with urgency, not being overly ideological. A lot of Democrats today make the case now that the pragmatic thing to do is to go big on new programs, push for universal childcare, push for universal health care, abandon these half measures and incremental steps.
I’d love to hear you talk about that. Is that your instinct?
Well, I’d have to see a program that would actually work. You know, it’s great to talk about a massive program, but then you’ve got to get down in the details, and will it deliver on day one? Or will it crash a system that is imperfect but is delivering to a degree and could deliver more? I’m not against the big idea, but what I’m against is throwing something out there that in the practical real world can’t work.
I think that employers have a big role to play. And I see families where an employer has childcare, excited to go to work, knowing their kid is in the building or or close by, the convenience that that provides. They can go down and have lunch with their kids, which is something that I’ve missed out on in my work life. so I think it is critical.
What we’ve seen in Kentucky is our large employers, we can work with them on it and we can get it done, but it’s midsized employers that we have to rise to that challenge. You know, places that only have a couple hundred employees, or maybe even 12 or 15, how we can band together for those businesses to be able to provide it. And I believe the federal government should be working directly with those companies, because we’ve got to make the economics work. The federal government, in coordination with those employers, could get this right, create a lot more slots, and help people get back to work.
Martin Lewissaid that, when he met John Healey this morning, the chancellor said that, having removed standing charges from gas bills, he would also like to get rid of them from electricity bills. Lewis said:
The chancellor said he will be talking to Ofgem about how they get rid of the charge on electricity as well, but that is ‘trickier’ apparently and will take longer.
Exclusive: Health secretary to extend role of watchdog, which backers say helps hold service in England to account
Yvette Cooper has abandoned plans to abolish the NHS’s independent patient champion after an outcry from MPs across the political spectrum.
The health secretary has decided to keep and extend the role of Healthwatch England, which was due to be axed as part of the government’s reorganisation of the health service in England.
axe the Health Services Safety Investigations Body.
end councils’ automatic representation on the boards of ICBs.
remove the requirement for a nurse on every NHS foundation trust board.
President at Texas campaign rally hails deal struck with post-Maduro government as ‘greatest oil victory in history’
Donald Trump suggested Venezuela would become the 51st state of the United States on Tuesday as the president showed off a tanker he claimed had “one million barrels of oil on it” from the country, nine months after deposing its president.
At a campaign rally in Corpus Christ, Texas, Trump touted a US oil deal with Venezuela, which the US attacked in January, capturing its long-serving leader Nicolás Maduro.
A close-up image shows a bowl of blue M&M candies. | Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
If you were anything like me as a kid, trick-or-treating meant one, maybe two, pillowcases full of candy every Halloween.
And as fun as collecting all that candy could be, the real fun began when I got home and dumped my winnings onto my bedroom floor. That’s when the sorting began.
I had some very specific rules: The usual suspects — think Smarties, Tootsie Rolls, and Dum Dums — went into one pile. Fun-size chocolates, like Snickers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Baby Ruths, went into another. And then there was my prized pile: Skittles, Warheads, Starbursts, and Sour Patch Kids. Those were meant to be eaten slowly throughout November. The rest was fair game.
The ways we sort and eat our Halloween candy are decided by some very particular, personal rules. But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would like to add another distinction: Which candies are made with artificial dyes?
Kennedy’s ire for synthetic food dyes is years old, and they’ve become a major target of his Make America Healthy Again movement. Last year, he announced a plan to remove “petroleum-based synthetic dyes” from foods, arguing that companies “shouldn’t be feeding it to the rest of us.”
That plan has become a multimillion-dollar problem for Mars, the maker of M&Ms, which promised customers last year that they would create an all-natural version of their tasty chocolatey treats. As the Wall Street Journal reported this summer, however, its latest offering is missing one of the most iconic colored M&Ms — the blue M&M.
M&Ms aren’t the only snack food in Kennedy’s crosshairs: He has called out Doritos, Cheez-Its, Cap’n Crunch, and gummy bears, saying their ingredients include “a lot of poisons.” On Fox News, he described what children eat as “food-like substances” and also said that “some of it was made in petroleum refineries.”
In reality, the evidence is more complicated, because the Food and Drug Administration has long considered many of these approved synthetic dyes to be safe under its rules, while acknowledging that some children may be sensitive to them. Kennedy’s sweeping accusations go much further.
Still, pressure from Kennedy and those in the MAHA movement has led many companies to rethink the recipes of your favorite snacks. But producing those alternatives isn’t easy or cheap, as the story of the blue M&M illustrates.
Jesse Newman, a food reporter for the Wall Street Journal, went inside a Mars factory in Topeka, Kansas, to see the process for herself. She spoke with Today, Explained co-host Noel King about why blue is so difficult to produce naturally, and what changing a candy’s color actually accomplishes.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., has some issues with the blue M&M. What, what exactly happened? How did it draw his attention?
He is not a fan of any sort of chemical. He’s really concerned about toxins in our food. And Blue 1, which is the food dye that makes blue M&Ms blue, is a synthetic chemical.
He really takes issue with artificial dyes. He believes that they cause hyperactivity in kids, some neurological challenges. He thinks artificial dyes are linked to cancer.
As a member of the Trump administration, he formally set out to get them removed, didn’t he?
Oh yeah. He’s been putting a lot of pressure on the industry to strip artificial dyes from all kinds of products.
What do we know factually about artificial dyes? We hear that they’re bad for us. We hear that a lot of things are bad for us. We’re all still alive and kicking. Are artificial dyes really detrimental to our health?
The FDA for decades has said that there are nine artificial dyes approved for use in food. And they said that those artificial dyes are safe and have said so for years and years and years, as have other global bodies, so long as they’re used in accordance with some of the standards that the FDA laid out.
A California state agency has found that dyes are linked again to hyperactivity in children. And the FDA itself has said, ‘Okay, we think that these dyes are safe for the vast majority of kids, but some kids might be more sensitive to them than others.’
So I think the real issue is that it’s a chemical doing it. They’re purely cosmetic. They don’t do anything except color food. There is no nutritional benefit that you are getting from these dyes. And so do we need them? Absolutely not.
I think one of the issues is that if you’re looking at the ways our food contributes to health problems, artificial dyes are probably pretty low on the list.
You went inside a factory where they make M&Ms, and you looked at how they’re trying to make this happen. Tell me everything.
I went to this plant in Topeka, Kansas, to see how they were made. And it’s a massive industrial food plant, where they mix these colors and spray them onto these small chocolate orbs, which they refer to as lentils.
The M&Ms move through the plant, and they arrive at these massive [machines] that they call pans, but they look like big tumble dryers. And the M&Ms just tumble around in these pans, and the color is sprayed on. It’s a very, very industrial process, millions of M&Ms a day. And the challenge that Mars has now is making that happen with a natural dye instead of an artificial one.
A blue natural dye is the challenge. What are the problems?
They’ve been working on this for years. And they went with a product called spirulina, which is made from algae. But spirulina comes with a host of problems that they are now dealing with.
Blue 1, which is the artificial dye, arrives at the factories as a liquid. And they pour it into these mixers and they mix it up with this sugary syrup and it’s pretty easy to handle. Spirulina arrives as a powder. So now you’re mixing a powder into this same mixture, into the same recipe, and that is very different.
Because spirulina is a protein, the resulting mixture becomes a lot thicker. What they found was that the mixture containing spirulina would really clog up the piping. It was getting stuck. It moved less smoothly through the pipes.
Also because it is a protein, it was starting to coat and build up on the inside of the machinery. And when that happens, it’s a food safety hazard. It can mold; it can cause problems. For many reasons, it was a challenge to handle.
How much did this all cost?
I should say it’s not done. Mars wouldn’t give me an official figure for how much they spent. But they said that they are spending millions and millions of dollars.
They’re having to retrofit their plants, essentially. Mars said that they’re having to change about 300 types of machinery in their plants. It’s a real investment. And at the end of the day, it all comes down to cost.
What did they actually end up getting done? What was the outcome here?
Mars said what they committed to was that they were going to release a new version of their M&Ms and a few other of their products this year that were made with natural dyes instead of artificial dyes.
They didn’t come out and say we’re eliminating artificial dyes. And so folks should be really clear about that: Their artificially dyed M&Ms aren’t going anywhere. They are still on shelves.
What they said is that they’re going to come out with an option that is naturally dyed. So they tried to do that. And what they found was that they couldn’t do it at a cost that was acceptable to them. With the blue and with the spirulina, it would have been far too expensive to make it work at scale. We’re talking millions and millions and millions of M&Ms per day.
They had problems making the green, the blue, and the brown M&M because, if you go back to your elementary school color theory, they needed blue to make all of those M&Ms. Ultimately they said, “Okay, we can do green. There’s little enough spirulina in the green to make the green M&M.” But blue and brown, they are not able to get there yet due to the amount of spirulina that those colors require.
And so earlier this year, they launched their naturally dyed version of M&Ms with red, orange, yellow, and green M&Ms. And if you take a look at this bag, my colleague referred to these as autumnal. They look very autumnal.
They look sort of muted.
You know, it really isn’t the same. It looks like a mature person’s M&M.
At the end of the day, what are the changes to the M&Ms? Let’s say I go online and get the natural dyed ones. What does that mean for my health? Am I now a healthy and virtuous person if I’m eating the autumnal M&Ms?
It means very little.
I would say you are, hopefully, still enjoying that sugary treat and the pick-me-up in the afternoon as you’re starting to tire. But you’re still eating candy; you’re still eating sugar. It really hasn’t changed very much.
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