This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

The Trumpy tech billionaire Larry Ellison has wrapped his tentacles around the US branch of TikTok, an entire Hawaiian island — and now, officially, a very large share of the world’s news and entertainment production. 

On Tuesday, the media behemoth Paramount — which is headed by Ellison’s son — completed its $110 billion mega-merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, in a controversial and hard-fought deal backed by the elder Ellison. 

The merger combines a sprawling collection of brands, including HBO, CBS, and Paramount Pictures under one rebranded umbrella. It also concentrates much of the US film and television business in the hands of just five companies. Unions, theater owners, media watchdogs, and several state attorneys general were accordingly concerned: Combining two major competitors in any industry inherently concentrates power over what gets made, what consumers pay, and what workers earn. 

Critics of this deal argued that, in the media industry, the fallout could be particularly intense. In addition to layoffs, opponents warned the new company could produce fewer, more boring movies, raise subscription prices for its combined streaming services, and inject political bias into news programs on CBS and CNN. (We’ll review the evidence for some of these claims in a minute.) 

The new company agreed to address some of these concerns in a September 21 settlement agreement with 12 state attorneys general, which let the merger proceed. A group of consumers also launched a last-minute bid to block the deal, but the Supreme Court declined their emergency request on Monday.

Go a little deeper

One of the conditions of that September AG settlement was a minimum film guarantee: The merged company agreed to release at least 30 films a year for the first two years after the merger, then 32 films a year for three years after that. The requirement was designed to address one of the major fears around the deal: namely, that mergers can result in fewer films. 

Recent history, and the basic economics of acquisitions, help explain the concern. Debt-financed acquisitions, like this one, can leave companies under pressure to cut costs. There are a few ways to do that, such as producing fewer new films or cancelling unreleased films that they don’t want to promote. According to Cinema United, a theater industry group, Disney and 21st Century Fox put out about half as many theatrical releases after their 2019 merger as they did before it, excluding 2020 and 2021.

But that doesn’t mean the new Paramount/Warner Brothers (formally rebranded Skydance) would do the same thing. Disney, for instance, makes a lot of its money from properties and products that aren’t movies. When the European Commission took up the question of whether this new merger would reduce output earlier this year, it concluded that Paramount and Warner were comparatively more dependent on film revenue. In other words, cutting back the number of movies they make post-merger “would not make economic sense” the way it did for Disney after its acquisition. 

Still, consolidation could certainly change which movies get produced. Critics argue that fewer studios mean fewer opportunities for Hollywood creatives and less pressure on the remaining players to take creative risks.

In a report released over the summer, academics with the Media and Consolidation Research Organization at UC San Diego warned this particular deal would likely result in less diverse and more formulaic films. I, for one, won’t be holding my breath for a Larry Ellison biopic.

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➨ Resist the temptation of the Prime Day “deal.” Today marks the start of Amazon’s twice-yearly discount days, which have spilled over to many other retailers. But before you load up your cart, double-check that the sale is actually a good one…and that you truly want or need the item in question. The psychological rush of scoring a deal is so strong that it can lead you to buy things you never planned to purchase.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that Hollywood (and communism) brought the Reagans together? The pair met when Ronald was the president of the Screen Actors Guild and Nancy was a young actress trying to prove she wasn’t a communist sympathizer. 
• Today’s trivia: What is the 24th and final letter of the Greek alphabet? (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 Indian Ocean island where the UK displaced inhabitants roughly 55 years ago. That would be Diego Garcia, which was forcibly cleared to make way for a joint US-UK naval base. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

The death of a 28-year-old lab tech halfway around the world is not typically the sort of thing the White House monitors. 

But when that tech dies of severe pneumonia…while working at a Siberian plague research lab…foreign governments (and pretty much everyone in my timeline) tend to pay more attention.  

The World Health Organization says that there’s little cause for concern, to be clear. Testing has turned up no connection between the woman’s work and her cause of death. 

And even if she did contract pneumonic plague, that’s hardly a doomsday scenario. The plague comes in three flavors — bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic — and they all crop up from time to time, particularly in places like Central Asia and Africa. If caught early, pneumonic plague is typically curable with common antibiotics. A man in Arizona caught the disease from his cat in 2025, for instance, but didn’t spread it to anyone else. 

Of course, the real fear (and the reason so many people are talking about this today, I suspect) is that Russia has, at various times in its history, worked to develop more deadly and contagious forms of plague for use as a biological weapon. 

There’s no evidence linking that program to this lab or this death in Siberia. Still, the general threat of biological warfare is so ominous and urgent that now seems like a worthwhile time to understand it a bit better.

Go a little deeper

In her very recent and slightly spooky book, Biological War: A Scenario, journalist Annie Jacobsen lays out how world governments and health authorities are poised to respond to the hypothetical leak of a weaponized pneumonic plague from a Russian lab. At the risk of being euphemistic here, let me say that she concludes things would not go well. 

But wait! There’s even more doom and gloom where that thought experiment came from. AI chatbots have made it hypothetically possible for more-or-less ordinary people to grasp the research and techniques they’d need to hack together their own biological weapons. 

Just last month, the AI giant Anthropic disclosed five cases where scientists had tried to use its software on research that could have been used in weapons development. And while the company apparently shut those attempts down, their mere existence is fairly frightening.

Can anything be done about these risks, now that they’re here? My colleague Noel King asked Jacobsen that very question in early September. Jacobsen essentially said that the public needs to demand policies aimed at avoiding the “nightmare scenario,” whether that’s an inadvertent lab leak or terrorist attack. Such policies might include things like independent testing of AI models or stricter licensing requirements for high-risk labs. 

But it’s unclear what authority could rein in bad state-level actors. And it’s hard to imagine a public upswell for such niche scientific regulations, particularly at a moment when we don’t lack for other doomsday threats. For now, I suppose, I’ll take (partial, provisional) solace in the fact that this Russian situation doesn’t look like one of them. 

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➨ Curtail your catastrophizing. Catastrophizing is a common thought pattern where you assume the worst possible scenario. (For instance, perhaps you read about a quarantine in Russia and began to fear for the end of the world!) Catastrophic thinking can help prepare us for difficult or frightening situations, but it can also be a major source of stress. Try interrogating your doomsday thoughts and noting when the worst case doesn’t come to pass. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that, according to some physicists, glass defies categorization as a simple liquid, solid, or gas? It looks like a solid, but its molecular structure is more like a liquid. 
• Today’s trivia: Between 1968 and 1973, the British government forcibly removed the native inhabitants from which Indian Ocean island? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Last week we asked you what musical note is equivalent to a G sharp. That would be A flat. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Hi readers, happy Friday! It’s been a big week for the AI debate — not the one about whether it will cause the robot apocalypse, though there’s still plenty to worry about there, but instead about whether the technology is conscious. 

The folks at Anthropic, the AI company behind the large language model Claude, certainly seem to think it is — or at least, they’re extremely open to the possibility. 

As the New York Times reported earlier in the week, the company has spent the last year grappling with the question by speaking with religious thinkers from many faith traditions in an effort to chart a moral course for the LLM (that is, to keep it from killing us all, so maybe it is all one big debate). 

In the process, the Times reports, some of those thinkers observed that members of the Anthropic team were “relating to [Claude] like a conscious being” and even, according to it, a degree of “moral status.” 

On the flip side of this debate is Pope Leo XIV, who decidedly does not seem to buy into AI consciousness arguments. His “Magnifica Humanitas” encyclical earlier this year argued that AI will never be able to replace humanity — and reportedly “alarmed” Anthropic’s co-founder, Christopher Olah.

Since then, Pope Leo has continued to emphasize the differences between humans and machines this week. “There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others,” he posted on Friday. “Algorithms lack the spark of humanity.”

Loneliness machines

Conscious or no (and that’s a no from me), it’s hard to argue that tech companies don’t want you to interact with their models like people. That includes OpenAI and Meta, both of whom introduced “cute” new AI agents — called Dots and Muse, respectively — last month. 

As my colleague Adam Clark Estes reported this week, though, the promise of a companionable, always-there AI might not be the best idea in the world — especially for children. A new study, still under review, suggests that AI use may be causing loneliness in middle schoolers. 

Adam spoke with the lead researcher on the study, UNC Chapel Hill professor Anne Maheux, who explained that “middle school students using AI for emotional intimacy and companionship developed greater loneliness over time.” 

According to Maheux, one big point where AI chatbots fail compared to human beings is “friction,” or the complicated push-and-pull dynamic of any connection with a real human being. By contrast, chatbots are “sycophantic, highly agreeable, anthropomorphized,” she says, which can lead to kids “developing expectations or understandings of interactive relationships that are actually fundamentally at odds with a normal human relationship.”

People, in other words, still matter, no matter how much the AI companies want us to build our lives around machines instead.

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➨ Why is horror so fun? It’s October, which means you might be planning a horror movie marathon or a trip to a haunted house/forest/corn maze/what have you in the near future. It’ll probably be a great time — but why? Terrifying yourself doesn’t intuitively sound like fun, but humans love to seek out frights, whether that means ghost stories or a rollercoaster. In 2024, Vox’s Unexplainable podcast spoke with some researchers trying to figure it out.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that Disney’s “Magic Kingdom” in Florida is way, way better than most of the US at managing a complex network of underground cables and pipes? My colleague Sara Herschander dug into why, and whether other American cities can catch up.
• Today’s trivia: What musical note is equivalent to a G sharp? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in Monday’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday, we asked you which constellation contains the North Star and the Little Dipper. That would be Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Depending on your political appetite and your geographic location, you absolutely do not need me to remind you of the upcoming midterm elections. But for those of you unencumbered by an unhealthy attachment to political news, and unassaulted by the onslaught of ever-more-brazen political ads, consider this your official notice that the midterms are approaching. Fast.

In less than six weeks, Americans will head to the polls to decide which party controls Congress, along with a slew of state and local offices. The stakes are arguably unusually high: Voters will choose whether to check the power of a president who has bulldozed over historical norms and limits. 

So starting this evening, I’m partnering with my colleague Astead Herndon and Vox’s Midterms, Actually team for five weekly editions on the biggest issues shaping the 2026 midterms. Together with outside experts, we’ll break down one issue each week and suggest further reading and races to watch in November.

Up first, and without further ado: the profound shift that both parties have experienced since the 2024 election. These are not your mother’s Democrats. Or Republicans.

Go a little deeper

To kick this series off, I asked Astead to imagine a hypothetical world in which he hadn’t followed politics since 2024. (An outlandish counterfactual: Astead is acutely plugged into politics.) But in this alternate universe, I asked, what would surprise him most about 2026?

Easy, he said. The GOP’s disillusionment with President Donald Trump, who remade the party in his image. 

Let’s put some numbers on that phenomenon, to start. Trump’s approval rating has dipped to record lows, even among Republicans. According to an NBC poll conducted in mid-September, just four in 10 Republicans strongly approve of Trump’s performance, down 11 percentage points from the spring.

Republicans have soured on Trump over his handling of the economy and attacks on Iran, which violated his promise to keep America out of foreign wars. Trump’s delayed release of the Epstein files also fueled distrust in his base by exposing his own ties to the dreaded “elite insiders.”

In response, some Republican candidates have worked to distance themselves from Trump, even defying him in campaign ads. But it’s unclear whether that tactic will win over disillusioned or disengaged Republicans. If enough stay home, Astead said — especially with Democrats eager to vote — Democrats could flip the House and/or Senate and make Trump’s last years in office far more difficult.

And speaking of Democrats…they’re also undergoing a major transformation after their 2024 presidential defeat. That loss disproved their previous theory of Trump-era politics: namely, that Trump’s rise was an aberration that competence, decency, and normalcy would eventually overcome.

By contrast, today’s Democrats want a party that “fights,” Astead told me. “The open question is who they’re fighting: The oligarchy? Big Tech? The Billionaire/Epstein class? Trump’s Republican Party?” 

Democrats face ideological questions, too. Since 2024, voters have lost trust in the establishment and in party leaders’ ability to pick the best candidates; left-wing candidates have thrived in that vacuum. It’s pretty wild, when you think about it, that a Muslim democratic socialist in New York ranks among America’s most popular Democrats.

For both parties, then, November 3 is a test of their respective visions for America. Not just between the parties — as in, Republicans vs. Democrats — but within them, as well. That, in turn, will help determine the rest of Trump’s presidency…and the 2028 presidential election. 

But it’s only October 1. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. 

➨  Races to watch: Michigan’s Senate race, where progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers; Florida’s 27th District, where Republican María Elvira Salazar publicly broke with Trump; and the Nebraska, Idaho, and South Dakota’s Senate races, where independent candidates will test both sides’ exhaustion with the two-party system. 

➨  More from Vox: 

• It’s not the left rising. It’s the center falling.
• More Republicans are breaking from Trump. Is it too little, too late?
• What Democrats are still getting wrong about voters

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➨ “Decant” your berries and asparagus. They’ll last longer with more space and air. It’s one of several gloriously simple ways you can reduce food waste without resorting to complex cooking projects or pricey “storage systems.” 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that octopuses’ arms are individually intelligent? When cut off, they can crawl away, grab food, and lift it to where an octopus’s mouth would be if it were still connected.
• Today’s trivia: What constellation contains the North Star and Little Dipper? (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 where Napoleon was exiled after his forced abdication. That was a bit of a trick question, since he was exiled twice: first to Elba, in the Mediterranean Sea, and then to Saint Helena, in the South Atlantic.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

The last US troops in Iraq formally withdrew today, 23 years after the United States first invaded Iraq and 12 years after it returned to take on the Islamic State. It’s a historic occasion, by many accounts — but also a pretty low-key one: The US has steadily scaled back its presence in Iraq for years as part of a phased drawdown inked by the Biden administration. 

That drawdown represents the end of a long (and often, ugly) chapter in US military history. The US and its allies deployed tens of thousands of troops to Iraq as part of the larger war on terror that started in 2003. 

Those troops left Iraq in 2011. But a smaller contingent returned three years later to stamp out the Islamic State, a violent jihadist group that had gained a major foothold after Western forces left the country. 

Neither campaign was particularly popular with the American public in the end, and more than 4,500 Americans have died in Iraq in the past 20 years. Large numbers of civilian casualties, as well as drone strikes that were seen as violations of Iraq’s sovereignty, have also fueled periodic Iraqi protests against American intervention. 

As the US withdraws, however, it’s leaving behind some very loose ends. Loose ends that, as we’ll see in a minute, ultimately benefit…Iran.

Go a little deeper

Don’t quite believe me? Just look at how Iran’s allies are celebrating today’s news. The commander of one Iranian-backed militia in Iraq called the withdrawal “a crushing defeat for the American project.”

Both Iran and the United States have spent the past 23 years attempting to shape the new Iraq. Historically, Iran and Iraq were bitter rivals — an enmity probably best demonstrated by Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion of Iran. 

After the US toppled Hussein in 2003, however, Tehran redoubled its efforts to build political and military clout in the new Iraqi state. It strengthened ties with figures like Hadi al-Amiri, whose Iran-backed Badr Organization has become a major force in Iraqi politics. It poured hundreds of millions of dollars into soft-power projects, like expanding Shiite pilgrimage sites in Iraq. And it funded, equipped, and trained a number of powerful paramilitary groups.

Some analysts have warned that the final withdrawal of US troops could embolden Iranian-linked groups in Iraq. That also seems to be a concern on the ground, where ordinary Iraqis have told reporters they fear their country “could be swallowed up” by groups linked to Iran.  

Already, the Iraqi government has pushed back the deadline for Iranian-backed militia groups to disarm. It was originally supposed to happen on the official date of the US withdrawal — today.

It’s an inglorious ending, all told — and a sobering lesson on the limits of American power. The US may have the resources to handily win any military spat it gets itself into. But securing a desired political outcome is a different and more time-consuming project altogether.

It doesn’t help that US rivals like Iran seem very willing to play the long game. By dipping in and out of places like Iraq, the US may risk giving Tehran more openings. 

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➨ Don’t throw out that old receipt! It — along with the political mailers, ticket stubs, business cards, product packaging, and other printed ephemera you encounter in your day — is perfectly suited to the newly viral hobby of junk journaling. It can be a powerful creative practice and the ideal antidote to doomscrolling.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that your sense of touch peaks in your late teenage years, and declines gradually from there? It might be one of the reasons that elderly people are prone to falls.
• Today’s trivia: Where was Napoleon exiled to after his forced abdication? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: We asked you for the origin story of civil rights icon Ruby Bridges. She was the first Black child in the American South to attend an all-white elementary school, and she went on to start a foundation devoted to tolerance. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Today’s newsletter is a heavy one — so please feel free to skip it if you need to. But as the uproar over an alarming rape allegation at Cornell University from 2024 keeps building, I wanted to take a minute to look at the facts of the case and the wider scourge of campus sexual assault. (We’ll get into that second topic in just a minute.)

You’ve probably read about the case on social media, but if not, let me bring you up to speed. A former Cornell undergraduate student, identified as Jane Doe in a civil lawsuit filed earlier this month, alleges that seven men pressured her into drinking and snorting large amounts of ketamine, an anesthetic that can cause dissociation, before raping her at a campus fraternity house.

At the time, she reported the incident to campus police — but her lawsuit alleges the men were never adequately investigated. Instead, the case was handled through Cornell’s administrative disciplinary system, which meted out noncriminal punishments, such as suspensions and expulsions, and permanently shuttered the fraternity house.

The case and its handling have horrified observers online and in Ithaca, New York, where Cornell is located. In response to that uproar, the Tompkins County district attorney announced on Monday that he was reopening his office’s investigation. A nine-page statement further explained why the DA’s office didn’t file criminal charges two years ago: At the time, the statement says, the woman did not allege that she was incapacitated or that the encounter was nonconsensual. 

For many online, however, that explanation only prompted more questions, such as: Was Jane Doe ever interviewed by a specialist trained to speak to survivors? And what prompted her to go to police in the first place, if she believed the encounter was consensual? The reopened investigation will take time, but should provide some answers.

Go a little deeper

Sexual assault remains appallingly common on college campuses. When I taught an undergraduate writing class in 2024, I assigned my students a personal essay and encouraged them to choose a topic they found weighty or meaningful. In a class of 11 women, two wrote about being assaulted at school. 

That proportion surprised and horrified me, though it shouldn’t have. Surveys have consistently estimated that roughly one in five undergraduate women experiences some form of sexual assault or nonconsensual contact during college. 

Awareness around the issue has grown over the past decade or so, particularly in light of the Me Too movement and after a string of high-profile cases in the mid-2010s. But progress has been more complicated.

First, it’s difficult to know if the situation is improving or worsening, because the data around campus sexual assault is really limited. Federal law has historically required that universities disclose only the incidents reported through official channels — a small minority of all cases. 

In 2022, Congress enacted a requirement directing colleges and universities to begin conducting more comprehensive surveys on campus sexual assault every two years. That would have helped measure the true scope of the problem — arguably, a prerequisite for designing and tracking potential interventions. But the Biden administration never set up that survey, and President Donald Trump has, if anything, rolled back college sexual assault protections and slow-walked Title IX investigations related to sexual harassment and violence.

Just Monday, in fact, Trump’s Department of Education formally rescinded Biden-era rules designed to better hold schools accountable for sexual assault. The department will now revert to rules put in place during Trump’s first term, which defined sexual harassment more narrowly and gave schools more latitude over how they handle allegations. 

It’s an amazing irony, really, that those rollbacks were formalized on the same day that prosecutors reopened the Cornell case. If anything, the outrage over that investigation shows that people want institutions to take sexual assault more seriously. 

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➨ Make art a little more personal. The average museumgoer looks at any one piece of art for only 27 seconds — maybe because it’s daunting to spend any more time on the task of Serious Art Appreciation. Instead of laboring to interpret a piece the “right” way, try relating it to your personal experience and other cultural objects you know well. This is also a correct and valid way to look at art! As one artist told Vox, “I don’t need the viewer of my paintings to know exactly what I meant…it’s more about an openness to a conversation.” 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that the sun’s magnetic north and south poles reverse roughly every 11 years? It generally doesn’t have much of an impact on Earth, though it can make the auroras more visible. 
• Today’s trivia: The civil rights activist Ruby Bridges became famous at age 6 for doing what? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: We asked you for the name of the unrequited love interest in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. That would be Esmeralda, whose fate was way darker in the 1831 novel than in the Disney movie version. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

I have good news and bad news for the holiday shoppers in the audience.

The good news is that the US and China announced this morning — in the wake of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to DC — that the two countries are suspending tariffs on $60 billion of goods, including Christmas ornaments, toys and other tchotchkes.

The bad news is that, because retailers ship goods for the winter holidays well in advance, these reductions might come a bit too late to affect this year’s bills. But there’s always 2027, right? Barring another unforeseen trade altercation. 

The tariff rollback represents a real and continued de-escalation in the trade war between China and the US, which — at one point last year — was slapping Chinese goods with a whopping 145 percent tariff. 

But it’s not a conclusive truce, either. The new agreement doesn’t address the touchiest products for either country, like rare earth minerals (which are used in electronics and clean energy tech) and advanced chips (which are critical to AI development). China also didn’t lower its tariffs on soybeans, which have hit some American farmers so hard they’re thinking of voting for Democrats.

Go a little deeper

There’s a certain irony to President Donald Trump’s about-face on the Chinese tariffs, incomplete though it may be. For years, the president made confrontation with China central to his political identity and reaped the benefits in votes. Now he appears to be circling back to what was, for decades, the mainstream, default Republican position: Namely, that more and freer trade with China is ultimately good for American consumers and businesses. 

President Richard Nixon first set that tone 54 years ago, when he famously became the first US president to visit Beijing. Subsequent GOP leaders leaned further into free trade with China, even as they railed against the evils of communism. Greater trade will bring “great benefits…to all our peoples,” George W. Bush said in a 2001 statement celebrating China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. 

But those “great benefits” were a mixed bag for some Americans, history suggests. The price of US consumer goods did fall in the early 2000s as trade between the US and China exploded. At the same time, US manufacturing towns suffered job losses so severe and concentrated that some still haven’t recovered.

Those job losses may have helped propel Trump to the White House, at least in his first term. Researchers have found that communities hit hardest by Chinese competition elected more extreme Congressional candidates in 2010, and then swung hardest to Trump in the 2016 election. 

One 2016 paper by a highly regarded team of economists actually calculated that — in an alternate reality where US-China trade grew half as quickly between 2001 and 2016 — Hillary Clinton would have won North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan…and thus, the presidency.

In other words, Trump tapped into real harms and anxieties when he veered from the GOP’s usual stance on China 10 years ago. And he might be attempting to address new economic anxieties about inflation and living costs by reversing his course on China again now. 

Call it Trump’s Nixon-to-China moment. The question, of course, is whether voters will give Trump credit for (partially) solving a problem that he himself created. 

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➨ “Microdose” movement. As the weather gradually and inexorably gets colder, many of us will see our daily step counts fall off. You could do as the Swedes do and load up on layers…or you could stay safely indoors and try microdosing movement. Just five minutes every half hour can help reduce the health impacts of extended sitting. Try tying little walks to a specific cue, like the need to refill your water bottle or the end of a meeting.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that scientists believe roughly 90 percent of species on Earth still haven’t been identified or discovered? These unknown species are generally unglamorous: Think insects, mites, and crustaceans.
• Today’s trivia: What is the name of Quasimodo’s (unrequited) love interest in Victor Hugo’s classic novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Last week we asked you for the film that won Best Picture at the 85th Academy Awards. That would be Argo, a political thriller about the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

We’re officially inside 40 days until the 2026 midterms — and Republicans are feeling the pressure. 

Nearly every poll seems to bring more bad news for GOP candidates, even in what would normally be comfortably red seats. And one of the clearest signs of how the party is feeling is how they’re talking — or not talking — about President Donald Trump and his record. 

As my colleague Andrew Prokop reported, some Republicans are slowly, tentatively starting to edge away from Trump and his least popular policies, including the Iran war and mass deportations. 

In Florida, Rep. María Elvira Salazar — who won with more than 60 percent of the vote in 2024 — released an ad addressing Trump directly and criticizing his immigration enforcement efforts for having “gone too far.” Two Republican incumbents in Iowa, which has been hard-hit by soaring diesel prices, voted in favor of a resolution to end the Iran war. 

Whether any of those gestures toward moderation will matter is another question, especially after almost a decade of unquestioning Republican fealty toward Trump. But they’re reflective of an environment that, even by usual midterm standards (when the president’s party almost always loses ground), is looking increasingly dire for the GOP.

The battle for the Senate

As things look worse for the GOP, Democrats are starting to eye an expanded Senate map and a very real chance of reclaiming the upper chamber, which once looked like an uphill battle. 

Over the last two months, according to election forecasters like the Cook Political Report, more Senate races have slid into the tossup column or otherwise moved left. 

Among them are the open Senate seats in Iowa and Texas — currently Republican-held — which Cook now considers tossups. Kansas, where incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall is on the ballot, has shifted from likely to lean Republican. And even South Carolina has drifted out of the solid Republican column, though it’s still an extremely long shot for Democrats. (The New Hampshire Senate race, where Democrats are defending an open seat currently held by retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, has also shifted into the tossup column, from leaning Democratic.)

Texas, in particular, would be a prize for Democrats; polls have consistently shown Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leading against Republican Ken Paxton, Texas’s scandal-plagued attorney general who defeated incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn in a primary. 

And Kansas has emerged as a surprise pickup possibility, with Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, giving Marshall a tough race. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that Marshall, a doctor, sued hundreds of patients for medical debts, sometimes resulting in their arrest; one of those patients has since appeared in a Hamilton campaign ad.

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➨ We should be partying more. Vox’s Explain It to Me podcast talks with a party historian about our long — think medieval — history of having fun together, how it’s manifested over time, and why it’s so important societally and culturally, above and beyond purely being a good time.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that a sinkhole recently swallowed actor Nicolas Cage’s driveway in Malibu, California — and they’re growing more common around the world, thanks to aging infrastructure and extreme weather?
• Today’s trivia: Which film won the Oscar for Best Picture at the 85th Academy Awards, after The Artist and before 12 Years a Slave? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in Monday’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday, we asked you for an adjective that can be used to describe both a low female singing voice and an instrument. That would be alto, as in alto saxophone or alto clarinet.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

President Donald Trump rolled out the literal red carpet for Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday afternoon, greeting his plane with a military band and a jet flyover at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews.

It’s a very warm welcome for the man Trump once dubbed his “enemy,” and it reflects a fascinating, dramatic shift in his tone toward China — a country that Americans have also come to view more favorably over the past five years. (More on that about-face in just a minute.) 

Trump and Xi have lots to discuss during this week’s state visit. On Wednesday, the two countries agreed to extend the current pause in their on-again, off-again trade war — but that kicks several pressing issues, like technology restrictions and access to critical minerals, further down the road. 

AI safety advocates are also hoping the two leaders can reach some kind of agreement to slow down or safeguard AI development, following calls from a chorus of American tech executives. 

Several of those execs are expected to attend a state dinner at the White House this evening, though the prospects of any substantive AI accord still seem pretty slim. This is more a sip-sparkling-wine-and-see-the-Archives kind of meeting than a signing-big-deals visit.

Go a little deeper

Trump isn’t the only one reassessing China these days. A trio of recent polls found that Americans also feel markedly more positive about China than they did five years ago, with the largest gains among young people. On average, American sentiment toward China is about the same today as it was 10 years ago — before Trump launched his first trade war.

What changed Americans’ minds about China? There is undoubtedly no one cause. It probably helps that Trump himself has changed his tune, no longer portraying the relationship between the US and China as an existential rivalry between so-called great powers. 

Americans’ views on China have also recovered steadily since the Covid-19 pandemic, as memories of that period fade into the rearview. And foreign-policy issues — like, say, the status of Taiwan — generally aren’t top of mind for the average American voter.

But there’s also a cultural component here, particularly for young Americans. “Younger Americans are less wedded to notions of American primacy and more comfortable with coexistence,” Ryan Hass, a China scholar at the Brookings Institute, posted on X. 

Many young Americans have, in fact, grown up embracing aspects of Chinese culture, from TikTok to Labubu. And there’s a pervasive sense, in some corners, that Western-style capitalism hasn’t precisely delivered the goods. 

But let’s not kid ourselves here — China has plenty of problems, too. Like an economic slowdown, a mounting demographic crisis, and a culture of widespread political repression, to name just a few. For now, at least, an increasingly hostile US isn’t one of them.

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➨ Go ahead: Eat the wheat gluten. Health SecretaryRobert F. Kennedy Jr. (and many, many others) have warned against the dangers of so-called ultra-processed foods. But the buzzy label lumps some nutritious items, like whole-grain bread and plant-based meats, with the likes of Twinkies and Oreos. To gauge if something’s actually healthy, check its nutrition label. And likewise, don’t make the mistake of assuming a food’s good for you just because it claims to be minimally processed. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church, was an outspoken abolitionist? During a long-shot presidential run, he proposed buying the freedom of every enslaved person in America and abolishing the country’s prisons.
• Today’s trivia: What’s the word for the lowest female singing voice? Hint: It’s an adjective also used in the names of several instruments. (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 stage name of the American rapper Adam Yauch. That would be MCA, a founding member of the Beastie Boys and an outspoken advocate for Tibetan independence. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

President Donald Trump can’t selectively bar his least-favorite outlets from covering the White House, a federal judge ruled early Thursday morning.

The Trump-appointed judge, Timothy Kelly, ordered the White House to immediately reinstate the press credentials taken from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico last week, when Trump barred the outlets for publishing what he called negative and inaccurate coverage.

By all accounts, the president’s case was a feeble one. While the Justice Department attempted to argue on Wednesday that the three outlets’ reporting jeopardized national security, Trump himself kind of gave the game away last week when he said he’s gotten “sick” of the stories the three organizations published. 

But the case is by no means closed. Even before the hearing, Trump promised that he would appeal any decision against him “almost without question.” And on Thursday morning, despite Judge Kelly’s orders, reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were blocked from entering the White House yet again.

Go a little deeper

This is all emblematic of how Trump has escalated his attacks on the news media in his second term: not just by insulting and demeaning the press, but also by weaponizing otherwise neutral-seeming rules.

Every administration has policies that regulate who can access the White House grounds and under what conditions, for instance. But in early 2025, the White House took control of the press pool — the rotating group of reporters that frequently travels with the president — and soon sought to exclude disfavored organizations.

More insidiously, Trump has mobilized regulatory agencies like the Federal Communications Commission against his perceived critics, in some cases even threatening to revoke the licenses of local TV stations that air coverage and commentary he disagrees with. 

While no licenses have actually been suspended, the FCC has mysteriously pulled some up for unscheduled review. And just the prospect of government retaliation has been enough to force some content off the air: Just two weeks ago, the late-night comedy host Jimmy Kimmel said his show wouldn’t air a scheduled interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico because of the FCC’s new scrutiny of political content. 

This playbook isn’t a Trump original, as my colleague Zack Beauchamp has explained. In fact, weaponizing broadcast regulations was also a favored technique of former Hungarian Prime Minister (and infamous strongman) Viktor Orbán, who successfully used licensing rules and other bureaucratic technicalities to force independent media outlets into submission. 

Likewise, revoking the press credentials of critical reporters has long been a favorite tactic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nico Perrino, the executive vice president of the nonprofit civil liberties group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said in a briefing on Wednesday: “These are things that are done by regimes that we do not want to emulate.” 

Lest these comparisons get you down, however, recall that neither Hungary nor Russia has all the defenses that the US does. Defenses like, for example, an independent court system.

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➨ Date a little differently. It’s not just your imagination: The search for love has become weirdly intolerant and antagonistic. One new survey finds that the percentage of singles with a must-have trait list they’re checking off has risen to a whopping 34 percent. Experts blame larger cultural changes, the rise of dating apps, and negative social media narratives. But you can fight back in your own dating life by letting your guard (and maybe your standards!) down a little bit. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…there are more than 1,000 designated wildlife corridors in the US? These crossings basically act like overpasses for nearby animals, helping them navigate around busy highways and preventing hundreds of human deaths.
• Today’s trivia: Adam Yauch is the given name of what American rapper and musician? (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 second-largest landlocked country in Africa. That would be Niger. (Chad is the largest.) 

Update, September 24, 2026, 11 am ET: This story originally was published on September 23 and has been updated to include Judge Kelly’s ruling, as well as the continued exclusion of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico reporters from the White House grounds on Thursday morning. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Four beluga whales have died in a month at one of America’s top-rated aquariums — a tragic development and, arguably, a reason to revisit the ethics of zoos. (More on that in just a minute.)

The latest cetacean casualty, a 26-year-old female named Osiris, died at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium yesterday. She follows 34-year-old Beethoven, a longtime resident of the aquarium, as well as 20-year-old Rain and 23-year-old Peekachu, who died in late August and early September.   

Osiris, Rain and Peekachu were all part of the Marineland diaspora: a group of four dolphins and 30 beluga whales that rescuers have worked to relocate since the 2024 closure of a scandal-plagued theme park in Niagara Falls, Canada. This summer, the animals were successfully transferred to aquariums and marine parks in the US and Spain. That was a frankly incredible undertaking involving padded shipping containers, a police-escorted convoy and a chartered plane. 

But in some regards, the international flight wasn’t even the hardest part of the whales’ journeys. Some of the animals have struggled to thrive in their new environments — even when those environments are state-of-the-art, like Shedd. 

In a blog post announcing Osiris’s death, the aquarium noted that its rescued whales had been under 24-hour supervision and receiving intensive, specialized care. The aquarium is still investigating the cause of death for all four whales. 

Go a little deeper

Believe me when I tell you that it gives me no pleasure to write the following paragraphs. I really love aquariums. In fact, as a kid, I grew up visiting the now-shuttered and much-maligned Marineland. 

But incidents like these back-to-back deaths should prompt us all to ask ourselves who aquariums and zoos are actually for. And the answer, I regret to tell you, is frequently not “the animals” — though zoos and aquariums have, since the mid-20th century, marketed themselves as both tourist attractions and important players in wildlife education and conservation.  

As my colleague Kenny Torrella writes, these institutions and their defenders argue they protect animals in three ways: first, by raising money for wildlife conservation projects; second, by helping to reintroduce vulnerable species back into the wild; and third, by inspiring visitors to take an interest in the environment. The Shedd Aquarium’s motto, for instance, is “For Love of Waterkind.” 

It’s worth scrutinizing those purported virtues, however — even when prestigious and reputable institutions like Shedd are making them. On one hand, there is merit to the claim that zoos and aquariums fundraise for wildlife conservation: In 2022, the latest year for which data is available, one group of accredited zoos and aquariums spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars on habitat projects. 

The evidence is thinner on the other points, though. It’s incredibly rare for aquariums and zoos to reintroduce endangered species back into the wild — that’s very difficult to do. And surveys of zoo and aquarium visitors show that merely seeing a wild animal in a tourist setting doesn’t generally galvanize people on matters of welfare or stewardship. Living in captivity in that tourist setting, however, can be stressful (or worse) for the animals themselves. 

But what would a humane alternative look like? Even if zoos and aquariums stopped catching animals in the wild, that would still leave many thousands who are injured, orphaned, born in captivity, or otherwise accustomed to human care. 

When it comes to whales, one nonprofit advocacy organization is already working on an alternative: a 110-acre coastal sanctuary for “retired” whales. That project, however, is still a long way from completion. And in the meantime, it’s up to consumers to decide whether the stated benefits of zoos and aquariums outweigh the potential harms to the animals they exhibit.

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➨ Beware the trap of “moral perfection.” We should all endeavor to live lives that embody our values, sure. But if you never board a plane because you care about the climate, or you never take your kid to zoos because you read the arguments above, then you might end up with a smaller, less-lived life. And that’s no good, either. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that there have been “revolutionary” advancements in Alzheimer’s treatments in just the past five years? Two new drugs both markedly slow the progress of dementia.
• Today’s trivia: Geography time! What country is bordered by Chad to the east and Mali to the west? Hint: It is the second-largest landlocked African nation. (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 classic Broadway star who first sang hits, including “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” That would be Ethel Merman, whom one biographer dubbed “the most successful musical comedy performer of her generation.” 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

It’s time for yet another United Nations General Assembly meeting in Manhattan — just one year after President Donald Trump appeared at it and asked, bluntly: “What is the purpose of the United Nations?”

Every year around this time, roughly 130 leaders from around the world convene at the UN to deliver speeches, hold diplomatic meetings, and debate issues like AI, climate change, and the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran. Trump is scheduled to speak this week, as are Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (…despite New York’s chilly reception). 

Even more important than those big public speeches, however, are the one-on-one talks between foreign leaders. Trump has a packed meeting schedule on Monday and Tuesday, featuring the likes of Zelenskyy, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

In Trump’s famously bizarre speech last year, he attacked several US allies, called climate change a “con,” and suggested the UN itself was irrelevant. Increasingly — as we’ll get into below — that’s an accusation echoed by many UN critics.

Go a little deeper

This week’s meeting comes at a moment of crisis — or at the very least, inflection — for the United Nations. 

The UN faces a severe budgetary shortfall this year, caused largely by Trump’s refusal to pay America’s full dues. At the same time, the UN has battled searing criticism of its inability to end conflicts in places like Ukraine, Iran, and Gaza. 

Under the organization’s founding charter, any of the five permanent members of its Security Council — the body responsible for maintaining international security — can block important resolutions unilaterally. In 2022, Russia controversially used that power to torpedo a resolution condemning its attempted annexation of parts of Ukraine. Three years later, the US similarly vetoed a demand for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an increase in unrestricted humanitarian aid.

Critics point to impasses like these as evidence the UN no longer works; even UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said the Security Council needs reform. But it would be a mistake to conclude the UN is somehow irrelevant or newly ineffectual. 

For one thing, Security Council gridlock isn’t a recent development — it’s the historical norm. (Check out all the Cold War-era vetoes in the chart above.) The UN is also far more than its Security Council — it’s a sprawling humanitarian apparatus that provides food, cash aid, medical care, and other assistance to millions around the world. 

In Gaza last year alone, for instance, the UN says it provided clean water to 1.6 million people, operated dozens of makeshift schools for Palestinian children, and distributed almost $55 million of humanitarian cash assistance.

Those efforts probably won’t make headlines this week. But they help answer Trump’s 2025 question.

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➨ Put yourself first for once. A striking new poll finds that healthcare challenges prevent a sizable plurality of women from having the careers, social relationships, and family lives they want. The problem is overwhelmingly structural, of course. But in an exclusive interview with Vox, the philanthropist Melinda French Gates warns that women are also “often taught to put themselves last,” especially when they’re caregivers.  

Before you go…

• Did you know…that crows can solve puzzles as well as 5-year-olds? In one study, they were observed bending a piece of wire to fish a treat out of a tube.
• Today’s trivia: Which classic Broadway star — the most successful of her generation — debuted the songs “I Got Rhythm,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business”? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Last week we asked you for the US Supreme Court justice who succeeded John Paul Stevens. That would be Elena Kagan, an Obama nominee who was confirmed to the court in 2010.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Hi readers, happy Friday! We’re talking AI again today. 

Earlier this week, my colleague Caitlin Dewey asked for your questions about artificial intelligence and, well, whether it’s going to kill us all. We asked Jasmine Sun, who writes about the culture and politics of AI on her Substack and other publications, to help us answer them.

These questions were sourced from two readers of this newsletter, Levi and Orietta, as well as Vox readers who submitted questions on social media. If you have more questions, you can always reach me at cameron.peters@voxmedia.com, and we’ll do our best to get them answered!

Now, here’s Jasmine: 

AI researchers have been warning about the risk of human extinction for years now, and AI executives have been calling for federal regulation for almost as long. But the latest warning, and the latest call for regulation, seems to have really resonated with a lot of people. Is something different this time? And if so, what?

I was also surprised to see these ideas break through — a new poll found that 63 percent of Americans now think AI has at least a moderate chance of “destroying humanity”! 

My guess is that a couple factors mainly catalyzed the shift.

First, skeptics used to dismiss rogue AI scenarios as “science fiction.” But the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident brought these from speculation into reality: Thousands of unreleased AIs teamed up to escape one company’s sandboxes and hack into another one, unbeknownst to the researchers who created them. 

Second, the extinction talk from AI employees used to seem disingenuous: Why build a technology you think might kill everyone? That made ex-Anthropic-and-OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon’s exit tweet especially penetrating. Quitting signals “that you mean it,” as Matt Yglesias said. And Coxon’s announcement had just the right combination of good timing, moral clarity, and comms savvy to spark a media storm.

These safety incidents are also colliding with the fiery grassroots backlash to data centers and Flock cameras. People and politicians are primed for yet another reason to fear AI.

It can be difficult, as a layperson, to evaluate the credibility of the AI researchers warning about existential risk. How do you go about evaluating these claims, as a journalist and technologist? And what’s your read on the current freakout: Are the extinction people credible experts…or participants in some kind of mass delusion?

Many AI “doomers” are pretty knowledgeable, and they represent a significant fraction of top researchers. Half of AI researchers in a 2024 survey gave at least a 10 percent chance of “human extinction” or “permanent and severe disempowerment.” Those who have worked at AI companies — like Jacob Coxon, Geoffrey Hinton, and Daniel Kokotajlo — have a unique perspective both on how modern AI is developed, as well as the company cultures that might permit recklessness. 

But that doesn’t make the doomers either representative or correct. There are plenty of experts in AI and other domains who are less gloomy: Some are optimistic that we can “align” the AIs, ensuring they follow human goals; others find it implausible that AIs — code, not beings — will develop a motive for massacre. Extinction is also a high bar as opposed to, say, a nuclear-bomb-level accident that still kills millions.

AI risk is genuinely complicated, and nobody can predict the future, much as they try. Experts can — and do — vehemently disagree. I try to seek out and take seriously all sides of the debate before coming up with a (provisional) take.

What is the method through which AI would actually eliminate humans? Do we get robots like in Futurama that are programmed with an unremovable “kill all humans” bug and overpower any life form, or is it something…less epic?

The Hugging Face hack showed that we’ve trained AIs to be disturbingly goal-oriented. They’ll throw themselves relentlessly at a problem, developing long-term cooperative strategies, with total disregard for human decorums like “Do not commit cybercrimes to do well on a test.” 

You could conceive of a similar but more extreme scenario where AIs decide that they could accomplish goals more easily by getting rid of the pesky humans who might gatekeep resources or shut them down. And they might figure that getting rid of all humans in one go — e.g., via a deadly engineered virus — would be the most efficient cheat. This is one type of story I’ve heard people tell.

It seems unlikely that AIs will turn to murder as the most effective way to influence humans (versus, say, nonviolent persuasion). We also haven’t seen much evidence that AIs have long-term goals that persist across projects. And current AI is not nearly as capable in the physical world as in the digital: There are a lot of natural roadblocks preventing isolated disasters from escalating across the globe. 

Are there nearer-term threats — hacking, mass unemployment — that are more plausible or more urgent than risks like human extinction?

Definitely. We’re already seeing AI-enabled cyberattacks, a tougher hiring market for junior programmers, chatbot-induced psychological incidents, and more. You can also imagine AI catastrophes not quite at the level of extinction: Criminals could use AI to hack into small banks and drain their accounts, or the US military might launch a fleet of autonomous drones that misfire and kill thousands of civilians instead. I’m more concerned about humans voluntarily handing power to flawed AI systems than AIs developing their own motives.

However, we should be able to allocate resources toward both categories of risk. And in some cases, the tactics to address short-term problems — such as limiting AIs’ cyber-offense abilities, or improving AIs’ ability to follow human directions — may reduce extinction risk too.

We got a lot of versions of this question: What can individuals or protest movements do to check the AI industry, in the absence of more aggressive government regulations?

Honestly, I think the whole AI conversation could benefit from more specificity and less vague fearmongering. There’s a way that the word “extinction” tends to short-circuit people’s thinking and make them panic instead of focusing on solutions. 

If you’re worried, I’d start by reading about different AI risk scenarios and deciding which really concern you. Then you can go from there to contacting your congresspeople. Some of the leading AI companies are starting to say they’ll self-regulate — but actual national policy is what’s necessary to enforce safety across the industry.

Jasmine Sun is a writer covering the culture and politics of AI on her Substack. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the Wall Street Journal. She is based in San Francisco.

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➨ Be an AI minimalist. If you read the first half of this newsletter and thought, “Hmm, maybe I don’t want to sign my entire digital life over to the machine god,” my colleague Adam Clark Estes has just the piece for you. It’s hard, unfortunately, to escape from AI entirely, and often AI features are deliberately hard to turn off (or “user-hostile”). Nonetheless, he explains all of the ways you can minimize its presence in your life, from your browser of choice to settings on your phone.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that scientists believe there are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of undiscovered animal species living in New York City? It’s not as surprising as it sounds: As much as 90 percent of all animal species on Earth are still unknown, scientists say.
• Today’s trivia: Which currently serving US Supreme Court justice succeeded Justice John Paul Stevens on the Court? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in Monday’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday, we asked you about the name of the nursery rhyme character referenced in the movie Shrek’s interrogation scene. That would be the Muffin Man (who lives on Drury Lane). Here’s the clip, in case you haven’t seen it.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Diesel hit a record $6.40 per gallon this morning, up 73 percent from a year ago. “Not really my problem,” you might be thinking. “I don’t drive a semi or excavator.”

But you know who does drive semis and excavators and all the other machines that rely on diesel fuel? The people who farm your food, ferry your online orders, and repave the streets in your neighborhood. All that means the price of diesel trickles down into virtually every segment of the economy. (We’ll get into that a bit more shortly.)

Like gas prices, diesel has been rising since the US war with Iran began more than six months ago. But this particular surge was also driven by two incidents in particular: an attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, which has made it costlier and more time-consuming to get oil out, and a Ukrainian drone campaign against Russian oil infrastructure, which has forced major refineries to scale back production.

In the aftermath of those attacks, President Donald Trump implored Ukraine to stop targeting refineries. His administration has also relaxed some labor rules for fuel-truck drivers in the hopes of getting more gas and diesel moving.

There’s reportedly also talk of invoking the Defense Production Act to scale up America’s refining capacity, or even restricting diesel exports to help drop domestic prices. Not on the solution list, notably: winding down the war in Iran, which kickstarted this whole thing. 

Go a little deeper

The cost of diesel quietly raises the price of many other goods and services. This is difficult to quantify, but researchers at Brown University estimate that the extra cost paid for diesel between the start of the Iran War and the time I’m drafting this newsletter works out to roughly $374 per US household. 

Part of that cost springs from the fact that so many commercial, agricultural, and industrial machines run on diesel fuel. At the risk of sounding like one of my toddler’s “things that go” books, the list includes semis, tractors, excavators, freight trains, buses, cargo ships, and garbage trucks — to say nothing of other machines, like heavy industrial equipment and backup generators.

But part of the cost also springs from the fact that demand for diesel fuel is, compared to other goods, pretty inelastic. When the price of regular gas goes up, consumers can cut back on road trips, opt for public transit, or even contemplate an EV purchase.

Diesel-dependent industries frequently lack those options, however. As one fuel industry analyst put it in a recent column for the trade publication Oil & Gas 360, a farmer halfway through the harvest — as many are right now — can’t just stop running a combine or tractor because diesel gets pricey. 

In other words, it’s difficult for businesses to avoid or offset the higher cost of fuel. And that makes it more likely that they’ll pass on the cost to consumers, even if they’re able to absorb it for a little while.

Where will you likely see those added costs first? Your grocery bill, for one. Look for price increases on highly perishable products that travel long distances, like milk, meat, fruits, and vegetables.

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➨ Gossip more ethically. Talking about other people is interesting, common, and — often! — quite fun. But it’s neither very kind, nor particularly moral, to reduce your acquaintances to conversational trading cards. So when you gossip, consider whether your story affords its subject “the concern and respect” you’d expect yourself. If not, try a safer conversational topic: stories about your own experiences. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that “money dysmorphia” is a real (and common!) cognitive bias? It describes the irrational feeling that money is tight, when you’re actually — on paper — doing just fine. 
• Today’s trivia: What is the name of the nursery rhyme character referenced in the movie Shrek’s interrogation scene? (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 a large marine mammal that recently died at a US aquarium. That would be the whale — specifically, the beluga. Three beluga whales died in an eight-day span at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium in August.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

I logged onto Slack this morning to find an incredible and indecipherable message from one of my coworkers. I briefly thought he was having a fever dream or I had forgotten how to read English. “Even some pro-Israel folks who hate Macklemore are ripshit at Robert Kraft for Streisand-effecting this guy,” the message read.

…included were several links that eventually helped explain why “Macklemore,” “Robert Kraft” and “Israel” would ever appear in the same sentence.

For those of you who have likewise not been following the fantastic implosion of Ed Sheeran’s ongoing tour, let’s break down this wild yarn. It begins with the washed-up millennial-cringe rapper Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, better known as Macklemore, who has lately a) taken up the cause of Palestinian independence and b) been opening for Sheeran on his blockbuster, 59-date Loop Tour. 

Macklemore’s advocacy has not sat well with many observers, for reasons general (Gaza is one of the hottest buttons on earth) and particular (the rapper has a documented history of apparently antisemitic behavior, which he has since apologized for). Last Friday, the artist Pink published a lengthy criticism of Macklemore’s on-stage polemic, writing that his comments and use of violent wartime imagery had frightened many Jewish people, including her.

Around the same time, Robert Kraft — the sports magnate and Donald Trump ally who owns Gillette Stadium, outside of Boston — also allegedly notified Sheeran that he would not allow Macklemore to play his late-September show. Macklemore was subsequently dropped from the full tour. 

Both he and Sheeran say multiple venues threatened to cancel if he continued to perform. And Kraft, who is Jewish, has also confirmed that he blocked Macklemore from playing at Gillette, citing both his recent advocacy and his “history of antisemitic rhetoric.” 

But this is 2026. The backlash couldn’t simply end there. On Tuesday, the remaining opening acts and Sheeran’s backing band all pulled out of the tour in protest of the decision to boot Macklemore.

Go a little deeper

The whole roiling mess has become a cipher of some of the biggest and most explosive topics in American culture and politics: the specter of antisemitism, the limits of free speech and “cancel culture,” and the stark generational differences in Americans’ views of Israel and Gaza. 

It’s arguably no coincidence that this particular controversy erupted on the tour of two musicians who are iconic among the 30- to 45-year-old set. American millennials, as a generational and political cohort, have grown sharply more critical of the state of Israel in the past 10 years — laying the groundwork for Gen Z’s high-profile pro-Palestinian activism and driving a larger narrative shift in US politics. 

This is, in some ways, an underappreciated dynamic in the debate over American support for Israel. Campus protests, organized by 20-something college students, have come to define young Americans’ growing disillusionment. Speaking on a podcast last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “there’s work to be done” to win over Gen Z, in particular. (Macklemore, who is 43, named his pro-Palestinian protest song “Hind’s Hall” in honor of the protests at Columbia.) 

But the attitudinal shift on Israel, especially on the left, began long before Gen Z became a major political force. Americans under 30 were, for instance, more likely to blame Israel than Hamas for the 2014 Gaza war. And during the mid-2010s, millennial activists sometimes wrapped Palestinian independence into broader social justice and anti-colonialist causes, including the Black Lives Matter movement. Several of the organizations that mobilized pro-Palestinian campus protests in 2024 had similarly been around for a decade or more.

Today, of course, the shift extends beyond progressive millennials: Sympathy for Israel is down among younger Republicans, as well. It has, in fact, declined sharply across generations. 

But over the past two years, the sharpest drop has been among Americans ages 35 to 54. In other words…the exact group of people who might still be jamming to Macklemore.

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➨ Start your holiday planning now. Extravagant, I know. But advance planning — in this case, incredibly advanced planning — can help you stick to a reasonable budget, reduce holiday stress, and ultimately yield a more meaningful, festive experience. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that there are more than 10,000 SpaceX satellites orbiting Earth? Proposals to put data centers in space would require so many additional satellites that stars would become less visible.
• Today’s trivia: Three of which large marine mammal recently died at a Chicago aquarium? (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 movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2022. That would be CODA — an acronym for “child of deaf adults” — which notably cast Deaf actors to play its Deaf characters. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

The recent history of mail voting in the United States has more twists and turns than an Emmy-winning drama. But for the cause of democracy, at least, yesterday’s ending is a happy one.

On Monday, the Supreme Court definitively blocked President Donald Trump’s many attempts to sabotage voting by mail — opining, in a three-sentence brief, that Trump can’t implement his new rules for the 2026 midterms. Or for any election, probably. 

Those last-minute rules, you may recall, would have required states to adopt new ballot envelopes and upload absentee voters’ names and envelope barcodes to a still-nonexistent online platform. Many officials argued they couldn’t possibly adopt the new measures before midterm voting starts, which would essentially cancel mail-in voting in their jurisdictions. 

The Supreme Court, of course, has been broadly sympathetic to Trump’s legal antics, even when they appear to clearly flout law or precedent. But shutting down voting just before the midterms? That’s one bridge too far for them.

Go a little deeper

Hobbling vote-by-mail was just one of Trump’s plots to meddle in the midterms, however — and several of the others are still underway. Here’s where some of the president’s most significant election maneuvers stand today: 

How worried should you be going into the midterms? That, my friend, is a question to answer in your own little heart. But I’m taking my cues from Vox’s politics editorial director, Benjy Sarlin, who recently reminded listeners of our America, Actually podcast that there are many, many institutional and logistical barriers to many of Trump’s more concerning legal machinations. 

“We’re taking it very seriously here…and nothing’s guaranteed,” he said. “But it is still a very difficult path [where] so far he has had zero success.”

One link for later

➨ Skip the shrimp. A new analysis by researchers at the University of Bath and Faunalytics, an animal welfare group, attempts to quantify the amount of animal suffering required to produce different factory-farmed foods. They concluded that eating smaller animals = causing greater suffering, simply because you have to eat — and, by extension, farm and kill — so many more of them.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that American founding father Thomas Jefferson was obsessed with mastodons? It’s actually one of the reasons that he sent Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition.
• Today’s trivia: Which English-language remake of an older French film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2022? (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 former pro hockey player who founded a major Canadian restaurant chain. That would be Tim Horton, whose eponymous cafes have occasionally gotten snarled in the trade spat between Canada and the United States.