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

On Friday, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians living in the West Bank, as well as a Washington Post photographer, who was hospitalized with serious injuries.

Photojournalist Heidi Levine was knocked down, beaten, and robbed of her camera equipment by masked settlers in an attack captured on video by other journalists. Those other members of the press rescued her from the attackers while Israel Defense Forces soldiers reportedly stood by.

Levine had lacerations and a wound to her hand that split her finger to the bone, according to the Post, which condemned the attack in a statement. Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who helped Levine escape the attack, said that Levine also had cracked ribs, and may have been stabbed.

Assaults like this one are becoming more common in the West Bank, where settler violence — which is currently targeting the ongoing olive harvest — has worsened. Last week, another photojournalist for the news wire Agence France-Presse was beaten with rifles by settlers, and Palestinian residents of the West Bank have been shot, beaten, and terrorized while the Israeli settlers targeting them face few consequences.

Why settler violence is growing in the West Bank

As my colleague Zack Beauchamp recently explained, under international law, the settler movement in the West Bank is clearly illegal. Nevertheless, it’s continued to grow, and it has a friend in the current Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s also becoming increasingly violent. 

Two current Israeli officials, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, are settlers themselves, and both have used their offices — as ministers of finance and national security, respectively — to further the settler cause, including by making it easier for settlers to commit unchecked violence against Palestinians. 

The United Nations reported in June that settler attacks had reached “the highest sustained levels ever recorded…with [an average of] six daily attacks that have resulted in casualties, property damage or both,” and in many Palestinians being forced from their homes by settlers. In late September, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that expanding Israeli settlements and violence by settlers was “making everyday life untenable” for Palestinian residents of the West Bank.

As Zack has reported, settlements and settler violence are both intentional tactics, serving to force more Palestinians off their land, isolate the ones who stay, and push any potential two-state solution further out of reach. 

That kind of violence is likely only to worsen in the weeks to come: Israel will hold elections on October 27, which could well result in Netanyahu’s settler-friendly government losing power. As a result, the Washington Post reported earlier this month, settlers are “racing to lock down gains” before the election with ever more extreme violence.

One link for later

➨ Agentified kind of life. My colleague Adam Clark Estes turned the keys to his life over to a passel of AI agents for two weeks to see what would happen. They successfully saved him some times, he writes, largely with mundane tasks — but he left with mixed feelings about the experiment, including the possibility of contributing to a world with more AI slop.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that the aerodynamic crouch used by jockeys in horse racing — known as the “martini glass position” — made race times roughly 5 to 7 percent faster? Jockeys maintain it with only a few toes resting on each stirrup.
• Today’s trivia: Who is the author of the 1952 self-help book The Power of Positive Thinking? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in Monday’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: We asked about the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That would be the number 42 (take it up with Douglas Adams).

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

Throughout his second term, President Donald Trump has saddled his party with no shortage of political liabilities — from the mass pardons of January 6 convictions to ICE killings of US citizens to questionable Reflecting Pool redesign choices.

For voters, however, there is one stain on Trump’s record more unsightly than all the rest: his failure to reduce Americans’ cost of living.

As the midterm campaign enters its home stretch, Americans’ expenses are rising — and the GOP’s prospects are consequently dimming.

Last month, consumer prices were 3.7 percent higher than they had been one year earlier, according to a Consumer Price Index report released on Wednesday. That represented an acceleration in the inflation rate, one driven largely by skyrocketing fuel prices: Gasoline was 9.1 percent more expensive in September than it had been in August. As a result, America’s average real wage has fallen by 44 cents since January.

In less than three weeks, Americans will head to the polls to decide which party controls Congress, along with a slew of state and local offices. As we count down to that momentous and potentially messy day, this newsletter is partnering with our colleague Astead Herndon and Vox’s The Midterms, Actually team for weekly editions on the biggest issues shaping the midterms. We’re breaking down one issue each week and suggesting further reading and races to watch in November.

Last week, we tackled the data center backlash. And this week, we’re digging into affordability.

Go a little deeper

These upward trends in prices aren’t lost on voters. In a recent Pew Research survey, just 21 percent of Americans said economic conditions were “excellent” or “good” — while 65 percent said that Trump’s policies had made the economy worse.

The high cost of living is weighing on Republican candidates in all battleground races. Maine provides just one example of how potent the issue could prove on Election Day.

From one angle, the state’s Senate race might seem like a gimme for Democrats. Kamala Harris won Maine by nearly 7 points in 2024. Thus, in 2026 — when Democrats are poised to win in a national landslide — one might expect the party to easily triumph.

But Republican incumbent Susan Collins is an unusually formidable foe. The race has been a dead heat, with Democratic nominee Troy Jackson leading by just 2 points in a recent Suffolk University poll.

Fortunately for Jackson, Mainers’ energy bills are expected to soar in the campaign’s final weeks, plausibly increasing voters’ appetite for change in the process. 

Maine is America’s second coldest state and unusually reliant on oil for home heat. As autumn advances, its residents will use more heating oil, thereby driving up both their personal bills and market prices. Thanks to the global energy crunch, a gallon of such fuel is already nearly twice as expensive as it was this time last year. 

Jackson has been hitting Collins on the issue relentlessly. That could put a chill in Collins’s reelection odds — and thus, the GOP’s hopes of retaining Senate control.

➨ Other races to watch:

• Similar dynamics are playing out in perennially icy Alaska, where Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola has hammered incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan for his complicity in sky-high diesel prices, which many Alaskans use for home heat.  
• In Ohio’s Senate race, Democrat Sherrod Brown has tried to pin rising electricity bills on Republican Sen. Jon Husted, due to his support for data center development. 
• And in Texas, Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico has attacked his Republican rival, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, for supporting “this disastrous war in Iran that’s driving up our costs.” 

In other news

• A brief ceasefire ends: Ukrainian drones attacked a Russian oil refinery early Thursday, days after Trump demanded both Russia and Ukraine halt such attacks.
• Execution livestream canceled: Trump canceled a plan to livestream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad.
• On the podcast: A recent rash of violence between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthis threatens to destabilize the region — and make the Iran war much larger. Listen to the whole thing here.

One link for later

Rethink confidence. Research shows confidence is good for your job and good for your romantic prospects. Unsurprisingly, then, a whole industry has sprung up teaching people to be more confident. One writer signed up to work with a confidence coach for the first time, and ended up doubting that her self-doubt was all that bad.

Before you go…

• Did you know…there are four state laws regarding real estate and paranormal activity in the US? That’s because purported hauntings are just one of many factors that can affect home prices.
• Today’s trivia: What is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? (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 which percussion instrument is famously played by Mississippi State University fans at home football games. That would be the cowbell.

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

Flu season is starting earlier than usual this year, which I know from reviewing federal data. But I also know it because I woke up with body aches and chills last night, mere days before I’d planned to get my flu vaccination (!).

Already, some parts of the country are seeing levels of flu activity typically associated with late fall or early winter. In Washington state, for instance, doctors are reporting seeing as much flu now as they usually would around Christmas. 

Flu activity overall is still low, to be clear. But as of October 7, infections were rising in all 50 states. And flu is spreading before many people — like, say, me — have received their annual vaccine.

Epidemiologists don’t yet know why the flu arrived early this year, or why cases first started rising in Western states like Washington, California, and Nevada. It’s possible that a mutation is helping this year’s flu variants evade existing immunity, one virologist told NPR. International travel could play a role, too: Flu cases also spiked early in Japan and other parts of Asia.

We don’t need to know why the flu arrived early to take some basic precautions, though. So today, we’re talking through some practical tips for coping with an early flu season.

Go a little deeper

An early flu season doesn’t necessarily mean a worse season — but even a moderate season can do serious damage. Last year, influenza sent hundreds of thousands of people to the hospital and caused tens of thousands of deaths, including almost 200 among children.

The first and best way to avoid those kinds of harms is by getting the flu shot, which reduces the risk of serious illness by an average of 40 to 60 percent. In the US, people aged 6 months and older are typically told to get the vaccine by October’s end. 

In light of the early onset, however (it takes two weeks to build up full immunity), you might instead want to get your shot ASAP.

There are some everyday precautions you can take, too — many of them familiar from the Covid-19 era. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water, for slightly longer than feels appropriate. Mask when you’re sick or might encounter someone else who is. 

And don’t neglect the good habits that support your overall health: getting enough sleep, drinking a lot of water, and eating a balanced diet. (There’s very little evidence for trendier interventions, like supplements, saunas, cold plunges, or the infused herbal baths that my kooky former yoga teacher used to recommend.) 

If you do get flu symptoms, reach out to your doctor early — especially if you’re older, pregnant, immunocompromised, or otherwise at higher risk for complications. Prescription antiviral medications, like Tamiflu, prevent the flu virus from spreading inside your body so that your immune system can clear it. But they work best within 48 hours of symptom onset. 

To be clear, you needn’t take my word on any of this; I’m just another voice in the public health cacophony! Besides, recent polling suggests that my particular voice — that is, the voice of someone who works in media — is not quite as persuasive as it used to be. (Ditto medical websites and government health agencies.)

But if you have doubts or questions about vaccines, there is someone much closer to home you can consult: Ask your doctor (or nurse or pharmacist) about the flu shot’s risks and benefits. They’re best positioned to break the science down and apply it to your health. In hindsight, mine surely would have told me to stop delaying my shot for a more convenient weekend.

One link for later

➨ Get creative in the fight against inflation. The latest inflation numbers are out today, and they are pretty bad. The cost of many goods and services is rising more quickly than both consumers’ incomes and economists’ expectations. For me, this news brought to mind a question that Vox’s former personal finance columnist tackled a few years ago: Namely, am I cursed to keep spending more money on more things forever?! Her answer was essentially “yes,” but she offered a few ways to help offset those costs: things like moving to a cheaper area or pooling resources via initiatives like tool libraries and community gardens. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that Colombia is home to almost 20 percent of all the avian species on Earth? That’s the most of any country, at nearly 2,000 birds.
• Today’s trivia: Which percussion instrument is famously played by Mississippi State University fans at home football games? (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 2025 Pixar film set in the “Communiverse.” That would be Elio, a movie you may well never have heard of: It had the worst opening weekend of any Pixar film, ever.

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

When life gives you lemons, make it rain. Or…something like that! On Tuesday morning, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar launched a fundraising drive in response to the Trump administration’s unusual predawn raid of her Washington, DC, residence.

The raid, which went down Monday, is reportedly part of a criminal investigation into Omar’s immigration history. The Democratic Congress member was born in Somalia and came to the US as a child, becoming a naturalized citizen in 2000 at age 17.

Omar has since become one of the most prominent progressive voices in Congress and a regular thorn in the side of President Donald Trump, who on Monday called her “terrible” and “totally crooked.” Vice President JD Vance has similarly claimed, without evidence, that Omar “committed immigration fraud.” On Monday, the New York Post reported that the investigation may have sprung from mistakes Omar’s late father made while filling out her citizenship application roughly 30 years ago. 

Needless to say, decades-old citizenship paperwork is not the kind of threat to public safety that typically commands the resources of the Department of Homeland Security’s investigations branch. (That same branch is charged with investigating transnational gangs and terrorists.)

And the raid is unusual for another reason, too: By longstanding practice, the Justice Department avoids taking any public steps in investigations involving political candidates within 60 days of an election. The midterms are just three weeks from now. 

This investigation is unlikely to affect Omar in the midterms, however. In the words of her longshot Republican challenger, John Nagel, Minnesota’s Fifth District is among “the ‘bluest’…in the country.” The raid may have even galvanized Omar’s supporters, dozens of whom rallied at a Minneapolis park on Monday afternoon. Some held banners that read “we stand with Ilhan.” Another sign read, simply, “see you at the polls.”

Go a little deeper

Omar now belongs to an unenviable and surprisingly populous club: political opponents of Trump whom his administration has threatened with criminal indictments and investigations. 

I initially planned to list them out for you here, but then realized that list would be perilously long. By my back-of-the-envelope count, there are at least 30 Democratic politicians, public officials, and Trump-world defectors who have been accused of, investigated for, or charged with crimes during the second Trump administration. 

It’s easy to forget the scale of that campaign, however, because many of these efforts have (thus far!) stalled out or collapsed. In several cases, the administration opened much-publicized and thinly supported investigations that have yet to yield charges. (See, for instance, the criminal probe into writer E. Jean Carroll or former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.) 

In at least two cases — that of then-Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and several Minnesota officials — federal judges tossed out subpoenas for lack of evidence. And in one high-profile instance earlier this year, a grand jury refused to indict six Democratic members of Congress who released a video reminding soldiers to refuse illegal orders. The legal bar for issuing such an indictment is actually pretty low — which makes this grand jury’s refusal a telling rebuke of the administration. 

But these judicial setbacks aren’t exactly reason for optimism. The federal court system is becoming increasingly partisan, and as long as Republicans hold the Senate, they’ll be able to stack it with ever-more conservative and deferential judges. And several of the most partisan judges already on the bench are “openly auditioning” for Supreme Court slots, as my colleague Ian Millhiser recently put it. 

In other words, in the not-so-distant future, the court system may provide a weaker check on presidential overreach. And that’s bad news not only for the Ilhan Omars of the world…but also for American democracy. 

One link for later

➨ Turn off your sleep tracker. If your sleep hygiene and underlying health are both good, but you still struggle to catch enough ZZs, then you might actually want to tone down your quest for better sleep. “What you see in people with insomnia is that they’re trying too hard,” one sleep scientist told Vox. Analyzing your sleep scores and timing your naps can create anxiety that further fuels insomnia. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that Coke, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper were all invented by 19th-century pharmacists? At the time, it was widely believed that carbonated water could cure illnesses. And sugary syrups made said water vastly more delicious. 
• Today’s trivia: What’s the name of the 2025 Pixar film set in the “Communiverse”? (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 three-letter successor of tube TVs. That would be LCD, which stands for liquid crystal display.

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 first hurricane of the fall season is expected to strike the Gulf Coast overnight, marking the latest onset of hurricane season in living memory. As of early Friday afternoon, Hurricane Isaias had grown to a Category 3 storm, with sustained winds of 120 miles per hour. It will strike along the shores of the Florida Panhandle, Alabama, and Mississippi, posing a threat to life and property for millions of Americans. Weather forecasters anticipate between 8 and 12 inches of rain in the areas near where the storm makes landfall.

Isaias’s imminent arrival signals the end of a period of unusual good luck when it comes to hurricanes striking the United States. Last year, no hurricanes reached the US mainland at all. And this year, Isaias is breaking a more than 100-year-old record: October 9 is the latest date since 1905 for the first Atlantic hurricane of the season to take shape. August and September have historically been the busiest periods of hurricane season.

Not lately, though. It’s a strange recent phenomenon, and it’s been even more fortuitous than it would ordinarily be. That’s because the Trump administration has slashed weather forecasting and emergency relief funding over the past two years, leaving us less prepared for a disaster. 

And now our luck seems to be running out — with even more rough weather on the way.

Hurricane season may be quieter than usual — but El Niño is on the way

Here’s the secret ingredient that’s pushed off hurricanes even as warming planetary temperatures raise concerns about more extreme weather events: El Niño. This notorious shift in global wind patterns, which occurs every two to seven years, moves warm water around the oceans, disrupting traditional weather patterns and leading to intense rain and sometimes disastrous flooding, as well as droughts. If there is an upside, however, it’s that this temporary change in ocean conditions prevents hurricanes from forming as frequently as they otherwise would.

The downside is, well, El Niño is still on its way. Forecasters expect this year’s version to be historically bad — using words like “super” or “Godzilla” to describe it. The worst of the bad weather is projected to arrive in December: The southern half of the continental US is expected to see unusually rainy and stormy weather, while areas of the Great Lakes and Pacific Northwest could see extreme dry spells. 

It will also serve as a crucial test of our reduced capacity for predicting and responding to disasters. Trump’s “big beautiful bill” cut funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather forecasting and public alert programs by $200 million, and 17 percent of FEMA’s workforce left the agency in 2025 amid the administration’s DOGE purge. 

For now, if you’re in the danger zone for Isaias, please pay attention to local and national weather alerts this weekend. If you’re not, count yourself lucky — but there are storm clouds on the horizon.

One link for later

➨ These days, it feels like we’re all swimming in a sea of AI hype and hysteria — all the ways this technology will make our lives better, all the ways it could kill every single one of us. But what if the two are more related than we think? Eric Levitz’s new piece asks whether the AI companies themselves warning us about the apocalypse is part of their own marketing strategy. It’s a useful guide for how to think about all of these existential conversations.

Before you go…

• Did you know…the world’s largest penguin colony has declined by two-thirds since 2011? Scientists pin the blame on climate disruption and warming sea temperatures.
• Today’s trivia: What’s a three-letter abbreviation for the successor of tube TVs? (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 which fruit kills more people than sharks each year, according to long-standing urban legend. That would be the coconut, and the claim (which is unprovable, since there’s no systematic tracking of coconut deaths) appears to have been started by shark scientists.

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

As far as political slurs go, this one is pretty tepid: “Meet Data Center Dave Crowley,” intones the stern-voiced narrator of a recent Tom Tiffany campaign ad. 

Tiffany, a Republican, and Crowley, a Democrat, are both running for governor of Wisconsin. And in this very tight race, as in dozens of midterm contests across the country, voters’ growing animus toward AI could potentially make a real difference.

In less than four 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 limits and launched an unpopular war that has worsened a cost-of-living crisis.

As we count down to that momentous and potentially messy day, I’m partnering with my colleague Astead Herndon and Vox’s The Midterms, Actually team for weekly editions on the biggest issues shaping the midterms. We’re breaking down one issue each week and suggesting further reading and races to watch in November.

Last week, we tackled the dual identity crises that both parties have suffered since 2024. And this week, we’re digging into the dramatic bipartisan backlash to AI and data centers. One analyst recently told NPR the issue “upended politics as we know it.” But it’s less clear how that’ll play out in November’s contests.

Go a little deeper

There was a time not so long ago when “Data Center Dave” might be a neutral nickname for the well-meaning IT guy at work. Then Americans soured on AI and the hulking, cavernous warehouses that supply its computing power. 

The hostility crosses geography and party lines. At first, opponents focused on noise, water use, and energy costs — quality-of-life concerns for nearby residents. But increasingly, even voters far from these projects grew leery of them.

Too often, the public got little say in where data centers were built and on what terms. And as Vox’s Marina Bolotnikova reported over the summer, the construction boom gradually became a stand-in for broader fears about artificial intelligence. Would AI cause mass unemployment (…or worse, mass extinction)? Would it widen the gap between rich and poor? And do politicians cater to business interests over the needs of ordinary people? 

Without clear answers to those questions — let alone a rigorous plan to address AI’s fallout — many voters channeled their unease into stopping, or slowing, data center development. 

Candidates have reacted by “falling over themselves to sound tough on data centers,” Washington Post data reporter Jeremy Merrill recently told Vox’s Noel King. He analyzed thousands of social media posts and newsletters to see how elected officials are talking about data centers, and the answer is: not positively! 

Some candidates in high-profile midterm races have backed policies that would keep data centers from raising household energy bills. Others have called for ending the facilities’ tax breaks and subsidies or requiring public notice before new construction. Strikingly, both Republicans and Democrats have supported these types of proposals … and both Republicans and Democrats have sought to tar their opponents as “Data Center Daves” of one kind or another.

I asked my colleague Andrew Prokop, who covers politics, if many races will actually turn on this. “Data centers have been a major theme in several races, particularly governor’s races where one of the candidates has taken past pro-data center positions,” he said.

But even when voters say they oppose data centers, very few list the issue among the most important concerns determining how they cast their ballots. In Ohio, for instance — a hub for both data-center development and the grassroots movement opposing it — only 3 percent of voters named data centers as the top issue driving their vote. And that’s the highest share in the entire nation. 

Andrew points to the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, where “Data Center Dave” triumphed over Francesca Hong, an outspoken data center critic. “That just goes to show that data centers don’t necessarily crowd out everything else,” Andrew said.

Still…that’s just one race. And voters’ hatred of data centers has only grown since.

➨  Races to watch:

• Wisconsin governor’s race, where both candidates have attempted to distance themselves from data centers without embracing an actual ban;
• Texas governor’s race, where Republican Governor Greg Abbott has hastily retreated from his previous, pro-data-center position;
• Ohio Senate race, where Democrat Sherrod Brown has hammered incumbent Republican Jon Husted over his past votes for data center development. 

➨  More from Vox: 

• Data centers could actually be good for your hometown
• Americans don’t know how to fight AI. So they’re fighting data centers.
• The real reason voters hate data centers so much

One link for later

➨ Get better at being alone with your thoughts. According to one oft-cited study from 2014, many people would rather give themselves electric shocks than spend a few minutes alone with nothing to do. But being alone with your thoughts is good for you! You can practice by making a list of topics to ponder and parking your phone in another room. Then see what kind of cogitation surfaces for you. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that there are more than 96 bags of human waste on the moon? Astronauts with the Apollo missions left them there more than 50 years ago.
• Today’s trivia: Which fruit kills more people than sharks each year, according to urban legend? (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 the word for a baby eagle. That would be eaglet, and they are adorable.  

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

Jewish communities in Israel and around the world are currently marking the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people and triggered the war in Gaza.

Memorials for the victims of the attacks have been held at homes, on highways, and at the site of the Nova music festival. In Tel Aviv, a massive art installation at the Trumpeldor beach commemorated both the victims and the 251 hostages taken by Hamas three years ago.

Of those hostages, 166 have since returned alive, and the remains of the last deceased captive were released to Israel in January. But there’s no undoing the national trauma of the October 7 attacks — the deadliest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust — or the brutal retaliatory campaign that Israel launched afterward.

Those events profoundly changed Israel, Gaza, the broader Middle East, and the United States, and they continue to shape global and domestic politics. So today, we’re taking a look at the very long shadow of the October 7 attacks and Israel’s response to them.

Go a little deeper

Writing about the first anniversary of October 7 two years ago, Vox’s Zack Beauchamp warned that the “horrors” first triggered by the attacks would continue to unfold in tragic and unforeseeable ways. “Events that might seem contained to the Middle East have come to hurt people around the world,” he wrote, “in ways that we may not yet fully understand or even be capable of predicting.”

That hurt has undeniably been most acute in the Gaza Strip, where three years of war have reduced entire cities to rubble. Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians — most of them civilians — since October 2023. Most of Gaza’s 2 million residents have also been displaced from their homes, crowded into makeshift shelters and refugee camps riddled with hunger and disease.

But the consequences of October 7 extended beyond Gaza. Settler violence against Palestinians intensified in the occupied West Bank. And the ensuing conflicts also weakened Iran and changed the balance of power across the Middle East.

That’s because Iran had long relied on its allies, like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to project power and deter attacks by its longtime rival, Israel. After October 7, however, Israel significantly weakened both groups, leaving Iran vulnerable and setting the stage for the direct strikes on Iran that Israel and the US began last winter. 

Both the war in Iran and the continued occupation of Gaza have badly hurt Israel’s international image. Across 36 countries surveyed by Pew last spring, a median of 67 percent of adults viewed Israel negatively. That disapproval has translated into diplomatic shifts, as well: 155 countries — including longtime allies of Israel, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia — now officially recognize Palestinian statehood, up from 136 before the war. That doesn’t change much on the ground, but it represents a real rebuke to Israel. 

In the US, meanwhile, Israel has become a huge flashpoint in domestic politics. While more than half of Americans had a favorable view of the country before October 7, sentiment deteriorated sharply in 2025 and 2026, particularly on the left.

The issue could help determine some key midterm races, like the Michigan Senate election, where Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has called for ending US military aid to Israel. That’s a policy nearly half of House Democrats and many potential presidential candidates have also endorsed. 

Cutting off US aid to Israel isn’t likely to change the country’s stance toward Palestinians, however. (Israel is a wealthy country in its own right, and American aid represents just a small piece of its budget.) Instead, changing Israeli policy on Gaza and the West Bank would likely require far more aggressive pressure — pressure that, even in the current political environment, the US is unlikely to apply.

A single day may have kicked off a cascade of hurt and horrors. But putting an end to them will take far more time.

One link for later

➨ Cultivate hope. It can feel difficult (not to mention: naive, pointless, and exhausting) to maintain optimism in the face of current events. So Jamil Zaki, a psychology professor and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab, suggests another tact: Do away with blind optimism and lean into hope — that belief that the future could turn out well, but requires real care and attention.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that sea turtles regularly cry (okay: “shed tears”) to rid their bodies of excess salt? Scientists are studying sea turtle tears to learn more about animal navigation. 
• Today’s trivia: What’s the word for a baby eagle? (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 final letter of the Greek alphabet. That would be omega, as in the Bible verse, Swiss watch brand, and nutritional supplement. 

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.

One link for later

➨ 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. 

One link for later

➨ 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.

One link for later

➨ 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

One link for later

➨ “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. 

One link for later

➨ 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. 

One link for later

➨ 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. 

One link for later

➨ “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.

One link for later

➨ 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.

One link for later

➨ 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.

One link for later

➨ 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.

One link for later

➨ 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.

One link for later

➨ 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.

One link for later

➨ 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.