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September 29, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. The Trump administration announced an import ban on some Canadian products, including alcohol, dairy products and motorcycles. It also rescinded a Biden-era policy that extended federal sex discrimination rules to protect L.G.B.T.Q. people. And there’s more news below. But first, let’s go to school. Ricardo Tomás Modest proposals A long time ago, after a stint as a restaurant cook, I spent a few years as a teacher in the New York City public schools. My perch was Bushwick High School, a vast and crumbling brick and terra-cotta building on Irving Avenue, where I taught social studies. The school’s closed now — done in by low graduation rates — but when I was there it was a pulsing organ of the community, overcrowded and chaotic, a difficult place and a beautiful one, too. The exterior of Bushwick High School in 1995. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Naturally I had ideas about how to make Bushwick better. Everyone there did — students and parents, administrators, teachers, aides, nurses and school security officers. Sometimes there was agreement, in the way that everyone can agree that it would be awesome to go to Utopia High School every day and not this darker place that exists in reality. More often, there was not: That idea’s too expensive. This one’s not going to move the needle. But from our posts in the classroom, we weren’t always watching the trends of scholarship. Had our ideas to fix the place been tried or studied? Did they work, and how much did they cost? We just complained (or campaigned) in the staff room or in meetings with parents or elected officials, on the front steps or in the fetid heat of the gym. (Go Tigers!) Graduates and families celebrating after commencement at Bushwick High School in Brooklyn in 1994. Nancy Siesel/The New York Times My colleagues on The Upshot, a section of our newsroom devoted to data journalism, went to the experts. They recently took up the question of how educators might fix our nation’s ailing schools, where student abilities have been in decline over the last decade. Compared with 2015, reading scores are down in 83 percent of school districts, with declines in math scores that are nearly as widespread. Our reporters wanted to know what could actually help reverse the trend. They asked 37 leading academics and researchers who study education to rate a range of ideas to improve student achievement, looking at both effectiveness and cost. Basically, they figured out how to rank the proposals. I urge you to read them. What to do Three ideas grabbed my attention. Another seemed so obvious that I couldn’t believe it wasn’t already standard practice. Small-group tutoring (No. 1). The experts put this well above reducing class size. Students meet multiple times a week, in groups of three or four, with the same tutor, during the school day. That practice is, one expert said, the “most promising intervention” available. Small-group tutoring moves the needle on testing. The downside? It has to be done often and well, and finding a lot of tutors who are available during the school day is both hard and expensive. Expanded access to advanced classes (No. 7). More kids should be able to take algebra in eighth grade or Advanced Placement classes in high school, the experts said. That’s not just about expanding gifted and talented programs. It’s about making these opportunities available to more higher-achieving students in more schools, particularly in low-income ones that offer fewer college-prep classes. The caveat: “Pushing students into material they haven’t prepared for can backfire,” one expert said. Increase teacher pay (No. 20). A simple business: Compensate educators the way we compensate other jobs that require the same education and experience. No one goes into education to get rich. But you want people to stay in the field, building experience, stacking knowledge. That’s hard when they make less than they’d get doing virtually any other job they can get with a college degree. (An expert cautioned that it remains a question whether teachers with bigger paychecks become better instructors. And also: It would cost a lot of money.) Ban cellphones (No. 22). There’s no real evidence yet that doing so increases test scores, experts told The Times. But, one noted, “There are academic and social benefits that are hard to quantify.” I’ll say. (Some states have already made it the law of the land.) All I had to deal with a million years ago were the precious few kids who had a Discman to play Rakim on CD. I can’t imagine teaching Global History, much less learning Global History, in a room full of kids straining not to look at their phones. Look at all the rankings here. They were put together by Sarah Mervosh, Francesca Paris and Claire Cain Miller. Then look at the comments. You may be moved to leave one yourself. FREE TO READ Sources: United Nations (control and restricted areas); New York Times analysis of satellite imagery (earthen barriers and outposts). Samuel Granados/The New York Times More terrain: Israeli forces are expanding into Gaza beyond the boundary they agreed to with Hamas. Satellite images show how much territory Israel now controls. No devices: Phoebe Bridgers banned phones from her tour, forcing fans — or allowing them — to be fully present in the moment. Sick of dating apps? Young people in Japan are turning to matchmakers for help getting married. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was a calculator to determine how much protein you need, based on your age and weight. THE LATEST NEWS Russia A Russian drone hit the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine, forcing people to climb out of windows. Click the video above. Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was imprisoned in Russia for 16 months, described his ordeal and a moment that nearly broke him. Read the interview. Evan Gershkovich Todd Heisler/The New York Times Around the World Oil exports from the Middle East have risen sharply this month, some analysts say. The rebound could ease some pressure on global energy prices. Hurricane Polo made landfall in the Baja California peninsula, in Mexico, with 110 m.p.h. winds. It is now a Category 1 storm. Britain said five men arrested in connection with a possible terrorist plot on a military base were being released on bail while the investigation continued. A town council in eastern Germany voted to stop installing small plaques in the street that memorialize Holocaust victims. Far-right and center-right councilors jointly proposed the move. Pope Leo praised Europe’s democracy and unification efforts during a speech in France. Experts said his comments were a rebuke to President Trump. Elections Note: Figures are rounded and exclude write-in votes. Sources: The Associated Press; state election websites. The New York Times Democratic turnout surged in this year’s midterm primaries. Will it matter in November? A judge blocked a Trump administration effort to withhold emergency grants from states that did not explore paper balloting or citizenship verification. F.B.I. In an internal memo, the F.B.I. said it believed hackers may have stolen sensitive information on all of its employees. The hacking group said it would not publish the data. A deputy director at the bureau will step down after barely a year in the job. (He and Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, did not get along, people familiar with their interactions said.) More on Politics The Senate approved sweeping new rules for college sports that regulate transfers, shifts in conference membership and payments to athletes. The administration also asked the Supreme Court to let it deny hormones to transgender inmates in federal prisons. The coal industry asked the Energy Department to use emergency powers to keep aging coal plants open, and the government obliged. Science and Tech OpenAI said that it would not release its newest artificial intelligence model because of security concerns. SpaceX’s Starship made it to orbit for the first time. Still, there were problems, and the spacecraft returned home early. Nvidia said it would spend another $150 billion buying back its own company shares, adding to what it described as the largest stock buyback in history. Scientists discovered a virus that contains a human gene. Crime Prosecutors will revisit their decision not to pursue criminal charges against Cornell University fraternity members accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2024. The police accused a Bay Area couple of shooting and killing their son-in-law, who worked at The New York Times. OPINIONS Many educators exalt writing as the only way that their pupils will learn to think. The truth is messier, one professor writes. American power grids are vulnerable to foreign attack. Clean energy offers a lifeline, two cybersecurity researchers write. The Anniversary Sale ends soon: Morning readers, enjoy our best offer. Don’t miss this opportunity to expand your interests with expert coverage of news, culture, business and more. Save now: $1/week for your first year. TODAY’S NUMBER The Yankees starter Cam Schlittler will open the Wild Card Series against Boston. Seth Wenig/Associated Press 3.24 — That, on average, is how many earned runs a Yankees pitcher gives up in a game. The team starts a best-of-three contest with the Boston Red Sox tonight for the right to move on in the playoffs. The Sox have strong arms, too, so it could be a pitching-heavy duel. And what are each team’s worst stats? The Athletic has thoughts. SPORTS N.F.L.: The league asked the Department of Homeland Security to take down a video featuring a Philadelphia Eagles legend, Brian Dawkins. P.W.H.L.: “Hockey Night in Canada” is back. It plans to air eight prime time games of the professional women’s league. RECIPE OF THE DAY David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks.Times I wrote this recipe for kale salad with dried cranberries, pecans and blue cheese. It isn’t really a recipe, though, so much as an invitation to improvise. Would diced apples and salted cashews be a better match for the cheese? Do you want croutons? I’ve made it with dried cherries and almonds, with a mustardy vinaigrette and with plain oil and vinegar. It’s a no-recipe recipe. You’ll figure it out. DARK AND DRY Netflix The comedian Sam Morril has a new special out, “Incorrect.” He’s a rascally joke merchant and hard-living road comic and our comedy critic, Jason Zinoman, calls him one of the best working today: Constantly taking you behind the curtain of his process, he narrates his own jokes, reminding you he’s not the hero of one or putting on his critic’s hat to tell you that he has not grown as a person at all. The road is not great for moral betterment. A characteristically self-aware punchline from Morril: “The thing about a good miscarriage joke is that without a proper delivery, you got nothing.” More on culture “Man in the Mirror,” by Anand Giridharadas, is a searing investigation into the 2023 death of Jordan Neely, a mentally ill man, on a New York City subway, after a fellow passenger put him in a chokehold. The novelist Scott Turow, reviewing the book for The Times, calls it “an exhaustively reported book by a ferociously talented writer.” It’s in stores today. Late night hosts joked about Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to the White House. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Read for pleasure again. (For instance, you could join me on this Len Deighton kick I’ve been on, with his crackly, staggeringly complicated spy novel “Berlin Game,” from 1983.) Listen to 10 songs we’re talking about this week, including Taylor Swift’s new track about someone who gets a phone call from her ex-boyfriend’s current lover: “If you’re sick of him, I got you,” she sings. “I was patient zero.” Electrify your morning routine with one of the plug-in kettles recommended by the inquisitive baristas at Wirecutter. I went with the gooseneck version, myself. Fancy! GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were conductor and nonconductor. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. See you tomorrow. — Sam Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Host: Sam Sifton Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson

⚾️ 1 for the road: October starts early Photo: MLB X account The MLB postseason begins today with the best-of-3 wild card round — four series, 12 teams still alive and little margin for a slow start. Today's schedule: 2 p.m. ET: Philadelphia Phillies at Atlanta Braves (NBC) 5 p.m.: Chicago White Sox at Houston Astros (Peacock/NBCSN) 8 p.m.: Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees (NBC) 10 p.m.: Chicago Cubs at San Diego Padres (Peacock/NBCSN) Full postseason schedule.

💼 New this morning: Muse for small business Meta announced Muse for Small Businesses this morning, expanding its consumer AI agent to a new market, Axios' Ina Fried writes. Why it matters: Facebook's parent is moving into an area long dominated by companies such as Microsoft, bringing its viral consumer AI agent and broader AI infrastructure to businesses of all sizes. Zoom in: Meta is pitching Muse as a digital operations layer for small businesses that often lack the time or money to hire specialists for every function. For example, a business owner can ask Muse to analyze sales, campaigns and social activity and develop a growth plan. It can also help manage cash flow and inventory, draft customer communications and create ads and other content, including by analyzing what has worked previously. Share this story ... Read the announcement. 🦆 Power moves: Tucker Bounds, a Meta veteran (and proud Oregonian) who first went to work in Menlo Park in 2011, was elevated to Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs. David Ginsberg, who held that role, is shifting to a new AI-focused innovation role as VP, Product, Insights Innovation. More from Sara Fischer.

🔮 Scoop: Rising in the '28 stakes First-term Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) — who was a tough-on-crime state attorney general, and now is vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee — has grown close to Vice President Vance and is seen as a top prospect to become a potential 2028 running mate, Jim VandeHei reports in Axios C-Suite. We hear the VP views Schmitt, 51, as trustworthy, intelligent, articulate and a deft political operator. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is obviously the Trump favorite for Vance's #2, but he doesn't seem eager for that role.

🌽 GOP braces for Iowa pain Iowa is on the verge of a farm crisis that threatens to wreck the agricultural heart of the state and hurt the fortunes of Republicans at the top of the midterm ticket, GOP strategists acknowledge to Marc Caputo and Axios Des Moines' Linh Ta. Why it matters: Democrats could win in several once-reliably Republican states in November. But President Trump's policies have caused such severe financial problems for farmers — especially those who grow corn — that Iowa appears particularly vulnerable. A top GOP campaign consultant working in Iowa and other states tells us: "In Iowa, we should brace for losing everything, definitely the governor's race and maybe the Senate race and who knows what else." As his political operation watches Iowa with alarm, Trump yesterday held a White House press conference to announce plans for a massive steel plant in the state that would be one of the nation's largest. 🚜 Zoom in: Iowa farming has been difficult for years because of rising costs, consolidation trends and foreign competition. But farmers say two recent stressors are directly tied to Trump: Tariffs increased costs of fertilizer, pesticides and farm equipment, and caused market instability. The related trade wars especially hurt U.S. relations with Canada, which buys about 30% of Iowa's exports. The war in Iran increased the cost of diesel by nearly 80% in Iowa, forcing farmers to bleed money, consider taking loans just to survive and limit machine use to critical levels. 👀 What to watch: Trump won Iowa by more than 13 points in 2024. But in the current Senate race, Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson is essentially tied in polling averages with Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek. In the race for governor, state Auditor Rob Sand, a Democrat, leads Republican nominee Zach Lahn by larger margins.

🤥 European CEO claims AI "big lie" Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios Axios CEO Jim VandeHei recently visited with Uljan Sharka, founder and CEO of Milan-based Domyn, the company the EU has picked to build Europe's open-source frontier model. From Jim's Axios C-Suite newsletter: OpenAI and Anthropic are purposely lying about safety concerns, Sharka told Jim. "This is a big lie that is driving an unreasonable conversation." Asked if he's comfortable seeing the word "lying" in print, he said: "It's the truth for me. ... I'm ready." His case: The tech has plateaued. The doom talk is designed to prop up valuations ahead of IPOs — and manufacture a delay to buy time so they can build AI that actually matches their hype. 🧐 Who the hell is Uljan? He runs the hottest open-source company in Europe, recently valued at $2B. He's pitching a product that competes with the U.S. AI giants: sovereign, data-secure AI systems that individual companies fully own and control. His case: He claims AI thinking-on-its-own capabilities are broadly overhyped, based on his years of work building these systems. He said they're nothing more than "digital books" of data that do what you tell them to. Anthropic and OpenAI insist their fears are real and driven by private testing and models that Uljan has never seen.

🥊 AI polices AI Illustration: Maura Kearns/Axios AI companies are turning to AI to police AI, Axios' Nathan Bomey and Sam Sabin write. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sought to calm escalating fears across governments, markets and industries by announcing an open-source safety platform for monitoring and potentially quarantining AI agents. 🤔 Between the lines: The fundamental challenge humans face in policing powerful AI is that it requires them to imagine all the ways the models may behave in unexpected ways in order to meet their given objectives. One top AI executive compared the process to finding ways to keep a teenager from sneaking out at night. A parent might make rules such as don't leave through the front or back doors, don't open the garage or don't leave through any windows. But what if the teen could build a bulldozer and use it to break through a brick wall, allowing an escape? 🦾 The industry solution: Use AI to help create those guardrails, help investigate and stop rogue agents, help secure systems and build safer training environments. Microsoft, Cisco, Google and CrowdStrike have introduced cyber-focused AI models. Palo Alto Networks recently launched a service that uses frontier and open-weight models to find security flaws and recommend fixes.

Trump's wage-and-cost blues Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios Five weeks before the midterms, Americans' pocketbook pain is getting worse: Paychecks haven't kept up with inflation for the better part of this year, and borrowing costs have surged, Axios' Courtenay Brown writes. Why it matters: President Trump's record is effectively on the ballot, and economic sentiment remains deeply depressed, including among Republican voters. This is the backdrop as voters prepare to cast their midterm ballots: 1. In the past five months, pay for rank-and-file workers has trailed inflation. That's a recent reversal: Since the start of 2021, hourly pay for rank-and-file workers has climbed 29%, slightly outpacing the 27% gain in consumer prices. 2. Consumer prices are up over 5% since Trump took office, piling on Biden-era gains. It costs about $20 more to fill a 15-gallon tank of gas than it did a year ago. The national average for regular gas is $4.46 a gallon, up more than $1.30 from last September, according to AAA. 3. Mortgage rates are back above 7%, while rates on credit cards, auto and other loans remain elevated. Consumer sentiment is sitting at the second-lowest reading on record, according to the University of Michigan's tracker. Contrast that to Trump's first term: Before the pandemic, the same survey showed one of the strongest periods ever for America's consumer sentiment. Another gauge shows a similar decline: The Conference Board's confidence index averaged 126 from 2017-19, compared with just 89.4 for the latest reading in August. 📈 The other side: The lousy sentiment comes alongside strong economic growth that's apparent in the GDP figures — but hard for consumers to appreciate at the grocery store or the gas pump. A closely watched GDP tracker published by the Atlanta Fed shows the economy growing at a blistering 5% pace this quarter. Unemployment remains at a historically low 4.1%. 🐘 The GOP case: Kush Desai, White House senior deputy press secretary, tells us that "hard data of actual consumer spending and retail sales have been robust throughout President Trump's term so far." "American consumers are proving their resilience with their dollars every day thanks to the Trump administration's tax cuts, private-sector job creation, and investment boom."

Southern Baptists' vote to ban women pastors sparks outcry from advocates - ABC News

THIS DAY IN HISTORY September 29 1982 Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills first three of seven victims Three Chicago area residents become ill and die after ingesting Extra-Strength Tylenol later found to be poisoned with cyanide. The case creates a national panic over the safety of nonprescription medications and leads to new standards for pill packaging. read more Sponsored Content by REVCONTENT Early 20th Century U.S. 1907 The great singing cowboy Gene Autry is born in Texas 1990s 1995 Mexican American voting rights advocate Willie Velasquez awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom 21st Century 2008 Dow suffers record-breaking single-day drop 2005 Reporter Judith Miller released from prison American Revolution 1780 Benedict Arnold’s accomplice is sentenced to death Arts & Entertainment 1991 “My Own Private Idaho” premieres in theaters Cold War 1953 New York Times article claims Russians want the “American dream” Crime 2006 School principal murdered by student in Wisconsin Exploration 1988 Stacy Allison becomes first American woman to reach summit of Mt. Everest Holocaust 1941 Babi Yar massacre begins Inventions & Science 1913 Inventor Rudolf Diesel mysteriously vanishes World War I 1918 Allied forces break through the Hindenburg Line World War II 1939 Nazis and communists divvy up Poland

> New York prosecutors reopen investigation into alleged 2024 gang rape of a Cornell University student by seven members of Chi Phi fraternity following a civil lawsuit filed by the victim (More) > FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey resigns, citing family reasons, amid reported tensions with FBI Director Kash Patel (More) | Justice Department files appeal to end transgender care for inmates (More) | Federal prison system had more than 2,000 transgender inmates as of February 2025 (More) > Iran and US negotiators hold separate talks with mediators (More) | Russian drone strikes Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv, killing at least seven people (More)

> US stock markets close down (S&P 500 -0.8%, Dow -0.7%, Nasdaq -0.9%) as 10-year Treasury yield climbs to its highest level since 2007 (More) | See how mortgage rates follow Treasury yields (More, w/graph) > The US and China agree to each lower tariffs on $30B worth of nonsensitive goods, including Chinese Christmas ornaments and American hair products, following state visit last week (More) > Boeing shares close down 6.9% after the company identifies 737 MAX software glitch that could cause an automated navigation feature to fail during landing (More) | Timeline of the 737 MAX's safety record—including two fatal crashes (More)

> SpaceX launches Starship spacecraft into orbit for first time to test its readiness for NASA's Artemis moon program; cuts flight short after unplanned engine shutdown (More) > Engineers tweak formula of lipid nanoparticles used to deliver mRNA, allowing vaccines to remain stable at room temperature for up to a year (More) | Why mRNA vaccines typically need to be kept at -4 to -112 degrees Fahrenheit (More) > Neuroscientists discover humans' response speed when exhaling is on average 41 milliseconds faster than when inhaling; study reveals link between breathing and cognition that could inform sleep disorder therapies and sports performance (More)

> Rod Stewart announces 21-date "The Final Encore Tour," says it will be the last tour of his career (More, scroll for schedule) | Stevie Wonder shares four previously unreleased tracks from "Songs in the Key of Life" (More, w/songs) > Senate passes bipartisan college sports bill to regulate payments and restrict transfers, sending it to House (More) | National Women's Soccer League unveils Atlanta expansion club's name, colors, and crest; team will debut in 2028 (More) > National Hockey League play returns as the defending champion Carolina Hurricanes host the Florida Panthers to open the 2026-27 regular season tonight (More) | See full schedule (More)

Nvidia's Big Buyback Nvidia announced plans yesterday to spend another $150B buying back its own shares, bringing its total buyback authorization to $235B—the largest in history. The company's shares closed up 1.7% on the news. The buyback would reduce the number of Nvidia shares on the market, potentially boosting the company's stock value. Experts say Nvidia is signaling that it believes its shares are undervalued, given its status as the world's most valuable publicly traded company, with a market capitalization of over $5.4T. The buyback increase comes after the tech giant reported its second-quarter revenue hit $96.2B, a 106% gain from the same period last year. The company also launched a security platform yesterday that can intervene if AI agents attempt unauthorized activity, such as hacking. Nvidia said over 100 companies, including Microsoft and Citi, are already using the software. Meanwhile, regulators are racing to assign liability for increasingly common AI-driven cyberattacks.

Medical errors are frequently cited in studies as the third leading cause of death in the U.S. James

7th day Baptists are "Trinitarian" and reject the SDA "dead know not anything" teaching. Now, the WWCOG7th day does not affirm the Trinity AND it teaches the dead know nothing. A 7th day Baptist is just like a regular Baptist that holds Church on Saturday, they believe in the Trinity, spirits, eat oysters and other foods Ellen rebuked.

Senate passes college sports bill that would rein in athlete payments and transfers WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate passed a sweeping bipartisan bill on Monday that would regulate college sports, an attempt to end “chaos” in an industry that has been upended by skyrocketing athlete payments and near-unrestricted transfers between schools. https://apnews.com/article/college-sports-senate-ncaa-name-image-likeness-a63e3f4e0be41fb95062b2bc5e646f9f? 🏈 Senate passes bill to rein in college sports payments and transfers Last night's Senate passage of the Protect College Sports Act, by an overwhelming 77-22, is the government's biggest move yet to set national rules for a college sports system transformed by athlete pay, lawsuits and competing state rules, Axios' Kate Hunter writes. The legislation gives the NCAA new authority over payments to college athletes for their name, image and likeness (NIL) and how often they can transfer, and limited antitrust protections to enforce those rules. President Trump praised the bill in a late-night post. 🏛️ What to watch: The bill faces an uncertain path in the House. If it stalls, the future of college sports will remain in the hands of courts, states, schools and athletic governing bodies.

How are public schools in the US funded? Public schools are funded primarily from state and local governments. In the 2023–2024 school year, the most recent year of available data, about 45.8% of public school funding came from state sources like income and retail taxes, and another 42.5% came from local sources like property taxes. The federal government provided the remaining 11.7%, often through programs like Title I or the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that are aimed at supporting specific student needs. Altogether, public schools received $1.04 trillion in funding, or $21,100 per student. https://usafacts.org/answers/how-are-public-schools-in-the-us-funded/country/united-states/? How many US passports are issued each year? The US issued 27.3 million passports during fiscal year (FY) 2025, 11.6% more than the previous year. The total includes passport books and passport cards. https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-us-passports-are-issued-each-year/? One last fact Age can be an indicator of how people use artificial intelligence. About 29% to 37% of people in all age groups reported using AI to find factual information. However, 36% of 25- to 39-year-olds used it for brainstorming and idea generation, while 7% of people 65 and older did.

Allies Refuse to Visit U.S. in ‘Mind-Boggling’ Collapse Under Trump The U.S. is on pace to welcome 2 million fewer international visitors than last year. America’s closest allies are increasingly looking elsewhere for their vacations. Despite hosting the World Cup this year, the U.S. has suffered through a slump in international tourism. Visitors from Canada are down 23 percent over the past two years, while travel from Germany and France has dropped 16 percent and 15 percent year-to-date, respectively. Overall, the country is on pace to welcome 2 million fewer international visitors than last year, when approximately 68 million tourists came to the U.S. That would put overseas visits roughly 20 percent below the 2019 peak of 79 million visitors. “We’re the only major country in the world losing visitation,” Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, told Axios. “It’s mind-boggling.” The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment. The decline follows an already brutal 2025 for American tourism. The U.S. welcomed roughly 4 million fewer international visitors last year than in 2024, a 5.5 percent drop in overseas tourism, according to CNN. Foreign visitor spending fell by more than $8 billion during the same period. Aside from the collapse in international travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2025 decline marked the sharpest annual drop in overseas tourism in roughly two decades. The largest drop came from Canada, with far fewer Canadians traveling to the United States. Data from mobile tracking firm Cuebiq suggests Canadian travel to major U.S. cities may have fallen by as much as 42 percent over the past year. Relations between the U.S. and Canada, historically close allies, have broken down since Trump began his second term. Trump has floated the idea of annexing the country and making it the 51st U.S. state, and slapped tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, and automobiles. After Trump imposed tariffs on Canada last year, visits from Canadians fell by 17 percent, contributing to a 7.5 percent overall decline in tourism, Politico reported. But the U.S. has also seen a decline in visitors from many European countries like France and Germany. German visits to the U.S. fell about 12 percent in 2025, according to figures cited by Le Monde. French visits fell nearly 7 percent. Trump has raised tensions with his European allies since the beginning of his second term. France and Germany were among eight European countries Trump threatened with a 10 percent tariff, potentially rising to 25 percent, because they opposed his threat to annex Greenland. And in June 2026, Trump threatened major tariffs on French wine and champagne after French President Emmanuel Macron opposed the U.S. approach to Greenland. “I asked them not to charge American companies, and if they do, I have no choice but to charge a 100 percent tariff on all champagnes and all wines coming out of France,” the 80-year-old president told the New York Post. “All [French President Emmanuel Macron] has to do is get rid of the sales tax, and he wouldn’t have that kind of pressure.” Meanwhile, Trump publicly lashed out at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz after Merz criticized U.S. strategy in the Iran war. Trump called Merz “totally ineffective.” The confrontation was followed by the Pentagon announcing plans to reduce the number of U.S. troops stationed in Germany by 5,000. https://www.thedailybeast.com/allies-refuse-to-visit-us-in-mind-boggling-collapse-under-trump/? ps:Has the be the most pathetic senseless potus ever!!!!!

EGW was not a pastor. As far as I know, she never functioned as a pastor, i.e., served as the overseer of a congregation. It is quite a stretch to compare her work to the work women want to do in the church today. Some may remember Dan Collins. He worked with Amazing Facts in the days of Joe Crews. Dan was hired because he was an effective soul winner. He was noticed when he brought a dozen people to an AF crusade, ready for baptism, schooled in SDA doctrine. How many SDA pastors. male or female, meet that criteria? Some people want a female pastor. Some want a homosexual. A person who wants a straight male pastor can go to a congregation which has one. If one is not available, connect with 7th day Baptists or the Church of Christ, 7th day. The statement of faith 7th day Baptists hold is one with which most SDA could agree. A home church might be an option. Those who are opposed to woman pastors should keep in mind that your tithe may be used to pay them.

🌋 Parting shot: Fire and ice Photo: Dick Stoll Longtime reader Dick Stoll of Milwaukee captured this fiery sunset earlier this month from his balcony at The Retreat at the Blue Lagoon in Iceland.

The AI terms you actually need to know Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios Tonight and tomorrow, Axios CEO Jim VandeHei will offer tips on talking and thinking about AI, all written in normal, non-technical language. First up: simple answers to complex questions. Confused about AI? You're hardly alone. Most people still don't know what it is, how it works or whether to trust it. No wonder. The AI language is just plain weird: LLMs, tokens, agents, hallucinations, swarms, misalignment, The Singularity. So consider this your guide to understanding AI, written in Jim, normal-guy, real-world words: 🤖 What is AI? Computers doing things that typically require a human brain: reading, writing, reasoning, creating. Well then, what's an LLM? Large language model. It's the engine of AI — the machine that learns to read, write, reason and create. The most powerful and popular LLMs are built by Anthropic, OpenAI and Google. Oh, so ChatGPT is an LLM? Not exactly, though you don't have to worry about that distinction much. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini are all consumer products that allow you to interact with each company's LLM. 🧠 How does an LLM or AI work? An LLM eats everything on the internet alongside other stuff (you've probably seen stories about Anthropic and books) and then gets trained by humans — and, increasingly, the AI itself — to read, write, reason and create like us. Wow, so they THINK like humans? NO. All that reading just teaches them to imitate how we write. Talking like us comes from a second step, called post-training, where companies train them to behave more like us. Great, so we know how they work? Yes and no. And this is super important. Yes, scientists know how to build and train these models. But NO — nobody can fully explain what happens inside them when producing specific answers. We built a machine we don't fully understand. This is not a disputed point. Wait, we truly don't know how these machines work? Correct. There is no person running AI companies — or building AI — who argues otherwise. It's like the human brain: It's impossible to fully understand something with limitless inputs and experience that randomly decides its output. Why are they allowed to build something they don't understand? AI grew more powerful and spread more quickly than anyone anticipated. ChatGPT's release in 2022 kicked things off, and it's been a mad sprint by companies ever since to build more capable AI. Presidents Biden and Trump were both convinced that if China beat us to truly all-powerful AI, a communist rival might dominate the world in the decades ahead. It's been all gas, no brakes, with little public discussion about the consequences until very recently. I don't get it. What's the connection between China and our AI? China is building its own LLMs. Both nations believe this technology will determine which country dominates the world, builds the most advanced military (space, satellites, drones) and creates the most economic wealth. So we're in an AI race. 🏁 But we're winning, right? This isn't easy to know with certainty. Yes, our so-called frontier labs appear many months ahead of their Chinese rivals (DeepSeek is one of the best-known) in terms of building advanced AI. But the lead is shrinking. China appears more focused on the actual adoption of AI — the way people use it at work and home — than on advancing its capabilities. They seem way ahead of us there. We've got better AI, but they've put it to work better than us. Jim, you're losing me with these terms. What's a frontier lab? It's just another way to label our top AI companies: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta and Elon Musk's xAI. They each spend many billions to build more advanced AI. 🦾 And what do you mean by "advanced AI"? This is the best term I can conjure for the current state of the technology. Chatbots — think of them as basic AI — are fun and interesting. It's probably how you mostly use it. But the real magic — and worries of very bad outcomes — hit with advanced AI. AI agents are likely the advanced AI you hear about the most. An agent? It's an AI that can take action. If you ask a chatbot to plan a trip, it tells you how. But an agent does the actual work: It can research flights, compare hotels, check your calendar and book it. Give an agent specific instructions, and it gets to work, as a person would. Why would I trust an agent when AI's answers to my simple questions aren't always smart — or even correct? You're right, these machines still occasionally hallucinate, which simply means they make stuff up. But they're getting a lot better, a lot faster. This is where our conversation gets a little more complicated — because the gap between casual users like you and obsessive, savvy AI users is Grand Canyon-enormous. What do you mean? Most people are content with chatbots and use AI mostly as a souped-up Google search or tool to write better emails. They don't see anything special or scary about this technology. But those who use AI a lot — and really understand how to get the most out of it — are blown away by its ability to solve never-before-solved math problems or build beautiful, functional apps on its own. Why is that gap so big? You need to feed a lot of data and personal info into these machines, then take the time to police and correct the outputs, before AI starts to really impress you. You also need to understand how agents work, or at least what problems they can solve, and have the time, money and compute to coach and fine-tune them to do tasks reliably. There are products right now that are trying to make things easier. Meta's Muse is an agent built on top of its social platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, and Instinct is a buzzy startup whose agent lives inside a text-message thread. For the moment, most people don't need to do this — or know how. So they find AI kind of interesting but hardly existential. That's me! So why are people freaking out about AI ending humanity? This gets more complicated — and a little creepy. Stick with me. Lots of people building AI — including those who founded and run the frontier labs — worry AI is getting so good, so fast that it will increasingly do things on its own. They've seen rising examples of it in their private testing. What do you mean? These companies do endless testing of their models to see what they can and can't do. In the past few months, agents started solving more complex problems faster. The worrisome thing is what happens when multiple agents work together to tackle a problem. 🐝 Huh! Agents work together? What are "swarms"? You can create "swarms" of agents to solve a specific problem — a team of agents, each programmed with specific skills, working together on a shared objective. They never tire or stop until told. Why would that spook anyone? It goes back to not knowing exactly why AI does what it does. You give an agent a specific problem to solve, and it sometimes does strange things, like plotting with other agents or trying to hide its work. Can't they just be programmed to stop doing that? Only by doing something no one seems willing to do: stopping or dramatically slowing AI improvements until you can prove AI is properly aligned with human intent. 🎯 What is alignment? Alignment essentially means an AI follows human orders and intent. They're unaligned now? Correct. That's why incidents like the Hugging Face hack happened. When OpenAI was testing its agents, those agents decided to work together to find the answer key for said test — and in doing so, hacked another company. Should I be worried about rogue AI? Probably not TODAY, but no one knows for sure. The Hugging Face hack happened in private testing, and was eventually revealed by OpenAI and reported to the public. But people worry that there are AI agents out there that no one knows about. Is that why an Anthropic staffer warned AI could end humanity? Yes. Lots of people inside these companies worry we're months away from rogue agents doing real harm in public. The reason: AI, on its own, is starting to develop the next generation of AI. How the heck can AI develop AI? The tech is getting good enough to basically train AI like humans might. This is what they mean by recursive self-improvement, or RSI. You need to remember this term. 🔁 What's RSI? It's AI teaching AI. The process started slowly, but it's getting a lot better. Those big frontier labs all claim they're seeing early signs of RSI. What happens if RSI ramps up? That's where the scary stuff feels much more possible. If AI trains AI (and remember, we don't know how AI really works), you could see something much worse than the Hugging Face hack happening without the labs even knowing it. This is why the companies themselves said it's time to slow things down, so they can allow independent inspectors to check their work and avoid accidents or bad outcomes. OK, so they're self-policing already. It sounds like I have nothing to worry about. They're talking about it, but they haven't agreed on precisely how it will be done or who will do it across the industry. Even if they do, there's nothing to guarantee they'll slow AI advancement or avoid bad scenarios. In fact, you should assume AI only accelerates. 🏛️ Can't the government slow them down? Sure, but Trump and most Republicans in Congress don't want any real limits on AI capabilities. It goes back to that concern about China — and doing anything that might risk our early lead in building advanced AI. Don't expect any meaningful effort to regulate AI unless AI causes some kind of large public incident or harm. 🚨 You keep talking about incidents and harm. What can AI even really do? The companies most fear a cyberattack that shuts down banks, energy grids or water systems — something that causes real pain or even harm to a large number of people. The other big worry: that someone uses AI to create a pathogen that spreads fast with little detection. These can all be done with human instruction and existing AI capabilities, so the danger is real. Both of these scenarios could be set in motion by a human — or a rogue AI agent. Then what would happen? The political and public debate would shift overnight. Democrats would likely join Sen. Bernie Sanders in supporting a pause or outright ban on AI. Calls for urgent, sweeping regulation would likely spike sky-high, even among Republicans. This would go from an abstract worry to a clear and imminent threat. I keep hearing the big companies want to be regulated now. Is that true? Most do. It comes partly from public interest and lots of self-interest. They genuinely worry about bad outcomes and know only the government can regulate and punish companies. Their IPOs are around the corner, and investors like a little bit of regulation. But you also hear critics of the big AI companies arguing they want regulation because only the biggest, best-funded companies can handle it and still grow. Smaller, scrappier startups would get crowded out. When you hear the term "regulatory capture," this is what those critics are talking about. It's sounding like this regulation won't happen. Correct, at least right now. Trump has zero interest in any federal regulations. He believes AI fears are overhyped. This topic is such a downer. Could Trump be right — and this ends well for all of us? Absolutely. AI could help cure disease, improve education and health care, and supercharge the U.S. economy. Imagine all those teams of agents, properly aligned, fixing these stubborn problems and many, many more. This is what AI optimists believe will happen when we hit The Singularity or AGI. 🚀 There you go again with those weird terms, Jim. What is The Singularity? AGI? The Singularity is a hypothetical point when AI progress moves so fast we can no longer predict or control what happens next. Some in the industry believe we're already there. AGI stands for artificial general intelligence. It's AI that can perform basically any intellectual task a human can. There's no test for telling us when either dynamic officially hits. Think of both terms as a way to express broad, human-level intelligence. ✨ Why don't I hear much about these good outcomes? We — as individuals, and the media, as an industry — have a clear negativity bias. We get more stirred by bad stories than good ones. In this specific case, though, the AI companies do a terrible job of explaining their product. Telling people AI will take your job and possibly kill you is hardly reassuring or inspiring. 🙋 This all feels fast and heavy. What can I do? This is the biggest topic facing humanity, so learn about AI. This is a society-wide project that requires you to understand it and then push the government and business to manage it responsibly. Don't protest AI by refusing to use it. Figure out how to best use AI for your specific job and passions. Read and share the note in tomorrow's newsletter, which offers a more detailed way to navigate this moment. It's aimed at kids but applies to all. 📚 5 ways to learn AI Axios: We're deeply sourced inside the AI companies and the White House, and we're testing the tech in real time. Subscribe to Mike Allen's Axios AM and never skip an AI item. MIT Technology Review's The Algorithm: This newsletter calls itself AI "demystified," and it usually delivers. It lands once a week, so you get smart, big-picture pieces instead of a nonstop firehose of AI. Platformer: Casey Newton has covered Silicon Valley for years and really digs into big AI debates in a digestible way on the people shaping AI. Plain English with Derek Thompson: This podcast isn't always about AI. But Derek is obsessed with the larger AI trends. He's smart and balanced. X: You need it IF you want to stay in the daily flow of changes. Sorry. This stuff is moving so fast that the people building it and obsessively using it are often ahead of traditional media. I compiled a list of just 15 people to follow.

Ad Nauseam (Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis / Getty Images)   View in browser Your tax dollars are at work—promoting Donald Trump to the American people. In the past few days, two new ads appeared on some television channels. One, in black and white, features Trump walking down a hall and staring into the camera. In a voice-over, he says, “This is the final battle with you at my side.” The other features clips of Trump giving a speech at Mount Rushmore. But the most striking words are the ones on the bottom of the screen: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” These are part of a series. Last week, as my colleague Matt Viser wrote, the administration aired an ad that featured images of Trump looking resolute and imposing, with the words “AMERICA WILL NEVER BE A COMMUNIST COUNTRY” superimposed for most of the spot, which also flashes various empty Trump policy boasts. (“Largest tax cuts in history,” which is flatly false; “reigniting American manufacturing,” which is dubious.) The soundtrack, apparently used without permission, is the musician JMSN’s song “Love Me.” To date, taxpayers have spent at least $443,000 on this ad alone, according to the Associated Press. The White House calls these “public service announcements,” intended only to remind “Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad,” a White House spokesperson told Viser. Taken at face value, this is the latest example of Trump’s Sun King–esque attempt to conflate himself and the state. This administration has named a new visa program the “Trump Gold Card,” tried to place his name before John F. Kennedy’s on an official memorial, established a 47-day training program at ICE to honor his number in the presidential sequence, printed his portrait in passports, and last week launched something called “Trump TV” under White House auspices. (It’s a glorified streaming-video app.) But the White House’s claim that these are PSAs should not be taken at face value. A much simpler term exists to describe them: propaganda. Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, pointed out that Trump’s political operation has plenty of cash to spend—almost $416 million as of August 31—and compared him to the strongman whom Hungarians toppled earlier this year: “Using taxpayer dollars, it feels like Viktor Orbán.” Another GOP senator, John Kennedy of Louisiana, said yesterday that no public official “should spend public money on private ads for themselves.” He added: “I think there oughta be a rule—well, there probably is a rule—you can’t spend public money to promote yourself.” Indeed, there is a rule. The law bars the use of taxpayer money on “publicity or propaganda.” The problem is how one defines that. The administration has cited past PSAs, including an anti-drug ad during the George W. Bush administration and a pro-COVID-vaccine spot from the Biden years, to justify the newest ads. The White House insists that these ads are not promoting Trump, because he is not currently running for election. “The PSAs are clearly not political,” an official told NBC News. “The president is not on the ballot, and the ads don’t have a call to action.” These pretexts are so skimpy that they would make a fig leaf shrivel in shame. The ads lean heavily on the White House’s big talking points this cycle, such as dark warnings about “communism.” Trump is not on the ballot, but he has repeatedly begged his supporters to treat this election as a referendum on him—writing on Truth Social this morning, “MAGA, pretend I am on the ballot.” Finally, the new ad is just a new version of one that his campaign produced late in the 2024 presidential race, only this time paid for with public money. (Perhaps someone should have edited out the line where Trump promises to “expel the warmongers from our government,” which hasn’t aged so well.) Yet just because the ads are wildly inappropriate, redolent of personalist dictators, and clearly violate the intent of the law, that doesn’t mean they can easily be stopped. A reasonable viewer will know that the ads are intended to boost Trump and Republicans in the midterms, but because the spots don’t have the “call to action” that qualifies them as campaign advocacy under the law, they may not violate the letter of the law. And even if they did, who would police that? Both houses of Congress are controlled by Republicans, whom the ad is intended to help. The Federal Election Commission doesn’t have a quorum to take action, because Trump has declined to nominate members. And anyway, the Supreme Court has consistently granted the president very wide leeway for any “official” actions. Kennedy’s there-oughta-be-a-rule response is understandable, but one big lesson of the Trump era is that writing a law to prevent every potential abuse of power is impossible. Attempting to do so would tie Congress up in reams of mind-numbing legislation. Courts might strike some of it down; other parts would be impossible to enforce; and a sufficiently motivated administration would simply find nefarious work-arounds, just as this one has. A functioning democracy cannot be just a matter of statute. It requires good faith and some measure of virtue from its officeholders. No law can substitute for character in leaders. That makes these transgressions primarily a matter for voters, not legislators or regulators. And in the case of the campaign ads, they can weigh in soon. As Paul Krugman writes, Trump’s personal unpopularity is already a drag on Republican candidates, so emphasizing his role would seem to be politically unwise. You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars broadcasting a song called “Love me,” but you can’t make voters love you. Related: Trump’s public service announcement: “Love me” Trump is putting his face on everything.

Fact-checking Trump Daniel Dale started scrutinizing President Donald Trump back when he was an underdog candidate in 2016. The CNN analyst shared 15 things he has learned during a decade of documenting his dishonesty. 🔎 Fact check: Trump lies again that grocery prices ‘have come way down’ ➕ Analysis: 12 moves that illustrate the brazenness of Trump’s second term