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🍁 1 for the road: Peak fall Data: Explore Fall. Graphic: Jim Sergent Fall color is expected across most of the country by mid-October, Axios' Jim Sergent writes. But weather could scramble the timetable: A strong El Niño could raise temperatures and delay some peak colors, according to the National Weather Service.

Trump asked Xi to stop supporting Iran President Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to halt any assistance to Iran when the two spoke during the state visit, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue told CNBC's "Squawk Box" yesterday. Why it matters: China's economic, intelligence and military support for Iran has undermined Trump's effort to isolate the country amid the ongoing war. The U.S. is conducting a massive economic pressure campaign against Iran. But without Chinese cooperation, it'll only be partially effective, Axios' Barak Ravid reports. The other side: According to Chinese state media, Xi urged Trump to de-escalate with Iran by returning to the June memorandum of understanding and reaching a nuclear deal. Read on. Via Truth Social Trump last night posted a map of the Middle East with the Strait of Hormuz relabeled as "TRUMP STRAIT," joining a presidential fantasy map collection that this month has included New Mexico as "New America" plus all of North America as part of the U.S. (extending to Greenland and Iceland).

✊ Chart du jour: Socialism rising Data: Gallup. Chart: Neal Rothschild/Axios Americans' views of socialism have reached a record high, with 43% saying they view it positively, Axios' Neal Rothschild writes from a new Gallup poll. Why it matters: President Trump has called democratic socialists the "biggest threat to our nation." But congressional Republican candidates are being warned that socialism isn't a strong attack line. 💥 By the numbers: The share of Americans who feel positively about socialism jumped from 39% to 43% in the past year. That shift came entirely from independents: positive views of socialism rose 8 points among that group since last year, to 45%. Reality check: Socialism remains less popular than capitalism, which 55% of Americans view positively.

🔋 Electric trucks meet $6 diesel Tesla's electric Semi will start deliveries later this year. Photo: Tesla The economics of electric 18-wheelers have long been tough. But record diesel prices are suddenly making the equation more compelling, Axios' Nathan Bomey and Joann Muller report. Tesla's long-delayed electric Semi is finally going into mass production at a new Nevada factory. The long-range version can travel 500 miles on a fully loaded charge and regain up to 60% of its range in 30 minutes, Tesla says. Keep reading.

🤖 OpenAI's rogue agents strike again OpenAI disclosed dozens of incidents in which its models behaved in ways it has deemed problematic, including leaking more than 50 images from ChatGPT users online. Why it matters: This is the first publicly known example of the company's agents mishandling user data — and the latest example of a budding rogue agent problem at OpenAI, Axios' Madison Mills reports. 📸 State of play: OpenAI said that some of its agents sent data from its internal training and testing systems to outside websites, including user images, as reported first by Reuters. The company identified 53 instances in which images that users put into ChatGPT were then posted to image-hosting sites. The images came from users whose ChatGPT data was eligible to be used for model training because they hadn't opted out. OpenAI said it has worked with hosting providers to remove most of the images. It's still trying to remove the rest. Read on.

"Red undertow" threatens GOP midterm map Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios President Trump told voters to pretend he's on the ballot. Apparently they're listening: With midterms 38 days away, Republicans coast to coast are getting pulled under by a violent undertow fueled by Trump's unpopularity, Axios' Marc Caputo, Hans Nichols and Alex Isenstadt report. Why it matters: It's looked bad for Republicans all year, but this week felt different — like the political environment was disintegrating in real time, one ominous data point after another. Most worrisome for the GOP, there's virtually no chance the war ends, inflation cools, interest rates fall, consumer confidence rises, and economic optimism surges before the Nov. 3 election. 💡 Lingo du jour: Cook Political Report founder Charlie Cook writes that while "many have long predicted that Democrats will enjoy a 'blue wave' election, I think of it more as a 'red undertow,' which will pull many Republicans under and significantly trim the margins for many others." That's an implied reminder that Democrats' favorability ratings aren't good. They're just better than those of Republicans. 👂 Start with mood music: This week, Trump's disapproval rating hit 60.5%, the worst mark of his two terms in office, including the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riots. Gas prices rose to $4.49 a gallon, diesel has hit $6.50 and no relief is in sight. Seven months in, the U.S. is locked in a standoff with Iran with no apparent exit strategy. Grocery prices are still rising year over year. Mortgage rates hit 7%, and the cost of borrowing across the economy continues to climb. 🗳️ Enter the elections: The problems for the GOP are everywhere. In the battle for the Senate, once ruby-red Texas looks more in play than ever, and Florida isn't far behind. Nor is Alaska. North Carolina and Georgia look lost. Maine is problematic. The Senate GOP campaign arm is begging donors for another $8.9 million to defend Senate seats in three states that Trump won by double digits two years ago — Alaska, Iowa and Ohio. "We're having problems just getting Republican voters to respond to polls," a national Republican pollster told us. "At what point do we think these guys aren't showing up at the actual polls on Election Day?" Only in Michigan do Republicans see glimmers of hope to pick up a Senate seat because Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed is seen by some as so radical that he has "scared the shit out of our people to want to vote," the GOP pollster said. "But even then, in this environment, who knows?" What once looked like a longshot for Democrats — taking control of the Senate by flipping four Republican-held seats on a map favoring the GOP — looks increasingly plausible. ⚡ On the House side, Cook Political Report moved 15 House races toward Democrats yesterday. They need to net just three seats to win control of the chamber. Republicans are now playing defense deep in red America. GOP-aligned groups are spending money in more than a half-dozen districts that Trump won by at least 15 points in 2024. State of play: More and more lately, Republican incumbents are running for cover from Trump. In Iowa, two House Republicans have switched their positions to support a war powers resolution on Iran. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who rode the 1980 Republican wave to the Senate, and Rep. Ashley Hinson, who's running for Iowa's other Senate seat, are demanding restrictions on diesel exports. 💰 The other side: A Trump adviser downplayed the GOP tremors, pointing to the Republicans' massive cash advantage. "If we execute and our people show up, it's a different ballgame," the adviser said. "There's more than a month to go."

Jolly to national Democrats: Show me some money TAMPA — With more polls and election analysts suggesting David Jolly could become the first Democrat to win a governor’s race in Florida in more than three decades, the former GOP congressman is appealing for money to defeat Republican Byron Donalds. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/09/25/jolly-to-national-democrats-show-me-some-money/? Race to succeed Vern Buchanan in CD 16 is getting increasingly interesting As Donald Trump’s poll numbers continue to erode, some Republicans, even in Florida, are slightly backing away from being linked to the president. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/09/25/race-to-succeed-vern-buchanan-in-cd-16-is-getting-increasingly-interesting/? Construction company accused of scamming Florida residents sued by AG Uthmeier Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier was in Sarasota Friday to announce his office has filed a lawsuit against a construction company and its executives for allegedly scamming at least 80 residents out of at least $1 million in insurance payments over four years. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/09/25/construction-company-accused-of-scamming-florida-residents-sued-by-ag-uthmeier/?

September 26, 2026 Good morning. Fall weekends bring an imperative to get things done, but we need not over-engineer our days to get the most out of them. María Jesús Contreras Free rein By Melissa Kirsch It’s the first Saturday of fall, and the urge to use it productively is almost automatic. All those tasks postponed and decisions left for after summer come due in that back-to-school buckling-down that happens even long after we’ve graduated. Get up and start checking things off the list! It could all wait until fall until it was fall, and now we’re running late. Or are we? A few weeks ago, standing waist-deep in a lake as the midday sun convinced us it would warm us completely forever, my friend Randi told me about how she’d managed to stop seeing her days as a list of jobs to be done. Her usual approach, like my own, had been to attack every day with a conqueror’s ambition, accumulating points on some imaginary scoreboard for each item completed. Too often, this is how we receive an unscheduled day. The answer to the question “What shall I do?” is “What needs to be done?” The drive to accomplish, to finish the work and get in some exercise and move on to chores — it all feels so virtuous. Check, check, check. Randi recently retired after a career teaching. Her husband, witnessing her default to industry, suggested: “Let the day come to you.” What if she leaned back a little, and allowed the day’s agenda to unfold moment to moment, without needing to achieve a certain level of output? This mentality changed how Randi viewed the unfilled time before her. She stopped imposing so rigid a standard for success on an innocent morning and instead greeted the day with a spacious curiosity. Any philosophy that advocates doing less is attractive. We’re usually so busy trying to earn the A from a nonexistent teacher, to prove to ourselves and anyone else that we’re not lazy, that we’re earning our keep on Earth. To let the day come to you is to trust that we don’t have to project-manage our lives. The way I picture it, you don’t lean back so far that you sprawl out and take a nap, but you take a beat before deciding what you’re going to do, taking note of your energy and your desires and those of the people around you. When the day comes to you, you greet it with an open mind: “Why hello, day, what have you got in store? What shall we get up to?” Perhaps a rigorous day of accomplishing, but one undertaken deliberately. Perhaps you’re inclined to sit quietly thinking this morning, and then spring into action later. Maybe it’s a stay-in-and-putter kind of day. The day might, in fact, come to you with that nap — listen to it. I’ll admit this approach feels a little dangerous. I’m skeptical of advice that seems likely to nurture something too soft in me, the part that if indulged might just crawl under the quilt and sleep until March. When I say the words “Let the day come to you,” I feel like a parody of a benevolent yoga teacher, as if I’m sprinkling confectioner’s sugar over a freshly frosted cake. I fear frivolity, I fear words that sound good and feel good but leave one feeling sapped of what the French philosopher Henri Bergson called “élan vital,” the creative force in all of us that’s responsible for growth. My fear, I think, is that if I’m not keeping my eyes on the prize, if I’m not punching the punch list, then the things to be done will never be done, and chaos will follow. But letting the day come to you doesn’t have to mean abandoning the day or relinquishing our healthy diligence. A day is not a horse we have to break. In James Baldwin’s 1968 novel, “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone,” Barbara tells her friend: “Throw everything out of your mind, Leo, eat your supper, read a little, sleep. The world will still be here when you wake up, and there’ll still be everything left to do.” This same wisdom must be inherent in letting the day come to you. We can throw everything out of our minds, read a little, sleep. We can let the day come to us, let our foot off the gas for an hour or an afternoon without losing our place in the world. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Zack Wittman for The New York Times The Supreme Court said the Trump administration could deploy an expansive online system using sensitive data about millions of Americans as part of its hunt for ineligible voters. The Trump-Xi summit ended with no major announcements on artificial intelligence, trade or Taiwan. CNN was barred from Air Force One for a Saturday trip to Tennessee, despite a federal judge’s order on Thursday that the network’s credentials to cover the White House be restored. New Jersey’s lieutenant governor resigned a day after investigators concluded he had tried to use his position to secure a promotion for a girlfriend — and dates for himself. Tech OpenAI’s agents went rogue and meddled with websites for the U.S. Education Department, the Commerce Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission this summer. During their separate attack on Hugging Face, OpenAI agents tried to use another A.I. model to evade robot detection tests. The Trump administration acted legally and constitutionally when it labeled Anthropic a security risk and blacklisted it, a court in Washington ruled. Other Big Stories A potent storm is moving up the East Coast, bringing strong winds, coastal flooding and heavy rain. Pope Leo told reporters accompanying him on a flight to Paris that “here, you are all welcome” in response to a question about the White House press ban. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Hugh Jackman in “Logan.” Ben Rothstein/Marvel/Twentieth Century Fox Action films made in the 21st century are more likely to have a bittersweet ending rather than a clean-cut triumph of good over evil, a new study found. Congress is considering a bill that would create the first federal tax credits for film and TV production. Pop Music Taylor Swift released four new songs on “The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore,” an expanded version of the album she released a year ago. Macklemore, who was pulled from Ed Sheeran’s tour over his criticism of Israel from the stage, announced plans for a “Free Palestine” tour in Europe. Classical Music Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a new program to give New Yorkers 70,000 free Metropolitan Opera tickets. Members of the Cleveland Orchestra, one of the most prestigious in the United States, went on strike, canceling performances this weekend and putting a high-profile European tour in doubt. Visual Arts Sinner or saint? A new exhibition in Frankfurt traces Mary Magdalene’s shifting image over the centuries. See some of the works. A German heiress was one of the first major collectors to recognize Vincent van Gogh’s genius. Now her collection — the largest trove of his works outside the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam — is on display for the first time in decades. 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. THE INTERVIEW: SYLVESTER STALLONE Philip Montgomery for The New York Times “My father was very, very cold and tough. There was a cat making noise outside the house. He went out, got the cat, took it into the laundry room, shot it and left it in the wash tub. I think he did that to impress me. Like, you’ll never be as tough as your old man. And I won’t.” — Sylvester Stallone, whose memoir “The Steps,” comes out next week. He and the host Lulu Garcia-Navarro talked about how his abusive childhood affected his work and how that work affected our culture. Watch the interview. SPORTS Cavan Sullivan Kylie Graham/Imagn Images, via Reuters Soccer: Cavan Sullivan, a 16-year-old phenom, may take the field as part of the U.S. men’s national team for the first time this afternoon. It’s the team’s first game since the World Cup. For those who know Sullivan best, his debut on the world stage is a long time coming. As a toddler, a family friend said, “he couldn’t talk, he could barely walk, but he literally had a ball at his foot.” Read more about his life. Hockey: A new N.H.L. season is just around the corner. To prepare, The Athletic’s hockey newsletter answered a question that’s been bugging fans and non-fans alike for years: Why not just put a sumo wrestler in front of the relatively small goal? The answer, in short, is that no sumo wrestlers are actually big enough to cover the entire space, leaving plenty of room for the sport’s best scorers. For more fun hockey coverage, get the newsletter, called Red Light, delivered to your inbox. RECIPE OF THE WEEK David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. By Melissa Clark Grilled Tofu Salad Who doesn’t love a double-duty ingredient, making less work for the cook? So it goes in Kay Chun’s grilled tofu salad, where lemon-miso vinaigrette serves as both basting sauce and dressing. The recipe is flexible; you can use a grill, a stovetop grill pan or a broiler. Any which way, the tofu and zucchini will pick up the requisite smoky char in just a few minutes. Layered with fresh herbs, raw snap peas and shaved Parmesan, it’s savory and satisfying. Save leftovers for lunch during the week. REAL ESTATE Owen Richards for The New York Times The Hunt: A pair of musicians looked for a vacation home in the English countryside. Which did they choose? What you get for $700,000: A farmhouse in Vermont, a rowhouse in Philadelphia and an American foursquare in St. Paul, Minn., are all on the market. Where would you most like to live? Pick your favorite: An Art Nouveau-style home, a four-bedroom with guesthouses and a modern home with views of a fjord, all near Gothenburg, Sweden, could be yours for about $1 million. Catios: The hottest item in real estate isn’t for humans. The market for covered enclosures for cats could reach $2 billion by 2033. LIVING A communal living compound in the Bay Area. Live with friends: Communal-style complexes offer an antidote to the strain of being a working parent in an unaffordable place. Could it be for you? Going vertical: A Czech architect made the most of an awkward lot by building up rather than out. Go inside. Wet weather: Prepare your garden for a rainy fall with these tips. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER My family recently did a monthlong digital detox. Pockets of time emerged that we needed to relearn how to fill without devices. Having a list of fun and interesting non-phone activities helped combat cries of “I’m b-o-o-o-o-o-o-red!” I read seven books. My teenager did puzzles. My younger daughter took up bedazzling. And we knocked out a seven-hour drive listening to a serialized podcast and using conversation cards. It’s surprising how much there is to do when we’re not staring at our phones. — Annemarie Conte NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was deviance. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Crossplay, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. 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

THIS DAY IN HISTORY September 26 1960 Kennedy and Nixon square off in first televised presidential debate For the first time in U.S. history, a debate between major party presidential candidates—John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon—is shown on television. read more Sponsored Content by REVCONTENT 19th Century 1820 The famous frontiersman Daniel Boone dies in Missouri Arts & Entertainment 1975 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' debuts in U.S. theaters 1957 “West Side Story” opens on Broadway 1969 “The Brady Bunch” premieres 1888 T.S. Eliot is born Crime 2007 Mistrial declared in Phil Spector murder case European History 1934 Queen Mary launches 2005 IRA officially disarms Exploration 1580 Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe Space Exploration 1996 Shannon Lucid returns to Earth Sports 1971 4th Oriole pitcher wins 20th game in a single season U.S. Government and Politics 1980 Lake Placid's Olympic Village reopens as federal prison World War I 1918 Meuse-Argonne offensive opens World War II 1945 First U.S. soldier killed during Vietnam’s August Revolution

Specialist coaches and hours of practice a day: the making of China’s six-year-old Rubik’s Cube prodigy Mother of Lian Yunzhi says world record a ‘dream come true’ for child who now gets autograph requests from fellow students https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/26/dream-come-true-six-year-old-rubiks-cube-world-record?

TikTok to pay Alabama $100m and limit teenage use in first state settlement Trial had been set for Monday over claims by Alabama that TikTok misled parents about tools meant to shield children from harmful content https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/26/tiktok-alabama-pay-100m-teenage-limits-restrictions?

Vast Casino Secrets leak exposes inner workings of offshore gambling firms Files could have seismic consequences for online casinos, including those accused of illegally targeting consumers https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/sep/26/casino-secrets-leak-offshore-gambling-firms-curacao-regulator?

Russia strikes at heart of Ukraine’s digital economy with attacks on ISPs and datacentres Russia has opened a new front in its campaign against Ukraine, hitting several datacentres and internet providers in Kyiv this week in an apparent attempt to weaken the digital backbone of the economy. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/26/russia-strikes-ukraine-digital-economy-attacks-isps-datacentres?

Abraham Lincoln’s direct family line ended on December 24, 1985, when his last undisputed descendant, great-grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died without any acknowledged children. James

Trump administration uses rare authority to claw back nearly $1B in spending approved by Congress WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is canceling nearly $1 billion in spending approved by Congress, the White House announced on Friday, using a rare and contested power to axe funding for immigrant services and diversity-focused initiatives. https://apnews.com/article/trump-rescissions-fundind-46b356590699e6225f783c74e7ee3597? ps:Pathetic ‘Let’s tell the truth’: Smithsonian head given standing ovation as he hits back at Trump attacks Outgoing secretary Lonnie Bunch rejects claims the institution is unpatriotic, telling audience ‘You cannot understand all without illuminating the dark corners’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/26/lets-tell-the-truth-smithsonian-head-given-standing-ovation-as-he-hits-back-at-trump-attacks?

No Appointment Needed (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call / Getty)   View in browser Last week, the White House announced the withdrawal of Lance Schroyer, President Trump’s nominee to direct Immigration and Customs Enforcement. No explanation was offered, though Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper and a confidant of Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, had been criticized for lack of experience in immigration and in leading large organizations. In some ways, a vacancy atop ICE is normal: The agency hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed leader since the day Trump took office in 2017. But the lack of a permanent director is especially notable right now because of the emphasis Trump has put on immigration and the major operations ICE has undertaken during his second term. In the absence of a director, leadership has been split between an acting director, the so-called border czar Tom Homan, the secretary, and the Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller; the administration’s tactics have been volatile, changing often and abruptly. Among many other scandals, ICE agents keep shooting people, some of them American citizens. The department has struggled to recruit and train qualified agents to conduct the mass deportations Trump wants. The vacuum at the top has allowed loose cannons such as the Border Patrol officer Gregory Bovino to (temporarily) seize huge authority. Probably no director could calm all of these problems, but the lack of a Senate-confirmed leader cannot help instill discipline and organization. This is not an isolated case. Trump has stridently attacked what he calls the “deep state,” the corps of permanent civil servants whom the president and some of his aides believe are either layabouts or liberal saboteurs, who, regardless, are determined to bog down his agenda. Using this dubious claim as a basis, the administration has struck serious blows against the civil service. Hundreds of thousands of employees have been fired or pushed out, protections have been eliminated, and there are plans to convert many positions into political appointments. Yet layered above the supposed deep state is what we might call the shallow state: the class of employees who are appointed by each new administration, some subject to Senate confirmation and others not. By intention or negligence, Trump has also left the shallow state riddled with vacancies. The Partnership for Public Service tracks 823 top appointed roles and finds that Trump hasn’t even nominated people for 244 of them. Some of the most notable vacancies are for jobs that would have a central role in implementing Trump’s priorities. The most glaring case is the Pentagon. The United States is currently sinking deeper into a war with Iran. The president cannot consistently define objectives; no one can explain how or when the war might end, with or without U.S. victory, and the global economy is trembling. But the Defense Department is dealing with this growing crisis with many major jobs open. The department has no secretary of the Army, since Dan Driscoll resigned after feuding with Secretary Pete Hegseth. The Army also has no chief of staff, its top position, after Hegseth forced out General Randy George; senators of both parties are skeptical of Christopher LaNeve, whom Hegseth wants to replace George. Hegseth has ordered a 20 percent reduction in the number of four-star positions, so that allotted positions are left open. The U.S. reportedly faces a serious shortage of munitions, which will take years to fix, but Trump has no assistant secretary for acquisition and no nominee for the role. The rest of the national-security and foreign-policy apparatus is also understaffed. The National Counterterrorism Center, which coordinates federal-government efforts to fight terror, has had no director since Joe Kent resigned in protest of the Iran war (not that Kent, a conspiracy theorist with fringe views, was a wise choice to lead NCTC in the first place). Despite being embroiled in a war in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. has no ambassadors to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, or Iraq; it also doesn’t have an ambassador in Yemen, where a rebel group has grabbed some control over another waterway. The U.S. is treating Venezuela as a de facto colony but has no ambassador in Caracas. The president wants to end the war in Ukraine, but he has not sent an ambassador to either Kyiv or Moscow, preferring to rely on the envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law. To be sure, some of the vacancies in the executive branch are a result of Trump’s desire to eliminate or hamstring bodies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of Education, and the Federal Election Commission. But plenty of other posts remain unfilled despite their jobs being directly connected to top Trump priorities. Since Todd Blanche was promoted to attorney general, leading the conversion of the Justice Department into a political weapon, Trump has not named a replacement to serve as deputy attorney general. He has proposed major changes to the 2030 census, but the Census Bureau does not have a director. Likewise, he wants to reorganize the National Park Service, but no one has been nominated to lead it. The administration is wrestling with serious water shortages in western reservoirs, but since it withdrew its nominee to head the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees dams, a year ago, no new commissioner has been named. The Trump administration is, I have written, pushing a kind of big-government conservatism. Trump’s agenda seeks to wield the power of the state more aggressively and intrusively than any other Republican presidency in memory. Some of those efforts have been chillingly effective, but Trump’s undermining of both the shallow and the deep states means that his government struggles to execute even on his most cherished initiatives. That’s bad news for Trump’s agenda, but it might be good news for democracy. Related: Dan Driscoll’s parting shot ICE after Minneapolis

Protests against war crimes verdicts add pressure on Kosovo's government Daily protests in Kosovo against war crimes convictions for former rebel commanders spread throughout the Balkan country on Friday, adding pressure on the government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti, who has faced a monthslong political crisis. Read More.

From Gaza to Sudan to Nepal, more than 500 million children are in desperate need of education In a stifling sixth grade classroom in war-torn Sudan, a very motivated teacher was giving a lesson to 120 very committed children. Among them: an 18-year-old girl uprooted three years ago by fighting, forced into marriage and motherhood too soon, but determined to finish her education. Read More.

Federal court says Pentagon can label Anthropic a supply chain risk In the latest twist in Anthropic's dispute with the Pentagon, a federal appeals court on Friday rejected the artificial intelligence lab's challenge to the government's labeling of it as a supply chain risk. Read More.

With ethnic and historical considerations, rebranding nations is harder than renaming products Five years ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the world to stop confusing the heirs to one of history’s great empires with a ridiculous American bird. Read More.

A data-sharing clause derailed US-Zimbabwe health talks. Now all funding ends this month The United States will end funding for Zimbabwe’s health programs at the end of September following the collapse of negotiations over a U.S.-proposed deal that Zimbabwe rejected in part over a requirement to share sensitive health data, the U.S. Embassy said Friday. Read More.

CEO pay surged in 2025 Our latest analysis finds that CEO pay rose 14.0% at the top 350 U.S. firms in 2025 as the CEO-to-worker pay ratio hit 325-to-1. https://www.epi.org/blog/ceo-pay-surged-in-2025-ceos-are-paid-325-times-as-much-as-the-typical-worker/? Wage suppression in 10 charts Wages for typical workers have been largely suppressed since the 1970s. The 10 charts below tell that story. https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-suppression-in-10-charts/?

Tasia Fortune’s hanging was ‘staged’ after her death in a drug dispute, Mississippi police say JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Tasia Fortune was apparently killed in a drug dispute before her body was hung in a tree in a “staged” scene behind an abandoned home in the Mississippi capital this summer, a detective testified Friday. https://apnews.com/article/tasia-fortune-hanging-mississippi-death-hearing-95846bd8696ac741c26edd6db72a98d8?

🗳️ The Supreme Court is letting the Trump administration use a modified program to verify voters' citizenship status for now, handing the administration a last-minute win in its campaign for new election rules ahead of the midterms. Go deeper. Supreme Court rejects a Trump-backed Missouri congressional map for the third time JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday turned away an attempt to use a new Missouri congressional map backed by President Donald Trump, putting an end to a long-running legal dispute as absentee voting is underway in the midterm elections. https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-missouri-redistricting-congressional-map-3f43ba5f47681ea759115fbc250712d4?

🏛️ GOP House danger deepens Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios House Republicans are on track to lose their majority during the midterms, Axios' Kate Santaliz reports from a new forecast. Cook Political Report shifted 15 House races toward Democrats today — the latest sign that the political environment is deteriorating for Republicans. 🪑 Democrats only need a net gain of three seats to take the majority. Cook now projects that Democrats are most likely to gain between five and 15 seats, which would give them a 220-230-seat majority. 🖼️ The big picture: Republicans have been arguing that redistricting and a sizable financial advantage give them more breathing room. But Cook says new Democratic maps in California and Utah are largely offsetting Republicans' redistricting gains elsewhere. Go deeper ... Explore the report.