Abortion Pills in Every Medicine Cabinet
  June 26, 2026 Salutations, Meteor readers, Happy MAFS Thursday to all who observe. While this season has been quite enjoyable, I am ready for Shawn and Nikki to shake hands and exit stage left. It’s getting painful. In today’s newsletter, Nona Willis Aronowitz digs into the game plan if Todd Blanche makes good on his anti-abortion threats. Plus, the small pleasure giving us a mood boost this week. Locked in, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONPlan A(bortion): You may have heard the terrifying recent audio of Attorney General hopeful Todd Blanche buttering up anti-abortion faith leaders by telling them he planned to make “the Dobbs decision…permanent in every single state.” Since the Department of Justice can’t pass national abortion bans, what he actually meant was that under his leadership, the DOJ would enforce the long-ignored Comstock Act. The infamous 19th-century law prohibits (among other “obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile” things) the shipping of abortion medication, a now-widespread practice that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has called “a scheme to undermine” Dobbs. This incident got me thinking, as I do every time a Republican issues a new threat against the medication responsible for two out of three U.S. abortions: Should we all be stocking up on abortion pills? You know, just in case Blanche keeps his promise. Or just in case the FDA restricts mifepristone. Just in case we find ourselves pregnant and don’t want to wait days or weeks remaining that way. Just in case someone we love is unhappily pregnant and can’t afford the pills’ approximately $150 price tag. Abortion-rights advocates have actually been urging us to advance-order abortion pills for years, especially since Dobbs. But how often is it happening, really? And what would it take to make it a common practice? It was just a few years ago that only a sliver of the population knew that you could get abortion pills in the mail, much less get them before you were pregnant. Then COVID happened, followed by Dobbs. Now, one in three abortions are done through mailed pills, with nearly all abortions happening this way in abortion-ban states. Experts say “advanced provision” became more common after Roe v. Wade fell in 2022. (One study found that between August 2021 and March 2023, around 13% of patients who ordered abortion medication through telehealth were doing so in advance.) Many telehealth services across the country explicitly offer this option and, in most cases, you don’t even need to talk directly to a provider. The idea has gone so mainstream that Planned Parenthood in Washington and Hawai’i began offering “just in case” abortion pills recently. So…how’s it going? “Really well,” Rebecca Gibron, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, tells The Meteor. She says that since Dobbs, the organization has felt “a responsibility to work double-time” and advanced provision “was just the logical next step in advancing access to abortion care.” Providers at Planned Parenthood clinics in Washington and Hawai’i have been suggesting the just-in-case option at patients’ annual appointments and advertising it on their social media. “We know that timing matters in accessing abortion care,” Gibron says. “And when someone decides that they don't want to be pregnant, every day of delay is an extra day of anxiety.”  A PACKAGE OF ABORTION PILLS FROM MASSACHUSETTS-BASED TELEHEALTH SERVICE THE MAP. THE "WE WISH YOU THE BEST!" NOTE IS SO SWEET! (VIA GETTY) So why hasn’t everyone stocked up on pills by now, the same way they might buy a fire extinguisher or, as Abortion Every Day’s Jessica Valenti pointed out, keep some Narcan on deck? Amy Merrill, co-founder of the abortion resource organization Plan C, tells me it’s simple: stigma. “The medication itself has been so charged in our culture,” she says. Even for people in blue parts of the country, there “may be confusion around, ‘Is it okay for me to have this medication in my house?’” I think she’s right. When I surveyed my (very pro-choice, politically active) friends and followers, only a few people said they had ordered pills in advance. I am not one of them. Merrill asked me why not, and it’s a good question. Part of it is cost—$150 is a lot of money for something I may never use (although many services do offer a sliding scale). I also, perhaps naively, believe an abortion would be pretty easy to get in my home state of New York, even if something were to happen to mifepristone access. But as I began to fill out these telehealth organizations’ online forms as research for this piece, I realized maybe I do have some instinctual fear that I’ll get in trouble somehow. This fear is not entirely irrational, especially for people who live under abortion bans–law enforcement will sometimes go after people who self-manage their abortions, even though doing so is not a crime in any state except Nevada. And while I know the risks are much higher for providers than for patients, I still felt nervous reading all the legal warnings in the FAQs. I flinched a little every time I was asked for my name. The form that felt the easiest and safest was the one on Aid Access, a service that prominently advertises in-advance pills and uses reassuring language like “We do not judge you.” It may be no coincidence that its founder is not American. All this is to say, if someone like me feels skittish, we have a long way to go before the average person keeps abortion pills on hand. But cultural norms can change quickly. While Merrill appreciates the Narcan comparison—it’s “harm reduction for the circumstances we're living in”—she thinks a better analogy is the fight in the early aughts to get emergency contraception over the counter. It seems normal now, but having the “morning-after” medication Plan B hanging next to the condoms in the sexual wellness aisle was a hard-fought, piecemeal victory in which Merrill’s Plan C cofounders, Elisa Wells and Francine Coeytaux, were instrumental. As someone who vividly remembers when you needed a prescription for Plan B, and all the bipartisan pearl-clutching surrounding its access, it still strikes me as remarkable how unremarkable it’s become in my lifetime. As of 2021, a quarter of 22-to-49-year-old women had used emergency contraception. Maybe it’s time for us to take the same approach to stocking abortion pills. Recent research shows that over-the-counter abortion pills are safe, and Merrill thinks there’s a real opportunity to recast the medication as a “public health tool that allows people to reclaim agency in the face of unjust and unmedical bans.” But before that can ever happen, we all need to get more comfortable having those pills sent to our homes, with our names on them. Plan C has detailed information on how people are ordering pills in advance and staying digitally safe. The normalizing part is up to us. —Nona Willis Aronowitz AND:
 ADD TO CART. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
 MOOD BOOSTEREvery Thursday, one of our editors shares a small thing that’s getting them through. If you’ve got something brightening your week, we want to know—reply to this email and share! Few things feel better than successfully executing a well-laid plan, especially when that plan involves one of my favorite things: day dates. My husband and I began our decade-plus relationship in the darkness of a crowded bar, but we learned very quickly that dates in the day are a far better use of our limited time. So when we first saw the trailer for “The Odyssey” months ago, we knew we would be catching it midday—as Nolan and our three-year-old’s schedule intended. We mapped out childcare weeks in advance and, with the same level of tactical planning involved in scaling a Trojan wall, arranged the time, snacks, seating arrangement, and bathroom timing. Everything went off without a hitch and our bladders held up during the loudest three-hour adventure I’ve ever endured. And the movie lived up to the hype. —Shannon Melero  FOLLOW THE METEOR     Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
122 Days Living Without Water
  June 26, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, My kid demands to listen to the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack every night before bed, and I’ve started turning it into an opportunity for aerobics. Last night she looked at me and said, “Why you dancin’ like that, mama?” Rude.  Today we bring you an update on a state of emergency that hits uncomfortably close to home. Plus, it’s primary day for Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia, and Washington. Go get your stickers! With love, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONEmpty faucets: For the last 122 days, Puerto Rico has been experiencing a severe water crisis. An estimated 180,000 households have lost running water for days at a time, and while the situation has slightly improved, many homes and businesses are still experiencing hours of either total water loss or potable water loss. The National Guard has been delivering potable water to affected areas in repurposed milk trucks. On Monday, conditions had reached such crisis levels that the government announced a plan for water rationing across the island. How did we get here? In June, power failures, which have become a near-daily occurrence over the nine years since Hurricane Maria, caused service disruptions at a water filtration plant. Then, a few days later, massive ruptures were found in the Superacueducto, a major pipeline that carries water from treatment centers into cities like San Juan, Carolina, and Loíza. Residents there were left without service while the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) attempted repairs. But the work has been slow, and as water spills from the Superacueducto and electricity becomes spottier at filtration centers, another problem compounds this horrific situation: There’s a drought. More than 82% of the island—which is home to a rainforest—was under abnormally dry conditions as of the end of July. Officials have been confounded. At one point, Governor Jeniffer González Colón “even invoked God, begging him for rain,” Susanne Ramirez de Arellano, a journalist living in Old San Juan, tells The Meteor. “We’re left wondering what kind of a plan she actually has to face this water crisis besides asking for divine intervention.”  WATER TRUCKS PREPARING FOR DISTRIBUTION IN MID-JULY. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) Meanwhile, “abuelas are hauling five-gallon buckets up three flights of stairs to flush a toilet and wash a plate,” writes activist and movement strategist Luis Jonathan Hernandez. “Mothers are heating bottled water on a stove to bathe their kids.” Ramirez de Arellano says although residents are “furious to say the least,” they’re also “resilient. Life must go on. But this water crisis has brought many, including myself, to the end of their tether.” These problems are not new; they are the result of decades of neglect, fiscal mismanagement, and, as always, colonialism. Aqueducts don’t break overnight. Infrastructure does not erode in a weekend. These things are guided to failure by malicious hands. And a coarse salt in the wound is that, as Hernandez puts it, “This is the same summer everybody decided they were Puerto Rican.” It was only a few short months ago we bore witness to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show and the internet was awash in praise and cultural dissection of Benito’s message. Everyone seemed to understand that they were witnessing something powerful, something bigger than a singular event. And yet, as Hernandez reminds us: “At that Super Bowl, in front of the whole world, he climbed an electrical pole to point straight at the island’s power crisis, and the crowd cheered the spectacle and let the meaning slide right off them.” It is a cruel irony that a small island surrounded by ocean, known for some of the most beautiful waters on the earth and besieged by rain on a semi-reliable schedule, is experiencing such a massive drought. It is perhaps even more cruel that they are enduring this completely alone. When I talk to people about the crisis they have one of two responses: I thought that ended or I didn’t know that was happening. In his writings, Hernandez gives marching orders to Puerto Ricans living in the diaspora: Don’t just carry the flag, carry the water. So to you, my dear Meteor reader, I step out of my journalist chair for a moment to deliver a personal plea. Do not forget about my people. Help us carry the water. AND:
 IS THE SCHIAPARELLI IN THE ROOM WITH US? (SCREENSHOT VIA YOUTUBE)
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Robots Gone Wild
  June 26, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, I am obsessed with the story of this man who accidentally impaled himself and then just kept moving. I’m an avid hiker, but if there is so much as a pebble in my shoe, it sends me into a tailspin. Big ups to David and the friends who helped him get to safety.  In today’s newsletter, we are out of the woods and in the heart of the machine with podcast host and tech expert Bridget Todd, who tells us why we should care about an AI model going rogue. Plus, a little mood-boosting. Smoothing my hiking pole tips, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ON
Someone call Sarah Connor: Last week, as you’ve probably seen, an AI model created by OpenAI “escaped” its containment parameters and ran loose around the wilds of the internet for four days before it was discovered breaching another AI platform, Hugging Face. Now, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably thinking Girl, what the hell did you even just say? Which was precisely the first question I asked tech expert, author, and “There Are No Girls on the Internet” host Bridget Todd, who was gracious enough to explain why it matters that a robot has gone wild. “People should be alarmed,” she says. But let’s back up a tiny bit: What exactly happened? The TL;DR as explained by TechCrunch is that an internal model, created by OpenAI and not intended for public use, moved outside of OpenAI without being directly instructed to do so. It is, as far as the experts know, the first hack of its kind. “One point that many observers keep missing is that this wasn’t a rogue agent disobeying orders,” journalist Connie Loizas writes. “It was a system built to hunt for exploits, doing exactly that, just against the wrong target.” There’s another way in which we all might be missing the point about what happened, notes Todd. Much of the reporting “makes it seem like we're in a Terminator situation where OpenAI’s models are so powerful that they've escaped containment and they're coming for you.” That narrative allows OpenAI “to talk about their technology as if it's something that they don't have complete responsibility over.” But they absolutely do. The escape is a big deal “not because this is some super-scary, malicious sci-fi rogue AI, but because the humans who should be in charge and directing this are making decisions that lead to harmful outcomes,” she says.  WHAT THE HUGGING FACE BOTS HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT NOW (VIA GETTY IMAGES) In explaining this incident, OpenAI has employed the kind of language that places all of the blame on the model itself, as if it made a conscious choice to breach Hugging Face. But Todd says cybersecurity professionals have been warning about this kind of result for years—an AI model being powerful enough to exploit “known security vulnerabilities” in another system. Amid “all of the decision-making that OpenAI made as a company—how capable a model is, how strong the walls were that they built for it, what the goal that they set for it were, what safety roles they decided to switch off—there was no kind of law directing the duty of care and decision-making,” she says. So why isn’t there a law? If AI is so powerful and so omnipresent and we already have a mountain of data suggesting that unregulated AI is a danger, why aren’t politicians tripping over themselves to solve the problem before it gets any worse? “The United States really has a lot of anxiety that our country is losing the AI race with China,” says Todd. And the push to win that race, she believes, is taking precedence over common-sense policies. AI companies and government officials are essentially telegraphing: “We don't give a fuck about y'all. Y'all are SOL,” Todd says. This sprint towards AI supremacy is part of why the technology has felt so inescapable lately. During our conversation, Todd and I swap examples of the often nonsensical commercials and billboards singing the praises of AI. Neither of us can remember the last time an industry tried this hard to ram something down consumers’ throats. “It's almost like this kind of corporate marketing gaslighting speak,” Todd says. But if a product that is touted to be the greatest thing since the World Wide Web requires this much convincing, is it really all it’s cracked up to be? In the face of sky-high electric bills due to data centers, declining property values, and AI models changing the workforce, the powers that be are still wagering that the average American will just get on board because that’s what they’re being told to do. But “I can tell you that we will not,” Todd says. The breach of Hugging Face should serve as a wake-up call about the guardrails we need, so we don’t innovate ourselves into oblivion. It’s also a reminder that people are still in control; AI is not an inevitability we must all succumb to. Even the T-1000 was defeated in the end. AND:
 MOOD BOOSTEREvery Thursday, one of our editors shares a small thing that’s getting them through. If you’ve got something brightening up your week, reply to this email!  LAKE SOPHIA LOOKING DECEPTIVELY QUIET. (VIA INSTAGRAM) While solo-parenting this weekend, I impulsively decided to bring my baby and four-year-old to a new attraction in Kingston, NY, where we live. Nestled within Sojourner Truth State Park is a new spring-fed turquoise pool called Lake Sophia, named after one of the abolitionist and suffragist’s daughters. Despite that enticing description, the pool itself was not my mood-booster; the spot has been absolutely overrun since its opening earlier this month. By the time we walked 20 minutes from the overflow parking lot only to discover there were zero shady towel-spots left, I was ready to turn back. But then I saw my daughter’s bestie and her lovely mom and auntie, splashing in the water. They had a canopy tent! Snacks! Extra hands for the baby! And that’s what's getting me through: communal caregiving, which saved my day. Neighborly co-parenting vibes 4eva. —Nona Willis Aronowitz  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
A Mass Family Separation
  June 26, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, It has come to my attention that "Love Is Blind" is now casting for a New York City season. I feel like every New Yorker is guessing which of their former flings is most likely to end up on the show. (Or is that just me?) In today’s newsletter, we take a look at a developing crisis for thousands of families. Plus, an elderly hero rises. Love is blind, son, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ON
“Needless deaths”: Yesterday, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians in the United States ended, as per a June Supreme Court decision. The end of TPS means that more than 300,000 Haitian immigrants and 6,000 Syrian immigrants who are legally living in the U.S. will now be eligible for deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has already made plans to “ramp up” arrests and mass deportations, specifically in Haitian communities. “What we are about to witness will be one of the largest family separation events in modern-day history,” the front page of Haitian Bridge Alliance’s website states. According to Brookings, an estimated 60,000 citizen children have been impacted by parental detention since January 2025. Given that researchers estimate that there are 50,000 children born in the U.S. to Haitian parents with TPS, it is highly likely that at least that many families will be torn apart if those parents cannot obtain a new legal status. The TPS program was established in 1990, under George H. W. Bush (Republicans used to be okay with immigration) and was intended to offer safety to foreign nationals who could not safely return to their home countries due to “armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions.” Immigrants from El Salvador were the first to be granted TPS, due to the civil war there from 1972 to 1992. After a devastating earthquake in 2010, Haiti was added to the TPS list under the Obama administration.  PROTESTERS IN 2019, THE FIRST TIME THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION THREATENED TO END TPS FOR HAITI. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) The Trump administration claims it's ending TPS for Haiti because circumstances have improved enough for people to return; the same explanation has been applied to Syria. (There are nine countries on the TPS list, but a majority of them are set to expire this year.) But the decision could mean “that many, many people are going to die violent, needless deaths,” an attorney representing TPS holders told The Marshall Project. Gang violence is still rampant in Haiti, a hunger crisis is impacting millions, and the suspension of USAID funding last year left 750,000 Haitian women and girls without access to healthcare. Thousands of immigrants are now left wondering how and when they will have to leave the United States. Many are afraid to leave their homes, and fear what awaits them if they return to Haiti. “If I don't get mistreated by ICE at the detention center, I may be killed in Haiti, and my blood will be on [Trump’s] hands,” Farah Larrieux, a TPS holder from Haiti who works in hospitality and has been in the U.S. for 20 years, told NPR. Viki, a young woman in Florida who was set to start a registered nursing program this month, had to withdraw after her employer informed her that her TPS was “done.” She was let go from that job as a caretaker for ventilator-dependent patients, she told the Miami Herald. Viki is now trying to get a green card under the Violence Against Women Act (another landmark piece of legislation that many Republicans want to kill). Advocates say that there is one lifeline left: S.4814, a Senate bill that would extend TPS for Haiti through April 2029. The bill is sponsored by 27 Democrats and two Independents. The Haitian Bridge Alliance has this handy phone script available and urges everyone to call their senators. AND:
 SAAR AT A "PARTY IN THE GARDEN" AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART IN NEW YORK LAST MONTH. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
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What Would You Do with $67 Billion?
  June 26, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, Okay, honesty time. I was very blasé about going to see Christopher Nolan’s "The Odyssey." Something about watching a three-hour road trip film with a hero who won’t ask for directions just doesn’t move me to spend $25 at AMC. And then I read this Substack. I’m now convinced that it might be worth all the hype. Speaking of movies, on Monday at 1 p.m. EST we are gathering virtually to discuss “The Invite,” and we’d love for all of you to join. Before that, though, in today’s newsletter we’re doing our best to spend $67 billion faster than Pete Hegseth. Cha-ching, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONMoney, money, money: The war with Iran is in its fifth month and, according to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, has cost the U.S. $37.5 billion so far. But that outrageous number is somehow not enough to continue a war that has no conceivable end. So Hegseth went to Congress this week with his hand out, asking for another $67 billion to keep funding the war. That’s to say nothing of the $1.5 trillion Trump requested back in April to fund the military in 2027. (Siri, play “Keep Ya Head Up.”) During Wednesday’s hearing, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) noted the gall of asking for so much money for a war that Congress never authorized and that the president claimed had already been won. “So endless money for bombs but insufficient money for the American people, for their healthcare, their food, their housing,” she said. Gillibrand went on to list a number of other things going unfunded, like SNAP and disaster relief, all so that Trump can play a life-size game of Battleship.  But could we really solve all those problems with a meager $67 billion? Let’s check! One year of SNAP: $124 billion Housing crisis: $10 billion One year of Medicare For All: several trillion dollars per year (ouch) So while Hegseth’s $67 billion would sadly not get us Medicare For All, it would cover about half the costs of a fully funded SNAP and could certainly eliminate the housing shortage in the U.S. with many billions to spare. Here are a few other things we could spend that money on without having to purchase a single bomb. One year of universal pre-K with $7 billion left over for teachers’ bonus checks Nearly two years of national paid parental leave More than thirty years of Planned Parenthood’s entire annual operation A $151,241 check for each survivor of sexual violence in the U.S. last year. A fully functioning FEMA ($35 billion), a federal buyout of all American medical debt ($2.2 billion), every single NWSL team ($3 billion), the Knicks ($12 billion) plus the entirety of Erling Haaland’s $500,000 Birkin collection….and there’d still be several billion left for a really nice vacation. Dollar amounts aside, none of this covers the human cost of this war. More than 3,000 Iranians have been killed, almost half of them civilians. At least 18 servicepeople have been killed in action, according to the Pentagon, which has allegedly underreported American casualties. Instead of waiting for this number to go up, Congress should roundly reject Hegseth's request and focus on what the rest of America actually needs. Just today, the House voted to end the war, and a Senate vote is expected to take place soon. Maybe give your senator a call? AND:
 MOOD BOOSTERThe news doesn't always make it easy to find the bright spots, but they’re there! Every Thursday, one of our editors will share one small thing that’s getting them through. If you’ve got something brightening up your week, let us know and we may feature it in a future newsletter.  I find a lot of comfort in history books because I already know how everything ends. No surprises, just a deep dive on the journey from point A to point B. I recently started reading The Six Loves of James I, which details the tumultuous love life of King James I of England VI of Scotland. It may sound dry, but James was quite a horndog who famously took on male lovers and grew to have quite a bit of power in his court. Sex, politics, scandal, men’s tempers—and none of it screws with my life because it happened hundreds of years ago. Win. —Shannon  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
Conservatives Argue Title IX is Actually Bad for Men. Huh?
  June 26, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, There are only 338 days until the next World Cup. Does everyone have their fits ready? In today’s newsletter, we explore the dark underbelly of conservative fears. With sports! Plus, is everyone reading The Odyssey without me?  Locked in, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONYe old feminine graces: Yesterday, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) announced that it would conduct one-time genetic sex testing for all players in compliance with a recent eligibility policy set forth by the International Olympic Committee. This policy requires all athletes competing in women’s sports categories to prove that they are “biologically female” at least once during their professional career. At the same time, the far-right is amping up its anti-trans, anti-woman war on sports. Just this week, the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation (the group behind Project 2025) published a report detailing all the reasons Title IX needs to be reworked—reasons that are almost entirely based on false, disproven information about women’s fertility being destroyed by sports. The report was authored by Scott Yenor, a disgraced poli-sci professor and cartoonish misogynist who posits that women never actually wanted to participate in sports that much anyway; they were coerced to do so by Second Wave feminists (and Simone de Beauvoir, which is…a reach). The way Title IX has been enforced, he argues, has forced women to participate in activities they are not “naturally” interested in, like wrestling (which happens to be the fastest-growing sport in the country for girls’ participation). As I’ve said before, sport is where all of us play out our political beliefs with our bodies and our money. And the right’s hyperfixation on women’s sports—and what a woman should be—can tell us a lot about what conservatives actually fear: the decline of traditional masculinity. Let me lay it out. Since the pandemic, girls’ sports participation in the U.S. has been on the rise, thanks to broader investment in programs and the visibility of elite women athletes. Why dream of being the next LeBron when you can dream of being the next A’ja? Conversely, we’ve seen a drop in boys’ sports participation, largely due to the price tag of athletic participation, and America’s win-at-all-costs culture. That was especially on display during this World Cup, where sports commentators discussed how Lamine Yamal was getting scouted by FC Barcelona when he was only six years old. That’s what the Heritage Foundation is really worried about: less room for boys to be boys. In his report, Yenor briefly calls for more robust funding of youth sports (for boys)... at the cost of investment for girls. To him, sports is a zero-sum game: “Title IX has led to the defunding of male sports at the college level, the failure to grow male sports despite obvious interest, and the unnatural expansion of niche female sports,” Yenor writes.  SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR, WHO IS ALL OVER THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION REPORT DESPITE BEING ONLY MARGINALLY RELEVANT TO THIS TOPIC. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) He is correct that some men’s sports are being defunded, but so are women’s sports. Men’s sports at the collegiate level are being downgraded to “club-level” (meaning non-competitive) because club sports are less expensive and schools are funneling money towards sports that either drive revenue or will get students to the Olympics. And across the board, the top revenue drivers are still men’s football and basketball. As for the failure to grow men’s sports, this is hardly Title IX’s fault. Youth sports have become prohibitively expensive for the average American family. If household incomes are not rising at the same speed as costs, that’s not a masculinity problem; that’s an economic problem. But as history has taught us, fixing the economy is a lot harder than creating a cultural scapegoat. Yenor’s report and the many coordinated efforts to limit gender-affirming care and sports participation expose the conservative worry that something is coming to take away masculinity from young boys, and Title IX is one of the tools of that theft. (Don’t nobody want your masculinity, Scott!!) Claiming that feminism is preventing boys from being masculine is textbook, apocalyptic fearmongering (and organizations like the WTA and IOC are mainstreaming this narrative—intentionally or not—when they enforce anti-trans policies). In this case, conservatives are targeting the language of the people, the one thing constituents from all backgrounds will understand: sports. AND:
 HE'S TRYING TO ABSORB MAMDANI'S YOUTH. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
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Women's soccer *is* That Bitch
  June 26, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, Last night, I went to a historic soccer match, so in today’s newsletter we’re going to relive that experience together and really appreciate what women are doing for the beautiful game. Plus, at some point, we’ll also talk news and have some brutal honesty about the U.S.’s relationship with ICE. But before we get to that stuff, a little announcement: Everyone’s been talking about the new film “The Invite,” a comedy about an awkward dinner party starring Olivia Wilde (who also directed it) and Penélope Cruz, and co-written by Rashida Jones. So let’s talk about it together! The Meteor will be gathering for a virtual “movie club” about “The Invite” on Monday, July 27th, at 1 pm. If you’ve seen it, join us—or go out and see it, then join us. (Not an ad, we’re just dying to talk to all of you again.) Click here to RSVP! Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONIt’s good to be Queens: Under a blanket of Canadian wildfire smoke, with about 42,000 of my fellow soccer fans, I had the pleasure of sitting in Citi Field for the Queens Classic, a face-off between Gotham FC and the Washington Spirit. It was a far cry from the first professional women’s soccer game I ever attended in 2019, featuring the same two teams, on the Rutgers campus in Piscataway, New Jersey. On a relatively small soccer field, absent the many bells and whistles of a proper stadium, I watched national treasure Rose Lavelle and my woman-crush Caprice Dydasco speed across the grass and thought, Where the hell is everyone? Why were these women, some of whom had just gotten back from winning another World Cup, playing a venue where they didn’t even have a designated changing area?  A SNAPSHOT OF THAT 2019 GAME, WHEN GOTHAM FC WAS INITIALLY NAMED SKY BLUE. LOOK VERY CLOSELY AT THE FAR END OF THE FIELD. THOSE ARE FANS SITTING ON BEACH CHAIRS THEY BROUGHT TO THE GAME. THAT'S DEDICATION. (COURTESY OF SHANNON MELERO) The Queens Classic was quite an upgrade from Piscataway (no shade). The sellout crowd was the largest audience gathered for women’s sports ever in New York, the first women’s sporting event ever held at Citi Field, and the second most-attended game in NWSL history. Gotham FC won the night with Lavelle scoring the only goal of the match. Superstar Sam Kerr also made her grand return to the NWSL, and when she took to the field, the crowd became unhinged. It wasn’t just a great game with great energy. It was a statement ringing through the smoke-filled air for all to hear: We have nothing left to prove. We the fans, we the league, we the players, we the writers dying to convince everyone that this is the place to be, have finally reached the promised land. The one where a massive event like last night’s can be held at the height of World Cup season—the same day as the semifinals—and still post record numbers. The place where you don’t have to justify being a women’s soccer fan, where you don’t have to utter the words See, it’s just as good as the men’s game—where, honestly, no one is even thinking about the MLS. The NWSL has shaken off the tiresome yoke of trying to be “just as good” and in a short 14 years become That Bitch.  VERY DIFFERENT SEATING ARRANGEMENTS JUST A FEW YEARS LATER. (COURTESY OF SHANNON MELERO) Last night’s match was also designed to be an introduction of sorts. Gotham FC was originally formed in New Jersey and played its home games at Sports Illustrated Arena in Harrison, New Jersey. They are, however, considered an NJ/NY team, and earlier this month, the front office announced that Gotham would be making a permanent move to Queens’ Etihad Stadium in 2028. The response has been mixed. New Jersey loyalists don’t see themselves making the hour-plus-long journey to Queens for regular-season games, while New York fans blame New Jerseyans for not filling the seats at Sports Illustrated. (Just to be an angry fan for a moment, this team would not even be in Sports Illustrated if it weren’t for those of us who kept up the support in the no-win years!!! But now that our girls have two stars on that crest, you wanna take them away??!!) The stadium change is all anyone can talk about, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when the woman sitting next to me leaned over and asked, “So, what do you think about the move?” We went back and forth animatedly for a solid ten minutes about the risks and rewards of essentially abandoning an entire fan base in hopes of finding a better one in a more lucrative market. Between the two of us, we couldn’t come up with a firm answer. “Maybe there’s a new subway line coming that none of us know about,” my new pal mused. It seems that the only thing anyone can agree on is that the league is making a huge bet on itself—not just with this move into the most desirable sports market in the country but with a two-team expansion slated for the same year. The NWSL is finally moving like a woman who knows her worth, even if it means pissing off a couple hundred soccer moms in Central Jersey. You almost can’t be mad at it. AND:
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Don't sleep on this "attractive nice lady"
  July 14, 2026 Dearest Meteor readers, Word on the street is that cigarettes are back in vogue, a trend corroborated by their unusually strong presence among the guests at my birthday party last weekend. (I turn 42 tomorrow!) Pray for me and my commitment to nicotine gum, please.  Today, we’re (re)introducing you to Dr. Annie Andrews, the Senate candidate who’s been pushed into the spotlight after Lindsey Graham’s death. Plus, a long-overdue payday for E. Jean Carroll. And, wash those greens! Keeping Nicorette in business, Nona Willis Aronowitz  WHAT'S GOING ONAll eyes on Dr. Annie: So, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) died this weekend. His sudden demise makes it an excellent time to both review his horrendously anti-women, anti-LGBTQ+ record, and to take a closer look at the woman who had been vying for his seat: Dr. Annie Andrews, who would be the first pediatrician and woman doctor in the U.S. Senate if elected. We’ve had our eye on Andrews for a while, ever since she first announced her plans to run for Graham’s seat last spring. Clad in a white coat and stethoscope, she pointedly showed x-rays of children with measles pneumonia (“a condition easily prevented by vaccines”) and cancer (“one of the diseases the NIH doesn’t have the funding to study anymore”). South Carolina’s measles outbreak this winter only made the issue, and her background, more relevant. “I never in a million years, when I was in medical school, thought that I would be running for the U.S. Senate and also talking about measles nearly every single day,” Andrews told The 19th back in February. Graham had been dismissive of Andrews, telling reporters she was an “attractive nice lady with a couple of kids, but we don’t know what she believes in.” But Andrews has made it quite clear what she believes in (and FYI, she has three kids). “I believe that healthcare is a human right,” she told her supporters after winning her primary last month, and “that if you couldn’t pass a pop quiz about women’s reproductive anatomy, you shouldn’t have anything to do with writing laws about what a woman does with her own body.” She also called for impeaching and removing health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; fighting against Medicaid and Medicare cuts; fully funding the NIH and CDC, which have withered under RFK, Jr.’s tenure; and passing gun laws that protect kids. She’s the kind of candidate we desperately need more of, in an era of vaccine hesitancy and the rise of MAHA.  THE LAB COAT IS A NICE TOUCH, TBH. (VIA YOUTUBE)All that said, Andrews was facing an uphill battle in a deep-red state where Graham won by double digits in 2020. But Graham’s death has scrambled the state’s election dynamics in a year that was already very, very bad for Republicans. Jalisa Washington-Price, a political strategist and senior advisor to the Harris-Walz campaign (and a South Carolina native), says that Andrews, who had already pulled closer to Graham in some polls, may have a chance in a year that has had little tolerance for “business as usual.” South Carolina and the region in general are experiencing a “political awakening,” she says, especially after the Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act and the subsequent fight in South Carolina over a recent Trump-led redistricting effort (which eventually failed). South Carolina Republicans have also been attempting to further eviscerate reproductive rights with a law making its way through the state legislature that would explicitly sentence women who’ve had abortions to prison time. Andrews has been part of the pushback to that law, which she has called “barbaric” and part of an “anti-science, anti-family, anti-woman agenda.” “It's still South Carolina,” Washington-Price says, “but people are feeling really optimistic about her chances.” In the meantime, there’s also the question of who, exactly, Andrews will face in November: Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, has been appointed to fill his spot, but Washington-Price says it’s unlikely she’ll end up being Andrews’ challenger. She predicts that Republicans will pick a candidate who’s “Lindsey Graham-lite”—and that’s not, she says, what voters want. (Let’s hope for Andrews’ sanity that her challenger is not Nancy Mace, whose anti-trans crusade caused Andrews to leave her job as a doctor back in 2022.) Even if the electoral landscape has changed, Andrews is still staring down a huge challenge, both politically and tonally. It’s tough to campaign against the memory of a beloved person who just died. But Washington-Price doesn’t think Andrews will make any major pivots. Andrews confirmed as much to The New York Times yesterday: “The problems South Carolinians are facing,” she said, “have not changed over the weekend.” AND:
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Human Rights on the Ballot
  June 26, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, Lots of ground to cover today. First up, is abortion on the ballot in your state? We’re checking. Then, a quick news cruise before we ask television icon-turned-author Mara Brock Akil three questions about her new novel. Let’s hop to it, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONHuman rights on the ballot: We really cannot stop talking about just how important this year’s midterms are going to be. But don’t worry, this isn’t about the latest Democrat hotshot riding in on a white horse to save us—those are only fairytales. Instead, we’re taking a look at some crucial abortion-related ballot initiatives that may be flying under the radar given all the madness building up to November. So far, there are abortion measures on the ballot in Nevada, Missouri, and Virginia—all states that allow for abortion until viability (generally 21-24 weeks). In Nevada and Virginia, voters will get to decide on whether or not reproductive rights should also be enshrined in their states’ constitutions. In Missouri, Amendment 3 is on the table—voters will decide whether or not to repeal the constitutional right to reproductive freedom that voters approved in 2024 and prohibit all abortions except in emergency cases. Amendment 3 would also prohibit gender-affirming care for minors. It’s a double whammy of cruelty. Two other ballot measures are waiting for their respective secretaries of state's approval: an anti-choice one in Colorado that would void the newly added right to abortion in the state constitution, and a pro-choice one in Idaho to reverse the state’s extremely restrictive abortion ban. Before we go further, a side thought on abortion-related ballot initiatives. In a perfect world, if you ask us, basic healthcare and bodily autonomy wouldn’t even be up to voters. Other forms of medical care aren’t; we would balk if, say, cancer patients’ right to chemotherapy were up for debate. In a fundamental sense, it shouldn’t matter that abortion access is popular—it’s a human right, full stop. But given our current political reality, the fact that it is popular has been crucial—a key strategy for restoring and preserving reproductive freedom in a post-Dobbs world. (Which is why, after decades of pushing their own anti-choice measures, Republicans are now trying to make the process of ballot initiatives more onerous.) Back to what’s on deck for this fall: Ballot measures, especially constitutional amendments, are often written to intentionally confuse voters, so if you want to check if there are any measures in your specific state, click here.  AND:
  Three Questions About…Black Women in the '90sBY REBECCA CARROLL  (PHOTO BY EMMA FEIL) Most Black women who were trying to figure out their lives during the '90s know acclaimed TV writer and showrunner Mara Brock Akil for her shows like “Girlfriends” and “Being Mary Jane.” Younger ones may know her from her 2025 Netflix adaptation of the Judy Blume novel “Forever.” But now everyone will know her as an author. In her debut novel, The Revelation of Dionne Daphne, Akil brings us on a very '90s journey with magazine beauty editor Dionne, as she waits out the 14 days after taking an HIV test—no rapid tests, no internet, no iPhones. We had questions. Even though this novel takes place in the '90s, it also feels current. Why did you choose Dionne to tell this particular story? What I love about Dionne is that she is one of the early pioneers of living the American dream. She’s a character who would have been born with her full rights as a human being in this country, packed with the dreams of her mother and grandmothers. She knows her history; she’s educated, and so she feels ready to take on the world. But she can’t really launch forward until she turns around and faces her past. And during the '90s, we had this very looming disease, HIV, and taking that test, that two-week wait, was one of the necessary pauses that allowed you to literally reflect on the choices of your life while you waited for the result of your life. Dionne is a beauty editor at Essence. Why was it important for you to name a real magazine, along with its real longtime editor-in-chief, Susan L. Taylor? Essence was real for us. I remember it being almost like the holy grail of imaging for Black women and the spectrum of us. We could be all things in Essence. And the beauty that was reflected back—it wasn’t always celebrity-driven. [The models] were just these women, I didn’t know their names, and I saw myself in their image, style, and concerns. Essence was the place that was actually informing us because nobody else really cared about the issues that impacted us. The HIV story broke for Black women in Essence, when they started writing about the Down Low, and how it could affect us. That was a new conversation back in the '90s. And Susan Taylor led that. At one point in the book, Dionne says that silence has been both her protector and her oppressor. In this current political climate, people love to float this mantra of “Listen to Black women,” when in fact, right now, we are roundly being silenced. How has silence been both our protector and/or our oppressor as Black women in America? In some cases, the silence has been put upon us because no one values us or will listen, but that silencing has led us to write and read and look and examine. Black women are some of the most educated in this country, so yeah, you should be listening, but also we are carrying the weight [of that knowledge]. In our silence, we have used that time to really evaluate. The oppressing part is not finding ways for people to understand the complexity of us, and how we see the world, what the world has done to us, and how we have alchemized that as a way through. Breaking through the silence can be the thing that frees us as well. But in Dionne’s case, her silence was literally how she moved through life [after being sexually assaulted]. The silence helped her move through that dark period in her life, and reach for what the ‘90s was promising her.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
Drop the Beer Goggles
  June 26, 2026 Salutations, Meteor readers, It comes as no surprise to anyone that the U.S. Men’s National Team has gone gently into that good night. They did their best, but alas, no one can outpace that presidential curse. Luckily for all of us, we’re only one year away from the superior team stepping onto the World Cup stage—the U.S. Women’s National Team. The ones who know how to score more than one goal.  In today’s newsletter, Cindi Leive fumes about the ongoing obsession Democrats have with guys who peaked in high school. Plus, good news for the punks. Pricing flights to Brazil, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONHunter-and-halfback syndrome: By now, you’ve all read that yet another political candidate has been accused of sexual assault, in this case Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner of Maine, whose accuser is a woman who tells Politico that Platner raped her in her home. Platner is shedding endorsements by the second and, by the time you read this, may have dropped out, even though he has denied any wrongdoing. His implosion creates all kinds of headaches for Mainers hoping desperately to evict current Senator Susan Collins, a Republican who claims to be a moderate, sensible kinda gal, but in practice, often goes wherever the Trumpian winds are blowing, even when they blow all over our rights. There are a lot of questions we could ask about all this: Who else knew? Why didn’t Platner’s inner circle stop him from running? What made the candidate himself think he could go forward with a campaign with alleged violence in his past? But here’s the biggest one: Why did so many Democrats ignore so many mounting warning signs about Platner? The Nazi tattoo, the victim-blaming Reddit comments about rape, the sexting charges, and earlier this year, an entire New York Times investigation into his allegedly “unsettling dating life”—these were not subtle, one-off concerns. And yet, as Michelle Goldberg notes today, Platner’s campaign opted not to do the normal extensive background check, and no one apparently intervened to make it happen. One likely reason why? Platner fits an archetype that Democrats seem unable to resist: a white guy they wanna have a beer with. For some reason, Democrats are enamored—to the point of willful blindness—by men who fit this masculine, stereotypically all-American image. We love the athletes, oyster farmers, and soldiers so much that we lose our rational minds, skip the vetting process, and swoon.  NEXT. (VIA GETTY)I get that impulse, for a million reasons. Trump doesn’t own masculinity, or the working class, or country music, and his policies hurt cis white guys in pickup trucks alongside the rest of us. So it is gratifying when veterans and football players push back on him. A Biker Dude standing up for immigrant rights gives the lie to what MAGA wants people to think—that real men want the old America. But Democrats need to stop overvaluing that stamp of approval, and doing cartwheels at the sight of every candidate who looks like an extra from "Friday Night Lights." And when we rush to anoint those men as the new face of the left—skipping the hoops we force women and Black and brown candidates to jump through—it also reeks of self-hatred on the left. Look, we’re not just the party of pronouns and Portlandia-scale political correctness; we have some hunters and halfbacks too! Radical thought: What would happen if it were just us? Aren’t we enough? The women, the Black and brown leaders, the immigrants? Are we so insecure about our reputation as snowflake intellectuals that we’ll throw caution to the wind for the first guy with a common touch? These are more than just hypothetical questions. The field of Democrats vying for the chance to run against Donald Trump in 2028 is crowded and will only get more so. Same for the House and Senate candidates who run this fall, and in 2028. So maybe instead of debating whether the highly experienced Black woman public servant should pull out of a race she hasn’t even entered yet, we should make sure we’re devoting the same scrutiny to these white dudes. Let’s make them, for once, earn our trust. —Cindi Leive AND:
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