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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Nikole Hannah-Jones on Reparations and Hope
 June 26, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, In today’s newsletter, Brittany Packnett Cunningham brings us a fascinating slice of American history from her conversation with journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones. Plus, a brief tour of the news before you kick off your long weekend. In a chair by a pool, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ON NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES AND BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM IN CONVERSATION AT VITAL VOICES HEADQUARTERS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. (PHOTO BY PURE BLACK PHOTOGRAPHY) Last week, I got a chance to interview Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of The 1619 Project, about reparations, as we get ready for America's 250th birthday party. (And y'all know how I feel about that birthday party.) But here's what really stuck with me. She talked about the optimism that's hard for her to hold on to…except for when she thinks about Frederick Douglass. She spoke about his powerful rebuke, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July,” which he delivered mere months before emancipation, not knowing how much his words would help open up a pathway that people had been fighting for for years. It also makes me think of his first wife, Anna Murray Douglass, who often gets left out of the story, as Black women so often do. Anna was born a free Black woman. It was the work of Anna's hands, sewing and creating for wealthy white families, that gave Frederick Douglass the funds to escape enslavement. She bore their five children, ran their home, and even turned it into a stop on the underground railroad while Frederick Douglass was traveling the country preaching abolition. My friend Stevie Elem Rogers is constantly reminding us that whenever we speak about Frederick Douglass, we always need to speak Anna Murray Douglass’ name. Her and Frederick's work, and Nikole’s words, remind me that no matter how impossible it seems, freedom is always on the horizon if we just keep working… and we just keep walking. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation, which you can listen to in full here. — Brittany Packnett Cunningham Nikole Hannah-Jones: Since we are right at the cusp of celebrating the 250th anniversary of the “founding” of this nation, I want to remind us of what we come from—what we're made of. Because even as hopeless as I often feel, I know I come from a people who had to believe that the impossible could be made manifest. My entire life…is a product of hope beyond despair. In 1852, Frederick Douglass gets asked to deliver his famous oratory, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Now, this is 1852. Frederick Douglass is a fugitive from slavery. He is on the run, and yet he is out fighting the abolitionist cause in public and advertising where he's gonna be. If you know the story, he refuses to give the speech on the Fourth of July because he is offended. Like, how dare you ask me to come talk about your independence when four million of my people are in the worst bondage in the history of the world? So he gives the speech [on July 5th], and 13 years later, slavery will fall. Now, there would be no reason, no historical reason, no logical reason, to believe in 1852 that slavery could fall in 13 years. We were almost at the height of slavery in the United States, and yet it did. And he had to believe, and all of the abolitionists who fought had to believe, that it could happen, for it to happen.  DOUGLASS CIRCA 1877 (VIA GETTY IMAGES) So while I don't know if we will see reparations in our lifetime or not, the very first person to get reparations was Belinda Sutton in the 1780s when she sued her former master. The very first person to technically get what we call actual reparations [in the form of a lump sum payment rather than an annual pension] was a woman named Henrietta Woods, who sued her former master for recapturing her and selling her back into slavery, and she won that suit in 1870. Callie House was fighting for reparations—for an ex-slave pension for all of those who spent their whole life working for free—and she was arrested for that. She ended up serving federal time for the audacity to call for reparations. So Black folks have been asking for reparations for almost as long as slavery existed. Most of us never got them, but that doesn't mean that we never will. So we do have to believe. We do know that we come from people who believe the impossible could be made manifest. On my dark days, I'm like, "Never." But on my brighter days, I know it's possible. And I know if anybody can do it, it's us. This conversation was recorded at Vital Voices Global Headquarters in Washington, D.C. For more from The Meteor’s ongoing look at reparations this summer, check out this episode of UNDISTRACTED with guest Adam Serwer and watch the full video of the Nikole Hannah-Jones conversation on YouTube, featuring Aria Florant of Liberation Ventures. AND IN OTHER NEWS:
That's all for us, catch you next week.   FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
25 Moments We Glimpsed the Promise of America
It’s easy to view the celebration of America’s 250th birthday with cynicism, given the current way our old girl is behaving. But we don’t want to give in to that. Instead, we’re celebrating moments when the American experiment worked—when people (often women) pushed, pulled, persuaded and otherwise laid the stepping stones for a better and more inclusive future. The list isn’t comprehensive; it’s random in what we hope is the best possible way.
When Women Kept the Revolution Going (1776-1796)
Women were an unsung part of the Revolutionary War, from participating in the homespun movement to becoming “camp followers” who kept soldiers in food, clothes, and supplies. But the women of the Catawba Nation did something extraordinary: They supported the Patriots with food and goodwill, and they helped preserve their own culture in the face of encroaching European settlers (on the land of what is now South Carolina). Shortly after the war, Sarii (also known as Sally New River) secured more than 500 acres of her people’s land to ensure the survival of the Catawba people.
When Women Gathered for Abolition (1837)
At the 1833 convention establishing the American Anti-Slavery Society, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison recognized the work of smaller anti-slavery women’s groups and urged them to form “female auxiliaries.” They did more than that. In 1837 in New York, 71 women delegates gathered for the “unprecedented” Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. During the convention, abolitionist Angelina Grimké wrote a resolution that said it was “the duty of woman, and the province of woman… to do all that she can by her voice, and her pen, and her purse, and the influence of her example, to overthrow the horrible system of American slavery.”
When the “Dangerous Experiment” of Women’s Education Began (1830s-1890s)
For years, women had been barred from higher education in the newly formed U.S. But in the mid-19th century, pioneers like Mary Lyon founded “female seminaries” like Mount Holyoke and Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College). More women’s colleges followed, eventually forming the Seven Sisters. In 1881, Spelman, a college for Black women born in a church basement in Atlanta, opened its doors. At the time, naysayers deemed higher education for women a “dangerous experiment,” claiming that serious study might cause women to “lose their innocence and virtue.” Meanwhile, women with college degrees became lawyers and doctors and scientists and scholars, forever broadening the scope of what was possible for American women.
When Eunice Foote Figured Out Global Warming (1856)
In 1856, as the Industrial Revolution swept across the U.S., an amateur scientist and women’s rights campaigner from upstate New York conducted groundbreaking research showing that carbon dioxide could trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. Eunice Newton Foote’s results were published in the American Journal of Science and Arts, but she was barred from reading her paper aloud, and credit for “discovering” the process of global warming would go to Irish scientist John Tyndall three years later. Today, we understand Foote (who’d studied science thanks to educators who believed in equal rights) as “the mother of climate science.”
When Black Freedom Showed Us America’s Potential (1865 - 1877)
The overarching white public view prior to Reconstruction was that Black people didn’t have the capacity or the intelligence to engage in public life. But after the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Black people proceeded to take their citizenship and do every single last thing white people said they couldn’t do or be. An estimated 2000 held public office, shaping state and federal policies; others built schools, established church congregations, and cultivated strong, healthy communities. The backlash, in the form of Jim Crow, was swift and fierce and would last for nearly 100 years—but the period of Reconstruction showed what America could do and be as a country.
When the “Suffrage State” Earned Its Name (1869)
Decades before the 19th Amendment would pass in 1919, the then-territory of Wyoming (which was looking to attract more women) granted women full voting rights, along with the ability to hold office, sit on a jury, and have property rights separate from their husbands. When Wyoming began the process of becoming a state decades later, the U.S. Congress threatened to withhold statehood if women continued to have the vote. The Wyoming legislature sent a telegram saying it would rather not become a state at all than rescind the voting rights of women. Wyoming joined the U.S. formally in 1890 with women’s voting rights intact.
When the “Working Girls” Rose Up (1909)
“I am a working girl, one of those who are on strike against intolerable conditions,” 19-year-old garment worker Clara Lemlich declared in Yiddish at a labor meeting in November 1909. “I offer a resolution that a general strike be declared now.” In the days following, tens of thousands of garment workers, most of them young immigrant women, walked off the job to demand safer working conditions. The strike wasn’t wholly successful—the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory resisted reforms, with infamous and tragic results—but Lemlich’s “uprising of 20,000” proved to sexist labor unions that women could lead massive, effective strikes.
When a Black Chemist Changed Medicine (1915)
Before antibiotics were invented, leprosy was a scourge that ruined lives—and the only known treatment, oil from the chaulmoogra tree, made patients nauseous when swallowed and was too thick to be injected. Enter the Ball Method, named after Alice Ball, a 23-year-old Black chemist at the College of Hawai’i who figured out how to modify chaulmoogra oil to be water-soluble. The treatment killed bacteria and freed people from leper colonies; as for Ball, two men at her university took credit for her work after she died suddenly, but decades later, other Black chemists like Sibrina Collins made sure Ball got her due.
When Two Women Became Governors (1924)
Fresh off the 19th Amendment, the 1924 election led to both the first and second women governors in America: Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming and Miriam “Ma” Ferguson of Texas. Both were succeeding their husbands, and Ferguson had even been against women’s suffrage in the past—but their elections made it clear that women’s political power was starting to grow.
When Federally Funded Childcare Was Real (1943 - 1946)
If you’ve ever wondered who took care of Rosie the Riveter’s kids, the answer is the government: From 1943 to 1946, the Lanham Act funded federally subsidized childcare for more than half a million children. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a major supporter of the program, described the centers as “a need which was constantly with us, but one that we had neglected to face in the past.” We’re still neglecting that need, but at least we have proof that universal childcare can work.
When We Had a League of Our Own (1943 - 1954)
You’ve seen the movie; you’ve quoted the lines, but the real All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was one of the first true tests of how successful women’s leagues could be. Even after World War II ended, the league continued and brought almost one million people into ballparks to watch women play ball until its closure in 1954. Over those twelve seasons, 600 women from the U.S., Cuba, and Canada played across 10 teams, paving the way for millions of sportswomen to come.
When Gender-Affirming Care Came Stateside (1966)
In November 1966, Johns Hopkins University, led by Dr. Milton Edgerton, opened the U.S.’s first clinic aimed at addressing the needs of the transgender community by offering the gender-affirming surgeries that were at the time more common in Europe. Before opening the clinic, doctors at Johns Hopkins performed the first known “sexual reassignment” surgery on U.S. soil in February of 1965.
When Trash Changed Everything (1969)
Sometimes grassroots movements don’t involve anything as lovely as grass. When the city of New York refused to grant the residents of East Harlem a consistent garbage pick-up schedule, leaving them to endure sweltering summer heat surrounded by waste, the Young Lords took matters into their own hands. For a month, Young Lords would sweep their neighborhood sidewalks, collect the trash, and deposit it in the middle of busy streets used by suburban commuters to block traffic. This went on for 38 days, but in the end, the Department of Sanitation was forced to make changes, some of which are still in effect today, like alternate-side street sweeping.
When Survivors Held the First Rape Conference (1971)
Before Second Wave feminism, rape was a personal, private misfortune. That changed with consciousness-raising sessions held in living rooms across the country, and later at the first rape speakout in 1971, hosted by New York Radical Women, at which survivors began speaking openly about being raped—not just by violent strangers but also by friends, neighbors, colleagues. A few months after the speakout, NYRW held the nation’s first conference on rape, which established the modern paradigm of sexual assault as a social and political problem, not an individual tragedy, and a male expression of control over women—laying the groundwork for every anti-rape movement since.
When Abortion Access Had a “Honeymoon Period” (1973 - 1976)
The three years after the Supreme Court granted the constitutional right to abortion in 1973, before access was restricted by the Hyde Amendment in 1976, were a kind of honeymoon period for abortion history. Just a year after Roe, there were already more than two thousand facilities performing safe, legal abortions in the United States. Access still lagged among poor and rural women, as well as teenagers, but those early years were “a very proud, happy time,” Dr. Suzanne T. Poppema, one of the first legal abortion providers, recalled in 2015.
When Laws Finally Started to Catch Up With Our Lives (1970s)
If you need a reminder that change is possible and not always glacial, consider the 1970s. Buoyed by rising feminism globally and the victories of the civil rights movement domestically, women pushed for and won protections against educational inequality, pregnancy discrimination, housing discrimination, sexual harassment, and other obstacles that had been so ingrained as to be invisible. And in 1977, 20,000 women convened at the National Women’s Conference in Houston, drawing a bold plan of action for future work. “Women are human,” said Rep. Barbara Jordan in her keynote speech. “When our rights are limited or violated, a domestic human rights effort is required.”
When Disability Activists Took on Nixon (1973)
After President Nixon vetoed the Rehabilitation Act of 1972, which would have helped to improve the lives of disabled people suffering from kidney ailments, as well as provided medical centers for deaf and blind people, activist Judith Heumann had questions. Specifically: “Where is Nixon’s headquarters?” In response to Nixon’s veto, Heumann and the group Disabled in Action (DIA) organized a demonstration in New York City with about 50 other disability activists, mostly in wheelchairs, who shut down the streets that surrounded Nixon’s re-election campaign headquarters in New York on Madison Avenue. Ultimately, Nixon went on to sign the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which became the first federal legislation to protect the rights of disabled people—and Heumann went on to lead the fight for the breakthrough Americans with Disabilities Act two decades later.
When the Cherokee Nation Elected a Woman (1987)
Native American women had historically helped lead their communities, but the “trickle-down patriarchy” brought by settlers had changed that. Then, in the 1970s, the Cherokee Nation voted to allow chiefs to be elected popularly, rather than be appointed by the US president, and in 1987, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman chief elected to lead the Cherokee (and in fact, any Native tribe in modern times). She expanded health care and child services to Native communities and emphasized, always, “that we have indigenous solutions to our problems.”
When All We Do is Win (1991)
They say winning isn’t everything—it’s the only thing. In 1991, after 61 years of men’s tournaments, FIFA put together the first Women’s World Cup in Guangzhou, China. April Heinrichs led the U.S. women to victory against the Netherlands. This win would be instrumental in growing the professional women’s game in America…and helping lay the groundwork for women’s pro sports overall.
When the Cajuns Came Sailing In (2005)
The greatest tragedies often reveal the strongest spirits. When Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana, and residents were largely abandoned by FEMA, their fellow citizens stepped in to form the Cajun Navy, a volunteer search and rescue team comprised of fishermen and boat owners who answered the call. It’s estimated that the Cajun Navy saved the lives of at least 10,000 hurricane victims.
When the First Family Was Cool (2008- 2016)
It wasn’t just that the Obamas were the first Black presidential family in the White House; it was that they brought a whole entire vibe with them. Their presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. was, among many other things, about four exemplary humans who truly wanted the best for each other, and for all Americans. And their best meant celebrating and championing Black artistry in a way that made Blackness feel synonymous with being American. Always humble, completely focused, the Obamas showed Americans that public service can be joyous, and that democracy is for everyone.
When We All Said #metoo (2017)
It started in October 2017, with a pair of explosive exposés about Harvey Weinstein’s decades-long pattern of sexual abuse, and blossomed into a full-blown movement that built on the work of me.too founder Tarana Burke from years earlier to raise awareness about the ubiquity of sexual assault. That fall—before the backlash, before the comebacks—was a watershed moment that not only led to important legislative victories, but attacked a culture of silence surrounding sexual abuse and harassment.
When They Put the Super in Super Bowl (2025, 2026)
We’re all still recovering (in a good way) from how hard the critique of American exploitation and imperialism slapped in Kendrick Lamar’s and Bad Bunny’s halftime Super Bowl performances in 2025 and 2026, respectively. Lamar came with “the Big Game” as a symbol of America’s systemic inequality, and Bad Bunny gave us a diasporic message that doubled down on the meaning of hemispheric unity. The way they both took a stage that is so hyper-capitalist, ostensibly the very essence of “Americana,” and, along with the visionary talents of choreographer Charm La’Donna, turned it into a platform for nuanced, radical freedom of expression is a blueprint we want for America.
When We Kept a Promise (June 2026)
After the Trump administration tried to undermine the 14th Amendment granting birthright citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil regardless of their parents’ status, ACLU lawyer Cecillia Wang rose to the challenge of defending birthright citizenship before the Supreme Court. Wang, herself a birthright citizen, argued the case of Trump v. Barbara and won in a 6-3 ruling. The Court stated that the 14th Amendment offered the “right to have rights” to any “free-born person on this land,” and concluded, “We keep that promise today.”