Two "Calamitous" Weeks in Gary, Indiana
  August 18, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, The world has a little less love in it tonight with the passing of country music star and exemplary human Dolly Parton. She was a singer, a trailblazer, and a philanthropist. Her music touched millions, and her signature hair was high enough to brush the toes of the gods. Everyone has their favorite Dolly moment—there are no bad ones—but allow me to share the clip I love the most: Dolly Parton expertly strumming a guitar on the Johnny Carson show with acrylic nails, big old hoops, and a “$13 wig.” Rest well, Mother Parton.  In today’s newsletter, what the two-week power outage in Gary, Indiana, has really been like. Plus, Trump’s war on mail-in voting reaches a new level. xoxo, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONA calamity in Indiana: On August 11, journalist and editor Javonte Anderson lost power in his home in Gary, Indiana. Having grown up in the area, he’d lived through a number of outages and wasn’t immediately alarmed. “My first instinct was to find a coffee shop so I can get some power and finish working,” he tells The Meteor. But as Anderson drove from one neighborhood to the next to the next, he began to realize just how widespread the blackout was. A few hours later, the local gas and electric company, NIPSCO, confirmed that power was out for almost all of northwest Indiana. That was two weeks ago. As of this morning, roughly 8,000 people in Gary are still without power. Anderson describes the ordeal as “calamitous.” The outage in Indiana was caused by an historic storm in which winds reached 99 MPH. Power lines came down, and the electric grid, operated by NIPSCO and suffering from years of structural neglect, failed. As the area has struggled to recover from the blackout, NIPSCO’s lack of preparedness for the storm has fueled a growing discussion. “If I know, as a reporter, that Tornado Alley is shifting and we're starting to have more aggressive storms in the last few years,” says Anderson, “I would expect a million-dollar company to know that as well.” As we’ve seen in other places, like Puerto Rico, companies often do know the risks, but choose to focus on profit over people. And that can be an easier choice to make when you’ve got a monopoly on the grid: In Gary, NIPSCO is the only power provider available. The governor has called for an investigation.  POWER LINE REPAIRS UNDERWAY IN GARY, INDIANA, ABOUT NINE DAYS AFTER THE STORM HIT. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) Despite the severity of the storm and the resulting power outage, it wasn’t until the blackout passed the one-week mark that national newsrooms started really paying attention. By then, Anderson’s team at Capital B News Gary and social media posts from other residents had been sounding the alarm for days. “It’s been interesting to watch the process in real time,” Anderson says. “After nine days, we start getting a little bit more national media attention…resources [for the city] became a lot more abundant in the last four days. There’s been a real positive windstorm because of the national attention. It feels like there’s some support behind the city.” Still, it’s notable that the residents of Gary are among the last in the region to have their power restored. “Gary is the second most populated and Blackest city in Lake County,” Anderson explains. Within three days of the power outages, NIPSCO got the power back on in other parts of Lake County, “but then we go into day six, and people are like, wait, what about Gary? We can see the work isn’t being done.” Meanwhile, the White House hasn't even managed to muster up a thought or a prayer. (You know the situation is dire when Ms. Rachel has to step in.) And for some residents of Gary, the crisis continues. “It really disrupts daily life when you start going 10 days without power,” Anderson explains. “You have no gas stations, no gas, no hot water—your food is spoiled. Gary has a very high poverty rate. Missing one day of work is life-altering for people. You think they can go three, four days without their paychecks because they can’t even afford to get to work?” For now, Anderson is hopeful that NIPSCO will deliver on its promise to fully restore power this week thanks in part to pressure from residents, the governor, and the media. “The one thing that media attention does do is draw attention to an issue and help bring money and resources into the community,” he says. “[Gary] is defined by crime, blight, disaster. But within all of that are real people and families working and living to try and make this a better place…and we need to tell that whole story.” For a list of how to help Gary residents impacted by the blackouts, click here. AND:
 RESIDENTS IN BRUSSELS ENDURE AN EXTREME HEAT WAVE EARLIER THIS MONTH. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
 IT JUST FEELS WRONG. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)  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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Doctors and Nurses vs. ICE
  January 27, 2026 Hey there, Meteor readers, The ice outside my door is so thick, I could probably skate on it if I really tried. But considering everything going on in the world, that’s not the worst thing to see in the morning.  WNBA STAR AND UNRIVALED CO-FOUNDER BREANNA STEWART. (SCREENSHOT VIA INSTAGRAM). In today’s newsletter, Dr. Heather Irobunda helps us understand what healthcare providers are feeling right now. Plus, the next general strike is coming. Throwing salt, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONFighting for our health: “There’s this thought that our scrubs—our professions—would protect us,” says Dr. Heather Irobunda, a New York-based OB/GYN and reproductive rights advocate. To see Alex Pretti “shot like that was very jarring for our field.” Pretti, an ICU nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis who was murdered by federal agents on Saturday, has sparked action across the country. His killing—much like the killings of Renee Good, Keith Porter, and Silverio Villegas Gonzelez—has reminded us that everyone is unsafe as long as ICE and CBP agents are allowed to operate unchecked. While activists have long been raising the alarms about ICE’s unmitigated cruelty, Pretti’s status as a nurse has added a new dimension to the conversation. The medical field has come out strongly against Alex Pretti’s killing, emphasizing nurses’ roles as guardians of the vulnerable. (The Washington State Nurses Association pointed out a germane directive in The Code of Ethics for Nurses: “Where there are human rights violations, nurses ought to and must stand up for those rights and demand accountability.”) It’s hard to continue defending agents once they’ve murdered a caretaker who, in his last act on earth, was trying to shield someone from pepper spray. Is that not the kind of person—the kind of man—we ask our children to work toward becoming?  PROTESTORS IN MINNEAPOLIS THIS WEEK (VIA GETTY IMAGES) For those in the medical field, ICE’s increased presence isn’t just a question of morality or policy; it’s a threat to public health. On one level, Dr. Irobunda says, the connection is extremely straightforward. “One of the biggest markers of health is mortality,” she says. “They are killing people in the streets.” And there’s a ripple effect. Dr. Irobunda shares that one of her patients, a pregnant woman with gestational diabetes, lost her husband to deportation. He was the primary breadwinner, and when he was arrested, she couldn’t afford food and was eating only rice and plantain for days at a time. More than likely, her child will have diabetes at birth. Patients are also skipping appointments—including, as reporting from The 19th highlights, crucial prenatal care—for fear of being arrested on their way to the doctor or hospital. In Dr. Irobunda’s neighborhood hospital in Queens, ICE agents “routinely hang out down the street,” she says. ICE isn’t just looking to arrest patients, but also doctors and nurses with visas or permanent residence, who are “scared to come to work, too.” She explains that due to a shortage of healthcare workers in the U.S., doctors have been traveling from other countries to treat patients. But issues with visa delays and concerns over ICE have made getting doctors into hospitals that much harder. Despite the dangers, the medical community has been incredibly vocal about the health implications of ICE’s scare tactics. Just last month, healthcare workers staged a protest outside an ICE facility in Portland, Oregon. Doctors have also accused ICE of medical neglect for people in detention—a plausible accusation considering that in both the Good and Pretti killings, ICE blocked medical personnel from the scene.  PROTESTORS IN OREGON "EXERCISING" THEIR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS OUTSIDE OF AN ICE FACILITY. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) “A lot of us were taught that this is an apolitical job,” Dr. Irobunda says. “In an ideal society where everybody's treated equally and getting what they need, we wouldn't have to be political.” But in a system where policy can have the power to change health outcomes for millions, Dr. Irobunda says, “we have to be involved. No one’s safe unless we’re all safe.” AND:
 THE SMILE OF A WINNER ON AND OFF THE FIELD (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
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The nurses will not back down
US News
  January 15, 2026 Hi there, Meteor readers, The 2016 nostalgia dominating my social feeds has me in my feelings today. I’m thinking about all the protests that year, now overshadowed by the acute tragedy of Donald Trump’s victory that fall. In America, there were the Black Lives Matter marches condemning the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the students who took to the streets after Stanford rapist Brock Turner’s lighter-than-air sentencing. Overseas, there were the Black Monday strikes in Poland against proposed abortion bans, anti-corruption demonstrations in Brazil, and millions-deep marches following Brexit. Maybe it’s because I was younger, or because I’d been lulled by the dulcet tones of Obama’s rhetoric, but my sense of indignation was fresher back then. Hotter. More vivid. This week, as the powers that be attempt to quash dissent both here and abroad, I’m channeling that energy anew.  Today, Meteor contributor Ann Vettikkal brings us a dispatch from the historic nurse’s strike in New York City. Plus, a tribute to an unsung civil rights hero, and your weekend reading. 2016 on the scene, Nona Willis Aronowitz  WHAT’S GOING ON“We’re here for our safety”: “What do we want? A fair contract! When do we want it? Now!” This past Tuesday morning, a sea of demonstrators in red surrounded Columbia University Irving Medical Center demanding a fair contract prioritizing patient and nurse safety. They chanted and struck cowbells; one sign read, “Staffing so unsafe, Florence Nightingale is rolling in her grave.” Shows of solidarity in the form of honks, cheers, and salsa music echoed throughout Washington Heights.  NURSES INVOKING THE GOAT, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. CREDIT: GETTY IMAGESThe largest nurses’ strike in New York City’s history has now entered its fourth day. On Monday morning, nearly 15,000 nurses walked out of the Montefiore Medical Center and multiple hospitals in the New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Health System network. The nurse’s union, New York State Nurses Association, says management refuses to budge on key issues. (“Here’s a pebble, here’s a little grain of salt” is how one nurse characterized management’s response.) The union says the strike is focused on protecting nurses’ healthcare benefits, safeguards against workplace violence, and safe staffing mandates, which ensures enough nurses are scheduled each day to deliver safe, quality patient care. Joe Solmonese, a spokesperson for Montefiore Medical Center, called their requests “reckless”; a statement from Mount Sinai said NYSNA refused to “move on from its extreme economic demands” for significant pay raises. “The hospitals take advantage [of the fact] that we are the ones that actually care about our patients,” said Beth Loudin, a pediatric nurse and president of the bargaining unit at New York-Presbyterian, who was picketing on Tuesday. “They don’t think we would go outside and fight for the things that actually protect us and protect our patients.”  BETH LOUDIN AT THE PICKET LINE. CREDIT: ANN VETTIKKALLoudin became a nurse a decade ago because of her passion for listening and advocating for people in difficult times. She joined the union four years ago and eventually rose to leadership. She pointed to the gains a smaller nurses’ strike involving Mount Sinai and Montefiore won three years ago—which included hiring additional nurses, and implementing minimum nurse-to-patient ratios—as a precedent for this “historic” strike. There are plans to head back to the negotiation table this evening, according to a NYSNA statement released this morning. In addition to their original demands, NYSNA charges that Mount Sinai “unlawfully terminated” and disciplined several outspoken nurses in the days leading up to the strike. Several politicians have shown their support, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who joined the picket and donned a red NYSNA scarf on the first day of the strike. “These nurses are here for New Yorkers,” Mamdani said in a statement to the press. “They show up and all they are asking for in return is dignity, respect, and the fair pay and treatment that they deserve.” This strike comes on the heels of many other nurses’ strikes across the country. Given that nursing is the number one occupation for women, these fights could meaningfully move the needle on the overall quality of life for women in this country. “It’s now a wave,” Loudin said. “We’re here for the patients. We’re here for our safety. I hope that wave just continues to grow and grow and grow.” —Ann Vettikkal AND:
 CLAUDETTE COLVIN IN 1998. CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
 WEEKEND READING AND LISTENING 📚 🔊On systemic racism: Why this Texas county is the deadliest place for Black mothers to have a baby. (Capital B) On frenemies: Dayna Tortorici untangles the many divisions that have torn feminists apart for 200 years. (n +1) On “the last American dream”: Please enjoy this exceedingly delightful interview with comedian Robby Hoffman on masculinity, her Hasidic upbringing, and rich-people guilt. (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso)
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Renee Nicole, and Keith, and Marimar, and...
  January 9, 2026 Hey there, Meteor readers, Anyone else already getting impatient waiting for Heated Rivalry, Season Two? We NEED to get back to the cottage.  In today’s newsletter, we look at the story that’s on all our minds today—the murder of Renee Nicole Good—and the long road of violence that preceded it. Plus, a moment of good news for parents, and your weekend reading list. One day at a time, The Meteor Team  WHAT'S GOING ONA growing list of names: Yesterday, a masked ICE agent in Minneapolis shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, who had allegedly been blocking agents from entering her neighborhood. Shortly after the shooting, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson referred to Good as a “violent rioter” and called the killing an act of self-defense. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem even suggested that Good was part of a group carrying out a “domestic act of terrorism” using vehicles as weapons. But video from the scene shows Good giving way to federal vehicles and trying to respond to conflicting orders from DHS agents, shortly before she was approached and shot through her windshield. Witnesses to the murder have also contradicted DHS’s account of what happened, and video also appears to show ICE preventing medical personnel from nearing the scene. Good’s murder has sparked protests in Minneapolis and calls for investigations into ICE’s tactics. Renee Nicole Good was a parent. Just like Keith Porter, who was shot and killed by an off-duty ICE officer in December for reportedly not complying with an order. Renee Nicole Good had a life, a family, a job. Just like Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, who was shot and killed by ICE agents during a traffic stop in September. Renee Nicole Good was sitting in her car, just like Marimar Martinez, a teaching assistant in Chicago who was shot five times by ICE agents in October. (Miraculously, Martinez survived.) Renee Nicole Good’s community was being terrorized by a violent group of thugs hiding behind masks and the emblem of a federal agency—just like communities in Boyle Heights, Westlake, Santa Ana, Pasadena, and Chicago. And that’s not even to speak of what happens where videos rarely record: In 2025, 32 people died while in ICE custody—the most in more than two decades. Movements in America often gain traction after a horrific event spurs people into action. The violence has to be so profound, so unbearable, or so vividly recorded to shake us from a passive state. But those boiling points are never the first incidents. Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi launched Black Lives Matter back in 2013, after the man who killed Trayvon Martin was acquitted—seven years before the murder of George Floyd sparked massive protests across the country. Tarana Burke amplified stories of sexual assault and harassment for more than a decade before reporters exposed Harvey Weinstein’s crimes and MeToo went viral. The question I find myself asking is: Will Renee Nicole Good be the one? Will her murder be the turning point for us to stay in the streets, for judges to intervene, for any lawmaker still waffling to decide “no more”? Or will she blend in with the rest of the violence? A month from now, will we forget her name as we’ve forgotten Keith, Silverio, Marimar, and the dozens of others who never had their moment in the national news spotlight? How much does the body count have to rise for every last person to flood the streets for justice? Because it must be all of us. Our elected leaders are not equipped to take on this task alone. Rep. Ayanna Pressley made her stand and demanded an investigation into the killing of Renee Nicole Good; the GOP blocked it. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is launching an ICE Accountability Project, which is a step in the right direction, and Rep. Robin Kelly is filing articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. But between 2015 and 2021, ICE agents were involved in 23 fatal shootings. No agents were indicted. Will this be the year we stop at one? AND:
 A POSTCARD FROM MAMDANISTAN 😘 (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
 WEEKEND READING 📚On history: On the heels of a protester’s violent death at the hands of law enforcement, it might be useful to reread Jill Lepore’s 2020 piece on whether we still recall the lessons learned in blood at Kent State. (The New Yorker) On healing: There are glimmers of hope for the uninsured in America. (The Baffler) On heroes: To celebrate Wyoming’s recent abortion win, here’s a profile of Julie Burkhart, an unstoppable abortion care provider in the state. Even an arsonist burning down her clinic wasn’t enough to slow her down. (The Story Exchange)  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
A Blue Sky in Miami
  December 11, 2025 Salutations, Meteor readers, I have chosen to join the cult of Scott Hunter. I will not be taking any questions at this time. Please tell my family I’ll miss them.  In today’s newsletter, we unpack a historic mayoral victory in Miami. Plus, a discussion on the never-ending fight to end gun violence with a teacher who survived Sandy Hook. 🏒♥️, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONWelcome to (blue) Miami: This week, the city of Miami elected its first woman mayor, and to the shock of all the Brickell girlies—the new mayor is a Democrat. Eileen Higgins, a moderate in a recently Trump-y city, is the first blue mayor Miami has seen since the late ‘90s. Higgins was up against a Trump-backed candidate in the president’s favorite state and still secured nearly 60 percent of the vote. And, much like the election of Zohran Mamdani in New York, this mayoral victory feels like part of a bigger trend. The mayor-elect herself agrees. People are paying close attention to mayoral races because “local government is where real change happens,” Higgins writes The Meteor in an email. It’s “where leaders can cut through dysfunction and improve daily life in measurable ways.” Amanda Litman, cofounder and executive director of Run for Something, sees Higgins’ win as a direct response to federal chaos: “When national politics feels noisy or gridlocked, voters look to the leaders who can get things done, and mayors can,” she says.  YOU CAN'T MESS WITH SOMEONE WITH A BOB THIS SHARP. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) And of course, there’s the idea that these mayoral races are a sign of things to come. Higgins’ election “shows that momentum is on Democrats’ side,” explains A’shanti Gholar, president of Emerge America. “She spoke to [voters] about their basic needs, what they want for themselves and their families,” rather than focusing on the opposition. Higgins has a history of attracting a wide range of voters; she was a commissioner for Republican-leaning Miami-Dade County. “When you focus on delivering results on issues like affordability, transit, public safety, and flooding,” Higgins tells The Meteor, “voters will cross party lines.” The GOP, unsurprisingly, tried to downplay the larger significance of Higgins’ win. “It’s not a rebuke of the president or the party,” Miami-Dade County Chair Kevin Cooper told reporters. “Democratic city elects Democratic mayor.” The numbers tell a different story about that “Democratic city.” According to this year’s voter registration information, of the more than one million people registered to vote in Miami-Dade County, a combined 450,000 are registered with the Conservative Party of Florida and the Republican Party of Florida—significantly more than the 407,000 registered Democrats. But while Miami may be increasingly red (and helped elect Trump last year), it also has a large immigrant population and has been a key target of ICE. Higgins has acknowledged immigrants’ fear, and has spoken out against the administration’s policies, calling them “trickle-down hatred” and “inhumane.” Her victory shows buyer’s remorse may be finally kicking in. “The immigrant communities that voted for Trump [are feeling like] ‘This guy played us,’” Gholar says. (Twice bitten, thrice shy is the saying, right?) For Democrats and anyone interested in running for office, Litman sees a clear lesson: “Nothing in politics is predetermined. The map isn’t fixed. When Democrats invest early, recruit great candidates, and build local infrastructure, we can compete anywhere.” AND:
 Three Questions About...Gun SafetyThirteen years after the Sandy Hook tragedy, survivor Abbey Clements reflects on creating a gun safety organization “for teachers by teachers.”BY ANN VETTIKKAL  CLEMENTS APPEARED AT THE 2024 DNC WITH OTHER SURVIVORS OF SCHOOL SHOOTINGS. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) For more than a decade after elementary school teacher Abbey Clements survived the Sandy Hook mass shooting—during which she protected and distracted her students from the gunshots thundering through the school—she worked overtime. During the weekdays, she continued to teach second grade in Newtown, Connecticut. And in her off hours, she was a fierce advocate in the movement to end gun violence. Clements trained volunteers, planned vigils, and found creative ways to engage people on the issue. “I was waiting for an educator-focused group to emerge,” Clements said, “and it just wasn't happening.” The last straw was November 30, 2021, when a school shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan, took the lives of four students. Clements remembers expressing frustration in a group chat with Sarah Lerner, a teacher who survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas mass shooting in Florida, and Sari Beth Rosenberg, an educator and activist in New York City. The three went on to found Teachers Unify, an organization “for teachers by teachers” that aims to involve educators in the demand for national gun safety. We talked to Clements about what she’s doing—and what needs to change. The 13th anniversary of Sandy Hook is this weekend. How has the movement to end gun violence changed since the Sandy Hook tragedy? What's changed the most is that many factions of our society have come together to raise their voice on this issue. You see people coming up from the medical field. You see clergy bonding together, speaking out about this. [You see] organizing by students….What hasn't changed, or what perhaps has gotten worse, is we've identified that guns are the leading cause of death for children in America. So, although we've seen lots of different factions of our society stepping up, we haven't seen [the] legislation, and culture change, that we need. Data clearly shows that states with common sense legislation have fewer gun tragedies, [but we also] know that legislation alone won’t end this public health crisis. An estimated 4.6 million children live in homes with at least one loaded, unlocked firearm, and we also know that about three-fourths of school shooters get their gun from home or from a family member or relative. A culture shift could save so many lives. What work is Teachers Unify focusing on right now? Teachers are among the most trusted voices, according to a 2025 Gallup poll, just under nurses. But in terms of policy and what's best for kids, our voices just haven't been included in the conversation…The second graders who endured the tragedy with me are now college students, and they're watching these shootings happen over and over again, and I refuse to give up on them. Teachers have so much to offer on this issue. We just haven't been intentionally brought into the movement until now. And so the mission of Teachers Unify is to empower educators to demand that communities are safe from gun violence, and that first step is for us to see ourselves as the experts we are. We know what's best for kids. We were trained. [That’s why we need to get] a seat at the table for these vital conversations. That looks like presenting at conferences and panels across the country, and we just launched an unprecedented crisis intervention and support team. [This is a team of] school shooting survivors and clinicians who have lived experience responding to communities after gun violence. [They] can come into school communities, and really work with the staff to help them move forward. What are some things people can do to support these efforts? People can encourage their school leaders, their kids, school officials, administrators, superintendents, town officials to send secure firearm storage information home with kids from school. There are a few states doing this, but this is, unfortunately, not common practice, because this issue is seen as partisan when it is a public health crisis. So parents and allies can help start that conversation through their PTAs. The National PTA is a big supporter of secure firearms storage, and I feel like this is our biggest chance for widespread change, if we could normalize education around this and get the schools to send out periodic reminders, especially during the holidays. This interview has been condensed and edited.  WEEKEND READING 📚On gender roles: Being “manly” won’t get men what they want out of life. (Vox) On being iconic: A’ja. Wilson. (TIME) On sleigh bells: How heteros hijacked the holidays. (Dire Straights Podcast)  FOLLOW THE METEOR  Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
Make America Full Again
  November 25, 2025 Greetings, Meteor readers, To me, this is the best week in America. The air is freighted with anticipation and cheer, and no one has burnt the sweet potatoes or said something offensive yet. The pie crust is in the freezer (the pie crust is in the freezer, right?). And it’s all merriment and good vibes and OOO messages from here on out.  But of course, not everyone gets to savor the start of this festive season. In today’s newsletter, we check in on SNAP—the program that’s meant to feed the nation’s hungriest and which this administration seems determined to weaken. Below that, a few courageous women to give you hope. With butter, Mattie Kahn  WHAT'S GOING ONFood for thought: As we head into a holiday so heavily focused on meals, abundance, and pictures of meals and abundance, it’s worth remembering that when this month began, millions of people were being robbed of their food benefits. For a brief moment in time, so many of us were united in our outrage over food insecurity and rushed to help. (Or at least, we rushed to search: Google Trends shows that searches for “SNAP benefits” peaked on November 1, 2025 and have since plummeted.) However, once the shutdown ended and funding resumed, that energy disappeared faster than you can say SNAP is still in danger. Why? Well, because the new Republican-crafted spending bill (the Big and Not-So-Beautiful Bill, according to us) actually restructures the SNAP program in part by adding stricter work requirements, removing federal dollars from the program, and eliminating access to it for thousands of immigrants with legal status. These changes are slated to go into effect next month, ahead of yet another holiday season. And when the changes roll out, it will be women and children who are most affected. Non-elderly women make up more than half of all SNAP recipients, and there are roughly 12 million children receiving SNAP. It is shameful that in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, anyone should go hungry. But people in the U.S. aren’t hungry by accident; they are hungry by design. When it comes to women in particular, food access is a multi-pronged issue. Women go hungrier because, historically, they’ve made less money and been saddled with more unpaid care labor, reducing the number of working hours available to them. Throw that together with the changes in reproductive care, gender-based violence, and racial discrimination against women of color that hinder women’s earning potential, and you have yourself a fool-proof recipe for food insecurity. None of this is to say that men are immune from hunger. They do, however, experience it at a lesser rate than women. And as we’ve previously written, food insecurity isn’t something we can volunteer our way out of. The millions of people who have or are about to lose their food benefits aren’t just hungry on holidays or a few times a year. It is an everyday experience—which means the communal effort to change that fact must happen every day as well. What better week to start? — Shannon Melero AND:
 VIOLA FORD FLETCHER, AGE 108, ATTENDS A CELEBRATION FOR THE OLDEST LIVING TULSA OKLAHOMA MASSACRE SURVIVORS IN WASHINGTON, D.C., IN 2023. (GETTY IMAGES)
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Head Start is at Risk
  October 30, 2025 Happy Halloween eve, Meteor ghouls, Anyone sporting any super cool costumes this weekend? I’m dressing in the same one I wore last year: exhausted mom whose sanity relies entirely on very long showers. Or maybe I’ll join the fray and dress up as Rumi.  I KNOW YOU DIDN'T THINK I WOULD DRESS UP AS STAGE RUMI. SWEATPANT RUMI FOR THE WIN. In today’s newsletter, we take a look at the larger implications of losing access to Head Start. Plus, three questions about embracing your inner crone. Goin up, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONA much bigger picture: At the end of this week, more than 100 Head Start centers in the U.S. and Puerto Rico will not receive their funding due to the government shutdown and may have to close their doors. That could leave 58,000 children without the early education programming and meals provided by Head Start centers. In some states, closures have already begun, and communities are scrambling to fill in the childcare gap left behind. On the surface, all of this may seem like an unfortunate but temporary side effect of the shutdown—a harm that can be undone once we flip a switch and turn the government back on. But what does it look like when you zoom out ever so slightly? It looks like the slow but successful execution of Project 2025. In its entirety, we know that Project 2025, released in April 2023, is a manifesto against the poor, immigrants, and anyone else who is not a white, Christian, heterosexual, cisgendered male. Some lowlights include: reversing FDA approval of mifepristone, ending DEI programs, and eliminating the Department of Education. And, relevant to this week’s news, ending Head Start. Project 2025 claims the Head Start program has “little or no long-term academic value for children,” which is why Roger Severino (who authored this section of Project 2025) lists “Eliminate Head Start” as part of the “conservative promise.” The current shutdown is proving effective in delivering on that promise. If I’m starting to sound like a gal who wears a tin foil hat in her spare time, just take a look at the facts. The National Women’s Law Center identified targeted attacks on Head Start from the administration beginning in January and continuing every month. Another tenet of P25 and this administration is to create a scenario where more parents are staying home to raise their own children or leaving their children with relatives. In the conservative worldview, day care is for parents who simply don’t want to parent, which would make Head Start—which has been around since 1965—a key part of the problem, funded by tax dollars. It’s all connected. But the attacks on Head Start are helping to create a Grand Canyon-sized fissure between the wealthy and the working class by playing up the narrative that those with means shouldn’t be responsible for caring for those without. Conservatives have repeatedly called federal safety programs for the poor a misuse of taxpayer dollars, and Head Start and free early childhood education programs, often described as handouts by right-leaning pundits, fit perfectly into the false narrative of wealthy taxpayers being burdened by the needs of medium-to-low earners. If the cuts to federal safety programs continue, they may also serve another purpose: removing the poor from the political process. People often don’t get involved in politics when they’re spending their time hustling just to get food on the table. So it’s not just that SNAP isn’t being funded next month. It’s not just some Head Starts preparing to close. It’s not just funding shortages for WIC, the program that helps moms feed their kids. It’s all that and the increased militarized police presence in lower-income neighborhoods. It’s all that and kidnapping people of color off the streets and disappearing them into the system. It’s what Project 2025 called for. The government shutdown is simply delivering. AND:
 WHERE YOU BEEN GIRL? (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
 WEEKEND PLANS  Three Questions About...Embracing Your Crone EraIt's a thing, says Nina BargielBY BRIJANA PROOKER  COURTESY OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE In the age of Ozempic and deep plane facelifts, in which every outward sign of aging is reversible as long as you have the luxury of money, author Nina Bargiel has a revolutionary idea: Embrace your crone era. It’s a spooky concept, particularly post-2020, when staring at our faces over Zoom prompted a plastic surgery boom, pushing us past body positivity and even body neutrality, all the way into mainstream body hate. But it’s Halloween, the perfect time to honor our wisdom and warts. In THE CRONE ZONE: How To Get Older With Style, Nerve and a Little Bit of Magic, children’s TV writer Bargiel, 53 (who famously wrote the bra episode of Lizzie McGuire), uses the triple goddess concept to answer a key question: what's a crone (AKA any woman over 35, according to my Instagram feed) to do? “Fuck it,” Bargiel writes. You’re a self-declared crone in your 50s. How would you describe “crone” for the modern era? So Baba Yaga has always been my bitch. Baba Yaga is the [Slavic] crone who has self-selected herself into the woods. She lives in a hut atop chicken legs. She has a terrifying fence made of human bones. When a traveler gets lost and knocks on her door, sometimes Baba Yaga eats them. And my thought is, this woman has given every indication she does not want to be bothered. So if you’re knocking on her door, and she ends up frying up your liver, you kind of deserve it, because she has made it very clear: leave her alone. For me, a crone is a woman who is sick and tired of making herself small to make other people feel comfortable. I refer to it as when your inner “fuck you” becomes your outer “fuck you.” In your book, you say, “Whether gracious grandmother or wicked witch, the crone is always cast as a woman whose best days are behind her.” What are we getting wrong about how we understand crones? The crone is overlooked and looked down upon, yet the crone is filled with magic. It’s funny because society [says] you're invisible and you're useless. But [crones also] have wisdom and power. If you think about Shakespeare and Macbeth and the three witches, I mean, they're terrifying. Like, they are hags, but they will mess you up. And I will say, [the definition of] “older women” keeps getting younger by the day. I was talking to a woman at one of my [book] signings…about my crone book, and she was like, “I need this because people are treating me this way.” She's 28 years old. I love your crone touchstones: “Wisdom, to know who we are, Knowledge, to understand what we want, and Fuck It, to do what we please.” What does “Fuck It” mean to you? [As a woman in a male-dominated writer’s room], you’ve got to be nice, you’ve got to get along. I played that [role] for a long time, and I discovered that it didn't get me any further. I would bite my tongue, and then these men wouldn't hire me again anyway. So why was I biting my tongue? I might as well just be 100% who I am. When COVID hit, and I had a divorce, and the entertainment industry was taking a bad hit, I just got sick of pretending everything was fine all the time. I sold my house [in Los Angeles] and moved in with my parents [in Illinois] and got a job working in the cheese department at Whole Foods. And there are people who are like, “You shouldn't say that because people won't take you seriously as a writer.” If people don’t take me seriously as a writer, after 25 years, after two Emmy nominations, after two Kids’ Choice Awards and a Gracie Allen Award, they were never going to take me seriously. So my Fuck It is, if you look at me as lesser because I'm part of the labor force, then I feel sorry for you, because life's gonna hit you hard. Another part of Fuck It is I am 53, and my boyfriend just turned 35, so he is 18 years younger than I am, and fuck it, I don't care. There are a lot of people that have said a lot of things, and by the way, they're mostly men. Almost every woman, when they find out, are like, “Oh, good for you, sister.” If someone's gonna try to shame me for that, fuck it. Women cannot build a hut atop chicken legs or have a fence made of human bones [like Baba Yaga]. But we can wear headphones. We can have all of these things that say, “Do not bother me,” and yet the travelers, who are usually men, still come knocking at our doors. Unfortunately, we cannot fry up their livers, but we do not have to entertain whatever it is they have to say.  Brijana Prooker is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist and essayist covering health, gender, and culture. She's a proud pit bull and cat mama whose work has appeared in ELLE, Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, and Newsday.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
Forty Million Empty Stomachs
  October 28, 2025 Greetings, Meteor readers, I voted yesterday. When are you going? Soon? Yeah? Great! May your sticker be extra adhesive. In today’s newsletter, we look at the looming SNAP cuts. Plus, Irin Carmon tells Rebecca Carroll about her new book, Unbearable: Five Women and the Perils of Pregnancy in America. Hotties vote early, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONThe SNAP gap: This week, roughly 40 million people will not receive their scheduled November funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Which means forty million people will spend most, if not all of November, struggling to feed themselves. As the government shutdown approaches the one-month mark, officials seem no closer to a solution and are instead pointing fingers over who is to blame for not distributing the billions of dollars of contingency funding that could alleviate the problem. In the meantime, those in need are left with limited options. “Cutting a federal safety net and telling people to go to a charity is not a solution, it’s a drop in the bucket,” says Greg Silverman, executive director of New York’s West Side Campaign Against Hunger. Silverman, who has worked in the food insecurity space across the world, is frustrated. “We can’t make up the gap on SNAP,” he says. “We’re not gonna volunteer our way out of this.” He explains that in his city alone, one in ten people deals with food insecurity, and in the weeks since the government shut down, emergency distribution groups have already had to step up their efforts to keep communities fed. “We’ve been adding more micro distribution points in neighborhoods where we have the highest number of folks we serve. We do that to get food closer to people so it’s cheaper for them, they save time and money on transport, and they also feel safer getting food closer to home.” While this is a boon to recipients, Silverman knows it’s not enough. Here’s what would be better: “ We need our national elected officials to have the USDA use the funds that are already allocated,” he says. “It exists, the money is there. They don’t need to open up the government to do this; they need to just send that money out to the states to be able to distribute food to people in need.” (If you are looking for ways to pressure your elected officials to act, the Food Research and Action Center has a number of options and step-by-step instructions.) In New York, this has already happened. Yesterday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the state would be fast-tracking $30 million in emergency food aid for SNAP recipients. “Those weren't additional funds,” Silverman, who was at the press conference when it was announced, explains. “Those were previously allocated funds that [are] being fast-tracked to get out into the community faster.” Across the country, states are also suing the administration for failing to keep food benefits active. These efforts are good and necessary, but they are likely to move slowly through the court system, and won’t put dinner on the table this weekend. So what can the average person do today? “Frontline organizations need dollars right now because they’re out here having to buy more and more food,” Silverman says. In other words: We may not be able to volunteer our way out of this mess, but we can volunteer through. “Everyone can volunteer, whether it's once a year, once a quarter, once a month, once a week. If you have the funds, give them directly to organizations in need. If you have the time, give that.” If you have been impacted in any way by the government shutdown, please visit findhelp.org for resources in your area. If you can donate time or money, please choose a food pantry local to you. AND:
 The Complex Landscape of Pregnancy in AmericaA new book dives into what the experience is like—and whyBY REBECCA CARROLL  (COURTESY OF SIMON AND SCHUSTER, AUTHOR PHOTO BY SOPHIE SAHARA) If you’ve ever been pregnant (to term or not), you know that suddenly your choices are of public interest, and sometimes outright judgment. Pregnancy is a deeply personal experience that also inescapably involves power, vulnerability, politics, and a litany of unjust systems built for only certain beneficiaries. In her latest book, Unbearable: Five Women and the Perils of Pregnancy in America, journalist Irin Carmon weaves together narrative stories and reporting to create a lucid, sometimes heartbreaking, chronicle of how pregnant people are guided, or too often misguided, to navigate the experience in America. Rebecca Carroll: I want to start by asking about something you wrote in the book’s introduction, which is that “being pregnant in America means bearing the consequences of separating one form of reproductive care, abortion, from everything else.” What is “everything else,” and what do you mean? Irin Carmon: All other forms of reproductive medicine—prenatal care, birth, infertility, pregnancy loss—or even gynecological care in general. Before the white male takeover of medicine in the United States and Europe [in the mid-19th century], all reproductive care [including abortion] was more integrated into communal life, really across cultures. It was a group of women who were surrounding somebody at different stages of their reproductive life, from the onset of menarche through pregnancy and childbearing. I’m not saying that that system was perfect or that the old way was the right way, but I was really struck reading the history of the first abortion bans—as we live under the yoke of the new abortion bans, which are even more Draconian and enforced with much more efficacy—that abortion bans and the white male medical establishment takeover of medicine were inextricably linked to each other. It struck me as one of the many original sins of [modern] medical care. The other one being that the foundation of contemporary gynecology and obstetrics was American enslavement, and the unjust experimentation on enslaved women. The part about experimenting on enslaved Black women was really hard to read—I actually physically winced. I think the narrative around childbearing and rearing for Black women in America is so fraught, from the brutal, harrowing reality of how it all started with enslaved Black women, to the way that Toni Morrison used to talk about mothering as this gift of being able to keep and mother our children. How did you reconcile the different ways that Black women and white women experience pregnancy care? Dr. Yashica Robinson [an Alabama-based OBGYN and former abortion care provider] was actually one of the starting points for me wanting to write this book. In so many ways, the work that she does is the embodiment of what could be a better way. I first met her in 2014 when I was reporting for MSNBC, and I had come to interview [her husband], who ran the only Black-owned clinic in Alabama. Dr. Robinson walked into the room, and when she started talking, I thought, “Who is this? Did I come to interview the wrong person?” I thought, this is the person who I want to learn from, and to help me understand the truly bifurcated, painful dichotomy you are talking about. Another Black woman I write about in the book, Christine Fields, died in the same hospital as Maggie Boyd, a white woman I also write about. They were both harmed by the same doctor. But…Maggie was able to come home and raise her son because when her husband screamed for help, he was listened to. And when Jose [Christine’s husband] screamed for help, they called security on him, and wouldn’t let him be in the room. They left Christine alone, maybe because she was being treated like a problem, [and] we know from the research that Black women are much more likely to be treated in medical settings as a problem when they question the treatment or the care that they’re getting. When I had an abortion in the 90s, even though I didn’t hesitate, I still felt so much shame, in no small part because of the picketers outside the clinic calling me a murderer. Where do you think shame falls today in the broader conversation? The shame of being a “bad mother,” whatever that means to the person uttering it, is very powerful. And so the anti-abortion movement has done a very effective job in making people—even when they’re feeling a sense of relief, which is the most commonly cited feeling around an abortion—feel shame for being a “bad mother.” I write about the work of Lynn Paltrow [founder and executive director of Pregnancy Justice] and Dorothy Roberts [civil rights scholar and author of Killing the Black Body] in the book, and I think they have so powerfully shown how this shaming of pregnant people’s very existence is so malleable that it can encompass somebody with a substance abuse problem, as well as somebody who drinks a glass of wine. Everybody thinks, “I won't be the person whose behavior is scrutinized.” [But] the post-Dobbs era has made clear just how broad the tentacles of policing pregnancy can be. How has your own pregnancy experience been impacted by the stories and experiences you write about in the book? I was postpartum when I read about Hali Burns getting arrested six days after her son was born; she was arrested in her son’s hospital room. And so I’m mindful of the fact that I’ve been incredibly lucky, but that I feel a sense of deep connection to these women [in the book]. The work of this book was in trying to go deeper to understand the factors in the systems that led us to any given situation, because I’ve been the recipient of some low-key shitty pregnancy care, and I’ve had some incredible pregnancy care. For people who choose to go down this path, everybody deserves to have access to what I had access to.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
“I saw a photo and my heart just dropped”
 October 24, 2025 Good evening, Meteor readers, I’ve just stepped off a plane from Vienna, so I’m jet-lagged and 40% pretzel. Tonight’s newsletter is even saltier, featuring upcoming election news, Malala Yousafzai’s new memoir, and a powerful conversation between The Meteor’s Rebecca Carroll and Deesha Dyer, who was the White House Social Secretary during the Obama administration and worked out of the now-demolished East Wing for much of her tenure. Let’s get to it. Mattie Kahn and The Meteor team  WHAT'S GOING ONThis week, President Trump took a literal wrecking ball to the East Wing of the White House and referred to its demolition as “the beautiful sound of construction.” But this was an historic space, with a legacy that meant something to a lot of people. (It has housed the office of every First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, for starters.) Several Democrats have pledged to investigate Trump’s “renovation,” and the public wants answers. In the meantime, though, those who worked in the East Wing are grieving—including former White House Social Secretary Deesha Dyer, who held that job during the last two years of the Obama administration. To get a sense of what this moment means, Rebecca Carroll called her.  DEESHA DYER WITH THE OBAMAS (COURTESY OF THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE) Rebecca Carroll: It must feel so surreal to have been part of the first Black presidential administration in the White House, and to experience this demolition in real time—can you put that into words at all? Deesha Dyer: I can’t. It’s hard, Rebecca. I’ll be honest with you, because right now we’re having so many fights on so many other fronts. This morning I was helping a family get food and find housing. I avoided the photos [of the East Wing] and the conversations, because right now I need to focus on the basic needs of people. And then I saw a photo, and my heart just dropped. It affected me more than I thought it would. Because what we see, as one of my colleagues said, is a metaphor for everything happening right now. The destruction of the East Wing is a destruction for so much of what’s happening in our neighborhoods, in our communities. And as hard as it is going to be to ever rebuild the East Wing back, that is how hard it’s going to be to rebuild everything back. RC: Can you imagine a scenario in which President Obama would ever have been like, “I’m going to demolish…anything”? DD: No. He couldn’t even wear a tan suit. You know what I mean? I remember we had an event doing yoga in the East Room of the White House, and it was like, “Can we do that? Is it okay to lay yoga mats down on this historic floor?” Anything that we did, we did with extra scrutiny. I can’t even imagine if President Obama had cut down a bush outside of the White House. It would’ve been: “How dare you do this to America? You’re desecrating the country!” RC: You noted on Threads this week that three Black women have run events in the East Wing, including yourself, and you ran those events for the first Black First Lady. How symbolic does it feel that Trump chose the East Wing to demolish? DD: Very symbolic. That’s where the First Lady’s office has always been, and so it symbolizes what he thinks about women in general—and women in power specifically. The East Wing is also where people enter for tours and celebrations and all types of events. So it also says a lot about what he thinks about opening up the house, and making it really the people’s house. ... This is a property that is paid for by taxpayers. It is the people’s house. So it is not his. RC: And did you and the former First Lady ever have any conversations about the significance of the East Wing? DD: Definitely. All the time. Mrs. Obama talked to the entire staff about what her vision was for the East Wing and the White House. She always wanted to make it so it felt like everybody’s house. We made sure that from the minute you stepped in the door, you felt like this is a place that considered who you were, whether it was your culture, whether it was your family, whether it was anything. It’s jarring to see that all just gone. RC: What does that space mean to you personally? DD: I’m a Black girl from Philly—a hip-hop writer who had a community college education. I was also in charge of bringing to life the vision of Mrs. Obama and President Obama. And so for me, the space means possibility and hope. And we know that the history of the White House is not all grand. We know the implications of it being built by slaves. But we did our best to make sure that people saw themselves in it. That yes, our ancestors built the building, but we can dance in it. We can have joy in it. We can have our art in it. We can have our music in it, and be happy about that. RC: How are you taking care of you right now? DD: I’ll keep it a buck, I’m not. I’m constantly thinking, “This is terrible. This is a mess.” I’ll be on a walk with my husband and get a call about a food bank or a family in need. And so it's hard to take care of myself at this time. But I have to remember that I am a Black woman in this country that is a product of systems. I have type two diabetes and high cholesterol and high blood pressure. And so the system is also trying to kill us softly while it’s trying to kill us fast too. I need to continue going to therapy and taking my medicine and encouraging other people…. I’m not probably doing the best I could taking care of myself, but I’m trying.  THIS WEEK'S DEMOLITION OF THE WHITE HOUSE'S EAST WING (GETTY IMAGES) AND:
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