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The 9/11 memorial park that John Feal helped build is not far off exit 59 on the Long Island Expressway, about 50 miles northeast of Ground Zero. It abuts a busy intersection in an unremarkable part of Nesconset, flanked by a gas station, a takeout joint, and a strip mall parking lot.  The memorial itself sits on a cozy acre of grassy land nestled by pear trees, thoughtful flowered landscaping, and custom-built seating courtesy of a local Boy Scout troop.  The park is especially nice in the evening, after the traffic dies down, the kind of space you might seek for a few moments of contemplation about irreparable loss. 

The memorial’s design is three panels, 63 feet long and 6 feet high, faced with polished granite. The names of almost three thousand 9/11 responders are inscribed in tightly spaced rows from top to bottom on both sides, and it reads like a ledger recording debts to the dead.  Not long ago, the panels ran out of room for new names, setting off a scramble among board members to find additional space in time for the 25th anniversary of the attacks this September 11th.

This story will be part of the Reveal episode, “Why More People Have Died From 9/11 than On 9/11” on Saturday, September 5. Subscribe to Reveal here or wherever you get your podcasts

John Feal (center) attended the design unveiling of 9/11 memorial to honor rescue workers in 2018. Astrid Stawiarz/Getty

The founders of the Nesconset memorial, whose official name is 9/11 Responders Remembered Park, claim it is the first space in the country honoring those whose lives were cut short from illnesses linked to their work at Ground Zero. These often fatal consequences continue, so the number of those honored keeps increasing. 

“I don’t think any of us fathomed how many names were going to be on this wall,” Memorial Architect Mark Mancini said.

“I don’t think any of us fathomed how many names were going to be on this wall.”

Dedicated on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it has been maintained through private donations and local volunteers. Nesconset and the surrounding Long Island communities have many 9/11 responders, perhaps because of historically affordable housing, and, as longtime resident and Suffolk County Comptroller John Kennedy put it, “firefighters follow firefighters and cops follow cops.” Memorial construction was mostly done by volunteers, including the pro bono work of a nearby architectural firm.  It is a project born from the simple desire of a local community to raise up the people lost and those still dying of 9/11 toxic dust. 

The memorial board is composed of a firefighter’s widow, two 9/11 responders, and several community members. Along with police and firefighters, the board includes responders who have historically been overlooked for recognition in state and federal memorials. They include, for instance, already-retired firefighters who came to help during the rescue and recovery, and non-uniform volunteers, tradesmen, and professionals, such as sanitation, construction, plumbers, electricians, ironworkers, bricklayers, and medical personnel. And those who died from PTSD-related suicides. 

For Feal, the Nesconset memorial has become a touchstone for his advocacy work in protecting responder health care. “After a traumatic event, two things usually happen: advocacy or conspiracy,” he told me. “I choose advocacy.” The park represents more than a list of individuals; it is a historical document for posterity of the people who have been harmed by the toxic dust cloud in a way that, according to Feal, “history can’t distort.” 

A bell is tolled at the 2025 Nesconset 9/11 Memorial Ceremony. Steven Zaitz

I first met Feal, himself a severely injured 9/11 responder, in person in the fall of 2025. He has devoted most of his adult life to protecting the health care program for 9/11 responders and survivors that had been set into federal law in 2011. I had followed him to DC, where he and his band of aging 9/11 responders were hell-bent on securing additional legislation to fix the funding formula for the World Trade Center Health Program. The program brings together medical care and research designed for responders and the local community exposed to the toxic dust cloud in the aftermath of the Twin Towers’ collapse.      

The adjustments they lobbied for included accounting for medical inflation and serving a new wave of sick responders. Without it, the program would have reportedly had to stop taking new patients in 2028.  For the rest of us, the program serves as a national learning laboratory about the health impacts of urban environmental disasters.  

At the time, I was reporting a story about the bodily impacts on 9/11 responders after breathing in or swallowing “World Trade Center Dust”—a cakey and caustic amalgam that burned its way into the nose and throat, and deep into the tissues. I learned that when cement is pulverized, as it was that day, it reverts to its elemental components, transforming into a poisonous swill with the pH of Drano or lye. Some who were in the environs of the dust cloud now live with chronic inflammation of the lungs or digestion: smoldering in the pipes and tissues, never quieting, capable of turning a cold into a life-threatening illness. Some suffer repeated infections from burnt-out sinuses, or perpetual heartburn. 

For others, microparticles of dust were absorbed into the bloodstream from the lungs, taking root in the bone marrow and other organs, and sometimes kicking off a cascade of health problems. Even now, the people who worked in the rescue and recovery, along with those who lived and worked in the vicinity of Ground Zero, are getting sick. Some are being diagnosed with lung, thyroid, or skin cancer, others with blood cancers like lymphoma or multiple myeloma. And the rates of these cancers are higher than what might be expected to occur without ground zero dust exposure.  As of June 2026, just over 57,000 responders and survivors are certified by the World Trade Center Health program with cancers related to 9/11. More people have now died related to exposures to toxic dust at Ground Zero than died in the attacks themselves.

Feal is fifty-nine. He is wiry and compact, with broad shoulders and arms sleeved with tattoos. Feal usually wears t-shirts, jeans, work boots, and headgear, most often a baseball cap, that he favors even inside, with sunglasses forever perched at the rim. He walks with a slight swagger, purposeful and a little defiant, like the high school wrestling champion he once was, and speaks with the unmistakable cadence of a Long Island drawl—flattened vowels and clipped consonants, fast, edgy, and laced with expletives— “fuck” being his favorite when his words are directed at hypocrites and government officials. Feal is known for sending politicians diving for cover—sometimes on camera—with his audacious potty mouth. You can never be sure if he is about to hug you or bring you down in a half nelson. 

Feal’s injuries at Ground Zero changed his life. For five days immediately after the attacks, he worked there as a demolition foreman. “I would drive my excavator or payload too close to the pile, and the windshields would melt, that’s how hot it was,” he said. “And that smell, it engulfed you; it became a part of you.” His work became more of a forensic deconstruction than demolition—untangling a grayscape of twisted steel from pulverized concrete, insulation, plastics, metals, glass, and human remains. When a several-ton steel beam crushed his foot, the firefighters around him saved him from bleeding to death.  

A visitor pauses to read the names inscribed on the 9/11 Nesconset Memorial.Steven Zaitz

The following months were spent in a haze of hospitals, multiple surgeries, and the partial amputation of his left foot. Then followed the black hole of PTSD. He said that the experience of working the pile haunts him today as a phantom smell—both unmistakable and incomprehensible.

In 2002, he joined a support group for sick and injured responders. It was there he realized he was not alone. He met people, mostly from the trades, who helped at Ground Zero, but were now too sick to work. Some had lost their jobs and medical insurance. Others who had been in his group just vanished.  “Whether it was six people or 15 people in the group, I’d be like, ‘Yo, where’s what’s-his-name?’ ‘Oh, he died,’” Feal said. “‘Hey, where’s what’s-his-name?’ ‘Oh, he’s in the hospital with stage four cancer.’”      

“Whether it was six people or 15 people in the group, I’d be like, ‘Yo, where’s what’s-his-name?’ ‘Oh, he died,.’ ‘Hey, where’s what’s-his-name?’ ‘Oh, he’s in the hospital with stage four cancer.’”      

In 2005, he started a nonprofit, the Feal Good Foundation, both to lobby elected officials for responders’ health needs and to offer practical help for responders to get back on their feet: Financial assistance, for instance, for everyday expenses like medication or prescriptions, or perhaps transportation to and from medical appointments. 

Feal tells me he has made countless trips to Washington through the years to battle legislators who are skittish about the cost: $955 million for the upcoming fiscal year administered by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The program is set to end in 2090, when most responders and survivors have likely died. Like a B-52 bomber, he’s deployed first by fellow health program advocates to soften the field before the ground troops go in. His strategy is to show up over and over again, moving from congressional office to office, sometimes pushing a sick responder’s wheelchair, refusing to let urgent issues, like continuing the funding for research, disappear behind a wall of lip service.  

One wall of Feal’s office in New York City is a clutter of photos, awards, and 9/11-related memorabilia: his personal history as a 9/11 activist in tchotchkes. His notoriety in the 9/11 community grew over the years as he brought attention to responders through extensive media appearances, such as, say, with Jon Stewart. The advocacy work on Capitol Hill also made him a celebrity in the local Long Island 9/11 community. 

John Feal, right, and Jon Stewart, visited Capitol Hill offices to call on Congress to make permanent the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund in 2019. The fund provides financial assistance to responders, victims and their families, who suffer from health maladies in the aftermath of 9/11 terrorist attacks. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP

In 2008, local officials and a small group of determined 9/11 widows began to discuss turning a small piece of land in Nesconset into a memorial. Feal was asked to join the project to help raise funds. He did, but also brought to the table a broader vision for the project, using his firebrand style to help move it forward as an embodied metaphor for those lost to illness, but also for those who were still suffering with 9/11 related illnesses. 

While Feal is the first to recognize the initiative as one built from a local collective, for him, the memorial is meant to enshrine the advocacy work itself, his and others’. 

“Everybody wants to leave a legacy,” Feal said. “I left that park for the 9/11 community in the town of Nesconset.”

Displayed on a clock tower placed in the grassy part of the memorial is a plaque. On it are the words: “I can tell you that I did not want to be anywhere else but Ground Zero when I was there.” That’s part of the testimony of 9/11 responder Detective Luis G. Alvarez before the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. Alvarez died of cancer in 2019, within a month after delivering this testimony. He had gone to Congress to advocate for financial compensation for sick 9/11 responders.

 
“After a traumatic event, two things usually happen: advocacy or conspiracy,” says John Feal.
“I choose advocacy.”

Firefighters make their way over the ruins of the World Trade Center through clouds of smoke at ground zero in New York a month after the terrorist attack.Stan Honda/Pool/AP

I recently spoke with Marita Sturken, a historian and New York University professor, on a Zoom call. Her 2007 book, Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero, examines the way Americans engage with traumatic historical events—how we use memorials to process our grief and direct our mourning using memorials.

On a shared screen, we studied an architectural drawing and a few photos of the Nesconset Memorial. Sturken noted the memorial’s similarity to the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, where there also are layers of names engraved on the granite slabs, with a clutter of small objects left by families and friends at the memorial’s base. 

“The Vietnam memorial was a grassroots project begun by veterans, not government-led,” Sturken said, and was the first one at which people began leaving things. “No other memorial in Washington has been conducive to that.” It was embraced immediately by veterans themselves as a place where they felt recognized and seen. She considers the Nesconset memorial to be similar to others built from advocacy, such as Alabama’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice, dedicated to those who were lynched or victims of racial terror, or the AIDS Memorial Quilt.  

Sturken notes that timeframes are, in general, “an ingredient” to the memorial’s form. Usually, built memorials are tied to historical moments, coded with the viewpoints of their makers and of the times/specific moment in time when they were created—literally chiseling our memories into a singular object of contemplation. In the final form, who or what is embodied in bronze, or marble, or granite can tell us as much about who is not depicted as who is. Sturken explained that the best memorials represent an array of voices, honoring and naming individuals, as with the Nesconset memorial. “It creates a very different kind of interaction for visitors,” she said. 

A moment of reflection about loved ones lost.Steven Zaitz

In her book, Sturken points out that memorial culture in the United States is seen as a therapeutic way to make peace with difficult memories. “American mythology clings tenaciously to the belief that one can always heal,” she wrote, “move on and place the past in its proper context.” The Nesconset memorial points to the dissonance in this pursuit. Momentous events rarely have simple endings, especially when there are casualties.

Usually, built memorials are tied to historical moments, coded with the viewpoints of their makers and of the times/specific moment in time when they were created—literally chiseling our memories into a singular object of contemplation.

The New York City 9/11 Memorial and Museum built on the site of Ground Zero has been slow to recognize those who died because of that day, and only formally did so in 2019 with the dedication of an appendage to the main memorial known as the Glade. Set in an arboretum placed adjacent to the main memorial—the one that honors the people killed on 9/11 and in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center—the Glade is a series of granite monoliths infused with steel salvaged from the Twin Towers. It sits just west of the Survivor Tree, which was recultivated after being the only green thing found alive amid the debris.  

Unlike the Nesconset Memorial, the designers of the Glade chose not to inscribe the names of individuals who died from 9/11-related illnesses. Ben Chevat, Executive Director of 9/11 Health Watch, was heavily involved with the push to build the Glade. The decision not to inscribe the ever-expanding number of names of the dead was simply too resource-heavy and time-consuming for a government-run entity, he told me. 

For Feal, the New York City 9/11 museum, which in recent years added a special exhibit dedicated to those impacted by the toxins, “was a gut punch,” he said. “To me it’s a clean, organized crime scene.” He insisted that he is not downplaying “the significance of what happened that day, innocent lives lost—and the violence,” but believes the city memorial and museum should grow and evolve as more is learned, through research, about the long-term health impacts of the dust.  

Mourners pay their respects at the 2025 Nesconset Memorial Ceremony.Steven Zaitz

One broiling morning in July, I toured the Nesconset memorial with its architect, Mark Mancini. He remembered going to community meetings about the design and being shocked at the number of sick responders. “One year at an event there are a couple of guys in a wheelchair,” he said, “and the next year they’re gone.”

“One year at an event there are a couple of guys in a wheelchair, and the next year they’re gone.”

The granite wall, he explained, divides the space into two distinct areas: an open grassy area facing the front side of the structure where the public can congregate for ceremonies, and a partially enclosed space around the back for those who want to sit and reflect,  which Mancini referred to as  “the sanctuary space.” Thinking that they would be able to accommodate all the names, the original design left the front blank with only the words: “Courage, Honor, Sacrifice,” and the other side inscribed with the names of responders. Mancini has resisted requests to encircle the site with additional panels for them. Instead, they faced the cement back of the cantilever bench with granite in the sanctuary, making more room without losing the integrity of the space. 

“I’ve come here with nobody around and run into families just sitting here,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion as he pointed to “little things that keep popping up.”   

We looked at a small statue of a fireman and a rescue dog placed under a tree. He added, “The space has taken on a life of its own.”

As for Feal, he’s focusing these days on screening which responders’ names are candidates for inscription. In his office in New York City, I looked over his shoulder as he leaned into his laptop, demonstrating his approach. On any given weekday, he can spend a few hours scouring union and other databases and social media sites, as if on a search and rescue mission, identifying recently deceased responders whose names he can bring forward. For a responder to make the cut, they must have died from a 9/11-related illness, as certified by the WTCHP. “It’s uncomfortable all the time to keep track of fatalities,” he said. “It’s kind of morbid.”

Ask Feal about the park, as I did on another visit, and he uses words of endearment, as if it were part of his family. “That park is my baby,” he said. “Now it’s being run by mothers, uncles, and aunts.” 

A firefighter in a moment of reflection at the Nesconset memorial. Steven Zaitz

Quick Take

• The LEGO Group and Sony have partnered on the LEGO PlayStation set, a nearly full-sized replica of the gaming console’s original model.
• The interactive, functioning set has more than 1,900 pieces and includes two dioramas celebrating Gran Turismo and Ape Escape.
• Nerdist’s Take: The LEGO PlayStation set offers a way for fans of both iconic toys to play in the world of the other.

LEGO has invited Sony to play in its world, because when it comes to little plastic bricks, play has no limits. That’s right, soon you’ll be able to celebrate your love of both iconic companies wherever, whenever, forever. The wait is over. That applies to both the end of my PlayStation puns and the wait for a LEGO recreation of Sony’s classic gaming console.

Sony has announced its new team-up with the LEGO Group. The LEGO PlayStation is a replica of the original console and and its accompanying controller as they looked in 1994. The 1,911-piece set is an almost 1:1 scale of the system, as the model measures 10.5-inches wide. It also has interactive, functional mechanisms for authenticity. That includes the console’s “working” Power and Open buttons, a controller that actually plugs, and removable game dioramas so you can also display them on their own.

They dioramas pay homage to PlayStation’s history. They celebrate two games that launched alongside the system. The first is one for Gran Turismo. That diorama “includes a miniature track complete with scaled down cars.” The second is a miniature Ape Escape. It has an “island scene with a swappable blue or red light on the monkey’s helmet.” They look fantastic both on their own and inside the open LEGO set.

Click To View Gallery LEGO/Sony LEGO/Sony LEGO/Sony

You’ll be able to grab your LEGO PlayStation ($179.99) directly from PlayStation’s site. It goes on sale in the US, UK, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Portugal on October 1, 2026. LEGO Insiders will also be able to nab theirs on that day via LEGO’s online store and physical locations.

That’s not much time for me to come up with more PlayStation puns. So I should probably get one more in before I finish this post. Because when it comes to LEGO and PlayStation wordplay, I want to push the boundaries of wordplay.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow Mikey on Bluesky at @‌burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post PlayStation LEGO Set Celebrates Sony’s Original Console appeared first on Nerdist.

Quick Take

• Final Fantasy VII Revelation will release on April 8.
• The game dropped a deep dive exploration and combat trailer to give fans a glimpse into what’s next.
• Final Fantasy VII Revelation will get physical and digital releases.

All of us are here for one reason: to kill Sephiroth and stop that meteor. Those are the first words uttered in the trailer for Final Fantasy VII Revelation, and it tells you pretty much everything you need to know about this next installment. Fans are more than ready to start playing this game, even in the midst of current Sony and PlayStation’s digital drama, and thankfully they won’t have to wait long. Final Fantasy VII Revelation will be released on April 8, 2027. 

This is the concluding chapter of this remake game trilogy that will wage the final war against Sephiroth and the mighty Weapons. Date announcement aside, here’s a combat and exploration deep dive trailer for Final Fantasy VII Revelation to go along with that trailer: 

Pre-orders are now open for PlayStation 5, PC, XBOX Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2. There will be several physical and digital editions, including standard and deluxe physical versions, and standard, premium, and premium plus digital versions. And, of course, there will be a collector’s edition that is also available to order as well. For specific pricing and more information, head over to Square Enix’s website. 

PlayStation/Square Enix Tai Gooden is the Features Editor for Nerdist, a fictional villain apologist, and a horror aficionado who is forever waiting for her trip in the TARDIS.This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!

The post FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION Trailer Reveals Release Date and Explores World appeared first on Nerdist.

This is a lightly edited transcript of the September 2 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon.

Perry Bacon: This is Right Now on The New Republic. I’m Perry Bacon, I’m the host. I’m joined by Natasha Warikoo. She’s a professor of sociology at Tufts University. She wrote a great book a few years ago called The Diversity Bargain, and now that we’re so focused these days on issues of diversity and inclusion and so on, I wanted to talk to her about kind of where we are.

She’s done a lot of work on higher education and diversity, and I feel like that’s a great place to kind of start from. But I want to talk about diversity, inclusion, and all the kinds of ways those issues are being affected by Donald Trump. So Natasha, thanks for joining me.

Natasha Warikoo: Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Bacon: So let me start with the book itself. So the book that you wrote, called The Diversity Bargain, which was written a few years back. And I’m going to tell people, I’ll confess some interest in here, because I went to a college called Yale that very few people went to, but is an elite school. And the book is about, I think it’s Harvard, Oxford, and Brown, and you interviewed both white students and students of color, and you talked about diversity in elite college campuses. But I think the issues of diversity there are relevant to the rest of the society. But talk about what the phrase diversity bargain means.

Warikoo: Sure. Yeah. So I did these interviews with students on the Harvard and Brown campuses, and then also in the UK at Oxford, thinking—I wanted to understand people who are at the most elite places, and how they think about issues of fairness, inclusion, knowing that these places are very exclusive and elite, and certain groups are underrepresented. And the diversity bargain is this, that I found that white students in the United States really did support provisions for equity, particularly affirmative action, which was legal at the time. And they did it, but there was a bargain involved, right?

So they said they supported the inclusion and attention to race in admissions, so that there could be more Black students, Latinx students, Native American students on campus, because they saw it as a benefit to them. They understood that diversity had shaped their worldviews, that they were exposed to different perspectives, that their world was opened up through interacting with people who had very different lived experiences to their own.

But this meant a few things, that they expected underrepresented minority students to integrate at all times. So if they saw a table of Black students sitting together, then they thought that they were not upholding the diversity bargain. Of course, they didn’t notice all the tables of white students on the other side of the cafeteria, but that was OK. They didn’t want it to, quote-unquote, “go too far,” right? That there was this idea of reverse discrimination kind of lurking in the back of their heads.

And so even if they’d gotten—there was one student who said, memorable quote, where they said, “If I hadn’t gotten into Harvard, I would’ve felt that I had experienced racial discrimination if a Black student at my school had gotten in and I didn’t.” And so that script is already in the back of their minds, even though they had won. And so you imagine that student going on to apply to graduate school, apply for a job—the second that they don’t win, affirmative action is an easy thing to blame.

So there were these kinds of expectations that were rolled into the support for affirmative action, in part, and I argue, because there was less attention to kind of racial justice, and that the origins of affirmative action were related to racial equity for underrepresented minorities, frankly, African Americans, in the very beginning. And so that was underplayed in this discourse.

Bacon: So the book resonated with me. I read it, I think—when was the book published, Diversity Bargain?

Warikoo: It was 2016.

Bacon: 2016. So it resonated with me, in part—I think I read it in 2018—in part because, while it was about universities, I felt like, having worked in elite media, having attended an elite college, having worked in think tanks and other things, like, this was not just about universities. This idea that the African Americans particularly in these places needed to deliver some kind of benefit, and to be grateful to be there, and that kind of thing, was not just a college campus thing, but was also reflected in other things I had experienced.

And the reason I thought about the book more recently was, in 2020, I felt, oh, now we’re seeing a movement not just for diversity, but for real racial justice, and I wonder what this looks like. Natasha was hinting that when the demand is not just for Black people or minorities get in the room, but minorities get to shape things, and there’s a call for justice, then the white college students get mad.

I wonder if the rest of our society will feel similar to that, and I wonder if 2020 and the aftergrowth of that—you’ve seen some of the sort of, diversity is OK, but really challenging the structure of America is not OK.

Warikoo: Yeah, it’s been fascinating to watch this unfold. And so, 2020, for many people who care about racial justice and equity, was really an inspiring moment where we thought, “OK, this is what I was calling for,” right? I was calling for greater attention to racial justice, to equity. Systemic racism became, like, a household, an everyday phrase, that left the academy and went into corporate America.

And so it was this moment, and I think it was a hopeful moment, but yeah, unfortunately it didn’t last. I think we’re seeing the kind of backlash towards that movement. It happened pretty swiftly. By September, President Trump is issuing this executive order banning DEI, and so the backlash has been very forceful, and effective, I would add as well.

Bacon: And let’s—I want to talk about the backlash in a couple different ways. The first was, you saw all these, like, red states, I’ll say, right after 2021, passing all these sort of bans on books and ideas about race. You can’t study sociology in this way, or Black studies in this way. So you saw that pretty much 2020, 2021, 2022, that was in red states, that was happening.

So that was maybe not surprising, but that was a sign early on that there was going to be resistance to really studying systemic racism and thinking about it this way, right? That was early on, even when Biden’s president, this very, very strong resistance to academic work around this from the very beginning.

Warikoo: Yeah, absolutely. There’s a kind of back and forth, I think, between the local and the federal, right? So President Trump issues this executive order in September 2020. Biden takes office, rescinds that order, but states and local areas take it up, right? So you have Governor DeSantis in Florida using very similar language. They take on this phrase critical race theory, right?

Very few schools in this country have ever used that phrase, critical race theory, which is a very specific academic term, but they latched onto this, I think, related to this phrase systemic racism, without totally understanding what it was. But having these bans, right? Bans on the teaching of critical race theory, through the state legislatures. Local school boards really got on board with wanting to ban books and, quote-unquote, “parent rights.” Moms for Liberty, that came out of Florida, really helped local school districts elect people who are going to be on board with this project.

Again, you see this legislation and these movements in local areas with very similar language, because it’s a kind of systematic movement supported by organizations like Heritage Foundation. And so this is a very organized effort to attack any kind of policy related to diversity, justice, race, and to build a kind of narrative about this kind of reverse racism, right? To build this false narrative that somehow people of color, trans people, LGBTQ people are getting ahead, right?

And I found it really interesting that the Trump administration started using the language of meritocracy, right? So this idea that we’re going to restore merit by ending attention to inequality when we make selection decisions. And so there is this concerted effort that kind of then, when they’re out of office and Biden’s in office, it flows to the states. The states are enacting these bans, local school boards, and then it goes back to the federal when Trump gets back in office, right? And his administration takes on this again. And again, with alignment around language. It moves between K-12 education and higher education as well. So you see, it’s a very kind of systematic, and very effective in many ways, movement.

Bacon: And in corporate America, something happens too, where, like, 2014 to 2023, I’ll call this period, where a lot of companies feel like they have to—they put out diversity guidelines. We’re going to hire more women, we’re going to hire more people of color. We’re going to have more trainings. We’re going to have more implicit bias training. Some of these things are evidence-based. Some of them, candidly, are not particularly useful.

And then you see Facebook and other companies start rolling that back in early 2025. Sometimes it feels like in response to the federal government and Trump, sometimes it feels because they wanted to. I can’t quite tell. So what’s the corporate America story, in your view?

Warikoo: Yeah. I don’t know what’s going in their heads, but I can tell you what I see. There’s this great book that came out around the time that my book came out, called The Enigma of Diversity by Ellen Berrey, who’s another sociologist, where she compares the language around diversity in higher education, but also in the corporate world and in real estate as well, and this idea that diversity is being sold as a commodity in these different spheres, right?

So the corporate world, it’s, yeah, you need diversity because you’re going to make more money, because you can sell those—I forgot what they’re called—those, the Newports, in Black communities, or whatever. And corporate America, I think in 2020, a lot of these organizations put out statements, and I think genuine statements. I do think that there was a real reckoning. In some places it was strategic, but it was also, I think, heartfelt by a lot of people, where they understood, I think particularly white corporate America understood, things about the experiences, again, particularly of African Americans, and racial exclusion, in ways that they didn’t before. Ways that I think African Americans and other people of color always understood, because that was their lived experience. But I think this was a shift.

And I do think that there has been this, again, this shift back, in part because of fear, right? Fear of the Trump administration. Maybe lack of being totally on board, or worry about the bottom line, or that having been maybe more performative. I think all of those things can happen at once, right? But, when push comes to shove, we’re not going to put ourselves on the line, and I think that’s what we have seen.

And some are willing to take more risks than others. But for the most part, there’s a sort of pulling back, the way that we’re seeing in higher education as well. And I think that’s related to the federal government. But I think what you’re hinting at is also true, that maybe we don’t totally want to be full on. What are we willing to give up, right? And I think that’s where, when you’re asked to give up something, like, you’re asked to give up your security, you’re asked to put yourself at risk, that’s when we see the choices that are being made, and different organizations are going to make different choices.

Bacon: The higher education story feels to me like a couple different things. Which is, one, you had the red states opposed to all kinds of things because they’re very conservative. You have this Supreme Court decision about affirmative action, which says you can’t consider race in a variety of ways in admissions, particularly in higher education. So you have the Supreme Court acting.

I think you mentioned, we were emailing, you mentioned the Gaza protests and the reaction to them, and the sense that the campuses themselves were too left, which was felt by some people on campus who are Democrats. And so that created some culture, some shift. And then Trump coming in with this sort of really—colleges are too woke, I want to move colleges to the right. So the higher education context has been probably the place where this sort of move to the right on DEI has been felt the most, right? And it’s been the most aggressive place for it.

Warikoo: Yeah. I think there’s this sort of convergence, right? And to me, that was a moment, right? When—again, people have different perspectives in different universities, even within universities. But there was a—after those Gaza protests is where you see a lack of alignment, right? When Black Lives Matter happened, not all Americans were on board with down with systemic racism.

But in universities, for the most part, there was a lot of alignment, right? Universities were putting out statements. There was a kind of reckoning. There were meetings. There were statements. There were commitments to diversifying the faculty, to more resources for financial aid. All of this was happening. But I think in 2023, there was a lot more disagreement. More disagreement, around, on these liberal campuses than usual.

And so this created this kind of moment where I think the right saw an opening and swooped in. So you see this shift where, up to that point, a lot of the focus of the anti-DEI work on the right was in K-12 education, right? Book bans, right? Anti-DEI teaching, all those critical race theory, all that legislation was K-12 schools. 90 percent of those bans were at the K-12 level. But then there’s this shift, like, Oh, wait. OK, here’s an opening for us in higher education. And then they shift to higher ed, right? And then we see the systematic attacks in the second Trump administration in higher education. And of course, bolstered by the 2023 US Supreme Court decision, right?

So the 2023 US Supreme Court decision ends affirmative action in college admissions, where you can no longer consider race in admissions. And then you see the Trump administration uses that decision, which is really a narrow decision about college admissions, to say, Oh, now you can’t have any kind of DEI programming. You can’t have a student center. You can’t have scholarships.

And of course, that is not settled law, but they use that in that Dear Colleague letter that came out in February 2025, to say, Stop everything. And if you don’t, we’re going to withhold federal funding. Now, again, there’s a lot of throwing things at the wall and seeing what will stick in the Trump administration, but it creates, like, fear. And universities are like, “Wait, we don’t want to get sued. We don’t want to be the ones in a lawsuit.” So that starts, and then the Gaza war really creates a wide opening to say, OK, the withholding of federal grants, and it just continues on and on over the last year and a half.

Bacon: So I’m not on a college campus at all most days, but you are. You’re in Boston, you’re in, in some ways, the center of university life in America. So you’re at Tufts, and you’re also around other colleges. So what’s it like now? Do people feel nervous to say diversity or inclusion on campus? Do people feel nervous about those words? Do minority students feel under threat? What’s it like to be on a college campus in this sort of administration, in this time of diversity backlash? And you’re a person of color yourself, obviously.

Warikoo: Yeah. I’m in a very liberal state. I’m on a liberal campus, so I’ll start with that caveat. I think the biggest things that we worry about are our international—

Bacon: Private college, it’s worth noting. We’re a private college too, it’s worth noting. So anyway, yeah, Tufts is private.

Warikoo: Yes. Oh, sorry. Yes, that’s what I mean. That’s really important. It’s a private college. But we have a lot of federal grants, and so we are beholden to the federal government. I think we worry a lot about our international students, increasingly draconian policies related to, like, first getting a visa, and then the four-year new policy for graduation. Are they going to be targeted? We had our student, was kidnapped by ICE, right? She thought she was being kidnapped off the street. She didn’t even know what was happening. And so I think we worry a lot about that.

I think for the students, there is this sense—there is this sense of the ground is shifting under their feet, right? So there’s a curiosity, I think increasingly there’s a tension too, I think they realize that they have a hard time talking across difference. But I’ll say, with a big but, I don’t think this is related to specifically things that are happening on campus. I think this is a society-wide thing. I think our society is increasingly polarized. Social media has a lot to do with that. We are increasingly segregated, not only by race, like we always were, and class, but also by political identity. And I think there’s this sense of, like, anything you say can be posted and go viral.

And so I think a lot of those things are happening. I think that’s now getting, again, taken up and attributed to, it’s the supposedly ideological bent of the faculty. I think that’s totally wrong. So I think there is that, but I think it’s not a result of these political things. I think it’s a result of broader social trends. And so, I think, on a day-to-day level, students are just, like, doing their thing.

I think what’s on our minds as faculty is, what I see as concerning, right? I think faculty across the country, even in blue states, are wondering, like, are we going to be increasingly scrutinized? Are we going to be able to teach the way we think we should be teaching? Where is my syllabus going? And who is using, who is looking at these materials? Is a student going to record my class?

People are now putting on statements like, You can’t record in your class, in my classroom. I understand that, and, a few years ago, it never would’ve occurred to me to have a statement like that on my syllabus. So I think these are the kinds of things that are happening right now. And I think our students are also just worried about, am I going to get a job after I graduate, with all of this debt, or with this degree? And I think those are the big concerns, I think.

Bacon: What does this period mean for you, as a person who works in sociology, a field that the right seems to be very focused on demeaning, who works in higher education, who works in race, and who wants to make our society more equitable, on racial grounds, and particularly in higher education? What does it mean for you? It feels like a lot of the things you’re working on are under threat right now. Or a lot that you spend your career on are under threat right now. How does that affect the way you think about your work?

Warikoo: Yeah. In some ways it makes it feel more important than ever, right? So Florida, two years ago, and now it’s been formalized, first started saying, You know what, you can’t take sociology for your distribution requirements, and sociology can no longer be part of gen ed requirements. And part of me was like, Oh, they understand the value of sociology, right? What do we do as sociologists? We look at society. We look at data on society. We reveal the things that are hard to see, right?

That there are racial disparities or class disparities, that we don’t live in a true meritocracy, and we have data to—we look at data and say, “Look, this is what our society’s actually”—and people who don’t want to understand those things are trying to ban sociology. So I feel, on the one hand, that the work that I feel like I’m doing is more important than ever. Unfortunately, right? I wish my research were out of date and no longer relevant, but I think it’s really important.

I’m actually going back to those young—they’re not young anymore—the people I interviewed for The Diversity Bargain. They’re now in their 30s, and I’ve been re-interviewing them to say, “Hey, how’s it turned out? And do you still believe in meritocracy? Do you think that this is a fair system?” And you know what? A lot of them are saying, like, no, it’s not a meritocracy. Like, hiring, it’s not a meritocracy. I got my job because I knew somebody. And the way I hire, or the way my firm hires, I try to give, like, a sample activity, or I’ve suggested we take the names of universities.

But at the end of the day, often it’s like someone recommends someone who I knew from this thing, and so they see that. And if the elites are seeing this—so I feel like, my job is to reveal what is happening in society that we don’t get—that I have the luxury of being able to take time, chat to people, analyze it, look for trends, and so I think that’s really important.

The other thing that I feel really passionate about right now is just defending higher education, right? This attack on higher education, to me—any authoritarian regime attacks the institutions of knowledge, which is what we’re seeing, and it’s so disturbing. But how do we have a just as organized a response, to showing the value of what happens in higher education? Higher education is—I’m not saying it’s perfect. We’re not perfect. We got a lot of work to do. But a lot of good things happen in higher education.

You think about our community colleges, which are, like, these engines of social mobility for so many Americans. Our big state schools that are educating so many people with decreasing funding. And so I think a lot of good happens in higher education, and what I hope we can do is change the narrative around, why is diversity good? What does it do for us? What is it doing as a—who we are as a—how is it helping us be who we want to be as an American society? And that’s what I’m trying to do right now, is, like, how do we change this narrative and have just as organized a response to the way that this organized attack has been happening over the last few years.

Bacon: Let me give one suggestion that no one in academia has listened to so far, but I will try it again. I’m in a Black family. We have Thanksgiving dinner. I go to a Black church sometimes. Everyone does not agree on everything. We have disagreements about lots of things.

Warikoo: Yes.

Bacon: None of us voted for Donald Trump, though, so you might want to stop conceding that you all don’t have any thought diversity because people voted for Democrats. This concession, when there are Republican voters in the room, that people all think the same, is not actually true. And if you expand out to the rest of society, I don’t think everyone in the Black church all is of, like—we have fierce debates about private schools and charter schools and public schools, but no, we do not debate if Donald Trump is a good president or not.

So I think this idea—I’m disappointed the president of Yale and people who I would like to—we need to, forget about the authoritarians for a second, the people on our side need to defend the idea. I don’t think professors are indoctrinating students, and I don’t see that, and I don’t know a lot of professors that do so.

It’d be nice if the David Brookses and the president of Yale and people who are not Trumpists would actually defend higher ed first. That’d be helpful. Like the Yale report—there are a lot of reports that, I don’t agree with a lot of what they said in there, and you might want to start there before we worry about JD Vance.

Warikoo: 100 percent. I am in total agreement with you. It is really upsetting to me, and worrisome, that we’re conceding this language. And yes, 100, we have a lot of—that’s what scholars do. We debate ideas. We look at data—

Bacon: Like, diversity is not—political diversity, viewpoint diversity, is not Republican versus Democrat. You and I differ on issues, I’m sure, but we might vote for the same person, is my guess. I’m not going to ask you that, being—

Warikoo: Yes, 100 percent. And this whole viewpoint diversity stuff, to me, is so ironic, because when I look at what they’re saying and talking about, it’s like borrowing the language of racial diversity, right? And, in the 1980s, we spent so much time researching the benefits of racial diversity, how to talk across difference. There are all these models. There are all these things that we know, right? How to build, like, intergroup dialogue in the classroom. We know how to do this, and so to suddenly say, “No,” like, that’s what we were doing.

But I think the viewpoint diversity thing is also disingenuous, because it starts with an end point, right? You are diverse because you think this thing. You support President Trump, or you support whoever it is—it doesn’t have to be President Trump—you are anti-abortion, or whatever. But the diversity stuff said, “No, you might think something,” but diversity challenges you to consider a different way, and then whatever you conclude, right? But this viewpoint diversity thing is, “Here’s my stake in the ground. You need to listen to this.” And I think that’s so deeply problematic.

So I couldn’t agree with you more. And this idea that we are—those reports, I just think that they concede this idea that we are somehow indoctrinating our students. When you look at the data, there’s been studies of, sure, there are probably more registered Democrats in an anthropology department or a sociology department. But that has nothing to do with—first of all, that has more to do with who ends up in these fields, who ends up in higher education—there’s cultural things.

But then also, I think particularly in a field like sociology, when you’re looking at the data, and you’re drawing conclusions based on that, that might lead you to a broad range of politics that are over here. Like you said, there’s a lot of differences over here, but less over here. And so I think—and even if you have that conclusion, our job is not to bring that into the classroom.

Of course, bias comes in, and if you ask my students to guess my politics, they might, broadly speaking, be able to guess who I voted for president in 2024. But beyond that, my job is not to teach them what I think. It’s to teach them to think for themselves, and look at evidence, and look at different perspectives on an issue. And that’s what most of us do. And so I couldn’t agree with you more, and I find that whole discussion really troubling myself.

Bacon: So the reason I thought about you was with this whole Woke 1.0 discussion, because we’re going to finish there. Which is that I’m concerned that—I know there’s been defenses of what she said, but I was concerned that the thing that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leading sort of progressive figure in America, said was Woke 1.0 was crazy. I don’t quite know what Woke 1.0 is.

I don’t love that phrasing in the first place. But when I think about 2020, I think a lot about a lot of ideas that needed to be stated, that were, like, they were truths that were presented more directly than before, that the police are often not a source of safety but often a source of inequality and violence, that we have systemic racism, that we have long-standing biases of all kinds that affect our culture. So, for me, that was the period of truth, and the rest of America often is crazy. And so I’m concerned to hear that.

So I’m wondering what to do about that, in a certain way. So, I get the fact that there was a political backlash to that. So if you’re running for office, I can see—like, you, Natasha, are not wrong. If you’re planning to run for office in Wisconsin, do not say the things you said. I agree. But what do the rest of us do who are not running? That’s what I want to talk to you about, is, like, how do we defend—if you’re not running for office, how do we defend the ideas of 2020? Because I think that’s important. I think those ideas were not wrong, and I think we need to stop conceding them.

And if Senator Sanders and Zohran and AOC and people whose names are on the ballot have to concede ideas that they know are true, I’ll talk to them about that in private, and why they should find different ways to disown things they know are true. But let’s focus on the rest, for the rest of us, let’s talk about how we defend things that are known. And so how do you talk about DEI to people who are skeptical of it? I don’t love that phrase in the first place, and I never did. But how do we talk about the values of diversity and equity, and fighting systemic problems in the country? It’s an easy question.

Warikoo: Yeah. Look, I think this idea that we want American society to be broadly inclusive, that people of all racial identities, of all backgrounds, should feel that they can be part of the American dream, and that we want to take steps in schools, in higher education, to make that happen—I have a hard time believing that most Americans will not be on board with that. And that’s fundamentally what the Diversity Project has tried to do, right?

Make our universities more accessible to groups that have been historically excluded, and then once they arrive on campus, make it so that they can be successful. What supports do we need to put in place so that students who traditionally haven’t gone to these universities, whose parents didn’t go to this kind of university, make sure that they can be successful? Just making that very clear, I think, is easy, and making it so that everyone feels like it’s possible for them, right?

And again, I think we have to counter this narrative, right? I think what the right has been really successful at doing is creating this narrative that, a lot of people are hurting in American society right now, of all races, right? And so, to say, You know why you’re hurting? It’s because of those people. It’s because of the trans people. It’s because of African Americans. It’s because of immigrants. And they’ve been, like, remarkably successful at that. And I think we have to shift that narrative, and to say that, No, you know what it is? It’s housing policy. We need to figure out housing. It’s economic policy. It’s—

The policies on race are not—it’s not zero sum, right? It’s not about this group versus this. I think about when I was talking a lot about affirmative action, and people would say it should be class-based, not—and it’s, yeah, maybe. We should have a lot more financial aid. That’s true. And we also need race-based affirmative action, because we have, for all of these other reasons—these are two—so these should not be mutually exclusive.

And so I think just laying that out to ordinary Americans in a way that’s clear and consistent and not defensive, I think, is going to go a long way. I think people who are critical of the way that we’re going need to build—when I look at that Project 2025, the foundations and how systematic and organized that movement has been, like, can we build that? And that’s what I want to be a part of.

Bacon: And on the higher ed—

Warikoo: I want to build that in the other direction, I should say. Sorry, just to be fair.

Bacon: On the higher ed side, I think that sounds like affordable college for as many people as possible, right? That—whether it’s free or debt-free or whatever, you should not leave college with $100,000 in debt, and you should be able to get a job without going into debt. I think that’s the sort of most fundamental part. If you want to go to college, everyone should go to college if they want to. And then on the diversity side, it’s, like, we want to have a society where your race or gender or sexual orientation does not bar you from, does not determine your livelihood, right? That’s what we’re going to get to.

Warikoo: Yeah, 100 percent. Who would disagree with that, right?

Bacon: But yes, because as you were talking, I was thinking of that book, The Sum of Us. Did you read that book by Heather McGhee that was published in 2021? It talked about this idea of, the right uses these issues to wedge different groups, so the key is to create a collective all.

Warikoo: Yeah, people have been talking about that in different ways for many years. And there’s this balance between—we’re not saying that we have to be colorblind. I don’t think being colorblind would get us there. But we do have to show how these different groups have similar interests, and that we have to be aligned and build these coalitions across lines of difference, in ways, and think about issues that we are all facing. I think there is a balance there. I think we still have to recognize there are issues specific to race, to sexuality or whatever, and that there is a common interest, economic interest, economic issues as well.

Bacon: Natasha, tell people where they can find some of your work and your thoughts. Are you doing a Substack? Are you doing anything like that there?

Warikoo: You can go to my website. Oh—I signed up for Substack. I need to—

Bacon: Everyone gets an evening newsletter, I promise.

Warikoo: But don’t go to my Substack. Go to my website, natashawarikoo.com. That has a lot of my work, and you can look at my recent books, Race at the Top and Is Affirmative Action Fair?

Bacon: Good. This was a great conversation, and thanks for joining me. Great to see you. Take care.

Warikoo: Thanks so much for having me.

Bacon: Bye-bye.

At least two Republicans in Congress are now calling for Pete Hegesth’s ouster as secretary of defense.

Following Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s resignation on Wednesday, Senator Thom Tillis called for President Trump to fire Hegseth, saying that he has “never witnessed more inept management” at the Pentagon.

“If we had a @SecWar who maintained the same priorities and forward-thinking, he would be fighting to retain talented leaders like Dan and the many flag officers he has forced into retirement. Instead, he is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks,” Tillis wrote on X. “I urge the President to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it.”

Later on Wednesday, Republican Representative Don Bacon backed up Tillis.

“I agree with the sentiments of Senator Tillis. I hate to tell the president who he should hire and fire. I don’t know if it’s really my role, but I would say this: I would not—he would not be on my team. I think he is—he has not been a very good leader in many ways,” Bacon said on CNN regarding Hegseth.

Other Republicans have not yet called for Hegseth to go but have expressed concern over Driscoll’s departure.

“I was disappointed. I think he’s been a pretty solid guy. So disappointed,” Senator Mike Rounds told The Hill.

“I’m tired of all the churn,” Republican Representative Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday. “I want to see some stability over there.”

Driscoll informed Trump personally about his fears of a weakened military with all of the high-level military purges pushed by Hegseth. Initial reports suggested that Trump was shocked at the news but has not signaled that any changes are forthcoming.

You’re reading The TNR Blue Book. Get daily scoops, strategy, and developments inside the liberal ideas factory delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for free.

Inside Washington

Is this district the key to the 2026 midterms?

The closely watched rematch in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district between former Democratic Representative Elaine Luria and the Republican who defeated her in 2022 is shaping up to be a doozy. The famously swingy district in southeastern Virginia has close ties with the military. President Donald Trump’s war in Iran and commensurate hikes in energy costs—and the extent to which sitting Republican Representative Jen Kiggans gets tagged with them—will define the election.

“Usually, foreign conflicts engender a rally round the flag sentiment in military communities. But in this case, the handling of the Iran war has caused well-publicized hardships for the military, especially sailors. This creates a challenge for Republicans in the 2nd district,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who has worked on several Virginia races.

In 2022, Kiggans successfully tied Luria to unpopular President Joe Biden. Now the situation is reversed. Trump’s national approval rating is consistently hovering below 40 percent, and he is presiding over an economy that Americans view unfavorably.

“Although Republican voters are notable for their loyalty, the combination of the war going badly and high gas prices will weaken the reflexive support of some GOP voters. The effect will be amplified among independent voters,” Ferguson continued.

Luria has focused on Trump before, including as a member of the select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol—and has acknowledged that her service on that panel may have cost her reelection. But she’s concentrating her campaign on Kiggans’s support for the current Trump administration, not the previous one.

“She’s not a moderate. She can’t separate herself from Trump,” Luria said of Kiggans on MS NOW’s Morning Joe this week, pointing to Kiggans’s vote in favor of legislation that cut Medicaid and other government benefits, and her vote against renewing expired Affordable Care Act subsidies. Luria has also hammered Kiggans over her positions on the Iran war: Kiggans voted seven times against resolutions that would have directed Trump to end the war or seek congressional approval.

Kiggans said in August that she would “like to see that conflict wrap up so we can bring our military men and women home.” But Luria has criticized Kiggans for previously dismissing reports of bleak conditions on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which is now headed home after a nine-month deployment. “It really shows a lack of care and concern for our military, our military families,” Luria said on Morning Joe. Both Kiggans and Luria are Navy veterans.

The district is uncommonly purple, with voters hopping between narrow support for candidates of both parties in federal and state elections. Although Kiggans flipped the seat in 2022, Trump’s margin of victory in the district was only 0.2 percent in 2024, and Democrat Abigail Spanberger earned just over 53 percent of the vote in the 2025 gubernatorial race. There’s consensus among political analysts on the unpredictability of the contest between Luria and Kiggans: The Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, and Inside Elections have all rated the seat as a “toss-up.”

Carolyn Fiddler, a left-leaning state elections expert based in Virginia, told The New Republic that the district has a strong politically independent streak. When she first ran, Kiggans was able to cast herself as more moderate, but now she has a record of supporting Trump’s policies.

“She’s doing nothing to really distance herself from Trump, and I think that’s going to cut against her,” Fiddler continued. Virginia Beach, one of the district’s hubs, is also a key site for wind farm construction—which Trump has opposed. Hampton Roads, the district’s other main city, is also prone to flooding, meaning that climate change could be a concern in the election. “These environmental concerns provide another whole avenue of opportunities for Luria to set herself apart,” said Fiddler.

The race is being closely monitored by House leadership, with Speaker Mike Johnson saying during a visit to the district in August that it “will determine the fate of the country because this will be a close election.” He isn’t being hyperbolic. J. Miles Coleman, the associate editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told The New Republic by email that the fate of the 2nd district would be an indicator of Democrats’ overall chances of taking the House.

“Since the 2008 elections, the party that has won VA-2 has also won the House overall; so Democrats could capture the House without it, but it would be a bit of a curiosity if they didn’t,” Coleman wrote. “If Democrats fail to win VA-2, the majority could still be within reach for Republicans. If Democrats flip VA-2, they probably have at least a majority in the 220s.”

—Grace Segers

Outside Washington

It probably won’t get the attention it deserves—climate fatigue is real—but amid devastating news of flash floods on multiple continents, unprecedented heat waves and revised estimates of heat-related deaths, widespread wildfires, and plummeting harvests, the United Nations has released another climate report, and it’s a doozy. The longtime goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures is toast, dozens of climate scientists say: Earth will pass that point in a few years. The urgent task now is to reduce emissions with extreme speed, and “aggressively pursue measures that pull heat-trapping gases out of the atmosphere, so global temperatures will start to decline,” The Washington Post reports. “In a best-case scenario, this pathway will limit the planet’s time above 1.5 degrees to a few decades.” The bad news is that carbon removal at scale so far remains highly hypothetical, and even if that changes, “it will not restore the world we once knew.” The Post’s Sarah Kaplan reviews some of the details, and attempts to end on a hopeful—or at least agency-promoting—note: “The report’s authors urged people to stay focused on what scientists do know: That every fraction of a degree matters. That the sooner humanity acts, the safer our future will be.”

Earlier this summer, Inside Climate News analyzed congressional press releases, finding that Democrats’ mentions of climate change had fallen precipitously in recent years, even though there’s little evidence to support this strategy of retreat. A few Democrats, including Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Ro Khanna, have sharply criticized this trend within the party and urged politicians to talk more about the climate crisis.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

Thursday at 9:30 a.m. the Center for Strategic and International Studies will release a live webcast in which the organization’s Energy Security and Climate Change Program director Joseph Majkut and senior adviser Kevin Brook discuss “the new U.S.-Venezuela oil agreement and what it signals about the growing role of energy in geopolitical competition.”

Public Citizen released a new report alleging that “many” of the companies involved in President Trump’s $3 billion critical minerals initiative “are examples of potential cronyism or are still in the early stages of development.” The watchdog lists examples of firms that “are only nine months old, connected to the administration’s family members or donors, associated with past fraud or fraud allegations, or whose financial backers remain largely hidden from public view.”

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Here’s Why That’s B.S.

Why is JD Vance talking about the end of the world with a 22-year-old podcaster? Watch TNR’s Edie Olmsted get into this mess of a story.

Political Trivia Question of the Day

With so many eyes on the Texas Senate race, two questions: Who was the last elected Democratic senator from Texas, and who was the last actually liberal Democratic senator from Texas? The former beat the latter in the 1970 Democratic primary, pounding him from the right over his opposition to the Vietnam War. (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

Quick Take

• We have an exclusive new image of Ralph Fiennes from The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.
• Fiennes plays President Snow, the character played by Donald Sutherland in the original films.
• Sunrise on the Reaping takes place 24 years before the original Hunger Games.

Long before he served as Katniss and Peeta’s mentor, Haymitch Abernathy was a tribute forced to play the deadly reality show under the watchful eye of President Coriolanus Snow. And now you can see what Panem’s ruthless ruler looked like when he oversaw the Second Quarter Quell. We have an exclusive new image of Ralph Fiennes from The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. It shows Snow was always a stylish menace with a penchant for white roses.

Lionsgate

Look, is Snow a truly vile monster who chose to inflict death and suffering on an entire nation rather than escape Panem for love, all because he wanted to live a life of comfort he believed was his birthright? Yes, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes showed us is villain origin story. But did that man pull off a lifetime of evil while looking good? Also undeniable. In this new image of Fiennes as a middle-aged Snow we see that decades before he met Katniss Everdeen he was still one of the best dressed men in all of Panem with a great head of hair to match his attire. And that attire included his beloved white rose.

If you haven’t read Suzanne Collins’ fifth book in the franchise, the film’s synopsis provides insight into what to expect. It will tell the story about one of the most consequential Hunger Games ever. From Lionsgate:

The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping will revisit the world of Panem 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell.

The film comes from longtime series director Francis Lawrence with a script from Billy Ray and Michael Lesslie. It also stars Joseph Zada, Jesse Plemons, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin, Elle Fanning, Mckenna Grace, Maya Hawke, Whitney Peak, and Kelvin Harrison Jr.

Haymitch will enter the arena this fall. The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping premieres on November 20, 2026. Will young Haymitch look as good as Snow either before or after his victory? No. But in fairness few in Panem ever looked as good as that presidential monster.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow Mikey on Bluesky at @‌burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post Ralph Fiennes Is Snow In New THE HUNGER GAMES: SUNRISE ON THE REAPING Image appeared first on Nerdist.

The Trump administration has found a new way to target Black and brown students at American universities—by giving white kids all their money.

The Department of Treasury proposed a new rule Thursday that would require the IRS to deny tax-exempt status to any private school offering targeted support for Black and minority students. If implemented, the rule will go into effect on May 31, 2027, and affect an estimated 18,000 schools across the country.

The Trump administration has long asserted that the very programs meant to address the nation’s history of racial discrimination and segregation are themselves a form of racial discrimination in violation of federal standards. The new rule comes amid sweeping efforts by the government to gut funding from supposedly diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and to reallocate any money that’s not earmarked for the white—sorry, right—purposes.

The proposed rule could have stark implications for historically Black colleges and universities, which are currently tax-exempt. Even as the Trump administration made efforts to gut funding for programs pushing DEI at other schools, these institutions previously received a financial boost from the Trump administration, a surprising move that gave some the impression that the president has no problem with Black people in Black spaces. He just couldn’t stomach them attending the universities his friends’ kids might go to.

The proposed rule also stands to gut charitable giving from donors. If schools fail to comply with the Trump administration’s rule and lose their tax-exempt status, donors’ gifts would no longer be considered tax-deductible. If schools hope to retain their tax-exempt status, the proposed regulation would force institutions to work with donors to determine alternative sets of eligibility criteria for scholarship recipients.

The proposed rule is likely to face legal challenges, but it comes as the Supreme Court has gutted protections against racial discrimination toward Black and minority communities by pretending we all live in a postracial society.

Leon Black, a billionaire investor with millions of dollars in financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein, refused to appear before Congress Thursday.

Black had appeared before the committee for a voluntary, closed-door interview on June 26, where lawmakers used the brief meeting to subpoena Black regarding two nondisclosure agreements he had with different women and to demand he return for a videotaped deposition under oath on September 3.

But Black did not show up. Instead, Black’s legal team filed a lawsuit, suing the committee in an attempt to block the subpoenas.

Earlier this week, Black was identified by outgoing representative Thomas Massie as one of 14 co-conspirators and “perpetrators” of Epstein’s crimes that the lawmaker said the Justice Department should immediately investigate.

In a 28-page complaint, Black’s legal team claimed there was “no justification for such a sweeping and intrusive subpoena served upon a private citizen.”

“Mr. Black supports the congressional efforts to stamp out trafficking and to ensure that this country never has another Jeffrey Epstein. But Mr. Black has already testified to Congress that Epstein had nothing to do with drafting or creating any confidentiality agreements he may possess,” the complaint reads. “He has also informed the Congress that [Ghislaine] Maxwell had nothing to do whatsoever with any such agreements.”

Black co-founded and led Apollo Global Management until 2021, when he was ousted after an internal review found he had significant ties to Epstein, including more than $150 million in payments for financial advice between 2012 and 2017.

Two years later, an unidentified Jane Doe sued Black for allegedly raping her when she was just 16 years old in Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse. The graphic lawsuit detailed that the victim had autism and a rare form of Down syndrome that has left her “developmentally … at about 12 years old.” It was the third such lawsuit accusing Black of rape.

Quick Take

• BoxLunch is debuting a new line of The Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise.
• The collection includes everything from clothing to backpacks to home decor.
• Nerdist’s Take: Many of the pieces in this collection offer fresh new takes on the standard The Nightmare Before Christmas merch, while still making sure to keep the spirit of the movie alive.

September is here, which means spooky season has officially begun. And depending on what department store you happen to be in, it can be Christmas too! Time means nothing anymore, apparently. In the spirit of the season(s), BoxLunch is debuting their new The Nightmare Before Christmas collection. A slew of fashionable pieces have dropped featuring Jack Skellington, Sally, Zero, the Mayor, Oogie Boogie, and Lock, Shock, and Barrel, our very favorite minions. BoxLunch is offering a wide variety of merch that’s sure to delight fans of the 1993 film. The Nightmare Before Christmas has maintained its cultural relevance for over thirty years. It is a movie very close to the heart of both young and old, but especially us rapidly aging millennials.

Click To View Gallery Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch Disney, Loungefly, BoxLunch

There’s a diverse range of new products, with every character making a stylish appearance. The high-waisted mom jeans look comfortable and eye-catching with the various patches and intermittent bats flitting up and down the legs. My personal favorite is the woven all-over postcard button-up, which pairs great with the all-over print maxi dress. Hello, couple’s outfit! The Sally, Queen of Scream crew-neck looks warm and snug for when the Christmas part of things rolls around. And we can’t look past the King Jack motorcycle jacket, perfect for Pumpkin Kings and Queens alike. If you’re looking to batter up with your BoxLunch merch, there’s also multiple different options for The Nightmare Before Christmas-themed baseball jerseys.

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LEGO Ideas’ NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS Set Brings Halloween Town to Life

The collection has plenty besides clothing, like a mosaic Zero cross-body bag. There’s a mosaic theme across a few different items, like the Jack and Sally hill scene mini-backpack and wallet. For some Halloween-y home decor, there’s even a stained-glass hanger. If you want to maximize the practicality of your fandom merch, there’s a bento box proclaiming that “Love Never Dies”—featuring Jack, Sally, and Zero. So come one, come all! Whether you’re looking for a fall vibe or planning ahead for the winter holidays, this collection definitely deserves a look.

Jess Harshbarger writes about movies, books, TV, games, comics, and all things nerdy for Nerdist.

The post BoxLunch’s NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS Collection Is Scarily Good appeared first on Nerdist.

Sailors fresh off the USS Abraham Lincoln have some serious concerns about their record-setting deployment.

MS NOW’s Priya Sridhar appeared on The Last Word Wednesday night after speaking with some of the 5,000 sailors deployed for nearly 300 days onboard the aircraft carrier during their long-awaited port call in Pattaya, Thailand.

“Many of them told me that this was in fact the worst deployment that they have ever experienced,” Sridhar said. “It was incredibly hard. And many of them expressed to me that they actually wished they hadn’t even done a port call, at this point, they wanted to just go directly home.”

The sailors also expressed concerns that amid President Trump’s ongoing war with Iran, lengthier deployments would become normalized and hurt Navy retention, especially among junior service members, Sridhar said.

MSnow: Now, I also got a chance to speak to some of the crew, the regular rank and file sailors who are part of this 5000 member crew that have been on this record setting deployment. And many of them told me that this was, in fact, the worst deployment that they have ever… pic.twitter.com/ioRSuPoH1a

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 3, 2026

Families of sailors aboard the Lincoln have come forward with reports about their relatives’ experiences with poor conditions, food shortages, and sanitation issues. During the Lincoln’s record-breaking deployment, there have been multiple instances in which sailors tried to jump overboard. One sailor who attempted to jump overboard is reportedly facing disciplinary action and could lose half his pay.

But the Navy’s problems are more widespread than just the Lincoln. Trump’s extended military campaign in the Middle East and total disregard for the conditions U.S. service members are facing is seriously killing morale, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s lackluster leadership certainly isn’t helping.

It looks like the issue will only continue to escalate, as Trump is reportedly plotting to ramp up military action against Iran after the midterm elections.

Republican House leadership has announced that the largest U.S. governing body will be taking a massive fall break, seriously cutting legislative calendar before November’s midterm elections. This comes after the House was already out of session for 5 weeks until returning on Monday.

The House will no longer vote in the final two weeks of September as previously scheduled, according to a notice from Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s office. After a Labor Day break, the House will only be in session for four days before representatives head home again  for all of October. 

Rather than pass laws regarding the war on Iran, data centers, the Epstein Files, the affordability crisis, or any of the litany of other issues burdening Americans right now, members of Congress will return home to focus on campaigning for their own reelections—or just take the two-month paid vacation they’ve just granted themselves.  

This comes just days after Speaker Mike Johnson called Representative Thomas Massie “stupid” and “nonsensical” for suggesting that he was going to send the House home to avoid voting on the Epstein Transparency Act II. 

“Tuesday I tweeted Mike Johnson would recess Congress until after the election in an attempt to stymie our latest Epstein bill,” Massie wrote Thursday on X. “Johnson went on TV adamantly saying that was STUPID and we’d work every day. Today he announced we’ll recess on Sept 17… until after the election!”

House members will clear out of the nation’s capital by September 17. 

This story has been updated.  

Following the president’s example, Trump officials have taken to saying whatever comes to mind with little regard for the significance of their office, or the truth.

Donald Trump defended one such slipup Thursday, shielding Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick after his longtime adviser claimed that no Americans had been harmed in Iran.

“Sec. Lutnick had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed. 18 people were killed in Iran!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

But Lutnick did not mince his words when he flubbed the statistic during an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, making it abundantly clear that the secretary understood he was speaking about Iran.

“The way the president is playing Iran, right, there’s not—there haven’t been American deaths, it’s really just an economic choke-out, which the administration is now executing more broadly and I think it’ll be very effective,” Lutnick told the network.

Whether or not Lutnick was thinking about Venezuela when he opened his mouth hardly matters. His inability to get the facts right revealed just how clueless the Cabinet member is about the administration’s warmongering, whether that relates to an unpopular Middle East war that has cost the American public hundreds of billions of dollars and more than a dozen American lives, or the decision to indiscriminately bomb boats in the Caribbean, infiltrate a South American government, and abduct its leader.

Nonetheless, Lutnick embraced Trump’s cover, writing in a statement Thursday that he “misspoke.”

“Eighteen members of our military have died, and to those families my heart breaks and I am so very sorry for their loss,” Lutnick wrote on X. “I was thinking about the Venezuelan military operation where no service members died.”

Lutnick then invoked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack, claiming that he was “deeply thankful for our military and the sacrifices the men and women who serve our great country make.” He noted that he lost his brother Gary and hundreds of his “close friends and colleagues” in the World Trade Center collapse.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the new head of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to remove two measles deaths from the Pennsylvania tally, in an effort to fudge the numbers lower.

Last Friday, the CDC held off on its annual Friday measles update, waiting instead until Sunday, when it removed the Pennsylvania fatalities, adding a note that read, “At this time, available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the (Pennsylvania) deaths or whether the individuals died from other causes while infected with measles.”

The change was made at Kennedy’s personal request, three sources familiar with the conversation told Reuters.

This decision came days after Kennedy and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro traded barbs online, with Shapiro accusing Kennedy of stoking fear and spreading misinformation by claiming that the measles vaccine contained “fetal tissue,” and that the disease could be cured with “chicken soup and vitamin A.”

“Before [RFK Jr.] held his current position, measles was virtually eliminated in the United States,” Shapiro wrote on X last week. “As recently as 2024, there were only 285 cases of measles across the entire country over 12 months. This year, in just 8 months, there are nearly 400 cases of measles across 29 counties in Pennsylvania alone — and nearly 3,000 cases across the country.... The correlation is clear: Secretary Kennedy has stoked confusion amongst parents and others — and the result has been less protection from measles and more cases.”

Even still, newly appointed CDC head Erica Schwartz removed the deaths from the measles tally in Pennsylvania at RFK Jr.’s behest, completely delegitimizing the findings of their state health care apparatus. Former American Public Health Association chief executive Georges Benjamin called that move “unheard of.”

“The secretary had no business ​interfering in the normal process,” he said. “He has an anti-vaccine agenda and he’s using this to play out his anti-vaccine agenda.”

As Shapiro noted, measles is virtually entirely preventable due to the development of the MMR vaccine, an acronym for “measles, mumps, and rubella.” RFK Jr. of course loathes this vaccine, and his rhetoric against it has surely contributed to the resurgence of the disease—and the deaths which he ordered erased from the database.

President Trump is planning to escalate military action against Iran after November, as his inner circle scrambles to keep him from escalating the Iran war before the midterms.

Reuters reports that White House officials want any new offenses in the war to come after the November vote to prevent heavy losses in the election. For now, the focus is on economic pressure against Iran in order to get a better peace deal, anonymous sources told Reuters.

“We are keeping the pressure on Iran,” an official said. “But November is a priority.”

The latest polls show that the war is highly unpopular, with 63 percent of Americans disapproving of the conflict versus only 31 percent in approval. Iran has every incentive to make things worse in the next two months and step up its attacks on U.S. military bases in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has extended troop deployments into 2027, signaling that the war won’t end anytime soon. Warship crews, air defense units, and paratroopers are among those whose deployments have been prolonged. Anonymous sources told The Wall Street Journal that the move is meant to give Trump more options in the war, but it’s also pushing troops to their limits and causing a maintenance backlog.

It’s not clear what Trump will actually do, although the Journal reports that he is discussing how to declare the war over. On Wednesday, he claimed that he was happy with the economic pressure campaign against Iran, but complained about the Iranian people failing to “rise up and fight.” Whatever happens next is not likely to please the American people or ease pressure on the struggling economy.

President Donald Trump just let everyone know how he really feels about Ken Paxton.

Speaking at a dinner at the White House Rose Garden Wednesday, Trump promised to campaign for the Texas attorney general—but couldn’t resist telling everyone what he actually thinks about the Republicans Senate hopeful.

“So, Ken Paxton, you might not like the way he dresses. And I say this—it’s so insulting to him, but I might as well say it—-you might not like the way he looks,” Trump said. “You might not love his look. You might not love his television interviews, but he was the best attorney general in the country, perhaps, he was one of the best in the entire country. And that speaks a lot louder than the suit he’s wearing that doesn’t look so great. Or than anything, frankly.”

Trump: Ken Paxton, you might not like the way he dresses, and I say this, it's so insulting to him, but I might as well say it. You might not like the way he looks. You might not love his television interviews. But he was the best attorney general and that speaks a lot louder… pic.twitter.com/TOu5IP31WE

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 2, 2026

It’s not exactly surprising that Trump’s thinking is so transparently shallow—after all, he’s scouted half his Cabinet members from television shows—but his humiliating outburst highlights how little control the 80-year-old president has over what he says in public.

Trump has repeatedly pledged his desire to see Paxton elected but has yet to commit any part of his $400 million MAGA Inc. war chest to help him win. Meanwhile, Paxton has struggled to match Democratic candidate James Talarico’s funding. According to their latest quarterly filing with the Federal Election Commission, Talarico’s campaign had raked in $31.6 million, while Paxton had only raised $9.3 million.

Instead, Trump has directed his super PAC to spend on ads that focus not on the Republican candidates who are running for the House and Senate, but on the president himself.

If this is how Trump talks about his friends, well … I guess we’ve actually seen him talk about his enemies a lot, and that was really bad, too.

Here’s what’s happening on Santa Cruz County roads this morning…

▼︎ new incidents

Road incidents as of 6 a.m. on September 3

• South Highway 1 at Highway 129 in Watsonville is facing closures because of roadwork. The closure is expected to last until Sept. 9.
   
• There is one-way traffic on Highway 129 at Union Street in Watsonville because of roadwork. This closure is expected to last until Sept. 9.
   
• There is a lane closed on eastbound and westbound Highway 129 at Riverside Drive in Watsonville because of electrical work. The closure is expected to last until 12:01 p.m. tomorrow.
   
• Alternating lanes are closed on Highway 9 at Pool Drive in the San Lorenzo Valley because of bridge work. The closure is expected to end on April 30, 2027.
   
• A lane on Highway 9 at Watermans Gap Junction in the San Lorenzo Valley is closed for tree work. The closure is expected to end at 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 8.
   
• One-way traffic control is in place on Highway 236 at Boulder Brook Drive in the San Lorenzo Valley because of utility work. The closure is expected to end on Sept. 8.

Disclosure: Traffic incidents are partially generated by artificial intelligence. We are constantly working to improve the accuracy and quality of our AI-generated content. However, there may still be errors or inaccuracies. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

The post Thursday morning traffic: Multiple closures on Highway 1, Highway 129 appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Quick Take

• DC Comics unveiled the cover of Batman of Two Worlds for Batman Day 2026.
• The comic will debut on September 19 and feature a brand new Matt Fraction and Scott Snyder story.
• In addition, brand new hardcover editions and paper masks will be available.
• Nerdist take: Batman and Absolute Batman are two of the best books at the moment, so both together is a dream.

We’re eating very well as Batman fans these days. DC Comics has been going from strength to strength with two stellar books with the Caped Crusader, in two different universes. Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s Absolute Batman is the biggest thing in comics (quite literally; the guy is enormous). The Absolute Universe gives us a very dark and different version of the beloved comics. But don’t sleep on Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez’s very different, very fun run of Batman in the main DC Universe. Now, for Batman Day 2026, we’re getting both together (kinda), plus a bevy of other Bat things.

DC Comics

Batman of Two Worlds features an all-new Batman story by writer Matt Fraction and artist Javi Fernández, with colors by Tomeu Morey and letters by Clayton Cowles, alongside an all-new Absolute Batman story by writer Scott Snyder and artist Nick Derington, with colors by Frank Martin and letters by Tom Napolitano. Cover art for the comic is by Jorge Jiménez, Nick Dragotta, and Frank Martin.

RELATED ARTICLE

ABSOLUTE BATMAN Should Launch a New Animated DCU

“Without giving too much away,” said Scott Snyder, “both stories are about theft, what theft means in one world versus the other, and what Batman’s form of justice looks like in each. That was the guiding principle that gave us the opportunity to tell two stories that celebrate each interpretation.”

“At the heart of it, it’s really simple,” said Matt Fraction. “One problem, two solutions. Each version of Batman has his own way of working and his own solution to that problem. The fun was putting them side by side so you can see the similarities, the differences, and the unique flavor and texture of each world.”

DC Comics DC Comics DC Comics DC Comics DC Comics

In addition to Batman of Two Worlds, you’ll be able to get several new hardcover editions, available at a participating comic book shop near you:

• Batman Vol. 1: Daylight (HC, $29.99 US) by Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez, with a new Batman Day cover by Jiménez paying homage to Absolute Batman #1’s cover by Nick Dragotta
• Batman ’89 (HC, $29.99 US) by Sam Hamm and Joe Quinones, with a Batman Day exclusive dust jacket with artwork from the 1989 Batman movie and a digital code for the film
• Batman: H2SH Volume One (HC, $29.99 US) by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Deluxe Edition (HC, $44.99 US) by Frank Miller, with a new cover by Raymond Swanland featuring artwork from the animated adaptations and a digital code for the animated movies
• Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham – The Deluxe Edition (HC, $34.99 US) by Rafael Grampá

Batman: H2SH Volume One will be published day-and-date globally with publishing partners in Argentina (OVNI), Bulgaria (Pro Books), Brazil (Panini), Germany (Panini), Italy (Panini), Poland (Story House Egmont), and Finland (Egmont Kustannus). Additional international releases will include the Czech Republic (Crew) and more.

DC Comics

And just for silly-silly fun fun, participating comic shops will also have cutout Batman masks based on the art of four of the best to ever do it. All four masks are by Ryan Sook, drawn in the styles of Jorge Jiménez, Nick Dragotta, Jim Lee, and Frank Miller.

All of this and more will take place on Batman Day 2026. That is, of course, September 19. For more information, check out the DC Universe Infinite website.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post Take a Look at BATMAN OF TWO WORLDS Comic for Batman Day appeared first on Nerdist.

Trailblazing women’s rights leader Gloria Steinem has died.

She passed away peacefully in her New York City residence, according to a statement posted Thursday on her Instagram account. She was 92.

“Gloria’s near-century on earth were years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end,” the statement read. “Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard. Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor.”

Steinem emerged as a leader of the second-wave feminist movement through the 1960s and 70s. She often served as the face of a movement that—in no small part due to her influence—witnessed the development of Title IX, laws and regulations guarding women’s legal and financial rights, the passage of Roe v. Wade, the first UN World Conference on Women, and the national expansion of rape crisis centers, turning what had previously been a private issue into a political debate on equality.

Steinem’s journalism career was similarly profound. She broke into the national writing scene in 1962 with a feature for Esquire on contraceptive use that became a vehicle for Steinem to argue against the contemporary demands placed on women, forcing them to choose between having a career or having children.

Her star shone even brighter the following year when she published “A Bunny’s Tale” in Show magazine, exposing the exploitative labor conditions, unsafe working environment, and abysmal pay rates offered to New York City’s famed Playboy Bunnies. To write it, Steinem went undercover for a year, applying to a classified ad under a pseudonym (Marie Ochs) to work at the city’s Playboy Club.

In interviews throughout her career, Steinem explained that it was a 1969 abortion rally that changed the trajectory of her life, morphing her from a nascent journalism star into a public activist. Steinem had gotten an abortion herself years earlier—in 1957—when the procedure was illegal.

Steinem had no biological children but is survived by the four step-children she gained from her husband David Bale, one of which is actor Christian Bale.

This story has been updated.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Global heating will reach at least 1.8 C under even the most optimistic future, well beyond the Paris agreement goal of 1.5 C, according to a UN report that warns every fraction of temperature rise intensifies destructive extreme weather, glacier melt, ecosystem loss, and island and coastal city submersion.

The report by the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme confirmed overshooting the 1.5 C goal inscribed in the landmark Paris agreement of 2015 was now “unavoidable” and, despite some progress in addressing the human-caused climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels, likely in the next few years.

It said: “There are no good outcomes above 1.5 C.”

“We need to see an urgent and unprecedented increase in political will and investment in a climate safe future.”

Heating of up to 3 C above preindustrial levels could lead to glaciers losing more than a quarter of their mass by 2100, raising sea levels by up to 13 cm. Global food production could decline by up to 14 percent by 2050 if there are not effective strategies to adapt.

Human health, water supplies, nature, cities, infrastructure and economies could all be severely damaged. Some losses would be irreversible. Many communities may have to relocate or change their livelihoods.

The report said the best hope for humanity to limit damage was to adopt an “overshoot, peak, and decline” pathway that required immediate and sustained greenhouse gas emissions cuts combined with steps to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

It described the goal of net zero emissions—increasingly politically contentious in some countries—as “an essential milestone that cannot be skipped” and stressed carbon dioxide removal through steps such as establishing vast new forests must occur alongside, not as an alternative to, deep cuts in fossil pollution.

Crucially, the authors of the report, titled Limiting Overshoot, said the average global temperature could be returned to 1.5 C this century only if heating stayed below about 1.8 C. They warned nature’s capacity to store carbon was uncertain and would shrink the more the planet heats.

The president of Palau, Surangel Whipps Jr.—this week hosting regional leaders including Australia’s Anthony Albanese for a Pacific Islands Forum meeting focused on security and climate—said the report was “a fork in the road moment for the planet.”

“It is hard to overstate the depth of emotion for those of us living on the frontline after having fought so hard to put the 1.5 C limit at the heart of the Paris agreement,” Whipps said. “We need to see an urgent and unprecedented increase in political will and investment in a climate safe future. Nobody can read this report and conclude otherwise.”

“We now have to reconfigure our climate governance around dealing with an overshoot pathway.”

Vishal Prasad, from Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, said the report was terrifying for young people from the Pacific. “The International Court of Justice has made it clear—keeping to 1.5 C is not a choice, it is a legal obligation,” he said. “We are not asking for your goodwill. We are not begging you. We are telling you what international law requires of you. End fossil fuel expansion. Your corporate profits cannot be allowed to extinguish our future.”

The UNEP executive director, Inger Andersen, said the future would “bring many unknowns”, but extreme heatwaves—such as those that smashed records and exacerbated wildfires and droughts this northern summer—were already proving climate impacts would “strike faster, hit harder and last longer.”

“We have to act with urgency and determination. Every fraction of a degree avoided, every year by which overshoot is shortened, and every adaptation action taken will save lives, will protect ecosystems, and reduce economic losses,” she told reporters.

Debra Roberts, a report author and co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said a key message was that “the rules of the game are now changing.”

“Existing approaches are no longer fit for purpose,” she said. “I think, for me, that’s the clarion call. We now have to reconfigure our climate governance around dealing with an overshoot pathway.”

She said that meant not just pollution cuts and carbon removal, but “bold adaptation” to protect infrastructure and livelihoods, help sustain political and social support for reducing emissions, and prevent resources being diverted to crisis response.

Climate Analytics, a science and policy institute, applauded the report for clearly describing the problem, but said it did a poor job of “showing us that there is a way out.” Its chief executive, Bill Hare, said UNEP had barely mentioned the need to phase out fossil fuels or evidence showing “real zero” emissions was possible in many economic sectors by mid-century.

The report’s authors cited earlier work that found limiting heating to about 1.8 C required global emissions to be halved by 2035. They said existing national policies were projected to lead to at least 2.3 C heating, but it would still be possible to limit stay below 2 C if countries delivered on net zero emissions commitments by mid-century.

Professor Richard Betts, from the University of Exeter and UK Met Office and another report author, said the flooding catastrophe caused by the collapse of rock and glacial ice in Nepal and China was a demonstration of why the world needed to limit overshoot and come back to 1.5 C.

“That specific event obviously is very complicated [but] we are committed to glacier loss,” he said. “We can stop them getting much worse by reducing emissions and limiting the amount of warming.”