We haven’t done an open thread for awhile, so… What have you been working on? How are you feeling? What’s on your mind these days? What’s the best thing you’ve seen this week? Have you called a plumber to your home lately?
Are you new here? Introduce yourself if you feel like it. Heck, if you’re a regular commenter, reintroduce yourself if you’d like.
Tags: kottke.org · open threads
NOAA: Contiguous US Breaks Its Record for Hottest Month Ever. “It’s not good when you’re breaking records from the Dust Bowl…” (This record will be broken several more times in the decades to come.)
Jamelle Bouie almost never misses. In this video that’s just shy of 10 minutes long, he chastises American political & cultural pundits for their lack of moral seriousness w/r/t their focus on “wokeness” instead of the real harms being done by the authoritarian Trump regime. (And he worked in a reference to Jonathan Frakes saying no.)
I bring this up because this is just a great example of a phenomenon I’ve been struck by over the past year. Which is that, in the midst of a government that is systematically dismantling Americans’ rights, that is systematically dismantling the post-World War II world order, that is systematically tearing apart the social safety net, that is trying to exert nearly totalitarian control over large parts of American life, which is constructing concentration camps and throwing migrants into them, which has killed two Americans on the street and is looking to suppress as much as possible dissent, even bringing the full force of the federal government against people it wrongly accuses of wrongdoing — as we observe all of this, so many of our pundits and professional commentators are still obsessed with people they got mad at in 2020 and 2021.
They are obsessed with fighting the specter of wokeness — whatever that misappropriation of African American vernacular means. They look at overzealous college students, overbearing HR departments, or colleagues who put pronouns in their signatures as tantamount to a Cultural Revolution. And meanwhile, as the Secretary of Defense quite literally purges Black people from the highest reaches of the military, it doesn’t look like anything to them.
They don’t even comment on it. The Republican Party has turned pretty openly against liberal democracy. Republican lawmakers are confirming election deniers to lifetime appointments. They’re nominating election deniers to high-ranking offices like governor. And meanwhile, pundits, reporters, the press — they’re obsessed with “Hey, did Francesca Hong once say that she thought we should cancel Thanksgiving?”
I would note that the free speech absolutists are awfully quiet these days too.
Bouie was reacting specifically to this David Brooks piece and this one from from Ross Douthat (with the amazing titular admission that he can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys these days)1 and possibly this one too. Michael Hobbes has been talking about this on Bluesky as well:
There were excesses in 2020 but they were mostly low-stakes efforts by well-intentioned people to address real injustices.
The excesses of the right during the same era were far more harmful. The reckoning we need now is about how elites lost sight of that.
…
Centrists convinced themselves annoying leftists on twitter were an equivalent threat to Jan 6 insurrectionists. They wildly inflated the threat of left-wing authoritarianism while ignoring how it was taking hold on the right.
Meanwhile, the right never meant any of it. They moaned about “cancellation” for a decade but embarked on mass firings as soon as they took power. They pretended to care about “free speech restrictions” and “educational indoctrination” while embarking on them every chance they got.
The excesses of the Woke 1 era mostly amount to cringe public statements, harmless vocabulary updates and loss of prestige for public figures.
The backlash to Woke 1, on the other hand, is imprisoning dissidents, dismantling public education and eroding democracy. That’s what needs reckoning.
Real “are we the baddies?” energy from Douthat here. ↩
Tags: Jamelle Bouie · politics · Ross Douthat · Tyler Austin Harper
Hayley Williams released new music with a project that’s not Paramore, so we should probably check if Paramore fans are doing OK. Meanwhile, Power Snatch’s EP 2 dropped on August 12, 2026, six months after EP 1 appeared on Bandcamp. Williams formed Power Snatch with producer Daniel James, possibly around 2025.
The four-track EP features addictive lo-fi, bedroom pop, electro-indie beats and hooks, layered under Williams’ hazy vocals. In a way, it’s reminiscent of her solo debut Petals for Armor. Williams seems to experiment with softening and blurring her vocals outside of her work with Paramore. There, she’s notably sharp, crisp, and almost brash.
After years of that Paramore style, it’s nice to hear Williams branching out and exploring all her musical interests. But of course, Paramore fans need to go through the regular ritual of speculating whether or not the band has broken up for good.
Over on the Paramore subreddit, fans posted a discussion of Power Snatch’s new EP. With the release of a second set of songs, fans are now wondering if this is Hayley Williams’ new band. Does Power Snatch herald Paramore’s demise? Why didn’t Zac Farro’s solo project inspire the same panic? Could it be that Williams, as a musician, is simply doing whatever she wants to do and it’s really not that deep?
An initial discussion began in February when EP 1 dropped. The post asked point-blank, “so what’s the deal with Power Snatch???” and the responses were surprisingly not as doom-and-gloom as expected. Not like they were when Williams dropped her latest solo album, and Paramore wiped their social media presence for a bit.
Commenters brought up other bands who had side projects while still in their primary group. These included Davey Havok and Jade Puget of AFI, Dan Campbell of The Wonder Years, Stephen Christian of Anberlin, and Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park.
“It seems like this new collaboration goes back to at least July 2025, so it’s probably something they’ve been working on/planning/talking about for a while now,” one person commented. “It’s very possible to have more than one project going at a time.”
Meanwhile, on Bandcamp, supporters are showering Power Snatch’s second EP with praise. “Incredible. Astounding. Infatuating,” one user wrote. Another commented, “Forever in awe of the pure talent. Thank you for bringing real music back. Thank you for writing about what everyone is thinking. And for giving us all a safe place to feel our emotions in their fullest form.”
It looks like Paramore fans are going to be OK after all, and Hayley Williams is hitting it out of the park once again with this latest creative project. Still, you gotta love it when the top comment on the Power Snatch discussion is an edited image of Lenny from The Simpsons updating a sign reading “0 Days Without Speculation On Paramore’s Demise”.
Photo by Valerie Terranova/Getty Images
The post Someone Check on Paramore Fans: Hayley Williams Just Released an EP With New Side Project appeared first on VICE.
FOR MOST AMERICANS, August 15 is not a particularly memorable date. But it was on that day, five years ago Saturday, that the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and their Pakistani allies defeated the United States, NATO, and their Afghan allies by capturing Kabul. In scenes eerily reminiscent of the fall of Saigon, the United States conducted a chaotic, two-week evacuation and abandoned a twenty-year war. The dreams of millions of Afghans vanished, especially those we left behind.
Since then, Afghanistan has almost completely receded from America’s collective memory. When we remember it at all, it’s often invoked as a pejorative, an example of the folly of “forever wars” and the limits of American power. The war has largely been erased from our national consciousness, and with it, any serious reckoning or accountability for what went wrong.
Yet for many of the 832,000 Americans who served in Afghanistan, August 15 remains a bitter day filled with sorrow, betrayal, and anger. There is sorrow in watching twenty years of repeated deployments, sacrifice, and hardship discarded in the blink of an eye. There is betrayal in how we abandoned our Afghan allies, leaving them to navigate a byzantine immigration system that Americans have repeatedly neglected to fix. And there is anger, sharpened by humiliation, in watching the Taliban conduct military parades with captured American equipment.
For some Afghanistan combat veterans, these emotions amount to something worse than disappointment. They constitute a deep and enduring moral injury. While post-traumatic stress disorder has become synonymous with the Global War on Terrorism, moral injury is an older concept made newly relevant by the withdrawal. It occurs when someone witnesses or participates in actions that violate that person’s ethical code. For many who served in Afghanistan, the anniversary of August 15 reopens wounds that have never fully healed.
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When that sense of betrayal, guilt, and grief goes unaddressed, it can deepen isolation and despair. Moral injury is not synonymous with suicidal ideation, but when combined with PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, depression, and other conditions, it can have a devastating effect on veterans trying to make sense of a disastrous war.
The statistics are sobering. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, although the total number of veteran suicides decreased slightly in 2023, the suicide rate per 100,000 veterans increased. Although the VA has reduced its backlog of disability claims, it continues to struggle to connect veterans with timely mental-health treatment.
According to a CNN investigation, nearly two-thirds of the 541 VA facilities studied had wait times exceeding the agency’s target of twenty days for an initial mental-health appointment. At some facilities, veterans waited more than five months. Rates of suicidal ideation have reportedly risen by nearly 50 percent over the past five years.
A shortage of mental-health professionals is exacerbating the problem. Over the past two years, the VA has lost nearly 500 psychologists and psychiatrists and another 500 social workers, while eliminating more than 14,000 health care positions. These alarming losses prompted sixty House Democrats to send a letter demanding that the VA provide detailed data about staffing, vacancies, and access to care.
WHILE AMERICAN COMBAT VETERANS continue to feel the reverberations of Kabul’s fall, the Afghan people have borne the brunt of our retreat, especially Afghan women.
Over the past five years, nearly all the progress made before the fall has been erased. Girls are not allowed to attend school beyond the sixth grade. Women have been pushed out of much of the workforce and face severe restrictions on traveling without a male chaperone. Taliban morality laws have sought to silence women in public spaces. Women detained by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice have also reported being subjected to sexual assault.
The humanitarian situation is equally grim. According to the United Nations, 14 million Afghans face acute hunger. An estimated 3.7 million Afghan children and 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are likely to suffer from malnutrition. Approximately 28 million Afghans live in poverty, while unemployment remains widespread.
Our Afghan allies face an even more immediate threat. Many of those who fought beside us remain underground. Despite the Taliban’s assurances that it would not seek retribution, former Afghan officials and members of the security forces have been hunted, killed, and disappeared. Many fled to neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan and Iran. Both countries are now forcibly repatriating Afghans to the Taliban.
For Afghans living in America, the situation is much improved, although it has been complicated by the Trump administration’s stringent immigration policies. Most Afghan refugees are thriving in the United States. They are pilots, professors, and homeowners.
However, the future remains uncertain for those who relied on Temporary Protected Status, which the administration rescinded in 2025. Nearly 12,000 Afghans formerly protected by TPS are now vulnerable to deportation, sparking fears that they could be repatriated to Afghanistan or, as in the case of Nazeer Paktiawal, end up dying in ICE custody.
Trump’s decision to freeze all immigration processing from Afghanistan following the November shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan refugee has had disastrous effects. Thousands of Afghan refugees remain stranded in a refugee camp in Qatar. Nearly 175,000 Special Immigrant Visa applicants remain in Afghanistan because of Trump’s decision. These men and women, who risked everything by supporting our efforts for twenty years, have earned their place among us.
FIVE YEARS AFTER KABUL FELL, remembrance is not enough. There are concrete steps the United States and the American people should take.
The federal government should devote substantially more resources to the study and treatment of moral injury. Moral injury deserves the same level of national attention and investment as PTSD. Congress should fund research into effective treatments, expand training for VA mental-health providers, and support programs designed specifically for veterans struggling with the consequences of America’s wars.
More importantly, Americans need to connect with these veterans and listen to their stories about Afghanistan. They need to remind veterans that, despite the traumatic way the war ended, their service mattered to the Afghans they served alongside and still matters to their fellow Americans and their families. No federal program can erase the fall of Kabul, but recognition, validation, and genuine human connection can help veterans begin the difficult process of moral recovery.
We must also protect the Afghans who escaped and now live among us. Rep. Jason Crow and Sens. Chris Coons and Lisa Murkowski recently introduced the Afghanistan TPS Act, which would protect Afghan nationals living in the United States from being forcibly returned to Afghanistan. The bill would extend Temporary Protected Status for eligible Afghans through July 1, 2029. Congress should pass it.
Lastly, the United States should take concrete steps to support the Afghan people. We should support efforts to recognize gender apartheid as a crime under international law and hold Taliban leaders responsible for their crimes. We should resist any formal recognition of the Taliban regime and explore aiding vetted anti-Taliban resistance groups seeking to overthrow it. Many of these groups are led by former Afghan officials who worked closely with the United States. They do not seek American boots on the ground, but international support in their struggle against a regime that remains allied with al-Qaeda.
Whether one believes withdrawing from Afghanistan was right or wrong is now largely immaterial. Remembering Afghanistan is not an argument for restarting the war or returning American troops to the country. It is an acknowledgment that the war did not simply end when the last American aircraft left Kabul. Its consequences continue for our veterans, our Afghan allies, and millions of Afghans living under Taliban rule.
We must care for the veterans who fought, protect the Afghans who stood beside them, and refuse to legitimize the enemy that defeated us. We are responsible for the wars fought in our name—especially those we lose.
© Sharon Bernstein/Reuters
Drake got hit with the goth girl allegations after his date with Pinkchyu. However, the Toronto rapper has receipts to prove he’s been down bad for them since his Degrassi days.
In early August 2026, Drake made a 20v1 stream appearance as part of Stake’s ninth anniversary celebration. During the event, Pinkchyu—a content creator and cosplayer—won the game show. As part of her winnings, Drake promised he’d buy her mom a new house.
At one point, Pinkchyu got Drake to bark for her, which led to a lot of chatter online. Some of the conjecture implied that this was Drake’s goth girl awakening, but that’s not true. In an X/Twitter post you can see below, Drake proved he’s long been aware of the goth baddies.
Drake posts an old photo of him with a goth girl via IG
— Kurrco (@Kurrco) August 13, 2026
"This sh*t not new" pic.twitter.com/mqR9OziWts
“This s**t not new,” Drake wrote on his Instagram story, alongside a screenshot of him on DFegrassi as a teenager, standing next to an actress who was all gothed out.
Interestingly, in a previous interview with Bobbi Althoff, Drake yet again proved his fascination for goth girls. “I don’t know if the world is ready to accept what I feel is my dream – what is my, like partner,” he said. “Because I feel like it’s some, like, tweaked-out goth, tatted all over.”
Look, you can say a lot of things about Drake, but you can’t say he’s lying about simping for goth girls.
As for that promise to buy Pinkchyu’s mom a house, the content creator told TMZ he was dead serious. “I think she’s just really grateful,” she told the outlet. “I do [OnlyFans] and a lot of the money I have I do take care of my family, like, help my sisters. I’m half Mexican, so we’re all really, really close, and so obviously she’s like over the moon.”
Pinkchyu was also asked if she and Drake hooked up. “No, no, no. We just had a lot of conversations,” she said. The OF creator added that she and Drake are “complete opposites,” but that was “wonderfully kind.” His generosity made her “really happy,” she added.
Notably, adult film actress Lily Phillips—who also participated in the 20v1—echoed Pinkchyu’s sentiments. “I’ve never met a nicer celebrity. He is so down to earth, so goofy, so silly, so funny,” she told The Tab. “He is the same with everyone, whether you’ve got a million followers like me or you’ve got zilch.”
Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
The post Drake Has Apparently Been Down Bad for Goth Girls Since His ‘Degrassi’ Days—and He’s Got the Receipts appeared first on VICE.
Marilyn Manson is headed back to court. The shock rocker will face a jury trial in November 2027 over a sexual assault allegation case that was previously thrown out.
The legal battle stems from a lawsuit brought by a former employee of Manson, Ashley Walters. In 2021, she accused Manson of several infractions that allegedly took place in 2010 and 2011.
In response to the new trial date ruling, Manson’s attorney, Howard King, said they were “confident the case will never get to trial after the court hears our upcoming motion for summary judgment,” per Metal Injection.
In her lawsuit, Walters accused Manson of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and sexual battery. She also alleged infliction of emotional distress and accused him of violating multiple California civil codes.
The case ended up being dismissed in May 2022. A judge ruled, at the time, that it exceeded the statute of limitations. The judge also found the lawsuit to contain “too few facts.” Over a year later, in December 2023, Walters and her lawyers filed a revised version of the lawsuit. In December 2025, two years later, the case was dismissed again, due to the statute of limitations.
One month later, in January 2026, Walters returned to court and refiled her lawsuit again, due to AB 250. This is a recently passed California law that creates legal space for her lawsuit. The law establishes an updated time frame for adult sexual abuse survivors to temporarily revive a case that could otherwise exceed the statute of limitations in California.
Fast forward a few months—to June 2026—and a California judge denied Manson’s request to have the case dismissed. During that hearing, a member of Manson’s legal team, Alexa Foley, argued that Walters’s evidence did not “meet the standard of showing she was physically restrained during her alleged sexual assault.” This would mean that AB 250 could not apply to this particular case. The judge didn’t agree.
“This was not unexpected. It’s a clear invitation for a summary judgment motion,” King told Rolling Stone at the time. “The judge telegraphed explicitly that we’re not at the right stage of the case yet.” Walters’ lawyer, Bina Ahmad, had a different take. “We are obviously pleased,” she told the outlet. “We truly take the inspiration to keep fighting from our client. She’s the brave one.”
At this time, Manson’s attorneys do not appear to have commented on the new trial date.
Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images
The post Marilyn Manson Headed to Jury Trial Over Sexual Assault Allegation Case That Was Previously Thrown Out Twice appeared first on VICE.
Oftentimes, a band performs such a jaw-dropping live version of one of your favorite songs that it stains your love for the original. From then on, whenever the track comes up, you admit, “It’s still good, but that live version was the best version.” I’ve been here plenty of times and can tell you, these 90s alt-rock songs won’t hit the same after you hear the live version.
Undeniably, “Drain You” is the perfect centerpiece of Nirvana’s Nevermind. The album served to break grunge into the mainstream upon release. The low-to-high middle section of “Drain You” contains elements of a wall-of-sound shoegaze effect.
On October 30, 1992, Nirvana headlined the Reading Festival in England. At the beginning of the show, Kurt Cobain, sporting a hospital gown, was rolled onto the stage. In the gown, Cobain and Nirvana delivered the best possible version of “Drain You”. Noticeably, the band’s signature raw sound is showcased more than on Nevermind. Cobain had mentioned on various occasions his displeasure with the album’s production quality.
Officially released in November 2009, Live At Reading contains many tracks that are superior to their original album versions, including “Blew”.
In 1994, Weezer’s debut single became an instant fan favorite ahead of their debut full-length release. On August 25, 1994, the band performed “Undone – The Sweater Song” on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. For many, this was their first impression of the new band. Weezer has a distinct geek rock image, and this performance connected the dots for many fans. This is more like a visual debut of the band, and it fueled album sales.
This live version is slightly different from the album version, as the opening features overlapping stories and phrases. Rivers Cuomo, bassist Matt Sharp, and guitarist Brian Bell ad-libbed stories, expressions, and phrases in the opening. This is missing in the original version, which is simply an exchange between Matt Sharp and a longtime friend of the band.
Often referred to as a one-hit wonder, Superdrag deserves much more recognition than that. They were a major influence on the next decade of emo, rock, and punk. Superdrag’s popularity waned in the late 90s due to a major-label merger. Sadly, they were dropped in the process along with countless bands and artists. The band was also ahead of its time, which played a role.
Their 1996 single “Sucked Out” peaked at No. 17 on the Modern Rock Charts. On September 3, 1996, the band performed the hit single of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Lead singer and guitarist John Davis includes a closing guitar solo that should’ve been on the original track.
Photo by Mick Hutson/Redferns
The post 3 Alt-Rock Songs of the 90s That Won’t Hit the Same After You Hear the Live Version appeared first on VICE.
TWO PROMINENT RIGHT-WING MEDIA FIGURES will face off Friday in a debate over Charlie Kirk’s assassination. And while normies may find the specter of this a bit grotesque, MAGA media has thrilled to the ghoulish drama, eager to see a spectacle that’s been described as the “Super Bowl of Charlie murder content.”
There are a few hurdles that remain before the show can go off, including tense negotiations about cigarette smoking. But if those get resolved, then Candace Owens, who is one-half of the debate duo, will walk away with $300,000.
Kirk’s assassination eleven months ago has already inspired a MAGA civil war, as well as growing unrest within Kirk’s Turning Point USA, and the indelible image of widow Erika Kirk walking out at her husband’s memorial to pyrotechnics.
But with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table and a buildup worthy of a pay-per-view prize fight, Friday’s showdown between Owens, the person who has profited more than anyone from her friend’s murder, and manosphere debater Andrew Wilson promises to be the most stomach-churning product of the Kirk conspiracy–theory industry yet—one that offers a vivid illustration of the twisted incentives of the right-wing content machine.
In one indication of the opportunism gravity with which they’re handling Kirk’s death, the event has been advertised with
Dungeons and Dragons recently revealed a ton of plans for the future of the TTRPG, including a return to some of the game’s most popular locations and characters with the D&D Icons line.
Dungeons and Dragons certainly laid out an ambitious plan for the coming year or so for the TTRPG brand. In addition to returning to classic campaign settings and partnerships with World of Warcraft and Star Wars, the team also teased collaborations with some of the game’s most iconic creatives from over the years.
Actor and D&D enthusiast Joe Manganiello took the stage during the event to unveil D&D Icons and tease some upcoming work with D&D heavy hitters like Tracy Hickman, Luke Gygax, and R.A. Salvatore.
D&D Icons is a new initiative led by Joe Manganiello that pairs legendary creators and visionaries with the D&D team to shape the future of the game. Icons will touch everything from setting guides and adventure modules to accessories and beyond, all in close collaboration with the studio.
he first three major collaborations that will come out of the D&D Icons initiative include:
No specific products were actually announced during the teaser, so it’s a little hard to know what to expect. It sounds like the end results could be anything from sourcebooks, campaign settings, new crossover novels, or other merchandise.
Hopefully as the year plays out more details will be revealed about the first real products available as part of the D&D Icons lineup.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more news and updates on Dungeons and Dragons.
Dungeons and Dragons is available now at local game shops and digitally through D&D Beyond, Roll20, and similar online services.
The post Dungeons and Dragons Icons Confirms Future Plans for Drizzt and More appeared first on VICE.
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar on Thursday cast doubt on a deal struck by his predecessor that would see Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom expand Hungary’s nuclear power capacity.
Weeks of extreme heat and drought have pushed the Danube River to record lows, slashing output at Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant — which normally supplies around a third of the country’s electricity — to little more than 10 percent.
“These plans were accepted despite the fact that nuclear power plants that do not operate with a closed-circuit cooling system and are so exposed to the environment are no longer being built in the world,” said Magyar, per local media.
Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev wrote that the Russian state nuclear company was still on schedule with two new reactors at Paks despite Hungary’s change of government in April, which saw Magyar oust Russia-friendly incumbent Viktor Orbán.
Concrete preparation for Unit 5 is more than 80 percent complete, he said, while work on Unit 6 is advancing and reactor components are already being manufactured.
“We are ready for dialogue,” Likhachev said, adding that Rosatom had received no questions from Hungary’s new government.
Magyar challenged that account hours later. Under the original contract, Paks II should have been operating by 2024, he told reporters in a press conference Thursday. Instead, Hungary has spent roughly 1,000 billion forints (€2.8 billion) on a site he described as little more than depots and “two large concrete pits.”
“I don’t really see that they have adhered to the contract,” Magyar said. His government is now carrying out a full review of the project, including its financing and cooling arrangements.
The review cuts at one of Orbán’s signature deals with Russia. Orbán struck the Paks II agreement in Moscow in 2014, handing Rosatom the two-reactor expansion backed by up to €10 billion in Russian state financing. Two years later, he called it the “deal of the century.”
Those ties survived Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As recently as March this year, Orbán’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó admitted to discussing EU sanctions with senior Russian officials after leaked calls showed him boasting that a bank linked to Paks had been kept off a sanctions list.
Downstream, Romania shut the second and last operating reactor at Cernavodă on Thursday after the Danube fell too low to supply its cooling pumps.
The semiquincentennial events that President Trump has personally directed have been a celebration of his very particular version of America. The bloody UFC fight on the White House lawn was followed by the sparsely attended Great American State Fair and a world-record-breaking July 4 fireworks show held alongside a dangerous lightning storm. Next weekend will bring a high-speed car race through the museum-lined streets of Washington. But of all of these festivities, the Patriot Games in Ohio this week might have been the oddest.
Organizers convened 120 teenagers from across the country—in their telling, the “next generation of leaders, competitors, and champions,” but also whoever happened to respond to an online request for personal essays and video entries—at a high school in Geneva, Ohio (population 5,924), roughly 45 miles northeast of downtown Cleveland. For three days, they competed in gym-class staples such as ball tosses, long jumps, tug-of-war, dodgeball, and an arcade-style basketball game called Victory Hoops. The field was narrowed to eight contestants who competed before the president on Tuesday night, clambering through a Ninja Warrior–style obstacle course while wearing red, white, and blue. One boy and one girl were crowned champions, and each was given a $125,000 scholarship.
Over the past several days, ESPN has streamed more than 26 hours of this contest, and I have consumed many of those hours—but I have yet to fully understand why this competition happened or what it has to do with American history, or even with American culture at this moment. I could barely follow how the various events were scored. It was like watching a nationally televised field day—with wholesome moments and cheerful contestants along the way—but it was unclear what the grand takeaway was supposed to be. (Perhaps that will be revealed when the event is condensed into a one-hour special airing tonight on ABC.) More than anything, it was a reality-television-style snapshot of the America that Trump most wants to see. The contestants were overwhelmingly white, in a country where roughly half of children are not, and many spoke openly of their Christian faith or their affection for this particular president.
When Trump showed up on Tuesday night, accompanied by the ESPN commentator Pat McAfee, the crowd erupted. “He’s got that Michael Jordan glow,” one spectator said. “We love you, Mr. President!” one man yelled. “2028!” another exclaimed. Outside the arena, a football-field scoreboard displayed a score of 45–47 in Trump’s honor. The crowd chanted “USA! USA! USA!” when he arrived and danced to his favorite song, “YMCA,” before he left.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Trump told ESPN’s Laura Rutledge during an onstage interview, a few yards from dozens of teenagers. “I’m very proud of the group of people in this room. You see the spirit and the love of the country, our great country. And our country’s never done better.”
In that moment, it became clear that this gathering, like so many others this president has overseen, was actually all about Trump. This was his vision of the Hunger Games, MAGA style. He was front and center, watching the grand finale unfold and eyeing golden trophies he could present. But who were these contestants, and how were they chosen? Why these random events? And what does this all say about our country, and how does it mark our 250 years as one?
The Patriot Games, it must be said, seldom made for great television. I watched kids’ arms quiver as they tried to keep their chin up and over a bar—at least one lasted scarcely a second. Some struggled to cross the monkey bars in an obstacle course. Others tripped over the hurdles on the track, knocking over almost every one. (“A natural hurdler? Not really,” the announcer remarked.)
In one contest, the teenagers were asked to navigate an obstacle course of sorts: bear-crawl under a net, high-step through tires, weave between slalom poles, climb up and down a cargo net, walk across a beam, flip a tire (once for girls; twice for boys), traverse the monkey bars, carry two jerricans, leap onto hanging panels, and push a red button. In another contest, they went through a circuit of various sports. They attempted to kick a soccer ball into a bull’s-eye, catch three tennis balls, run through a maze of tackling dummies, throw a football into a target, serve a volleyball three times, hit a T-ball, and, finally, run around a few bases. In between challenges, some kids offered brief, out-of-breath analysis. “I did a lot better than I thought I would on the monkey bars,” concluded Gabriel Hayes, who was representing the Shawnee Tribe. “I just got kinda tired, to be honest,” said Remy Taylor, from Delaware.
The announcers revealed the kinds of small biographical details familiar to anyone who has watched the Olympics, attempting to humanize the athletes by highlighting their love of macaroni and cheese, Greek mythology, or Legos. Some were members of JROTC or the Future Farmers of America. Many came from military families, and aspired to carry on that tradition. There were at least three sets of siblings. Multiple boys wore a cross necklace, and several of the girls had a cross painted on their body. “I just want to say, it’s the glory for God. Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity,” said Max Biondolillo of Florida, after finishing the obstacle course. “Thank you, Jesus. That’s all I can say. Thank you, Jesus,” Seylah Brown, representing North Carolina, said after completing the circuit of sports.
The biographies suggested that the organizers might have struggled with recruitment in some deep-blue jurisdictions. The boy representing Puerto Rico has a southern accent and resides in Texas. Elsie Bruckart was the contestant for Vermont, but her hometown was listed as Bellbrook, Ohio. Her cousin Rebekah Roberts competed for Maine, but her hometown was Cornish, New Hampshire. Bobbi Vickers was representing Massachusetts, but she is from California. “I get a bunch of questions, like Why are you representing Massachusetts and not your home state?” Vickers told CNN. “But I think it’s really cool, because a lot of my family is from there and my favorite basketball team is actually the Boston Celtics.”
People familiar with the process told me that the athletes were selected through applications that required submissions of performance data and athletic statistics, along with a personal-essay and video submission. Freedom 250 did not respond to questions about why certain states were represented by competitors living in other states, or why there was such a lack of diversity among the contestants.
Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for Freedom 250, the Trump-aligned group that organized the games, said in a statement that the Patriot Games were one of the “unforgettable signature events” meant to “celebrate our country and inspire the next generation.” Organizers told me that they’d sought to create a range of challenges, aiming to show that the winner has mastered many different skills.
[Read: Inside America’s ugly birthday battle]
Often, during the events, the producers displayed the scores for only the top-10 contestants, shielding from embarrassment those who struggled. The announcers remarked several times that just because a contestant hadn’t performed well in one discipline didn’t mean they wouldn’t do better in another. Coaches shouted encouragement from the sidelines like summer-camp counselors: Give it your all! Finish the race! Be proud of the process! Some contestants had said beforehand that they had little clue before they arrived in Ohio what events would be included. “I’ve never really played soccer before,” said the girl representing Michigan. “I don’t know how to throw a football,” said the girl representing the Virgin Islands.
“It was hard. It was challenging. I mean, I’ve never played any of these sports. Like, I’m a cheerleader,” Laynie Arrowood, the 16-year-old representing the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, told the sideline reporter good-naturedly. “I’m not good at throwing football—obviously not good at soccer! But it’s okay. I tried my best.” Most of the contestants did seem to be enjoying themselves, and several said they’d made close friendships over the days they’d spent together. Some said they understood how Trump’s involvement had politicized the competition but were baffled as to why they had come under scrutiny. “We can’t vote,” Jonah Beauregard, a 17-year-old from Massachusetts, told The Boston Globe. “We can’t do anything in our power to do anything to help it.”
Trump announced in May 2023 that, if elected to a second term, he wanted to host “major sporting contests for high-school athletes” as part of the country’s 250th celebrations. “These Patriot Games will allow young Americans from every state to show off the best of American skills, sportsmanship, and competitive spirit,” he said in a campaign video.
America has a rich athletic history, and the youth-sports industry in this country generates an estimated $40 billion in annual revenue. But to find a precedent for these games, you’d have to go further afield. The Roman emperor Nero, in 59 C.E., began hosting the Ludi Juvenales, a series of youth games in a festival to mark the transition from boyhood to manhood. In ancient Greece, athletic competitions began when boys turned 12. And the International Olympic Committee stages a Youth Olympic Games every four years for those ages 15 to 17.
Andy Hall, an ESPN communications director, told me that Freedom 250 approached the network last year about televising the event. He said that the network is not paying for the rights to carry it, but he would not say whether it was being paid and declined to provide any viewership data on how many people were streaming the content. (The link was buried inside the ESPN app and took me some time to find.) He said that the network had no role in organizing or planning the games, and that it was televising them as it would games organized by other entities. The content will all be repackaged into an hour-long ESPN special that will air tonight on ABC. Representatives for ABC did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Hall declined to further comment. The Federal Communications Commission ordered a review earlier this year of the network’s licenses. Airing the president’s competition on its national platform may buy the network some goodwill.
On Tuesday night, Trump sat as the finalists worked through a course that involved swinging from ropes, carrying two kettlebells, and climbing up a wall. Kennadi Fuhrman, a soccer player from Kansas, won the girls’ competition, crediting “God, all the way.” Rockwell Myers, a tennis player and ballroom dancer from Utah, won the boys’. “It’s been amazing, and it’s taught me so much,” he said. “It really, really puts an emphasis on how important it is to put God first in your life and make him your No. 1 priority.”
Trump came onstage and helped present the trophies and oversize checks. “Incredible people. I like the audience also, I have to tell you. But what a great bunch of young athletes,” he said. Confetti went off, falling onto the contestants. One blue piece stuck in the president’s hair.
Michael Scherer contributed to this report.
© Mark Schiefelbein / AP
The semiquincentennial events that President Trump has personally directed have been a celebration of his very particular version of America. The bloody UFC fight on the White House lawn was followed by the sparsely attended Great American State Fair and a world-record-breaking July 4 fireworks show held alongside a dangerous lightning storm. Next weekend will bring a high-speed car race through the museum-lined streets of Washington. But of all of these festivities, the Patriot Games in Ohio this week might have been the oddest.
Organizers convened 120 teenagers from across the country—in their telling, the “next generation of leaders, competitors, and champions,” but also whoever happened to respond to an online request for personal essays and video entries—at a high school in Geneva, Ohio (population 5,924), roughly 45 miles northeast of downtown Cleveland. For three days, they competed in gym-class staples such as ball tosses, long jumps, tug-of-war, dodgeball, and an arcade-style basketball game called Victory Hoops. The field was narrowed to eight contestants who competed before the president on Tuesday night, clambering through a Ninja Warrior–style obstacle course while wearing red, white, and blue. One boy and one girl were crowned champions, and each was given a $125,000 scholarship.
Over the past several days, ESPN has streamed more than 26 hours of this contest, and I have consumed many of those hours—but I have yet to fully understand why this competition happened or what it has to do with American history, or even with American culture at this moment. I could barely follow how the various events were scored. It was like watching a nationally televised field day—with wholesome moments and cheerful contestants along the way—but it was unclear what the grand takeaway was supposed to be. (Perhaps that will be revealed when the event is condensed into a one-hour special airing tonight on ABC.) More than anything, it was a reality-television-style snapshot of the America that Trump most wants to see. The contestants were overwhelmingly white, in a country where roughly half of children are not, and many spoke openly of their Christian faith or their affection for this particular president.
When Trump showed up on Tuesday night, accompanied by the ESPN commentator Pat McAfee, the crowd erupted. “He’s got that Michael Jordan glow,” one spectator said. “We love you, Mr. President!” one man yelled. “2028!” another exclaimed. Outside the arena, a football-field scoreboard displayed a score of 45–47 in Trump’s honor. The crowd chanted “USA! USA! USA!” when he arrived and danced to his favorite song, “YMCA,” before he left.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Trump told ESPN’s Laura Rutledge during an onstage interview, a few yards from dozens of teenagers. “I’m very proud of the group of people in this room. You see the spirit and the love of the country, our great country. And our country’s never done better.”
In that moment, it became clear that this gathering, like so many others this president has overseen, was actually all about Trump. This was his vision of the Hunger Games, MAGA style. He was front and center, watching the grand finale unfold and eyeing golden trophies he could present. But who were these contestants, and how were they chosen? Why these random events? And what does this all say about our country, and how does it mark our 250 years as one?
The Patriot Games, it must be said, seldom made for great television. I watched kids’ arms quiver as they tried to keep their chin up and over a bar—at least one lasted scarcely a second. Some struggled to cross the monkey bars in an obstacle course. Others tripped over the hurdles on the track, knocking over almost every one. (“A natural hurdler? Not really,” the announcer remarked.)
In one contest, the teenagers were asked to navigate an obstacle course of sorts: bear-crawl under a net, high-step through tires, weave between slalom poles, climb up and down a cargo net, walk across a beam, flip a tire (once for girls; twice for boys), traverse the monkey bars, carry two jerricans, leap onto hanging panels, and push a red button. In another contest, they went through a circuit of various sports. They attempted to kick a soccer ball into a bull’s-eye, catch three tennis balls, run through a maze of tackling dummies, throw a football into a target, serve a volleyball three times, hit a T-ball, and, finally, run around a few bases. In between challenges, some kids offered brief, out-of-breath analysis. “I did a lot better than I thought I would on the monkey bars,” concluded Gabriel Hayes, who was representing the Shawnee Tribe. “I just got kinda tired, to be honest,” said Remy Taylor, from Delaware.
The announcers revealed the kinds of small biographical details familiar to anyone who has watched the Olympics, attempting to humanize the athletes by highlighting their love of macaroni and cheese, Greek mythology, or Legos. Some were members of JROTC or the Future Farmers of America. Many came from military families, and aspired to carry on that tradition. There were at least three sets of siblings. Multiple boys wore a cross necklace, and several of the girls had a cross painted on their body. “I just want to say, it’s the glory for God. Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity,” said Max Biondolillo of Florida, after finishing the obstacle course. “Thank you, Jesus. That’s all I can say. Thank you, Jesus,” Seylah Brown, representing North Carolina, said after completing the circuit of sports.
The biographies suggested that the organizers might have struggled with recruitment in some deep-blue jurisdictions. The boy representing Puerto Rico has a southern accent and resides in Texas. Elsie Bruckart was the contestant for Vermont, but her hometown was listed as Bellbrook, Ohio. Her cousin Rebekah Roberts competed for Maine, but her hometown was Cornish, New Hampshire. Bobbi Vickers was representing Massachusetts, but she is from California. “I get a bunch of questions, like Why are you representing Massachusetts and not your home state?” Vickers told CNN. “But I think it’s really cool, because a lot of my family is from there and my favorite basketball team is actually the Boston Celtics.”
People familiar with the process told me that the athletes were selected through applications that required submissions of performance data and athletic statistics, along with a personal-essay and video submission. Freedom 250 did not respond to questions about why certain states were represented by competitors living in other states, or why there was such a lack of diversity among the contestants.
Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for Freedom 250, the Trump-aligned group that organized the games, said in a statement that the Patriot Games were one of the “unforgettable signature events” meant to “celebrate our country and inspire the next generation.” Organizers told me that they’d sought to create a range of challenges, aiming to show that the winner has mastered many different skills.
[Read: Inside America’s ugly birthday battle]
Often, during the events, the producers displayed the scores for only the top-10 contestants, shielding from embarrassment those who struggled. The announcers remarked several times that just because a contestant hadn’t performed well in one discipline didn’t mean they wouldn’t do better in another. Coaches shouted encouragement from the sidelines like summer-camp counselors: Give it your all! Finish the race! Be proud of the process! Some contestants had said beforehand that they had little clue before they arrived in Ohio what events would be included. “I’ve never really played soccer before,” said the girl representing Michigan. “I don’t know how to throw a football,” said the girl representing the Virgin Islands.
“It was hard. It was challenging. I mean, I’ve never played any of these sports. Like, I’m a cheerleader,” Laynie Arrowood, the 16-year-old representing the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, told the sideline reporter good-naturedly. “I’m not good at throwing football—obviously not good at soccer! But it’s okay. I tried my best.” Most of the contestants did seem to be enjoying themselves, and several said they’d made close friendships over the days they’d spent together. Some said they understood how Trump’s involvement had politicized the competition but were baffled as to why they had come under scrutiny. “We can’t vote,” Jonah Beauregard, a 17-year-old from Massachusetts, told The Boston Globe. “We can’t do anything in our power to do anything to help it.”
Trump announced in May 2023 that, if elected to a second term, he wanted to host “major sporting contests for high-school athletes” as part of the country’s 250th celebrations. “These Patriot Games will allow young Americans from every state to show off the best of American skills, sportsmanship, and competitive spirit,” he said in a campaign video.
America has a rich athletic history, and the youth-sports industry in this country generates an estimated $40 billion in annual revenue. But to find a precedent for these games, you’d have to go further afield. The Roman emperor Nero, in 59 C.E., began hosting the Ludi Juvenales, a series of youth games in a festival to mark the transition from boyhood to manhood. In ancient Greece, athletic competitions began when boys turned 12. And the International Olympic Committee stages a Youth Olympic Games every four years for those ages 15 to 17.
Andy Hall, an ESPN communications director, told me that Freedom 250 approached the network last year about televising the event. He said that the network is not paying for the rights to carry it, but he would not say whether it was being paid and declined to provide any viewership data on how many people were streaming the content. (The link was buried inside the ESPN app and took me some time to find.) He said that the network had no role in organizing or planning the games, and that it was televising them as it would games organized by other entities. The content will all be repackaged into an hour-long ESPN special that will air tonight on ABC. Representatives for ABC did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Hall declined to further comment. The Federal Communications Commission ordered a review earlier this year of the network’s licenses. Airing the president’s competition on its national platform may buy the network some goodwill.
On Tuesday night, Trump sat as the finalists worked through a course that involved swinging from ropes, carrying two kettlebells, and climbing up a wall. Kennadi Fuhrman, a soccer player from Kansas, won the girls’ competition, crediting “God, all the way.” Rockwell Myers, a tennis player and ballroom dancer from Utah, won the boys’. “It’s been amazing, and it’s taught me so much,” he said. “It really, really puts an emphasis on how important it is to put God first in your life and make him your No. 1 priority.”
Trump came onstage and helped present the trophies and oversize checks. “Incredible people. I like the audience also, I have to tell you. But what a great bunch of young athletes,” he said. Confetti went off, falling onto the contestants. One blue piece stuck in the president’s hair.
Michael Scherer contributed to this report.
© Mark Schiefelbein / AP
This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.
Karoline Leavitt, the 28-year-old firebrand who became the nation’s youngest-ever press secretary in 2024, is stepping down to “spend more time with her beautiful young children.”
President Donald Trump announced the news on Wednesday night in a Truth Social post, adding that Leavitt would remain an adviser and “an influential voice within the Republican Party.”
It feels fitting that Leavitt — whose public persona required her to perform both her job and her role as a wife and mom — is stepping down to parent. In MAGA’s conception of womanhood, there can be no higher calling. Not even serving the president.
For more than two years, however, Leavitt made a show of trying to do both. She returned to work on Trump’s reelection campaign only days after the birth of her first child and regularly shared photos of herself working while holding her son.
Leavitt also welcomed a daughter over the spring, amid what Fox News dubbed a White House “baby boom.” Officials and conservative media quickly turned the new mothers into advertisements for the pro-natalist movement: Proof that women could, and should, have both careers and children.
Leavitt is still being held up that way, even — perhaps especially — as she departs. “She’s been a role model to millions and millions of young women,” deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Fox News on Wednesday. “A mother, a family woman, a press secretary, a patriot.”
The MAGA movement tends to glorify traditional female roles — wife, mother, homemaker — while simultaneously (and confusingly) elevating ambitious, career-driven women like Leavitt.
At first glance, her prominence — and that of other women in Trump’s administration — would seem to rebut the charge that the movement is misogynist. In fact, that’s a line of defense that Trump himself has advanced.
But look a little closer, and you’ll see the structural contradiction at the heart of MAGA femininity: Female power is only legitimate when it’s exercised on behalf of Trump, and by women who conform to traditional expectations around gender, marriage, motherhood, and physical appearance.
To Trump, a female White House correspondent was a “piggy,” for instance. But a female press secretary who defended the slur was “knocking them dead.”
A female employee at a Trump golf course was asked to sign an NDA after reporting harassment. But the female attorney who allegedly pressured her to sign it was, according to Trump, “a rocket ship.”
A female politician rose to prominence championing the president’s deportation agenda. But to get there, she had to find her “Mar-a-Lago face” — and she was ousted after showing signs of personal ambition. (In fairness, she was also very bad at her job.)
It’s a very tricky little tightrope to walk. And lately, that strain has begun to show. While Trump began his second term with an unusually high number of female Cabinet members for a Republican president, women now hold only four of 23 Cabinet or Cabinet-level positions.
Trump’s support is also down among young women. In Congress, a bloc of prominent conservative female lawmakers recently broke from their party to censure Republicans accused of misconduct. Now, the MAGA movement is losing one of its fiercest female proxies in Leavitt.
Even at the height of her powers, however, Leavitt never really got her due. The luxurious office traditionally reserved for the White House press secretary instead went to another White House staffer. A dude.
➨ Meet the latest and greatest exercise cult. It’s called HYROX — yes, in all caps — and it’s an eight-round agility and strength competition. Participants spend thousands of dollars on training, registration, and travel for these events, which tend to “subsume your entire existence.” That’s a very hard no for me, personally…but a lot of very fit and competitive people are apparently into it.
President Donald Trump is paving a legal pathway for U.S. companies to launch cyberattacks on foreign cybercriminal gangs — a significant and potentially controversial measure that would put approved tech and cybersecurity firms on the front lines of digital combat.
The presidential memorandum, released late Wednesday, comes as the Trump administration has repeatedly pushed for more aggressive action to counter foreign scams and cyberattacks, which the White House said cost Americans nearly $21 billion last year.
The memo represents one of the biggest shifts in U.S. cyber policy undertaken in recent years. It would empower tech and security companies — whose data and control over internet infrastructure often offer unique insight into foreign hacking operations — to mount state-sanctioned digital strikes.
While many such companies already work closely with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies, a web of legal and political constraints has long prevented them from taking direct action inside foreign networks.
Companies that want to participate would be required to sign contracts with both the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security and to undergo what the memo describes as “rigorous vetting” while working with the government. The overall effort would be overseen by a National Coordination Center, established in an earlier Trump administration executive order, with co-executive directors from DOJ and DHS.
However, the memo states that no operations by the companies would be approved until the executive directors at DOJ and DHS establish “consensus procedures” with the White House Homeland Security Council guaranteeing “complete oversight and control of Participating Companies’ performance.”
Those procedures, it notes, should be drafted within 60 days. They are likely to be extensive.
They will outline steps for participating companies to obtain approval for proposed offensive hacking operations, so the government can confirm that the targets are criminal gangs and ensure that operations are consistent with U.S. law and don’t undermine ongoing U.S. intelligence efforts. Companies could propose surveillance operations to help identify criminals or “effects” operations to degrade the systems they use to stage their attacks.
Participating companies would have to pass minimum standards for technical expertise and personnel vetting, and would be required to notify the federal government if they believe approved operations may result in the loss of life or rise to the level of use of force under international law.
Some see the memo as a critical step to help the U.S. government counter foreign cybercriminal gangs that operate outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement.
“For years we’ve called the American technology industry a strategic asset but left it on the cyber sidelines,” Joe Lin, the CEO and co-founder of Twenty, a start-up that builds offensive cyber tools for the U.S. government, said in a statement. “This administration is changing the paradigm.”
The memo notes that companies will only be authorized to target criminals that are “not an institutional part of a foreign government or wholly operated under a foreign government’s direction.”
Even with the help of the U.S. intelligence community, making that distinction could be difficult.
Adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran have persistently targeted U.S. critical infrastructure, including water systems, ports, and telecommunications infrastructure, while multinational crime syndicates have defrauded billions of dollars annually from Americans via complex online schemes.
But many cyber gangs in Eastern Europe are thought to operate with the tacit consent of the Russian government, while state hackers in Iran and China sometimes moonlight as cybercriminals to earn extra money or deflect blame for their governments’ attacks.
More broadly, it is not always easy for digital investigators to determine who is responsible for a given cyberattack, or who different computer networks belong to — another risk the memo contemplates.
Companies that accidentally carry out operations targeting a U.S. citizen or network will be required to immediately pause the operation and notify the U.S. government, the memo states. It does not appear to preclude activities that are deliberately “directed” at a U.S. person, so long as they receive “any necessary authorization, judicial or otherwise, prior to approval of the operation.” Under U.S. law, a “U.S. person” can refer to an American business or organization.
Many lawmakers and security experts have broadly supported calls for the private sector to play a larger role in responding to cybercrime, though not all approve of granting them the ability to launch active hacking efforts.
In recent years, some House members have debated the idea of issuing “letters of marque” to private companies to carry out cyberattacks on behalf of the U.S. government, similar to the U.S. Navy authorizing private ships to disrupt British shipping during the War of 1812.
As part of a more assertive cyber posture, Trump has turned to U.S. Cyber Command to mount digital attacks in tandem with U.S. military operations, including in Iranand Venezuela. He signed an executive order this March to clamp down on countries that fail to take action against scam centers operating within their borders.
That same month, the White House called on the private sector to broadly help it “disrupt” foreign adversaries in its new national cyber strategy, though it stopped short of telling private companies to take riskier and more consequential steps, such as directly launching attacks against foreign criminals.
Some of the most prolific online fraud operations are believed to emanate from scam compounds in Southeast Asia. But hackers from North Korea — who for years have stolen hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency from victims around the world — would likely be exempt from targeting by U.S. companies since they work at the direction of the North Korean government.
The Trump administration is launching a new program that will allow private firms to perform cyberattacks against foreign criminals, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The private firms would operate "under the control and oversight" of the federal government, giving them permission to surveil and disrupt criminal networks, according to a presidential memorandum published on Wednesday.
The Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security will oversee the private firms, which must meet requirements in "technical proficiency, proven performance of cyber operations, facility security," and more. Companies in the program must hold a bon …
Robot lawnmowers are finally good enough to take a lot of work out of maintaining a yard, but they’re still not set-it-and-forget-it machines. If you don’t want these autonomous cutting machines to tear up your lawn or go roaming in your neighbors’ yard, you’re still going to need to keep an eye on them. But with some oversight, they can take a big chore off your hands.
This summer I tested five bots on my flat, three-quarter-acre, coastal South Carolina property with sandy soil, centipede grass, and lots of trees. Things went much better than last year’s trials and tribulations, thanks to huge improvements in navigation and maneuverability. Basically, they stopped getting stuck. My lawn has never looked better, and my spouse — who had sworn off robot lawnmowers after a user-error injury — is now a convert. His riding lawnmower has been idle for over a month.
The consistency of robot mowers is impressive. Running daily and shaving just millimeters at a time, these mowers have created a noticeably lusher lawn. I walked out on it barefoot this morning — something I’ve never done before. The best part is that they work quietly around the clock, without bothering my pets, the wildlife, or the neighbors. I also love the professional-looking lawn lines they make.
The key upgrades this year are network RTK navigation, fallback navigation systems, and improved all-wheel-drive to tackle rougher terrain.
RTK — real-time kinematic positioning — is the satellite positioning tech most automowers switched to over the last few years as they’ve ditched boundary wires. It uses stationary ground-based reference stations (antennas), along with GPS, to provide very precise location data, down to a centimeter or two. It’s used for surveying, drone navigation, and anything that needs that fine level of precision.
Every mower I tested, apart from the Lidar-based Dreame, comes with its own RTK antenna that needs to be installed in your yard with a clear view of the sky; trees, a neighbor’s house, or your own roofline can all block the signal. In my previous testing, I didn’t get a single RTK mower to run successfully in my backyard, where I have very spotty GPS coverage.
This new crop all now offers NetRTK as an option. This taps into a network of existing RTK reference stations through a cloud connection, and requires a Wi-Fi or 4G connection on the mower. Most worked out of the box without me needing to install the antenna, but you’ll need to check if your house is covered, as coverage varies.
RTK mowers now also use a secondary navigation tech such as lidar or vSLAM to keep on track when the signal drops. This improvement in navigation, plus bigger, more capable machines, meant I no longer spent my summer dragging confused mowers out from under oak trees.
However, automowers are far from perfect.
These are autonomous machines with blades, and leaving them to their own devices comes with risks. One spent three days methodically destroying a patch of my lawn before I noticed. Another took out two outdoor extension cords. Several models dug sandpits in bare patches, and another tried to climb up a small tree.
Obstacle detection is better across the board, but it still has a long way to go. Hoses, cables, and cars are still a challenge — my family now knows to check under the wheels before driving away.
No one has really solved gates yet, either (although they’re trying) — I still have to manually open mine to let the robot mow the full property. And, while every manufacturer currently advertises NetRTK coverage as free for the lifetime of the device, there are obvious downsides to relying on a cloud service to mow your lawn. Finally, automowers are still expensive, and I have concerns around long-term durability.
Like their siblings, robot vacuums, there are myriad models on the market now; the right one for you will depend on the size of your yard and your landscape. To find the mower that worked best for me, I tested four top-of-the-line models with specs capable of tackling my challenging terrain and large expanse of my backyard: The Husqvarna 420 IQ ($3,299), Mammotion Luba 3 AWD 3000 ($2,799), Navimow X430 ($2,499), and the Dreame A3 AWD Pro 2500 ($3,099.99). I also tried the entry-level Roborock RockNeo Q110H ($1,299) on my front lawn, which is more like a standard suburban lawn.
Also like robot vacuums, robot lawnmowers fall under the new FCC robot ban, so while existing models can continue to be sold and supported in the US — including all the models reviewed here — the fate of new models is in question.
The Segway Navimow X430 ($2,499) is by far the best mower I tested. This 60-pound beast looks like Darth Vader’s dog, and was the only mower I tested that didn’t get stuck once. Its 4WD wheels combined with impressive suspension rolled through the potholes, over sticks and rocks, even small tree branches. It navigated around my chickens and across the tall, uneven transition from my front yard to back yards — it was the only bot that could mow both in one trip (with the gate open).
This video shows the Segway tackling a sandpit and executing a 90-degree turn without damaging the sod.
It uses a combination of RTK, vSLAM, and vision-based tech to navigate, and it covered my entire property without once getting lost or stuck. It features impressive “xero-turn” maneuverability enabling it to pivot smoothly with no lawn damage. Its dual-disc, 17-inch cutting width covers more ground, and it was able to mow most of my backyard in under three hours — nearly twice as fast as most competitors. I really liked the remote-control mowing feature, which was handy for tidying up the edges of the lawn and more sensitive areas such as around flower beds.
The Segway’s speed does mean a few blades go untrimmed, and its rain sensing relies on weather data from the internet, which meant it often didn’t mow because it predicted rain that never came. Setting up the NetRTK was a bit tricky, mostly because I had to put the charging station in an awkward spot to connect to the GPS (it can’t be under an awning or up against a building as the mower also needs a clear view of the sky).
The Dreame A3 AWD Pro 2500 ($3,099.99) is the best option if you can’t rely on RTK. Its lidar and camera-based navigation performed nearly as well as the Segway in my backyard, only getting stuck a couple of times. It doesn’t need a clear view of the sky, so you can place it anywhere, and its sliding edge-cutting deck worked slightly better than the Segway’s EdgeSense feature in my testing. (Beware, it’s set to a fixed 1.2-inch minimum).
But in my testing, lidar was the least reliable navigation tech, and sometimes the A3 declared the job complete when it wasn’t. Lidar robots do best in a fenced-in yard, as they can more easily get lost and wander off into your neighbors’ yard, something that never happened with the RTK robots.
The Dreame performed as well as the Segway when mowing, but its turning mechanism did churn up dirt where there was less grass cover.
While the Dreame rarely got stuck, its turning mechanism wasn’t as smooth as the Segway, and it dug several sandpits in various spots where there was no grass. I do like its “Garden Guardian” mode that uses the camera as a roaming security guard, and it can also identify when people cross its path and warn them that it’s working. It’s been mildly hilarious watching it surprise the heck out of dog walkers passing by the front yard.
Husqvarna’s Automower 420 IQ ($3,299) is a good option for a standard yard. It has the longest warranty (four years), the easiest app and controls, and a modular design for longevity. It’s 2WD, but its large wheels tackled uneven terrain well. It requires an RTK antenna and has the option of cloud-based RTK (in some areas), but its backup navigation for satellite dead spots requires installing physical boundary wire.
I tested this in my neighbor’s yard using the physical RTK antenna, as they have fewer trees and clearer views of the sky. It navigated well, but it uses radar for obstacle detection and has no camera at all. This meant it wasn’t as good at dodging objects as the others, and ran into the bushes once and tried to climb a small tree.
But if you have a large, uncomplicated, tree-free yard, it’s a good option thanks to Husqvarna’s broad support network, free-for-life cellular connectivity for both theft and NetRTK (should you need it), and impressive performance.
The Mammotion combines all three wireless navigation types — RTK, lidar, and vision — making it ideal for properties with spotty GPS coverage like mine. But it’s less nimble than the other AWD models thanks to lower ground clearance and weaker suspension.
Its turning mechanism also tore up a couple areas of my garden, particularly a shaded area near my neighbors’ sprinklers, which stayed damper than other spots. Mammotion has acknowledged this issue, telling The Verge “We’ve identified that a recent update to the turning logic caused some unwanted results. The mower turning too sharply might tear up the grass to some extent, especially when the ground is wet and slippery, or the grass isn’t very thick.”
They’ve deployed several software updates to address this, but we should all be wary of relying on software updates to fix fundamental problems with an expensive lawnmower.
The $1,299 Roborock RockNeo Q110H is my budget pick. This rear-wheel-drive mower was impressive on my flat, treed front yard, although its lack of all-wheel-drive meant that the occasional large tree root stopped it in its tracks. That, and its more limited range, is why it’s half the price of other mowers here. It offers RTK and vSLAM navigation, with the option of antenna or NetRTK.
The RockNeo is remarkably similar to the Segway Navimow i100N I tested last year, with a few upgrades, including better camera-based obstacle detection, steeper slope navigation (up to 45%), and a wider cutting blade. It can also be used for manual remote-control mowing and has a built-in edge-cutting feature, although there’s the option of an edge-cutting add-on module, which I haven’t tried.
Edge cutting is still very much a work in progress for all mowers. Some do well straddling the edge, but if you have a fence or delicate boundary, that won’t work. Companies are trying all sorts of solutions — including special attachments. Ecovacs Goat A3000 Pro Lidar looks to be the most promising, thanks to a side-mounted string trimmer. But for now, you should plan to keep your manual trimmer handy.
Robot mowers have improved significantly over the last 18 months. Advances in navigation have solved my main pain points from my last round of testing, and bigger, beefier bots are now better at navigating the varied terrain of American yards. Today, the right bot will maintain your yard beautifully with minimal effort. While they still need oversight and the occasional rescue, and they haven’t solved every problem, they do take a lot of the work out of maintaining your yard.
Photos and videos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Matic, my current favorite robot vacuum, just got a big upgrade. The company has launched Matic Cues, which brings voice and gesture control to the robot. Now, you can talk directly to your vacuum to tell it what you want it to do, or just point at a mess to have it spot-clean.
The feature launches today, August 13 at 2 pm ET, and will show as an option in the Matic app under Settings > Matic Cues. The update arrives just ahead of a planned price hike on September 9, which will see the WALL-E-style robot's price go from $1,245 to $1,495.
I've been playing with Matic Cues for a day or so, and so far it's working well. Gesture control is th …
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