FIVE MINUTE DAILY

Gloria Steinem, the writer and organizer who became the public face of American feminism, died at her Manhattan home on Wednesday at the age of 92. Her foundation announced the death in an Instagram post, saying she went peacefully after more than fifty years at the center of the women's movement.

Tributes arrived through Thursday from Capitol Hill and Hollywood, where lawmakers and actors vowed to continue her work and traded stories about her organizing. Netflix confirmed it will release a farewell interview she recorded privately in 2025 for "Famous Last Words," a series that airs only posthumously.

Iran fired missiles and drones at Kuwait on Thursday, and Kuwaiti forces said they intercepted the barrage amid what they described as ongoing Iranian aggression against Kuwait. Tehran launched the salvo in retaliation for American bombardments earlier this week, the first direct exchange between the two countries since July.

Oil barely moved despite the escalation, with Brent settling just below $96 at $95.52 and West Texas Intermediate rising twenty-nine cents to $91.30. Washington is meanwhile pairing renewed strikes with sanctions under Operation Economic Outcast, a campaign built to cut Iran off from the trade partners it has left.

Federal prosecutors charged ICE officer Christian Castro with lying to investigators about the January shooting of a Venezuelan man in north Minneapolis. Castro faces a six-count indictment and is not yet in custody, and officials describe the case as still partly under seal.

Homeland Security originally said he opened fire in self-defense after three migrants attacked him with a shovel and a broom handle. Minnesota investigators allege instead that he fired through a closed door, hitting the man in the leg during the crackdown called Operation Metro Surge.

About 2,000 students and teachers across Indonesia have fallen ill after school meals served under President Prabowo Subianto's flagship free lunch program, all within three days. Rembang in Central Java produced the largest single cluster, where 777 people reported illness after eating at one high school.

Funerals were held Thursday in al-Mughayyir for Omar al-Nassan, 19, and Khalil Abu Alia, 16, who were killed during a settler attack on the village. Village council members say Israeli settlers and soldiers opened fire as the two tried to stop a flock of sheep from being taken.

Two Ukrainian intelligence units opened fire on each other in central Kyiv, an episode President Volodymyr Zelensky called an "absolutely shameful event" as he ordered an investigation. The shootout exposes turf wars inside Ukraine's security services more than three years into a war that has otherwise demanded unity.

The administration asked the Supreme Court Thursday to lift a Boston judge's order blocking core parts of its Postal Service mail voting plan. Requirements the plan would impose on states remain frozen for now, and every eligible voter can still cast a mail ballot in the midterms.

Senator Alex Padilla and Representative Joseph Morelle wrote to Homeland Security this week demanding it release $39.6 million in election security funding that Congress appropriated in April. Both lawmakers warned that time is running out, with the midterm elections now roughly two months away.

The Treasury Department released rules that would strip tax-exempt status from schools running race-based scholarship or aid programs, hitting both universities and private K-12 institutions. The change would upend how many nonprofits have structured diversity funding for decades.

Nvidia is acquiring the platform Hugging Face for $13 billion and says the AI software hub will remain open source under its ownership. Jensen Huang announced the deal in a blog post Thursday, citing a developer community of more than eighteen million people.

Lululemon shares sank 15% after weak earnings showed revenue down 4% and comparable sales falling 9% in the second quarter. Interim chief executive Meghan Frank blamed negative social media commentary and a sharper slowdown than expected in core categories, leggings very much included.

Governor Christopher Waller said he is inclined to hold rates steady this month, conceding that inflation sits meaningfully above target while pointing to early signs of disinflation. Vice President JD Vance pushed the other way at the White House, saying lower rates would be nice to have for housing affordability.

Eight years after launch, the joint European-Japanese BepiColombo probe has begun its arrival phase at Mercury, with the mission team calling it "a new mission starting today." The spacecraft will settle into orbit around the sun's closest planet to map its surface and probe its strange magnetic field.

Symptoms improved in sixteen patients after doctors used a modified virus to build CAR T cells inside the body rather than in a laboratory. Results published in the New England Journal of Medicine target the B cells that produce autoantibodies, and the in-body method is both cheaper and faster to deliver.

Two doses of psilocybin given before chemotherapy completely prevented neuropathy in mice, according to research published Thursday in Science. Nerve damage affects as many as 60% of patients treated with platinum-based cancer drugs, and co-author Moran Amit calls this the first real efficacy signal from psychedelics.

The San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams will play the NFL's first regular-season game in Melbourne, Australia next season as the league keeps pushing its international footprint. Australia joins Germany, Brazil, Spain, and the UK on the growing overseas schedule.

Naomi Osaka beat Katerina Siniakova in three sets, 6-2, 5-7, 6-1, after piling up twenty unforced errors in a wobbly middle set. Alex Eala rolled past Oleksandra Oliynykova 6-1, 6-4, winning the first nine points of the match without much argument.

Michael Lombardi stepped down at North Carolina on Thursday, ending a paid leave that had run since late July. School officials say an internal investigation into an HR complaint continues, while Lombardi said he left so the team could focus on the season.

John Malkovich fought back tears as Martin McDonagh's "Wild Horse Nine" drew thirteen minutes of applause at its world premiere in Venice on Thursday night. Leslie Bibb led the ovation while Parker Posey teared up, and McDonagh and Sam Rockwell waded into the crowd signing autographs.

Fox thanked Maria Bartiromo for twelve and a half years on Thursday while confirming she is out at both Fox networks. Her final "Mornings With Maria" aired that morning with no on-air farewell, and Fox Business plans to rebuild its daytime lineup within weeks.

Suno pulled a campaign that appeared to show Mary J. Blige endorsing its AI music generator, saying it had dealt with someone posing as her official representative. Blige never approved the late-August spot and absorbed a wave of online abuse over it before the company backed down.

What it is: For the first time in a year, the US-Mexico border partly reopened to cattle imports after a screwworm infestation triggered a shutdown that scrambled North American beef supply chains. The New World screwworm is a flesh-eating fly whose larvae burrow into living animals — and occasionally people. It had been considered eradicated from the region for decades. The reopening remains limited, with inspections and geographic restrictions intended to prevent infected livestock from carrying the parasite farther north. That makes the move less a return to normal than a closely monitored test of whether trade can resume safely.

The detail: The counteroffensive runs out of a facility deep in southern Mexico that breeds and sterilizes billions of male screwworm flies, which are then dropped from aircraft over infested zones. Sterile males mate with wild females, no offspring result, and the population collapses over successive generations. It's old-school biotech — invented in the 1950s — and still the most effective tool science has for this particular pest. The method helped eliminate screwworms from the United States decades ago, but it requires relentless production, coordinated aerial releases, and extensive monitoring. Any gap can allow fertile flies to slip through and rebuild populations.

Why it matters: The screwworm's return threatens a livestock economy worth tens of billions of dollars and can devastate wildlife populations with no acquired defenses. The US kept the fly at bay for half a century by maintaining a sterile-fly barrier through Panama, and its northward creep suggests that barrier is under strain from climate shifts and weakened surveillance. Even temporary border closures can reduce cattle supplies, raise costs for ranchers and meatpackers, and eventually feed into grocery-store beef prices.

What to watch: Whether Mexico can scale sterile-fly production fast enough to push the infestation back south, and whether the border reopening holds or snaps shut at the first new outbreak. Ranchers on both sides are watching cattle prices. Scientists are watching the maps. The decisive signal will be whether new cases keep appearing farther north despite intensified releases and inspections.

Five Minute Daily brings you the biggest developments across politics, business, science, sports and culture without the noise. Share today’s edition with someone who wants a faster way to stay informed, and subscribe for the next briefing.

—The Five Minute Daily Team