2026-06-10 02:50:00
For the first time in the 21st century, the United States has approved a new sunscreen ingredient. Well, new to us.
It’s called bemotrizinol, also known as BEMT, and it’s been available in Europe and Asia for years. But the peculiar way that sunscreen is regulated in the United States — as an over-the-counter drug rather than a cosmetic — had long prevented it from coming to American store shelves.
In 2020, however, Congress ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to overhaul its sunscreen approval process, and in 2024, DSM Nutritionals, which manufactures a bemotrizinol-based sunscreen, asked the FDA for approval. After a review of relevant safety and efficacy data, bemotrizinol has become the first new sunscreen ingredient to be approved for sale in the US since the late 1990s. The Environmental Working Group, which has lobbied for bemotrizinol’s approval since 2019, called its approval “a monumental victory for health and wellness.”
Dr. Adewole Adamson, who is a dermatologist and assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas at Austin, agreed that this is a win for consumers. “We haven’t been able to really have any innovation in US-based sunscreens since last millennium,” he told me.
Sunscreen use has ticked downward in the US, at the same time that concerns about sunscreen seeping into your body and causing adverse health effects have risen. BEMT’s boosters hope it can change that trend by promising broad protection, a more aesthetically appealing application, and less risk of it permeating your skin.
Sunscreen is already complicated, as Vox’s Allie Volpe covered in her 7 burning questions about sunscreen explainer. Now there’s a new ingredient to consider. Here’s what you should know.
The sun emits a spectrum of ultraviolet rays, including two types — UVA and UVB — that can burn your skin if you are exposed for too long without protection.
That is why experts advise consumers to make sure they are buying “broad spectrum” sunscreen, which means it provides protection against both kinds of UV rays. Those products usually combine several different agents (or “filters”) that protect against different parts of that spectrum.
“Some filters only cover part of the spectrum, so you have to combine a bunch of them in order to get that broad-based coverage,” Adamson said.
Sunscreens are either “mineral” or “chemical.” Both types are equally effective if used correctly, assuming they have the same sun protection factor, or SPF, but each come with their own trade-offs. Mineral sunscreens leave unsightly white residue, while chemical sunscreens have faced widespread safety concerns in recent years.
The major shift came in 2019, when the FDA announced an overhaul in its safety assessment of some of the most popular sunscreen ingredients, sparking a backlash against chemical sunscreen in particular. The agency said that the two ingredients primarily used in mineral sunscreens — zinc oxide and titanium dioxide — were generally regarded as safe for human use. Two ingredients (aminobenzoic acid and trolamine salicylate) were said to be unsafe, and more than a half-dozen other ingredients used in chemical sunscreens were left a question mark due to “insufficient data.” New research soon followed that suggested that the ingredients in chemical sunscreens could seep into your blood and body in concerning concentrations, raising the specter of uncertain long-term health effects.
In response to the new findings and the doubts they raised about such a widely used product, anti-sunscreen advocacy spread, bolstered by the broader wellness and MAHA movements. As the Washington Post described, some people online boasted of stopping their sunscreen use — despite its clear effectiveness in preventing skin cancer, which kills thousands of people in the US every year — and promoted DIY formulas featuring, for example, oil and butter. (They do not confer the same protection.) Some influencers have even argued for the health benefits of more sun exposure.
One consumer analysis found that the percentage of Americans who believed sunscreen is toxic grew from 17 percent in 2021 to 24 percent in 2025. And, at the same time, the share of people who reporting using sunscreen at all has slightly declined.
Into that messy context comes a new sunscreen ingredient.
A big part of what makes bemotrizinol appealing is that it provides protection against both types of dangerous ultraviolet rays on its own. And not only does it provide that broad level of protection, Adamson said, but it could also be more “cosmetically elegant,” as he put it. It won’t leave those white streaks that mineral sunscreens do, which could encourage more people to actually put it on.
The shift toward mineral sunscreen in the wake of the chemical sunscreen panic has brought one unfortunate side effect: that white film on the skin of beachgoers and baseball game fans across the country. If you have ever applied zinc-centric sunscreen, you probably know the look (and that heavy feeling of the cream on the skin).
Chemical sunscreens can be annoying for people with sensitive skin, but by and large, people seem to prefer those products because they look better when wearing them. BEMT could make it easier for manufacturers to produce sunscreens that provide that broad level of coverage while being aesthetically more pleasing.
The other hope is that bemotrizinol products will ameliorate some of the safety concerns that have driven sunscreen skepticism since 2019, when the one-two punch of the FDA’s announcement that most ingredients had “insufficient” data to judge their safety, followed by a worrying study, damaged the reputation of chemical sunscreens for the better part of a decade.
Our political wellness landscape has shifted: new leaders, shady science, contradictory advice, broken trust, and overwhelming systems. How is anyone supposed to make sense of it all? Vox’s senior correspondent Dylan Scott has been on the health beat for a long time, and every week, he’ll wade into sticky debates, answer fair questions, and contextualize what’s happening in American healthcare policy. Sign up here.
The study, published in JAMA in May 2019, showed several popular chemical sunscreen ingredients appeared to penetrate a user’s body in volumes sufficient enough that they should trigger new safety studies. The authors noted that some of the ingredients had previously been found in human breast milk and other bodily fluids. The findings raised real concerns, thus the FDA’s policy shift — but those concerns also took on a life of their own in the health and wellness social media ecosystem, stoking doubts about sunscreen overall.
“That freaked everyone out. And everyone was like, ‘I don’t want to do chemical sunscreens. They’re terrible. They’re getting [in] your blood. They’re endocrine disruptors.’ All of that kind of fearmongering,” Adamson said. “This ingredient doesn’t seem to do that.”
He pointed me to preliminary evidence from clinical trials that indicates BEMT does not generally lead to the same kind of concentration in human plasma. The drug has already been in use in other countries for decades and has accrued a strong safety record. But the FDA’s policy of regulating sunscreen as an over-the-counter drug, rather than as a cosmetic, sets a higher standard for approval, which meant that it took more than 25 years for BEMT to finally cross the Atlantic from Europe to the US.
DSM Nutritionals will have exclusive rights for 18 months to sell their proprietary BEMT formulation Parsol Shield in the United States; after that, other companies will be able to sell sunscreens with it in them too. Going forward, consumers can check for bemotrizinol or BEMT on the ingredients list.
Whether or not you opt for BEMT, here is the thing to keep in mind about protection when you’re buying this or any sunscreen: SPF, or sun protection factor. Experts say that the ideal is between SPF 30 and SPF 50, which blocks 98 percent of the sun’s rays. Just remember that SPF above 50 adds minimal additional protection, and doesn’t mean you can spend longer in the sun without reapplying.
Advocates hope BEMT can revive people’s faith in sunscreen which, despite the recent controversies, remains a lifesaving product. Skin cancer is still the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States, with more than 200,000 new cases expected this year. “American consumers deserve access to the best available sun protection,” Alexa Friedman, senior scientist at EWG, said in a statement. “Today they’re finally getting closer to it.”
2026-06-10 02:15:00
In May, Ferrari introduced its first entry into the electric vehicle market: the Luce. With an exterior like a Nissan Leaf, and an interior designed by the guy who designed the iPhone, it received a lot of hate. So, if Ferrari can’t make a cool EV, who can?
Enter the Slate truck. It’s a Jeff Bezos-backed, American-made compact truck with no bells, whistles, or even AC — the antithesis of the Tesla Cybertruck. It’s kind of cute. And it might just get more Americans to drive an electric car.
At a time when American manufacturers have fallen far behind countries like China in the automotive industry, companies are still trying to get Americans excited about electric.
Andrew Hawkins is a transportation editor at The Verge who has been following the EV industry in the US. He tells Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram about the problems stopping American drivers from fully adopting EVs and discusses whether this bare-bones truck can fix them.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
There’s another electric truck that we have to talk about.
Oh, yes, indeed. The Slate truck.
This to me represents the dichotomy in the EV market today, right? On the one hand, you’ve got your Ferrari Luce. That is a $640,000 car that no one you will ever meet will probably buy. And on the other hand, you’ve got this Slate Truck that is the most bare-bones two-seater that you could possibly imagine. There’s no radio, there’s no touchscreen, there’s no central screen inside the vehicle. There’s no paint. You even have to opt in to get power windows; otherwise, they will just give you the [window crank].
I love the idea of an electric truck that has manual roll-’em-down windows.
When I heard that, that blew my mind. This is a new startup. They’ve got a lot of investment cash from Jeff Bezos and some other people. This is their first vehicle. And the theory behind it is that we will make this thing as stripped-down as we possibly can. Take out all the bells and whistles. People can add a bunch of stuff. They could turn it into a small SUV by adding a back section to it if they want. They could add wrapping decals. You could personalize it and make it look however you want it to look. Or, you could just buy the bare-bones version.
The idea being that electric vehicles, as they stand today, are above the average cost of a new gas-powered vehicle. So, we need to bring this price down. How are we going to do that? Well, still the most expensive part about any electric vehicle is the battery. So, in order to have a good battery while still having a decent car, you need to take out everything else.
That’s how they’re saying that they’re going to sell this thing for under $30,000 when it eventually comes out at the end of this year.
So, unlike the [Ferrari] Luce, people responded well to this Slate truck. Why is it a truck? Why not a sedan?
Trucks are very popular in the US. They’re amongst the best-selling vehicles, typically. The Ford F-150, for example, was the best-selling vehicle in America for a long time.
But, this is America. We love our trucks. We love our big trucks. This is not a big truck. This is a small truck. And a lot of people have been saying trucks have gotten too big. They’re oversized behemoths out on the road that are dangerous to pedestrians that are out walking around. They don’t offer enough safety protections. And so, maybe we need to come back to more of a midsize or compact.
And then, obviously, gas prices are soaring. People are looking for something that’s a little bit more downsized in general. So, I think the truck prospect is an interesting one. Then again, trucks aren’t for everybody. If you want to turn this thing into a four-seater compact SUV, that’s something that will be an option to you, as well.
Okay, so this reason to make a little truck seems based on market research. People want a truck, and here’s a very different truck that we can offer them. What about this decision to literally strip away every single feature, including the paint, including the power windows, including the radio?
It’s a real risky bet from Slate. I think what they’re trying to say is that maybe cars have become too bloated, right? We’re starting to see a pullback from too many convenience features, especially in the car market with people feeling a lot of pressure on their pocketbooks and how expensive new cars have become. They’re looking for something that is a little bit more downmarket.
But also, I think it’s a reflection of where the expenses are in building a new car and a realization that you can’t just put out a car, especially an electric vehicle today, without some plan to make it profitable. One of the original mistakes of the auto industry, and especially the American auto industry, was that they could take a lot of their most popular cars, retrofit them to be electric, and that people would respond to them.
That was, I think, a pretty understandable bet from a lot of these companies. But, I don’t think they were really taking costs into effect for a lot of that. And what we ended up with was a lot of cars that were indistinguishable from their gas counterparts, but were 20 to 30 percent more expensive than those gas cars.
In so many ways, the automotive industry is a stand-in for our whole economy. We hold up the auto industry as being this kind of beacon which represents our innovativeness and our leadership on the global stage. And I think that we’ve ceded that leadership now to China.
China is now leading. They sell the most cars, they export the most cars, and they have the best technology. They’ve cracked the code on cheap EVs. I feel like America is always going to have an outsized reputation, but whether that reputation is actually earned anymore, I think is a very open question right now.
Do the people want EVs in this country yet, or do they still have range anxiety and a preference for the combustion engine? Does the war in Iran factor into how the people feel right now?
People vote with their pocketbooks, right? That’s where their preferences are today. And I think when electric vehicles were first gaining popularity, you heard a lot about charging anxiety. You heard a lot about range anxiety.
I think those are still considerations, but I feel, right now, the number one consideration for most people is, “I’m living paycheck to paycheck, and it’s costing me $80, $90 to fill up my F-150.” The used EV market right now is extremely attractive to a lot of people. You can get a very good electric vehicle for around $20,000. You take it home, you set up a home charger, you charge that thing overnight. You never have to go to a gas station again. That’s a pretty attractive proposition to a lot of people.
2026-06-09 19:45:00
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Sávio Bortolini Pimentel just missed getting on the roster to represent his national team, Brazil, at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States.
At the time, he was a 20-year-old professional player with the Rio de Janeiro team Flamengo. He recalls other players telling him after the fact that the weather during some matches was just too hot. And the heat was “intense,” they said, during the final match at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, under a 32 degree Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) sun, when Brazil prevailed over Italy.
Players in the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup in June and July face an even greater risk of unsafe temperatures than they did in 1994 — the last time the World Cup was held in the United States — according to estimates from researchers at Imperial College London. Human-induced climate change has made these conditions significantly more likely in the 16 host cities in the US, Mexico and Canada, according to the report.
The report predicted that five games could take place in unsafe heat, up from three games in 1994. The report used a threshold for unsafe temperatures that may require postponements based on wet bulb globe temperatures of 28°C (83°F), which is recommended by FIFPRO, the international player’s union. Wet bulb globe temperatures are calculated based on a variety of factors — including the sun, humidity, and temperature — to show the stress on the human body. FIFA also uses wet bulb globe temperatures but currently considers postponing matches only at levels exceeding 32°C (90°F).
Chris Mullington, a consultant anesthetist at the Imperial College London who presented the report at a webinar, explained why soccer uses wet bulb temperatures to calculate if weather conditions are safe for players.
“A 30 [degrees] Celsius [86°F] day in dry, breezy conditions is very different from a 30 [degrees] Celsius [86°F] day with high humidity, strong sun, and little wind,” he said. “High humidity reduces the evaporation of sweat, limiting the body’s primary cooling mechanism.”
Sixty current and former professional soccer players from around the world recently issued an open letter urging FIFA to update its heat guidelines for events happening under dangerous heat before the World Cup.
“It can make you feel light-headed, dizzy, experience fatigue, muscle cramps and worse. You can run less and it becomes impossible to play with the same intensity as with more average temperatures,” the players wrote.
The players also asked the league to do what it can to ease the climate change crisis by dropping fossil fuel sponsors and changing game schedules to reduce travel and the league’s fossil fuel footprint.
Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at the Imperial College London and one of the authors of the report, said the increased risk for hotter temperatures shows climate change is having a real and measurable impact on the viability of holding World Cups during the northern hemisphere summer. The final match of the tournament, scheduled to be played on July 19 at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, has a 12.5 percent chance of exceeding the 26°C (7°F) mark and a 3 percent chance of reaching 28°C (83°F).
“That the World Cup Final itself — one of the biggest sporting occasions on the planet — faces a non-insignificant risk of being played in ‘cancellation-level’ heat [28°C or 83°F] should be a wake-up call for FIFA and fans, highlighting the urgent need to realize that there is no aspect of society not affected by climate change,” Otto said.
The 2022 World Cup, held in Qatar, was moved from summer to winter because of the threat of extreme heat. Last summer’s Club World Cup, held in 12 locations around the United States, served in many ways as a prelude for this year’s World Cup. In that tournament, no games were postponed due to heat, even though temperatures soared above 32°C (90°F).
The Imperial College report shows nearly a quarter of all World Cup games are likely to be played in temperatures higher than 26°C (79°F), and about 5 matches are expected to occur above 28°C (83°F) — almost double the number from the 1994 World Cup.
Under severe heat and dehydration, athletes’ heart rates rise, their muscles fatigue faster, and they sweat more. “Your body is trying to prevent the rapid rate of rise of your body temperature; it’s just a protective mechanism,” said Douglas Casa, chief executive officer of the Korey Stringer Institute, a nonprofit based at the University of Connecticut that works to educate and prevent heat illness and sudden death in athletes and laborers.
Under extreme conditions, around 40°C (104°F), Casa said, the body enters into the volitional exhaustion phase: the point during exercise where you voluntarily stop because you feel unable to continue doing the same movements.
Sávio said players now are likely more resilient to the heat.
“There are athletes that are more used to the cold than to the heat — that’s normal,” he said. “But today’s athletes are much more prepared, and even more so than in 1994, due to the evolution of preparation techniques, equipment, and products.”
But training only goes so far. Sávio, who won bronze with the Brazilian team during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and is now retired from soccer, said athletes feel the heat on the pitch much more dramatically.
“If we’re looking at 35°C [95°F], like what happened in 1994 when we even heard of matches played at 40°C (104°F), then yes, it’s increasingly demanding,” he said. “The pace is automatically reduced.”
But there are alternatives, even if FIFA does not choose to postpone eligible matches. Casa urged FIFA to make aggressive cooling strategies available at all stadium locker rooms. He also recommended extending hydration breaks from the mandated three minutes to six, as the heat could influence the athletes’ recovery from one game to the next.
“Do you realize people could easily be 103 or 104°F [40°C] when they come in at halftime?” Casa said. “My point is, if you have 15 minutes and you get in quickly at the stoppage, you could have 10 or 11 minutes of aggressive cooling: rotating freezing cold wet towels over your whole body, going into a cold plunge, anything like that.”
Casa said he is not against playing games in the heat, but high temperatures and dehydration at the World Cup can lead to lower-quality soccer games.
“Why not give the fans who just spent a fortune on these tickets the best quality game that they could possibly watch with these elite soccer players?” he asked.
Kevin Muneton Ramirez, a 27-year-old American-Colombian dual citizen, is excited to watch the Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo play in what is expected to be his last World Cup. He bought tickets for the June 27 match in Miami between Portugal and Colombia, and he expects his home country’s team to win the game.
Muneton Ramirez said, as a fan, he does not really mind games when the players get exhausted at the end.
“The game turns into a different game, it’s more ‘mentality,’” he said. “The one that commits less mistakes is the one that ends up winning.”
For fans, Casa said FIFA should at least include free water-filling stations inside stadiums. Fans could fall ill as a result of overwhelming heat and dehydration, even if they’re not moving too much.
According to FIFA’s stadium code of conduct, last updated on June 2, fans are not allowed to bring empty containers that can be refilled at a water fountain or dispenser. Bottles containing “baby milk and sterilized water in containers” or liquids that a fan requires for medical reasons are allowed with approved documentation.
Muneton Ramirez does not usually go to stadiums to watch soccer.
“But if I have the opportunity to go to a World Cup…at least once in my lifetime, I’d go to any game,” he said.
2026-06-09 19:00:00
Nick Sadler and his wife had different ideas of what a chill Saturday looked like. He considered the weekend a blank slate — no set plans, the family’s moment to reset and chill. She was under the impression that time was up for grabs and put a short hangout on their calendar, which Sadler saw as his wife not taking his schedule into account. To settle the argument, he opened up ChatGPT, specifically the group chat function, which allows more than one human to interact with the technology. Sadler prompted the chatbot to act as a neutral mediator and to instruct them on their next moves. Sadler tells Vox that ChatGPT acted as a trusted friend, or even a therapist, suggesting both of them consider different perspectives. It attempted to pinpoint where the conversation broke down (“Both of you then behaved logically according to your own understanding. That means this is not primarily a respect problem. It’s a classification problem.”) and offered guidelines for future scheduling (“A simple question can prevent most of these arguments: ‘Is this an idea, or are we locking this in?’”)
“It was like, ‘Well, next time just consider this’ and ‘maybe try saying this’ and ‘maybe try doing that,’” Sadler, a film producer, says. “We got some sort of advice to follow, but ultimately we’ve still got to do the work and we’ve still got to actually take the actions.”
Sadler, a 48-year-old self-proclaimed AI enthusiast, is no stranger to utilizing ChatGPT in his marriage. He’s used it to uncover the weaknesses in his arguments and to craft apology texts to his wife. “I put in purpose mistakes so she wouldn’t think I was just using ChatGPT,” he says.
But the pressures of parenting two young kids was kindling for their periodic annoying marital spats. Sadler and his wife considered couples counseling, but once he discovered ChatGPT could guide them through difficult conversations, they no longer felt they needed the help of a professional. One night, while sitting on the couch with his wife, Sadler launched ChatGPT and told his wife to talk to it as if it was a therapist. “In a way, it’s having a therapist on tap,” he says.
That people are turning to large language models to navigate their love lives isn’t entirely surprising. Relationships have peaks and valleys and, many times, exist in an emotional gray area. Chatbots, on the other hand, are authoritative in tone and confident, even when they’re wrong.
Some people are going a step beyond asking Claude to draft an apology text, and inviting AI into the most intimate moments of their lives: fights with their significant others. In other words, they are treating technology like an on-demand couples therapist. The tech, which could be ambiently listening or addressed directly via voice or text, might suggest someone use more “I” statements or prompt couples to ask questions like “Where did you feel unsupported?”
Research has suggested publicly available AI, like ChatGPT, is an effective intermediary in a dispute, with human subjects feeling less divided when AI was mediating. But AI platforms lack the emotional intelligence to adequately read a couple’s body language and tone, understand cultural context and power dynamics, and incorporate a couple’s past into the fight at hand.
The desire for an authoritative, always-available guide in the midst of conflict is certainly seductive, but emotional matters are best reserved for human-to-human conversation. “The answer is typically not that you need some type of content strategy on how you should approach your next steps,” Amelia Miller, a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, tells Vox. “But it’s much more that you need emotional support, which comes from asking other people that you care about what you should do in the situation, not asking a machine.”
In her Bay Area therapy practice, Courtney Quattrini has seen her fair share of couples who leverage AI chatbots in their relationships, including using it as a practice conversation partner and to ghostwrite texts to their significant other. While none of her clients have let ChatGPT or Claude mediate a fight, some do bring in AI summaries of arguments from one person’s perspective to their sessions with her. “They’re ruminating or they’re thinking about their side of the fight: What am I going to come back and say, how am I going to prove that I’m right or wrong?” Quattrini tells Vox. “They’re summarizing the fight from their perspective, and then they’ll bring in the summary and present it almost like it’s objective, but of course it’s not objective.”
But much of the work in couples therapy centers on the idea that two things can be true at once, and is about getting both individuals to understand that their partner’s emotional reality is important. “When you’re coming in and you want to summarize who won a fight, that really doesn’t align with the work that we’re actually doing,” Quattrini says. Feeding AI your narrative doesn’t help you see the things you could have done differently.
But when both people in a relationship invite AI into the discussion, leveling the playing field, the technology draws from a version of the story that may be more closely aligned with reality. A few months into dating, Khalid Tawohid and his partner discovered they’d both been discussing their relationship with their respective AI chatbots. “How can we get our AIs to just talk to each other?” Tawohid tells Vox.
Earlier this year, the 25-year-old software engineer designed a workaround where both his and his partner’s Claude agents — drawing from each individual’s full chat history — could facilitate difficult conversations. The app, called Bridge, claims to provide scaffolding for the discussions and package disorderly thoughts in a more coherent manner. Instead of looking to a machine to validate your point of view, the machine, ideally, would hold your hand as you attempt that same conversation with a human. “This helps your AI have a real sense of identity of who this [other] person is because it’s two different AIs, one knows one person, one knows the other person, and they’re both vehemently going to defend their own person,” Tawohid says. “But together it gets you to a more shared sense of truth.”
Still, Tawohid isn’t convinced his AI chatbot mediation tool, Bridge, is even a good idea. He has shared Bridge with about 10 couples, all of whom have given him the feedback that they’d use it again, he says, but it isn’t widely available for use. Perhaps, he says, it could be a supplement to traditional couples counseling, a way to practice communication outside of the therapy room.
Ironically, though, Tawohid has come down on the side of mild AI skepticism. “It’s a combination of a journal and a therapist and a friend, but it is also not real. It’s also just a computer code,” he says. When he discovered he’d lost his ability to craft a sentence without help, he stopped writing with AI. Now he fears people could lose their relationships to chatbots, too.
After a few months of using Bridge, Tawohid says he and his partner spend much less time talking to AI. They’ve had enough machine-facilitated conversations that they better understand each other’s thought patterns and triggers. Sadler, the AI-curious film producer, and his wife have similarly come to rely on AI less frequently because, he says, ChatGPT has taught them to be better communicators. “It just taught me to understand that she’s got a different perspective on things. If I’m not understanding where [she’s] coming from, just asking questions to say, well, what do you mean? And not jumping to conclusions,” he says.
Using AI as a therapeutic outlet can be instructive for people who aren’t in the habit of introspection, says Miller, the Harvard fellow. These chatbots can, in theory, be a tool for reflecting on an argument and for rehearsing what to say next. But sometimes the language the chatbot suggests is so far out of the realm of what your partner would actually say that its assistance is counterproductive.
For Josh Elledge and his wife, the stupid fight began over a haircut — or lack thereof. Elledge, a 54-year-old podcast consultant, was refusing to clean up his look (“I didn’t like something my barber said, and so I stopped going to him,” Elledge says) and his wife was not pleased. So she turned to an AI chatbot for assistance on how to break it to him. What she ended up saying to Elledge didn’t land. “It just made her opinion stronger in a way that wasn’t really helpful,” he says. “She’s conveying this stuff and I’m like, wow, you really think that? And she’s like, well, no, not really.” He says they “thankfully had the good sense” to distinguish between what she believed and what was the AI.
Once you relinquish enough of your critical thinking to AI, you run the risk of undermining the relationship you sought to fix. Therapists are trained to identify when a fight needs to be slowed, rerouted, or ditched altogether. But because chatbots never tire of hearing about your problems, you can get caught in a loop of rumination, perpetually mulling over the same frustrations and workshopping language on how to tell your husband you hate his haircut. At that point, who are you in a relationship with — a large language model, or a human? “That was an instance where maybe this isn’t a miracle process. You still have to just be really careful about not showing up as someone who you are not just simply because you defaulted to this AI being this authority in all things,” Elledge says.
AI chatbots are programmed to keep you engaged, but endless mediation and reflection isn’t exactly helpful. If you feel compelled to use one to navigate a squabble, give the technology guardrails. For example, Miller has created custom prompts that don’t exceed 10 or so exchanges with the AI and are meant to illuminate your own biases and shortcomings. But, ultimately, Quattrini, the therapist, says it’s important to remember that true counsel comes from a human who possesses the ability to read nonverbal cues, affect, and changes in body language. “Right now I think AI is a pretty dangerous mediator because it doesn’t have a nervous system,” she says.
The joy of being a person in a relationship with another person is getting through the hard parts together, even imperfectly. “We’re complicated people and no one really knows everything going on in everyone’s mind,” Tawohid says. “But humans are awesome, truly.”
2026-06-09 05:45:00
Over the weekend, the Department of Defense stepped into one of the more delicate questions in American religiosity: who gets to be called “Christian.”
More specifically, does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly called the Mormon Church), fit the bill?
The brouhaha started with Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to simplify and reform the work of military chaplains — those religious and spiritual advisers who tend to the faithful within the military’s ranks.
A Pentagon spokesperson on Friday posted a new list of categories of religious affiliation for military service members, which had shrunken from over 200 to 31 labels. In previewing this reform, Hegseth had argued that it was part of the Trump administration’s fight against secular humanism and for the role of religion in public life. By narrowing the number of religions, and excluding some prior identity groups Hegseth’s Pentagon found objectionable, officials argued it would be easier to assign chaplains to units.
“This brings the codes in line with its original purpose, giving chaplains clear, usable information so they can minister to service members in a way that aligns with that service member’s faith background and religious practice,” Hegseth said in a video statement in March.
Gone were “atheist” and “Wicca” from the new list — and though the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was included as a religion, it was not labeled “Christian.”
That set off an explosive reaction from Mormon elected officials, including some normally aligned with the administration. To them, the government seemed to be saying that Mormons are not Christians — a highly offensive statement for LDS Church members, who see Jesus Christ as the center of their faith.
“I can say confidently that the U.S. government has no business recognizing the Christianity of literally every other religious sect that worships Jesus Christ — with one exception,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) posted on X, one of many complaints he raised over multiple days.
On Monday, the Pentagon said the move was unintentional — and amended the original document that blew open this controversy. “The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks,” an official statement read. Lee said he was “thrilled” with Trump’s response after he discussed the issue with the president in a phone call.
But the fiery response spoke both to the LDS church’s long battle for acceptance in America’s faith community, and to deeper tensions within the religious right in President Donald Trump’s second term. Even as the administration tries to privilege Christianity in America, its coalition is suspicious about which kind is taking the lead.
Mormons have often faced a hostile reception in mainstream religious life since their church’s founding in the 19th century, a wound that the Pentagon decision reopened.
Despite a tense history between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and both the American state and other religious groups, there’s been a kind of detente in the 21st century.
Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign was widely seen as a watershed moment for Mormonism’s mainstream acceptance, especially within the Republican Party’s conservative Christian electorate, even as his faith was a sensitive topic at points during the race.
“It’s not like those theological concerns about Mormonism disappeared in 2012, but by the time we got to 2012, the issue wasn’t Romney’s Mormonism anymore,” David Campbell, a professor of American politics and religion at the University of Notre Dame, told me. “And so a lot of members of the LDS church thought, well, this issue’s over now.”
As Campbell noted, however, there were still major doctrinal differences between LDS and major branches of Christianity. For example, LDS theology does not accept the Trinity — the idea that God is both one being and manifested in three essences (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). Roughly, LDS believers view Jesus Christ as the Son of God and a distinct entity to God the Father, who has a separate physical body.
More simply, the LDS Church rejects the Nicene Creed — the statements of faith that have united most Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant churches for more than a thousand years as well as the Apostles Creed (which most western Christians accept). For these reasons, many Catholics and Protestants would not call Mormons Christians, even if they believe in a God and follow Jesus Christ.
The Pentagon dust-up brought these divides rushing back to the front of mind.
“When Mormons have come into the public square and have sought to build bridges politically, that has been acceptable,” Campbell said. “But when that theological question comes up, maybe some have been won over, but not very many. And this is just yet another reminder of that.”
One example of this submerged tension came up during Romney’s 2012 run, when a prominent Texas evangelical pastor, Robert Jeffress, called Mormonism a “cult” and argued Romney “is not a Christian.” But Jeffress also endorsed Romney in the general election, citing their shared values apart from theology — and he is now a prominent Trump supporter.
Some LDS voices on the left argued that Mormon Republicans had been too naive in thinking that a White House that elevated figures like Hegseth, an evangelical who has pushed boundaries with his Christian rhetoric in public duties, would protect religious freedom rather than elevate political allies. Some linked the Pentagon list to the administration’s embrace of “Christian nationalist” evangelical leaders who have called for tearing down walls between church and state.
“For us on the left, it’s like, yeah, of course the Trump administration doesn’t believe in our version of Christianity,” Eric Biggart, chair of the LDS Dems Caucus, told ABC4, a Salt Lake City news station. “That’s been clear to us for 10 years now.”
Republican lawmakers who protested the Pentagon’s decision did not make this argument themselves and appeared to accept the official explanation on Monday. But it’s also noticeable that they did not give Hegseth the benefit of the doubt when the story first emerged — the response to the Pentagon’s list was immediate and public, rather than delivered quietly behind the scenes. Loyal Republican politicians like Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis immediately criticized the decision and spent the weekend debating theology, engaging other Christians, and calling out the Department of Defense.
This episode is probably not going to be a turning point, Campbell told me, but it is another crack in the religious right’s coalition. Many LDS members already view Trump and MAGA with suspicion in comparison to other conservative religious communities, although he’s made inroads with LDS voters since his first election. To some, the episode was a sign that members of the faith should be suspicious about tying their religion to a political coalition.
“I say this with love to my fellow Latter-day Saints: the sooner you give up trying to convince the religious right to validate your faith, the sooner you’ll know peace,” McKay Coppins, an LDS journalist who has written extensively about the church, posted on X.
“Are we real Christians? Only one opinion matters — and it’s not Pete Hegseth’s.”
2026-06-09 05:30:00
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Welcome to The Logoff: The World Cup starts this week, and the Trump administration is already creating problems.
What’s happening? On Monday, BBC Sport reported that a Somali referee, Omar Artan, was not allowed to enter the US ahead of the World Cup, which starts on Thursday. Artan was set to be one of 52 FIFA referees for the tournament, which will run until July 19, and was reportedly turned away at the Miami airport despite a valid visa.
Artan isn’t alone in his issues entering the country. Aymen Hussein, who plays for the Iraqi national team, was detained for “nearly seven hours” at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, according to Reuters, while an Iraqi team photographer was refused entry outright. Iranian players only received US visas at the last minute, while some team staff haven’t received them at all.
Fans hoping to attend World Cup games in the US — particularly those from African countries — have also had problems securing visas to visit the US.
How does the Trump administration figure in this? Donald Trump’s second administration has made hostility to all immigrants — and especially to non-white ones — a tentpole policy. Over the past six months, Mother Jones reported over the weekend, the US has admitted only white South Africans as refugees.
In 2025, the administration also imposed a sweeping travel ban covering 39 countries, including Somalia, where Artan is from, and four countries — Haiti, Iran, Senegal, and Ivory Coast — that will compete in the World Cup.
As the Washington Post reported on Monday, concerns about potential ICE operations around the World Cup are also increasing anxiety for some fans.
What else should I know? The World Cup isn’t the only sporting event Trump is actively hindering. The president is in New York City today for Game 3 of the NBA Finals, featuring the New York Knicks (currently up 2-0 and riding high) against the San Antonio Spurs; his attendance is seriously cramping the party in Manhattan.
Hi readers — I enjoy baking but don’t always do a great job making the time for it, so I enjoyed this reminder from NYT Cooking’s Genevieve Ko on the virtues of making a pie crust from scratch. If you want her recipe, you can access it here with a gift link (and with a hearty Logoff endorsement for strawberry-rhubarb as the best pie filling).
As always, thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!