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Democrats are continuing to use their leverage in the federal-funding process to confront Republicans. Meanwhile, the threat of layoffs looms for many government workers.

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
One of my highlights of the past year has been receiving your weekly emails with photos that spark a sense of awe in the world around you. In reviewing your submissions, I’ve most enjoyed seeing how the beholder’s mind works.

The Trump administration this week tried to make nine elite research universities an offer they can’t refuse. In exchange for vaguely defined funds, MIT, Dartmouth, Brown, Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia, and others were asked to sign a nine-page “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” that amounts to complete adoption of the MAGA higher-education agenda.

For decades, higher education seemed immune to market forces, as families stretched to pay almost any price for a top-ranked college. Prestige was seen as synonymous with enduring value: Harvard would always be Harvard, Yale would always be Yale, followed by the Northwesterns and the Cornells, with aspirants such as the University of Southern California and Northeastern further down the ladder.

In early September, Zarah Sultana made a bold announcement. “Labour is dead,” the 31-year-old socialist member of Parliament told a crowd of hundreds gathered in Newcastle. She had left Britain’s ruling party only in July, pledging to “co-lead” a new left-wing party with Jeremy Corbyn, a former Labour leader who was expelled last year. More than 700,000 Britons have signed up to the mailing list of the provisionally titled Your Party.

Donald Trump’s Justice Department is firing some of the nation’s most experienced counterterrorism prosecutors and experts, apparently for political reasons. Line prosecutors and terrorism experts across the country are watching with alarm, although many are afraid to say so publicly.
On Wednesday night, the department pushed out Michael Ben’Ary, who was head of national security at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Members of the U.S. military have long had a tradition of giving or exchanging “challenge coins.” The medallions have no monetary value; they come in various shapes and sizes, but most are about the size of a silver dollar, and they carry the symbols and names of military units or commands. Members of those units carry them to give to others as tokens of esteem.

Updated with new questions at 4:25 p.m. ET on October 3, 2025.
In the 1960s, the authors of one of the world’s first popular compendiums of fun and interesting facts entreated readers not to mistake the “flower of Trivia” for the “weed of minutiae.” Trivia stimulates the mind, Edwin Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky wrote in More Trivial Trivia; minutiae stymie it.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
During prime-time football last Sunday, OpenAI debuted its biggest ad campaign yet, emphasizing three possible uses for ChatGPT: making dinner recipes, creating workout routines, and planning road trips.

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books.
Anna Holmes has never forgotten reading Judy Blume’s Forever as a tween. Why? Because the book, published 50 years ago this month, happily acknowledged that a teenage girl might want to have sex, and that she might even enjoy it, as Holmes wrote last week.