Today’s Big Story

Supreme Court’s Final Day

The court has six cases left to decide as it concludes its nine-month term ahead of a summer break

Is it me, or does it feel at times like the Supreme Court is needlessly shrouded in mystery? Among other things, it doesn’t announce which opinions are coming ahead of time, causing unnecessary anxiety and buildup. But today is a rare exception. Chief Justice John Roberts announced Thursday, as he customarily does on the penultimate opinion day, that Friday will be the last day for the term’s opinions.

The highest court in the land is set to conclude its nine-month term with a flurry of rulings. The justices (a 6-3 conservative majority) have six cases left to decide of those in which they heard oral arguments in the current term (which began in October). These don’t include rulings that could drop at any time on the court’s so-called shadow docket, where the justices make relatively quick decisions on emergency applications.

The cases to be decided range on such issues as voting rights, religious rights and health care. But the one that has attracted the most attention is the birthright citizenship dispute, which focuses not on the lawfulness of the proposal itself but whether federal judges had the power to block it nationwide while litigation continues.

According to NBC News, what the court says about so-called nationwide injunctions could have wide-ranging impacts, with judges frequently ruling against Trump on his broad use of executive power. The court also has the option of side-stepping a decision on that issue and instead taking up the merits of the plan. Birthright citizenship is conferred under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Before they wrap up, they’ll also tackle whether conservative religious parents can opt their elementary school-age children out of LGBTQ-themed books in class, a law enacted in Texas that imposes age-restrictions for using adult websites and a challenge to the Affordable Care Act's preventive care task force. The justices typically break for the summer and return for a new term in October, although they will still likely have to continue acting on cases that reach them on an emergency basis. And such “emergency cases” have been reaching the court with increasing frequency during Trump’s second term.

Consumer Confidence Is Worsening

And America’s top consumer-sentiment economist says she’s worried

U.S. consumer confidence slipped in June, reversing an improvement in May, according to the Conference Board, a research organization that does a monthly survey. The Conference Board’s consumer-confidence index fell to 93, from 98.4 in May. The fall was a surprise to analysts polled by the Wall Street Journal, who were expecting the index to improve to 99.5.

Instead, consumers remained nervous about tariffs even after the White House took steps to de-escalate the trade war it kicked off in earnest in April. Consumers also turned more pessimistic about future business conditions. In June, 16.7% said they expect business conditions to improve in six months, down from 19.9% in May.

American shoppers feel so bad, in fact, that Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment was stuck at one of its worst readings on record for two months this spring after plunging 29% in the first four months of 2025. Over the 79 years of the survey, a drop this large this fast has almost always predicted a recession. “When all the signals are pointing the same way, I think we need to take the consumer seriously,” Joanne Hsu, the director of the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers, tells Bloomberg. “It’s just really dangerous to overlook.”

RFK Jr. Vaccine Panel’s Rocky Debut

The CDC advisory committee voted for RSV antibodies for infants and against certain flu shots

The first meeting of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s handpicked vaccine advisory board on Wednesday featured plenty of anti-vaccine talking points—and Axios reports that its proceedings didn't exactly stick to the script. And on Thursday, they started making recommendations.

The panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines voted to no longer recommend annual flu shots that contain the preservative thimerosal. The move gives credence to the long debunked theory that the ingredient—which has been used in vaccines for nearly a century—is linked to neurodevelopmental problems. Medical experts said the decision also represents a jarring departure from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices history of making decisions based on strong scientific data. But they did recommend Merck's new RSV antibody shot for infants younger than eight months old in their first respiratory virus season, if their mother didn’t receive a vaccine during pregnancy. The discussion did reflect skepticism, however, from some committee members about recently FDA-approved vaccine safety and administering shots to infants.

Also on Thursday, RFK Jr. announced the U.S will halt its contributions to Gavi, the global alliance that works to expand access to vaccines for children in some of the world’s poorest countries. Gavi is a partnership between public bodies and the private sector that has immunized more than one billion children since 2000. The Guardian reports that several health experts have gone on record, saying that RFK Jr. will be “personally responsible” for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children.

Fitness Trackers vs. Mental Health

Obsessing over your fitness tracker might make you feel awful

Are you counting your steps? Did you get that stand notification? How’d you sleep last night? Products like the Oura Ring, the Whoop band, the Apple Watch, and a growing variety of continuous glucose monitors promise to track things like your heart rate, body temperature, and metabolic health metrics, while their companion apps crunch that data into actionable advice about how to live your life. But is all that data, on the daily, helpful or hurting your progress?

Vox writer Adam Clark Estes says, at the very least, it can ruin your understanding of healthy living, since too much information can steer your brain toward assuming the worst. “Looking at the readouts from these fitness tracking apps sent me down dark holes of Googling symptoms and self-diagnosing conditions that my doctor assured me I did not have. But, I reasoned, he did not have all of the data that the health tracker collected, so he could be wrong, and AI, which is increasingly embedded in this tech, is very good at diagnosing things.”

Some health researchers are now warning that a dependence on wearable technology can cause anxiety. In research published last year, The Journal of American Heart Association found that people who used wearable technology to monitor the heart condition atrial fibrillation, began showing signs of anxious behavior such as “obsessive symptom monitoring.” In several studies, researchers found that Strava users recognize the app’s ability to motivate them into action and connect them to other exercisers. But they said the app’s use brings on anxiety about their performance after the fact. I guess, we should treat these gadgets and data a little like fried food—it can be very good, but you should always consume it in moderation.

A Weekend Pairing

‘The Bear’ + a Chicago-Roasted Coffee

A reminder from one of the greats.