President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday that calls for shrinking the childhood vaccine schedule from shots covering 18 diseases, down to just 11. And it’s being called the biggest attempted rewrite of American immunization guidance in decades, built on claims that science has repeatedly disproven.

The order recommends splitting the MMR shot into three separate injections and spacing immunizations across separate visits “where feasible”. Flu, COVID-19, rotavirus, hepatitis A and B and meningococcal shots get downgraded to shared clinical decision-making or high-risk-only status, though CBS News and The Guardian describe those categories differently, and the final classification for each vaccine isn’t yet clear.

So what happens now? Well, HHS has 90 days to reassess sequencing and timing. The attorney general is directed to challenge state laws that conflict. Trump repeatedly invoked autism at the signing, saying vaccines explain “epidemic rates” of diagnoses. But they don't. Dozens of studies have found no link, including a well-regarded 2019 Danish study that followed more than 657,000 children.

The practical effect, at least for now, is narrower than the rhetoric. The order only recommends; states still set school requirements. And standalone measles, mumps and rubella vaccines haven’t been manufactured in the United States since 2009, so actually the three-shot MMR plan has no product behind it. Still, the American Academy of Pediatrics called the move “disheartening” and “dangerous,” landing as measles cases hit a 35-year high. Bill Cassidy, the Republican senator and physician who chairs the Senate health committee, called it “wrong.”

The open question is money. If a vaccine drops off the recommended schedule, insurers may stop covering it, but that’s currently backed only by an unnamed White House official saying “we assume” coverage holds. Assume is doing a lot of work there.

You probably noticed, but last month was hot as hell. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed on Monday, announcing that the United States sweltered through its hottest July ever recorded.

Officially, the NOAA reported that July 2026 broke the record for the hottest month ever recorded in the contiguous United States, averaging 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit across the Lower 48 — about 3.3 degrees above the 20th-century average and an eighth of a degree above the Dust Bowl mark set in July 1936. Records go back to 1895, spanning 132 years. What’s more, every Lower 48 state ran at least 1 degree above the 20th-century average; 13 states had one of their five warmest Julys, and Wyoming set its all-time monthly record at 5.1 degrees above normal.

The biggest driver was nighttime lows, which beat the old record for hottest minimums by 0.7 degrees. And this is what scientists call a signature of human-caused warming, and what raises heat-related deaths and sleep loss. Three heat domes, roughly 40% of the country in drought and several wildfires also didn’t help.

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Is it because of Instagram? Or all those travel shows? Because American travel has transformed in recent decades. The Wall Street Journal puts it like this: “A nation of former homebodies has become one of zealous and moneyed international travelers, infiltrating every cobblestoned corner of Europe and rapidly filling lesser-known destinations.”

If it feels like everyone’s posting from exotic and picturesque locales, you’re not imagining it. Americans took a record 24 million trips to Europe in 2025. Portugal received nearly five times the number of U.S. visitors last year as it did a decade earlier. Greece took in four times as many. But it’s not just young people and influencers. A supercharged economy has “created a larger and wealthier class of Americans that views travel as an essential rather than a luxury.” Older Americans are driving this new era of travel, and now hold about $110 trillion in wealth.

And here’s an interesting fact: In 1990, fewer than 5% of Americans had a passport. Now, more than 50% do, aided in part by a mandate requiring passports for travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean that took effect in 2007 and a post-pandemic travel rush. The U.S. issued a record 27 million passports in fiscal 2025.