Best Campfire Starter

Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis played it relatively safe when they floated outside of their Crew Dragon spacecraft just before 7:00 a.m. E. D. T. today, becoming the first nongovernmental astronauts to perform an extravehicular activity (EVA), better known as a spacewalk. But they knew the risk they were taking. In 1965, the Soviet Union’s Alexei Leonov could barely fit back into his capsule due to an overinflated suit when he performed history’s first EVA.

This article is part of The D. C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. If you read the coverage—and campaign finance toplines—you might think Kamala Harris has rocketed to a commanding position against Donald Trump. Even before drawing unmatched positive reviews for her debate performance, her public favorability numbers had jumped by almost 20 points since her low point in January and 10 points from Democrats’ summer nadir.

mdash; A state judge struck down North Dakota’s ban on abortion Thursday, saying that the state constitution creates a fundamental right to access abortion before a fetus is viable. In his ruling, state District Judge Bruce Romanick also said that the law violates the state constitution because it is too vague. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Under the judge’s order, abortion would be legal in North Dakota, but the state currently has no clinics performing them, and the Republican-dominated state government would be expected to appeal the ruling. The state’s only abortion provider had been the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, but it moved a few miles to Moorehead, Minnesota, in 2022, after the U.

In a fascinating experiment, researchers from Stanford and the University of Toronto examined how we try to persuade other people to change their minds. It involved roughly 200 people—half of whom identified themselves as politically liberal and half as conservative. The liberals were asked to write a few sentences to convince conservatives to support same-sex marriage.

This post contains spoilers for The Rings of Power through Season 2, Episode 5. J. R. R. Tolkien’s stories are filled with mystical forces. But the rules of how magic operates in Middle-earth were always left a little vague. Tolkien often employed soft magic, a system that leaves the mysticism vague (if awe-inspiring), on purpose.

The UFC will hold, on September 14, the first-ever live sporting event at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Thanks to Tom Brady. When U2 opened up the Sphere, the world’s largest spherical structure with a 160,000-sq.-ft. LED screen that wraps around the interior, last September with a concert residency, Brady called UFC CEO and president Dana White to ask if he wanted to join him at a show.