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2.5 million
“President Donald Trump’s speech on the opening night of the Republican midterm convention ?drew about 2.5 million viewers on Fox News, ?according to Nielsen data, potentially undercutting his claim the event ‘beat the NFL’ opening night,” Reuters reports. “Ratings for the game are not yet available, but the ?NFL averaged ?about 18 million viewers per ?game last season, and last year’s opener drew close to 28 million.”
50%
A new Annenberg Public Policy Center poll finds 50% of Americans say they are somewhat or very confident that Dr. Anthony Fauci provided the public with trustworthy information about matters concerning public health, a statistically significant decline of 5 percentage points since April 2026. By comparison, just 38% of Americans in August 2026 say they are confident that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the secretary of health and human services, is providing trustworthy information about public health.
$100 billion
“The war in Iran has now cost U.S. consumers $100 billion in higher energy prices, and the bill is rising another $1 million about every two minutes, per a real-time estimate from Brown University as of Monday morning,” Axios reports. “Energy inflation shows up across the entire economy, and the recent surge in diesel prices in particular threatens to have a dramatic impact on freight and travel in the weeks and months to come.”
36%, 27%
A new Economist/YouGov poll finds the president’s approval at 36%, while 60% disapprove. Key takeaway: Just 27% of adults aged 30 to 44 approved of Trump’s job performance, while 70% disapproved.
8 points
A new University of Massachusetts Amherst poll finds Democrats leading Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, 42% to 34%.
50,000
“ICE officers and agents arrested roughly 50,000 people in August,” NBC News reports. “That number is on par with July’s number, which was the highest single monthly arrest total during the second Trump administration.”
67%
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that 63% of Americans said they opposed renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, compared to just 14% in favor.
200,000
“The Trump administration is planning what may be the largest mass visa revocation in U.S. history, targeting up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for asylum status,” the Wall Street Journal reports.“The government is looking to take away business and tourism visas from immigrants who officials say came to the U.S. for a short-term visit and then filed for asylum.”
35%
In the July 2026 snapshot, signs of AI authorship can be found in over one-third of pages published after ChatGPT was released, according to Pew Research. This is in line with other studies that have shown that large shares of recently published pages on the internet were likely written or substantially edited by AI.
