Politics  

Blue State, Red Tape

What’s going on: President Donald Trump hasn’t been shy about butting heads with Democratic-led states. But, in lieu of sending troops, administration officials are trying another strategy: withholding federal funds in the name of suspected fraud. And it looks like California is a prime target. On Tuesday, Health and Human Services (HHS) head RFK Jr. froze more than $1 billion in Medicaid funding to California and Minnesota, saying they need to "provide documentation that these payments are legitimate." The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is pushing the Golden State to turn over its voter rolls, with DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin threatening fines and prison if state election officials don’t comply. To which Governor Gavin Newsom responded, “try us.” Meanwhile, federal agencies confirmed they screened University of California research grants to weed out those that used keywords like "diversity" and "vaccines," denying nearly $2 billion in funding.

The fraud of it all: This is far from the first time a presidential administration has used public funding as leverage to pressure a state to comply with its political vision. These recent moves indicate the playbook that the Trump administration will likely continue to lead with, and it’s invoking fraud on everything from SNAP disbursements to Medicaid to voting –– which is encouraging public mistrust in election results just months ahead of the midterms. California is pushing back, but it’s not just Trump they’re fighting: It’s the agencies that he oversees, and a Supreme Court that has a track record of ruling in favor of his agenda.

Related: About 400 Noncitizens Voted in New Jersey After Being Improperly Registered (The New York Times gift link)

Doesn’t Make Cents

New Technology, Same Old Story

What's going on: Can’t get a job? The reason may actually not be AI. New data from the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and ADP Research shows that gender differences in entry-level employment exist no matter the field you’re in. The latest update to the years-long Canaries Dashboard, which tracks 4.6 million workers, found that young women are seeing slower employment growth than young men. This gap is almost the same across industries. As Fortune puts it, it would be easy to “assume AI is the story” due to, you know, everything, but the data shows it’s not.

The pay gap persists: Not only that, but the gender pay gap has actually worsened in recent years. Women employed full-time earned 81 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2024 (the most recent year for which data is available), down from a high of 84 cents in 2022, according to Census Bureau data. The disparity is even greater for Black, Latina, and Native women. 2024 was also the first time the pay gap had widened two years in a row since the 1960s, thanks in part to hiring in higher-paid, male-dominated fields post-pandemic. As if this news wasn’t bad enough, a different poll from Glassdoor, also released this week, shows that women feel more pressure to accept lower-paid jobs after a layoff than men do. As Deborah Vagins, former director of Equal Pay Today, told NPR earlier this year, “We are reversing decades of hard won progress.” 

Related: Men Are Getting Raises Using This Renegotiation Tactic (US News & World Report)

Scam Season 

The Grift Within the Grift: Wellness Edition

What's going on: We all know that deflating feeling — an influencer on TikTok captivates us for a full minute and a half with a silver-bullet cure for a good night’s sleep, and then we realize it’s a supplement ad (hello, magnesium, my old friend). The only thing that could make it worse? When the influencer isn’t even real. Wellness companies have discovered they can create pretty convincing-looking AI-generated influencers to sell supplements that “fight” everything from fatigue to autoimmune diseases (pretty easy to cure someone who isn't real, we guess). Worse, some companies use the likeness of actual doctors and prominent media figures, like Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to sell scammy products. Some of the supplements sold by AI figures have even made people sick with salmonella, as a New York Times investigation found. Others just make your pee more expensive. 

Scrambled scam: The Kardashians and SugarBear hair care walked so this cursed trend could run. The supplement industry in the US is already loosely regulated, but these new AI gambits add insult to injury — sometimes literally — by targeting people with health issues and giving them false hope that a pretty little pill can make them feel better. TikTok has tried to take such scammy ads down, but can’t seem to keep up, while Meta says it tries to label AI-generated content. But the bigger issue is that, while some existing consumer protection laws apply, there’s no federal law specifically addressing AI-generated people in advertising (Don Draper, you would have loved this). With that in mind, we have tips for spotting AI-generated ads. If only there were a supplement that could make us all more skeptical.  

Related: Sometimes You Just Gotta Troll the AI Doctor (USA Today)

Quick Hits

🤗 A new study into the behaviors of our animal ancestors found that this was an ancient survival tactic. A strategy worth embracing.

🚢 A piece of detailed Titanic history is up for auction and expected to earn around $47,000. (So, not the Heart of the Ocean then.)

🎬 Christopher Nolan banned this Y2K fashion staple from the set of The Odyssey after Anne Hathaway showed up wearing them. And no, it wasn’t the Chanel boots, but you’re close.

💈 People are saying Conan O’Brien’s new hair “feels illegal” — but don’t worry, it’s still red.

👖 We’ve reached peak “Big Jort” — how in the Dad Jeans did we get here?

🪐 It’s not just you, this may have been the worst Mercury retrograde ever. Physically, we’re present. Astrologically, we’re not.

We’re Still Celebrating

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We're Still Celebrating

Forget birthdays; we’re into birthweeks. So in order to properly celebrate theSkimm’s 14th birthday, we’ve got more exclusive discount codes and we’re dishing them out daily. Check out:

• 25% off Leaves of Leisure’s Sun Soaked Tea with code SKIMM25

• 20% off at Material with code SKIMMBDAY20 (we love this cutting board)

• 25% off sitewide at Crocs with code SKIMMCROCS

• 20% off sitewide at Dieux with code SKIMM20 (excluding bundles)

• Discounts on Ulike’s Air 10 and Air 10 Deluxe with code BWSALE

All of the reporting featured in today’s Daily Skimm was written, edited, and fact-checked as of 6 am ET. 

Skimm'd by: Marisa Iallonardo, Molly Longman, Aryanna Prasad Bhullar, Erika W. Smith, Kate Preziosi, Jessica Prois, and Marina Carver. Fact-checked by Sara Tardiff.