Many young people are more willing than their parents to share personal data, giving companies deeper insight into their lives.

Why it matters: Selling data is becoming the new selling plasma.

Case in point: Generation Lab, a youth polling company, is launching a new product, Verb.AI, today — betting that buying this data is the future of polling.

• "We think corporations have extracted user data without fairly compensating people for their own data," says Cyrus Beschloss, CEO of Generation Lab. "We think users should know exactly what data they're giving us and should feel good about what they're receiving in return."

How it works: Generation Lab offers people cash — $50 or more per month, depending on use and other factors — to download a tracker onto their phones.

• The product takes about 90 seconds to download, and once it’s on your phone, it tracks things like what you browse, what you buy, which streaming apps you use — all anonymously. There are also things it doesn't track, like activity on your bank account.
• Verb then uses that data to create a digital twin of you that lives in a central database and knows your preferences.

Say a political advocacy group wants to know where women under 30 get their news, they can use Verb to query one or all the twins who fit that demographic in an interface that feels like ChatGPT.

• If a venture capital firm wants to figure out which apps are trending among young people, they can ask.

The intrigue: Generation Lab says this method of polling will give companies, nonprofits, and news organizations more accurate information about how young people really think by tracking their behavior instead of asking them about it.

• "For decades, market research has been the equivalent of a doctor asking a patient to describe their symptoms. VERB is an MRI machine," Generation Lab's pitch deck says.
• The polling company is aiming to get to 5,000 users of the tracker by the end of September.

Between the lines: Many younger Americans consider sharing data the tradeoff for being online. They're already giving away their data for free, and are even more willing to share it for cash.

• 88% of Gen Z is open to sharing personal information with social media companies, 20 points higher than older generations, eMarketer notes.
• 33% of Gen Z agrees or strongly agrees with the statement “I don’t mind being tracked by websites or apps,” compared with 22% of older adults, according to a 2023 survey from the cybersecurity company Malwarebytes.
• Gen Z-ers and millennials are also more likely to expect incentives or rewards for sharing data — whether that's money or a personalized social media algorithm, a 2022 Euromonitor International study found.

Reality check: Despite their relative comfort with sharing data, Gen Z-ers and millennials are also likelier to pay for increased security or delete data after they're done using a service, McKinsey notes.

Christianity is starting to make a comeback in the U.S. and other western countries, led by young people.

Why it matters: A decades-long decline has stalled, shaping the future of Gen Z, the drivers of the religion revival.

• “We’ve seen the plateau of non-religion in America,” says Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University. “Gen Z is not that much less religious than their parents, and that’s a big deal.”

By the numbers: Data from Pew shows that, for decades, each age group has been less Christian than the one before it.

• Americans born in the 1970s are 63% Christian. 1980s babies are 53% Christian, and 1990s babies are 46% Christian.
• But there was no decline from the 1990s to the 2000s. Americans born in the 2000s are also 46% Christian.

Stunning stat: Gen Z-ers — especially Gen Z men — are actually more likely to attend weekly religious services than millennials and even some younger Gen X-ers, Burge’s analysis shows.

Between the lines: Young men are leading American’s religion resurgence.

• Within older generations, there’s a consistent gender gap among Christians, with women more likely to be religious than men.
• Within Gen Z, the gap has closed, as young men join the church and young women leave it. If the current trajectory sticks, the gender gap will flip.

Zoom in: Many young people have turned to religion to find community and connection after the isolating years of the pandemic, which hit Gen Z harder than most.

• In some ways, this trend mirrors men's shift to the political right. "Religion is coded right, and coded more traditionalist" for young people, Derek Rishmawy, who leads a ministry at UC Irvine, told The New York Times.
• Plus, for some young men, Christianity is seen as "one institution that isn't initially and formally skeptical of them as a class," Rishmawy told the Times.

Zoom out: The resurgence is global.

• “In France, the Catholic Church has baptized more than 17,000 people, the highest yearly number of entrants in over 20 years,” New York Times columnist David Brooks writes.
• The share of British people between 18 to 24 who attend church at least monthly jumped from 4% in 2018 to 16% today, including 21% gain among young men, according to research from the Bible Society.

What to watch: The deepening gender divide within America's religion revival could have broader consequences for young people, Burge says.

• "People like to marry people like them, and women are increasingly liberal and increasingly non-religious, while men are the opposite of them," says Burge. "Partnering is going to be a problem."

Heads of state and royalty were among the 250,000 people gathered in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for Pope Francis' funeral Saturday morning.

The big picture: Attendees included the Trumps, the Bidens, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Prince William.

• They joined tens of thousands of ordinary people, including many young people, from all over the world.

The intrigue: The White House said President Trump had a "very productive discussion" with Zelensky on the sidelines of the funeral service, Axios' Barak Ravid reports. It was their first meeting since their Oval Office shouting match.

The Trumps sat in the front row at the open-air mass. The Bidens were four rows behind them, The Washington Post reports.

Zoom in: Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, delivered a spirited and highly personal sermon, AP reports.

• He spoke of Francis as a pope of the people who knew how to communicate to the "least among us" with a conversational style.

After the service concluded, a motorcade took Pope Francis's body through Rome to the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica where he will be laid to rest.

• People lined the streets to applaud and bid a final farewell.

Influencers have typically thrived during shaky times, from the pandemic recession to sky-high inflation. But something is shifting.

Why it matters: The backlash against this industry — built on selling aspirational lifestyles — is gaining new momentum as economic uncertainty spikes.

Zoom in: Consumer confidence is plunging and the cracks are showing.

• TikTok and Instagram users are pushing back against influencers in their comment sections — calling them out for flaunting wealth while many of their followers struggle to pay rent or afford groceries.

By the numbers: The global influencer economy is worth more than $250 billion and encompasses some 50 million creators around the world, Goldman Sachs estimates.

• 90% of them make less than $50,000 a year from influencing, The Washington Post reports. But the top creators with the most Instagram and TikTok followers can earn tens of thousands of dollars for a single post.
• They also get piles of free stuff from brands, from makeup to household appliances to designer purses.

Case in point: Adelaine Morin, a creator with 1.1 million followers, posted a TikTok detailing her $1,000 dinner at Nobu on the Coachella festival grounds. The top comment reads, “Would I ever? Girl I can barely afford rent.”

• In another recent TikTok, Mei Leung, a New York City influencer with half a million followers, tells her audience she spends $2,000 on caviar every week. Some commenters are defending her, while others are saying, “Skip caviar next week and pay my rent,” or “Thanks for teaching us peasants.”

What's next: Influencers might have to rethink what they're posting if the rebellion in the comments continues. “They want to relate to their audience, otherwise they’re going to lose their audience," says Dave Yovanno, CEO of Impact.com, a marketing company that works with brands and creators.

• "They’re shifting a lot of their content toward value. It’s 'where you can get a deal on something,' or 'how you can be a bit more budget conscious,'" he says. “You’ll find creators producing content that they don’t usually produce, whether that’s parenting advice or cleaning tips."
• Influencers who've already built up followings for posting money management and budget tips are getting even more views and likes, Bloomberg reports.
• On top of that, the creator industry itself could be hit if companies tighten marketing spend. Yovanno tells Axios he's seeing more brands move to performance-based payouts on influencers' posts instead of paying them flat fees.

The intrigue: Many influencers who have large followings today got their start at the beginning of the pandemic, when they and their audiences were stuck at home.

• "In 2020, we saw a lot more mundane influencer content," says Jaz Melody, a freelance social media consultant and creator herself. "It was people just kind of blogging their daily life, and it spoke to people feeling really lonely at the time and craving connection."
• "I think that might be coming back now," she says. "People are going to want an outlet that isn’t luxury."

Worth noting: The pandemic recession was unique — people had more time to scroll and stimulus checks to spend. A future downturn would be uncharted territory for today's creators.

The bottom line: Influencer marketing works because consumers trust creators more than brands — no matter the economy. They might just be switching up what they're selling.

Harvard's decision to push back against President Trump's pressure tactics shows other institutions targeted by his administration that there's an alternative to swift capitulation.

Why it matters: Harvard is an international brand with a $53 billion endowment — a rare institution with the resources and willpower to withstand an onslaught of funding cuts and investigations from the government.

The money quote: "Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions. ... Let's hope other institutions follow suit," former President Obama posted on X.

Zoom in: In the last few weeks, American institutions have steadily buckled under pressure from the Trump administration.

• Columbia ceded control of an academic department and expanded campus police powers to try to unfreeze federal funding. The University of Michigan shut down its expansive diversity, equity and inclusion program. Several Big Law firms offered nearly $1 billion in pro bono work to get on the administration’s good side.

But Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, rejected the administration’s demands tied to its federal funding, saying Harvard is committed to combating antisemitism but will not concede academic freedom.

• "No government—regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," he wrote.
• The Trump administration's Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism is freezing more than $2 billion in response.

Driving the news: Support for Harvard — and resistance to the Trump administration — is bubbling at other universities.

• 60 current and former university presidents co-signed an op-ed in Fortune backing Harvard.
• Stanford, which faces funding threats itself, came out in support of Harvard on Monday. "Harvard’s objections to the letter it received are rooted in the American tradition of liberty, a tradition essential to our country’s universities, and worth defending," Stanford’s president and provost told The Stanford Daily.
• So far, 950 Yale faculty members have signed a letter to Yale’s president and provost asking them to "resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance."
• Several universities — including Cornell, Brown, MIT and Michigan — are joining a lawsuit against the Department of Energy to challenge cuts to indirect costs or academic research.

The other side: The administration's allies are vowing to hold the line, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• "I think Harvard got bad advice to take a different approach," Rep. Elise Stefanik (R–N.Y.), a Harvard alum, told the Journal.
• "These are all fairly simple requests the administration is making to Harvard to follow the law," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), also a Harvard alum, said Wednesday morning on Fox.

The big picture: "If an institution was going to stand up to the Trump administration’s war on academia, Harvard would be at the top of the list," The N.Y. Times’ Elisabeth Bumiller writes.

• Last week, the university secured a $750 million loan from Wall Street to bolster its finances, The Washington Post notes.

What to watch: Several other institutions, like Cornell and Northwestern, have hundreds of millions of dollars of funding on the line.

• Their next moves will reveal whether Harvard's defiance was enough to set off a chain reaction.

Go deeper: American progress in peril

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional details.

Pockets of the U.S. economy — from landscaping to elder care to restaurants — depend on the labor of undocumented immigrants to stay afloat.

• But the vast shadow workforce extends beyond them. It includes legal immigrants with work restrictions, like students and asylum seekers.

Why it matters: Immigration crackdowns under the Trump administration are spreading fear — causing people to skip work, straining businesses, and leaving families without income.

The latest: Anxiety is rising among undocumented workers after the IRS agreed to share data with ICE, leaving many worried that paying taxes could now be used against them.

While President Trump's deportation drive is focused on undocumented immigrants, visa holders can also potentially be deported for working illegally.

• Short of that, they can be barred from returning to the U.S. once they leave or denied permanent residency.

By the numbers: There are more than 8 million unauthorized immigrants in the workforce, Pew estimates. And the true number of people working while bending the rules is likely higher than that.

• “We know that some people on legal, temporary visas work even when it is not permitted, such as people coming as tourists but working for ride share companies or student visa holders getting side jobs off campus as babysitters or in restaurants,” Julia Gelatt of the Migration Policy Institute tells Axios.
• One prominent example is Elon Musk, who has acknowledged he was in a legal "gray area" when he started a company while in the U.S. on a student visa.

Zoom in: Foreign students have a range of limitations on when and where they can work. But they often find jobs to cover high tuition costs.

• Jobs on campus — which are allowed — pay minimum wage or close to it, and there are limits on how many hours per week students can work, an Asian international graduate student at a Boston area university tells Axios. "That wouldn't even cover rent and groceries, let alone tuition."
• Asylum seekers, who must wait at least six months for a work permit, frequently work under the table to make ends meet.
• Temporary workers also often supplement their primary employment with informal gigs.

Now they're weighing whether it’s safe to show up to work.

The stakes: The industries that rely on this shadow workforce include construction, agriculture, hospitality and retail.

• If those sectors lose workers, “American consumers are going to see higher prices,” says Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Between the lines: Many on the right argue it's high time to start enforcing these rules more rigorously.

• Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) told Axios he told one business association that was concerned about the economic implications of immigration raids: "'Don't hire illegals' should be your statement."
• The Trump administration says its crackdown will protect citizens' jobs and safety, though Trump floated creating a path for undocumented farm and hotel workers to work legally at a Cabinet meeting this week.

The uncertainty isn’t just keeping people away from work. It’s already slowing down economic activity in communities with large immigrant populations.

• “They’re not going out to eat at often, they’re not going shopping as often, they’re delaying medical care, and they’re delaying repairs on the car,” says Richard Gearhart, a labor economist at Cal State-Bakersfield.
• “I’m calling this a recessionary event if we really start to see large scale immigration enforcement.”

Worker advocates also worry that the heightened uncertainty could make it more difficult to enforce labor standards at work.

• Employers have more leverage over employees who are working without authorization and could use it to pay them less or deny them benefits, Campos-Medina says.

The bottom line: “These are people who have employers who depend on them and who are playing an important role in our economy,” Gelatt says. “And they could be leaving the workforce in huge numbers.”

Young people are starkly divided by who they vote for, what they do for fun and where they get their news and information, according to new Axios-Generation Lab polling.

Why it matters: Gen Z and young millennials exemplify how social media, news and podcasts have fragmented America into competing realities.

Zoom in: Their favorite podcasts cover a vast range from comedy to true crime to daily news.

• But patterns — and partisan splits — emerge when honing in on the audiences of MAGA and MAGA-adjacent media stars like Charlie Kirk and Joe Rogan, according to the poll of 18- to 34-year-olds nationwide.

By the numbers: 27% of young people who voted for President Trump say they listen to "The Joe Rogan Experience" at least once a month, compared with 6% who cast their ballots for former Vice President Harris.

• 19% of Trump voters say the same about "The Charlie Kirk Show," and 18% tune into "The Ben Shapiro Show." Among Harris voters, it's 3% for each.

Podcasts from Barstool Sports, founded by Trump supporter Dave Portnoy, are the most popular among young people who voted for Trump.

• 34% of young Trump voters say they listened to a Barstool Sports podcast in the last month, compared with 9% of Harris supporters.

The intrigue: A few podcasts are roughly equally popular among Gen Zers on the right and left, including "The Daily" (13% of Harris voters and 14% of Trump voters), TED Talks Daily (17% of Harris voters and 23% of Trump voters) and "Call Her Daddy" (9% each).

Zoom out: There are divisions in what young Americans on the right vs. left do for fun, too.

• 44% of Harris supporters say they love going to concerts vs. 28% of Trump supporters.
• 42% of Trump voters are avid sports fans vs. 26% of Harris voters.
• Both sides are equally plugged into politics and current events (28%, Harris voters; 26%, Trump voters).

Methodology: This poll was conducted Feb. 21-28 from a representative sample of 972 18- to 34-year-olds nationwide. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points.

In one 48-minute speech, President Trump scrambled every American's budget, every U.S. company's balance sheet and every global alliance.

• Tariffs, a sometimes obscure economic tool, have massive power, especially when enacted this expansively.

Why it matters: Think fundamental re-ordering of the economy. Americans are staring down a disruption to their standard of living. Companies are about to find out how bad bad can get. The ripple effects may be felt for years to come.

Zoom out: Trump is right that plenty of countries engage in unfair trade practices, and that globalization has hollowed out key parts of America's industrial base, Axios' Zachary Basu reports.

• But this historic tariff barrage isn't about targeted leverage or negotiated fixes. It's about unwinding decades of perceived injustices through blunt force — even against uninhabited islands and impoverished enclaves, incapable of "victimizing" the U.S.
• Trump believes the American people share his grievances, and he's willing to radically remake the global economic order, no matter the cost.

Reality check: That cost will likely be steep.

• Trump is inviting American factories to rise up and fill the demand for goods that consumers and companies get from other countries — but factories can't do that overnight, if at all.
• One big reason the U.S. has trade deficits is that we spent decades becoming a services economy, with the economic might to make our goods more cheaply elsewhere and buy lots of them.
• In the 1970s, a quarter of Americans worked in manufacturing. Now, less than 10% do. Recruiting and training a manufacturing workforce will take time and money.

Case in point: While America has existing infrastructure for some types of manufacturing, like cars, it's not that simple for every product. The U.S. has lost the ability to make some things as its economy has transitioned away from manufacturing.

• "Things like magnets, which are really critical for batteries and other core electronic technologies. We've really lost the capacity to build in the U.S.," Ben Armstrong at MIT's Industrial Performance Center told Marketplace.
• Bringing that back takes years, plus big investments from the government and companies.

The stakes: That means, at least in the short-term, everything from clothes to coffee to iPhones to wine will likely get more expensive.

• Companies are expecting to take a hit, and asking themselves whether they can afford to absorb increased costs, or if they have to pass them along to a potentially unwilling consumer.
• The latest jobs report was solid, but there are plenty of dark economic clouds, and Wall Street says recession odds are rising quickly.

What to watch: Whether the Trump administration does anything to offset the pain.

• Tariffs will bring in some money themselves (the administration says up to $600 billion a year, which would cover about a third of the U.S. budget deficit).
• There's been speculation he could bail out farmers, as he did during his first term.
• And Trump still wants to cut taxes —  not just extending his 2017 cuts, but new reductions on things like overtime and tips.

But Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said Friday that bigger-than-expected tariffs will translate into higher inflation and slower economic growth — and that the higher inflation could be persistent, not temporary, Axios' Neil Irwin reports.

• He didn't use the dreaded s-word — stagflation — but it's the thing economists fear most on the horizon.

The U.S. is freezing research funding, canceling projects, firing thousands of federal scientists and creating an atmosphere of uncertainty that scientists warn could slam the brakes on progress.

Why it matters: America has enjoyed decades of dominance in science and technology — plus the economic boom, medical advancements and global influence that come with it.

• Now, as the U.S.'s global lead is contested and competition for the world's top talent gets stiffer, the Trump administration is disrupting the system that has propelled the country.

"There are some immediate effects. People will be laid off, talent will go elsewhere, some research groups will shut down," says Chris Impey, an astronomer at the University of Arizona.

• "But over the years it will have a profoundly negative impact. You're creating an opportunity for other countries to happily start moving in, poaching our talent and riding the escalator of scientific progress."

Stunning stat: 40% of U.S.-affiliated Nobel Prize winners in the sciences — physics, chemistry and medicine — between 2000 and 2023 were immigrants.

• Funding resources, top-notch universities, research freedom and a diverse culture that supports innovation are among the factors that have made the U.S. a global magnet for scientists.

Zoom in: Some of those factors are in flux.

• For example, in 2022, the NIH spent 25 times more on grants for health research than the next largest funder, a U.K. charity, according to Nature. But NIH funding has dropped by more than $3 billion since Inauguration Day, compared to the same period last year, as the Trump administration cancels research programs and halts funding, the Washington Post reports.
• Some universities are accepting fewer graduate students amid funding uncertainty, and some professors are performing their own risk calculus to be sure they can support students.
• Changes at the Department of Health and Human Services, including the centralization of peer review for grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, are raising concerns about political interference in federal science-funding decisions.

The stakes: The U.S. could see a two-fold brain drain: fewer foreign scientists coming to America, and American talent heading to other countries.

• Three-quarters of the 1,600 scientists surveyed in a new poll from Nature said they are considering leaving the U.S. due to the disruptions to science caused by the Trump administration's early actions.
• "The developments in the U.S. are a huge opportunity for Germany and Europe. I know that a lot of people are considering leaving." Ulrike Malmendier, a German economist who is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told Germany's Funke media group.
• France's Aix Marseille University has earmarked millions of dollars to hire U.S. scientists. Université Paris Sciences et Lettres wants to recruit U.S. researchers who work in projects in areas targeted for cuts by the Trump administration, including climate science and gender studies, the N.Y. Times reports.
• The upheaval has also been an opportunity for China and Russia: Both are allegedly trying to recruit former federal scientists.

The other side: White House and DOGE officials argue changes to the system will boost research, not stifle it. For example, they say funding switch-ups, like cutting the dollars NIH provides institutions for overhead costs, will free more funds for science.

• But universities say these administrative costs are a critical piece of conducting research.
• "The Trump Administration is committed to achieving and maintaining unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance," a White House official said.
• "We need fresh approaches to redefine how discovery happens in America to ensure our ecosystem draws talent, celebrates merit, and enables our scientists to focus on meaningful work."

The big picture: Years before the funding freezes and firings, there were indications the U.S. lead in science was shrinking — while China was advancing in AI, biotech, space and other fields.

• The U.S. share of global R&D spending decreased while total spending grew.
• The number of international patents filed from inventors in China surpassed applications from the U.S. in 2021.
• In 2019, China for the first time awarded more doctorate degrees in science and engineering than the U.S.

What to watch: Scientists, CEOs, university leaders and policymakers earlier this year called for updating the U.S. scientific enterprise to compete in the 21st century.

• Recommendations from that group and others include immigration reform, changes in tax credit and code that could spur private sector R&D, reducing the administrative burden on scientists, and increased investment in AI, biotech and other fields.

President Trump has also tasked the newly confirmed head of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael Kratsios, with revitalizing America's science and technology enterprise, referring to a similar task FDR gave to his science adviser, Vannevar Bush.

• Bush advocated for federal investment in basic science, which led to the creation of the National Science Foundation and established the government pillar of the very scientific system that is currently in turmoil.

The Trump administration's attacks on universities have come swiftly and forcefully: grants slashed, thousands of jobs cut and anxiety through the roof.

Why it matters: Universities produce a great deal of the scientific and technological research that drives America forward.

• Professors and administrators fear that the Trump administration's blunt approach — hitting the brakes on funding to target what it sees as longstanding culture problems on campuses — will set innovation back decades.

The money quote: "The United States is home to the best collection of research universities in the world. Those universities have contributed tremendously to America's prosperity, health, and security. They are magnets for outstanding talent from throughout the country and around the world," Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber wrote in the Atlantic this week.

• "The Trump administration's recent attack on Columbia University puts all of that at risk."

Driving the news: The Trump administration is pulling multiple levers to squeeze universities. Institutions across the country are watching the administration's moves closely — and wondering if they'll be the next one in the spotlight.

• President Trump's Department of Education is investigating dozens of colleges over their response to pro-Palestinian campus protests, their policies regarding trans athletes, DEI initiatives and more. Columbia and UPenn have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over these issues. (UPenn says it hasn't received official notice of any cuts.)
• Johns Hopkins, the largest recipient of federal research funding, cut 2,200 jobs and lost $800 million in USAID grants when that agency was gutted.
• Changes to National Institutes of Health policies — which have been temporarily blocked by the courts — are poised to hit research programs at dozens of other schools.

Between the lines: The problems the Trump administration says it's trying to solve on campuses are typically related to student life, athletics or coursework in the humanities. But its moves are largely targeting the cutting-edge scientific and medical research that goes on at these institutions.

• "It feels like a blunt force spectacle and a punishment that’s going to have all these broader effects," says Meghan O’Rourke, an English professor at Yale who recently wrote an op-ed in The New York Times on the cuts.

"It will impact cancer research, it will impact maternal health centers, it will cause lots of people to lose their jobs in communities where universities prop up local economies," she says.

• "It's certainly not taking a scalpel to what they perceive as woke excesses."

The stakes: Funding pauses — and the fear of what's coming — is already roiling research and recruitment, Axios' Tina Reed reports.

• The termination of more than 400 NIH grants to Columbia will directly impact Alzheimer's and cancer research, Notus reported. It also likely tanked a landmark 30-year diabetes prevention study, according to Stat. Also canceled: one study looking at reducing maternal mortality in New York and another on treatments for long COVID, The New York Times reports.
• UMass' medical school rescinded offers to biomedical sciences Ph.D. students, and Stanford, Harvard and the University of California system have announced hiring freezes. Duke's medical school is shelving its expansion plans and preparing to admit fewer Ph.D. students.
• Several scientists researching cancer, infectious diseases and more tell Nature they're contemplating leaving America.
• Humanities are being hit too, including via cuts to federally funded programs at university libraries, Inside Higher Ed notes.

"In the face of uncertainty about exactly what funding will be available, institutions are grappling with, 'What choices do we have?'" says Elena Fuentes-Afflick, chief scientific officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges.

• "For decades, American prominence on the world stage in scientific research has been possible because of NIH funding," she says. "The disruption interrupts the ability to make discoveries, to make impactful findings."
• Plus, trouble in academia has implications for companies, which rely on the pipeline of scientists and technologists coming out of universities.

What to watch: The next step for universities who've lost money is to negotiate with the Trump administration.

• Up first is Columbia, which has until Friday to agree to nine far-reaching demands to get its funding back, The Wall Street Journal reports. The asks include reforming its admissions process, empowering campus police, and putting its Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department under "academic receivership," meaning it would be outside of faculty control.
• Columbia's response could set new standards for how much pressure the government can exert on universities over how they're run and what they can teach. "It is really a red line for the independence of universities," Joseph Howley, a classics professor at Columbia, told the Journal.

One of the biggest forces that contributed to President Trump's defeat in 2020 also helped propel him to the White House in 2024.

Why it matters: The pandemic pushed voters — from young men to suburban parents — to the right, fueling Trump's decisive victory and raising questions about Democrats' ability to hold onto once-reliable blocs.

Catch up quick: Covid was a top issue in 2020 exit polls, with 52% of voters saying controlling the virus itself was more important than rebuilding the post-pandemic economy.

• That mindset shifted over the next four years, as closed schools, inflation and isolation frustrated voters — and changed many of their votes.

"Younger voters are in the process of understanding who they are and what their values are, and that was disproportionately shaped by Covid," says John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. "It intensified economic anxiety and created this survivalist mindset."

• "Democrats helped create this vacuum, which was filled by Trump and Trump-aligned podcasters and influencers."

Case in point: In 2020, voters under 30 broke for Joe Biden by 24 points, but in 2020, Kamala Harris only won the youth vote by 4 points, The Atlantic reports.

And many parents in deep blue cities and towns flipped their politics after seeing the effect of school closures and Covid isolation on their kids.

• When schools shut down, "I was always deeply concerned that the tradeoff for children would be grave," says Natalya Murakhver, a Manhattan mom, who organized the parent-led lawsuit to fully reopen New York City schools. "You cannot stop growing up, and growing up entails the social relationships that can only be had in a physical space."
• Murakhver says she voted for Democrats her entire adult life, including for President Biden in 2020, but cast her ballot for Trump in 2024. For her, the turning point was when the Biden administration started walking back its pledge to reopen schools within its first 100 days.

Zoom out: Some experts saw this coming. Pandemics corrode citizens' faith in government — especially, and not surprisingly, among impressionable young people.

• Those who experience these events from the ages of 18 to 25 are more likely to develop a lasting lack of trust in political institutions and leaders, according to a study from the Systemic Risk Center at the London School of Economics.
• "You can think of epidemics as somewhat of a stress test for governments. Leaders have to respond fast and with the right policies," says Orkun Saka, the study's author. "There is almost no way to get it completely right. When you get it especially wrong, there is a deep scar in the eyes of the young generation."

The bottom line: Five years on, pandemic-era policies have ended, but the economic pain and divisions triggered by Covid linger and continue to influence politics.

• "I'm still a registered Democrat," Murakhver says. "But I feel party-less, which probably is a healthy place to be."

Most young Americans have been keeping up with Elon Musk’s DOGE — and it’s not too popular.

The big picture: 87% of 18- to 34-year-olds say they’ve heard a lot or a little about DOGE. And 71% say they strongly or somewhat disapprove of the agency’s work so far, according to a new Axios-Generation Lab youth poll.

• 69% strongly or somewhat disapprove of President Trump’s job performance.

Between the lines: The overall numbers show low approval for Trump and DOGE, but there's a partisan split. There's a great deal of support for both the president and the agency among young Republican respondents.

• 81% who say they're Republican strongly or somewhat approve of Trump, compared with just 10% of Democrats and 29% of Independents.
• 68% of young Republicans approve of DOGE’s work, compared with 9% of Democrats and 29% of Independents.

Methodology: This poll was conducted Feb. 21-28 from a representative sample of 972 18- to 34-year-olds nationwide. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points.

Colleges have been a conservative target for years. Under President Trump, it's total warfare on all aspects of higher education — from student life to hiring to athletics.

Why it matters: Universities are scrambling to steel themselves for an onslaught of investigations. Even if some cuts are undone by future administrations or some directives don't hold up in the courts, many colleges are rushing to make changes they won't be able to undo easily.

• "The federal government is coming for higher education," says Jeremy Young, the Freedom to Learn program director for PEN America. "And if you are one of America's 4,000 college presidents, and you stick your neck out, it's going to get cut off."

Driving the news: In a letter to schools last month, the Education Department said they could lose funding if they have policies related to race and diversity. And though the letter doesn't have the force of law, many institutions are acting quickly to comply — with moves big and small.

• Colorado State University is shifting employee roles, tweaking HR policies and scrubbing websites, Axios Denver's Alayna Alvarez reports.
• The University of Pennsylvania has edited websites — or removed them altogether, notes Axios Philadelphia's Mike D'Onofrio. Penn's medical school is looking at cutting programs that help diversify its student body, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
• The Ohio State University is shutting down two campus offices focused on DEI and cutting more than a dozen staff positions. It's renaming the Office of Institutional Equity to the Office of Civil Rights Compliance.
• Several colleges had already started cutting programs, shuttering cultural centers and changing up course catalogs even before Trump took office — either to prepare for the administration's changes, or in response to state-level action.

Zoom out: DEI is making headlines, but the chaos is wider.

• Stanford, MIT, Columbia and Vanderbilt are already freezing hiring or cutting back on the number of Ph.D. students they'll accept as they hear of DOGE's proposed cuts to federal medical research.
• Universities are also working to comply with the NCAA's new ban on trans athletes.
• Many are fielding investigations over former trans athletes that competed on their teams, or responses to pro-Palestinian protests on campus. And the Justice Department is sending an antisemitism task force to several campuses.

Changes are likely to last: "Once a college closes a DEI office, once it shuts down a research program, once it censors a syllabus, these things are not coming back," says Pen America's Young. "The political will is not there to bring them back on a college campus."

What to watch: Some colleges are waiting and seeing which policy changes stick.

• Drexel University is holding off on changes as it monitors the situation, Axios Philadelphia reports.
• Western Michigan University's president told his campus to "please process as usual."
• University of Colorado Boulder Chancellor Justin Schwartz said he'll "only change operations if and when we have to."

Two primary targets of President Trump's executive orders have been transgender Americans and undocumented immigrants, deepening a climate of fear for both groups.

The big picture: Life is already changing for members of both communities, in ways big and small — with bigger changes likely coming.

• "The messaging is, 'It's okay to discriminate against transgender people,'" says Corinne Goodwin, the executive director of the Eastern Pennsylvania Trans Equity Project. "The cruelty is the point."
• Meanwhile, the Trump administration's executive orders and rhetoric on immigration are also stoking fear, by design, among people in the country illegally. Rumors of ICE raids have sparked panic in cities around the country and led some immigrants to stay home from work and school.
• But some legal immigrants, international students and even U.S. citizens are also concerned. Many have started carrying around their visas and passports in case they are stopped.

Driving the news: For transgender Americans, “the barriers and actual impacts are already coming hard and fast,” says Erin Reed, a trans rights activist and writer.

• Access to gender-affirming care, workplace protections, and even passport renewals are on the line for some trans Americans.
• The military, which is believed to employ thousands of transgender service members, says it will stop providing gender-affirming care and no longer allow trans people to enlist.
• Transgender students and their parents fear their institutions will stop supporting them. The Trump administration is already investigating at least two universities and one high school for accommodating trans athletes or all-gender bathrooms.
• Government sites are wiping references to transgender Americans and history, or removing the "T" and "Q" from LGBTQ.

“The end goal is to push transgender people so far to the margins that people can’t even know about us,” Reed says.

• There are 1.6 million people over the age of 13 who identify as transgender in America, and they are four times more likely to be victims of violent crime.
• "For transgender youth, if your government is telling that they don’t want you, if your society is telling you that they don’t want you, how does that make you feel?" says Reed. "And the message to cisgender youth is that this is an acceptable group of people to hate and that this is an acceptable group to bully."

The Trump administration's executive orders targeting illegal immigration as well as its rhetoric are also stoking fear, Axios Local cities across the country report.

• In central Ohio and Denver, some students have skipped school out of fear of ICE raids. Sales are slowing down at the shops in Minneapolis' Latino neighborhoods, and shopkeepers attribute the slump to immigrant customers staying home.
• L.J. D'Arrigo, who leads the immigration practice at Harris Beach Murtha, a law firm in Albany, N.Y., tells Axios his "phone has been ringing off the hook."
• This week, the White House's X account shared a video of people in shackles preparing to board a deportation flight and called it "ASMR," referring to an online trend of posting videos with pleasant, gentle sounds.

The bottom line: Regardless of how President Trump's executive orders shake out in the courts, experts say the widespread fear and micro and macro changes to daily life will have lasting implications for these groups.

The tech ecosystem that surrounds today's teens is fueling loneliness.

Why it matters: It's a dangerous environment for a generation that's already sad and stressed. And it's more difficult than ever for their parents, teachers and coaches to understand and help them.

The big picture: Data shows that teens are spending less time hanging out with friends in person, and more time on their devices.

• America's 15- to 24-year-olds spend 35% less time socializing face-to-face than they did 20 years ago, The Atlantic reports.
• Instead, American kids and teenagers spend nearly six hours a day looking at screens, according to the Digital Parenthood Initiative.

Parents' concern about how kids use tech isn't new. We saw it with chatrooms in the '90s, then with the advent of social media in the aughts. But the way teens typically use tech today — via smartphones and tablets — is different.

• "There's a ton of tech out there. But the one thing that's different about this tech is that it's used in private," says Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas. That's leading to new stress — often away from parents' eyes.

Case in point: Sharing locations isn't reserved for parents. High schoolers are tracking each other, seeing in real time when their friends are hanging out without them.

• It's not uncommon to have the locations of dozens of peers, especially on Snapchat's Snap Maps, says Meghan Whitten, a junior at Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon, who wrote about the phenomenon for her school's newspaper.

"I do get FOMO [fear of missing out] when I see my friends hanging out," Whitten says.

• Even if it's not intentional, "it definitely contributes to anxiety around social situations — especially during high school, which is all around a stressful time."

On top of that, the fact that much of teens' socialization happens online is contributing to loneliness.

• Spending time with people releases certain chemicals in the brain and boosts our mood. You can't get the same benefits from texting or even audio or video calls, Hall says.
• Interacting with others via group chats or social media posts has even less value.

What to watch: The latest tech danger teens are facing is the rise of AI chatbots.

• These AI friends or romantic interests have been heralded as a cure for loneliness. But they might escalate feelings of isolation, experts say. And they could be especially dangerous for teens who already struggle with depression or anxiety.
• The debate over these bots has intensified since one teen fell in love with a chatbot and ended up taking his own life last year.

Reality check: Online communication can't replace in-person hangouts. But it's better than no communication at all, Hall says.

• Plus, many kids and teens learn new things online through chatbots or YouTube videos. And many use tech tools to make music or art. Taking away devices isn't necessarily the answer.

The bottom line: Don't try to shut off the world.

• "Your goal as a parent," Hall says, "is to equip your kids with the tools to handle the media that they will have access to."

Go deeper: "AI bots enter the group chat," by Axios' Megan Morrone.

On TikTok, on Instagram and in family group chats, foreign students and workers — and even U.S. citizens — are advising each other to keep their passports and visas close when out and about.

Why it matters: Foreign-born Americans and immigrants say they're afraid of getting swept up in aggressive immigration raids, even though they're here legally.

• “My phone’s been ringing off the hook the last two weeks with questions of ‘what do we do if ICE comes knocking on my door?’” said L.J. D'Arrigo, who leads the immigration practice at Harris Beach Murtha, a law firm in Albany N.Y.
• “There’s a lot of widespread hysteria among those legally in the U.S., including U.S. citizens, green card holders and foreign nationals on temporary visas,” D'Arrigo said.

Driving the news: President Trump campaigned on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, and ICE arrests have ramped up since he's taken office.

• He's also pulled back regulations keeping ICE out of schools, churches and hospitals.
• International students who are here legally have also been targeted with an executive order that calls for the visas of foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests to be canceled.

Between the lines: The Trump administration has broadcast much of their arrest and deportation efforts. Just the image of a widespread crackdown can be enough to spark fear and even make illegal border crossings temporarily slow.

• The reality of those efforts is more complicated, with severely limited resources to detain and deport people, Axios' Stef Kight notes.

Zoom in: Vidya Gopalan, an Indian American influencer, said on TikTok that she's carrying her passport with her even though she's a citizen. She added that she's directing her parents and in-laws to do so too and is especially concerned for them because they have accents.

• In another TikTok, a lawyer said she's asking her kids, who have U.S. passports, to carry them around because they have Nigerian last names.
• International students have posted online videos of themselves making copies of their documents or pocketing them before leaving home.
• "The environment has made it feel like a small but essential step for peace of mind," a University of Michigan Ph.D. student from India told Axios on the decision to carry around documents.

“There are legitimate reasons for some foreign national populations in some industries that typically employ seasonal migrant workers, like hospitality, manufacturing or landscaping, to be concerned” regardless of their legal status, D’Arrigo said. “That’s low-hanging fruit. That’s probably where ICE will go next.”

• “We are recommending that they carry a copy of their visa or other type of documentation confirming their legal status,” he said.
• “In the last four years I haven’t made that recommendation. I made it in 2016 and again now. It really does matter who the administration is and who their enforcement priorities are, and this administration has made it clear that every employer is a priority target for enforcement," whether that be an audit or an actual raid, D'Arrigo said.

The executive branch will stop spending money on Politico subscriptions after paying millions of dollars to the news outlet last year, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing Wednesday.

• "I was made aware of the funding of USAID to media outlets, including Politico ... And I can confirm that the more than eight million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayer's dime will no longer be happening," Leavitt said. "The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now."
• 'This is a whole of government effort to ensure that we are going line by line when it comes to the federal government's books."

Why it matters: It's an easy political lever for the Trump administration to pull to undermine media without facing legal or regulatory hurdles.

• Right-wing personalities are using USAspending.gov to dig up more payments from the government to media organizations — like The New York Times, AP and Reuters — for products and subscriptions. Look for those organizations to be in the hot seat next.

How we got here: A fake theory about Politico being funded by the government is catching fire in right-wing circles.

• It’s a prime example of how false information sweeps through social media — and it could spell trouble for Politico and any other media organization that has contracts for subscriptions with the government.
• Politico hasn't responded to Axios' request for comment.

Zoom in: The story appears to have started when Politico missed payroll on Tuesday because of a tech snag, media reporter Will Sommer notes.

• MAGA media dug into public records on USAspending.gov and uncovered that the government paid Politico $8.2 million in the last 12 months.
• People linked those two facts and wrongly assumed that Politico missed payroll because those millions came from USAID. That turned into dozens of viral posts on X, reposted by Elon Musk himself.

Reality check: It appears $24,000 of that $8.2 million came from USAID. $8.2 million was the amount the entire government paid Politico — and it's likely the cost of premium subscriptions, such as Politico Pro.

• This is paywalled content that goes deeper on policy and industry and costs thousands per year.

What they're saying: Politico CEO Goli Sheikholeslami and global editor-in-chief John Harris sent a memo to staffers saying "we welcome" the conversation around the value of Politico's subscriptions.

• The Politico bosses noted that the company had "never been the beneficiary of government programs or subsidies" and that the "overwhelming majority" of subscriptions come from the private sector.
• "Please know that our business is strong and enduring," they added.

Zoom out: The government spends money on subscriptions and advertising with various media companies. Agency heads are allowed to dictate that spending, according to the General Services Administration.

• There aren't federal laws that require the government to spend ad or subscription dollars with certain outlets, although there are some laws around public notice advertising that require state governments to run ads in local newspapers.

Our thought bubble: The government spends trillions of taxpayer funds annually. The fact that the Trump administration is focused on slashing relatively small media budgets at the outset of Trump's second term speaks to how seriously targeting media companies is their priority.

• MAGA accounts are continuing to seize on this theory and proliferate it online.
• Conservative commentator Dana Loesch is calling for protests outside Politico’s offices.

This story was updated with the internal Politico memo.

Disclosure: Our Axios Pro product provides in-depth policy and industry news to paying subscribers, including government employees. Last year, $5,550 in payments were made to Axios as part of a Federal Communications Commission subscription, according to the government's database that tracks federal spending.

The debate over COVID's origins has included two main theories: that it came naturally from a market in Wuhan, China, or that it came from a lab leak there. In a new assessment, the CIA says it's more likely that COVID originated from a lab leak.

Why it matters: "John Ratcliffe, the new director of the CIA., ... has said it is a critical piece of intelligence that needs to be understood and that it has consequences for U.S.-Chinese relations," The New York Times' Julian E. Barnes reports.

Catch up quick: There's no new evidence. These conclusions came from a review ordered by the Biden administration and released this week by Ratcliffe.

• According to a CIA spokesperson, "CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting. CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible."
• "We have low confidence in this judgement and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA's assessment."

What to watch: "Ratcliffe has promised a more aggressive CIA, and it is possible that he will order more actions to penetrate the labs in Wuhan or the Chinese government in a search for information," Barnes writes.

• "It will not be an easy secret to steal. The senior ranks of the Chinese government do not know, and do not want to know, American officials have said. So if there is intelligence, it is probably hidden in a place that is hard to get to."

Americans who live in states dealing with fires, high winds and flooding could see insurance rates increase — or lose coverage entirely — as disasters intensify.

Why it matters: The affected areas span from coast to coast and include tens of millions of people living in two of the most populous states — California and Florida.

• Homeowner's insurance rates in some of these areas could start to become unaffordable as climate change fuels an increase in destructive storms.
• And if insurers decide to pull back altogether, states will need to step in to take on the risk — which can cost individuals more and offer less coverage.

Zoom out: The human toll, damage, and cost of disasters is mounting.

• The U.S. saw 28 weather and climate disasters costing at least 1 billion dollars in 2023 — the highest on record. Damages totaled $93 billion.
• 2024 disaster data is not yet out, though it’s expected to follow the trend.

What to watch: Insurers are changing how they factor climate and extreme weather risks into the premiums they charge for coverage, while some are suspending coverage, Axios’ Brianna Crane reports.

• That's pushing many homeowners to opt for public "insurer of last resort" plans — but often at higher rates.

A new poll of college students found that half view the suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's recent killing extremely or somewhat favorably, and nearly half believe the crime was justified.

• 81% of the students polled by Generation Lab said they have an extremely or somewhat negative view of Thompson, the victim.

Why it matters: There's a stark divide between how young people and older people view Thompson's killing. Polls and social media posts indicate that, among young people, there's lasting support for and fascination with a suspected killer — and disdain for the victim.

By the numbers: When asked with whom they sympathize more, 45% of respondents chose suspect Luigi Mangione, 17% chose Thompson, and 37% said neither.

• 48% said they view the killing as totally or somewhat justified.
• Those findings chime with an Emerson College poll which found that 41% of voters under 30 found the killing "acceptable," far more than in any other age group.

Methodology: This poll was conducted December 19–23 from a representative sample of 1,026 college students nationwide from 2-year and 4-year schools. The margin of error is +/- 3.4 percentage points. The Generation Lab conducts polling using a demographically representative sample frame of college students at community colleges, technical colleges, trade schools and public and private four-year institutions.