It’s Wednesday, October 1. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Elliot Ackerman dissects Pete Hegseth’s speech on what it means to be a warrior. Peter Savodnik reports from the hometown of Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer. River Page explains why the Rapture went viral. And much more.

But first: Wikipedia is broken. Here’s how to fix it.

Once upon a time, there was an institution that was trusted by the public as an impartial and reliable source of information. Then things changed. The institution still claimed to be impartial. Its leaders still repeated the same mantras about the truth and trustworthiness, but the information it provided grew steadily more ideological. The change became impossible to ignore—and the public started to ask: Does this institution deserve our trust?

If this story sounds familiar, it’s because it could describe so many of the institutions that we once relied on to bring us information. In fact, it might just be the story of our times. This crisis of trustworthiness is the skeleton key to understanding so much of the turbulence and disorder in public life today.

It’s certainly the story of The New York Times, NPR, and countless other media organizations. It’s the story of all too many institutions in medicine and public health.

It’s also the story of Wikipedia.

We’ve reported before on how a website founded on an idealistic mission to provide all the world’s information for free—and to do so democratically—has been hijacked by ideologues. Today, we’re honored to publish one of the site’s founders, Larry Sanger.

Larry has been a vocal critic of what the site he built has become. In his vital essay for us today, he offers a remedy, or as he calls it, “my Hail Mary proposal to reform Wikipedia.” He does so, he writes, in the spirit of Martin Luther, who posted his famous 95 theses “out of love for the truth and the desire to elucidate it.”

—Oliver Wiseman

House and Senate leadership failed to avoid a government shutdown before a midnight deadline. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

• Congressional Democrats and Republicans were unable to avoid a government shutdown late last night. Previous shutdowns have led to hundreds of thousands of government workers being furloughed and the Trump administration has suggested it is open to permanently firing civil servants deemed nonessential.

• Consumer confidence fell to its lowest point since April ahead of the shutdown deadline, falling 3.6 points to 94.2. The drop reflects a pessimistic outlook on the labor market and employment availability. The Boston Fed president said that she expects “some increased risk that labor demand may fall significantly short of supply.”

• YouTube is set to pay $24.5 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit brought by President Trump. Trump filed suit after YouTube suspended his account following the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. capitol. The majority of the settlement—some $22 million—will be used to fund the construction of a new ballroom at the White House. It’s the latest in a string of settlements by Big Tech and media companies that has now amounted to over $80 million in payments to Trump since his election win last fall.

• The Trump administration says it has deported about 100 Iranians who entered the country illegally back to Tehran. The deportation flight came in the wake of an agreement made between Trump and Iranian leaders, and is the first such flight in a broader effort to deport over 400 Iranian nationals. The majority of deportees have allegedly been denied asylum requests or had not yet appeared at asylum hearings.

• The Department of Health and Human Services has begun the process of blocking Harvard from receiving any future research grants. The move comes as Trump says the White House is “getting very close” to a deal with the university. The agreement would see the school paying about $500 million that would go to supporting trade schools.

• Florida officials, under the direction of Governor Ron DeSantis, have set aside prime Miami real estate to be used for Trump’s presidential library. The parcel of land, valued at $67 million, was transferred from Miami Dade College to the state of Florida, and will be given as a gift to Trump’s library fund.

We have a packed season of conversations, debates, and live events. Join us in person or catch the videos later as a benefit for paid subscribers. Here’s what’s coming up:

• Anduril Founder Palmer Luckey Live with Bari Weiss
  Washington, D.C. • October 8, 7 p.m. • 🎟️ Tickets on sale here

• Reclaiming Childhood in an Online World with Jonathan Haidt
  New York, NY • October 22, 7 p.m. • 🎟️ Tickets on sale here

Full Schedule