Even before the invention of the printing press, books have been deemed subversive and threatening by authoritarian rulers. And maneuvers like book banning, confiscation and burning have been used by tyrants fearful of an informed citizenry. Book banning also has a long history in the U.S., from censors seeking to keep Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” out of the hands of readers to the targeting of birth control advocacy under the 1873 Comstock Act. But the country has never seen anything quite like today’s nationwide campaign to silence voices disfavored by many in the contemporary Republican Party.

When did the recent book purge begin?
After the Covid-19 pandemic, far-right activists created a series of ideological boogeymen to wage war against, including critical race theory and what President Donald Trump calls “gender insanity” — a catch-all term that he and his supporters use to describe anything that involves LGBTQ+ identity. Activist organizations like Moms for Liberty sought to police the content of books in school libraries, sifting through literature to identify and eliminate race and gender-related content, arguing they were targeting material that was too explicit for children or young adults. 

“Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country,” said PEN America, documenting what it claims has been nearly 23,000 book bans since 2021. Many Republicans disagree. States and school districts are merely “providing students with a quality education free from sexualization and harmful materials that are not age-appropriate,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). 

Which books have been targeted?
Some conservatives have challenged PEN America’s classification of book bans, arguing that many books the organization claims have been removed from schools in 2021 and 2022 were either under review or simply moved to a different age section of the library. The organization’s definition of book bans focuses on “situations where objections or prohibitions result in previously available books being taken off limits,” said PEN America.

The most banned books of 2025 include recent young adult novels and classics like Judy Blume’s “Forever.” And the fourth-most-banned book is Malinda Lo’s “Last Night at the Telegraph Club,” about an immigrant teenager, Lily Hu, who goes to a lesbian bar with a friend.

OpenAI’s latest update of its text-to-video-creation tool Sora generates such realistic-looking content that misinformation experts are warning of media manipulation on an entirely new scale. Along with Meta rival Vibes, Sora is part of a “burgeoning family of AI tools” that allow people to create and share “hyper-realistic or fantastical content” for free, with only basic tech knowledge, said CBS News. Sora 2 also offers a social feed that creates a “TikTok-like experience” made up entirely of user-generated AI content. 

‘Copyright-infringing AI slop’ 
The recent release of Sora 2 has resulted in a “messy pile of potentially copyright-infringing AI slop,” from videos of SpongeBob SquarePants cooking meth to fake “South Park” episodes, said Futurism. OpenAI is “burning through cash” as unexpectedly high numbers of Sora users generate “countless resource-intensive AI videos.” And there’s no indication that users will pay to keep using it, so “turning Sora 2 into a source of revenue won’t be easy.” 

The energy needed to generate the videos is considerable. MIT research found that even a “short non-high-definition clip may require more than 700 times the energy required to produce a high-quality still image,” said Rolling Stone. This has already put “significant strain” on OpenAI’s servers and the U.S. electricity grid and requires a “tremendous amount of water” to cool data center hardware. 

‘Frankensteinian monster’ 
Although real-life individuals have control over the use of their likenesses (known in Sora-speak as cameos), Sora 2 allows the use of “likenesses of the dead,” according to OpenAI. Robin Williams’ daughter has made a public plea for people to “please stop sending me AI videos of Dad.” 

Sora does “have guardrails” for now, notably a “moving watermark” that identifies them as AI-generated, said Vice. But “how long will it be before people find a way to remove it”? Much more needs to be done to avoid the risk of “inflammatory videos” of something that “never happened” fooling people into violence and “insurrections.”

A coypu photobombs a snap of swans on a lake in Germany. The image, titled “Meet the Neighbors,” was taken by Luca Lorenz, who has won the Rising Star award in this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
Luca Lorenz / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

It’s officially cozy season, which presents the perfect excuse to silence your phone and watch TV all day and night. October releases include docuseries about Michelin-star-hunting chefs and one of America’s greatest living filmmakers.

‘Boots’
The setting for Netflix’s “Boots” is a 1990s U.S. Marine Corps boot camp, where 18-year-old Cameron (Miles Heizer) has enlisted alongside his best friend Ray (Liam Oh). The problem: Cameron is secretly queer, and it’s still illegal to be openly gay in the military. The show is a “compelling action drama that examines masculinity and internalized homophobia while winking at other cinematic portrayals of military life, most notably Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film ‘Full Metal Jacket,’” said Curtis M. Wong at HuffPost. (out now, Netflix)

‘Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars’
The Michelin title’s prestige is legendary, but have you ever wondered what it takes to earn Michelin’s approval? This Gordon Ramsay-produced docuseries “embeds for three months at a time in the kitchens, dining rooms and homes of about two-dozen chefs in North America, Europe and the U.K.,” said Laurie Woolever at Rolling Stone, capturing the “emotional, physical and financial sacrifices required of those who pursue Michelin stars.” (out now, Apple TV+)

‘Mr. Scorsese’
The Oscar-winning filmmaker behind “Goodfellas,” “Taxi Driver” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” is the subject of Rebecca Miller’s docuseries “Mr. Scorsese.” Across five episodes, the 82-year-old Martin Scorsese (pictured above) “talks matter-of-factly about his professional and personal shortcomings, often laughing at himself,” said Caryn James at the BBC. (out Friday, Apple TV+)