Axios

California sued ExxonMobil on Monday alleging a decades-long campaign that falsely promised recycling would effectively address plastic waste.

The big picture: The first-of-its-kind lawsuit seeks to hold the oil giant — one of the largest producers of petroleum-based polymers — accountable for misleading the public and polluting the state.

Top Senate Democrats will force Republicans to vote on access to emergency abortion care this week, in one of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)'s final pre-election messaging pushes, Axios has learned.

The big picture: The death of a Georgia woman who was refused emergency care because of the state's abortion restrictions has become the latest rallying cry for Democrats who are wagering abortion will be a winning issue for their party on Nov. 5.

A nasal spray flu vaccine for people up to 49 will be available for home use starting in the fall of 2025 after the Food and Drug Administration expanded its approval of AstraZeneca's FluMist.

Why it matters: It will be the first flu vaccine that doesn't need to be administered by a health provider and will be sold direct to consumers for home use via an online pharmacy.

Childhood trauma can raise the risk of developing major diseases later in life that vary based on a person's unique experiences and even their sex, new research concludes.

Why it matters: Although it's widely understood that trauma early in life has biological and real-world health impacts, the findings shed light on how different life experiences can shape the way the body functions and make a person susceptible to chronic diseases.

A new app that gives each user a private, Twitter-like social network populated exclusively by chatbots has stoked a wider debate about the purpose and value of online communication.

The big picture: At first blush, SocialAI, the all-bot platform, might sound like "pure artifice" or an "AI void" — but its 28-year old creator pitches it as an antidote to the toxicity of today's "real" social media.