From an obscure White House aide suddenly becoming a national obsession to a mysterious kidney disease appearing among Texas farm workers, the first half of September has produced a peculiar collection of American stories. Some are political, some deeply cultural and some almost absurd on the surface.
1. Natalie Harp, Aaron Rupar and what made White House angry
Natalie Harp, the 35-year-old White House executive assistant, has spent months attracting attention because of her unusually close working relationship with Donald Trump. But in September, the story acquired a new chapter: a $45,000 cash gift disclosed by Harp, followed days later by an extraordinary White House attack on journalist Aaron Rupar after he pointed out that Harp was travelling with Trump in Ireland.Natalie Harp is called the human printer as she carries a portable printer and battery pack, allowing her to give Trump physical copies of news articles and social-media material.The controversy took a financial turn after it was reported that Trump gave Harp a $45,000 holiday cash gift. Two other aides, Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris, also reported $45,000 gifts, while Walt Nauta reported a $20,000 gift. Harp’s government salary is $150,000, meaning the payment represented roughly 30% of her annual salary.When Harp accompanied Trump on his Ireland trip, independent journalist Aaron Rupar posted a photograph and wrote: “Look who made the trip to Ireland!”, using his recurring #TravelWithNatalie hashtag. The White House’s Rapid Response 47 account responded by calling Rupar a “sick, deluded freak” and accusing him of posting “creepy” material.
2. The mysterious kidney disease appearing among young Texas workers
A form of chronic kidney disease that has devastated agricultural workers in parts of Central America and South Asia is now drawing attention in Texas, after doctors encountered cases among relatively young workers without the usual risk factors associated with kidney disease.The condition is generally called chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology, or CKDu. It is also known by names including Mesoamerican nephropathy and chronic kidney disease of nontraditional cause.Ordinary chronic kidney disease is strongly associated with conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. CKDu has repeatedly been documented among people who do not have those conventional explanations. Research has particularly focused on young agricultural workers doing physically demanding work in very hot environments.Researchers have proposed several possible explanations: prolonged heat stress, dehydration, agrochemicals, contaminated water, heavy metals and other environmental exposures. There is still no single universally accepted explanation for the disease. A 2025 review of more than 150 publications concluded that the cause remains unresolved, although occupational heat stress and dehydration are among the leading areas of investigation.
3. Object between Saturn and Uranus is changing rings
The object is called 10199 Chariklo, and it is not a planet or even one of the Solar System’s major asteroids. It belongs to a relatively unusual class of small bodies called Centaurs, which orbit in the region between the giant planets. Chariklo is only about 250 km (155 miles) across. Yet it has something that, until relatively recently, astronomers associated primarily with giant planets: rings.New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), published September 9 in Science Advances, indicate that Chariklo’s two rings have changed significantly since astronomers first studied them. The inner ring appears to have become more opaque, while the outer ring has become much less apparent in the new observations.Chariklo was discovered in 1997. It became famous in 2013, when astronomers studying it through a phenomenon known as a stellar occultation discovered that it was surrounded by two narrow, dense rings.“By comparing JWST observations with those obtained … over the last decade, we discovered opposite changes in the two rings: while the inner ring shows significantly higher opacity, the outer ring shows lower opacity, ” Pablo Santos-Sanz, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia and first author of the study, said in a statement.
4. Sauerkraut and JD Vance’s weight loss secret
At a White House press briefing on September 3, a reporter asked Vance about his noticeable weight loss and, rather unexpectedly, asked how much sauerkraut he ate.Vance responded with a story about Lent.He said that on Fat Tuesday he had considered giving up sugar and social media. He then called Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he described as being particularly interested in health. Kennedy advised him to do something more intense and talked about eating a high-protein diet and “a lot of sauerkraut.” Vance joked that if that was Fat Tuesday, “Fat Wednesday never came.”It was an odd political-media moment: the vice-president of the United States discussing fermented cabbage at a White House briefing.Robert F Kenndy Jr made sauerkraut popular in the Trump cabinet though a few weeks earlier Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was not among the converts and he could not carry his fridge containing jars of fermented cabbage everywhere he traveled.Sauerkraut itself is a particularly revealing example of how immigrant culture disappears into what later generations regard as ordinary American life. The Library of Congress notes that German immigrants were among the major forces shaping 19th-century American culture, with sauerkraut among the distinctly German contributions that became part of American life.
5. The Cat in the Hat “killer” that wasn’t
In August, social media users in Britain and Ireland began circulating photographs and videos allegedly showing a sinister figure dressed as the Cat in the Hat stalking streets at night.The character was recognisable not simply as Dr Seuss’s creation, but as the version played by Mike Myers in the 2003 film.But there was no killer. It was all AI.The images and videos were part of a social-media hoax, with AI-generated material mixed with staged footage and real people in costumes. Police in Britain and Ireland warned people about the misinformation.US schools and police departments began warning about posts using the Cat in the Hat imagery to threaten schools, communities and specific individuals. Several teenagers were arrested or charged in connection with posts associated with the trend. In one Connecticut case reported this week, a student was arrested over a threatening social-media post involving the character.The original book, published in 1957, was part of a major transformation in American children’s publishing. It became an enormous commercial success and helped establish Dr Seuss as a central figure in the development of modern children’s books and early-reader publishing.
