Axios

Violent crime kept falling across many of the nation's largest cities through June, with homicides down 17.2% from the first half of 2025, according to preliminary data reviewed by Axios.

Why it matters: The decline now spans two presidencies — it began falling under President Biden after the pandemic-era surge, and has kept dropping under President Trump.

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted a video Saturday giving herself a shot in preparation to freeze her eggs, she instantly injected issues of fertility, family and feminism into political discourse.

• And some of the online backlash from the conservative right is making Republicans, including some in the White House, a little nervous.

Why it matters: The New York Democrat's Instagram announcement — "Don't be weird about this, even though I know all of you will be," she said — dominated social media and furthered speculation that AOC is plotting a White House run in two years.

Memory chip prices are skyrocketing, thanks to AI demand, and there's no end in sight.

Why it matters: "Chipflation" is pushing up the prices for electronic goods like smartphones and laptops, as well as the costs for cloud storage and hardware — it also helps explain the eye-popping ascents in semiconductor stock prices.

• While the overall effect on inflation may not be huge — other kinds of products get more weight in the government's measure of consumer prices — the scale of this boom is unprecedented.