News Reporter

Tuesday, 1 September 2026

Parting Ways with Big Tech

Friend,

Good news! Zeale can no longer be found on Apple’s App Store or on Google Play.

Why? Because we’ve gone independent!

Zeale is now a progressive web app (PWA). Available directly from our homepage, it provides a smoother, more reliable experience.

Here’s how to get it:

Delete any versions of Zeale you downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.
Go to Zeale.co on your mobile device.
On Apple devices, tap the “share” button, find “add to home screen” and then tap it.
On Android devices, simply tap “add to home screen.”
You will then have an icon on your device that takes you directly to the PWA version of Zeale.

The most important benefit of this switch is that it reduces our dependency on Big Tech, which has brought wonderful innovations to the world but also serious challenges.

For instance, attorneys general from 47 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands recently settled a lawsuit alleging that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta corporation deliberately used addictive features on social media, and knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms.

Meta has agreed to pay $17 billion and also implement various safety features for younger users of Facebook and Instagram.

All this talk of addiction should come as no surprise. Big Tech itself is addicted…to money.

They want a bite of everyone’s apple. For every purchase you make or every donation you give through an app in the Apple or Google Play stores, a percentage goes into the pocket of a tech company to do with as they please.

That puts an organization like CatholicVote in a tight spot. We want all donor dollars to go directly to serving our mission. We don’t want to risk them going toward agendas we’re fighting against.

We also want to keep Big Tech’s hands off our content. Zeale’s change to a PWA or progressive web app eliminates the possibility of our content being censored by anyone.

One added benefit: No more having to download app updates on your own.

As a PWA, when we make improvements to tech or add new content, you get updates automatically, without lifting a finger. You can expect faster updates and more new features than ever before.

Get the new Zeale app and start enjoying it today.

We’ll see you there!

Your Friends at CatholicVote

Welcome to Future Coach

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By Michael J. Coren

I’ve covered climate change, the environment and our planet — and what you can do to better sustain it, and yourself — over the past three years as The Washington Post’s Climate Coach. It remains one of the most important stories of our time.

But the questions that define our future have never been just about climate. They are bound up with how we build our homes, feed our families, innovate and use technology, earn and spend our money, raise our kids and protect our health.

So Climate Coach is becoming Future Coach, where I’ll field test this future. My goal is to bring you the most original ideas, experiments and practical advice that improve your life and our collective future. That means reporting from the frontiers of science and culture, where the most consequential answers are emerging.

I’ll publish my column each Tuesday and share it in this newsletter. A second email on Thursdays will answer reader questions and share your ideas.

Send me emails with suggestions for what I should cover at futurecoach@washpost.com (I read them all). Now let’s dive in.

Aptera's solar-powered two-seater is due to go on sale later this year. ((Maansi Srivastava for The Post))

Driving on sunshine

On a recent drive along the California coast, I passed gas stations knowing that the sun was filling my tank free of charge. Gas prices, I hardly knew ye.

The first electric vehicle debuted in the 1830s. Powering one with the sun? A (pipe) dream for decades. In the 1960s, one intrepid engineer bolted solar cells to a 1912 Baker Electric that maxed out at 20 mph. Drivers have raced on nothing but sunlight in the Australian Outback since the 1980s. But none of these science experiments have ever made it into the hands of a driver like me.

Until this summer.

I recently test-drove what is set to be the first solar-powered production vehicle capable of completing the average American’s daily commute on sunshine alone. To see if this concept had wheels, I headed down to Aptera Motors, the lone survivor of the solar car race, in Southern California.

I was braced for disappointment.

Solar-powered cars have a long, distinguished history of failing. In 2023, Dutch start-up Lightyear went bankrupt, and Germany’s Sono Motors gave up. Aptera itself shut down in 2011, after burning through tens of millions of dollars from investors, before being resurrected in 2019 by its founders, Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony.

When I arrived at Aptera’s factory in Carlsbad, I was greeted by a vision clad in carbon fiber and solar panels. Imagine a marriage between an airplane and a speedboat, if the nuptials were held on Mars. That’s an Aptera. When I took the validation vehicle out onto public roads, I learned I’m not the only one who thinks this is a good thing.

I’ve never attracted more attention around town than I did test-driving this head-turner. As soon as we came into view, people stopped to snap photos or rushed over, curious or covetous, wanting to know where to buy one or asking if this two-seater spaceship was from the future — which, in a way, it is.

Read the column

I want to hear from you! Email me your feedback and stories at futurecoach@washpost.com.

See you on Thursday,

Michael Coren, Future Coach

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What if you were just one ask away from the change you need?

Dear ,

If you’re like most of us, there's probably at least one area of your life right now – work, a relationship, something with your family – where you feel stuck.

Maybe your job is starting to feel like a dead-end.

Maybe you're the one carrying most of the weight in your relationship.

Or maybe you just feel overworked – both at work and at home – and don’t know how to get the support you need.

You're not entirely sure what would fix it.

That's exactly what I built The One Big Ask Workshop to help you find.

It's a free, live, one-hour workshop on September 9 at 12 p.m. ET.

I'll walk you through an exercise to surface everything you've been sitting on, every unspoken want or ask, and help you find the one that would matter most.

By the end of the hour, you'll have a real starting point to finally go after it and get unstuck.

Keep an eye on your inbox – details on how to join are coming Friday.

P.S. If your brain keeps telling you that what you really want isn’t realistic, it’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do. Learn how your brain edits your thoughts to keep you playing small in this episode of the UnF*ck Your Brain podcast.

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