The New York Times' decision last week to publish leaked details of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's 2009 Columbia University application has thrust the storied paper into a blossoming scandal. Revelations about the leak's origin have threatened to undermine the Times' claims of newsworthiness.

The paper obtained the details through an unnamed intermediary described as someone who "opposes affirmative action and writes often about I.Q. and race," later identified as eugenicist Jordan Lasker. Now, Mamdani's application has taken the backseat to a broader furor over the Times' motivation and sourcing. 

Newsworthy or manufactured issue?
As a high schooler, the Ugandan-born and ethnically Indian Mamdani listed himself as both Asian and African American, which is "newsworthy," said Times Assistant Managing Editor for Standards and Trust Patrick Healy in a series of social media posts responding to pushback over the story. The decision to grant Lasker semi-anonymity by using his digital sobriquet was simply an opening for readers to "learn more about the person."

Given that the story was based on hacked and leaked materials, there should be an "extra high bar of newsworthiness to justify publication," said former Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan at The Guardian. The Mamdani piece "fell far short of the newsworthiness bar."

The paper framed the report as "'Mamdani faked being Black'" because it expected that to be a "huge scandal that would cripple him," said The Washington Post's Perry Bacon on Bluesky. The Times "heavily suggested" that Mamdani was intentionally misrepresenting himself, said journalist Matt Pierce on Bluesky. But those insinuations were "unsupported" by its "own reporting."

Political lessons
Regardless of the Times' motivation, there's "value to the story of Mamdani's Columbia application," said Philip Bump at The Washington Post. His challenges in articulating his complex identity offer an "excellent distillation of the narrow and archaic way Americans evaluate race." People searching for a villain in this episode should instead be mad that colleges "incentivize applicants to be misleading about their skin pigmentation" because "false value is assigned to it," said Robby Soave at Reason.

This incident, coupled with the Times' previous coverage, makes it appear as if the paper is "on a crusade against Mamdani," said Sullivan at The Guardian. The real question, said Max Tani at Semafor, is how he will "treat the hometown paper of record if he's elected mayor."

More than 13.5 million Syrians were displaced from their homes during their country's nearly 15-year civil war, with most finding refuge in neighboring nations. Now, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December, a steadily climbing number of people are returning. But the life that awaits them in their war-torn homeland remains rife with difficulty. 

How many have returned? 
More than 2 million Syrians have gone back to their areas of origin, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Some 1.5 million were internally displaced, and about 600,000 have returned from Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Among the nearly 1 million Syrians who found refuge in Europe, mainly in Sweden and Germany, there has been little movement. Some host countries have made moves to encourage refugees to return. 

Is it safe to go back to Syria? 
Widespread fighting has subsided, but in the north, there are pockets of violence between groups based in Turkey and the Syrian Defence Forces. There have also been incidents of violence against Alawites, the ethnic group closely associated with Assad, and Israeli air strikes in southern Syria around the bordering regions of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. 

What are the other obstacles? 
The destruction inflicted on Syria's cities and infrastructure and limited access to shelter and electricity have prevented a bigger influx of returning refugees. Although most Syrians say they intend to return, a U.N. poll earlier this year suggested that housing, safety, lack of services, and economic hardship were the key reasons why many did not plan to go back in the next 12 months. The Syrian government hopes Western countries can help with the multibillion-dollar cost of rebuilding, and the U.S. and EU have already agreed to lift sanctions to aid reconstruction. 

Some Syrian refugees may never wish to return, however, since they have built new lives elsewhere. And for families with children who have been born and raised far from Syria, there's even less incentive to return, particularly given the ongoing instability and poor living conditions.