https://theweek.com/instant-opinion Wed, 13 May 2026 17:28:31 +0000 en https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-hantavirus-sudan-ai-food-stamps EupaMgoVan2UJDuD7yrZbk Wed, 13 May 2026 17:28:31 +0000

‘11 hantavirus deaths in Argentina were a warning’

Abraar Karan at The Washington Post

The “recent Andes hantavirus outbreak on the Hondius cruise ship has seized international attention after three passengers died” and the incident is a “warning sign of where the world’s pandemic prevention system still has weaknesses,” says Abraar Karan. While “there is no way to avoid outbreaks, proactive approaches could reduce risk.” More “detailed predeparture screening could help shipboard doctors diagnose sick patients better,” although “this approach is only as foolproof as the people who are reporting their exposures.”

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‘The crisis in Sudan is much worse than what is acknowledged’

Zia Salik at Al Jazeera

In the “streets of Sudan’s capital, the destruction was apocalyptic,” says Zia Salik. The “difficulty in accessing many areas, and the sense that this is a complicated war in a faraway place, means the crisis has not received anywhere near the international attention it needs.” For “many people, the greatest fear now is that the unending war in the west of the country will result in Sudan, one of the largest countries in Africa, splitting in two.”

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‘What leaders get wrong about the ROI of AI’

Katy George at Time

“If you ask most executives about AI right now, the conversation quickly turns to one question: where is the return?” says Katy George. That is “not because AI isn’t delivering value. It’s because many organizations are still looking for value in the wrong places.” AI’s impact “shows up in greater insight, more predictive power, in-task skill building and the ability to evaluate more scenarios before acting.” But “those gains don’t fit neatly into traditional metrics.”

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‘States need to come clean on SNAP fraud’

Gov. Larry Rhoden at Newsweek

One “practical example of a resource that should be managed with care is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),” says Gov. Larry Rhoden (R-S.D.). Americans “should take great pride that such a program exists, but that should inspire diligence in its oversight.” States with “higher error rates — in the double digits in many cases — warrant attention and accountability to ensure program integrity is upheld nationwide.” The “solution starts with bringing greater transparency to the issue.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/tech/instant-opinion-china-ai-spencer-pratt-hantavirus-lgbtq-kids RTGaumpgUe2AVuG2bbs7Rm Tue, 12 May 2026 16:28:40 +0000 Tue, 12 May 2026 20:09:34 +0000

‘America’s AI is futuristic. China is just making it work.’

Jacob Dreyer at The New York Times

“Many American leaders believe the United States cannot overcome its adversary China unless it beats the country in the AI race,” says Jacob Dreyer. But the “two countries conceptualize AI very differently. Americans want to create the most powerful technology humans have ever known,” while China aims to advance a “government-directed strategy” that “treats AI as if it were infrastructure. This includes government-coordinated plans, local subsidies and national computing-power programs to diffuse cheap, capable AI tools into every public service.”

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‘Spencer Pratt and the temptations of populism’

Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic

Spencer Pratt, the former reality star candidate for Los Angeles mayor, is a “registered Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, and he has zero experience in government,” says Conor Friedersdorf. “Yet last week he was one of just three candidates to qualify for a televised debate,” which “could hardly have gone better for him.” While current Mayor Karen Bass and LA City Councilmember Nithya Raman highlighted “each other’s failures to remedy the city’s problems,” Pratt was the “only option onstage for voters seeking change.”

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‘Hantavirus anxiety reveals America never left Covid crisis mode’

Holland Haynie at Newsweek

A “virus outbreak on a cruise ship should not instantly make Americans wonder whether ordinary life is about to unravel again,” says Holland Haynie. However, “social media quickly filled with quarantine imagery, speculation and emotional rehearsal of another global disruption.” Human beings are “remarkably good at adapting to prolonged uncertainty,” but “adaptation has consequences.” Covid “did not simply disrupt American life temporarily. It changed many Americans psychologically in ways we still do not fully acknowledge.”

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‘Trump, Republicans know how they’re hurting LGBTQ+ kids’

Sara Pequeño at USA Today

“The kids aren’t all right,” and the “political landscape created” by Trump is “at least partly to blame,” says Sara Pequeño. According to a 2025 survey from The Trevor Project, “10% of LGBTQ+ youth attempted suicide in the past year, and 36% considered it.” And “90% said recent laws and debates over their existence have caused them stress or anxiety.” The “more you decry something as wrong or evil, the more young people will internalize that to mean that they are wrong or evil.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-mental-health-pope-judaism-weddings-bosnia ZcABigmvGCgaXERSJtRYEN Mon, 11 May 2026 16:51:19 +0000

‘We’re thinking about mental health diagnoses all wrong’

Awais Aftab at The New York Times

For “decades, the public conversation about mental health has been routed through the categories in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM,” says Awais Aftab. These “have been convenient for professional communication, insurance billing and conducting clinical trials, but they have given the false impression that each mental disorder is a relatively distinct problem with clear boundaries.” They “can capture something useful and inform treatment options, but none of them do justice” to the “nature of mental illness.”

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‘What Jews can learn from the pope’

Kenneth Seeskin at the Chicago Tribune

Pope Leo XIV is a “distinguished proponent of peace, human dignity and concern for disadvantaged people,” says Kenneth Seeskin. While “there is no one in Judaism who speaks with the authority of a pope, as people of God, Jews also face the question of how to make sense of an ancient and not always consistent tradition.” The “Jewish community is deeply divided over Israel’s actions in Gaza,” and “Jews must ask the same questions of their religion.”

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‘Here comes the slop’

Heather Schwedel at Slate

Many “photos of wedding dresses” have “either been designed or enhanced by AI,” says Heather Schwedel. If “you’re shopping for a wedding dress in 2026, you’re almost guaranteed to encounter at least a little slop.” As AI’s “popularity with everyday consumers has grown over the past few years, it’s taken hold in seemingly every medium,” and “even knitters are having to learn to separate real patterns from the AI-generated ones. Of course wedding dresses aren’t immune.”

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‘Rethinking transitional justice in Bosnia’

Jared O. Bell at Foreign Policy

The U.S. and EU “have treated constitutional reform and war crimes accountability as the primary metrics of progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says Jared O. Bell. If Bosnia “has not unified its narratives of the past or produced visibly contrite leaders, Western logic goes, then it has ‘failed.’” But Bosnia’s “most consequential peace process” is “unfolding in factories, logistics hubs, municipal utilities and cross-entity supply chains — in the daily economic life that keeps the country running.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-ncaa-sports-immigration-gaza-planned-parenthood 6HAEsNEaZKgpYFiwrXAPDa Fri, 08 May 2026 17:38:40 +0000

‘Congress must secure the future of college sports’

Charlie Baker at The Hill

College sports “represent a way for talented high school athletes to reach a new level of athletic competition, while also pursuing a degree,” says NCAA President Charlie Baker. But “no internal reform — no matter how fast it moves — can on its own provide the permanent legal foundation required to stabilize the student-athlete experience.” The SCORE Act “would address the most pressing legal challenges in a narrow manner, while also securing essential student-athlete protections into federal law.”

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‘When children’s rights become revenue for profiteers’

Jim Sandman and Michael Lukens at The Philadelphia Inquirer

For-profit companies “have already turned immigrant detention into a profit center despite public outrage,” say Jim Sandman and Michael Lukens. Now “they’re setting their sights on a new way to fatten their wallets: immigrant children.” Companies “are eyeing this” as a “source of enrichment for themselves. If we allow the ‘profitization’ of legal aid, the outcome is clear: children will be harmed.” The “implications of letting profit drive how legal services are delivered to kids will ripple for many years.”

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‘The Guardian view on ceasefires that aren’t: Israel never stopped killing in Gaza — allies must reject any escalation’

The Guardian editorial board

“In Gaza, the Israeli military has killed more than 800 people since the truce there was declared in October,” so this is “not a true ceasefire but a de-escalation,” says The Guardian editorial board. There is a “bizarre and chilling contrast between Israel’s swift investigation and punishment of soldiers who showed disrespect to statues of Jesus in Lebanon and the lack of even basic accountability — never mind justice — when Palestinians are abused, killed or disappear.”

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‘Will Planned Parenthood stay defunded?’ 

John Gerardi at the National Review

On July 4, the “one-year provision that defunded Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is set to expire,” and Republicans will “need to answer some difficult questions about their political and policy priorities as they face a stark choice: fight to extend this defunding, or abandon the issue for the foreseeable future,” says John Gerardi. But “continuing to defund abortion providers might be stuck behind other GOP legislative priorities.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-babies-cameras-gaza-health-doctors xdbYiVuXmn2GCDTPBVhReU Thu, 07 May 2026 16:08:28 +0000

‘Why so few babies? We might have overlooked the biggest reason of all.’

Anna Louie Sussman at The New York Times

Having kids is “not simply a matter of affordability, the buzzword so often invoked to explain why people are choosing to have smaller families,” says Anna Louie Sussman. Overall, people are “having fewer children both in countries that offer very little and in those renowned for their generous family benefits.” What “unites these disparate cultures, policy environments and demographics” is people’s “inescapable and crushing sense that the future is too uncertain for the lifelong commitment of parenthood.”

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‘Nothing to fear, much to gain from Flock cameras’

Jason Riggs at The Minnesota Star Tribune

A “common misconception when discussing license plate reader cameras is that ‘each camera records passing vehicles and compiles the license plates into a time-stamped database,’” says Jason Riggs. Police “are not here to monitor your every move.” The cameras “are designed to notify law enforcement only when a license plate connected with a crime crosses their path.” Using them “can make all the difference when searching for a vehicle,” and “throughout the country, this technology has proven to be lifesaving.”

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‘The immeasurable endurance of the women of Gaza’

Huda Skaik at The Nation

“Even in the face of such brutality, Gazan women persist,” says Huda Skaik. They “carry their communities, serving as pillars of endurance amid the ruins of a society that has been all but erased.” Women in Gaza “have become both the primary caretakers and providers, responsible for securing food, water and shelter, caring for the injured, and sustaining their families.” Their “suffering is both physical and psychological, yet they continue to care for the next generation.”

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‘I’m not a pundit, I just play one on TV’

Christian Schneider at the National Review

When “physicians get political, they damage the medical profession’s reputation,” says Christian Schneider. In “recent years, the medical profession has endured a thorough battering, with doctors exposing themselves as just as misinformed and politically motivated as the general public.” Nowhere “has this provided more comedy than in President Donald Trump’s attempt to fill the spot of U.S. surgeon general in his administration.” The “diminishment of the medical profession by a wannabe political physician class has real-world consequences.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-asia-airlines-secret-service-iran-florida CjLdddRHBfb96kQ8oGqbwg Wed, 06 May 2026 17:32:36 +0000

‘Asian budget carriers need help to avoid Spirit’s fate’

Juliana Liu at Bloomberg

The “jet fuel crunch is hitting Asia’s low-cost airlines much harder than their full-service counterparts,” says Juliana Liu. Asian governments “should be preparing financial or operational support to avoid further flight cancellations during the busy summer travel season — as well as outright shutdowns like the collapse of America’s Spirit Airlines.” Policymakers “must consider targeted measures in the form of loans, grants or fuel price relief,” and they “should differ by country and reflect conditions on the ground.”

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‘The rush to point fingers at the Secret Service’

Mitch Price at The Wall Street Journal

After an “incident involving presidential security, a predictable cycle begins,” says Mitch Price. Media outlets “elevate instant analysis from so-called ‘experts’ eager to diagnose Secret Service failures.” In the “immediate aftermath, there’s rarely enough verified information to support meaningful conclusions,” but “confident claims emerge anyway, often from people with little experience in presidential protection.” Risk “can’t be eliminated, only managed.” Safety plans “must balance threats, resources, public access and the president’s need to remain visible.”

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‘Iran’s survival is not victory’

Menahem Merhavy at Foreign Policy

Iran previously “defined victory in expansive terms: exporting revolution, rolling back U.S. power and ultimately eliminating Israel,” says Menahem Merhavy. But “today, under sustained military pressure, its leaders are advancing a far narrower claim,” as “survival itself — withstanding strikes, avoiding surrender, remaining intact — is increasingly presented as victory.” This is “more than mere wartime rhetoric. It marks a shift in how the regime understands power, success and its own purpose.” The “language of Iran’s leadership reflects this shift.”

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‘Miami’s drought wake-up call: Everglades restoration is our water insurance’

Michael Berkowitz and Meenakshi Chabba at the Miami Herald

For a “region that receives nearly 60 inches of rain annually, scarcity” in Miami “felt like someone else’s problem,” say Michael Berkowitz and Meenakshi Chabba. But a “drought has shattered that sense of abundance and revealed the vulnerability of South Florida’s water supply.” Most Miami residents “think of resilience mainly as flood adaptation, leaving water security as an under-acknowledged pillar.” Florida “cannot build a truly resilient Miami without bringing its most consequential resilience plan to the finish line.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-everest-amsterdam-data-center-cars QmLXdZFwSP9oarMGgRorNj Tue, 05 May 2026 18:29:15 +0000

‘How Everest has changed since “Into Thin Air”’

Jon Krakauer at The Atlantic

When the “first edition of ‘Into Thin Air’ was published not long after the 1996 Mount Everest calamity,” many “assumed that the disturbing events I described in my book would convince amateur climbers that paying a lot of money to be guided up the highest mountain on Earth was a bad idea,” says Jon Krakauer. But Nepali workers “deserve much of the credit for making Everest a less dangerous mountain than it used to be.”

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‘Amsterdam’s ban on advertising hamburgers won’t stop climate change’

The Washington Post editorial board

Amsterdam “just banned all advertisements for meat in public spaces. Its justification: Eating meat contributes to climate change,” says The Washington Post editorial board. But “censoring ads for beef, pork, chicken and even fish won’t reduce carbon emissions. Nor will it make people less hungry for protein and other nutrients essential to a healthy diet.” Humanity “will have an easier time innovating out of the challenges posed by climate change if it’s not working on an empty stomach.”

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‘The fight over data centers is a distraction’

Abdallah Fayyad at The Boston Globe

Despite the “threats posed by AI — ranging from environmental to economic to privacy concerns — there’s little to no appetite in Washington to meaningfully regulate the industry,” says Abdallah Fayyad. America has “fixated on the one part of the story it can’t ignore, the part that is having a tangible impact on community after community: the proliferation of data centers.” While “opposing data center construction may make for good politics, it isn’t moving the needle when it comes to regulating AI.”

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‘How inequality killed the affordable American car’

Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect

For “middle-class and working-class Americans, most new cars” are “now out of reach,” says Harold Meyerson. The “economists at GM and virtually every corporation clearly believe” that “focusing on selling more costly goods and services to the investment-enriched sector of the public will net their companies more money than the kind of ‘product for every purse’ marketing that thrived in that long-ago postwar economy.” The “gaps between the wealthy and everyone else are widening and accelerating.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-homes-navy-food-gaza-cars bKDgScGDoP9kgh5vjS2TT6 Mon, 04 May 2026 18:14:06 +0000 Mon, 04 May 2026 19:56:18 +0000

‘Tens of millions of Americans will never own a home — consequences will be severe’

John Mac Ghlionn at The Hill

Real estate “has been crushed for a second consecutive year — this time by a war in Iran that has sent mortgage rates soaring,” says John Mac Ghlionn. The market has “become a staring contest where nobody blinks, nobody moves, and the country suffers.” Homeownership has “long been the primary vehicle through which middle class Americans build wealth.” Take it “away, and you remove the single largest source of generational stability for tens of millions of households.”

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‘We lend military our loved ones. Least they can do is feed them.’

Rebekah Gleaves Sanderlin at USA Today

There’s an “unspoken contract the U.S. military makes with military families: Lend us your loved ones, and we’ll meet their basic needs,” says Rebekah Gleaves Sanderlin. But upon seeing photos of “meager and unappetizing meals purportedly being served to sailors deployed to the Middle East, people took notice.” The “mere fact that military family members suspect their loved ones’ basic needs aren’t being met is an indicator.” It “tells us they don’t trust leadership to care for their people.”

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‘The dark side of Gaza’s new fancy cafes and restaurants’

Eman Abu Zayed at Al Jazeera

Social media is “full of posts showing off photos and videos of fancy-looking cafes and restaurants in Gaza” but “these new establishments do not prove that normality is coming back to Gaza,” says Eman Abu Zayed. They are a “testament to its continuing genocidal abnormality.” The war “made some people in Gaza rich, especially those who engaged in illicit activities,” and “this wealth is now coming out in various forms, including luxury cafes and restaurants.”

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‘Trump’s ridiculous ballroom is no place for journalists’

Ana Marie Cox at The Nation

Trump has “been pushing for future White House Correspondents’ Association dinners to be held on his turf, at the still-mythical ballroom that the president tore down part of the White House to build,” says Ana Marie Cox. But “this is a solution to a problem that does not exist.” The “metaphor of watchful hospitality should be on everyone’s mind every time Trump or his cronies bleat about moving the correspondents’ dinner to his metastasizing monstrosity.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-us-navy-architecture-voting-space 9WiQeh4rP7KnCHGCttPUrj Fri, 01 May 2026 16:41:44 +0000 Fri, 01 May 2026 16:46:14 +0000

‘The tragic decline of the American Navy’

Robert D. Kaplan at The New York Times

The U.S. Navy is “in decline relative to its own history and to the growth of the Chinese Navy, and has surrendered the control of the world’s vital choke points,” says Robert D. Kaplan. If the Navy “doesn’t grow significantly in size, the outcome could be disastrous for the whole world,” as “free trade, global capital flows and migration — the root of America’s worldwide power — would be impossible without a great U.S. Navy.”

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‘What has gone wrong with architecture’

Arthur Kay at Time

Architecture “sits between capital, politics, infrastructure, climate, design, engineering, art, psychology and economics,” says Arthur Kay. The job “has been one of great influence.” Architects “can cross over domains, lead public debate on the most pressing issues of the day and work with the greatest power in the land to shape the future of our cities.” But in “responding to wider trends in professional services, architecture embraced specialization,” and “has lost influence by steadily narrowing its scope.”

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‘SCOTUS ruling on voting rights is the Trump administration’s latest attempt to decimate Black political power’

Solomon Jones at The Philadelphia Inquirer

A “6-3 U.S. Supreme Court decision has gutted a key element of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, leaving Black voters twisting in the proverbial wind,” says Solomon Jones. The Voting Rights Act “was meant to protect Black voters, the very people who are now disenfranchised by this decision.” The “destruction of Black power was always the point. But demolishing Black power requires bolstering white supremacy.” This administration “has sought to target African American voting power at every turn.”

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‘Space is critical infrastructure — it needs an alliance to guard it’

Kathleen Curlee and Brian Golden at Newsweek

Space systems “are increasingly vulnerable to collisions and interference that can shut down critical systems such as navigation and communications in an instant,” say Kathleen Curlee and Brian Golden. Robust “policy and international coordination should support the advancement of space infrastructure and protection of the capabilities that already exist. What is needed is a military-backed alliance in space: an Artemis Alliance.” The “value of space goes well beyond the satellites we use each day.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-e-bikes-ai-global-affairs-liberals i44PhsyWnA9kgmhqcJDCtn Thu, 30 Apr 2026 16:47:24 +0000

‘California should reconsider its rush to regulate e-bikes’

Stephen Zoepf at the San Francisco Chronicle

Because e-bikes “fall into a convoluted mix of transportation policies, they remain contentious and unable to fulfill their potential,” says Stephen Zoepf. Americans “have treated small, powered two-wheelers as recreational devices for far too long,” and making them “illegal altogether means that e-bike commuters, merely acting in self-preservation, can find themselves treated like hooligans.” While “cars and trucks continue to get bigger and more powerful, those outside them are being killed at nearly record-high rates.”

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‘AI companies are just companies’

Robert Armstrong at the Financial Times

AI proponents “wave off the notion that the technology will lead to mass unemployment,” while “doomers respond that, in the case of AI, we’re not the drivers; we’re the horses,” says Robert Armstrong. This “back-and-forth highlights the idea that AI is unlike all the technologies that went before, with greater complexity, greater upsides and greater risks — for labor, cyber security, national defense, mental health and so on.” So “those controlling it have special responsibilities.”

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‘Hedging is the new normal’

Suzanne Nossel at Foreign Policy

We are “living in a new world of hedgers,” says Suzanne Nossel. The “shocks of the last several years” have “upended how nations approach international affairs.” The “smooth flows of a globalized and rules-based world have clotted into uncertainty, forcing states to find new pathways for trade, diplomacy, resource extraction and defense cooperation.” Countries are “no longer hedging within a system that is episodically volatile but out of a recognition that there no longer is much of a system at all.”

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‘“Microlooting”: The left’s latest language deception’

Christian Schneider at the National Review

Progressives “keep trying to invent new words,“ says Christian Schneider. Hasan Piker “introduced the term ‘microlooting’ into the American vocabulary,” and the “innocuous prefix ‘micro’ was affixed to ‘looting,’ a crime, to make stealing from retail stores somewhat more palatable.” Picking a “new word or phrase to explain something people already experience is similar to stand-up comics doing observational humor.” But “what once was the purview of comedians has been crowdsourced to the feral mob on social media.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-psychedelics-iran-ukraine-ozempic-religion KFDXsHKsH8ZYHQAy7kP8vF Wed, 29 Apr 2026 17:05:28 +0000

‘Turn on, tune in, cash out … the US right used to fear psychedelics. Now it wants to sell them.’

Kojo Koram at The Guardian

Trump “signed a new presidential executive order to accelerate mainstream access to medical treatment based on psychedelic drugs,” but “this executive order has not come out of the blue,” says Kojo Koram. Long “caricatured as a marker of countercultural decadence, psychedelics have been rebranded by recent clinical research as potentially transformative mental-health treatments.” It’s a “worldview that has found a comfortable new home” in an “administration that is, against all odds, transforming America’s relationship with drugs.”

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‘How Putin and Zelenskyy view the war in Iran’

Sudarsan Raghavan at The New Yorker

Nearly “two months into Iran’s war, its ripple effects are being felt around the world,” says Sudarsan Raghavan. The “war is also having a less visible, yet potentially more consequential, impact on some of the world’s other conflicts and crises.” The war in Ukraine is “increasingly connected to the Middle East conflict.” It is “in Russia’s favor to prolong the war in Iran” because the “longer it lasts, the longer Washington’s attention is not on Ukraine.”

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‘Could Ozempic save families from addiction and foster care?’

Naomi Schaefer Riley at The Boston Globe

GLP-1 drugs “like Ozempic and Wegovy are often called miraculous for their ability to promote weight loss, reduce the risk of diabetes and even lower the likelihood of dementia,” says Naomi Schaefer Riley. But “what if they can help combat drug and alcohol addiction by tempering cravings and ultimately prevent parents from losing their children to foster care?” This “class of drugs has wide-ranging health benefits and few side effects compared to other medically assisted treatments.”

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‘Religions all over the world are being blasphemed and perverted’

Janice Kennedy at the Toronto Star

Religion is “having a moment. And not in a good way,” says Janice Kennedy. No “matter its name, religion usually embraces three elements: faith in a divinity, rites and rituals honoring that faith and an inviolable moral code.” But this is “abased and abused by con artists twisting religion to fit insufferable egos and despicable political ends.” Committing “terrible deeds in the name of an almighty god is abhorrent to all people of good will.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-school-grades-africa-newspapers 5aLZnFJqccE3hrq8iQeA9m Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:53:29 +0000 Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:53:33 +0000

‘Report cards are sending parents the wrong signals’

Bloomberg editorial board

Most “students in the U.S. aren’t proficient in reading or math — but you wouldn’t know it by looking at their report cards,” says the Bloomberg editorial board. Grade inflation “has been seeping through the nation’s education system for decades and worsened during the pandemic,” and “today, more than half of schools use at least one ‘alternative grading’ strategy, including ‘no zeros.’” It “isn’t hard to see how such measures might obscure academic weaknesses and mislead parents.”

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‘Why we should agree to agree’

Lisa Sherman at Time

At a “time when many of our most important conversations feel increasingly polarized, it’s easy to fall into patterns,” says Lisa Sherman. When a “conversation begins to feel too complex or emotionally charged, we often reach for a common refrain: ‘agree to disagree.’” But “building on the common ground that already exists is the key to bridging what divides us.” What “matters more than perfect agreement is what we do with disagreement once we’ve chosen to move forward.”

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‘African governments need to take urgent action on fertilizer shortages’

Martin Fregene and Chakib Jenane at Al Jazeera

The “conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran is disrupting global fertilizer trade flows — and this stands to leave millions of African farmers without the ammonia, urea, phosphate, sulphur and other fertilizer inputs vital to growing more food in sub-Saharan Africa,” say Martin Fregene and Chakib Jenane. When “global supply falters, Africa’s farmers often feel the economic shocks the hardest.” Fertilizer security is “tied to food security, which, in turn, is linked to economic and social stability.”

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‘Newspapers face tight supply as mills cut newsprint production’

Brier Dudley at The Seattle Times

As if “they didn’t have enough to deal with, America’s newspaper publishers are facing a tight supply of newsprint that’s driving up prices,” says Brier Dudley. The “crunch may be temporary but it highlights the uncertainty and cost pressures straining a local news industry that’s largely online nowadays but still heavily dependent on printed newspapers.” There is “little consolation” for “some local publishers scrambling for enough paper to print the next week’s newspapers.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-anthropology-college-medicaid-sexual-assault-lawyers g8oKs7g4KUFFrx5UAKJYRQ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 15:27:09 +0000

‘This degree changed my life. And it’s essential to a changing America.’

Thurka Sangaramoorthy at The Washington Post

Anthropology is a “discipline that teaches students to do something remarkably difficult and remarkably rare: to move between close attention to individual lives and systemic analysis of the structures that shape them,” says Thurka Sangaramoorthy. Americans are “living in what is called the age of big data,” but the “hardest problems facing institutions, governments and companies right now are not technical ones. They are human ones.” Anthropology is an “essential skill in the age of big data.”

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‘Don’t look to my patients for Medicaid fraud. Look at Dr. Oz.’

Tyler Evans at USA Today

Dr. Mehmet Oz “posted a video accusing New York state of running a fraud-ridden Medicaid program,” but the “people being targeted by these claims are not fraudsters,” says Tyler Evans. The “personal care services Oz attacked in New York are the clinical alternative to nursing home placement.” Oz is “constructing a caricature to make the public comfortable with cutting their care.” This is the “person now running the largest health care financing program in the United States.”

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‘Millions of clicks on sexual assault — where’s the outrage?’ 

Jodi Bondi Norgaard at Newsweek

According to “CNN’s reporting, one porn site, Motherless.com, hosts 20,000 videos of so-called ‘sleep content,’” with “men logging on to learn how to drug and violate their wives, their partners, the women sleeping beside them, the people who trust them most,” says Jodi Bondi Norgaard. This is “not a niche crime or a fringe corner of the internet. This is a global network that teaches men how to drug and rape women, and it is met with near silence.”

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‘The ABA is a joke. So why is it still accrediting law schools?’ 

Sarah Parshall Perry at the National Review

The American Bar Association’s “monopoly over the accreditation of U.S. law schools has long been defended as essential to maintaining excellence in the legal profession,” says Sarah Parshall Perry. But this “authority rests on an implicit premise of institutional neutrality, a premise that no longer holds — if it ever did at all.” The ABA “doesn’t represent a majority — or even a plurality — of American lawyers.” The “profession, the academy and the public deserve better.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-gerrymandering-texas-cuba-hospitals-tech ZFJq5ZXDc5fk9v3w5TB92i Fri, 24 Apr 2026 17:21:45 +0000

‘Texas is to blame for nation’s redistricting disaster’

The Dallas Morning News editorial board

The “redistricting power grab that President Donald Trump launched in Texas has ended in a stalemate for the parties and a huge loss for our nation,” says The Dallas Morning News editorial board. After “10 months of out-of-cycle, coast-to-coast congressional redistricting, Democrats and Republicans control about the same number of seats as they did before the mess began,” but “democracy and good government, meanwhile, are in negative territory.” This “has squandered public resources by requiring frivolous elections.”

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‘I’m one of Cuba’s political prisoners. When will I go free?’

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara at The New York Times

Amid “mounting U.S. pressure, the Cuban government announced that it was releasing over 2,000 prisoners in what the Cuban Embassy in Washington called a ‘humanitarian and sovereign gesture,’” says Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. But amnesty “would not extend to those who had committed ‘crimes against authority,’ a term generally applied to political dissidents.” Cuba’s government “has denied holding political prisoners,” but is “still scared of people like me, who have not been afraid to challenge the state’s authority.”

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‘A “barbaric” problem in American hospitals is only getting bigger’

Elisabeth Rosenthal at The Atlantic

If you “need admission to the hospital, you can remain in the emergency department — in the hallway or a curtained bay on a hard stretcher or in a makeshift holding area — for more than 24 hours,” says Elisabeth Rosenthal. In this “limbo state,“ the “rules governing acceptable care and safety measures become much less clear.” If an “ED boarder has a medical complaint that needs quick attention, it’s easy for them to fall through the cracks.”

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‘How the tech world turned evil’

Timothy Noah at The New Republic

Even “in its more innocent days, Silicon Valley inclined toward grandiosity, heralding not just a new technology but a new advancement in human consciousness,” says Timothy Noah. But “now a prince of the technocratic elite,” Peter Thiel, is “framing tech’s future prosperity quite literally as a battle against agents of Satan.” And his “was merely the most literal expression of a millenarian sentiment about the coming of AI that’s now conventional wisdom among tech barons.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-schools-vouchers-crime-masculinity-china 9gxbMUh3xqW9dTXgT4SeFn Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:46:41 +0000

‘History tells us that school vouchers segregate and alienate’

Erykah Nava at the Chicago Tribune

Since the “beginning of America’s education system, Black and Latino students and their families have been excluded from building a vision for their schools,” says Erykah Nava. Americans “need superintendents, school leaders and all lawmakers to unequivocally denounce school vouchers because they harm public schools by diverting critical public funds away from neighborhood public schools that Black and Latino students rely on.” If “we don’t listen to those families, history tells us that we will regret that decision.”

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‘The most deadly place for women and children: a family home’

Renée Graham at The Boston Globe

There is “no more deadly place for women and children than in a family home,” says Renée Graham. When “acts of fatal domestic violence occur, especially mass shootings, law enforcement officials often call that crime ‘an isolated incident’ to reassure the public that there is no ongoing threat.” But laws are “not enough to stop this gun-fueled misogyny so long as we cling to the false belief that what angry men do to women and children is isolated.”

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‘“Petro-masculinity” is destroying the planet. Can eco-masculinity help save it?’

Andrew Boyd at The Guardian

It “won’t come as news to most that, compared with women, men litter more, recycle less and leave a bigger carbon footprint,” says Andrew Boyd. What “connects the dots here is something more unhinged and tangled: a hyper-aggressive, oil-soaked version of toxic masculinity known as ‘petro-masculinity.’” This “suggests that fighting climate change is not just a technological or economic or political challenge, but also a cultural and psychic struggle against an entrenched and very gendered ‘petroculture.’”

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‘What if China succeeds?’

Matthew Kroenig at Foreign Policy

China’s “success would likely result in a more dangerous, impoverished, and tyrannical world for everyone else,” says Matthew Kroenig. Chinese President Xi Jinping has “railed against U.S. alliances in Asia as relics of the Cold War that should be replaced,” which means “removing the U.S. military presence in the region, and leaving regional states, such as Australia, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea, vulnerable to Chinese military coercion.” This “likely means a major war in Asia.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-police-government-service-abortion-health DQ2MHnigei6kVtdb2rbQVh Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:39:02 +0000 Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:48:56 +0000

‘The Constitution doesn’t make an exception for misusing police powers’

George F. Will at The Washington Post

Policing is an “indispensable and demanding craft requiring skills acquired through repetitions of good judgment in bad situations,” says George F. Will. So “litigation arising from law enforcement excesses acknowledges the craft’s exacting standards,” and “sometimes reluctant courts should provide remedies that affirm those standards.” The “militarization of law enforcement has been dramatized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents operating with too little training,” and courts may “eventually acknowledge the absence of a police-power exception.”

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‘Honoring America’s 250th through service’

Mike Lawler and Bonnie Watson Coleman at Newsweek

There is “no other nation on earth, past or present, that can pride itself on citizens dedicating as much personal time and resources to causes dear to them,” say Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.). Every American “has a definition of ‘service’ — and that is something worth celebrating.” In “choosing service, we progress beyond division to action, helping write the next chapter of American history as one grounded in unity.”

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‘The terrifying convergence of fetal personhood laws and abortion bans’

Melissa Gira Grant at The New Republic

“Fetal personhood laws and abortion bans are often intertwined,” says Melissa Gira Grant. But the “direct harm caused by the abortion bans has typically overshadowed the more abstract and punitive laws defining fetal personhood.” These laws “may not mention abortion at all. But fetal personhood laws are layered onto existing laws and emerging legal trends.” These are “not just legal or rhetorical strategies; they also shape how patients make health care decisions.” People’s “fears are not unfounded.”

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‘Trump showers health care crooks with love’

Whitney Curry Wimbish at The American Prospect

Donald Trump has “hit on a new role as a crusader against fraud,” but a new report “shows that Trump appears to support medical fraud, as long as corporate executives and other elites are the ones committing it,” says Whitney Curry Wimbish. Republicans “stump for Trump’s pet project to punish blue states under the guise of protecting taxpayers from medical fraud” but “those talking points are a smokescreen for Trump’s real aim: justifying his destruction of the American health care system.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-social-media-smoking-women-china-environment NTfHnLgZGNqJDFdBptS22C Tue, 21 Apr 2026 15:43:02 +0000

‘Will social media addiction go the way of cigarettes?’

Sarah O’Connor at the Financial Times

It is “easy to see why social media’s critics would hope for a tipping point akin to what happened with smoking,” says Sarah O’Connor. But the “story of smoking’s decline had a sting in the tail: many of society’s poorest stayed hooked. Might the same be true for social media consumption?” Breaking “powerfully addictive habits — or not developing them in the first place — is harder if you have less access to education, supportive peers and health care.”

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‘Republicans want to ban drag. It could land women in jail.’

Dan Kobil at USA Today

Ohio politicians “are attempting to enact a vague and ill-conceived law prohibiting public drag shows and regulating women’s clothing in an unprecedented manner,” says Dan Kobil. Drag shows are “forms of artistic expression that is squarely protected by the U.S. Constitution,” and it is a “basic precept of constitutional law that the government cannot dictate what viewpoints Americans are allowed to express surrounding gender.” It is “not just drag shows that are placed at risk by these politicians.”

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‘The China model falters’

National Review senior editorial staff

As “sour as Americans are about the current economy, they should be profoundly grateful they don’t have China’s instead,” say the National Review editors. China “saw explosive growth over the last several decades,” and it “became conventional wisdom in the economics profession that China would overtake the U.S. economy by 2030.” That “dogma is now undone,” and China’s “economic slump appears to be caused by structural forces.”

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‘Powerful states are trying to sabotage decarbonization of shipping’

Ralph Regenvanu at Al Jazeera

The “fallout of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz may create the impression that the world cannot function without fossil fuels,” but “nothing could be further from the truth,” says Ralph Regenvanu. Every “single industry can and must decarbonize.” For “global shipping, this process would be relatively easy because technological solutions exist and a single United Nations agency can set legally binding rules for all ships.” But poorer countries “need more action and more ambition in the framework.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-robotics-space-trump-schools-labor Ze7F4JtDYuVNe4rjEp9GsN Mon, 20 Apr 2026 16:13:19 +0000

‘AI and robotics will aid, not end, human space exploration’

Mark R. Whittington at The Hill

Some people “contend that advances in AI, robotics and electronics will allow Earth to explore and even commercially exploit other worlds such as the moon and Mars with just machines,” says Mark R. Whittington. But “humans will not be replaced either on Earth or in space” and robotics “will actually enhance human capacity.” While robots can “take over tasks that involve pattern optimization,” humans “will still retain tasks that require creativity, emotional intelligence and determining why actions need to be undertaken.”

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‘Trump’s presidency is what evil looks like: absurd, frightening, cruel’

Nesrine Malik at The Guardian

Trump “defies attempts to make his actions cohere,” says Nesrine Malik. His “lack of vision or ideology are misread as attributes that make him somehow less dangerous than the authoritarians of the past who have become the template for what evil looks like.” But Trump’s “constant self-aggrandizement, his grudges against political adversaries, the fury at being challenged by the press, the revenge he promises to wreak” are “ways to erase and avoid what is a permanent terror of humiliation.”

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‘How American schools can address political polarization’

Deborah Kenny at Time

Polarization “has become one of the defining threats to American democracy,” says Deborah Kenny. To “address these issues, some schools have turned to civics content, media literacy and dialogue initiatives.” But these efforts “misunderstand the problem. Polarization is more than a knowledge deficit. It is a self-government deficit.” Students “should be exposed to competing views and learn to articulate multiple sides of an issue,” and schools “must defend free inquiry, reject dogma and privilege the unencumbered search for truth.”

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‘Why are workers stuck? Not enough employers.’

Kathryn Anne Edwards at Bloomberg

What “makes recessions so harmful to workers is the freezing of movement,” says Kathryn Anne Edwards. The “gears of the labor market — gears that are constantly shuffling workers from job to job to unemployment to job again — slow to a crawl.” This is “what is making today’s labor market so damaging.” The “market has been heading toward a situation like this — with recession-like conditions of slow gears even when the market should be tight — for a while.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-technology-history-vaccines-war tGSsqGJbx46rGLP8CnYGcE Fri, 17 Apr 2026 15:54:22 +0000

‘Our longing for inconvenience’

Hanif Abdurraqib at The New Yorker

Longing for “Walkmans and VCRs is, of course, an offshoot of a larger obsession with the not-so-distant past,” says Hanif Abdurraqib. There is a “longing for some previous era, if not actually a desire to return to it.” The “yearning for the past often lands us on the somewhat hollow nostalgia of ephemera: if we can’t have the nineties back, we can build a life of things that might feel transportative,” and “convenience and inaction are often bedfellows.”

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‘History is running backwards’

David Brooks at The Atlantic

Many “thought that the world would get more democratic as it modernized, but for the past quarter century, we have seen a reversion to authoritarian strongmen,” says David Brooks. People “used to have a clear idea of where modernity was heading — toward greater autonomy and equality, secularism, stronger individual rights, cultural openness and liberal democracy.” Science and reason “would prosper while superstition and conspiracy-mongering would wither away.” But it “turns out that was yesterday’s vision of the future.”

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‘Yes, of course war settles things’

Rich Lowry at the National Review

There are “many things that can be said about the tragedy of warfare without crediting the blatantly ahistorical cliché that it is never the answer, or doesn’t solve disputed questions, often with a terrible finality,” says Rich Lowry. War can “determine international boundaries and the nature of governments.” It “might be pointless, or fought for prestige, revenge or territorial aggrandizement. That’s all true, but it doesn’t change the fact that military conflict is, at times, necessary.”

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‘Polio has no cure. The vaccine is the only way to save lives.’

Simone Blaser at USA Today

Making polio vaccines “optional is a bad idea. It’s also a dangerous one,” says Simone Blaser. There is “no cure for polio, but there is a way to prevent this terrible illness.” If the “polio vaccine becomes optional,” it “becomes a mathematical certainty that we will see a resurgence.” You “may believe your choice doesn’t affect others, but there is no way to know who in a community is unvaccinated, whose immune system is shoddy, or who is particularly vulnerable.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-surveillance-search-jackie-robinson-health-food-stamps czobrpKn9c82oGXZRnXw53 Thu, 16 Apr 2026 17:16:11 +0000 Thu, 16 Apr 2026 20:35:05 +0000

‘Congress has a rare chance to stop warrantless searches’

Noah Feldman at Bloomberg

As Americans “worry about total government surveillance in the age of AI and ICE, Congress has a rare opportunity to protect them from warrantless government searches,” says Noah Feldman. FISA Section 702 is “set to expire,” and the law “effectively permits the government to collect the private information of Americans indirectly.” A bipartisan bill “would close the most important loopholes in the current law.” Congress “can turn the public’s distrust of government surveillance” into “something productive.”

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‘Jackie Robinson’s legacy is more than a symbol. It’s a responsibility.’

Scott Reich at the San Francisco Chronicle

Jackie Robinson Day is “one of the most powerful traditions in American sports,” says Scott Reich. For “one day, the number is the same.” Jackie Robinson’s number, 42, “becomes everyone’s number.” But “while it’s easy to honor a number, it’s harder to fully appreciate what it signifies.” Robinson “did not simply break baseball’s color barrier,” he also “stepped into a country that had not yet decided whether it was ready for him.” His uniform “gave him a platform; he chose to use it.”

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‘Massachusetts health reform at 20: a model for what government can do’

Maura Healey and Mitt Romney at The Boston Globe

In 2006, Massachusetts politicians “came together to answer a question that long seemed unthinkable in Washington: Could we make health care coverage a reality for all?” say Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R). Massachusetts “proved to the nation that the answer was a resounding yes.” The “lessons of that day went well beyond the policy.” It was a “demonstration of what is possible when leaders of all perspectives come together, set aside partisanship and focus on solving real problems.”

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‘GOP food stamp work requirements hit just as jobs dry up’

Whitney Curry Wimbish at The American Prospect

Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill, trade wars and actual wars are coming together to maximize hunger in America,” says Whitney Curry Wimbish. The GOP’s “new work requirements for food stamps began in February, forcing more people to work at least 80 hours a month to get the benefit.” At the “same time, jobs are harder to find,” especially “low-wage jobs that food stamp beneficiaries should be able to turn to for the new requirement.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-battle-creek-university-pregnancy-vance 9bj3AZXGh244qXhWyK9y6G Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:05:23 +0000

‘Battle Creek, a Rust Belt icon, battles back as American manufacturing jobs decline’

Chicago Tribune editorial board

For “generations, the Kellogg food company and Battle Creek, Michigan, went together like corn flakes and milk,” but “after decades as an independent public company, Kellogg split in two,” says the Chicago Tribune editorial board. Like “many other small industrial cities across the Midwest, Battle Creek is diversifying beyond its roots,” and its “resilience in the face of change shows that, under pressure, the Rust Belt’s factory towns can carve out a future based on their long-time strengths.”

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‘Universities must reinvent themselves for the intelligent age’

Klaus Schwab at Time

For “more than a century, universities have been among humanity’s most transformative institutions,” but the “world they helped create is now changing at unprecedented speed,” says Klaus Schwab. In the “‘Intelligent Age’ defined by the rise of artificial intelligence and quantum computing, education cannot remain preparation for life.” It “must become a continuous condition of life,” as “our culture is moving irreversibly from learning for life to lifelong learning.” This “demands systemic change across national education systems.”

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‘Why aren’t Republicans thrilled by the fall in teen pregnancies?’

Arwa Mahdawi at The Guardian

The “teenage birth rate in the U.S. fell by 7% in 2025,” and “while this might seem like a positive development, it has been a cause of dismay among the MAGA-adjacent crowd,” says Arwa Mahdawi. Republicans “aren’t just content with overturning the right to a safe and legal abortion; they’re also quietly undercutting access to contraception.” What’s “next? The party of ‘family values’ rallying behind child marriage? Oh, wait, they’ve already ticked that one off.”

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‘The ever-shrinking JD Vance’

Edward Luce at the Financial Times

The vice presidency “was not designed to be fun,” says Edward Luce. But “being Trump’s number two brings unique discomfort.” Defending “policies that often turn 180 degrees overnight — from vowing to destroy a civilization, say, to announcing a new golden age — requires pure acrobatics.” JD Vance “is flailing,” and “he is thus no longer Trump’s obvious successor.” Even “were Vance to regain his place in the Trumpian firmament, there is no such thing as a Vance base.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-swalwell-congress-fema-filibuster-lebanon czwDrDMczvtySi4QoU8ef5 Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:14:06 +0000

‘Have these people learned nothing?’

Michelle Cottle at The New York Times

Eric Swalwell “had his political career blown up by allegations of degeneracy and abject stupidity,” says Michelle Cottle. Many lawmakers “fail to learn from the ruined careers of the past in part because those around them too often shrug off the whispers, red flags and glaringly bad behavior until some line gets crossed.” The “problem is less a ‘boys will be boys’ tolerance than a sense of resignation among politicians, staff and other members of official Washington.”

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‘Deportations are putting US disaster response at risk’

Yvette D. Clarke and Michael Shank at Newsweek

This year the U.S. “will be less equipped than in previous years to prevent, prepare for and respond to increasingly extreme weather,” say Yvette D. Clark and Michael Shank. The Trump administration made FEMA “less effective, less funded and less capable of helping Americans before, during and after a storm.” At the “same time, the administration’s immigration policies are shrinking the very workforce we rely on for disaster preparation, response and recovery.” The government “cannot operate in silos.”

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‘Debating busting the filibuster’

Dan McLaughlin at the National Review

Some are “not against the idea of using the levers of the congressional rules to create theatrical confrontations that can move the public to apply pressure to members of Congress,” says Dan McLaughlin. But this is “undermined by senators believing that their votes are not necessary to passage.” The Senate “is dysfunctional, and it should debate and engage publicly more.” The filibuster is “more destructive than the benefits to be gained by any particular public debate.”

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‘Lebanon’s resilience is celebrated, as if survival were admirable rather than imposed’

Tayma Saliba at Le Monde

In Lebanon, “staying informed is both a dependency and a necessity,” says Tayma Saliba. Between “international media, local journalists, rumors and content generated by artificial intelligence, young people become informal analysts, cross-referencing sources and explaining the situation to relatives abroad.” A “recurring discourse celebrates Lebanese resilience, as if survival were admirable rather than imposed.” This is “meant to recognize endurance but ends up normalizing suffering, suggesting that the situation is manageable.” But “survival is not acceptance.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-taxes-election-democrats-kalshi-women BEmDjGsqaim98wYEnmBr2G Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:52:48 +0000

‘Hardly anyone checks this little box on their tax return. Why keep it?’

Adam Lashinsky at The Washington Post

There “was a time when nearly a third of U.S. taxpayers checked that little box on their income-tax returns authorizing the Internal Revenue Service to allocate $3 of their taxes” to “help pay for presidential campaigns,” says Adam Lashinsky. But now Americans “are — quite rationally — unwilling to fork over the cost of a Snickers bar to help elect the leader of their country.” Congress “ought to simply junk the checkoff as the relic it is.”

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‘Democrats need to start planning now for a return to power’

Symone D. Sanders Townsend at MS NOW

Democrats “are already talking about a wave election,” and “people are starting to ask: What would Democrats do with that power?” says Symone D. Sanders Townsend. It’s a “more important question now than ever because, this time, winning will come with more risk and more responsibility.” A Democratic win “will not just be a rejection of President Donald Trump. It will be an expectation that they can use power in a way that actually changes people’s lives.”

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‘Kalshi is half right about prediction markets and gambling’

Aaron Brown at Bloomberg

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour “has an argument why prediction markets shouldn't be regulated as gambling,” says Aaron Brown. Sportsbooks “profit from customer losses, making them structurally predatory. Kalshi, by contrast, operates as a peer-to-peer exchange.” He is “right about the business model distinction. He’s wrong that it answers the regulatory question.” What Mansour is “describing — a balanced book, fees on both sides, no house risk on outcomes — has been the operating model of sports betting, both legal and illegal.”

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‘Women’s brains are a $1 trillion opportunity’

Lisa Mosconi and George Vradenburg at Time

Nowhere is the “cost of ignoring women’s health more visible or more correctable than in the brain,” say Lisa Mosconi and George Vradenburg. Closing the “women’s health gap could add $1 trillion in annual incremental GDP to the global economy.” This should “reframe how every boardroom and budget office thinks about women’s health.” Researchers “need to mandate sex-disaggregated data and fund women-focused trials for brain disease,” and policymakers “need to recognize women’s brain health as a core input to labor force productivity.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-olympics-transgender-nuclear-africa-ai-newsroom zy3dCcWRPjdGAjEts4oio3 Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:47:49 +0000

‘I’m a WNBA player. Don’t use athletes like me to exclude trans women.’

Brianna Turner at USA Today

The IOC “recently announced a binding policy requiring every woman who seeks to compete in the Olympics to undergo sex verification testing,” but the “final hurdle to represent your country should not be proving to a panel of strangers that you are the woman you say you are,” says Brianna Turner. This mandate “ignores established medical and human-rights guidance, and rejects the science that says physical appearance, chromosomes or individual traits do not determine athletic performance.”

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‘New England considers the nuclear option’

Andrew Fowler at The Wall Street Journal

A “bipartisan coalition of all six New England governors has reached a conclusion that until recently would have been politically unthinkable: renewable energy alone can’t deliver the affordable, reliable power the region needs,” says Andrew Fowler. Against “this backdrop, nuclear energy is re-emerging as a practical solution.” New England’s “nuclear facilities such as Connecticut’s Millstone Power Station help maintain grid stability,” but “regulatory barriers have long limited the development of new nuclear capacity.” That is “beginning to change.”

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‘Power, minerals and the AI race — America must win in Africa’

John Giordano at Newsweek

The United States “must secure the critical mineral and energy supply chains that advance economic prosperity,” says John Giordano. One “such jurisdiction, and potentially one of the most consequential on the African continent, is Namibia.” The country is a “model for governance and stability on the continent, operating with regulatory frameworks capable of supporting large-scale development.” It “holds an outsized position on the global minerals and energy map,” but “supply security ultimately rests on infrastructure.”

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‘The ethics of using AI in newsrooms: a work in progress’

Jim Boren at The Seattle Times

The public is “looking for clear guidance on how newsrooms are using AI to report the news,” but “most news organizations are still developing their policies, and few have fully resolved these complex questions,” says Jim Boren. AI “can free journalists to focus more on investigation, verification and storytelling,” but “most newsrooms draw a firm line: AI should not be used to write stories.” This “reflects a broader concern that AI systems can produce convincing but inaccurate or misleading information.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-meta-google-texas-hungary-smoking YmLWEkzhRLWECXhLNhVtgE Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:57:04 +0000

‘What the verdict against Meta and Google says about the way we live now’

Jeannie Suk Gersen at The New Yorker

For “decades, the understanding was that social media companies were essentially immune from legal liability,” says Jeannie Suk Gersen. If parents “have in the past felt they were competing with bad influences on children — questionable friends, shady neighbors or profanity-laced music among them — the core anxiety in this era is that algorithms have made it so that there is no competition at all, undermining parents’ opportunity to steer their children right.”

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‘In Texas and beyond, a political impulse: If you don’t like it, leave.’

Mark Z. Barabak at the Los Angeles Times

There is “no end of hurdles” that “would have to be surmounted for a partial Texas-New Mexico merger to occur,” says Mark Z. Barabak. But the “impulse to bust up, break away and move on is as old as America itself and, at the same time, as fresh as the latest provocation to pass the lips of the nation’s frothing commander-in-chief.” Secession “has long been the dream of dissenters, of the discontented and those who feel put upon.”

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‘Freedom itself is at stake in Hungary’

Martin Wolf at the Financial Times

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is “not a man of small influence,” and “for many so-called ‘national conservatives,’ notably in the U.S., he defines a successful and admirable form of right-wing politics,” says Martin Wolf. That “makes the parliamentary elections on Sunday far more important than the modest size of Hungary would suggest.” The “defeat of the man who embraced the notion of ‘illiberal democracy’ might mean a great deal for the survival of the threatened ‘liberal’ version.”

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‘Less than 10% now smoke, but we’re still far from finished’

Mario Danek at The Hill

The U.S. “crossed a milestone that sounds like the beginning of the end for cigarette smoking: Fewer than 10% of American adults now smoke,” says Mario Danek. But “percentages can obscure as much as they reveal.” Even at “9.9%, that still represents tens of millions of Americans who continue to smoke.” The “progress is real and should be applauded. But the harder question is what it will take to reach those still smoking and whether we’re ready for that.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-nasa-artemis-deepfakes-native-americans-college Umc7orcRbaoDX9NA8ZoA89 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:22:33 +0000

‘The ripple effects of NASA’s Artemis mission could be bigger than you think’

Scott Solomon at The Washington Post

“As influential” as Apollo’s “developments were for the second half of the 20th century, NASA’s Artemis program could eventually be more consequential,” says Scott Solomon. A “major objective” is to “develop and test technologies enabling a sustained presence in space that is less reliant on resupply missions from Earth,” and the “ripple effects of these plans will echo long into the future.” If “subsequent generations are born on other worlds,” they “could evolve into new human species.”

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‘Deepfake nudes are haunting America’s teens’

Jessica Grose at The New York Times

The “creation of deepfake nudes of minors” is “arguably much worse now that AI image generation tools are ubiquitous, and the images they create are even more realistic,” says Jessica Grose. Social media companies “could be doing a far better job of prioritizing the problem.” Parents can “have a conversation with your children about the fact that AI with nudifying capabilities exists,” but it “should not be the responsibility of individual parents to patrol the entire internet.”

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‘Are Native Americans birthright citizens? It’s no April Fool’s joke.’

Paul Rosier at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Pending “court decisions loom large in the debate over Native people’s ability to exercise their American citizenship to protect their Indigenous citizenship,” says Paul Rosier. Native Americans “have fought hard throughout the 20th century and into the 21st to first gain, and then defend, those dual citizenship rights.” At stake “for Native people is their ability to challenge threats to long-standing treaty rights, which preserve their ancestral homelands, cultural identity and religious freedom, their ability to be both Native and American.”

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‘The disillusioned college grads turning to the labor movement’

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein at The New Republic

The “story of a highly educated yet disillusioned generation has been told repeatedly since roughly 2011,” says Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein. Why “are unions now appealing to the college-educated?” Many “college grads assumed they would work in jobs that harnessed their passions.” One “appeal of unions for the college-educated is the crumbling of the narrative that pushed people into universities: Upon close inspection, the story about college being an unimpeded good begins to look more like a fairy tale.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-ice-latinos-malls-nursing-homes-china 9QFdZEj5Jbywq7AMohTSYk Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:58:10 +0000

‘Why Latinos join ICE’

Geraldo L. Cadava at The Atlantic

People have “treated the phenomenon of Latino border agents as something of a puzzle,” says Geraldo L. Cadava. Some have “argued that these Latinos come to embrace the mission of the Border Patrol through the process of socialization during training,” but a “simpler explanation is that Latinos who join ICE believe in the enforcement of immigration laws and that they are protecting, not antagonizing, their communities.” But this “of course doesn’t mean that other Latinos accept their logic.”

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‘The mall was an American experience. Not anymore.’

Blake Fontenay at USA Today

There was a “time, not so long ago, when malls felt like the centers of the cultural and social universe in American towns across the country,” says Blake Fontenay. Malls “used to be like watering holes on the Serengeti, where all sorts of creatures would gather and learn to coexist.” Time “has moved on. Consumer habits have changed,” but as “progress marches forward, we need to take stock of what we may be leaving behind.”

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‘To save lives in nursing homes, make inspections random’

Margaret Morganroth Gullette at The Boston Globe

Nursing homes “tend to increase staffing levels and expend more effort on patient care as a government inspection looms and cut back afterward,” says Margaret Morganroth Gullette. But the “predictability of inspections influences the homes’ timing: they’ll do what they need to do to clean up and then go back to business as usual.” Sending out “inspectors randomly would be a simple fix.” Another solution “could be to focus the surprise inspections on the homes with the most complaints.”

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‘Trump’s new cyber strategy is catnip for Beijing’

Ahana Datta Fasel at Foreign Policy

Even “best-in-class cyber capabilities rarely stay contained, and once exposed, they move rapidly,” says Ahana Datta Fasel. But Donald Trump’s “new six-pillar national cyber strategy” doubles down “on this risk, elevating offensive cyber operations as Washington’s primary instrument of deterrence.” This is a “dangerous gamble — one that Beijing, which has emerged as the prime cyber adversary to the United States, will see not just as an escalation but also as a legitimization of its own destabilizing posture.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-prison-reform-pam-bondi-growth-germany-iran eBn9vjTHdBtCja4Fg5HTrP Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:26:04 +0000

‘Second chances cannot be reserved for the privileged few’

Ken Oliver at Newsweek

Americans “see themselves as believers in second chances,” but for “millions of ordinary people with arrest or conviction records, there is no comparable second chance,” says Ken Oliver. Every “April, Second Chance Month asks Americans to consider a simple question: What should happen after justice has been served?” In “theory, the answer is straightforward: a person is held accountable, pays their debt to society and then has the opportunity to move forward.” In “practice, that’s rarely how it works.”

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‘The embarrassing lesson of Pam Bondi’s confirmation hearing’

Mary McCord at MS NOW

Maybe “now that Pam Bondi is gone, she will reflect on where and why she went astray,” says Mary McCord. Having “seen Bondi promote Donald Trump’s fraudulent election claims on Fox TV and elsewhere,” many were “dubious about her ability to uphold the ideals of the Department of Justice.” Some have “wondered whether Bondi’s supporters at that hearing have had regrets as they’ve watched her actions over the past 14 months stray far from their predictions.”

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‘Why the next era of growth must be built around humans’

Piyachart (Arm) Isarabhakdee at Time

While “seeds might be healthy and sunlight is abundant, without the conditions for roots to take hold, growth can never happen,” and the “same goes for today’s economy,” says Piyachart (Arm) Isarabhakdee. Capitalism’s “initial objective was productivity expansion,” but “today growth, modeled by GDP, often driven by manufacturing output, does not automatically translate into better living conditions, well-being or happiness.” Too “often, it has, in fact, widened inequality and accelerated environmental degradation.”

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‘How the German right sees Iran’

Filip Gaspar at The American Conservative

The Iran war “has become a test for Germany’s strategic independence and economic resilience,” and “Germany, so far, appears to be failing the test,” says Filip Gaspar. As Germans “debate the issue and reconsider past policy choices, no party has seized the moment more deliberately than the Alternative for Germany, now one of the strongest political forces and the clearest nationalist challenge to Berlin’s governing consensus.” This is “yet another sign of deeper disorder within the Western alliance.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-lebanon-icc-meloni-canada-journalism rNagFhEBTMJJYbyuQXUWBA Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:30:40 +0000

‘Why Lebanon should join the International Criminal Court’

Mark Kersten at Al Jazeera

What “will international law have to say about the violence and atrocities being waged against the Lebanese people?” says Mark Kersten. The “answer will depend in large part on whether Lebanon finally decides, as Palestine did, to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).” The ICC can “offer a modicum of accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Lebanon.” This “would also provide Lebanese citizens with an independent, impartial and international forum.”

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‘How Giorgia Meloni fell to Earth’

Anna Momigliano at The New York Times

For “three years, Giorgia Meloni’s leadership of Italy has seemed unshakable,” says Anna Momigliano. Since the “beginning of Mr. Trump’s second term, she has positioned herself as someone who can curry his favor and avoid his retaliations.” But as Trump’s “popularity craters to new lows in Europe, and the continent begins to find a backbone in its dealings with him, Ms. Meloni is discovering that being a favorite of the U.S. president can be a liability, too.”

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‘We should stop trying to copy unhappy America’

Linda McQuaig at the Toronto Star

Canada has “declined all the way down to the 25th spot when it comes to something that’s really important — happiness,” says Linda McQuaid. In “many ways, happiness is a more meaningful measure of our overall national success than the always-highlighted economic measure of GDP per capita.” Debate is “dominated by talk of how Canada measures up economically, whether we’re as rich as the United States.” The “focus is rarely on whether” Canada’s “social supports are strong enough.”

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‘Like journalists, prosecutors shaped a distorted view of crime. They can help fix it, too.’

Kelly McBride at the Poynter Institute

Journalists “have misled the public about crime and are now trying to correct the problem,” and “prosecuting attorneys have been guilty of many of the same sins,” says Kelly McBride. Both “talk about crime mostly when a crime has occurred.” These “journalists and prosecutors (and police, too) inadvertently reinforce the public perception that crime is a constant, growing threat — even though we know the opposite is true.” This “shapes how people understand their own safety and the policies they support.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/tech/instant-opinion-ai-birthright-citizenship-missiles-aoc-israel RqgU7eL8pkZEKJECs7Trhg Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:31:06 +0000 Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:41:06 +0000

‘When capital can think, who pays?’

Ravi Kumar S, Andreea Roberts and Simone Crymes at Newsweek

In the U.S., AI adoption is “growing at a remarkable pace,” but Americans are “concerned” about “layoffs tied to automation,” say Ravi Kumar S, Andreea Roberts and Simone Crymes. So how should “public policy support” the transition? One answer: a “shift in how automation is taxed relative to human labor.” If capital is “taxed more and labor less, replacing people with AI is no longer the cheapest path,” and using AI to “augment human workers” instead “becomes a more attractive option.”

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‘Birthright citizenship made me American. We can't lose it.’

Cynthia Choi at USA Today

On his “first day back in office,” Trump issued an executive order “seeking to deny citizenship to certain U.S.-born children,” says Cynthia Choi. But birthright citizenship is as “fundamental” to our country as “freedom of speech.” This is “not some isolated policy debate.” It’s a “broader effort by the Trump administration to put an end to multiracial democracy.” Children without citizenship will be denied “access to education, public benefits and the basic rights that come with belonging.”

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‘Missile warfare is faster, deadlier and harder to control’

Hal Brands at Bloomberg

The Iran conflict “demonstrates how the spread of powerful, accurate missiles is changing warfare around the globe,” says Hal Brands. Even “relatively weak states now have fairly accurate weapons that can strike hundreds, even thousands, of miles away.” This means “fewer sanctuaries: Facilities and geographies that were once secure are now vulnerable to attack.” That could be “challenging” for the U.S., since “even relatively weak adversaries will be able to hold U.S. bases, perhaps even the homeland, at risk.”

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‘AOC finally takes a position that makes sense on military aid to Israel’

Zeeshan Aleem at MS Now

On Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who “struggled to take a clear position on supporting Israel in the past,” pledged to vote “against all military aid to Israel,” says Zeeshan Aleem. This was a “striking shift for a potential 2028 White House hopeful who, should she enter the race, would be the standard bearer for the democratic socialist left.” Her decision “does not just reflect demands on the left but the changing dynamics of the Democratic Party.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-tiger-woods-latin-america-save-act-april-fools VTEmmmP946RVe397e5SPMa Wed, 01 Apr 2026 18:10:41 +0000

‘The tragic tale of Tiger Woods’

Jason L. Riley at The Wall Street Journal

Tiger Woods was “involved in another car accident,” and the “question is why he continues to drive himself (literally and figuratively) when his legacy is secure, he has nothing left to prove and his body keeps telling him it has had enough,” says Jason L. Riley. People watch “hero athletes handle all that pressure on the field, and they make it seem effortless. It isn’t.” Professional athletes “face inner demons as the rest of us do.”

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‘In Latin America, China’s Silk Road Ark is sunk’

Arturo McFields at The Hill

Latin American tours “by Chinese and U.S. warships demonstrates once again that a clear geopolitical, commercial and military battle exists between the two powers — and Beijing is losing it,” says Arturo McFields. While “China is the leading trade partner for most South American countries, the U.S. is showing to be, by far, the region’s primary ally in matters of security and the fight against organized crime.” A “challenging task is still ahead but the U.S. is winning.”

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‘The Save Act must be defeated. But it’s just one step in the fight to protect American voting.’

Austin Sarat at The Guardian

Donald Trump is “going all out to pressure the Senate to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,” which “would make voting even more onerous than it already is,” says Austin Sarat. The act is a “solution in search of a problem, since fraudulent voting by non-citizens almost never happens in this country.” And “while it is unlikely to pass the Senate, it represents a dramatic shift in the federal government’s attitude toward voting.”

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‘In defense of April Fools’ Day’

Sarah Dalgleish at Slate

In “reshaping our idea of what a prank can be, I want to rebrand April Fools’ Day as a holiday, like so many others, in which gifts are exchanged and appreciated,” says Sarah Dalgleish. People “live in a time of malleable reality, in which our understanding of the world keeps shifting so quickly and so implausibly that it often feels like the wrong kind of hoax.” But “playing with reality can also relieve emotional distress instead of inflicting it.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-glp-1s-gen-z-wnba-voters h73CD2Hhw3i8oN8BbioyoF Tue, 31 Mar 2026 15:55:22 +0000

‘How risky can the weight loss drug boom be? I learned the hard way.’

Jimmie Wilson at The Washington Post

GLP-1 popularity “has also fueled a thriving market for unregulated copycat versions,” and “most patients have no idea how risky these knockoff drugs can be,” says Jimmie Wilson. What “many doctors may not know is that compounded drugs and name-brand drugs are not the same.” Compounding pharmacies “exist to make custom formulations for patients who can’t take branded medications.” They “were not intended, nor are they equipped, to safely mass-produce drugs such as” GLP-1s.

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‘Did Gen Z show up to this “No Kings” protest? Sort of.’

Haley Taylor Schlitz at The Minnesota Star Tribune

It is “easy to ask, ‘Where was Gen Z?’ in a way that sounds like an accusation, as some have done after previous ‘No Kings’ protests,” says Haley Taylor Schlitz. For “young people, public outrage has rarely arrived as a singular moral awakening.” It is “not whether Gen Z wants a king,” but many “have been politically formed by an era in which speeches, protests and hashtags too often end the same way: with emotional release and too little change.”

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‘The WNBA is taking off. What took so long?’

Keia Clarke at Time

The WNBA’s “cultural and economic influence can no longer be denied,” says Keia Clarke. WNBA players “are set to become some of the highest-paid women athletes in the world,” and “that kind of growth prompts a harder question: why did it take so long?” From the “beginning, there was optimism and real conviction about what women’s basketball could become. But belief and scale are not the same thing.” Fans “can’t invest in what they don’t see or what they don’t understand.”

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‘The problem isn’t Washington. It’s us.’

Eugene Scott at The Boston Globe

Viewing “fellow citizens’ ethics and morals negatively is a logical conclusion after the electorate has continued to elect leaders who most people view negatively,” says Eugene Scott. It is “not unreasonable to conclude that people who support unethical leaders must have poor ethics themselves.” But lawmakers are “not primarily products of Washington. They are a reflection of the people and communities who sent them there.” If “you want to change Washington, you have to change your neighborhood.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-cherry-blossoms-homes-ai-baby-boomers Zm4yJpeK9HUuRp6ULq5Lf Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:28:32 +0000

‘Cherry blossoms in DC highlight deep-rooted friendship with Japan’

Stewart D. McLaurin at USA Today

The “Japanese cherry blossoms around Washington, D.C., remind Americans that some of the most enduring connections between nations often begin with simple gestures that carry lasting meaning — like the gifting of trees,” says Stewart D. McLaurin. A recent ceremony symbolized the “first of 250 new trees Japan is donating to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.” Moments of “ceremony and hospitality have marked U.S.-Japan diplomacy for more than a century and a half.”

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‘Democrats need a new promise: a house by 30’

Rotimi Adeoye at The New York Times

The “Trump administration has declared that it is ‘bringing back the American dream of homeownership,’” but is “doing little to make it a reality,” says Rotimi Adeoye. Politicians “can offer a simple promise: Anyone who works, pays taxes and plays by the rules should have a realistic path to buying a first home by age 30.” The “political benefits for the Democratic Party could be large,” as “housing will be a central issue in 2028.”

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‘AI deepfakes of girls are flooding schools. Teachers need more training to help stop it.’

Emma Le and Stephanie Choi at the San Francisco Chronicle

Deepfakes are a “dire issue in high schools full of digital natives: 98% of AI-generated content online is explicit deepfakes, and 40% of high school students know of deepfakes of themselves or their classmates,” say Emma Le and Stephanie Choi. While “protections exist, students still have little way of knowing whether they apply to them.” This gap “stems not from indifference but rather a lack of resources and guidance to address the scope of the deepfake problem among students.”

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‘Aging boomers will jam ERs — why it’s about to get worse’

Tom Wolzien at Newsweek

Patients are “increasingly stuck in the ER when they should have been moved ‘upstairs’ in the hospital,” and “increasingly, baby boomers will remain in those beds due to a lack of skilled nursing and assisted living facilities,” says Tom Wolzien. This “ripple effect will get much worse throughout the health care system.” This “could leave you, your spouse or your child in that ER hallway because when we boomers have nowhere to go, you will have nowhere to go.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-hoppers-ai-dating-golden-dome qRAhhCUUPkvjqstTpR4qWH Fri, 27 Mar 2026 15:45:04 +0000

‘A radical message for a kids’ movie’

David Sims at The Atlantic

If some kids' movies are “progressive allegories of beings transcending their differences, then ‘Hoppers’ is a surprisingly blunt pushback to that notion,” says David Sims. Its “advertising promises goofy hijinks amid an enclave of diverse species whose ecosystem is threatened by humans,” but the “movie, in actuality, is refreshingly mordant about what might really happen if prey and predators were to try banding together: Their efforts would immediately devolve into a despairing, even political quagmire.”

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‘The tech bubble might finally be popping’

Nitish Pahwa at Slate

The “AI bubble might finally be on the verge of popping,” says Nitish Pahwa. OpenAI is “shutting down its video-generation model, Sora — just six months after launching a dedicated mobile app, and just three months after inking a deal with Disney.” A “highly capitalized AI startup that bails on one of its most prominent creations and largest corporate deals so soon after hyping them up for months on end is not in a good position as a business.”

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‘A myth about dating troubles for high-earning women’

Paul Eastwick at The Boston Globe

When it “comes to the decline in men’s education prospects and the relationship recession, progressive and conservative commentators alike have achieved a rare consensus: They say the first trend explains the second one — because when men are less successful than women, they won’t fall for each other.” But there are “glaring problems with this take.” The “size of a person’s salary has tiny effects on romantic appeal and marital well-being, regardless of gender.”

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‘The Pentagon needs to give better answers on its “Golden Dome”’

Bloomberg editorial board

Legislators “tucked an unusual provision into the recently passed $839 billion defense appropriations bill, demanding answers from the Pentagon on its proposed ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense project,” says the Bloomberg editorial board. If “White House officials want this program to succeed, they shouldn’t just accept the need for greater transparency; they should embrace it.” Undue “secrecy over the program risks raising both expectations and fears unnecessarily,” and the “administration risks becoming a victim of its own hype.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-weather-social-media-water-marijuana UcifNdpKcQn2PFpGmxmJ4H Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:41:03 +0000 Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:43:08 +0000

‘Why you hate your weather app’

Kyle Chayka at The New Yorker

Weather apps “might be second only to social media as a space in need of fresh disruption,” says Kyle Chayka. These apps “have a tendency to alienate their user bases, perhaps because people’s physical experiences — their plans, their dress, their commutes — so directly depend on an accurate report.” But the “challenge of weather app creation lies both in the improbability of accurately predicting the weather and in the difficulty of designing something that works for any user.”

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‘Suing social media won’t protect our kids’

Nicholas Creel at Newsweek

Verdicts against Meta “are being celebrated as a landmark reckoning in the long effort to hold Big Tech accountable for the youth mental health crisis it helped create,” says Nicholas Creel. But “these lawsuits will not protect our children from the harms of social media.” The “desire to sue social media giants is understandable; the anger at them is justified,” but a “damages award against Meta does not redesign the algorithm that exposes children to harmful content.”

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‘Water infrastructure in Texas is failing. A surge of new funding can fix it.’

Lajward Zahra at The Nation

How “does Houston, Texas, lose more than 30 billion gallons of water a year? With the entire state facing scarcity, the cause isn’t drought alone,” says Lajward Zahra. Infrastructure problems have “made daily life feel unmanageable,” prompting a “community-led coalition that helped shape deliberations over Proposition 4, a constitutional amendment that would authorize up to $20 billion over two decades for water infrastructure.” The proposition “exposed a gap between Texas’ political branding and what voters will support.”

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‘Americans now use marijuana more often than alcohol. Is this the new sobriety?’

Tom Greene at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A “strange thing is happening, given our national love of booze. U.S. alcohol consumption is dropping faster than Prince Harry’s approval ratings,” says Tom Greene. But when “alcohol consumption goes down, something else will replace it,” and “nearly 18 million Americans now use marijuana almost daily.” Marijuana is “mainstream, even where it’s not legal for recreational use.” Some people “suspect we will see states that legalized marijuana pull back in the next few years.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-hormuz-agriculture-education-corporations-congress KQZze9MLFmWUWMzrnGLqCi Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:39:55 +0000

‘Hormuz fertilizer block will upend world’s food production’

Chris Krebs at the Financial Times

Before the “first strike on Iran, the global food system was already running on reduced redundancy,” says Chris Krebs, and the Strait of Hormuz closure “isn’t breaking a healthy system. It is breaking one that was already compromised.” The “food security clock runs in months,” but the “geopolitical clock runs in years.” If “fertilizer isn’t moving through the Strait of Hormuz in two weeks’ time, we won’t be debating any more, we’ll be sending in aid.”

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‘Education decisions aren’t inevitable. They are rooted in history.’

Erika M. Kitzmiller at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Cities like Philadelphia have “always had choices — choices to enact educational policies and practices that replicate inequality or to pursue alternatives that disrupt it,” says Erika M. Kitzmiller. Too “many times in our city’s history, those with power have chosen the former.” The city’s “current challenges — shrinking school enrollments, outdated school facilities and persistent resource disparities — did not suddenly appear in the 21st century.” They “have a long history marked by injustice and disinvestment.”

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‘Why corporate America is coming home to the heartland’

Derek Kreifels at the National Review

For “decades, a handful of states such as Delaware, with its hospitable corporate law, and California, Illinois and New York, with their capital resources, held too strong a grip on the American corporate engine,” says Derek Kreifels. But taxes are “harming innovation, growth and the economic prospects of the people who live there.” As a “result, we are now witnessing a historic migration, as some of America’s most iconic companies pack their bags and head for the heartland.”

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‘Congress can’t protect radio without protecting artists’

Michael Huppe at The Hill

There is a “question for Congress: What good is radio without music?” says Michael Huppe. There are “thousands of artists across America” whose “performances are the product that AM and FM radio use to earn nearly $14 billion in advertising revenue each year.” But “unlike every other democracy, the U.S. still does not require radio corporations to pay the artists for that privilege.” Congress can pass “bills protecting AM radio in every vehicle and protecting the artists who make every recording.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-airports-housing-israel-lebanon-snl bdQa7SEHor9A3kRGkou88g Tue, 24 Mar 2026 15:29:40 +0000

‘America’s airport problems need to be fixed now’

Chicago Tribune editorial board

The U.S. “cannot function with travelers stuck in security lines for three and four hours,” says the Chicago Tribune editorial board. TSA employees “cannot be expected to go weeks or months without paychecks they need to pay their bills,” and ICE agents “have a job to do other than looking inside travelers’ bags and checking identification, tasks for which they are not directly trained.” Americans “have the right to expect their government to take care of these things.”

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‘Affordable housing is possible, if we stop ignoring the obvious’

Sam Raus at USA Today

American cities are “short on housing yet full of unused space,” says Sam Raus. With “nearly a quarter of the workforce going remote, and no amount of return-to-office mandates likely to change this trend, it’s time for cities to repurpose these empty buildings to meet the demands of the moment.” Turning “cubicles into apartment complexes for those who still live in cities would require state and local politicians approaching zoning policies, building codes and taxation with fresh eyes.”

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‘Israel’s displacement of civilians in Lebanon is a possible war crime’

Nadia Hardman at Al Jazeera

Israel’s “attacks in Lebanon — and the threat of more to come — have caused more than a million people to flee their homes,” but the “laws of war stipulate that civilians cannot be forced to leave their homes unless imperative military reasons dictate,” says Nadia Hardman. The “evacuation must be temporary, and people must be allowed to return once the hostilities end. In short, war is not a license to expel people from their land.”

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‘With Tina Fey as first host, “SNL UK” kicked off with familiar skits and very British humor’

Robert Lloyd at the Los Angeles Times

After “50 years of being practically synonymous with New York City, ‘Saturday Night Live’ has opened the door to London with ‘Saturday Night Live U.K.,’ following in the steps of ‘Law & Order U.K.’ and possibly nothing else,” says Robert Lloyd. Of “all the cities in the world that might conceivably replicate the spirit of the NBC original, the British capital, with its urban dynamism, media concentration and 20,000 comedians, feels like the obvious, and perhaps only, choice.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-afroman-iran-doctors-climate-change EZEyvhi2c3Yb2CirgZsKp8 Mon, 23 Mar 2026 16:24:30 +0000

‘Afroman: American patriot’

Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein at The Washington Post

Rapper Afroman “demonstrated in often hilarious fashion why America’s commitment to freedom of speech is the dread of tyrants big and small,” say Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein. Police officers “raided his rural Ohio home in 2022,” and Afroman “responded the way artists have responded to being wronged since time immemorial: turning it into art.” A “country is free when the citizen mocks the state actors who harmed him and the system defends his right to do it.”

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‘Trump’s video game war: AI, memes and a simplistic narrative have flattened the conflict in Iran’

Nesrine Malik at The Guardian

The “war on Iran, even as it spreads and destabilizes the Middle East and the global economy, is not real. This is how it is being portrayed by the Trump administration,” says Nesrine Malik. The “war is a video game, a spectator sport, a social media festival of dunking,” and the “architects of this war have made a virtue out of stupidity.” The conflict “feels like the first of its kind in the modern age: distinctly remote and profoundly ignorant.”

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‘Doctors should be paid to keep patients healthy’

Ashish K. Jha and Thomas C. Tsai at The Boston Globe

Experience “points to a promising idea that has been at the center of health care reform for more than a decade: Instead of paying doctors and hospitals for every test and procedure they perform, pay them for keeping patients healthy,” say Ashish K. Jha and Thomas C. Tsai. In this “model, called value-based care, doctors and hospitals are paid based on the health outcomes they achieve and the overall cost of caring for their patients.”

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‘Energy crises must accelerate the fight against climate change’

Le Monde editorial board

As the “U.S.-Israeli war against Iran enters its third week, hopes for a short, contained crisis without major consequences for the global energy market have faded,” says the Le Monde editorial board. But the “absence of supply disruptions should not obscure the main point.” The “structural vulnerability of our economies to imported crises remains, now manifesting through price volatility, strategic uncertainty and the weakening of industrial supply chains.” This is “what makes this crisis different and politically decisive.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-banksy-art-farms-world-medicine 7FAJVPJF46a3N7DtBhdKuB Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:30:04 +0000

‘Banky’s anonymity is what gives — gave? — his art its power’

Allison Schrager at Bloomberg

The “revelation that the artist Banksy is a 50-something man from Bristol, England, named Robin Gunningham” might “be the ultimate test of what actually determines value in contemporary art,” says Allison Schrager. Art insiders “are speculating that the news will increase the value of Banksy’s work. That line of thinking tracks with the fact that markets hate uncertainty, and now there is more clarity.” But Banksy’s “art is not like a stock option or any other commodity.”

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‘The farm bill, in its current state, is a public health failure’

Lyndon Haviland at The Hill

Congress is “trying to pass a long-overdue farm bill as lawmakers debate where, and how, billions in taxpayer resources should be allocated,” says Lyndon Haviland. But “those involved in shaping the current legislation seem to be more interested in protecting special interests than advancing the bill’s primary objectives: establishing a healthy food system, supporting a wide group of farmers who supply it and ensuring all Americans have access to a safe and nutritious food supply.”

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‘Great powers can learn from small island states’

José Ulisses de Pina Correia e Silva at Newsweek

Small island countries are “uniquely placed to navigate today’s changing world,” says Cape Verde Prime Minister José Ulisses de Pina Correia e Silva. Their “size and focused economies, rather than making them vulnerable, have made many capable of addressing global economic shocks and thrive as the shift occurs from the ‘globalization generation’ to a new arena of great power play.” Small size “also means economic expansion is focused on the practical,” with “no room for overpromising.”

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‘Medical students and doctors aren’t supposed to do invasive exams on surgery patients without permission. My research found it’s still happening. Here’s what should be done.’

Phoebe Friesen at the Toronto Star

The “practice of medical students performing pelvic exams on anesthetized patients without their consent has had a lot of press in recent years — at least in the United States,” says Phoebe Friesen. But in Canada “nonconsensual educational sensitive exams” are “alive and well.” It is “time for Canada to get clear on consent for educational sensitive exams under anesthesia,” and “time for medical schools across the country to implement policies ensuring explicit consent takes place before each educational exam.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-business-youth-nfl-pentagon-refugees-college hdo64LCmKP6fgMoo5gwNYh Thu, 19 Mar 2026 15:32:03 +0000

‘So you want to be a millionaire? Don’t wait until you’re 20.’

Emil Barr at The Wall Street Journal

If you’re a “20-something and plan to get a few years of experience before taking a real swing at entrepreneurship, you’re already late,” says Emil Barr. The “best age to become an entrepreneur is between 18 and 21.” Venture capitalists “often see young blockchain and artificial-intelligence developers as more competent than those in their 50s” and “those are great industries in which to build a business.” In “fast-moving environments, native fluency can outperform seniority. But that window doesn’t stay open indefinitely.”

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‘The NFL ought to throw a flag on the Pentagon. Here’s why it probably won’t.’

Kevin B. Blackistone at MS NOW

Given its “history of promoting the U.S. military, we shouldn’t be surprised that the NFL has not publicly demanded that the Trump administration cease its callous use of game footage to promote its war against Iran,” says Kevin B. Blackistone. The NFL’s “silence is disingenuous at best or hypocritical at worst given the disclaimer we hear at the end of its games: ‘Any rebroadcast or other use of this telecast without the express written consent of the NFL is prohibited.’”

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‘US promised safety. A nearly blind refugee died cold and alone.’

Khin Mai Aung at USA Today

Rohingya refugee Nurul Amin Shah Alam “represents yet another profound systemic failure in our nation’s treatment of immigrants and refugees,” says Khin Mai Aung. Shah Alam “was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and then dropped off in the middle of the night outside a closed local cafe in February,” and “later found dead.” It “has been a painful road to realize that our country of adoption may not ultimately be safer or more inclusive than our countries of origin.”

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‘Ivy Leaguers are getting their “MRS” degrees’

Grey Battle at Slate

Ivy Leaguers “have classmates who came back from summer vacation married. This is “different from the story usually told about the Ivy League,” says Grey Battle. These students are “chasing marriage with the same intensity they would approach any status symbol — high school book awards, college likely letters, six-figure jobs after graduation.” Universities “will always have students who are engaged, married or parenting, but their numbers are on the rise.” Some are “directly pushing young straight people to marry.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-girls-sports-meta-economy-ukraine umeo2xMZP7TwxhpZC2qDBk Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:56:58 +0000

‘Girls’ sports are getting more physical’

Alexandra Moe at The Atlantic

Physical contact in “women’s sports remains controversial,” but girls “seem to be more interested than ever in contact,” says Alexandra Moe. At U.S. high schools “last academic year, more girls played on teams for wrestling than field hockey, gymnastics or dance.” Girls’ “participation in such sports is growing so quickly in part because it’s starting from a small denominator,” and may “appeal to a rising cultural sense that women and girls can — and should — bulk up.”

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‘Meta’s smart glasses are a privacy risk invisible to Chicagoans’

Yunus Emre Tozal at the Chicago Tribune

Meta’s “smart glasses problem is a legibility problem,” says Yunus Emre Tozal. Walking through a city “today, you cannot tell who around you is recording.” This is “not a hypothetical privacy risk. It is an active data pipeline running through one of the most documented failures of AI labor ethics on record, operating at scale in every city where 7 million pairs of glasses are being worn.” This is “not a privacy feature. It is a design decision.”

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‘The era of US dominance in economic warfare is over’

Nicholas Mulder at the Financial Times

Iran’s “threat to shipping in the Gulf is widely seen as an asymmetric retaliation against the U.S. and Israel,” says Nicholas Mulder. But Iran “has actually replicated a tactic that America has long practiced in its use of sanctions: it has turned a key chokepoint in the world economy into a weapon to compel its adversary to de-escalate.” America previously “had an effective monopoly on major sanctions,” but the “end of the unipolar era in economic warfare” is here.

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‘Ukraine and the EU need a fresh start’

Ivan Nagornyak and Fredrik Wesslau at Foreign Policy

Four years “after Ukraine applied for membership in the European Union, one conclusion is inescapable: The EU’s normal model for enlargement is not fit for purpose,” say Ivan Nagornyak and Fredrik Wesslau. The EU’s “accession process — rigid, technocratic and slow — was designed for peacetime, not for a country fighting a war of survival and rebuilding a shattered economy.” But “any interim model for Ukraine must be a stepping stone to full membership, not a substitute.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-mass-shootings-oscars-trafficking-ai Ci7goskXTWJCfap3C27mnZ Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:23:34 +0000 Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:26:15 +0000

‘We study mass shooters. Something terrifying is happening online.’

James Densley and Jillian Peterson at The New York Times

Until “recently, if asked to profile a typical mass shooter, we would have described a middle-aged man who was socially isolated and in despair,” say James Densley and Jillian Peterson. But Americans “are witnessing the emergence of a different paradigm: a mass shooter no less despairing about life’s hardships but younger” and “highly connected to online social networks.” This shift is “highly significant for our understanding of the online-fueled pathologies that afflict our society.”

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‘What “One Battle After Another” doesn’t get about resistance in Trump’s America’

Gustavo Arellano at the Los Angeles Times

The “cheers were loud and long at the 98th Academy Awards after ‘One Battle After Another’ won best picture,” says Gustavo Arellano. It is “supposed to be a movie that Means Something,” but the director has “maintained in interviews that people should regard it less as a reflection of our times and more as a commentary on the eternal struggle of American democracy.” This makes it “far less weighty than critics and supporters alike have characterized it as being.”

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‘Rich men like Bill Gates can do more to make amends for their Epstein ties’

Bridgette Carr at The Guardian

When Bill Gates “spoke before his foundation staff last month and said it had been ‘a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein,’” survivors “felt something familiar. Not surprise. Exhaustion,” says Bridgette Carr. Gates’ “apology — and others like it — are necessary.” But it is “not sufficient.” For “some individuals, accountability should absolutely mean arrest and prosecution. But not everyone in Epstein’s ecosystem committed crimes.” This “leaves a question nobody seems to be asking: is an apology enough?”

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‘AI won’t cause a spending collapse’

Bryan Cutsinger and Alexander William Salter at the National Review

Two “widely read essays in recent weeks have warned that artificial intelligence will do more than eliminate jobs. It will, we are told, wreck the economy by destroying economic demand,” say Bryan Cutsinger and Alexander William Salter. This is “an arresting narrative. It’s also wrong.” AI will “likely cause significant sectoral disruptions,” but the “claim that AI will cause a sustained shortfall in aggregate demand rests on a misunderstanding of how the economy works.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-bay-area-sex-scandal-oscars-menopause tuEDqUYMtwVG3wv8onCK7h Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:43:22 +0000

‘The death of Bay Area public transportation’

The Washington Post editorial board

It “looks like the Bay Area Rapid Transit system is headed for a financial death spiral,” says The Washington Post editorial board. Public transit use is “down across the country, but most other systems are closer to pre-pandemic levels. The Bay Area, however, is filled with technology firms that offer generous work-from-home policies.” BART “has been treated more like a jobs program for transit workers than a way for people to get around.”

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‘Trump’s era normalizes Washington sex scandals’

Juan Williams at The Hill

The “tide of sex scandals in Washington is now beyond tabloid gossip,” says Juan Williams. These scandals “point to a raft of powerful people who put personal desire ahead of good government.” They “would reach beyond the tabloids to dominate all news coverage of official Washington in any other era of American politics.” But in the “Trump administration, it is background noise to the regular news reports on the Justice Department’s defiance and slow-walking the opening of files on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.”

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‘Oscars should focus on best pictures, not celebrity politics’

Clay Routledge and Paul Anleitner at USA Today

The “rejection of celebrity lectures shouldn’t obscure the fact that Hollywood has an important societal role to play,” say Clay Routledge and Paul Anleitner. Americans “don’t want to be lectured to by wealthy entertainers who seem disconnected from their everyday struggles. Celebrity activism is more likely to polarize than persuade.” This “doesn’t mean that Hollywood’s only role is entertainment, however. Films can inspire us in ways that no acceptance speech ever could,” because “humans are ‘storied creatures.’”

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‘It is time to recognize menopause as a workplace issue’

Lara Bertola, Akanksha Jalan and Belinda Steffan at Le Monde

As many executives are “approaching or over 50, the fact that many are experiencing menopause is still largely overlooked,” say Lara Bertola, Akanksha Jalan and Belinda Steffan. Are “senior women executives somehow immune to hot flashes, sleepless nights, and the resulting fatigue?” The “lives of women executives are thrown into upheaval by the hormonal changes they undergo.” This is a “burden affecting all women at this stage of life, who face both specific, unrecognized challenges and often unsympathetic attitudes.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-beans-kash-patel-catholic-social-media 7RVXk38GAehK6Fz5ntKgpY Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:54:14 +0000

‘One food all Americans can agree on’

Yasmin Tayag at The Atlantic

There is “one player that any team would gladly welcome,” says Yasmin Tayag. It is “plant-based, widely available and incredibly affordable. It is the homeliest and humblest of foods: the bean.” Beans “have a lot going for them,” and “changes in American life are making beans a more attractive choice.” If the “nutritional, environmental and financial benefits aren’t sufficient reasons to root for beans, take note of their recent makeover,” as “bean innovation really took off.”

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‘Kash Patel’s “glitz and glamour” deal with the UFC’

Hayes Brown at MS NOW

A “group of current and former mixed martial arts fighters affiliated with UFC will be conducting a training seminar this weekend for students at the FBI’s academy,” and the move “does illustrate that FBI Director Kash Patel’s desire to appear cool has him in a chokehold,” says Hayes Brown. Patel is “living out a specific version of a Gen X male fantasy from atop the nation’s top law enforcement agency,” creating a “towering construct of manliness.”

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‘Young Latinos — and their commitment to social justice — are shaping the future of the Catholic Church’

Hosffman Ospino and Timothy Matovina at The Conversation

Young people “constitute the largest portion of the more than 68 million Latinos in the United States,” say Hosffman Ospino and Timothy Matovina. Despite their “diversity, their experiences tend to be lumped together.” But regardless of “how Latinos identify, many of them grew up deeply influenced by a Catholic spirituality that permeates Latino culture.” And many are now also “embracing their two or more cultures. They see that inheritance as a gift — and often as inspiration to advocate for social justice.”

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‘Mark Carney is thinking of banning kids from social media. This is why it’s a terrible idea.’

Supriya Dwivedi at the Toronto Star

Canada is “considering a social media ban for children as part of its forthcoming plan to reintroduce legislation on online harms,” says Supriya Dwivedi. But “unlike all of the other jurisdictions that are considering whether or not to ban kids from social media, Canada has not even attempted to regulate social media beyond proposing legislation that ultimately ends up going nowhere.” In an “attempt to do something about social media’s harms, the Carney government could unfairly target adults.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-world-cup-ballet-kurds-russia QGg2eptn3xgUTwXTSD2uDU Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:50:46 +0000

‘The US World Cup is facing two crises: a financial mess — and ICE.’

Nellie Pou at The Guardian

The “final match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be played in East Rutherford, New Jersey,” but if the U.S. “doesn’t get its act together, we risk turning a generational opportunity into an international embarrassment,” says Nellie Pou. The “first problem is money.” Every “day of delay makes an already complex logistical challenge harder.” The games “also face a second threat: ICE.” When an “immigration enforcement agency signals it may be at our stadiums and public events, it raises legitimate fears.”

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‘Ballet isn’t dead, but Timothée Chalamet might have a point’

Chloe Angyal at Time

Timothée Chalamet recently “spoke about the vibrancy of cinema,” and “went on to claim that ‘no one cares’ about ballet or opera,” says Chloe Angyal. To many, “Chalamet sounded like an ignorant bully.” Ballet is “too often the butt of the joke,” often relying on the “shared assumption that ballet is feminine, frivolous and a little gay.” While Chalamet “did not make such insults himself, his comments fit into this broader context of disparagement and dismissal.” In the US, “ballet is starved for state resources, which reflects a widespread lack of respect.”

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‘Trump wants the Kurds to wage war in Iran. They should beware.’

Stephen Kinzer at The Boston Globe

As the “war against Iran intensifies, an old Middle East impulse has suddenly reemerged: Arm the Kurds,” says Stephen Kinzer. For “decades, the United States has used Kurdish militias as proxies.” Now President Donald Trump “wants them to enter Iran and try to set off an ethnic uprising. They should beware.” Even “with American air support, the few thousand Iranian Kurds who might launch an insurgency inside their country would have no realistic chance to advance against Iran’s military.”

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‘Russia’s use of poison: a reality Europe has been slow to confront.’

Marie Jégo at Le Monde

Eliminating opponents “by poisoning them is embedded in the DNA of Russian power,” says Marie Jégo. The “advantage of poison is that it is not easily detected.” The “fact that Russia, a signatory to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, could so brazenly use poisons is a reality Europe has been slow to address.” It was “not until 2023 that Moscow lost its seat on the organization's executive council and 2026 before the criminal state was called out.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-nyc-mamdani-iran-waymo-fox-news X7jeDemPsrzX6Wfxzeq6sE Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:04:36 +0000

‘Don't let Gracie Mansion bomb scare obscure far-right’s danger’

Sara Pequeño at USA Today

After a bomb scare at an “anti-Muslim protest outside the home of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani,” the media “focused on the potential harm these IEDs could have caused,” says Sara Pequeño. But the “presence of far-right, Islamophobic protesters in New York City is also deplorable, and failing to get the attention it deserves.” The protest organizer “lives in Florida,” and it’s “pathetic that someone would come all the way from Florida because they’re outraged that New York City has a Muslim mayor.”

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‘Mojtaba Khamenei brings monarchy back to Iran’

Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh at The Wall Street Journal

The late Iranian ayatollah’s “son and successor, the Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, has neither his father’s experience nor Khomeini’s pedigree,” say Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh. His “ascent marks the collapse of the last egalitarian pillar of the revolution, namely that the mullahs, unlike decadent Persian shahs, don’t do dynastic succession.” The “revolution has come full circle. Even without regime change, monarchy has returned to Iran,” and Mojtaba “will continue his father’s search for foreign devils.”

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‘How many Waymos is too many Waymos?’

Allison Arieff at the San Francisco Chronicle

The number of Waymos on the street is a “critical question. And we don’t know the answer to it,” says Allison Arieff. That “needs to change, particularly as the company and others like it dramatically scale up.” Waymo has “eroded public trust in its technology,” and “offering greater data transparency would help restore it — and start needed discussions about other regulations for Waymo and the rest of the burgeoning autonomous taxi industry.”

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‘Fox News aired old footage of Trump honoring fallen troops. Was it an honest mistake or a deliberate choice?’

Tom Jones at the Poynter Institute

Some “were upset that Trump never removed his white ‘USA’ baseball cap” during a dignified troop transfer, but Fox News “actually used footage from another time Trump attended a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base,” says Tom Jones. As “far as the wrong video, was it an honest mistake, or was the network trying to protect Trump?” When it “comes to coverage of Trump, it’s hard to give Fox News the benefit of the doubt.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-remote-women-latinos-democrats-iran qCtyCTBnaN8ZX6oiboj5PW Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:51:27 +0000

‘The return-to-the-office trend backfires’

Gleb Tsipursky at The Hill

Many “business leaders think that a stricter return-to-office policy will cause a surge in productivity. But in reality, the data tells a different story,” says Gleb Tsipursky. Companies that “commit to highly flexible models, including remote-first, report strong output, healthier engagement and faster growth than mandate-driven peers.” These are “not isolated anecdotes; they are economy-wide patterns.” If “flexibility supports performance and expands talent, what do return-to-office mandates do? A growing body of research answers bluntly: not what its champions promise.”

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‘From medals to the Capitol: When women are elected, everyone wins.’

Lauri Hennessey and Kiana Scott at The Seattle Times

Many of the “barriers that kept women, especially women of color, from full participation in elected leadership are still in place today, and are present in and beyond politics,” say Lauri Hennessey and Kiana Scott. While men “share the weight of family care more than they once did, the scales are still deeply unbalanced, forcing many women and families to make choices.” Women are “still fighting, in many ways, for equality. That’s part of why electing women matters.”

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‘Latinos are turning away from Trump’s GOP. That doesn’t mean Democrats are entitled to their votes.’

Luis F. Carrasco at The Philadelphia Inquirer

In 2024, Donald Trump “could rightfully point with pride to how he performed with Hispanic voters in Texas,” but last week Latinos “turned out in massive numbers for the Democrats,” says Luis F. Carrasco. This is “good news for Democrats, but here’s the caveat: they cannot draw the lesson that this is Hispanic voters coming home. Instead, both parties must understand they cannot take Latinos for granted.” Some Latinos have a “sense that Democrats are not properly focused.”

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‘The war with Iran is reaching places you might not expect’

Grigor Hovhannisyan at Newsweek

The world’s “attention in the confrontation with Iran has focused on the obvious places,” says Grigor Hovhannisyan. But wars “rarely respect the neat geography of news coverage,” and airlines have “begun funneling through a narrow band of sky over three countries that rarely occupy the center of American strategic thinking: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.” The “sudden congestion overhead is less a commercial opportunity than a reminder of geography. When great powers collide, smaller states nearby tend to absorb the pressure.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-reading-economy-ai-meds-carney-war rjZoodYpfgFux7AyzJD8nW Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:50:33 +0000 Mon, 09 Mar 2026 19:22:51 +0000

‘Andrew Tate doesn’t get the point of books’

Joel Halldorf at The Atlantic

“Digitization” is the “latest innovation in reading,” but while the “gains in information are undeniable, the costs to attention, contemplation and reflection are no less profound,” says Joel Halldorf. Digital pages are “cluttered with distractions” and “embedded links invite readers to move on mid-sentence.” The “erosion of deep reading weakens our capacity to grasp complex ideas,” which “reshapes the public square, allowing brief snippets of emotionally charged content to crowd out nuance, and algorithms to reinforce preferences and prejudices.”

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‘Trump’s bragging about the economy doesn’t match reality — and Americans notice’

Philip Bump at MS Now

Fox News “released new polling last week that showed Americans broadly remain skeptical of Trump’s leadership as president,” says Philip Bump. “That includes his handling of what was once his strongest issue: the economy.” Now, “only 33% of Americans approve of his handling of the cost of living.” This has “been a lingering problem for Trump”: His “administration’s insistence” that “‘affordability’ is an invented issue or that an economic boom is imminent simply doesn’t match Americans’ actual experience.”

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‘Don’t trust this $4 solution for getting a prescription’

Joseph V. Sakran and Rahul Gorijavolu at The Washington Post

In Utah, an “artificial intelligence platform called Doctronic is renewing prescription medications for patients without physician involvement,” say Joseph V. Sakran and Rahul Gorijavolu. If “AI can handle” medication renewals for “stable chronic conditions,” it “could free up doctors.” But the kind of “chronic conditions” in question “evolve silently. Blood pressure medications become insufficient; diabetes medications require adjustment.” Safety concerns “have been broadly expressed,” and the “window to act” is now — “before autonomous AI prescribing expands.”

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‘Carney confirms: When Washington whistles, Ottawa salutes.’

Andrew Mitrovica at Al Jazeera

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney once “spoke about restraint,” says Andrew Mitrovica. “He urged the world’s most powerful governments to resist the easy seduction of reckless escalation.” But “Carney has backed” the war on Iran, which “bears all the blatant trademarks of the impulsive thinking Carney claimed to mistrust.” Perhaps the “calculation in Ottawa is that loyalty today will purchase goodwill tomorrow.” That “reflects a remarkable misreading of United States President Donald Trump’s brass-knuckled political instincts.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-mcdonalds-iran-gambling-movies AHDeHe4YMTyKpDEmoHpLPo Fri, 06 Mar 2026 16:47:18 +0000

‘The McDonald’s CEO’s big burger-eating mistake’

Ellen Cushing at The Atlantic

A video of McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski eating a burger “didn’t go well,” says Ellen Cushing. It “was discomfiting because it broke the rules of the internet-based marketing economy that Kempczinski belongs to (whether he wants to or not).” The “incident is an object lesson in what happens when the logic of food influencerdom collides with the reality of running a giant business.” This is “why the social media accounts of multinational corporations all speak like sleepy teenagers.”

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‘Hard feelings’

Narges Bajoghli at Intelligencer

Over the “past week, the Iranian American community has been fracturing in real time across dinner tables, in group chats, in the silence of blocked numbers,” says Narges Bajoghli. There has “always been infighting among Iranians in the diaspora. The community has never been monolithic. It spans monarchists and leftists, secular nationalists and devout Muslims, people who left last year and people who left in 1979.” But “today’s divisions do not fall neatly along the old political lines.”

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‘We’re gambling with men’s health. Here’s why that’s bad for all of us.’

Elizabeth Renzetti at the Toronto Star

In the “past few years, gambling has received a glow-up that would make a Kardashian green with envy,” says Elizabeth Renzetti. Gambling has been “rebranded as ‘prediction markets,’” and there are “clear winners in this explosion of micro-gambling.” But there are “clear losers, too. Mainly they’re the young men and boys whose health is being harmed by having a gambling den on their phones — and by constant ads reminding them that they’re losers if they’re not placing bets.”

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‘The cinema of societal collapse’

Vikram Murthi at The Nation

“‘The Secret Agent’ and ‘Sirat’ are among the five films nominated in this year’s Best International Feature Film category, all of which confront state-backed oppression,” says Vikram Murthi. “Living with or dying under tyranny pertains to each of the nominated films, yet ‘The Secret Agent’ and ‘Sirat’ are primarily concerned with the texture of a fascist atmosphere.” Both “capture the psychology of knowing that one’s fragile world is on the brink of collapse but persevering anyway in spite of overwhelming despair.”

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]]> https://theweek.com/politics/instant-opinion-scream-guns-kamala-harris-trump-work pJ6Dp42Dsbi8spBTDWpX3D Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:37:28 +0000

‘“Scream 7” shows us a different way to survive the night’

Kris Brown at USA Today

Amid the “usual jump scares and plot twists, there’s an important safety lesson in the latest installment of ‘Scream.’ And it’s likely something you didn’t even notice: firearms stored locked up in a safe,” says Kris Brown. These “depictions matter.” Storing guns safely is a “key step to preventing these kinds of tragedies,” and “when writers and directors take the time to show characters properly storing their firearms, we can inspire audiences everywhere to do the same.”

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‘Kamala Harris might run for president again in 2028. Please, no.’

Arwa Mahdawi at The Guardian

Kamala Harris “hasn’t ruled out running for president again,” and it “would be very satisfying to see Trump’s misogynistic reign end with a woman in the White House,” says Arwa Mahdawi. But “unless she fundamentally changes as a politician, that woman is never going to be Harris.” The “sooner Harris realizes that and abandons her presidential ambitions the better for all of us. We can’t afford to have the run-up to 2028 be a battle of Democratic egos.”

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‘The idea that Trump was anti-war was always delusional’

Michelle Goldberg at The Seattle Times

The “ludicrous idea of Trump as a promoter of peace — a notion his 2024 campaign leaned into — rests on a deep, willful misunderstanding of Trump’s record and character,” says Michelle Goldberg. It is “true that he broke with key elements of neoconservative ideology, particularly when it comes to nation-building and promoting democracy.” But “what Trump has always hated isn’t conflict but sacrifice, the notion that American power should ever be constrained by a veneer of idealism.”

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‘The economics of night-time work’

Soumaya Keynes at the Financial Times

In “America, it seems, night owls are becoming less common,” says Soumaya Keynes. The “most obvious explanation for the shift is that our economic requirements have evolved in favor of daytime pencil pushers.” Maybe people “do still need some night-time workers to taxi us to early flights or tend to our wounds in the wee hours.” But “perhaps demands elsewhere — and for employees competent enough to do their work in the allotted time — have been stronger.”

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