The midterm elections are looming as a milestone in the Iran war. President Donald Trump declined a ceasefire proposal from Tehran last week, reportedly because he expects to restart U.S. attacks after the vote. And Iran’s leaders may be betting that election pressure can force the White House to make concessions.

‘Midterm election problem’

The president expects to start a new round of bombing “after the November midterms,” said The Wall Street Journal. Trump on Friday rejected a proposed ceasefire that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

Iranian leaders, however, say they want to make a deal “before Americans head to the polls this November,” said NBC News. “We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said to reporters at last week’s United Nations assembly, per NBC.

It is “highly unusual” for U.S. elections to “affect a war,” David Shribman said at The Globe and Mail. The “only precedent” for electoral considerations influencing war strategy so directly came in 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson halted bombing in North Vietnam “to help his vice-president, Hubert Humphrey,” in the presidential election. Humphrey lost.

Trump has a “midterm election problem” with the war, said Al Jazeera. Voters who were “promised easy victory” appear poised to punish Republicans in November, which affects strategic considerations. Iran “faces no such countdown,” given that it is “ruled by an unelected Supreme Leader.”

‘Potentially endless’ war

If the elections are affecting war strategy, the war is also affecting elections. U.S. voters are “angry” at the president and his party, Stephen Collinson said at CNN. Just 26% of voters “approve of his handling of the war.” Trump’s “odd” strategy is to give them the “opposite of what they want,” as he refuses to “listen to their fears.”

This is “hardly a recipe for success” in elections, said Collinson. A “potentially endless” war against Iran might be a mistake that gets the GOP’s most devoted voters to “finally ditch Trump,” David Wallace-Wells said at The New York Times.

Political campaigns are awash in cash, thanks in part to U.S. Supreme Court decisions declaring that campaign contributions are a form of free speech. Montana voters are poised to push back with a proposed ban on corporate political spending.

What did the commentators say?

The November ballot measure is an attempt at “threading the needle” of the Supreme Court’s precedents, said The New York Times. Corporations that violate the proposed ban would have their state corporate registration revoked.

States, backers argue, have the right to “define corporations as ‘artificial persons’” that lack First Amendment rights, said the Times. Montana is not “necessarily associated with anticorporate sentiment.” But advocates say there is “widespread frustration” over the “influence of special interests” in Big Sky politics.

“There’s just one catch” to the Montana plan, Jessica Levinson said at MS NOW. The Supreme Court has found that “corporations should be treated the same way as individuals” when it comes to the First Amendment rights associated with political contributions. Montana is “attempting a clever solution” to the problem of money in politics, but even if voters approve the measure, “it is doomed to fail in court.”

Money “will always play a role in politics,” John Westenberg said at the Missoula Current. The Montana plan, however, would be a “huge step” to keep that money “honest” and stop political spending by “artificial persons” like corporations, nonprofits and trade unions to feed the “dark money machines.” The aim is to “take dark money out of Montana politics.”

What next?

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. citizens believe “money in politics is a problem,” said Bloomberg. As such, other states are joining in the effort to limit corporate political spending. Hawaii has already passed a Montana-style law, which is being challenged in court. And “reformers” in Oregon are pushing for a similar ballot measure, said Oregon Public Broadcasting. Such efforts have “national momentum right now,” Jason Kafoury of Honest Elections Oregon said to the outlet. Expect the Supreme Court to offer the last word.

‘Advice for parents who want to prevent CTE in youth athletes’

Leana S. Wen at The Washington Post

Nobody “disputed that CTE is a serious issue, but many seemed to think that young athletes today are at lower risk than previous generations because of better safety precautions,” says Leana S. Wen. The “majority of head impacts that can cause brain damage do not result in a concussion diagnosis but can still contribute to CTE.” Most “important is taking repetitive head impacts out of the game for kids, including no bodychecking in ice hockey and no tackling in football.”

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‘What peacemaking loses when women are left out’

Cristal Downing at Time

Wars “exact a heavy toll on women and yet, too often their voices and concerns are pushed to the margins of global peacemaking,” says Cristal Downing. The United Nations “has made halting but real progress in bringing women into peace negotiations and postwar reconstruction from Guatemala to Bangsamoro,” but “now that progress is being reversed.” Finding “space for gender diversity could do more than ensure that women are heard; it could also give peace efforts a better chance of success.”

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‘How private equity is killing public access to hospitals and emergency care’

Heather Prendergast at The Hill

Safety-net hospitals “serve a patient population that is disproportionately low-income, publicly insured and racially and ethnically diverse,” says Heather Prendergast. The “corporatization of the healthcare system by private equity has come with significant costs.” While “private equity’s ownership of hospitals may earn millions for their investors, they have put patients, communities and providers at risk.” It is “worth asking what happens to the remaining safety-net hospitals once their primary funding source shrinks even further.”

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‘Trump abuses his pardon power. Getting rid of it would be a mistake.’

Abdallah Fayyad at The Boston Globe

Donald Trump’s “liberal use of his pardon power — particularly his penchant for pardoning wealthy white-collar fraudsters — has created a lucrative industry of so-called pardon brokers,” says Abdallah Fayyad. But “even though the pardon power has undeniably been misused, we shouldn’t dramatically curtail it or get rid of it.” Pardons are a “crucial component of a well-functioning criminal justice system, allowing presidents to undo wrongs when sentences are unjust or punishments are too harsh.”

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President Donald Trump has dominated the GOP for a decade. But that hold may be slipping, as Republicans prepare for an anticipated “blue wave” in the midterm elections driven by his unpopularity. Conservative candidates are starting to break with Trump, and the right’s pundits are rooting them on.

‘Trumpism is exhausted’

Trump has “become a real liability” for GOP candidates, said The Boston Globe. Senate candidates Ashley Hinson of Iowa and Mike Rogers of Michigan called for an end to the war with Iran, as did incumbent Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio. (Husted voted Thursday against a measure to withdraw troops, however.) The break “isn’t about just one issue,” either. Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) last week criticized the president’s immigration policy, while Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) called for an investigation into the Russian oligarch who paid for Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding reception. There may be nothing “stopping a full-on revolt” against Trump’s brand.

MAGA acolytes could once argue that Trump’s agenda is “what Americans voted for in 2024,” Jim Geraghty said at The Washington Post. But polls now suggest that the electorate is “sick and tired of this version of Trump” and that “Trumpism is exhausted.” The mood was especially apparent in Vice President JD Vance’s recent plea to voters to “give us another chance.” That is not a “particularly inspiring rallying cry,” Geraghty said. Republicans have to decide if they still want to be the party of tariffs, enmity toward Canada and mass deportations to remove every “agricultural worker, hotel maid and restaurant busboy.” Vance, if he wants to save his own ambitions, will need to lead the way. “The clock is ticking.”

The GOP under Trump has “blown one of the great opportunities in political history,” Gerard Baker said at The Wall Street Journal. Trump’s election in 2024 was a “real chance to establish a new governing order” favorable to conservatives, and the president could have succeeded by controlling the border, reining in prices and keeping the U.S. out of “costly, ineffective” foreign wars. Trump instead has “widened the deficit,” levied tariffs and set off on a “reckless military adventure” that is damaging the U.S. economy. All due to “hubris, vanity, recklessness” and the GOP’s “abdication of accountability.”

‘Wide open’ GOP future

Polling shows that Trump is “slipping significantly with his own party,” pollster G. Elliott Morris said at Strength in Numbers. His approval rating with Republican and GOP-leaning independent voters remains high at 71%. But that is still an “11-point drop and the lowest we have recorded.” Those GOP defections have helped drive the president’s overall voter approval ratings to new lows.

This could be the beginning of a longer process for the Republican Party. The GOP candidates breaking with one or two Trump policies today “might be repudiating parts of his legacy tomorrow,” Andrew Prokop said at Vox. If Republicans truly start to believe that Trump is a “failure,” then a full-on reassessment could occur. The party’s future “will be wide open.”

What happened

The Trump administration on Thursday defended a campaign-style ad airing on Fox News and Newsmax that features President Donald Trump and says it was “paid for by the U.S. Government.” The White House “did not say what agency paid for the spot, which includes background music with singers crooning ‘love me’ over and over,” The Associated Press said. But in a statement, it called the ad a “public service announcement” aimed at “reminding Americans to love their country.”

Who said what

“Together we will defeat communism,” and “America will never be a communist country,” Trump says in the 30-second ad as his campaign slogans flash in the background. There are “several restrictions on how public funds can be used for PSAs,” including an annually renewed “ban on using funds for ‘publicity or propaganda purposes,’” ABC News said. The ad first ran Wednesday night, as Trump “welcomed Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, with a red carpet,” The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) on Thursday sent White House chief of staff Susie Wiles a letter demanding details about the ad, including how much it cost and what agency was involved. JMSN, who wrote and recorded “Love Me,” said he “did not authorize” its use and was “looking for a lawyer.”

What happened

President Donald Trump on Thursday night hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state dinner at the White House, after the two leaders spoke privately and toured Trump’s remodeling projects. Trump said he and Xi have “never gotten along better” and presented him with a bald eagle statue. Xi, whose gift for Trump was two pandas for Atlanta’s zoo, said the U.S.-China relationship should be based on “healthy” competition, not a “wrestle in which one either wins or loses.”

Who said what

The “lavish summit” was “heavy on symbolism but light on substance,” Reuters said, “with no sign of breakthroughs on thorny ​issues such as AI, trade, Taiwan and the war with Iran.” Trump is “drawn to the theater of summitry and his personal rapport with Xi,” The Wall Street Journal said. But “for all the pomp and circumstance,” he “appeared to walk away with few tangible gains while handing Xi the images of coequal standing he had come to Washington for.”

China “made clear it views Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in the U.S.-China relationship,” The Associated Press said. A Chinese readout of the private meeting said Xi had urged Trump to “adhere to the correct position of opposing Taiwan independence.” The U.S. did not release a readout as of Friday morning.

What next?

Xi’s visit “came six weeks ahead of the midterm elections in which Trump has branded Democrats as communists,” the Journal said. “Trump’s fawning drew complaints among several Republican senators, who said they weren’t sure what the GOP would gain from hosting the Communist leader and U.S. business rival.”

Britain is on course for a hung parliament with no party securing an overall majority in the next general election, according to a YouGov MRP poll that predicts how constituencies would vote.

Labour would be the biggest party with 241 seats, 85 short of an outright majority; the Conservatives would be on 130, trailed by Reform on 123. With the Liberal Democrats at 71 and the Green Party on nine, it is likely to mean a scramble to form a coalition.

Benjamin Disraeli famously said in 1852, “England does not love coalitions”, but the country may have to put any deep-seated scepticism to one side in the near future. Here are some of the most likely coalitions.

Labour-Liberal Democrat

According to the YouGov results, a Labour and Lib Dem combination would still not be enough to reach the 326-seat bar for a majority in the House of Commons.

Andy Burnham has not commented directly on the prospect of a future coalition, but Ed Davey, when approached, did not rule it out completely. Asked if he would form a coalition with Labour, the Lib Dem leader said he did not deal in “hypotheticals”. Insiders in the PM's team told The Times that Burnham’s support of electoral reform, a long-held Lib Dem cause, could provide the perfect olive branch to Davey’s party.

A Labour-Lib Dem coalition was widely expected following the 2010 general election, but its prospects were felled by a series of issues, including a lack of faith in the then Labour leader Gordon Brown.

Conservative-Liberal Democrat

Unlike his neutral response to a Lab-Lib coalition, Davey has dismissed suggestions his party could do a deal with the Conservatives. “We’ve got a moral responsibility to stop Nigel Farage – and indeed stop Kemi Badenoch giving the keys to No. 10 to Nigel Farage – I think there could be that sort of coalition on the right and we've got to stop that,” he told the BBC.

“Mention of a coalition often sparks fear into the heart of a Lib Dem because of how the last one ended,” said Politico. In 2010, the parties formed the UK’s first coalition government since 1945. The cabinet was made up of 16 Conservatives and five from Nick Clegg's party. But after five years as junior partner, the Lib Dems crashed from 57 Westminster seats to just eight in the next election.

Conservative-Reform

Reform’s projected total of 123 seats is a dramatic reversal for the party, which was forecast to win 311 last September. At the end of last year, Farage said the Conservatives would be finished. He denied he would form an electoral pact after the Financial Times reported he told donors he thought an agreement was inevitable. “I would never do a deal with a party that I do not trust,” he said. “No deals, just a reverse takeover.”

Kemi Badenoch has rejected calls to “unite the right” and ruled out entering a coalition with Reform. Speaking to GB News, she said “problematic people” have joined Farage’s party, adding: “How can we join with them?”

Even if the two right-wing leaders changed their minds, a Tory-Reform pact would manage only 253 MPs according to the poll – 73 short of the 326 majority line.

“If uniting the right has never been more important since we entered the era of five-party politics, it has also never been more difficult,” said Lord Ashcroft, a right-wing political donor and pollster. An electoral alliance between Reform and the Conservatives “would be doomed to fail, and the Conservatives have much more to lose from trying”.

Progressive alliance (Lab-Lib-Green-SNP)

If Labour were to team up with the Lib Dems and the Greens, which would amount to 321 seats, Burnham would still need backing from others to get over the line.

With the nationalist parties, the SNP or Plaid Cymru, in the mix, then a range of “coalition of the left” options are open to build a majority, Patrick English, YouGov elections chief, said in The Times.

‘I liked the idea of unions. Then I joined one at Starbucks.’

Joe Emmenegger at USA Today

“Liking the idea of unions — and actually wanting to be a part of one — are two very different things,” says Joe Emmenegger. Workers “often join unions that make big promises about improving working conditions but ultimately fail to deliver,” and “that was unfortunately my experience with Starbucks Workers United.” It “was the pervasive secrecy surrounding the union that struck me,” and “getting rid of a union is not easy, regardless of how detrimental it may be.”

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‘Some Republicans don’t want Indian American votes’

Sadanand Dhume at The Wall Street Journal

The “multiracial coalition that helped Donald Trump win the presidency in 2024 is unraveling,” says Sadanand Dhume. A “portion of the MAGA base appears to be increasingly hostile to ethnic and religious minorities, including the small but prosperous Indian American community.” Instead of “bringing new voters into the tent, a section of the party base appears intent on driving them away,” and “Indian American Trump supporters aren’t the only minority voters apparently feeling buyer’s remorse.”

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‘The hidden toll on Black doctors: We are saving lives but losing our own.’

John H. Stewart IV at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

There is a “truth medicine doesn’t talk about enough: Black doctors are getting sick too,” says John H. Stewart IV. A 2025 study “revealed that Black physicians die at more than twice the rate of white physicians.” The “very people trained to save lives are losing their own far too soon,” as “Black doctors are not exempt from the same inequities we work so hard to treat in others.” This “isn’t just a professional concern; it’s a public health crisis.”

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‘A “fight worth fighting”: Paramount settlement is less than desired, more than nothing’

Anita Chabria at the Los Angeles Times

Did “California come out a winner when Attorney Gen. Rob Bonta settled a multistate lawsuit against Paramount Skydance on Monday, allowing its $111-billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery to move forward”? says Anita Chabria. Whether “California won is the wrong question,” as “there was always something bigger at play here.” The “question the lawsuit asked is, ‘do we live in an America where government institutions are so broken that power makes its own rules?’”

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What do “Seinfeld,” “The Office” and “Family Guy” have in common? Each was used in a recent White House promotional video for the launch of what the administration has dubbed Trump TV, an official White House broadcast that has thus far largely been limited to previously recorded MAGA speeches and events.

Notably, the splashy, if dubiously copyright-compliant, rollout of what the White House has deemed its “Essentials Station” comes as the Trump administration escalates its running altercation with mainstream media outlets. So what exactly is Trump TV, who is it for, and what does this White House have in mind for the programming’s future?

What did the commentators say?

Trump TV was “born of necessity” after multiple major media companies “boycotted the White House press pool in response to the president’s ban on certain outlets,” said New York magazine. But unlike the “Oprah Winfrey Network-esque conservative media company Trump (allegedly) envisioned” as a potential outlet over the years, Trump TV is, for now, “just a dinky livestream on the White House YouTube page.” Still, the launch of an “administration-operated, around-the-clock video channel” places Trump TV “at the center of a coverage gap” caused by multiple major networks pulling out of the White House press pool, said USA Today.

“Not every big moment has made it on your tv,” said the White House in a social media post announcing the new service. “Now it can.”

In addition to streaming on YouTube, “Trump TV” is also featured on the White House website, alongside a “box titled ‘White House Live,’” which noted that it was “‘Off Air’ but advised viewers to ‘Stay Tuned,’” said The Hill. The window also features a “chyron reading official updates” and “statements praising Trump’s actions as president, among other texts.”

In launching Trump TV, the president “follows in Hugo Chávez’s footsteps,” said Al Jazeera. The former Venezuelan autocrat, with his “Hello, President” television program, “sang, took calls from viewers, attacked his opponents and sometimes announced major policy live on air.”

The White House is “drawing sharp backlash from critics” over the platform’s launch, said NJ.com. After banning independent media from the White House, President Donald Trump has launched “what is quite literally state-run TV,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), rumored to be mulling a presidential run himself in 2028, on X. Trump is “drowning out the fact that he and his corrupt administration are failing the American people.”

Trump TV “peaked at 8,000 viewers” for its Monday evening premiere before “dipping to around 4,000,” said The Independent. “Some 1,600 people” tuned in the following morning, “when footage showed the president signing an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico ‘Gulf of America’”

Some MAGA loyalists have “supported the launch of Trump TV” for “punching holes in the mainstream media propaganda,” said The Independent. Trump critics have “lost their minds over Trump TV,” said conservative commentator Benny Johnson, per the outlet. “The White House has perfectly trolled them again.”

What next?

It remains “unclear” whether the streaming platform will air “all current events and conferences involving the president,” said NJ.com. “Weirdly,” said New York magazine, Trump TV “did not even air the president’s big address” to the United Nations on Tuesday. “So far,” said Axios, Trump TV has “no anchors or news ticker.” It does display “banners asking viewers to text White House officials,” although it’s “unclear who staffs the channel, makes programming decisions or sets its schedule.”

Given this “calamitous start to life after the press pool,” The Daily Beast asked the White House if it “intends to try to fix the viewership issues” or if it is “waiting to patch things up with the TV networks,” said the outlet. The White House, to date, has not responded.

What happened

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., early Thursday morning ordered President Donald Trump to immediately restore White House access to Politico, CNN and MS NOW. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly’s 14-day restraining order is a “temporary reprieve for the three outlets” while their litigation over Trump’s press ban proceeds, The New York Times said. But even after Kelly’s order, Secret Service agents still blocked the trio of outlets from entering the White House grounds on Thursday.

Who said what

The White House argued in letters and in court that the outlets’ reporting violated national security and “widely known” journalism standards. The objection about journalistic professionalism was “so vague it hardly does the trick,” Kelly wrote, and “the court is skeptical” that Trump’s “interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by,” revoking the press passes.

The examples cited by the White House to shore up its case included Politico’s use of anonymous sources in an article “based on a press call the White House hosted,” The Washington Post said. “In the call, reporters were instructed to cite an anonymous ‘senior administration official.’” That official, Status reported, was Vice President JD Vance.

What next?

Many news organizations scaled back their “routine coverage of presidential events in solidarity with the three outlets,” the Times said. After the White House still refused to grant access Thursday, the outlets asked for an immediate court hearing to address the issue.

The Trump administration notified Congress this week of plans to admit up to 17,500 refugees into the United States during the coming fiscal year. Notably, the vast majority of those refugees will be white South Africans, for whom this White House and President Donald Trump have become reliable international patrons.

By focusing almost exclusively on Afrikaners, the white South African ethnic group responsible for that country’s former system of apartheid, Trump and his allies have dramatically reshaped the U.S. refugee program as a whole. And this change, critics argue, is at the material expense of other at-risk communities worldwide.

How has Trump helped resettle white South Africans?

The White House has predominantly portrayed Afrikaners seeking to resettle in the U.S. as “victims of racial oppression in postapartheid South Africa,” said CBS News. The group faces “seizure of agricultural property without compensation,” laws designed to “dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education and business,” and “hateful rhetoric fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored minorities,” said the State Department in its notification to Congress, per the outlet. The South African government has “consistently denied” persecuting the primarily Dutch-descended community.

Resettling the thousands of South African refugees is “expected to cost approximately $500 million,” said CNN. The push comes after Trump “increased the refugee cap for South Africans” in May, more than doubling it “from a limit of 7,500.” The U.S. refugee resettlement program had “historically enjoyed strong bipartisan support” for welcoming “tens of thousands of refugees from countries around the world to new lives in America,” said The Associated Press. “Instead,” Trump has “transformed it into a vehicle to resettle white South Africans" in the U.S.

Why are critics concerned?

By focusing solely on South Africa at the expense of other refugee communities, the Trump administration is “stranding people fleeing persecution without the safety they’ve been promised after years of waiting,” said the immigration advocacy group HIAS in a statement. The White House is “diminishing and distorting” the U.S.' refugee programs “in service of its political whims,” said Naomi Steinberg, the HIAS vice president of refugee and immigration policy and advocacy, in the same release.

After Trump “slashed the number of refugees approved every year” during his first term, said the AP, the Biden administration “built the system back up.” Then Trump “immediately” suspended it when he returned to office, “stranding people around the world who had been slated to come to the U.S.”

A refugee program that “centers one group and sidelines all others” is an “abdication of our global ⁠humanitarian leadership ​and an abandonment of thousands of vulnerable ​families,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the president and CEO of refugee advocacy group Global Refuge, in a statement.

What else has Trump done for white South Africans?

One week before notifying Congress of its new, almost exclusively Afrikaner refugee resettlement plan, the Trump administration announced it would “revoke U.S. visas or reject visa applications” from foreign nationals “responsible for discrimination against whites and other minority groups in South Africa,” said the AP. Trump had cited disparate instances of violence and various discrete local policies as “evidence of a larger antiwhite stance” in the country. In addition to encouraging Afrikaner resettlement in the United States, Trump last year “froze most foreign assistance to South Africa,” said Al Jazeera.

‘Normalizing Delcy Rodríguez won’t fix Venezuela’

Juan Pablo Spinetto at Bloomberg

“Given that nobody elected” Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez to the “job she’s performing, and that the constitutional rules governing Venezuela’s presidential vacuum have long been ignored, ‘dictator’ sounds about right,” says Juan Pablo Spinetto. But dictators “tend to do as they please,” while Delcy, “by contrast, appears to be taking all her cues” from Trump. And “no amount of hard-power realpolitik, oil thirst, business ambition and perverse public relations can turn a dictator-puppet-regent into a legitimate leader.”

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‘Despite fewer deaths, the US is actually seeing more overdoses’

Madeline Hilliard and Jim Crotty at The Hill

An “abrupt, substantial decline in overdose deaths is an extraordinary public health achievement,” say Madeline Hilliard and Jim Crotty. But the “drop in deaths only tells part of the story.” As “overdose deaths have declined, nonfatal overdoses — when someone survives the emergency of too much substance shutting their body down — have actually increased.” Even when “survived, overdoses are often life-altering events with lasting impacts.” Preventing these “outcomes starts long before someone experiences an overdose.”

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‘We need to protect college sports from Ted Cruz’

Elie Mystal at The Nation

Sen. Ted Cruz’s Protect College Sports Act is “being sold mainly as a response to upheaval caused, more or less, by colleges and universities finally being forced to pay student-athletes some portion of the billions of dollars they generate,” says Elie Mystal. You “don’t need to follow or care about college football to know that anything Ted Cruz is a champion of is probably a very bad thing.” The legislation is “one of the most anti-labor bills proposed by this Congress.”

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‘If you want to win working-class votes, run on working-class issues’

Mindy Isser at In These Times

If liberals are “serious about winning elections across the country, working-class voters must be at the center of this project,” says Mindy Isser. But “too many campaigns don’t make these voters’ priorities their focus.” For people “concerned about climate change, abortion rights, immigrants’ rights and protecting democracy, our most important task is to learn to talk across the diploma divide, or else we may have very little hope of making progress on our goals.”

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China and the U.S. are locked in a race to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models. Industry leaders are increasingly calling for regulations and guardrails to keep the technology from threatening humanity, which means the competing nations must collaborate to rein in AI as it gallops ahead. But observers are skeptical that Washington and Beijing can find the will to do so.

What did the commentators say?

AI safety is “on the agenda” for this week’s summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said The Associated Press. But both sides “see the other as the problem.” Trump has warned that “any efforts to regulate the technology would help China,” while Chinese leaders see talk of new safety rules as an attempt to slow their nation’s rapid advances so that the U.S. can create a “monopoly” on AI.

Some experts say Trump and Xi do not need to come to a full agreement on rules to create room for a slowdown. The two leaders “just need to create political space by acknowledging AI poses risks to both countries,” said Samm Sacks, a fellow at John Hopkins, to the AP.

Chinese leaders don’t see AI as an “existential threat to humanity,” said Kyle Chan, of the Brookings Institution, at The New York Times. The two countries have different anxieties. U.S. companies like Anthropic and OpenAI use AI to “develop even better AI systems,” creating concerns about a “feedback loop” in which humans “no longer have control over the process.”

Chinese companies like DeepSeek and Moonshot, by contrast, have “limited access to AI computing power” and so see that tipping point as being a “long way off.” Beijing is more worried about AI being used to spark a “mass movement powerful enough to topple the Communist Party.” It will be hard for the two countries to find common ground on the issue “without a baseline level of mutual understanding.”

Beijing would be “perfectly happy to watch Washington scare America into slowing itself down,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) at the National Review. China’s Communist leaders are “actively working to exploit Americans’ fears” about the technology, and Beijing wins every time the U.S. “makes itself slower, more expensive and more afraid to experiment.” Washington is “flirting with exactly that mentality on AI.”

What next?

The U.S. is proposing an “emergency AI hotline” with China, said Axios. “More transparency” between the world’s AI superpowers is “very important," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to reporters, per the outlet.

Still, neither nation “expects a breakthrough” at this week’s Trump-Xi summit, said The Economist. The growing risks posed by artificial intelligence “demand more urgency” than either side is bringing to the table. Until that urgency arrives, the “best hope is that the two sides keep talking.”

What happened

Senior FBI officials last year shut down a nascent “sweeping bribery probe” that included pay-to-play allegations involving Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), ProPublica reported Tuesday, citing a “trove of evidence gathered by the FBI,” legal records and dozens of interviews. The FBI investigation stemmed from three 2024 “tell-all interviews” with Martin Kao, the former head of a Hawaiian defense contractor that secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to Collins’ campaign after she reportedly steered millions in federal contracts to the company for research “of no real value.” Kao pleaded guilty in 2022 to illegal campaign contributions and pandemic-aid fraud charges and was sentenced to 87 months in prison in February 2025.

Who said what

ProPublica’s “truly outrageous” report is “clearly a political hit job,” Collins told reporters Tuesday, and the “seven-year-old allegations” were “thoroughly investigated” and dismissed by the Biden Justice Department in 2021. Kao’s detailed 2024 confessions “opened up an entirely new phase of the investigation,” ProPublica said. But agents didn’t “uncover much evidence to corroborate” his claims about Collins and her advisers, The New York Times said, citing “current and former officials” who also “acknowledged that it was possible more could have surfaced if the investigation had developed further.”

What next?

President Donald Trump’s “purge of anyone who had ever investigated him” eviscerated the federal units “handling public corruption investigations,” ProPublica said, and the probe “sparked by Kao’s revelations is dead.”

What happened

The Trump administration on Tuesday said it had kicked 760,000 enrollees off the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplace. Vice President JD Vance told a press conference that the canceled enrollees were a mix of “phantom people” and “real people who just don’t meet the eligibility requirements,” didn’t submit the proper documents or weren’t even aware they were enrolled in an ACA health plan.

Who said what

Tuesday’s announcement by the Vance-led anti-fraud task force “represents one of the largest administrative purges targeting individual insurance exchanges” since the administration’s “crackdown on fraud began last year,” The Wall Street Journal said. There’s “widespread agreement that unauthorized enrollments should be canceled,” ACA expert Cynthia Cox at KFF said to The New York Times, but it’s not clear that “these were all indeed unauthorized enrollments,” and Vance’s panel didn’t appear to use the “appropriate process” to determine which to cancel.

What next?

Vance said his anti-fraud effort, including further scrutiny of up to 450,000 more enrollees and bans on about 600 ACA brokers, would save $2.2 billion. The “price of ACA insurance has skyrocketed” during Trump’s second term, prompting “millions to downgrade their plans or exit the program entirely,” The Associated Press said. “Early filings from insurers suggest that prices will increase substantially again next year,” the Times said.

“What is the point of the Liberal Democrats?” asked Joanna Williams in The Times. Even those at the party conference weren’t sure: a Lib Dem council leader said the party was “lacking ambition”, while MP Roz Savage wondered why they were “struggling for relevance at precisely the moment when so many people feel powerless”.

During his headlining speech, leader Ed Davey campaigned for an anti-Reform firewall, income tax cuts and a closer proximity to the EU. Yet despite achieving a record number of MPs at the last election, the party is sliding in the polls and its blueprint to Westminster, for many members, is blank.

What did the commentators say?

“Younger readers may not believe me, but we used to take the Lib Dems seriously,” said Gareth Roberts in The Spectator. “Or at least more seriously.” We are surrounded by swathes of “repulsive or infuriating politicians”, but even so Davey is “merely laughable”. There have been calls from within for him to step down, but such is the predicament of the party, these outbursts “hardly seemed to register”.

Davey’s campaign to rejoin the single market in his closing speech underlines how the party’s strategy is “built on sand”, said columnist Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph. Traditionally, yes, the issue of Brexit proved the “ultimate gift” for the Lib Dems, allowing them to move to the left economically, while profiting as the “right tore itself apart”.

But now, the subject ranks “as a fifth-order issue” electorally, and placing it at the core of the party’s agenda “just seems odd”. In practical terms, Davey’s claim that his personal allowance reforms would be offset by “growth from a new EU partnership” would take “years to negotiate”, and also just “doesn’t seem credible”. The Lib Dem leader, aptly, is using the nostalgia of “exhuming the corpse of remainerism” to mask the problem that his party’s present “relevance is too terrifying to face”.

Given the current political climate, it “ought to be a boom time for Britain’s traditional third party”, said The Times. Labour is “tilting left”, the Conservatives are also “struggling for national relevance”, and Reform UK is embroiled in funding controversies. But Davey is leading them “towards irrelevance”. At the conference, all he could offer was a “grab-bag of woke talking points”, and he strayed from the popular issue of social care to pursue economic growth, “the standard fallback for the fiscally challenged (see Reeves 2024)”. Davey’s vision is “neither liberal nor democratic. Nor, for that matter, is it ­especially inspiring.”

Unlike other parties, the Lib Dems don’t crave the “sugar rush of going for temporary poll bounces”, said Ailbhe Rea, political editor of The New Statesman. Davey has a “seat-first, not vote-first, strategy”, a source told the outlet. His strategy is founded on local initiatives, building support “typically from councils up”, said Rea, and efficiently targeting only seats it can win. The party had 11 MPs when Davey took over in 2019, and rose to 72 after the 2024 general election, and made gains in “eight consecutive sets of local council elections”. This approach may grind out “unimpressive poll numbers”, but produces “sustainable gains”: “many of the party’s MPs are fully behind both it and him”.

The strange thing is, if a general election were to be called tomorrow, the Lib Dems would “probably repeat their record-breaking performance of 2024, or get very close”, said Hugo Gye in The Economist. They have “firmly dug in to their core areas”, such as Richmond-upon-Thames, where the Lib Dems won all 54 positions in recent council elections.

More pressingly, the party thrives most by riding a certain “brand of eccentricity”, appealing to a concoction of “wealthy, woke and weird” constituents who advocate for “cultural leftism” but hold “centrist views on the economy”. It may have strength in this demographic, but it’s difficult to see where the party will go next. “Not everywhere can be Richmond.”

What next?

Davey has a “balance to strike”, said Rafael Behr in The Guardian. He must hammer home his “progressive credentials” by showing his “anti-Farage firewall will be suitably robust”, and consolidate support among former Tory voters in “blue wall” seats that his economic policies will hold.

Local elections next year will test whether Davey’s method is working and a by-election win “may settle Lib Dem nerves”. Currently, while it is difficult to pinpoint the purpose of the party, if its firewall tactic works its “utility to British democracy won’t be in doubt”. Then again, you can only find out if it holds water “when you need it most, and then you don’t get a second chance”.

“If a left-wing candidate can win in New York, then there’s no reason it can’t happen in Berlin.” A year on from her comments after Zohran Mamdani’s victory, Elif Eralp looks likely to be elected as the mayor of Berlin. She would be the first Turkish-origin person in the role, and the first candidate from left-wing party Die Linke to become mayor since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Victory for Die Linke does not guarantee Eralp will become mayor, said The Berliner. The new parliament has to elect the governing mayor and, with 47 seats out of 158 in the state parliament, Die Linke will need to form a coalition. The centre-right CDU refuses to engage with them, but a joint government with the Greens and the Social Democratic Party would be a “realistic” outcome.

‘Generational shift’

Eralp has become the “new face of radical left-wing parties asserting themselves in major cities around the world”, said Le Monde. Her “historic win” is all the more impressive considering she inherited a party “marred by internal divisions”. Now, it is “one of the most dynamic forces in German politics.

Die Linke, which emerged from the communist Socialist Unity Party that ruled East Germany until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, has undergone a “striking generational shift” in the last three years, said the Financial Times. A recent overhaul has seen the party “draw a tidal wave of new supporters, doubling its membership in the space of a year, reaching 123,000 at the end of 2025”.

A younger, predominantly female cohort has emerged at the top of the party leadership, who have not been afraid to take on AfD and have become “social media stars on the German left”. Eralp and others have “cultivated a recognisable style: sharp fringes, tattoos, hoop earrings and red lipstick”, which she is often seen sporting alongside “jeans and trainers with a bomber jacket”. She also regularly wears a gold necklace which displays the word “Mietendeckel” (“rent cap”).

On ‘borrowed time’

Berlin’s housing crisis was “at the heart of Eralp's campaign” said Euro News. She called for rent caps, an increase in social housing, and has floated the idea of expropriating properties from large housing portfolios to come under government control. And this fits the issues facing Berliners, said Novara Media. In Berlin, 84% of the population rent, and “more than half from private landlords”, while “10% of Berliners live in housing poverty”. A 2021 referendum saw Berliners support the city government’s seizing of privately-owned flats from large corporate landlords.

Pressure had already been “mounting” on Chancellor Friedrich Merz following the success of the AfD in regional elections, and his “struggles to push through promised economic and social welfare reforms”, said Al Jazeera. Less than 18 months into power, his approval ratings have tanked to around 14%, “raising doubts among fellow party members about whether he can continue to lead”.

The “cumulative effect” of the losses to both the right and the left “can hardly be exaggerated”, said The Guardian. Merz cancelled a planned trip to speak to the UN in New York, “already anticipating he would need to be in Berlin to grapple” with the aftermath of the state election. For now, he has vowed to remain in post, but for many, the German leader is “on borrowed time”.

As a result of nearly 300,000 U.S.-based Haitians having their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) revoked by the Trump administration in August, many are heading north of the border. But while they look to join a country that has a vibrant Haitian diaspora, fleeing to Canada presents its own challenges.

‘It’s difficult to predict how many Haitians may try crossing’

Canada’s “asylum rules allow migrants with close family members to enter the country and seek protection,” said The Atlantic, and many have roots in the nation. There are about 100,000 people of Haitian descent living in Canada, according to the country’s 2021 census, a number that likely increased during the last five years. Even before the TPS revocation, Haitians were the largest group of asylum seekers in Canada; in Montreal alone, there are about 80,000 Haitians, “making them Montreal’s largest immigrant group.”

But Haitians “without close family members in Canada who arrive at the land border are generally ineligible to seek asylum,” so it is “difficult to predict how many Haitians may try crossing into Canada,” said The Atlantic. There have also been changes since the first Trump administration, when a “road from upstate New York to Montreal became a well-known crossing point,” said CNN. Since then, Canadian immigration rules have “changed significantly, and it’s much harder to make asylum claims at Canada’s border.”

This hasn’t stopped numerous people from trying. Haitians “who do apply for asylum are more than likely to be rejected than approved,” but officials say that “U.S. work experience, along with English and French proficiency, could provide qualified applicants with a major advantage in the Canadian job market,” said WLRN. The “transition is facilitated by the cultural similarities between the two North American employment sectors, making employer-supported immigration a feasible path for those losing their status,” Cassandra Fultz, a Canadian immigration consultant, told the outlet.

‘Canada may be part of the answer’

Canada has an “extensive immigration system separate from its refugee protection system,” so for some Haitians, the better question may be not “‘can I claim asylum in Canada?’ but ‘could I qualify to immigrate to Canada?’” said The Haitian Times, an online newspaper for the Haitian diaspora. Canada “may be part of the answer,” but “that doesn’t necessarily mean claiming asylum.”

For many “Haitians fleeing ICE, the only route into Canada is a path through the woods,” said The Atlantic. It can be a risky venture, as Haitians who are denied entry by Canadian border officials are usually “turned over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and typically transferred to ICE.” Many Haitians are still “willing to risk a dangerous and illegal journey into Canada to avoid returning to their home country,” said USA Today. Notably, the U.S. government says that Haiti is “so dangerous that Americans should not visit,” as it “lacks an effective central government, and criminal gangs largely control the streets.”

Some immigrant rights activists are wary of an influx of Haitians to Canada. “We are not encouraging folks to go to Canada if they know they might be in danger,” Viles Dorsainvil, the executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio, said to the CBC, because Canadian immigration might return them to ICE. “I know that Canada has been promoting human rights, human dignity, or whatever, but I know for sure that Canadian immigration has been very hard” for Haitians.

‘Many Americans live in the UK — but few vote back home. This year, that must change.’

Kathryn Sikkink at The Guardian

The United Kingdom “hosts the second-largest population of voting-age U.S. citizens outside the United States, but Americans living in the U.K. vote at very low levels in U.S. elections,” says Kathryn Sikkink. Why do “hundreds of thousands of eligible U.S. voters in the U.K. not exercise their right to vote, even though U.S. rules for voting abroad are relatively welcoming compared to many other countries?” American “citizens in the U.K. can take this opportunity.”

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‘In defense of guilt by association’

James Kirchick at The Atlantic

JD Vance and Abdul El-Sayed have “very little in common ideologically and seem to like each other even less,” but they “can agree on at least one thing: that guilt by association is a contemptible means of scoring cheap political points,” says James Kirchick. They “would have us believe that their troublesome friends are no different from the people in our own lives whose political views we abhor.” But “one’s choice of friends is in fact an excellent sign of character.”

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‘Police hiring standards matter. But they alone cannot stop abuse.’

Jordan DeVylder at Al Jazeera

Concerns have “emerged about a retreat from standards intended to protect the public by offering a baseline of conduct for law enforcement officers,” says Jordan DeVylder. The “public is right to worry,” as “loose hiring standards can put reckless individuals in positions of power.” But “ensuring commitment to higher standards in law enforcement recruitment alone cannot solve the police violence problem in the U.S.” Standards “should be evaluated according to what they actually predict, what they exclude and what risks arise.”

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‘Drone warfare is exposing a NATO weakness’

Ana Birchall at Newsweek

There is a “problem NATO can no longer afford to ignore: How do we act when an unidentified threat approaches allied territory, seconds matter, but attribution may take hours or days?” says Ana Birchall, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Romania. An “adversary no longer needs to launch a conventional, full-scale attack.” A “drone that tests reaction times, approaches an energy installation or creates uncertainty about its origin and intent can already serve a strategic purpose.” NATO “cannot afford to wait for definitive attribution before protecting its people.”

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What happened

A Venezuelan DoorDash driver shot in the back of the neck by an ICE officer in Austin over the weekend told reporters Monday that the bullet was still lodged near his spine and he hadn’t “received the medical attention that I require” while being held at a detention center in South Texas. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, speaking in Spanish by phone, said an unmarked ICE SUV had turned on its police lights only after sideswiping his car twice, and the agent shot him after he asked about pulling over somewhere safer.

Who said what

The Department of Homeland Security said Perez had “illegally entered our country” and “had a final order of removal.” ICE agents started chasing Perez after they found his deportation order while checking license plates and he “was not the target of a federal investigation before the encounter,” The New York Times said, citing two people familiar with the shooting. His immigration lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said Perez had entered the U.S. legally in 2024 and had a valid work permit. The deportation order, which Perez had not known about before Sunday, was issued when he missed an immigration court hearing after the notice was sent to an old address, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “Not that being out of status would justify any of this at all,” she said on social media.

What next?

ICE last week erased detainees with final removal orders from its online tracking database, an “unannounced move that has made it far more difficult for lawyers and relatives to find them” and challenge their deportation, The Associated Press said yesterday. Perez’s immigration lawyers Monday filed requests in federal court in San Antonio to compel his release and block his deportation on the grounds he was now a witness in a criminal investigation.

Andy Burnham, stateside for the United Nations General Assembly, is meeting Donald Trump for their first in-person talks today in a stronger position than Keir Starmer was as a new PM. Trump is increasingly unpopular at home, and preoccupied with the Iran war and looming midterm elections, while the UK has been strengthening its ties with Europe and Canada. “It’s completely different this time,” one official told Politico. “There’s no drama about having to stay in his good books.”

But Trump has previously called Burnham “extremely liberal” and dismissed him as the “mayor of a town”. And if his past meetings with world leaders are anything to go by, there’s still plenty of potential for drama.

What did the commentators say?

In 2024, sucking up to Trump was the “medicine required”, one UK diplomat told Politico. Burnham, however, has inherited “an established relationship” with no need to lavish praise. His job is therefore to “fix the mess of unresolved threads left behind” – and “avoid a barrage of abuse on Truth Social”.

He is “not expected to take a big list of deliverables or policy goals”. His aim, according to senior UK officials and MPs, is: “Get in, smile, press the case for Ukraine, and try to leave without a major upset.” Officials are hopeful that he will encounter a “more pro-Ukraine atmosphere” in Washington, after the House of Representatives approved a “sweeping Russia sanctions bill”. Burnham hopes to persuade the US to increase the deliveries of air defence interceptors – but it’s unlikely that Ukraine is even in the top five of Trump’s priorities, said Daniel DePetris in The Spectator.

Burnham’s more assertive approach seems to be working so far, said Reuters. His team pointed out that Trump “did not push back” against Burnham’s ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. But Trump is a “notoriously fickle and unpredictable” man who “spreads trade tariffs like confetti”, said The i Paper. Burnham will have to avoid the “minefield” of some of Trump’s “fixations”, such as North Sea oil and defence spending.

There is “no suggestion” Burnham will go further and emulate “the more combative approach” of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, said The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar. Nor would it be wise to; Trump is still angry the UK didn’t join him in strikes on Iran, and recent comments on the Falklands and Irish unification “suggest his displeasure has not abated”. The meeting will be “fraught with tension” with “potential for further clashes”. The US president might be weaker domestically, but he’s still in office for two more years. For now, “the power still rests with Trump”.

What next?

Even if Trump and Burnham hit it off, the meeting itself “isn’t the most important event”, said DePetris. “What truly matters is the follow-through.”

The Iran war remains “a dark storm cloud hovering over US-UK relations”, and with Houthi rebels continuing to advance, effectively controlling Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, Trump could grant Saudi Arabia’s request for military intervention. In that case, “you can be almost certain the Trump administration will expect the UK to get involved”, and Trump could slam Burnham’s government for insufficient defence spending in next month’s Budget. Remember, things were fine between Trump and Starmer – “until they weren’t”.

The music was loud, the flags were everywhere, and the “sense of panic” was inescapable, said Nikki McCann Ramirez in Rolling Stone. With Election Day less than two months away, and polls showing Republicans in danger of losing both the House and Senate, the GOP earlier this month held its first-ever midterm convention in Dallas. The MAGA luminaries addressing “Trumpapalooza” barely mentioned soaring gas prices or the quagmire in Iran, the related catastrophes that have dragged Trump’s approval rating down into the mid-30s. Instead, they gushed over Trump’s leadership; warned of an America overrun by Islamists, “killer migrants,” and trans athletes if “evil” Democrats win, and left it to Trump himself, addressing both nights of the event, to rally the MAGA faithful. But “the cult of Trump is waning,” said Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times. Speaking to thousands of unfilled seats—many left empty by swing-state candidates who skipped the event—Trump had attendees pledge allegiance to him personally, “the greatest president in the history of the United States,” and promise to “cheat like hell” in November. In what is surely one of our Republic’s lowest moments, Trump promised a $5,000 “dividend check” to every American, if Republicans win the midterms. “Far from juicing turnout” for the GOP, Trumpapalooza may have just “reminded the voting public” of why they need to elect Democrats.

Trump did make some questionable choices, said David M. Drucker in Bloomberg. He mocked voters’ affordability anxieties. He ridiculed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, now trailing Democrat James Talarico in the race for Texas’ open Senate seat, saying, “I don’t really like the way he looks.” But Trump may have accomplished his main goal: to have his die-hard supporters “pretend that I’m on the ballot.” Still, Republicans’ bigger problem is the president’s “evaporating support among GOP regulars who have never been Trump’s biggest fans.” Perhaps the promise of a “$5,000 payoff” will motivate some, but the fact that “Trump was compelled to resort to this sort of dubious measure is revealing.”

“No one is falling” for Trump’s dividend “gimmick,” said The Washington Post in an editorial. Congress would need to approve the payout, and not even the GOP’s Trumpified House delegation wants any part of a vote-buying scheme that would turbocharge inflation and add another $1.2 trillion to the $40 trillion national debt. Trump’s “$5,000-check promise may be the moment he finally underestimated his audience,” said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Does he really think voters have forgotten the DOGE “refund” checks that were supposedly in the mail? Or the “tariff rebate” checks he also promised? Trump’s free-money “ruse,” like the rest of his shtick, has “worn thin.”

“Republicans’ best hope,” said Dana Milbank in The Washington Sun, is that most voters weren’t paying attention. The convention’s first night coincided with the NFL’s season opener, and while 25 million Americans tuned in to see the Seahawks beat the Patriots, only 3 million chose to watch Trump rhapsodize about his gilded ballroom. Viewership didn’t improve on night two, when Vice President JD Vance delighted the crowd by telling a protester with a Mexican flag to “get your ass” to Mexico. Vance’s Trumpy zinger underscored the predicament for a party that renounced all ideological commitments to become a “cult of personality.” When Trump leaves the scene, and a midterm drubbing would mark the beginning of his end, there may be nothing left but a “hollow shell.”

‘In the land of billionaire barbarians’

Arielle Pardes at The New York Times

Silicon Valley is “home to four of the most powerful companies in the world,” yet “by looking at it, you’d hardly know this place had any influence,” says Arielle Pardes. Tech billionaires have “donated generously to scientific research and global health initiatives, but little of their money goes to improving their own backyard.” The “lack of investment in the cities where our tech lords work and live reveals a stark reality about how this wealth benefits a select few.”

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‘Should the classroom be more like the gym?’

Dan Rockmore at The New Yorker

The “body offers something that the mind — at least in a traditional classroom — rarely does: clear, immediate loops linking effort and result,” says Dan Rockmore. In the “gym, we can steadily feel ourselves getting stronger,” but in the “classroom, progress can be difficult to see.” This “clarifies our real responsibilities: drawing out the quiet student, asking the question nobody thought to ask, forging a community of mind and friendship from the struggles of a classroom.”

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‘The people — OK, the men — who still love Bitcoin’

Nathaniel Moore at Slate

Among a “predominantly male crowd,” Bitcoin and “other cryptocurrencies offer an appealing alternative because they are not issued or managed by a central bank,” says Nathaniel Moore. The “concept of financial freedom — not having to trust anyone else — is the logical endpoint of the belief that the systems of American life cannot be mended, only circumvented.” Investors are “following the example set by those at the top: looking out for themselves and trying to swell their own stash.”

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‘The first mRNA flu vaccine may be just the beginning’

Sally C. Pipes at the Chicago Tribune

“Flu season is coming. And for the first time, Americans will have an mRNA vaccine to help fight it,” says Sally C. Pipes. Since “mRNA vaccines can be produced faster than conventional shots, manufacturers may eventually be able to wait longer before deciding which strains to target — and respond faster if circulating strains change.” During the “pandemic, mRNA became almost synonymous with Covid-19 vaccines,” but “anger over government coercion shouldn’t become hostility toward a promising medical technology.”

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President Donald Trump won the White House in 2024 while making inroads among Latino voters despite his ardent promise of an immigration crackdown. Two years later, the reality of that crackdown is producing a backlash that could cost Republicans control of the House and Senate.

What did the commentators say?

There is “mounting political worry” among Republican candidates that the president’s “heavy-handed” immigration policies will “cost the GOP” in November, said Axios. The clearest sign of that backlash: Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) unveiled a new ad warning Trump that his policies have gone too far for Latino voters. “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” she said in the advertisement.

The 900,000 Cuban-American voters who live in Salazar’s Miami-Dade County district have long proven “reliably Republican,” said Al Jazeera, but last year’s election of Miami’s first Democratic mayor in three decades “fueled speculation of a political shift under way.” One reason for that shift: The Trump administration has deported Cubans “who have lived in the country for decades,” often to “third-party countries, where they have no ties.”

Latino Americans are “losing faith in the American Dream,” American University’s Diana Orcés said at The Conversation. Two years ago, surveys showed that 52% of those voters believed that “if you work hard, you’ll get ahead” in the United States. The number has slipped to 40%. They now feel “less safe, less welcome and more like strangers in their own country” no matter whether they are Republican, Democrat or independent.

The 2024 vote was trumpeted as the beginning of a “permanent political realignment in the GOP’s favor,” Ed Kilgore said at New York magazine. But the president has since “alienated a lot of the voters” he won in that election. A poll for The Cook Political Report and TelevisaUnivision found Democratic candidates leading among Texas Latinos by a two-to-one margin. Another survey by Hart Research and Univision found Democrats leading among Florida Latinos by 13 percentage points. A Democratic victory in November “will owe a lot to Trump’s actions alienating Latinos.”

“It’s all about dignity,” León Krauze said at The Washington Post. Democrats will have to tread carefully. Latino voters broadly have “nuanced” views on immigration and will need to be courted not just on migration issues but also with “promises of economic renewal.”

What next?

Latino voters have the “most voting power” in the districts where “Congress will be decided,” Juan Wulff said at VoteHub. Those voters could be a “defining force, especially in deciding the makeup of the House.”

But Latinos are “not necessarily turning Democrat,” said American Community Media. The demographic appears to be “swingy,” Equis Research’s María Isabel Di Franco Quiñonez said to the outlet. This, said the outlet, makes those voters “one of the most consequential and unpredictable electorates in the 2026 midterms.”

What happened

The Trump administration on Saturday barred reporters from CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House, following through on President Donald Trump’s post a day earlier warning he was “banning” the three outlets as a “result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” The White House Correspondents’ Association and other media organizations condemned the decision, and the networks announced Monday they had filed a joint lawsuit against the Trump administration over the ban.

Who said what

Trump’s public and private “frustrations” with the media coverage of his presidency “reached a fever pitch” when “one of his closest aides, Natalie Harp, showed him clips of anchors on the cable network MS NOW criticizing his administration,” The Wall Street Journal said. His decision to ban the three news organizations hours later “caught many White House officials by surprise,” and “one senior administration official reacted with exasperation,” arguing that the move “would do little to achieve the president’s goal of improving press coverage.”

What next?

Trump is clearly “not interested in playing by traditional First Amendment rules and norms,” Penn State University media law expert Amy Kristin Sanders told The Associated Press. It’s “not an exaggeration to say his hostile actions toward news organizations and individual reporters have a chilling effect on freedom of expression around the world.”

What happened

An ICE agent on Sunday shot and wounded a Venezuelan man in Austin as he was delivering for DoorDash, according to Texas officials and the 28-year-old man’s wife. The man, identified as Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, was in serious but stable condition after being shot in the torso, officials said at a press conference. More than 100 protesters amassed at the shooting scene.

Perez’s wife said he’d told her on the phone he was shot inside the car. Photos show two apparent bullet holes in the blue Toyota Corolla’s back passenger window, plus a big dent in the front passenger door. The Department of Homeland Security, along with the FBI, is “leading the investigation” into the shooting, DHS said in a statement late Sunday. The agency described Perez as an “illegal alien from Venezuela, who illegally entered our country under the Biden administration.”

Who said what

Videos taken by bystanders show an ICE agent “circling around to the back passenger side” of the Corolla, where he remains as the car “rolls forward slightly” and “three gunshots ring out,” The New York Times said. Perez “appears to be bleeding from a wound to his upper left back” when he’s removed and handcuffed, and “the footage does not show any of the officers providing medical care.”

“I’m very angry about this,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said, but “I’m not surprised at all,” given “the way ICE is doing its business these days.” More than 20 people have been shot by federal immigration agents, mostly in their vehicles and some fatally, during President Donald Trump’s second term.

What next?

Watson and other Austin officials said they expect local police and Texas Rangers to be part of the investigation. Perez’s wife, a legal resident, hasn’t “been permitted to see him” and doesn’t know where he is, her lawyer said.

Donald Trump has hailed a deal that gives the US “permanent control over security” in Greenland, while backing down from threats to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

The US president said on Friday that “from now on, no US adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval”. This was an “infinite life agreement”, he added.

The deal has been described as a win for both sides but, as ever with Trump, “the devil is in the details” and “the details about this deal are still scarce”, said Sabrina Escobar on Barron’s.

What did the commentators say?

The US has made it easier to “control encroachment on Greenlandic soil by China, Russia and other adversaries” and the Arctic is undoubtedly “a safer place for America and its allies today”. For this, “due credit must go to” President Trump, said The Economist.

A 1951 agreement with Denmark already granted the US military exclusive privileges over the “valuable strategic territory”, but the new deal is “a hedge against the risk that Greenlanders might someday declare independence from Denmark”, said The Wall Street Journal. Having said that, it is still “fair to ask whether this deal could have been reached without the collateral damage to US alliances from Trump’s bullying threats”.

“It is perhaps a triumph of optics,” said Marc Jacobsen on Al Jazeera. Despite all the backslapping in the White House, changes to the existing arrangement appear to be “relatively limited”. This is “a testament to the negotiating skills of the Danish and Greenlandic representatives”, who have given Trump “the opportunity to claim the victory he needed, while preserving sovereignty”.

Henrik Dahl, a Danish member of the European Parliament for the Liberal Alliance, agreed that, in practice, little appears to have changed. “A wise Danish politician once said that you can achieve almost anything if you are willing to let others take the credit,” he told The Telegraph. “So let us give Donald Trump the credit for something very close to the status quo. From a Danish and Greenlandic perspective, it could hardly be much better.”

Despite the US president’s “long-standing rhetoric on invading and annexing Greenland”, this deal “once again shows the limits of Trump’s disruptive politics”, said Swasti Rao in The Print. “The theatrics he created were annexation, but the transaction he got was substantive access,” though Trump still remains “extraordinarily capable of collapsing the distance between the two”.

What next?

The deal is expected to be signed on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, and will still need to be approved by legislators on both sides of the Atlantic before it comes into force.

But there are hopes the agreement “signals a weather change in Washington”, said The Times. The ongoing war in Ukraine and the chaos on energy markets caused by US and Israeli strikes on Iran “require a united Western response”, so Nato allies must now lay the matter of Greenland “to rest” and “humour the president and let him savour his supposed victory”.

Rebuilding trust will take time, however, said Tillie Martinussen, a former Greenlandic MP. “Even if it’s your best and brightest and strongest sled dog, and it turns around and bites you, you can never trust that dog again.”

Currently, in much of England outside major cities, county councils provide one set of services, and district and borough councils another. County councils cover education, transport and roads, town planning, fire and public safety, social care, and services such as libraries; while district and borough councils, covering smaller geographical areas within the counties, look after more locally focused services such as rubbish collection and recycling, council tax collections, council housing and planning.

The government’s plan, known as local government reorganisation (LGR), was to replace this two-tier system with “unitary authorities”, bringing all responsibilities together into one body, by early 2028.

In five authorities – Surrey, Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk – this process was launched in 2025. In one of the last announcements of Keir Starmer’s government, Steve Reed, the then-secretary of state for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), said 14 other councils would also be reorganised.

Why were they being merged?

The two-tier system, which dates back to the 1970s, was brought in to ensure a balance of central services designed to cover a large geographical area, and local responsiveness on smaller-scale matters. But according to Reed, setting out these plans in December 2024, the system leads to “outdated and misaligned structures that slow down delivery, fragmenting public services, hampering housebuilding and slowing down important decision making”.

Unitary authorities already cover much of England. In 1986, 32 London boroughs and 36 other metropolitan districts became unitary authorities. Since the mid-1990s, 62 other unitary authorities have been created, most recently North Yorkshire, Somerset and Cumbria; over 65% of England’s population already lives in one. The hope was that consolidation would produce major savings, reducing management, back-office operations and other kinds of duplication – and that it would help give more efficient services to residents.

So what happened?

LGR has triggered fierce resistance across England. Essex County Council, now led by Reform UK, challenged the government’s proposals in court; Norfolk, Suffolk and Hampshire were following suit. There were objections from Devon to Rutland. Last Monday, the new MHCLG minister, Angela Rayner, officially announced the withdrawal of all LGR proposals for Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Hampshire. A further 14 council reorganisations were paused pending a “rapid review”. The only LGR process now going ahead is Surrey.

Why were the plans opposed?

Many council leaders were furious that central government was choosing to “rearrange the deckchairs”, when they are already facing so many challenges: debt, social care, special educational needs, housebuilding.

The proposed reorganisations were often highly complex. For Essex, the plan was to turn one county council, 12 low-tier councils and two existing unitary councils into five streamlined unitaries by 2028. This would have greatly reduced the number of councillors (from about 700 to perhaps 430), a deliberate policy to reduce costs. The plans, complained Peter Harris, Reform leader of Essex County Council, are “ill-thought, expensive, purely ideological in nature and seek to create further democratic distance between the people of Essex and their elected local politicians”.

What other objections were there?

In some cases, the issue was whether the new authority would be financially viable: the proposed East Norfolk Council would have been one of Britain’s poorest. In Devon, the plan was to merge eight existing second-tier authorities and one county council into four unitary authorities: three based on Plymouth, Exeter and Torbay, and one covering the very large, impoverished “rural rump”, with a vast road network.

The residents of Rutland, England’s smallest county, home to 41,000 East Midlanders, objected that their small unitary authority was to be subsumed into a bigger unitary in neighbouring Leicestershire. The county’s MP, Tory Alicia Kearns, said Rutlanders would “have our identity stripped from us”. Several historic UK cities were also cited as being at risk of being legally demoted to “towns”: Canterbury City Council was to be absorbed into East Kent Authority, perhaps losing its city status.

Is there still a case for going through with LGR?

Yes. North Yorkshire Council, for instance, is an advocate for the process. It has achieved £68 million in recurring annual savings, since it merged seven district councils and one county council into one in 2023 – by removing duplicated senior executives, using smarter central procurement, pruning unneeded offices, and so on.

But the overall financial benefits and costs of LGR are disputed. A PwC report commissioned by the County Councils Network found, in 2020, that savings of £2.9 billion could be made. But this is contested: the BBC found that the government had failed to do “its own analysis of the costs”. The transition itself would be costly: the PwC report found that it could cost £850 million. Norfolk County Council said it would cost it £96 million.

What’s happening now?

It’s unclear whether this is just a pause, or the end of the LGR process. Rayner said: “In light of legal advice, I want to satisfy myself firstly that the right process is in place, that it is robust, and of course complies with the law.” She added that she wanted to be sure it met “the priorities of a new administration”. There was satisfaction in local authorities, but also anger. “The most ambitious change to local government in a generation now looks in danger of becoming a colossal white elephant – a huge drain on time, resources and goodwill,” said the Local Government Intelligence Unit, a think-tank.

The Democrats made a very wise decision this spring, said Lauren Egan on The Bulwark. They were considering whether to host their own midterm convention to steal attention from the one staged by the Republicans in Dallas.

In the end, they opted not to, because they were short on cash and thought it might be “strategically smart to cede the stage to Donald Trump in hopes that he would dig his own political grave”. Boy, did that pay off.

Trump, who has already alienated voters this summer by talking about how great data centres are and how he loves inflation, was on unhinged form in the two-day conference. He boasted that America “controls the Trump Strait”; he demanded that the audience join him in a pledge (“I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States...”); he even promised every American a $5,000 bounty if his party wins the midterm elections.

Democrat insiders have long joked that Trump is trying to lose November’s midterms, but some are now seriously wondering whether he has lost his grip on reality.

An ‘incredibly risky’ bet

Republican candidates contesting swing seats in November certainly regard him as a liability, said Ayman Mohyeldin on MS Now. Many of them stayed well away from Dallas, wary of association with a president whose approval rating is down to below 35%. The Republican Party has nevertheless decided that, despite everything, it’s worth making Trump the face of the midterms, because of his unrivalled ability to drive Republican voters to the polls.

It’s an “incredibly risky” bet, said Kimberley A. Strassel in The Wall Street Journal. The Maga base is already “fired up”. It’s among the larger category of traditional Republicans that the GOP has a turnout problem. They need to inspire these people to vote by offering a coherent agenda.

There’s little evidence of that, said The Washington Post. Trump’s wild proposal to pay $5,000 to every adult citizen if the GOP retains control of Congress in November beggared belief. It’s a “desperate gimmick” that betrays a total lack of seriousness about America’s fiscal situation. It would cost more than $1.2 trillion, in a country already saddled with $40 trillion in debt.

The Democrats are in no position to accuse Trump of trying to “trade votes for cash”, said Charles C.W. Cooke in National Review. It’s what they do in every election, albeit in more disguised ways. But this bribe is still a terrible idea, not least because it would stoke inflation. Trump says he’s defending America from the socialists, but if his populism means throwing money at voters, “what need is there of socialism at all”?

Another Trump ‘con’

Trump’s cheques will never arrive, said Steve Benen on MS Now. Congress wouldn’t approve the move, the courts would object, and the money’s not there in any case. It’s just another Trump “con”. He pulled the same trick before the 2018 midterms, when he claimed that he and Congress were preparing a new, “very major” tax cut that would exclusively benefit the middle class. Even White House officials were “mystified” by this declaration, which had no basis in reality.

It’s bad enough that Trump spouts nonsense, said Eric Boehm in Reason Magazine. Worse was the sight of his VP, J.D. Vance, defending the bribe plan and insisting it could be funded through tariffs. Vance is supposed to be the heir apparent to Trump – “the guy with the political and policy chops” to redefine this populist movement for the next generation. Yet he has no problem with the concept of bribing Americans with their own money? “Trumpism is out of ideas, and soon it is likely to be out of power – no matter what ridiculous promises the president makes along the way.”

‘The cruel politics that pit struggling Americans against each other’

LZ Granderson at the Los Angeles Times

“American capitalism requires abundance to truly thrive, and yet capitalists prefer the illusion of exclusivity and scarcity to control the market,” says LZ Granderson. “What has long kept the power out of the hands of the people has not been a lack of resources” but a “lack of compassion, particularly among the poor themselves.” This “calculus is cruelly effective. Instead of uniting people, turn one group of poor people against another so that politicians don’t have to help either group.”

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‘There will be blood: Threats against “NAZA’ directors are real and dangerous.’

Haaretz editorial board

Israelis’ “extreme responses” to the new documentary “NAZA,” which “almost no one has seen,” have now “turned into explicit threats and dangerous violence against the filmmakers and their families,” says the Haaretz editorial board. “The work of making the filmmakers fair game” began when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he “plans to advance legislation revoking the citizenship of anyone who ‘defames IDF soldiers.’” The government is “marking Israelis as traitors, and the unbridled mob is starting to hunt them.”

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‘Congress is trying to rip away college athletes’ hard-earned money’

Matt Ford at The New Republic

The Protect College Sports Act bill “would ‘protect college sports’ from the athletes who play them,” says Matt Ford. The PCSA is a “life raft” for the NCAA after “illegally suppressing college athletes’ earning potential for decades.” College players were “finally able to pursue fair-market compensation for their services thanks to a series of major court rulings,” but now the NCAA and its “allies are trying to keep as much of the money that college athletes generate as possible.”

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‘Why the US urgently needs more platelet donors’

Robert Glatter and Peter Papadakos at Time

The American Red Cross’ “latest appeal” deserves “national attention,” say Robert Glatter and Peter Papadakos. The organization “urged Americans to schedule blood and platelet donations, warning that the blood supply ‘remains vulnerable’ after recovering from critically low levels during a summer shortage. It called on donors of all blood types to make appointments now.” The Red Cross “estimates that nearly half of donated platelets go to patients receiving cancer treatment.”

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Longtime GOP official and current nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner Bo French forced state Republicans into a defensive crouch this week after he published a racist social media post targeting nonwhite students at the University of Texas. While far from French’s first instance of online bigotry, the post garnered heavy pushback from high-profile GOP figures — and conspicuous hesitation to do so from others.

As Texas Republicans brace for what has become a particularly daunting midterm cycle, French’s outburst highlights a deepening schism. Lone Star State conservatives are waffling over how much prejudice the party can — and should — tolerate.

‘Scorched with scorn’

Republicans in Texas were “already fretting about slipping support with voters of color” before French “posted a photo of a crowd of University of Texas football fans, most of them people of color, saying, ‘the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,’” said Politico. French’s comments, which “appeared to target South Asian students,” sent state Republicans “into a frenzy” over the potential “impact the rhetoric could have on GOP candidates up and down the ballot.”

“Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism or look the other way while it becomes normalized?” said outgoing Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on X. “This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad.” French’s post “has crossed the line” between opposing immigration policy and “demeaning people because of their race or ethnicity,” said Republican State House Speaker Dustin Burrows on the same platform.

Burrows is also leading a “coordinated effort called the ‘One Party, One Mission’ tour” to “unify the Texas Republican ticket,” said South Plains College Associate Professor of Government Drew Landry at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Despite French having been “scorched with scorn” by some of his fellow Republicans, “one must question” Burrows’ campaign and ask whether a candidate like French can “fit within the Speaker’s unity message?” If those who condemned him ultimately vote for him as the Republican candidate, “then their condemnation holds no water.”

‘Anti-Bo is anti-America’

Although a “handful of high-profile Republicans” have called on French to delete his offending posts, the candidate has so far “duly ignored them and instead leaned in,” said HuffPost. French’s latest comments have “exposed a growing divide among Texas Republicans,” said the Houston Chronicle’s Chron.com.

While many GOP figures have condemned the nominee, others “have defended him or declined to criticize him,” said Chron.com. French’s post is “not my message,” said Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in a statement to The New York Times. Abbott, however, did “not explicitly condemn” French’s post, said Times reporter Bayliss Wagner on X. The Texas Oil & Gas Association “unequivocally and without reservation condemns” French’s post, said the group in a statement. But the association “has not withdrawn its endorsement” for French to head the agency that “regulates the Texas oil and gas industry,” said The Texan.

Most of the Republicans denouncing French are “just trying to feign relevancy” ahead of their own electoral losses, said Julie McCarty, an influential Republican activist and CEO of the conservative True Texas Project, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Anyone anti-Bo is anti-America.”

When French “unleashed a string of inflammatory social media posts” last year, multiple GOP officials called on him to resign as chair of the Tarrant County GOP, said Politico. Republicans today are hesitant to demand the same “because that might mean that there would be a Democrat elected statewide,” said B. Glen Whitley, a Republican former Tarrant County judge, to the outlet. “That’s the bottom line.”

What happened

United Nations investigators Thursday reported they had found “reasonable grounds” to believe the U.S. committed war crimes in Iran with its “indiscriminate” attacks on an elementary school and sports center, killing at least 178 civilians, mostly children.

The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran also determined that the Iranian government had “committed crimes against humanity” by murdering, imprisoning and torturing protestors.

Who said what

U.S. officials “have ascribed the school strike to a targeting error,” The New York Times said, though the Pentagon “has not published the results of its investigation” into the bombing. The U.N. investigators said the “clearly identifiable” elementary school was the “intended point of impact,” and the U.S. military’s use of outdated targeting data “went beyond mere negligence.” The White House said Iran is the “only party in this conflict that has committed war crimes,” and the U.N. Human Rights Council, which created the mission in 2022, has been “spouting unserious nonsense for decades.”

What next?

The investigators are set to present their findings to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday. U.N. fact-finding missions are “investigative, not judicial bodies,” and can’t “initiate any criminal cases,” Reuters said. But this report “adds to international evidence gathered about crimes in the war in Iran,” The Associated Press said, and “could eventually be used in efforts to reach justice in international courts.”

“Wouldn’t it be lovely if Canada was the 28th state of the European Union rather than the 51st state of the United States?” asked Finnish President Alexander Stubb recently. That fanciful notion now appears to have taken a step closer to reality. In a speech to the European Parliament, the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomed the European Union’s ambition for Canada to become its first “associate member”, calling for closer cooperation on defence, critical minerals and energy security.

His comments came a day after President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen proposed “opening the door” to Canada’s associate membership – “a status that does not currently exist”, said the BBC.

What did the commentators say?

The “not entirely straightforward case for CanadEU predates Trump”, said The Economist last year. “Canada is vast and blessed with natural resources but relatively few people, while the EU is small, cramped and mineral-poor.” Its Arctic border with Russia presents shared strategic interests with Brussels, while, culturally, Canada’s social-welfare state and social-democratic foundations align with the values of European democracies.

These arguments have only grown stronger since the start of Trump’s “combustive, combative second term”, said Ishaan Tharoor in The New Yorker. So much so that “a conversation once consigned to academic circles and the parlour rooms of Brussels and Ottawa has entered the mainstream”.

In the face of a hostile Trump administration waging an all-out tariff war with its biggest trading partner to the north, the thinking in Ottawa is simple, political scientist Bruno Maçães told The New Yorker. “If you cannot change your neighbour geographically, change it institutionally.”

Carney has ruled out Canada becoming a full EU member or joining the single market, even if such a thing were possible. But associate membership could, in theory, allow Canada to tap into Europe’s strategic supply chains in key sectors such as energy, AI, critical minerals needed for batteries or semiconductors and, crucially, defence. Underwater cables could be laid under the Atlantic linking data centres and cloud storage, and new pipelines could redirect Canadian gas to meet Europe’s ever-growing needs.

What next?

One Canadian official involved in the talks said in The Wall Street Journal this is a “tectonic change” that would be brought about by “working groups and bureaucracy”. “It’s terribly unsexy but terribly consequential nonetheless.”

Canada is already the first non-EU nation to join the bloc’s defence procurement programme, said Anand Sundar, from the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. But if European leaders really “want to shift the relationship into a new gear”, they will have to rethink their arms-length attitudes towards third countries, “particularly in defence and security, where both sides’ dependence on the US runs deepest”.

And while Canada’s economy is “increasingly interested in the European market, diversification away from the US will not come overnight”, said Peggy Corlin for Euronews. “Geography, after all, matters.”

‘Colin Kaepernick set an example. Nobody wants to follow it.’

Will Leitch at The Washington Post

Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who knelt during the national anthem, desperately “wanted to play,” says Will Leitch. But as the “maelstrom he set off exploded, every NFL team chose not to roster him.” Kaepernick “wouldn’t retreat from his fundamental protest against police violence and oppression of Black people,” even if it meant losing his job. It “turned out the main lesson of it was the high cost of standing firm on belief, particularly against an organization as powerful as the NFL.”

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‘Dear Ed Sheeran, fence-sitting is so last century: Musicians can no longer opt out of politics.’

Zoe Williams at The Guardian

Since the rapper Macklemore was dropped as a support act on Ed Sheeran’s ‘Loop Tour,’ “every other opening act has pulled out,” says Zoe Williams. Sheeran, “seeking to stay out of politics, has become, in this moment, the most political artist in the world.” The “concern” of many of the involved artists was that “they were facing not just censorship but censorship by billionaires: specifically Robert Kraft, who demanded Macklemore’s removal with the threat of axing the whole show from his Gillette Stadium.”

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‘Trust in America’s food safety system is crumbling — Congress can restore it’

April McClain Delaney at The Hill

The agencies that “keep our food safe have been hollowed out,” says April McClain Delaney. As evidenced by this summer’s cyclosporiasis crisis, tainted lettuce is increasingly common, but the Trump administration “cannot tell us why these outbreaks happen or, in many cases, where they came from,” and “there is no clear plan to prevent” the next one. The “former director of the FDA’s food safety center” says the “people whose job” it was to “warn Americans” about outbreaks were “eliminated in last year’s cuts.”

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‘China cares more about AI victory than safety’

Seth Center at The Washington Post

As the former State Department envoy who “co-led the first U.S.-China AI dialogue, I fear the coming talks will not save us,” says Seth Center. “I expect China to again downplay safety risks” and “portray itself as an altruistic savior dedicated to ensuring that the developing world gains AI access.” Meanwhile, it will “keep doing everything it can to get ahead.” Chinese “models do not currently match U.S. models in safety performance that matters — thwarting access to the most dangerous capabilities.”

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President Donald Trump last week promised to send a $5,000 check to every U.S. adult — but only if Republicans win the midterm elections. Polls prove voters are skeptical, Trump’s GOP allies in Congress are leery and experts say a mass payout might add to the growing national debt. The president, meanwhile, says the payments will “happen 100%.”

What did the commentators say?

Polls show people “narrowly oppose” the checks and “don’t expect them to materialize,” said Axios. Sixty-one percent of likely voters doubt Trump will keep his word and feel it’s unclear “whether Republicans have the will to make” the checks a “reality.” The pledge looks like a “publicity stunt, and I don’t think that it’s ever gonna happen,” one voter said to Fox News. The president made previous vows to send out big checks — $5,000 from DOGE savings, $2,000 tariff rebates — that never came. “This isn’t America’s first rodeo with Trump’s check promises,” said Axios.

The $1 trillion-plus cost of Trump’s financial guarantee “would be enormously expensive to fulfill,” and there is little sense of where the money would come from, said The New York Times. The “conceit” of the aborted DOGE and tariff check pitches was that “money to pay for them was already available,” but the “envisioned funding sources proved illusory.” The president did deliver big tax cuts last year in the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” but that was provided by “reducing federal spending on healthcare and food assistance for poor Americans.”

Funds for $5,000 checks would not come “from taxpayer money,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said to NBC News. Cash could come from sources like the administration’s new stake in chipmaker Nvidia or the “Trump Platinum Card” that lets wealthy foreigners pay $5 million to extend their U.S. visas. “We’re going to pay that money to the Americans.”

There are “reasons to be skeptical” of Trump’s claims, Larry Persily said at the Anchorage Daily News. The federal government is already $40 trillion in debt, and the president “lacks the legal authority to issue a dividend on a whim, whether it’s $5 or $5,000.” There are more honest options on the ballot than to “vote Republican and wait for the $5,000 check that will never arrive.”

What next?

Trump doubled down on his commitment this week. The U.S. government is “taking in tremendous amounts of money,” he said to reporters, per USA Today. He will not press to send out checks before the election because “our country will be in shambles” if Democrats win the midterms. But the “$5,000 is going to happen” if Republicans win.

What happened

The House Wednesday passed sweeping legislation to punish Russia and voted to hold billionaire Leon Black in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas tied to Jeffrey Epstein, then adjourned until after the Nov. 3 midterms.

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) “decision to send the House home early — again” — exacerbated his “increasingly bitter feud” with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) over his alleged use of the calendar to “dodge politically painful votes,” Axios said.

Who said what

Massie “seized control” of the House for a “blistering hourlong speech” in which he accused Johnson of cutting out a day early to stymie “his bipartisan effort to force the release of more” Epstein files and his resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, The Associated Press said. It was a “colorful capstone” to Johnson’s “tumultuous” two-year tenure, during which he “repeatedly and abruptly canceled House voting days” to avoid “disruptions from his own rebellious flank — particularly those legislative efforts that threatened to rebuke President Donald Trump.” By one count, Johnson cut a net 24 days this year, “about one-fourth of the total scheduled.”

What next?

The Russian sanctions bill, which passed 262-159, now goes to Trump’s desk for his expected signature. The legislation “targets Russia’s energy and defense industries” to “deprive Moscow of funds used to pay for its war with Ukraine,” Reuters said. But it “faced pushback because it also authorizes Trump to impose stiff tariffs ​of up to 100%” on countries that don’t “reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas.”

What happened

The Federal Reserve Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than three years. The unanimous vote to raise rates by a quarter-point, to about 3.9%, was “aimed at combating inflation brought on by spiraling oil prices and other factors,” including AI spending and tariffs, CNBC said. The “vast majority” of the Fed policymakers also “penciled in one more hike this year,” The Wall Street Journal said, “implicitly” undercutting “the White House’s insistence that inflation isn’t a concern.”

Who said what

The “American economy appears to be strengthening,” but “inflation is too high and has been for too long,” Fed Chair Kevin Warsh told reporters after Wednesday’s vote. President Donald Trump, who made clear he wanted rate cuts when selecting Warsh, broadcast his displeasure. “LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!” he wrote on social media. Rates “should be 1%, or less.”

Warsh told reporters he had “nothing for you on a discussion with the president.” But Trump said at a campaign stop in North Carolina that he’d told Warsh beforehand that he “might as well vote with the board because it’s just not going to matter.” He said he had faith in Warsh, but the rest of the board are “very hostile” and “very political,” and “they’re raising the rates to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly can do.”

What next?

Most economists expected the Fed to hold rates steady at its October meeting, “because it is just a week before the midterm elections,” The Associated Press said. But “Wall Street analysts now see a rate hike by December as a near certainty.”

Russian voters joke that, if there’s a “special military operation” in Ukraine, there’s now a “special electoral operation” for their parliament, said The Economist. Polls open for the Duma ballot on 18 September – the first parliamentary election since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine – and, despite ever greater public opposition to the war, Vladimir Putin’s grasp on power is unlikely to be shaken.

But battlefield “bodies are piling up” and “smoke is billowing” from oil refineries across Russia hit by Ukrainian drone strikes. The failing Russian economy and continuing fuel shortages are weighing more heavily on the population and, although this election’s outcome is all but certain, the people’s “tacit consent is crumbling”. The educated and politically conscious, who always voted in the past “no longer see much point in the charade”.

What did the commentators say?

“The system of power in Russia is often referred to as ‘managed democracy’”, where “the Kremlin does the managing”, said the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg. Critics dismiss the elections as “neither free nor fair” but, frankly, the Kremlin “doesn’t care what the critics say”. Does this mean there will be “no surprises”? “Far from it.” We’ve already seen a TV debate with “six empty lecterns”.

The election of 450 deputies to Russia’s lower legislative house “gives the impression of some diversity”, with communists, nationalists and “even some self-described liberals” on the ballot, said Brawley Benson on Foreign Policy. “In reality, scope for disagreement is vanishingly small.” United Russia – Putin’s party – holds 70% of the seats and there’s “little tolerance for genuine opposition”. The other Duma deputies are seen as “systemic opposition”, or parties that partially differ in their priorities, but “broadly support” Putin.

“United Russia’s popularity has been hovering around 32% in public opinion polls,” said political science professor Regina Smyth on The Conversation. That’s the lowest percentage since the invasion of Ukraine, and “even then, the number is likely inflated by respondents’ fear of revealing their opposition”. But the Kremlin has long deployed an “arsenal of tools” to retain its grip on power. Gerrymandering, “significant” levels of electoral fraud and, this time round, the banning of eight out of 19 political parties have, in effect, “eliminated non-partisan organised opposition”. The election is not about who wins but what could be telling is seeing how heavily the Kremlin needs to place “its thumb on the scale to maintain its party’s two-thirds majority”.

“Engineering” the outcome too tightly is “not without a risk for the ruling regime”, said The Guardian’s editorial board. “Too blatant” an election steal can be “a sign of weakness”. Already last month, Russia’s supreme court blocked the “old and marginal liberal party”, Yabloko, from participating in the vote. It does not “pose a serious challenge to the regime” but it is opposed to the war in Ukraine. The case for banning it was “spurious to the point of absurdity”. Putin wants to look as if he is well supported but “the harder the Kremlin is seen to work at constructing electoral proof of that support, the less confident it looks”.

What next?

While there may be “little reason to care” about this “snoozefest” election and its “foregone conclusion”, many Russians “are worried” about what might follow, said The New York Times’ Moscow-based correspondent, Valerie Hopkins.

“Rumours of a large, forced mobilisation are rampant”, as the military “burns through” troops in Ukraine. And, for a country that is a major oil producer, it “has found itself in the unusual position of running short of fuel”. Nearly 60% of Russians think the “people around them are experiencing anxiety”, according to a July poll from the state-affiliated Public Opinion Foundation. That’s “a four-year high”. And the state-owned Sberbank reported Russians withdrawing more money from banks this summer “than in the previous six years”.

Most significantly, the Kremlin public relations machine has been forced to switch tack. Picking up on the fact that many people are “struggling and scared”, it has abandoned its old “business as usual” message for a call “to rally around President Vladimir V. Putin and his war”.

A “polite, posh revolt” has broken out in an Oxfordshire village over plans to turn an old army site into new housing for more than 1,000 asylum seekers, wrote Ella Whelan in The iPaper.

Residents of Piddington voted to become independent from the UK in a symbolic referendum and now the parish has been “approached by hundreds of other villages and towns for advice on replicating their campaign”, said Leaf Arbuthnot in The Telegraph.

Grumbling Piddington

It’s “such a quiet, tranquil village” that the most you could ordinarily expect at 7am would be a cyclist “setting off for an early shift, or a milkman on his round”, said Arbuthnot. But when the referendum result was delivered, the atmosphere in Piddington was “nothing short of electric”.

The village’s 350 residents had been invited to cast their ballot in a small box outside the village hall and out of 312 votes cast, 285 voted to leave, there were 26 no votes, and one spoiled ballot paper.

As the landslide result was announced, residents were “palpably delighted”. The village’s “eccentric and deeply English decision to gun for a figurative ‘split’ from the UK has won it extensive coverage, even from media outlets overseas”.

Piddington had actually been “quietly grumbling for a while” about the plans, wrote Whelan, but now those grumbles are “headline news”, and residents are posing with home-made signs boasting their neighbourhood is “the village that roars”.

“The case of Piddington is fascinating” because residents voted in Calum Miller, a Liberal Democrat candidate, in 2024 and “you don’t vote in a Lib Dem if you’re agnostic on the issue of immigration”. Miller had previously backed calls to make Oxfordshire “a place of sanctuary for those fleeing torture and death”, but he has since written a letter to the government, opposing the new plans.

Piddington is about the “much bigger question of what is at stake with the issue of immigration”. Ten years ago, “even using the I word” could have you labelled racist, but “concerns about cultural tensions, NHS waiting lists and even crime rates are now pretty commonplace across the political spectrum”.

Backlog burden

The government has defended its migration policy after the symbolic referendum. “What I would just gently say to the people of Piddington is we inherited a massive asylum backlog,” Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, told Sky News. The government is “getting that backlog down” but “in the meantime”, it doesn’t think it’s “acceptable for all of the burden” to fall on poorer communities.

But Labour MPs “would do well to study what has happened in Piddington”, said Arbuthnot, because “the anger that has been stirred in even this conspicuously well-to-do and liberal corner of Oxfordshire could augur a broader mood taking hold across the country”.

Andy Burnham has “sold himself as the ‘I hear you’ prime minister", said Whelan, so “will he listen to the Piddington Poll”?

What happened

FBI Director Kash Patel Tuesday sparred with Senate Democrats at a Judiciary Committee hearing that touched on his firings of experienced agents, melding of personal and taxpayer-funded travel, alleged agency politicization, the Jeffrey Epstein files and his refusal to rule out sending federal agents to voting sites in November.

Some of the “most noteworthy questions” involved Patel’s recent decision to remove bestiality and prostitution as automatic disqualifiers for FBI job applicants, Reuters said. His explanation that “he did not want ​to bar trafficking victims who had been forced to have sex with animals” drew an “incredulous response from Republicans and Democrats alike.”

Who said what

The “fiery” hours-long hearing “featured the name-calling and bitingly personal exchanges that have come to define Patel’s appearances on Capitol Hill,” The Associated Press said. As Patel “lashed out at Democrats,” said NBC News, an FBI social media account “launched attacks on several” committee members. The “tension climaxed,” Politico said, when the “normally genial” committee chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) “angrily asked” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) if he was “ready to shut up.”

What next?

Patel’s suggestion that he was “open to sending federal agents to polling places” raised alarms among Democrats, The New York Times said. “Do you pledge that you will not, in any way, interfere in the will of the American people when they go to the polls in November?” Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) asked. Patel said he would “pledge unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies.”

What happened

The board of the Kennedy Center, chaired by President Donald Trump and stacked with allies he appointed, voted Tuesday to close most of the performing arts center for renovation. But Trump “immediately threatened to block that work unless his name is restored to the building,” The Wall Street Journal said. Shortly before Tuesday’s vote, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had blocked the board’s revised proposal to add Trump’s name to the outside of the building and rename the grounds “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”

Who said what

“Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’ blessing,” Cooper wrote. And the board’s “linguistic gymnastics” to try to do so “bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”

The Kennedy Center fight “marks a rare setback in Trump’s second term bid to dramatically remake the nation’s capital in his gilded tastes,” The Associated Press said. But Tuesday’s developments also “threw into limbo the fate of one of the nation’s most prominent cultural institutions.”

Without signage “appropriately recognizing President Trump,” Justice Department lawyers argued in court, funding will dry up and the Kennedy Center “will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down.” The Trump administration estimates that the renovation will cost $285 million, and Congress allocated $257 million for the project last year.

What next?

The Kennedy Center said it indefinitely closed its doors Tuesday evening for safety reasons, “aggressively” testing Cooper’s order that it remain open, The New York Times said. The center later said an extended closure wouldn’t begin until the court gives its approval.

‘The American age is over’

Phillips Payson O’Brien at The Atlantic

“In the past six months, America’s power, long exemplified by the world’s best warfighting equipment and most highly trained military personnel,” has “proved insufficient to defeat Iran, an economically stagnant regime armed with cheap missiles,” says Phillips Payson O’Brien. For years, “virtually everyone thought that, in a crisis, Washington could draw on deeper reserves.” This “assumption about America’s fundamental strength reassured allies and deterred foes,” but it also “promoted a complacency.” Trump’s war with Iran has “revealed” just how much “American might has decayed.”

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‘We found the most galling argument of the upcoming Supreme Court term’

Jacob D. Charles at Slate

“This fall, the Supreme Court will entertain a Second Amendment challenge to the prohibition of assault weapons in Viramontes v. Cook County,” says Jacob D. Charles. “The challengers — a few individuals who want to own such weapons, along with some gun-rights advocacy organizations,” argue that the Constitution “prohibits” them from “protecting themselves.” But their “precise argument depends upon judges second-guessing — indeed, overruling — the decision that millions of American people made about these weapons.”

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‘Dementia cases are set to triple by 2050. Here’s how we can improve early detection.’

Anna Chodos at the San Francisco Chronicle

About “one in three” people “85 and older” have dementia, says Anna Chodos, and it’s “estimated that half” of those living with it “do not get a diagnosis.” But patients would “live longer and experience better brain function if they were given the chance.” Earlier evaluation can include “identifying and addressing sleep disorders, diabetes, obesity, hearing and vision loss, and poorly controlled vascular risk factors.” It also means “helping people find ways to be as physically, socially and cognitively active as possible.”

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‘Oura will struggle to justify pulse-racing $16bn valuation’

Jennifer Hughes at the Financial Times

The Oura smart rings maker’s “upcoming initial public offering” is a “sign of investor interest” in “preventive healthcare,” says Jennifer Hughes. Still, it will “need endorsements of a more scientific kind.” As “care costs soar, the health-related uses become more valuable.” The device’s “continuous monitoring might flag a problem sooner than a patient’s next routine medical visit,” and clinical studies are using Oura data. But for it to be “more than a lifestyle gadget,” the brand must “overcome doctors’ concerns.”

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Republicans have usually claimed the faith mantle in U.S. politics. This year’s midterm elections are developing along a different path, with Democrats like James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas highlighting their religious bona fides on the campaign trail.

What did the commentators say?

“Faith is back in Democratic politics,” Jim Wallis said at Religion News Service. Democrats have often chosen to “ignore, dismiss or even discredit religion” because they did not know how to talk about such values without sounding as though they were “imposing their religion upon a pluralistic society.” But a new generation of “faith-forward” candidates is “reclaiming religion” as a “moral framework for public service.” They talk of faith “with authenticity instead of apology.” There could be broad benefits. “Faith may be our last line of defense in saving, and then restoring, our democracy.”

Democratic Socialists have received a lot of attention this campaign cycle, “but Democratic Christians may prove more influential this November,” Bill McKibben said at The New Yorker. Candidates like Talarico and Hamilton are leading a “resurgence of the once dominant and long-dormant mainline Protestant tradition” in Democratic politics. Their prominence can be seen as a response to the “right-wing evangelical hijacking of the Gospel message” and evangelicals’ embrace of Donald Trump. “Everyone should welcome a new depth to the debate.”

Other faith-centric Democrats in this year’s midterm elections include Iowa’s Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister, and Arkansas’ Robb Ryerse, an evangelical pastor. Iowa’s Rob Sand is not a pastor, but his campaign has featured messaging about “how his faith is deeply woven into his public service,” Vote Common Good’s Doug Pagitt said at The Hill.

A “sense of belonging” is important in “both religion and politics,” said Pagitt, but Republicans are “narrowing their definition of who belongs and which faith matters” with conservative Christian Nationalist rhetoric. Democrats have an opportunity to “welcome those Trump is denying.”

Democratic efforts to “reclaim God” are “unlikely to succeed” unless the party moves toward the center, Eric Teetsel said at The Washington Post. Barack Obama embraced religious rhetoric during his rise to the presidency, but once in the White House he advanced causes — abortion access, LGBT rights — that were “at odds with evangelical priorities.” Today’s progressive Christians are “not reaching out to religious voters by taking a more moderate stance” on transgender rights or euthanasia. Trump is problematic, but he has been able to “achieve reasonable policy wins consistent with a Christian understanding of the good.”

What next?

Republicans are pushing back. Democratic candidates “don’t profess the true gospel of Jesus Christ,” Iowa congressional candidate Joe Mitchell said at July’s Family Leadership Summit, per Religion News Service. Democrats also have to figure out how to speak the language of faith without alienating the large number of secular voters who make up their base, said ABC News. Achieving that balance is a “tricky road,” the University of Notre Dame’s David Campbell said to the outlet. Some candidates “do it better than others.”

Does money matter in an election?

In the US, where billions of dollars are spent each election cycle, the answer has long been a definitive yes. But in the UK, in part because of strict campaign spending limits, the jury is still out.

Now, two record-breaking donations to Reform UK totalling £72 million look set to test the theory to its limits.

Despite calls to strengthen legislation going through Parliament to include a cap on individual domestic donations, government sources insist last week’s mega-donations by two crypto-billionaires are “not being viewed inside Downing Street as a game-changing moment in this debate”, said Jack Fenwick on the BBC.

“But people across the political spectrum are now asking whether this massive injection of money will be remembered as a key moment when politics in this country changed.”

What did the commentators say?

“For all the failings of modern British politics, one virtue has largely remained,” said Lee David Evans on UnHerd: “big money plays little role in deciding our elections.”

In total £94.5 million was spent across the entire 2024 UK general election campaign, according to the Electoral Commission. By contrast, $11.6 billion is reportedly going to be spent in advertising alone for this year’s US mid-terms, said Reuters.

It would be “too defeatist (or triumphalist, depending on your perspective) to conclude that these [Reform] donations mean the next election is already over”, said Evans. But they are likely to “leave the ordinary party member feeling more irrelevant”. And if it means Britain’s political parties and politicians have to spend more time fundraising, “then our politics will have become a lot more American – and will be worse for it”.

The focus up to now has been on foreign influence, and “for good reason; it is for UK voters to choose their government”, said The Guardian. But now “ministers must look beyond the narrow question of outside interference” and find ways to limit mega-rich donors paying for “years of polling, advertising, data and staff, before election-period limits apply”.

But this is just “frothing at the mouth and gnashing of teeth”, said Ameer Kotecha, chief executive of the Centre for Government Reform, in The Spectator. There has been a “collective amnesia” from the mainstream parties, who have long received multimillion-pound donations from wealthy individuals and trade unions.

Arguments about how such donations help level the playing field for upstart parties such as Reform aside, these are “huge and potentially transformative sums for British politics”, said Ian Birrell in The i Paper. Yet Labour and the Tories have “only themselves to blame for this toxic situation after their failure to clear the stench of corruption that hangs over Westminster, despite a string of funding and lobbying scandals”.

The two parties have “tinkered at the edges of real funding and lobbying reforms” and now Reform “threatens to wash them both away with a tide of cash from a couple of billionaire crypto kings”.

People also naturally “assume that the donors are driving a bargain – that for a large donation, they expect something in return”, said former Conservative parliamentary candidate Iain Dale on LBC. “In my experience, that is not true, and most donors act philanthropically.”

The only alternative “is for the taxpayer to fund political parties through a regime set up by the state”. I do “wonder how many taxpayers would think this was a wise use of their taxes”.

What next?

Labour’s Angela Rayner has said the law to stop foreign and crypto donations will be used “retrospectively” and “backdated to 25 March” when it was announced.

But surely the “real question here is whether Labour is trying to save British democracy or itself”, said David Maddox on The Independent.

It’s a dangerous game they’re playing. “They may celebrate forcing Reform to hand back £72 million”, but if Reform were to win power “they could easily point to Labour’s actions to justify their own attempt to stop other parties receiving funding”.

Andy Burnham and his ministers “need to beware of creating a tit-for-tat scenario, which could be far worse for British politics in the long run”.

What happened

Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Anderson’s “lavish” three-day wedding celebration in the Bahamas was “heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin,” ProPublica reported Monday. Kremlev spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to rent out one of the “pair of ultra-exclusive private islands” that hosted the May wedding, plan the reception and put on a fireworks show, among other expenses.

Bettina Trump confirmed the “extraordinarily generous wedding gift” on social media. “Our dear friend Umar very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding,” she said, but he did not attend the “intimate” ceremony.

Who said what

Accepting Kremlev’s money was an “extraordinary flouting of ethical norms for an American president’s family,” which is “generally expected to steer clear of these sorts of personal and pricey gifts,” The New York Times said, “particularly from someone in a country like Russia.” About 50 guests attended the after-party, including Eric Trump and Jared Kushner, and some were “puzzled” by the presence of Kremlev and his Russian friends, ProPublica said. “Eric has absolutely no clue who this person is,” a spokesperson told the publication. President Donald Trump said in a statement he also had “no idea who Umar is,” but “it was an ‘after-party’ given in their honor. Not a big deal!”

What next?

“This should be unthinkable” for the son of the president, retired FBI counterintelligence agent Frank Montoya Jr. told ProPublica. “If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something.”

‘When a return to the office is a return to sex discrimination’

Gleb Tsipursky at The Hill

A recent Organization Science study analyzed “everyday gender discrimination” and found that women experience “far fewer gendered offenses when working remotely,” says Gleb Tsipursky. As employers “roll out return-to-office rules, the risk is clear: Mandates are not neutral. They can recreate the exact conditions that drive women out of roles, teams and entire fields.” The “core takeaway is not that remote work is perfect.” It’s that “location changes exposure to bias.”

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‘There’s a reason Europe is so obsessed with immigration’

Anton Jager at The New York Times

Immigration worries in Europe “outstrip objective reality,” says Anton Jager. The topic has “become a prism through which all the continent’s ills are viewed.” The continued flow of “outsiders” into European capitals is “held responsible for a gamut of problems, from poor social services to wage stagnation to crime.” But while migration is “assailed as a threat to Europe’s identity,” that identity is hazy. It “falls to migration to fill the void at the center of Europe’s self-image.”

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‘We are ignoring the cause of homelessness and how to solve it’

Michele Steeb at USA Today

What if Americans “judged success not by whether people had housing but by whether they discovered or rediscovered who they were created to become”? says Michele Steeb. The federal government’s “Housing First approach” made “housing placement the primary intervention and measure of success while removing expectations for treatment, sobriety, employment, or progress toward self-sufficiency. In doing so, it too often treated the symptom of homelessness” while “leaving the deeper human crises that frequently accompany and perpetuate it unaddressed.”

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‘Can a party be leftist and Zionist?’

Tamam Abusalama at Al Jazeera

Can a “party or an individual be both leftist and Zionist”? says Tamam Abusalama. The “short answer” is “no.” Touted in “Israel and beyond as a legitimate ideological belief,” being both is a “political technology designed to shield Zionism from any critique while preserving the structures of oppression.” Whatever “position early Zionists staked out on the political spectrum, what the movement ultimately produced — the state of Israel — was in direct contradiction with the anti-colonial, anti-racist politics the left was supposed to stand for.”

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President Donald Trump last week promised to send $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans win the midterm elections. But he is seemingly intent on making the election a referendum on his increasingly unpopular presidency, doubling down on policies — data centers, tariffs, war with Iran — disfavored by voters. That leads some observers to wonder if he really cares about GOP victories in November.

What did the commentators say?

Trump is “not spending a ton of his mind share on the races,” White House reporter Maggie Haberman said to The New York Times. The president believes GOP candidates “should be doing more to defend what he sees as his many accomplishments,” and he is committing the bulk of his time to “legacy projects” like the “triumphal arch, the ballroom on the White House complex, his goldification of the Oval Office” instead of policy and governance.

Trump has reportedly told advisers that he is “proud” that Republican candidates “don’t do as well when he’s not on the ballot,” said Haberman. His administration’s efforts to exert control over the elections process, however, remains a “significant X-factor” in the midterm election outcome.

House and Senate candidates usually try to “detach themselves from the national brand” when their party’s president is down in the polls, Jonathan Chait said at The Atlantic. Trump is making that “impossible,” launching a national ad campaign “focused on himself” and holding last week’s GOP convention highlighting the “synonymity of the party and its leader” to voters. The president “probably” cares about the midterms outcome “but not enough to permit Republicans to acknowledge his lack of popularity.” All of this makes sense if it is understood that “Trump’s interest in politics is purely egocentric.” But it leaves Republican candidates in a tough spot.

The president’s ideological allies are also perplexed. Trump “often sounds as if he’s campaigning against the Republican Senate,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. GOP seats in “at least six races are in serious jeopardy,” and even traditional red states like Kansas and Nebraska are looking shaky for Republicans. But Trump has made it difficult for his party by launching a “tariff brawl” with Canada and working to oust GOP incumbents like Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. If Republicans lose their majority in the Senate, Trump will be the “main reason” why.

What next?

The president is “signaling that he might not accept the outcome” if Republicans lose in November, Bruce Stokes said at Chatham House. A Democratic win in the House or Senate would likely lead to two years of investigations into Trump’s “corporate donors and alleged ‘pay-to-play’ arrangements, and investments by foreign sovereign wealth funds in Trump family-linked businesses.” That provides a “powerful incentive” for Trump to “undermine the outcome of the election.” American democracy “may never be quite the same again” if the president tries once again to reject an election loss.

“There is only one reason that young people come into the city wearing balaclavas, and that is to conceal their identity to commit crime and intimidate members of the public,” said Nottinghamshire Police superintendent Chris Pearson earlier this month. “Not any longer. Your time is up.”

The city has become one of the first in the country to enact a ban on balaclavas, as part of a wider initiative, dubbed “Operation Reclaim”, to tackle youth anti-social behaviour across Nottingham.

Following masked anti-migrant protests on the south coast, other areas of the UK are looking to follow Nottingham’s lead, although opinion is divided on the extent and effectiveness of bans on face coverings.

Why is the balaclava so controversial?

Popularised by US drill rappers “wearing head coverings and ski-masks in videos”, the balaclava has become something of a transatlantic “urban fashion trend”, said The Telegraph. Ironically, the garment “is now marketed by British leisurewear outlets on the very high streets blighted by ‘ballie’ crime”.

The balaclava has traditionally been used by both “far-right” and “left-wing agitators” to conceal identities during protests, said James Hanson on LBC. But it is also a common accessory for street crime and anti-social behaviour, such as shoplifting sprees by “groups of balaclava-wearing youths”. “If you’re popping into Sainsbury’s in a balaclava, you’re hardly there to top up your Nectar points”.

The controversy over face coverings resurfaced following anti-migrant protests in Dover and Portsmouth earlier this month, in which balaclava-clad men blocked roads to try to prevent the movement of newly arrived migrants.

How will the ban work?

From today, Nottinghamshire police and council officers will be permitted to ask people to remove face coverings if they “reasonably believe” they are worn to conceal their identity, or to commit crime or anti-social behaviour. Those who refuse can be given a £70 on-the-spot fine and face referral to the Immediate Justice Programme, a scheme requiring community work including “litter picking or graffiti removal in the city centre”, said Nottinghamshire Police. If the individual is prosecuted, courts are able to impose a maximum fine of £1,000. Repeat offenders may also be issued with a criminal behaviour order, “which could ban them from the city centre indefinitely”.

Those wearing face coverings for religious, health, medical or work reasons or another legitimate purpose will not be affected by the ban.

The ban has been introduced following a public consultation in which more than 90% of 2,200 respondents supported police action. Authorities had identified around 180 city centre incidents involving face coverings or balaclavas between June 2025 and June 2026.

Are bans likely to spread?

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has told police chiefs in a private meeting that she expects them to “make full use of their powers to stop protesters wearing face coverings”, said The Independent. Current legislation already allows senior police officers to “declare a protest area where concealing one’s identity would be an offence”, but this power was not used during the Dover protests.

Other councils in the UK will be “carefully watching Nottingham’s progress”, said The Telegraph. A few areas have already adopted similar measures. In 2024, Wolverhampton City Council introduced powers allowing police to request the removal of face coverings worn with no reasonable purpose. The London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham introduced a similar policy in February this year, joined by Woking in July. “Even in leafy Cambridge”, an e-petition is calling for a Nottingham-style ban on balaclavas.

‘Vance’s childcare plan pits parents against each other’

Mary Ellen Klas at Bloomberg

“Should the federal government give subsidies to parents who stay home to care for their young kids? Absolutely,” says Mary Ellen Klas. “Should it also subsidize childcare for working parents? For sure. This shouldn’t be an either-or question, but the Trump administration’s new childcare subsidy plan” would “force working parents” to “compete with married, at-home parents for the same pool of funds.” In order to “meet parents’ affordability needs,” the government must “recognize that families have diverse childcare needs.”

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‘The US right still paints Muslims as the “enemy.” But they are fighting for a brighter future for Americans.’

Nesrine Malik at The Guardian

“Members of a diaspora of Muslim background are breaking through and accumulating, as New York magazine says, ‘clout,’” says Nesrine Malik. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “both the expression of that cohort and the catalyst of its recognition as an emerging force. They care deeply for their local communities but also for those in Gaza and beyond.” At the same time, the “Islamophobia that began in 2001 has only further burrowed into the fabric of American society.”

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‘Elon Musk is reusing Trump’s anti-trans strategy. It’s unlikely to work.’

Paul Waldman at MS NOW

Musk is “spending at least $100 million on the midterm elections to support the Republican Party,” says Paul Waldman, employing a “barrage of ads targeting Democrats for not being sufficiently supportive of discrimination against transgender Americans.” But these efforts “will probably fail.” As for how Democrats should respond? “Frightened hedging won’t work. When Democrats say, ‘I support trans rights but I also have concerns,’” it only reinforces the “idea that they’re weak and unprincipled.”

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‘Yes, children really are getting dumber’

Allysia Finley at The Wall Street Journal

“Rapid advances in artificial intelligence have been matched by an astonishing decline in student learning,” says Allysia Finley. “Covid school shutdowns” don’t “appear to be the primary culprit, given that scores fell in countries that kept schools mostly open.” Instead, the “two common denominators across most countries” where reading and math scores have fallen are “increasing classroom distractions and reliance on artificial intelligence.” Kids now “spend much of class playing games and watching videos on devices.”

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What happened

President Donald Trump Sunday blamed Ukraine for rising diesel prices. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump told reporters at his golf club in Ireland. “He’s causing a shortage of diesel fuel” and “that’s hurting the world.” The shortage “isn’t done by the Middle East,” he added. “This is done by what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine.”

U.S. diesel prices reached a record $6.20 a gallon Sunday, nearly 65% higher than when Trump attacked Iran in February. Crude oil was trading above $107 a barrel Sunday night “after new Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia and Iranian attacks on ships” in the Strait of Hormuz “compounded supply concerns following the closure of a key Saudi oil pipeline,” Reuters said.

Who said what

For months, Ukraine has been “targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry with long-range strikes,” The Associated Press said, “prompting fuel rationing” and “causing Moscow to ban diesel exports.” Previously, Russia was the “second-largest exporter of diesel, behind the U.S.,” CNN said.

But “Russian exports of diesel and oil have never been significant for U.S. consumption — the very idea is absurd,” a senior European official told Politico. Trump and his team are “blaming Ukraine because they do not know what to do” with their unpopular Iran war.

What next?

Yemen is the “latest domino to fall in the chain of instability set off by the U.S. war with Iran,” The Wall Street Journal said. Last week’s Houthi “lightning offensive” to tighten control over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait “has put the two most important energy corridors in the Middle East” under the “sway of Iran and its allies.”