‘Officials say exporters pay the tariffs, but consumers see the opposite’

‘Yes, we want no banana tariffs’

The Wall Street Journal editorial board

Trump “insists his border taxes aren’t raising prices,” but the treasury secretary “more or less conceded otherwise” when he “floated exemptions for coffee and bananas,” says The Wall Street Journal editorial board. It “made no sense even on the administration’s protectionist logic to tariff products the U.S. doesn’t produce.” The “tariff costs are hitting home,” and are “making daily life less affordable now. Americans want a tariff reprieve for more than coffee and bananas.”

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‘Too many kids can’t read. Blame a lack of spelling tests.’

Abby McCloskey at Bloomberg

You “cannot assume that spelling is being taught to your children. Many schools have shifted their focus elsewhere,” says Abby McCloskey. We are “losing something important when schools move away from the basics, letting technology fill in the gaps with spellcheck. Or allowing childish spellings that are cute until they are not.” The “retreat from spelling comes with multiple costs, not the least of which is literacy.” There is a “crucial link between spelling and reading.”

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‘Abortion restrictions on young people cause trauma’

Margaret Wurth and Katie Baylie at The Progressive

Laws in “more than half of U.S. states require health care providers to notify or obtain consent from a parent or legal guardian before providing an abortion to anyone under 18,” say Margaret Wurth and Katie Baylie. These “laws make it difficult or even impossible for young people to get an abortion, even in states that have otherwise moved to protect and defend abortion access.” The “process of seeking a judge’s permission can be humiliating and even traumatizing.”

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‘Lessons from Google ruling: Attacking innovation doesn’t protect consumers’

George P. Bush at The Dallas Morning News

In the “wake of a recent ruling in the long-running antitrust suit against Google’s search platform, state attorneys general of both parties and the federal government have learned at least two valuable lessons,” says George P. Bush. But the “most important lesson they should have learned is that competition policy and enforcement should be focused on protecting consumers.” They “seem to have found one commonality: politically demonizing innovative companies under the guise of ‘protecting consumers.’”

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