• Immigration

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 49,571 people in July, a 15% increase from June and the highest single monthly arrest total during the second Trump administration. Since Trump took office, more than half a million people have been arrested by ICE, a majority of whom had a criminal record. (Associated Press)

The Trump administration has paused all immigrant visa applications as the State Department moves to tighten restrictions and limit access to applicants it deems could end up relying on welfare. The agency launched the initiative at all embassies and consulates in early August, and visa appointments had to be adjusted to accommodate “in-depth training,” according to the official. The State Department has been working on updated guidance and training since early this year, “to ensure all consular officers are fully equipped to evaluate every visa applicant comprehensively and consistently.” (The Guardian)

At the same time, Secretary Rubio announced that the State Department plans “to identify and revoke the non-immigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay permanently.” (The Guardian)

The Trump administration has proposed a rule imposing a fee on new H-1B visas, charging companies $103,265 per applicant. (Breitbart News)

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is looking to spend up to $2 million on robot dogs to help secure the border and infrastructure. (ABC News)

• Education

Syracuse University is one of the many large and mid-size schools being engulfed by the student crisis. After spending $500 million building new dorms, student enrollment plunged 1.5 percent. With depressed birthrates and the number of international students falling, more schools will likely see an enrollment shortfall. (The Wall Street Journal)

• Economy

Corporate profits hit an all-time high, with pre-tax earnings at an annualized $4.8tn in the second quarter, or 18 percent of national income, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. Meanwhile, Employees’ share from wages and benefits fell to 60 percent, the lowest level since the 1950s. (The Financial Times)

• Elections

West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice is floating a run for governor after only one year on the job. (Metro News)

The campaign to win over social media influencers is becoming big business in both the Republican and Democrat primaries. This is also true in several countries, where companies pay influencers to advocate on their behalf. (The New York Times)

Famed conservative pollster Tony Fabrizio said that narratives showing Democrat Abdul El-Sayed with a commanding lead in Michigan are incorrect and that the race is essentially tied. Knowing Fabrizio, I can say that he’s not one to oversell anything. If he says it, I generally believe it. (Politico)

Data centers found their first major political ally outside of billionaire donors, with trade union bosses saying they withhold support for any candidate campaigning on data center moratoriums. (The Wall Street Journal)

President Trump has indicated that he’s supportive of Republicans who are increasingly breaking with him on data center construction since it’s become a 70/30 issue opposing their construction. (Politico)

• Other Topics

Meta agreed to a $17 billion lawsuit and vowed to change its policies on how minors can access its platforms. Among the changes promised include a default time limit of two hours for users under 18 and a nighttime block between midnight and 6 a.m., both of which can be lifted only by a parent; default night and schooltime notification blocks; a ban on displaying the number of "likes" or reactions to posts made by minors; a ban on cosmetic surgery image filters for minors; and an option for young users to have a "non-personalized feed" that is not run by an algorithm targeting them with content. Activists supporting greater social media regulation say this victory is more than they originally hoped to achieve and believe it will reform the industry. (NPR)

California's ten largest public-sector unions are harvesting a record-breaking $1 billion in membership dues per year. (City Journal)

Australia

Australia:

The national populist One Nation Party scored its first election victory in Western Australia, a stronghold for the center-left. The by-election was triggered after senior Labor minister Paul Papalia retired mid-term and was considered an easy victory for Labor in most polls. (The Guardian)

The rise of One Nation is pressuring Labor to change its immigration policy. Australia’s annual refugee intake will fall by a third next financial year, as Labor works to drive down migration levels. Currently set at 20,000 arrivals per year, the annual refugee quota will drop back to 13,750 in 2027-28. (The Guardian)

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• Immigration

The Trump Administration revoked more than 175,000 visas from foreign nationals, claiming violations of the terms of the documents related to criminal activity and calls for violence against U.S. citizens, among other allegations. The announcement marked an increase in visa revocations compared with the previous year, representing more than 10,000 visa cancellations per month in 2026, compared with more than 8,000 visa cancellations over the course of 2025. (The Hill)

A Financial Trend Analysis report from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network found that United States banks flagged nearly $5 billion linked to potential human smuggling from 2023 to 2025. In particular, the report states that human smuggling-related transactions fell 62 percent in 2025, the first year of Trump’s second term, compared to 2024 when former President Joe Biden was in office. That dramatic drop is tied to the massive decrease in illegal immigration since the start of 2025. (Breitbart News)

• Economy

Through FY2026 Q3, employers received certification for 830,710 foreign-worker positions under the H-1B/H-1B1/E-3 LCA program. The top employers were Cogniant, Qualcomm, and Amazon. (Hany Girgis)

• Elections

Trump finally agreed to unleash millions of dollars from his MAGA INC Super PAC, which has hundreds of millions of dollars in their bank. Republicans feel optimistic that they can hold the House and Senate if they can stimulate Trump’s base of lower-propensity voters to show up. Internal Republican polls show that voters have soured on the president more than the GOP. (CNN)

Private equity has flipped from supporting Democrats to Republicans during this election year as the Trump Administration has embraced deregulatory efforts, while Democrats are moving close to the DSA. Private equity has donated more than $60 million this election cycle, preferring Republicans by a 65-to-35 percent margin. (The Wall Street Journal)

Outside Republican groups are also ramping up ads to defend 41 Republican districts by emphasizing “no tax on tips” and Democrats’ extremism on transgender sex surgeries on minors. (Axios)

Jewish Democrat bundlers based in Michigan are planning to hold fundraisers for Republican Mike Rogers after El-Sayed won the primary. (Jewish Insiders)

New analysis from Voter Hub found that downwardly mobile educated voters powered Abdul Ed-Sayed’s victory in Michigan more than any other group. Basically, people with advanced degrees who earn less than $75,000 per year.

• Other Topics

Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a directive halting approvals for new data center connections to the state's power grid pending a statewide audit. This move temporarily pauses up to 300 projects to protect grid reliability. He has also directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to require data centers to pay for their own electric infrastructure costs, stopping at least one project planned for East Texas. Many tech companies have applauded the Governor’s decision. This is one of the biggest about-faces Abbott has taken recently, with pressure on data centers growing even in Texas. (The Texan)

Interest on the national debt will surpass $1.3 trillion this fiscal year. (E.J. Antoni)

A group of eight moderate Senators, four Republicans and four Democrats, are aiming to reform Social Security during November’s Lame Duck session when it’s easier to pass bills, and many Congressmen and Senators no longer have to fear the wrath of voters. The Senate Finance Committee held its first hearing about the PROMISE Act, the first step toward a vote. This will be the closest Congress has come to reforming Social Security since Simpson-Bowles during the Obama era. (NOTUS)

New Census data reveals that the states that voted for Donald Trump in all three elections gained 3.15 million new people, while those who never voted for Trump lost 3.79 million from 2020 to 2025.

Read more

Wisconsin was supposed to be a cakewalk for the DSA. The establishment Democratic Party had a miserable election cycle where their leading candidate had to drop out, their backup candidate had to drop out and then jump back in, and the former Lt. Governor dropped out just weeks before the election, all but conceding to the DSA-backed candidate.

Polls going into the election had Hong with a commanding double-digit lead, and many progressive activists were already thinking about November.

Then the unthinkable happened: Hong lost.

This comes just a week after polls massively overestimated the support for another DSA candidate, Abdul El-Sayed. He won his primary by a single point after polls said he would bury Rep. Haley Stevens.

So what happened? Well, there’s good news for Democrats and good news for Republicans.

Read more

• Immigration

ICE made around 51,000 immigration arrests in July, marking the highest month on record. (Daily Wire)

The number of illegal aliens being tracked by ICE with ankle monitors has increased from 17,000 last year to 54,000 this year. (The Guardian)

President Donald Trump signed two executive actions: one limiting the number of people born in the country who are eligible for U.S. citizenship, and another tightening restrictions on those seeking visas to give birth in the country. These will definitely be challenged in court; I guess that the White House wants another hearing in the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship, but with a narrower review of who can be denied citizenship. (Associated Press)

The Trump administration is considering adding a $100,000 fee to optional practical training, the program that allows international students to work on their student visas for a time after graduation. (The Wall Street Journal)

• Economy

Part of the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia Act includes new sanctions powers for President Trump that give him legal authority to increase tariffs on any country to 100 percent. The bill passed the Senate 86-11 and is expected to pass the House. (The Bulwark)

US manufacturing activity expanded in July at the fastest pace in more than four years as demand remained strong. The manufacturing sector has gained momentum this year, with factories benefiting from resilient consumer demand, solid business investment and government outlays on defense.

The new jobs report shows America lost 23,000 jobs in July, with most losses coming from local and state governments (-50k) and hospitality (-40k) after the World Cup ended. The good news is that healthcare (+23k), construction (+22k), transportation & warehousing (+10k), and manufacturing (+5k) showed strong growth. So, there is some stability in the private sector.

The real problem the President has is that inflation, spurred by the Iran War, is eating away at any wage growth. Wages outpaced inflation from summer 2023 until the beginning of the war. The President has a decent economy attached to a very bad foreign policy.

• Elections

Ohio Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton continues to buck national Democrats. A few weeks after announcing her support for banning trans athletes in school sports, Acton voiced that she will back a Voter ID amendment. (Signal)

Polls are showing that Republican nominee Ken Paxton isn’t just struggling with Latino voters who are moving back to their pre-2024 numbers but also with working-class whites who are frustrated with the economy. If there’s any area of error in the polling, it’s here. If working-class whites aren’t moving to the left and it’s just that progressive whites are answering polls more frequently than non-progressives, it will be what saves Paxton. (Axios)

Andy Ogles became the sixth Trump-backed candidate to lose his re-election this year, the most since 2022.

United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain is eyeing a 2028 presidential bid as a Democrat. (Politico)

• Foreign Policy

Trump’s top general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine, has made it clear to other Trump advisors that the U.S. needs to find an off-ramp from the war with Iran because the military options on the table to escalate the conflict could backfire, and airpower alone is unlikely to achieve the nation’s objectives. (CNN)

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• Immigration

The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas as they travel through airports, including spouses of Americans. While The New York Times was lighting their hair on fire over the story, it should not be forgotten that more than one of the hijackers on 9/11 was using an expired visa. (The New York Times)

• Economy

The Commerce Department quietly announced that the U.S. has taken seven new equity stakes in semiconductor firms. President Trump is setting a precedent that future Democratic Administrations are going to run rampant on. (NIST)

US government borrowing costs have hit their highest level since 2007 after the Federal Reserve voted to hold its key interest rate steady. The decision to leave rates on hold has spooked investors who are worried about the US economy’s ability to absorb a rise in inflation triggered by the war in Iran. (The Guardian)

U.S. economic growth slowed to 1.5 percent in the second quarter, with many economists citing an energy price shock as the main risk to the economy heading into the second half of the year. Half of the real GDP growth in Q2 came from data center investments. Consumer spending also remained strong despite increasing gas prices, rising from 0.5 percent to 3.2 percent. Job gains were steady in the second quarter, and the unemployment rate remained low. Beyond the impact of gas prices, Americans got a break on inflation in June: the personal consumption expenditures price index declined by 0.1% due to lower energy prices. (The Wall Street Journal)

The Trump administration plans to end a subsidy program that helped hold down premiums for Medicare drug plans. This move could leave many seniors facing higher rates for their prescription coverage next year. This could increase premiums on drug-only plans by over 10 times the cost. (The Wall Street Journal)

• Elections

Trump’s Super PAC, MAGA Inc., is investing some of its $400 million war chest in the Texas Senate race, where the embattled GOP nominee is struggling with fundraising and polling. Allegedly, someone from the NRSC told Team Trump that Paxton was their problem after the President endorsed him over Sen. Cornyn in the primary. (Puck News)

• Foreign Policy

Four House Republicans joined every Democrat in passing the War Powers Act to curb the President’s ability to continue the war in Iran. Reps. Massie, Barrett, Davidson, and Fitzpatrick joined the Democratic caucus to stop the war. The bill failed in the Senate, where Sens. Collins, Paul, and Murkowski joined the Democrats, but Fetterman sided with the Republicans. Mitch McConnell did not vote. (Time Magazine)

• Other Topics

New fertility data from the CDC revealed that births are down 1.86 percent in the first six months of 2026 compared to the prior year. Interestingly enough, among American-born women, births are only down by 0.25 percent due entirely to the collapse of the black birthrate. Among immigrants, the birthrate is down more than 6 percent because of Trump’s crackdown on immigration. Interesting point: every American racial and ethnic group, aside from Black Americans, saw an increase in births in 2026 compared with the prior year. (Smirkley)

Syracuse University is suspending 20 percent of its academic programs, including classics, classical civilization, German, Italian, Middle Eastern studies, and Modern Jewish studies, due to a lack of students majoring in these fields. These are the ramifications of the baby bust: fewer students to enroll in different college programs and colleges offering fewer options. (The New York Times)

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• Immigration

ICE released new data revealing the agency carried out 356,389 deportations so far in Fiscal Year 2026, which began October 1st. That averages out to roughly 1,260 per day. ICE currently has 65,765 people in ICE detention. The number of deportations has picked up over time with June being the largest month for deporation, averaging 1,474 per day and July looks like it might exceed that number. (Austin Kocher)

The U.S. government is reviving a rule that could deny permanent residency to immigrants who are dependent on public benefits such as food stamps ‌and Medicaid, as the intent is "that aliens in ​the ⁠United States be self-reliant" (Reuters)

Indiana Sen. Jim Banks and Texas Rep. Brandon Gill have introduced legislation in the House and Senate to classify foreigners who come into the country for the purpose of giving birth to obtain US citizenship for their children as invaders, which would exclude them from receiving birthright citizenship.

Sen. Eric Schmitt fillibustered Democrats attempt to extend Temporary Protected Status for more than 350,000 Haitians living in the United States. (Miami Herlad)

Dozens of House Republicans have signed on to a new agriculture bill granting amnesty to illegal aliens present in the United States as of May 31, 2026, who meet minimal agricultural work history requirements.

A former Army solider named Andrew Arrabaca has been taken into custody for attempting to start a fire at an immigration court in New York City. (PBS)

• Economy

A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that only 59 percent of the working-age population is currently in the labor force. A shockingly high number comes after 832,000 Americans left the labor force in June, bringing the total to 105.8 million working-age adults aren’t looking for a job. (The New York Post)

• Elections

Democrats announced the list of primary dates and states for the 2028 presidential election, with South Carolina going first on January 22nd, Nevada next on February 1st, New Hampshire on February 8th, New Mexico on February 15th, Virginia on February 29th, and Super Tuesday on March 7th.

The lead-up to the announcement was marked with lots of tensions between black and Latino Democrats, with race hustlers like Al Sharpton jumping into the fray. Ultimately, Democrats set up the system where the first primary state and last before Super Tuesday are majority black, to take the wind out of the sails of any potential progressive or DSA-aligned candidate. Both South Carolina and Virginia are states that picked the establishment-backed candidate in overwhelming numbers in both 2016 and 2020.

Maine Democrats picked Troy Jackson as their nominee to replace Graham Platner as their nominee for the Senate race. Republicans are going to throw up legal challenges against his nomination because of the state’s sore loser rule that forbids a candidate who loses a race from seeking another office during the same cycle. (The Maine Wire)

President Trump, in a state of grief over the death of Lindsey Graham, announced his support for the late-Senator’s sister Darlene to replace him for a full six years. The 62-year old advocate for disability rights and former housewife is largely unknown to South Carolina voters and is polling in the mid-teens. (The New York Times)

Republican nominee for Minnesota Governor and Trump-backed candidate Mike Lindell of MyPillow fame has endorsed amnesty for illegal aliens. (Minnesota Reformer)

• Foreign Policy

Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Thomas Massie, Warren Davidson, and Tom Barrett joined every Democrat to pass a resolution to halt U.S. military activity in Iran. The bill passed 214-208. (Associated Press)

Two more American servicemen were killed in the Iran war, Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, and First Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii. That brings the total number of Americans killed in this war up to 17. (The New York Times)

• Other Topics

New York City spent a staggering $9 billion on migrants from July 2022 to February 2026, when 250,000 migrants moved to the city. Almost half of those funds went to building shelters. (The Manhattan Institute)

Hawaii Lt. Governor Sylvia Luke was indicted yesterday on bribery charges. (Civil Beat)

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Race has both scientific (just look a…

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• Immigration

Federal judges have ruled against President Trump’s mass detention more than 15,000 times from July 2025 to July 2026 and against the President about 2,200 times. While Democrat appointed judges overwhelmingly ruled against Trump nearly every time, even Trump-appointed judges ruled against the President by a two-to-one margin. (Politico)

The Trump Administration extended work permits for immigrants in the U.S. on Temporary Protective Status for two additional weeks for migrants from Haiti, Myanmar, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Somalia. The work permits for Haitians are set to expire on July 24th and for all other countries on July 17th. (The Washington Post)

President Trump is asking Congress to rehear the case on birthright citizenship, in which the court ruled 5-4 that anyone born on American soil had a right to citizenship, citing 11th-century British feudal law. Supreme Court rules technically allow parties to file for a rehearing within 25 days of a decision. But in practice, the court usually grants such requests only when a significant development comes to light after a ruling, not because the losing party simply disagrees with the outcome. The last time the court re-litigated a decision immediately after the hearing was in 1965. (CNN)

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 25-year-old Texas law allowing these discounts directly conflicts with federal law. The court pointed to a federal statute that says states can’t give higher education benefits to undocumented immigrants based on where they live unless they offer those same perks to all U.S. citizens, regardless of what state they’re from. If the Supreme Court takes the case on appeal, it could end up reaching all states with in-state tuition for illegal aliens. (Breitbart News)

• Economy

The bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law after President Trump refused to either sign or veto the bill. The bill includes 45 provisions to develop affordable housing by removing regulatory barriers and streamlining environmental reviews. It also launches a pilot program to help local governments convert vacant commercial buildings into affordable housing and limits institutional investors' purchases of single-family homes. The most controversial policy that conservatives should have mobilized against is that it doesn’t touch the highly abused Section 8 housing provision. If anything, it streamlines the process by reducing inspections of Section 8 housing. There are more than 4 million Section 8 homes in the U.S., and it’s one of the most abused welfare programs in the U.S. The bill also incentivizes local communities to change zoning laws, ending the historic preservation of some communities; those who comply receive additional federal funds for schools and infrastructure programs; those who don’t flood their communities with more housing are denied those funds. The fundamental problem that most legislators don’t understand is that housing is more of a demand issue because of high legal immigration than a supply issue. (CBS News)

A new report from the Federal Reserve on Economic Well-Being found that 49 percent of adults between 18-29 are living at home with their parents, up 12 points since 2019. Additionally, 47 percent of young adults rely on their parents to pay their bills; that number remains high among adults ages 30-44, 26 percent of whom rely on their parents to pay theirs. (Fortune)

• Elections

The Ohio Progressive Caucus wrote a letter condemning Democratic nominee Amy Acton for stating she does not support "boys playing in girls' sports," and calling the issue settled law in Ohio. They’re threatening to withhold support from her in the upcoming governor’s election. (Andrew Tobias)

Senate Democrats’ super PAC posted its second-best quarter, raising $147 million from April to June. Even with the massive haul in Q2, Democrats face a large deficit compared to Republicans, who outraised them by a jaw-dropping $600 million. (The New York Times)

• Big Tech

Rhode Island became the first state in the union to mandate that every grocery store in the state have at least one staffed checkout for every three self-checkouts operating. The law takes effect on January 1, 2027, and failure to comply can result in fines of up to $500 per day. (Reason)

A jury awarded 20-year-old Kaley Glenn-Mills a $6 million payout against Google and Meta for getting her addicted to social media when she was a teenager. She said in the interview that her biggest fear was they would permanently ban her from their platforms if she sued. (Bloomberg News)

• Other Topics

Black Californians United for Early Care and Education, an organization dedicated to challenging harmful language hierarchies and affirming “black English” as a legitimate, rule-governed language rooted in black history, culture, and community, is demanding “black English” be legitimized in preschool as a way to build children’s literacy skills in California. (The New York Post)

New data on outflow migration from New York State found that the people most likely to leave the state were upper-middle-class married couples making between $100,000 and $500,000 a year. Overall, .7 percent of upper-middle-class New Yorkers left the state, while one percent of people making $500,000 or more also left. In 2024, 121,251 moved into New York, while 134,913 left the state, resulting in a net out-migration of 13,662 taxpayers—approximately 1 in 1,000 resident taxpayers. (New York State Comptroller)

A new study from Pew Research found that 44 percent of American Muslims have a favorable opinion of the terrorist organization Hamas. (Pew Research)

The CDC released preliminary birth data for May, finding that births were down 3.41 percent from May 2025. Births by white mothers remain a majority of all births with one of the smallest declines among any racial group. Non-Hispanic black birthrate continues to nosedive as the overall birth rate is on the verge of making up less than 12 percent of the overall birth rate for the first time in at least a century.

Examining the overall numbers for the year, births from foreign-born mothers are down 9 percent, while those from American-born mothers are down just 3 percent.

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• Immigration

Outgoing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pardoned an illegal alien from Laos slated for deportation for raping a 10-year-old girl, a crime he admitted to and called a “minor thing.” (The New York Times)

The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that any child born in the United States, including the children of spies, illegal aliens, drug cartel members, and foreign criminals, is an American citizen. The decision, written by Justice Roberts, earned the ire of conservative activists and a 91-page rebuttal from Justice Thomas. Like the Roe decision in 1973, this will be the springboard for conservative judicial activism to undo this decision. (The Federalist)

The Trump admin is planning a surge in worksite operations. Criminal prosecution for illegal employment is rare, subject to legal limits, and requires a lengthy investigation. Any ramp-up in enforcement activity would represent a marked shift in the immigrant economy. (CNN)

• Economy

The US economy added 57,000 jobs in June (below expectations of 115k). Hospitality jobs declined by -61k. Plus, April and May were revised lower by -74,000. Wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. Wage gains were 3.5% over the past year, below ~4% inflation.

• Elections

The New York Times listed six incumbent Democratic Congressmen who are at risk of losing their House seats in primaries this year to socialist and DSA-backed challengers. They include Shri Thanedar of Michigan, Wesley Bell of Missouri, Ed Case of Hawaii, John Larson of Connecticut, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, and Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts.

Republicans are outspending Graham Platner by 10-to-1 as polls in Maine tighten, and voters hold a more negative view of the Democrat than of incumbent Susan Collins. (The Hill)

• Big Tech

Byron Donalds, the likely next governor of Florida, released an ad to “protect Florida families from data centers” while pro-AI Super PACs pour $500,000 into his campaign. His pivot on data centers is to clarify to voters that he is not beholden to the industry, which is very supportive of his campaign. That outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis is very critical of. (Miami Herald)

• Other Topics

Foreign student enrollment is down substantially, leaving many universities with large budget holes that they’re filling by laying off workers and by no longer offering certain college classes. (The Washington Post)

A battle is brewing in New York as Gov. Kathy Hochul is pressing Mayor Mamdani to cut spending on three pricey programs as part of a potential deal to send more state aid to the city. They include housing and education spending. (NYS Focus)

Europe

United Kingdom:

A Home Office analysis found that 76 percent of migrants granted the right to remain in the UK under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to family life) were unemployed at the time of their application. (The Times)

The Home Office estimated that the net cost of granting an asylum seeker the right to remain under the ECHR was £141,000 per individual over their lifetime. Thus, the total cost of the 34,400 that remained to the UK in 2025 will be some £4.9bn. (The Telegraph)

Home Office figures show there are currently 19,779 foreign criminals living freely in the UK, more than double the number in 2020, when there were 8,500. Many challenge their deportation by claiming it breaches their rights according to the European Convention on Human Rights. (The Telegraph)

Analysis from The Telegraph found that white British students made up just 46 percent of all children in grammar schools compared to 67 percent in 2016. This report is based on a sampling of 157 schools. The report also found that white working-class British students were facing barriers to entry in some of the U.K.’s top schools. The Telegraph’s analysis reveals that the number of white British grammar school pupils has fallen from 108,220 to 84,815 in the past decade.

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• Immigration

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to end the “temporary” protected status for the nearly 350,000 Haitians and hundreds of Syrians, and thus, proceed to their deportation. The ruling also affects nationals from other countries. (The New York Times)

DHS General Counsel James Percival is urging Haitian migrants to use the CBP Home app and take advantage of a $2,600 payment to self-deport instead of being subjected to ICE arrest & detention.

The Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out a lower court decision that temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's expanded use of expedited removal. President Trump can continue speedy deportations throughout the U.S., not just on the border. (NPR)

• Economy

Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno and Mass. Sen. Elizabeth Warren teamed up on a bill to end the Social Security payroll cap; the 12.4 percent tax is currently capped at $184,500. The demand to save Social Security will only intensify as we approach 2032, when the Social Security trust fund is maxed out. While not finding ways to fund Social Security would be politically reckless, abolishing the payroll cap doesn’t fully address its funding. However, it does close about 70 percent of the budget gap. Moreno made an amateur mistake by not trying to get Warren to concede to a Republican plan, including raising the retirement age to 67, or to non-partisan ideas like abolishing COLA adjustments for very wealthy individuals. It makes no sense to raise taxes on everyone so that Oprah Winfrey, Steve Spielberg, and Warren Buffett can have their Social Security payments adjusted for inflation. Republicans need to do something, but not just give the entire farm away. (CNBC)

• Elections

Democratic Socialists of America scored three big wins in New York City last week, but what most commentators fail to recognize is that they are targeting at least 9 more Democratic primaries in the upcoming few months.

Democrats have so far had a much stronger show in Congressional primaries than Republicans. So far, 12.6 million votes have been cast in Democratic primaries, compared to 8.6 million in Republican primaries. In the median competitive primary, Democrats cast about 8,000 more votes than Republicans.

• Big Tech

Support for taxing AI is increasing across the country, with especially high support for an energy tax on data centers, a wealth tax on AI business leaders, a corporate tax on AI companies, and a robot tax. (Center for Shared AI Prosperity)

Two former governors, Democrat Gina Raimondo and Republican Eric Holcomb, have launched a new non-profit to help American workers adapt to artificial intelligence — marking one of the greatest private efforts yet to address growing public anxiety about the technology’s potential to trigger widespread job losses. The $500 million in initial funds primarily comes from AI companies, likely indicating this is their latest effort to curb the AI industry's declining approval ratings. (Politico)

House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone calls for a nationwide data center moratorium at the start of markup of legislation on a more modest Ratepayer Protection Act. Becomes the highest-ranked Democrat to call for this. (Politico)

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• Immigration

The Trump administration is expanding the H-2A visa program to dairy producers, delivering another policy win to the agriculture and farm industries. (Bloomberg Law)

• Economy

The number of cities with million-dollar starter homes has more than quadrupled since the COVID-19 pandemic. States that saw the largest increases include California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Massachusetts, and Texas. (Zillow)

• Elections

The establishment Democratic Party has lost a series of primaries in Maine and California and is facing progressive challengers in New York, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Florida. (Axios)

• Big Tech

A few months ago, Maine Governor Janet Mills vetoed a moratorium on data centers to protect the construction project of a new data center in the town of Jay. The political blowback was the final blow to her Senate race. The developers just announced they were halting construction of the data center. (Maine Public)

Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled his new tax policy to impose a 50 percent ownership tax on AI. The Senator’s plan issues a one-time tax on any company with annual AI revenue of at least $200 million. The stakes would go into a new U.S. sovereign wealth fund, overseen by seven commissioners nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. It then would pay out a 5% annual dividend directly to Americans. If a company were to increase its share count, including as part of employee compensation, it would be required to cede 50% of that additional equity to the government. (Axios)

• Other Topics

Young black men are dying by suicide at a higher rate than young white men for the first time since the government started collecting data. (Capital News)

New York’s State Independent Redistricting Commission released new demographic data showing that while the U.S. population grew by 3.1 percent since 2020, New York’s has fallen by 0.6 percent, with New York City losing nearly 2 percent of its population. After bouncing back from the population fall during COVID, New York City began losing population again in 2025. Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and the Capital Region are the only parts of the state experiencing population growth.

The ringleader of the failed UFC 250 terrorist plot is an illegal alien from Mexico. (Fox News)

Back in 1990, just 4.3 percent of Americans lived in a county where the number of senior citizens outnumbered children under 15. It was heavily confined to pockets of rural America and retirement communities in Florida.

By 2026, that number grew to 49.4 percent. Entire regions of the country are dying and will undergo significant demographic changes over the next two decades. (The Economist)

CDC data show that since 2020, most of the decline in national fertility has come from within major metro areas, while the total fertility rate outside major metro areas has actually increased since 2024. (Paul Castillo)

Europe

United Kingdom:

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, won a resounding victory in a special election in the district of Makerfield, where Reform had done quite well in local elections. Burnham plans on challenging Prime Minister Keir Starmer for leadership of the Labour Party, pushing for control of the Prime Minister’s office before the year’s end. (LBC)

Burnham is a dynamic figure in British politics, considered more of a workers’ Labour leader. He’s called for nationalizing utilities like water, temporary rent freezes on bills, shifting more political power to regional governments, increasing land taxes, and cracking down on both legal and illegal immigration. He will also be the U.K.'s first Catholic Prime Minister. Labour activists are hoping he can take some of the wind out of Nigel Farage’s sails, but it’s a tall order. New polling suggests that even with the popularity of Burnham leading the Labour Party, they would still lose their majority and need to form a coalition with the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, and possibly the Greens to form a governing majority, and that’s if his poll numbers don’t fall apart.

Several government sources have said that Starmer is expected to resign on Monday, but he did purchase a website for the leadership fight. If he chooses to resign, the U.K. will have its seventh prime minister in the last decade. Starmer said that he hoped to be Prime Minister for a decade, but he lasted less than two years, one of the shortest terms of any British Prime Minister. (BBC)

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There’s a popular meme that circles social media once every few months predicting America in 2200, where Amish and Mormons make up a majority of the country based on old fertility numbers from the last decade.

Obviously, it’s not an accurate predictor of the future, especially given that Mormon fertility has declined like all others over the last decade. According to NPR, Mormons went from having 1.5 more children than the average American family to just slightly more than average.

A decade ago, 70 percent of Mormon women between 18 and 44 had a child; that number has slipped to 63 percent by 2024.

There are, of course, some Mormons who are bucking the trend, especially those who belong to orthodox sects of that community.

Fundamentalist Mormons, especially the few who still practice polygamy, are joining the choir of orthodox religious communities that are seeing a massive population boom. Religious groups, including Hasidic Jews, Fundamentalist Mormons, Amish, Mennonites, and Latin Mass Catholics, are all bucking the trend of declining fertility rates that are engulfing the entire world.

While measuring fertility rates by religious groups is very murky, given that orthodox and fundamentalist groups tend to be difficult to analyze, here’s a best-guess estimate based on the data publicly available from Ryan Burge.

Based on estimates from various sources, including Lyman Stone, these are the fertility estimates for various orthodox communities in the United States.

While all these communities have fertility rates much larger than the national average, I want to focus on two in particular whose population growth will have broad political implications by 2040: the Amish and the Hasidic Jewish.

Unlike other groups, Amish and Hasidic Jews are more cloistered from the outside world and tend to live in more condensed regions of the country. The 150,000-200,000 Latin Mass Catholics have large populations in single locations, such as St. Mary's, Kansas, but overall they are spread thinly throughout the U.S.

Hasidic Jews and Amish, however, are more concentrated in areas like New York and New Jersey for Orthodox Jews and the Rust Belt for Amish.

It’s hard to overstate how fast these two groups are growing. Around the time of my birth in 1987, there were 90,000 Amish in America. That number will increase by nearly 500% by the time I turn 40.

Similarly, the Hasidic Jewish towns of Kiryas Joel, New York, and Lakewood, New Jersey, are the youngest cities in America, with median ages of 16 and 18 years, respectively.

Their birthrate is so high that they managed to reverse New York City’s decline in its Jewish population in 2012, according to The New York Times.

According to Smirkley, a Twitter account that follows demographic trends, Amish, Russian Mennonites, Hutterites, Brethren, Old Order Mennonites, fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, and Orthodox Jews will be so large that they will increase the national white fertility rate by 2040.

Smirkley wrote to me:

These groups grow about 3% a year, so their childbearing-age female population (15–44/49) compounds at that rate while everyone else’s shrinks. The overall white 15–49 female pool falls from roughly 38 million in 2025 to 35.2 million in 2035 and 32.6 million in 2045.

the hare of childbearing-age white women goes from 0.69% to 1.01% to 1.46%.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR) lift: +2.0% now, +3.0% by 2035, +4.3% by 2045

The TFR of Whites not in this group are 1.519, by my estimate.

2025: 0.0069×6.0 + 0.9931×1.519 = 1.550

2035: 0.0101×6.0 + 0.9899×1.519 = 1.564

2045: 0.0146×6.0 + 0.9854×1.519 = 1.585

The white total fertility rate may be larger than that of Hispanics by mid-century because of these groups.

Of course, that also means political changes will happen.

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• Immigration

The Trump Administration is seeking to revoke citizenship from 17 naturalized immigrants who improperly obtained their status. The Justice Department is targeting people accused of concealing prior crimes or committing fraud during the naturalization process. They also included a former Catholic priest who was accused of sexually abusing a minor, and a man accused of filing fraudulent H-1B visa petitions. (The New York Times)

The New York Times published a report on how local law enforcement is working with ICE agents under the 287(g) agreement. States in the South lead the way, with a few municipalities in the north and Midwest also joining, including Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Michigan, assisting in deportations.

Chinese nationals have become New York City’s largest foreign-born population, displacing Dominicans, who’ve been the biggest dysporia population since 1990. The city’s Chinese population reached 397,000 in 2023, a 5 percent increase from 2013, while the Dominican population declined 6 percent to 390,000 over the same period. The two groups each make up 12.8 percent and 12.6 percent of the city’s 3.1 million immigrant population. The immigrant population fell in four of the city’s five boroughs, with only Staten Island seeing an immigrant population growing. (The Gothamist)

The number of illegal aliens in detention spaces has slipped to 58,000 from its peak of 72,000 in custody. (Axios)

• Economy

Wage growth has now surpassed rent growth for 40 straight months and counting. The gap is particularly wide when you narrow to prime-age workers living in apartments or build-to-rent single-family homes.

• Elections

Democrats are investing more than $30 million in state legislative races to further redistrict congressional maps in 2028 and 2030. Forward Majority predicts that eight races in five states — Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — could help determine control of legislative chambers representing roughly 42 million Americans. (Axios)

More than 200 data centers are being constructed in swing house seats across the country as voters continue to sour on the issue. 40 of the nation’s most competitive House seats have data centers under construction, with few politicians offering a firm answer on how to address the issue. (Politico)

Trump’s approval rating is falling with his key voting bloc, white voters without a college degree, as the economy and cost of living continue to put strains on working-class Americans’ lives. I’ve been saying that voters should take note of the falling approval rating among working-class white voters for almost a year. After the Virginia and New Jersey elections, many analysts focused too much on declining support for Republicans among Latinos. Still, I said that support among working whites was falling at about the same rate. The economy, especially the slow job growth and higher inflation numbers, caused working-class whites and Latinos to lose confidence in President Trump. (The New York Times)

• Big Tech

More than a dozen Republican Congressmen and Senators are breaking with Trump’s idea of the federal government taking a partial ownership stake in AI companies, including Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. The plan, originally conceived by Sam Altman, has the backing of President Trump, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Steve Bannon. While the latter two are critics of the AI industry, President Trump believes a private wealth fund for the AI industry will boost support and confidence in embattled tech companies. Republican members of Congress, who too often are married to the religion of free markets, are not preparing themselves for the potentially brutal blowback from American voters and could find themselves, as they have on the issue of healthcare, without a plan and leading from behind. (NOTUS)

The Trump Administration pulled Anthropic’s new Fable 5 AI model after just days, citing concerns that it posed a national security threat. Amazon, which is a major investor in Anthropic, called the Administration on Thursday night to lobby its concerns. On Friday evening, the White House sent Anthropic a letter informing the company that the Fable and Mythos models would be subject to sweeping export control rules. By about 10 p.m., users lost access to Fable. Anthropic states that, because of the high number of H-1 B workers it employs, a high percentage of its workers cannot access Fable or Mythos. (Axios)

David Sachs tweeted that Fable was very similar to Mythos but with guardrails:

But if those guardrails fail, then you’ve exposed Mythos and its advanced cyber capabilities to people who shouldn’t have them. (Keep in mind that Anthropic itself widely promoted the idea that Mythos was a cyberweapon and needed to be regulated as such… A highly credible trusted partner of both Anthropic and the USG who was testing Fable came forward with a jailbreak of those guardrails. The Admin asked Dario to fix the jailbreak or de-deploy the model. Dario refused.

• Other Topics

The Department of Education is investigating the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado after multiple complaints. The District has been sponsoring a wide range of racially discriminatory programming where students and parents of color are being granted preferential treatment and access to district administration through a district committee called Voices of Color. Complaints further allege that the District promoted a training program for educators entitled 'Transformational Equity Experience: To Be Seen. To Belong. To Be Whole,' which teaches that the United States was founded on 'white supremacy' and categorizes individuals as 'oppressors' and 'oppressed' based only on their skin color, not their individual decisions and actions. (CBS News)

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, non-Hispanic whites are a minority of students in classrooms for the first time. The report, which looked at the student population as of October 2024, found that just 47 percent of students in private, public, and homeschooling are non-Hispanic white. While the demographic shift isn’t that surprising, mid-decade Census data on race often contain errors that other federal agencies, such as the DOE and CDC, later correct. So take this information with a grain of salt. (Axios)

South America:

Peru:

Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former right-wing leader Alberto Fujimori, is set to win the presidency after three failed attempts in 2011, 2016, and 2021. The 51-year-old Fujimori shares her father’s law-and-order reputation and support for free-market economic policies. Aligned with the Trump administration’s regional approach, she pledged a crackdown on violent crime, a top concern among Peruvians facing a rise in extortion, illegal gold mining, and cocaine trafficking. She has promised to build maximum-security prisons, expel illegal migrants, and allow judges to wear hoods to conceal their identities for security reasons. The rightward shift among South American nations will redefine the continent over the next decade. (The Wall Street Journal)

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Africa

Nigeria:

Nigeria has become the latest country to repatriate citizens from South Africa as anti-migrant sentiments have boiled over to violence across the country. Over 1,000 Nigerians have signed up to be repatriated. Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Malawi have already carried out evacuations, ahead of a 30 June deadline set by some campaigners for undocumented migrants to leave. (BBC)

Europe

European Union

The employment rate across the EU continues to rise, with countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Czechia leading the way. (Europa)

United Kingdom:

Civil unrest has broken out in Belfast after decades of relative peace after an asylum seeker from Sudanese asylum seeker attempted to behead a man. Unlike most of the U.K., which has taken grooming gangs, terrorist attacks, and beheadings lying down, Belfast has a legacy of street gangs that is unprecedented in many other parts of the islands. The country’s foreign population has risen at almost twice the rate as in mainland Britain. Race crimes are at a record high in the year to this March – up from 1,806 in the previous year to 2,367. My friends in the U.K. have put it in no uncertain terms that the country is at a boiling point. (The Telegraph)

Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terror legislation, said violence by newly arrived migrants was “becoming more relevant.” He added that it’s destabilizing the U.K. and bringing over dangerous criminals. (The Telegraph)

More than 120,000 international students have left the U.K. without repaying their loans, costing taxpayers more than £3.4 billion. (Daily Mail)

There’s a special election in Northern England, where Labour candidate Andy Burnham is leading in the polls. Burnham is planning to challenge Starmer for Prime Minister after he wins. (Bloomberg News)

Germany

85 percent of newly naturalized German citizens have opted to keep their former country’s citizenship. Those who did not keep their original nationality when applying were either stateless or came from countries that prohibit dual citizenship, such as India, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. There were around 189,000 new naturalization applications in 2025 — a drop of about 10% compared to the previous year, the research group found. More than 300,000 people are estimated to have been granted German citizenship last year, according to preliminary data. Syrians were the largest group to be naturalized, followed by citizens from Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia. (DW)

Switzerland:

Swiss voters appeared to reject a nationwide referendum to cap the nation’s population at 10 million. Exit polls show that voters opposed the initiative by a 55-45 margin. Most immigrants in Switzerland are from other European nations. (BBC)

France:

New polls ahead of the first round of the presidential election show Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella leading with 34 percent each. The second-place candidate is a toss-up between the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the center-left’s Raphael Glucksmann, and Macron’s former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

Polls

Maine:

A Quantus Insight poll found Republican Susan Collins trailing Democrat Graham Platner by a single point in the critical Senate election. This is the fifth consecutive poll showing a swing towards Collins since Platner’s most recent series of scandals broke, where he cheated on his wife between 6 to 12 times during their two-year-long marriage. The race is within the margin of error in every recent poll.

Deep Dive

A report from Pew Research found that the United States is the second-least satisfied country in terms of how democracy is working for them, only behind Greece. Just 30 percent of Americans said they are satisfied with how democracy is working. In the review of 16 nations, only six: Australia, Germany, Canada, Sweden, South Korea, and the Netherlands report that a majority of their citizens are satisfied with the way democracy is going.

A report from Zachary Donnini on redistricting found that under the old map lines, if Democrats had a district that was Trump+8 or more Democratic, they would have held a comfortable 237-198 majority. With the new map lines, that same performance would produce only a 223-212 majority. (VoteHub)

Interesting Takes

Jennifer Kavanagh writes in The American Conservative that America’s cushion for absorbing foreign policy blowback is dwindling after decades of failed military and economic decisions that advanced the cause of globalism.

In the past, America’s overwhelming military and economic advantages have offered Washington a generous margin of error to absorb these repeated military disappointments. Today, this cushion has evaporated. Combined with the cumulative effect of decades of U.S. overextension, China’s rapid military development, and the democratization of military power to weak states and non-state groups, the war in Iran has erased much of the remaining U.S. military edge. Forty days of fighting plus six weeks of blockade have not only drained stockpiles but revealed systemic weaknesses in the American way of war and clear limits on American military power. For the first time in decades, the U.S. military looks beatable—and is.

First, the vulnerability of U.S. bases, ground-based air defense, and military aircraft during the war has significant implications for the sustainability of U.S. military commitments. U.S. operations in any sort of Indo-Pacific contingency would depend heavily on forward bases to project airpower, to support intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and to manage logistics and combat support. Pentagon plans also place faith in the ability of ground-based air defense to protect U.S. military infrastructure, personnel, and aircraft. If U.S. bases in the Middle East cannot withstand attacks from Iran, could those in Asia survive in a conflict with the much more militarily capable Chinese military? Would U.S. air defense networks, which were degraded so quickly by Iranian drones, remain viable in a contingency in Asia? The answer to both questions is probably no.

At the same time, the war has underscored the limits of what can be accomplished with “stand-off” attacks (those executed from a distance). American air and naval strikes achieved only narrow success against Iranian military targets, despite Iran’s limited defenses. Iran was able to protect much of its military infrastructure and capabilities and to innovate in areas like air defense throughout the conflict. Similar attacks on Chinese infrastructure are likely to be even less effective, especially if U.S. air and naval forces must operate from beyond the second island chain to avoid Chinese missiles.

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• Immigration

U.S. District Court Judge Brian Buescher, a Trump appointee, struck down a Nebraska law allowing some illegal alien students to access in-state tuition rates at the state’s colleges and universities is preempted by federal law and barred its enforcement. The law had been in effect since 2006. (Nebraska Examiner)

US District Court Judge John McConnell struck down a slate of immigration policies enacted by the Trump administration. McConnell wrote that actions to lock eligible asylum seekers out of the immigration system and deny others temporary work permits had made it functionally impossible for a broad swath of people to remain in the country, including Trump’s visa ban. The decision is almost certainly going to be appealed. (The New York Times)

The Florida Department of Education wants students to prove they are U.S. citizens or lawfully present in the country before enrolling in Adult General Education programs or being admitted to any of the state’s 28 public colleges. (Miami Herald)

Trump’s crackdown on H-1B visas has led to a decline in housing purchases in the Dallas metro area by Indian immigrants. Indian immigrants once accounted for 70 percent of home sales for one major developer, but this year that share has dropped below 30 percent. This has led to a decrease in home prices, making it more affordable for American families. (Bloomberg News)

• Economy

The job market rebounded, adding 172,000 jobs in May. That’s the third consecutive month where the U.S. has added more than 150,000 jobs. The United States is averaging 114,000 job gains per month this year, up from a meager 10,000 per month last year. While that’s the good news, wage growth is still under inflation due to the war in Iran and rising energy and food costs. (Heather Long)

Employment among native-born Americans in May was 396,000 below the level in May 2025, while the number of foreign-born workers with jobs is down 107,000 from last year. (EJ Antoni)

US tech sector employment is down 43k over the last year, according to data released this morning—that's nearly as bad as the worst of the 2024 tech-cession, and significantly worse than either the 2008 or 2020 recessions. (Joey Politano)

• Elections

Zach Lahn became only the second Republican this primary cycle to defeat a Trump-backed candidate in a statewide election. Lahn, who’s running for the Iowa governorship, campaigned on a series of populist positions, including banning migrants on H-1b visas from working in state agencies and universities, increasing taxes on data centers, and opposing liability shields for pesticide companies. He faces Democrat Rob Sands in the general election. (AP)

New York Democrats are proposing a redistricting measure that would abolish the state’s independent redistricting for both Congress and the state legislature. The move looks to protect incumbents while regaining a filibuster-proof majority in the state senate and four more seats in Congress. It is the most aggressive redistricting effort proposed by any party seeking to abolish independent redistricting. Voters would need to approve the amendment in a referendum in November 2027, which both parties expect will be one of the country’s most expensive political fights next year. That would allow for changes before the 2028 elections. The bill is important to Democrats, as New York could lose 2-3 congressional seats in the 2030 reapportionment, creating incumbent-versus-incumbent primaries. (Politico)

• Big Tech

There was a small but significant sea change in the AI regulation front. Illinois passed SB 315, which the governor will almost certainly sign. The bill requires every frontier lab with more than $500 million in revenue to undergo annual third-party audits of its AI safety plan. Basically, allowing AI companies to grade their own homework, while giving voters some belief that the industry is doing its due diligence. Similar provisions were included in AI regulatory bills signed in California and New York, but were stripped after massive backlash from AI companies. Seeing how AI companies were losing the war of public opinion on AI, Anthropic and OpenAI supported the legislation, compared to the past, when they had opposed it. The writing is on the wall that the public and Democratic Party are demanding regulations on AI, and they have to make a calculated decision on when and where to meet the public before Bernie Sanders’ position on freezing data center production and seizing the assets of AI companies wins out. This is the smartest decision on public policy that AI companies have made in a long time. (Puck News)

While parts of the AI industry can feel the ground moving beneath their feet, Congress remains utterly oblivious. Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Cali.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) released a bipartisan AI bill that would override some state AI laws and require top developers to disclose the safety and security risks of their new models. The bill was immediately smacked down by the House Democratic Commission on AI for failing to meet the moment's enormity, and leaders, including Speaker Johnson and President Trump, dismissed any bipartisan deal. Given the number of states moving to regulate AI and how quickly both the Democratic Party and public opinion are shifting against the industry, bills that seem like a win for AI companies while giving companies no real regulatory impact are basic nonstarters. (Politico)

Meanwhile, Trump signed his AI Executive Order. The only significant change made from the initial EO is that it reduces the review period from 90 to 30 days.

After a meeting with Sam Altman, President Trump said he was exploring the idea of the U.S. government taking a small stake in AI giants. This is also something that Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders have floated. While President Trump didn’t give a hard number on the level of ownership, industry advocates say a 1-5 percent wealth fund would be appropriate, while Sanders wants 50 percent. Some believe this would boost public opinion of AI companies. (Axios)

A 34-year-old software engineer secured a religious exemption from using AI at work, and some analysts believe more tech workers will follow in demanding the exemption, especially since Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical was released. (Business Insider)

Monterey Park, California, has permanently banned the construction of data centers, underlining growing public opposition to AI infrastructure. (Semafor)

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is suing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, alleging that the company marketed ChatGPT to the public without sufficiently warning of its dangers. (Axios)

• Other Topics

Four House Republicans, Reps. Massie (Ky.), Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Barrett (Mich.), and Davidson (Ohio) voted with every Democrat on a resolution to limit the President’s war powers on Iran. The vote seems to be largely symbolic. I will say that speaking to several Republican Congressmen during my recent trip to Washington, they all privately said that the war was damaging the party ahead of the midterms. (Time)

A leaked tape of Iowa Senate candidate Ashley Hinson confirmed Republicans’ fears about the Iran War, where she said it was a growing political liability. (Politico)

Recent intelligence reports have raised concerns that Israeli spy agencies are eavesdropping on American negotiators working on a peace deal with Iran. The reports include concerns that Israel has stepped up its efforts to eavesdrop on senior American officials, including Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s top negotiator, Elbridge A. Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official, and one of his main deputies, Michael P. DiMino IV. This story comes as President Trump confirmed he screamed at Prime Minister Netanyahu on a recent phone conversation. Israel’s falling public approval in the United States gives it increasingly less leverage, especially with Democrats likely to take over Congress next year. (The New York Times)

The Pentagon recently raised the counterintelligence threat level from Israel to the highest level. (NBC News)

A 48-year-old bus driver named Jing Dong faces two counts of involuntary manslaughter after killing five people in a horrific car crash. Police reported that he could not speak English. (The New York Post)

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The preliminary April 2026 data from the CDC shows the continued trend we’ve seen since the beginning of the Trump Administration.

Overall, births are down from April 2025 to April 2026 by 3.8 percent, but that number is higher among different ethnic and racial groups than others.

No group is having a faster decline in fertility than black American women, whose birthrate has seen an unparalleled collapse, falling to just 11.62 percent of all births in April, 11.9 percent of known births. It is very possible that before the decade is up, births from black women will fall into the single digits.

Also seeing sizable declines are Native Americans; the birthrate is collapsing at such an extreme level that it’s very likely they will all but vanish as a culture by the century’s end. Latinos’ fertility rate also fell by nearly 4.6 percent.

The white and Asian birthrates are also down, but by lower percentages than the general population, which means they increased as a percentage of overall births. The white birthrate hit 51.76 percent of all known births, the highest it’s been in several years.

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So, why is there a Grand Canyon-sized hole between what Democrats say they want and what they’re voting for?

The poll asked Democratic voters whether they wanted the party to move to the center, the left, or neither direction on several issues.

Overall, 47 percent of Democrats wanted the party to move to the center, while 28 percent wanted it to move to the left.

On specific issues, including crime, immigration, and transgender issues, more people in the party wanted Democrats to move to the center than to the left.

So, what issues did Democrats want the party to move further to the left on?

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• Immigration

USCIS clarified a statement last week regarding immigrants who attempted to change status and obtain a green card. Originally, they claimed that anyone seeking to make the change would have to return to their home country and wait for a green card. After an intense backlash, they now claim that the “policy will not prevent any alien from obtaining a green card who legitimately and properly qualifies.” The department said the guidance “will result in some aliens who do not merit the discretionary benefit ultimately applying with the Department of State overseas rather than USCIS in the United States.” (CBS News)

The Justice Department attorney defending Trump’s $100,000 fee on H-1B workers said that the high number is not the ceiling of what the Trump Administration can do and that it can raise it significantly higher. (Bloomberg News)

Secretary Rubio announced that the U.S. has reached agreements with 20 nations to take in illegal aliens who cannot be sent back to their home countries. (Newsmax)

• Economy

The New York State legislature rolled back the landmark climate law after intense pressure from Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who argued that meeting the state’s emissions-cutting mandates would increase costs for residents. (Gothamist)

• Demographics

The New York City metropolitan area has lost more than 150,000 children since 2020, with the largest decline coming from within the city’s five boroughs. The only parts of the region with growing populations are Rockland County, New York, and Ocean County, New Jersey, both of which have large Orthodox Jewish populations. The biggest reason is not fertility, as the city experienced more births than children aging out of childhood, but migration, as families can no longer afford to live in the city. The opposite is true of the suburbs, which have higher rates of migration but lower fertility rates. (Home Economics)

• Big Tech

When former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and real estate executive Gloria Caulfield mentioned AI at the graduation ceremonies for the University of Arizona and the University of Central Florida, they were nearly booed off the stage. “The Daily Show’s” Ronny Chieng had a completely different message for graduates at Harvard University’s Class Day event. He said:

“Can I just say f*** AI, f*** AI, f*** AI? I’m glad you agree. It’s so stupid. A lot of other respected graduation speakers at colleges around America are talking about you guys needing to master AI for the future.”

“I’m here to tell you the mission of your generation is to destroy AI, it’s just going to make meiodocre people dumber.”

The speech was met with large applause.

Anthropic and OpenAI have created feuding Super PACs and are refusing to work together despite having similar goals. One super PAC, Public First, is allied with Anthropic, while the other, Leading the Future, is aligned with OpenAI and is using the midterms as a proxy war in its business interests. (The New York Times)

Several large corporations are pulling back from ballooning IT costs and employee skepticism. (Axios)

There’s a division in the White House over President Trump’s executive order regarding artificial intelligence. According to Politico, the division comes down to David Sachs, who wants no regulations, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and his undersecretary Emil Michael, that are pushing for greater barriers to Mythos-type models that China could use, and chief of staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who have pushed for a regulatory framework in which AI companies voluntarily provide the U.S. government first glance at its new models.

DHS published a 1,000-page document warning about anti-tech extremism, “The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent AI technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City,” the report reads. The term “anti-tech violent extremism” does not appear in any publicly available DHS or FBI domestic extremism reports or guides and represents a novel grouping of a wide range of ideologies under a single extremist category. Sam Altman survived an assassination attempt in April, and I predicted on my podcast that many more attacks on high-profile tech CEOs are likely coming in the future. (Wired)

• Other Topics

Yale University has reinstated the SAT and ACT requirements, six years after Woke policies engulfed the Ivy League schools. The school said in a statement, “SAT and ACT scores are strong predictors of a student’s future Yale academic performance, and, when considered thoughtfully as part of a whole person review, they can help identify well-prepared candidates, especially those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.” (Yale Daily News)

Adam Candeub is being considered for the position of assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division. He’s a long-time tech critic and government lawyer who led an effort to crack down on social media companies during President Trump's first term. (CBS News)

NYC murders hit a 7-year low in 2025. Shootings are at their lowest since 1993, but felony assaults just hit a 25-year high, up 44% since 2019. The city has 3,000 fewer police officers than it did in 2019. (City Journal)

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• Immigration

The U.S. announced that people with temporary visas seeking to obtain green cards must return to their home countries and apply, as this “reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency.” The administration said that applicants holding an H-1b visa might not be affected on a case-by-case basis. (NBC News)

Sierra Leone has become the latest African country to receive migrants deported from the United States, as last week the country agreed to accept up to 300 people a year. However, the deportees must originally come from West African countries. (BBC)

Of the 6,069 refugees admitted to the U.S. last year, all but three were white South Africans. As you can imagine, it was the first refugee program that the mainstream media had a problem with. (The Washington Post)

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is preparing to make the Empire State a sanctuary state, forbidding any county from working with ICE agents. This comes just months after New Jersey did the same. The regulation will forbid local law enforcement from turning illegal aliens over to ICE after they’ve already been arrested for committing another crime. (Gothamist)

The White House onboarded 82 new federal immigration judges in its latest push to expedite deportation cases and further its government-wide crackdown on illegal immigration. (CBS News)

• Economy

26 states and Washington, D.C. have reported more job losses than gains from April 2025 to April 2026. The fastest-growing economies are in Nevada, North Carolina, and Utah. The states with the most job losses are Washington, D.C., Oregon, Maryland, and Virginia.

Grand Rapids-based insurance company Acrisure to cut 2,250 jobs, citing Artificial Intelligence as the reason. (The Detroit News)

• Elections

As polling on AI continues to sink, Big Tech is working overtime to ensure candidates favorable to unregulated AI keep winning primaries, but they’re avoiding talking about tech. These Super PACs, financed by AI companies, are creating ads on immigration, opposition to or support for Trump, and other grassroots issues to prop up candidates aligned with their causes. Voters, especially Democrats, are moving so quickly on the AI issue that it’s becoming a litmus test, almost like Israel, where anything aside from the most far-left position is tolerated. So, I think this campaign will have a short runway, especially on the left. (The Washington Post)

Patrick Ruffini of Echelon Insights estimates that Republicans have netted 17 seats from the redistricting fight. Even if Democrats win every seat that Trump won by less than 9 points, they’d only hold the House by a margin of 222 seats to 213. By comparison, if Republicans won every seat that Harris won by less than 9 points, they’d hold over 270 seats in the House.

• Big Tech

Meta settled an addiction lawsuit brought by a Kentucky school district that accused tech giants of harming young users and, by extension, their schools. The case, which was scheduled to go to trial in mid-June in U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., was among 1,200 lawsuits brought by school districts accusing Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube of negligence and public nuisance. The settlements followed two major losses in social media addiction cases in March, when juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico found Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, liable for causing harm to young users. (The New York Times)

Governor Gavin Newsom issued a first-of-its-kind executive order to explore a broad overhaul of labor policies, an attempt to preempt potential mass job displacement caused by artificial intelligence. Parts of the executive order include mandating that state agencies work with academics, labor groups, and the AI industry to study how to subsidize companies that retain employees rather than replace them with technology. The order calls for an expansion of job training programs, particularly for white-collar workers such as customer service representatives, software developers, and marketing and sales professionals whose roles are expected to be eliminated by AI. Mr. Newsom also ordered an examination of universal basic capital, which would give all residents stakes in assets like corporate stocks, bonds, or wealth funds. (The New York Times)

President Trump kicked the can down the road on an executive order on AI policy after pressure from industry leaders, including former crypto czar David Sacks. Using the familiar line that regulations will “make America lose the AI race to China,” which presses Trump on several issues that easily sway him (China and regulations). The order would have created a voluntary system under which companies would provide the government with an early look at frontier AI systems — up to 90 days before public release — so agencies could test the models for dangerous capabilities, identify vulnerabilities, and prepare defenses before hackers or foreign adversaries could exploit them. The voluntary system was far less stringent than the mandatory testing that some of Trump’s allies had called for. Tech leaders are going to usher in a bigger backlash against AI by refusing to agree to the most basic safety regulations. (The Washington Post)

• Other Topics

House Republicans move to kill a payroll tax loophole that gives employers a financial incentive to hire foreign students over American graduates — after ICE uncovered 10,000 'phantom workers' exploiting the system. Closing the loophole could generate up to $36 billion in federal revenue over 10 years. (Fox News)

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger is urging national Democrats to abandon talking about partisan redistricting and focus on the midterms. This will undoubtedly cause even more anger from the Democratic base against Spanberger. I’ve never seen a potential White House candidate’s career crash and burn so quickly. (The New York Times)

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George McGovern once said, “I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

It was the height of the Vietnam War, and anger over the draft and rising American casualties split the country into two, dividing the generations. Yet even while the war in the South Pacific raged, there was a vocal and loud contingent of young Republicans who believed the war could be won if America fought on, if we considered using nuclear weapons, and insisted we could never let the Communists win.

Half a century later, we find ourselves in a much different situation; there is no draft, images of dead Americans are being broadcast on the news, and young Republicans believe the juice of endless war is no longer worth the squeeze.

The New York Times/Siena poll asked Republicans a series of foreign policy questions about the war with Iran and the future of American intervention, and the divide is stark.

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When asked if they approve of the war in Iran, 75 percent of Republican voters over 45 who get their news largely from cable news approve of the war, compared to just 22 percent who disapprove. Among GOP voters between 18 and 44, they oppose the war 53 percent to 39 percent.

On the question of whether the War in Iran was the right decision or wrong decision, 72 percent of older Republicans said it was the right decision, while 40 percent of younger Republicans said the same.

And by a 2-to-1 margin, Republican voters under 45 said the war with Iran will not be worth the cost. An outright majority of those 45 and older said it will be worth the cost.

Israel and Palestine have the most extreme divide between the two.

Republican voters over 45 are still overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel and the Jewish people’s homeland, with 74 percent approving of Trump’s actions when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. GOP voters between 18-44, however, disapprove by a margin of 55 to 36.

When asked if they support aid to Israel, an issue that was considered not only non-controversial among Republicans but broadly bipartisan, 72 percent of Republicans older than 45 said they supported additional economic and military support to Israel—the number craters to just 33 percent among GOP voters under 45.

This isn’t a shift on just one or two issues in foreign policy, but an overall shift in the minds of younger Republicans, many of whom voted for Trump for his promise of no new wars and his status as the pro-peace candidate.

When asked if the best course of action is to be active in world affairs to maintain security and prosperity, or pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate more on problems here at home, older Republicans were split. Still, they had a stronger neoconservative lean, with 53 percent supporting a more robust foreign policy and 40 percent favoring a more humble one.

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Among younger Republicans, 71 percent wanted to focus more on domestic issues, while 25 percent believed we should play a more active role in global affairs.

The Iran War and Trump’s unfavorable ratings on the economy have led younger voters to say they want the 2028 GOP nominee to move in a new direction on several issues, rather than Trump.

• 60 percent want an overall new direction, while 33 percent want to follow Trump’s lead.

• 70 percent want a new direction when it comes to Israel, while only 20 percent wanted to follow Trump’s lead.

• 54 percent believe the U.S. has been too supportive of Israel, while 77 percent of older Republicans believe the U.S. has had the correct level of support or not supportive enough.

• 56 percent want a new direction on Iran, compared to 35 percent who want to follow Trump’s lead.

• They split on tariffs: 44 percent of younger Republicans want to follow Trump’s lead, while 47 percent want a new direction.

The only issue where a large majority of both young and older Republicans don’t want the future GOP nominee to differ from Trump is on immigration.

America’s divide over foreign policy isn’t isolated to young liberals on college campuses or in deep blue parts of cities like Brooklyn or Silver Lake. This divide will also change the GOP, whether older voters like it or not.

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• Immigration

The number of people deported to El Salvador from the U.S. nearly doubled in the first months of 2026. The U.S. deported 5,033 Salvadorans back to their country in the first three months of 2026 compared with 2,547 deportees in the same period in 2025, according to El Salvador's migration authority figures. (NBC News)

The Trump Administration continues to crack down on the number of foreign students being admitted into the United States. A new report estimates that the number of new foreign undergraduate students at US colleges dropped by an average of 20% this spring compared with a year earlier. (Bloomberg News)

• Economy

Americans aged 55 and over have amassed $110 trillion in wealth, nearly double the amount of Gen X and younger. When they die off, it will be the largest wealth transfer in history, but that won’t happen for decades. (The Wall Street Journal)

Wholesale prices rose 6 percent in April at the fastest rate in three years as the war in Iran drags on. (The Daily Star)

Grocery prices also soared to their highest amount in four years, with vegetables increasing 11.5 percent and seafood up 6.2 percent. (ABC News)

Virginia Gov. Spanberger vetoed a bill that would have allowed government employees to bargain for wages and benefits collectively. A big blow to progressive Democrats in the state. (Richmond Times Dispatch)

Economists are trying to explain why our economy is growing, while hiring remains stagnant. Some experts believe the economy is recalibrating after the hiring boom of 2021-2022 and that AI is destroying many entry-level jobs. (The Washington Post)

• Elections

With the latest round of redistricting, the number of House seats Trump or Harris won by less than 5 points in the redistricted states decreased from 13 to just 7. The number of seats either Harris or Trump won by more than 10 points has increased from 136 to 142. (Politico)

The top contributors to the 2026 midterm elections thus far are tech bros Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, with more than $115 million, followed by George Soros ($102 million), Elon Musk ($85 million), and Jeff Yaas ($82 million). (The New York Times)

• Education

A study by the Postsecondary Commission found that students who pursued a bachelor’s degree gained more in earnings than they spent on school within 15 years, regardless of their major. Engineers and architects earned the most, while liberal arts majors earned the least. The study was based on data from students who enrolled in one of 86 public colleges in Texas starting in the 2008-2009 academic year. Researchers then tracked the students’ earnings for up to 15 years from the time they started school.

The study also examined how much college alternative certificates earned over five years. The numbers were quite different: construction trades and security remained profitable, while information technology and engineering certificates did not.

Scholars at Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth analyzed state test scores from third to eighth grade for over 5,000 school districts in 38 states, allowing comparisons across school districts and states in a national Education Scorecard. What they found was sobering: Only 5 states, plus the District of Columbia, had meaningful growth in reading test scores from 2022 to 2025. Nationally, students remain nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic reading scores and only slightly better in math. The states that achieved meaningful gains in reading were Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, Washington, DC, and Indiana. Mississippi and West Virginia also gained, but to a lesser degree. (Chalk Beat)

The number of children in Texas public schools fell by 76,000 between 2024 and 2026 as many mostly Latino families have opted for private and charter schools. (Dallas Express)

• Big Tech

Tech giant Cisco Systems has revealed plans to eliminate 4,000 jobs, or 5% of its workforce, after announcing record-breaking quarterly sales. The networking technology company said it plans to shift its strategic focus toward AI infrastructure and related technologies. (Breitbart News)

There’s an increased threat that AI tools will be used to hack previously secure targets. Sen. Schumer also urged Mullin to encourage President Donald Trump to nominate a director for DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has gone without a permanent leader since the start of the second Trump administration. (Semafor)

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