A Fight That Crosses Every Political Map In January, the city council in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, voted 4-1 to deny a rezoning that would have allowed the Islamic Society of Tulsa to build a mosque. Nine months later and 1,400 miles east, the Muslim Center of New Jersey filed a federal lawsuit against Marlboro Township after a five-year application ended...
October 23, 2026
Moody’s Predicted 2026 Would Break More Private Colleges. Nine Months In, Here’s the Scorecard
Introduction In November 2025, Moody’s Ratings warned that 2026 would be the year one in six private colleges could no longer cover day-to-day costs with the cash their operations bring in. Nine months into that year, most of the evidence points the same way, though not everywhere. The agency projected that 16% of private institutions would post negative EBIDA margins...
America.gov: What the New Federal Portal Can Do for Passports and Name Changes Today and What’s Still Coming
Introduction The federal government opened a new front door on Sept. 29, 2026. America.gov is an AI-assisted portal meant to replace the hunt across agency websites with a single place to ask a question and, eventually, finish the task. Two of the most common reasons Americans deal with Washington are getting a passport and updating their name after a marriage,...
Should Washington Stop Lending for College Majors That Don’t Pay Off? A New Federal Rule Already Does
Bailey Pennington borrowed $12,000 to go to cosmetology school. Pennington now pays about $150 a month on that loan and told The Christian Science Monitor that standing out in the field “doesn’t always work for everyone.” Under a federal rule that takes full effect next July, students in programs like that one could soon lose access to the kind of...
A Migrant Caravan Heads North Five Weeks Before the Midterms: Organic Movement or Manufactured Moment?
On the night of Sept. 27, more than 600 people walked out of Tapachula, the Mexican city closest to the Guatemalan border, and headed north on the Chiapas coastal highway, according to EFE. They call themselves “Fe y Esperanza,” or Faith and Hope. Most of them had left San Pedro Sula, Honduras, a week earlier. The nearest U.S. crossing, Brownsville,...
Supreme Court Reopens SAVE for Voter-Roll Checks as New Jersey’s 6,600-Registration Error Becomes Exhibit A
Intro The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, cleared the way for states to again use the Department of Homeland Security’s revamped SAVE database to check the citizenship of registered voters. The 6-3 emergency order paused a lower-court ruling that had found the expanded system violated federal privacy law. The ruling lands two months after New Jersey disclosed...
Is Europe Crying Wolf on Russia? What the Warnings Actually Say
Intro In one week this month, Europe’s leaders sounded a coordinated alarm. France, the Netherlands, Finland, Lithuania and Switzerland each warned their citizens of rising threats from Russia. French President Emmanuel Macron told party leaders, “No one is safe.” The warnings raise three fair questions. Are European governments fear-mongering? Are they laying groundwork to enter the Ukraine war directly? And...
If the System Failed Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Daughter, What Chance Does a Poor Kid Have?
Introduction Nikole Hannah-Jones meant her daughter’s education to be an argument against leaving neighborhood schools. After a decade, it has become one of the strongest arguments for letting families leave them. In her Sept. 20 New York Times Magazine essay, she concludes that keeping her daughter in high-poverty Brooklyn public schools failed the girl, and she blames segregation. The details...
Two Queens Men Charged After Park Avenue Manhole Exit Triggers UNGA-Week Security Sweep
Intro Two Queens men have been charged after police say they were recorded climbing out of a manhole on Park Avenue in the early hours of Wednesday, Sept. 23 a few steps from a hotel used by visiting dignitaries during the United Nations General Assembly. Kevin Rodriguez, 26, of Flushing, and Samuel Reveron, 25, of Elmhurst, were arrested Thursday. The...
Falling Rents: Three Forces, One Trend
Introduction The Department of Homeland Security said on Sept. 25, 2026, that it is “reducing your rent,” crediting immigration enforcement for falling rents in states that cooperate most with ICE. In a post on X, the agency said Texas accounted for about a quarter of ICE arrests in July and posted the country’s sharpest rent drops: San Antonio down 4.8%,...