Concern over how easily artificial intelligence can be used to produce highly believable deepfake images – especially nonconsensual sexualized depictions of adults and children – is at an all-time high. It follows the recent flood of such imagery produced through Grok, the generative AI chatbot linked to the worldwide social media platform X. In an 11-day period starting Dec. 29, according to one report, Grok users on X generated some 3 million photorealistic sexualized depictions, including about 23,000 of children.

Several governments began investigations, with some temporarily shutting down national access to Grok. This week, French police raided the Paris offices of X. Across the English Channel, the British government is investigating X. And, in the United States, lawmakers (along with 35 state attorneys general who signed an open letter to X last month) and some watchdog groups have called for urgent steps, including new laws.

At the heart of the matter is how best to balance First Amendment free speech protections with legal and social expectations of accountability and corporate ethics.

Cautioning against a rush to regulate, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression writes that existing laws “in many cases” can be used. “The right response,” it urges, starts with enforcing these provisions while “resist[ing] the temptation to trade constitutional principles for the illusion of control.”

However, some analysts as well as tech sector leaders believe otherwise. In an essay published in January, Dario Amodei, the CEO of artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, cautioned against support for “extreme anti-regulatory policies on AI,” noting that the technology is entering a risky period of “adolescence.” Mr. Amodei has often called for transparency regulations that would require AI companies to disclose how they guide their models’ behavior and incorporate standards that protect privacy and dignity.

“When a company offers generative AI tools on their platform, it is their responsibility to minimize the risk of image-based abuse,” Sloan Thompson, of EndTAB, an organization that works to tackle tech-facilitated abuse, told Wired. “X has done the opposite. They’ve embedded AI-enabled image abuse directly into a mainstream platform.”

A 2025 article in the Harvard Law Review pointed to the three-decade-old Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which limits publisher and distributor liability for internet platforms. In the age of generative AI, it said, this section “may have outgrown its original purpose.”

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“The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect core forms of human expression,” the law review noted. This can include what is sometimes referred to as “lawful but awful” content. But, as much as humans rely on the automated work of AI, those systems do not have “morality, intelligence or ideas,” it noted, and “should not receive the same protections as humans.”

According to Anthropic’s Mr. Amodei, “If we act decisively and carefully, the risks can be overcome. ... And there’s a hugely better world on the other side of” this phase of AI transformation.

A recent rise in anti-corruption movements in Europe has upended politics from Serbia to Bulgaria to Romania. Now, one of the continent’s most entrenched leaders, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, faces a serious challenge this April in a parliamentary election that could be determined by what one commentator calls a public “yearning for integrity.”

For the European Union, too, the stakes in the election are high. Mr. Orbán and his ruling populist conservative party, Fidesz, have often obstructed the 27-member bloc in helping Ukraine and countering Russia. The EU has also held back funds for Budapest over its shrinking rule of law.

After nearly 16 years in power, Mr. Orbán has left Hungary with the lowest household living standards in the EU. The country of 9.6 million people has experienced three years of economic stagnation. It is also ranked by Transparency International as the EU’s most corrupt nation.

Voters are finally linking this antidemocratic misrule with their economic misery. Independent polls show an anti-corruption party, Respect and Freedom (or Tisza party) with a wide lead over Fidesz. The party’s leader, Péter Magyar, has shot up in popularity after two years of touring the country with warnings about the private use of public money by Fidesz.

Tisza is “much more than me ... it’s a movement of the vast majority of the Hungarian people against corruption, lies, propaganda, and autocracy,” Mr. Magyar told Deutsche Welle. He promises to strengthen judicial independence, end nepotism in government, and make other reforms to curb graft.

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Mr. Orbán’s political machine might yet prevent a victory for Tisza. He controls much of the media. But if current polls hold, states Gary Cartwright, editor of EU Today, “Hungary is on the brink of one of the most significant political transformations in its recent history.”

“In the crucible of early 21st-century European politics, Magyar’s ascendancy is a reminder that democratic renewal remains possible – even after years of drift towards authoritarian proximity and geopolitical ambivalence.”

My Olympic dreams were forged first in the glow of our little black-and-white TV, and then in the crucible of a training regimen honed by a man from Siberia.

My dad shipped me out to Duluth, Minnesota, as a teenager to meet Nikolai Anikin, who would become my coach for the next five years as I made a bid for the 2002 Games.

He was born in Ishim, halfway between Ukraine and Mongolia, where he attended Railway School 13. From those humble beginnings, he went on to ski in the 1956 Games’ 4x10 kilometer relay in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, bringing home gold for the Soviet Union in its debut on the Winter Olympics stage. As the torch is about to be lit in Italy again, Nikolai shines in my memory as the epitome of the Olympic spirit.

He pushed us to bound up Alpine ski slopes in summer, run for four-plus hours in the woods, and do “speeeeecial Russian exercise” – i.e., the wheelbarrow – at early morning practices.

He loved to tell us about his breakout year. “My friends, they go in the dance, they go in the movies, but I am practice, practice, practice in the stadium. ... And next year, I have 1 1/2 minute advantage, 10km race!”

I heard this and other skiing tales many times. But it was the stories I heard after he died in 2009 that gave me a deeper appreciation of the spirit that both impelled and transcended his achievements. The Monitor’s fixer and translator in Moscow, Olga Podolskaya, generously helped me by collecting reminiscences from his former athletes.

“All my merits are his merits,” said Vladimir Voronkov, a 1972 Olympic gold medalist. “I am grateful to destiny for my acquaintance with such a fine person. Intelligent, soft, sociable, he – without raising his voice – could convince anybody with his arguments.”

We heard about Nikolai’s delight in the forest – “Only a deer goes in this place!”; his friendliness when he started coaching in America, on a ski-team exchange before the Iron Curtain came down; his forgiveness when someone crushed his most prized asset – a Jeep Cherokee.

But it’s what Vyatcheslav Vedenin, one of his athletes, said that means the most to me now as editor: “He was a very human person, but a rigid, exigent coach.”

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Even as I apply that Nikolai-inspired sense of discipline and rigor to our journalism, I am reminded of his example of wonder, friendship, and forgiveness. He is proof that exigence and love are not contradictory but complementary.

And so, even as we are about to watch new gold medalists be crowned, I have to agree with another friend of this unassuming coach: “Nikolai is one of the few truly great men I know.” That’s an Olympic standard we can all aspire to – whether or not we start each morning by doing “speeeeecial Russian exercise.”

My Olympic dreams were forged first in the glow of our little black-and-white TV, and then in the crucible of a training regimen honed by a man from Siberia.

My dad shipped me out to Duluth, Minnesota, as a teenager to meet Nikolai Anikin, who would become my coach for the next five years as I made a bid for the 2002 Games.

He was born in Ishim, halfway between Ukraine and Mongolia, where he attended Railway School 13. From those humble beginnings, he went on to ski in the 1956 Games’ 4x10 kilometer relay in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, bringing home gold for the Soviet Union in its debut on the Winter Olympics stage. As the torch is about to be lit in Italy again, Nikolai shines in my memory as the epitome of the Olympic spirit.

He pushed us to bound up Alpine ski slopes in summer, run for four-plus hours in the woods, and do “speeeeecial Russian exercise” – i.e., the wheelbarrow – at early morning practices.

He loved to tell us about his breakout year. “My friends, they go in the dance, they go in the movies, but I am practice, practice, practice in the stadium. ... And next year, I have 1 1/2 minute advantage, 10km race!”

I heard this and other skiing tales many times. But it was the stories I heard after he died in 2009 that gave me a deeper appreciation of the spirit that both impelled and transcended his achievements. The Monitor’s fixer and translator in Moscow, Olga Podolskaya, generously helped me by collecting reminiscences from his former athletes.

“All my merits are his merits,” said Vladimir Voronkov, a 1972 Olympic gold medalist. “I am grateful to destiny for my acquaintance with such a fine person. Intelligent, soft, sociable, he – without raising his voice – could convince anybody with his arguments.”

We heard about Nikolai’s delight in the forest – “Only a deer goes in this place!”; his friendliness when he started coaching in America, on a ski-team exchange before the Iron Curtain came down; his forgiveness when someone crushed his most prized asset – a Jeep Cherokee.

But it’s what Vyatcheslav Vedenin, one of his athletes, said that means the most to me now as editor: “He was a very human person, but a rigid, exigent coach.”

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Even as I apply that Nikolai-inspired sense of discipline and rigor to our journalism, I am reminded of his example of wonder, friendship, and forgiveness. He is proof that exigence and love are not contradictory but complementary.

And so, even as we are about to watch new gold medalists be crowned, I have to agree with another friend of this unassuming coach: “Nikolai is one of the few truly great men I know.” That’s an Olympic standard we can all aspire to – whether or not we start each morning by doing “speeeeecial Russian exercise.”

It’s been a month since the United States captured Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, to put him on trial in New York. Rather than force his regime to dismantle, however, the U.S. chose to work with it, more on economic stabilization than on wholesale political transformation. Yet, while focusing on Venezuela’s vast oil potential, the Trump administration has also pushed its government to take a step toward democracy. So far, about 30% of an estimated 1,000 political detainees have been released.

Mr. Maduro’s former deputy, and current interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, announced the release – which she called an amnesty – for all those imprisoned for political activity since 1999, as well as plans to shut down a Caracas prison where political opponents have been held and reportedly tortured.

The aim, Ms. Rodríguez said, is “to heal the wounds left by political confrontation ... to restore justice ... [and] coexistence.”

These are worthy goals – and if they reflect sincere intent – are ones that would be supported by most Venezuelans who also question whether the Trump administration will pressure the ruling clique for further change or mainly focus on overseeing oil production and sales that benefit the United States.

“We want this [prisoner release] to not just be a gesture and a symbol, but the start of dismantling the repressive system ... and of restoring the judicial system,” commented Alfredo Romero, director of the human rights organizational Foro Penal.

Venezuela’s pro-democracy opposition leaders, who mostly live in exile, are seeking the release of all political prisoners. But one concern is that the government’s granting of “amnesty” implies that those receiving it have been guilty of unlawful acts.

“These people were arbitrarily imprisoned for exercising rights protected by international [law], the National Constitution, and Venezuelan laws,” the human rights group Provea pointed out in a statement. “The announcement of an amnesty should not be conceived, under any circumstances, as a pardon or act of clemency on the part of the State.”

Typically, political amnesties in Latin America have been granted to rebel forces, to draw them into peace processes, or to military rulers as a way to ease the transition from repression to freedom. Thus, for Venezuela’s political prisoners, drawing the distinction around amnesty or so-called pardons is about more than semantics. It’s about underscoring the exercise of legitimate rights to speak out or call for political change. And about reminding the world that the current rulers of Venezuela lack electoral legitimacy.

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Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado said as much last week, telling reporters she would not accept power-sharing with the current government. “We are willing to facilitate a genuine transition,” she said, not one “where mafias remain in control.

“Venezuela,” she said, “needs justice, truth, and freedom.”

When Mary Baker Eddy founded The Christian Science Monitor in 1908, she indicated that she wanted it to be a daily newspaper for the home. Here in the newsroom, we have been grappling with what that means for 2026 – a time when readers tend to consume their daily news online (and often out of the home), but also a moment of increased frustration at the ever-growing speed and distraction of digital content.

The newly designed print magazine is part of our effort to implement Mrs. Eddy’s vision, today. With a new layout and a new dedication to bringing you stories you have yet to see online, we are envisioning the magazine as a key part of one integrated Monitor that includes a refreshed website, new digital app, and a beautiful print product.

In the magazine's pages, we are bringing back some beloved features, including a “Reporters on the Job” section, where our far-flung correspondents share some of what goes on behind the scenes of getting a story. But most important, we are doubling down on our mission to provide a trustworthy accounting of the news in a way that also goes deeper, keeping abreast of the times by recognizing key currents of thought and their impact.

We regularly have conversations in the newsroom about what this means when it comes to our stories – how to get beyond the expected, back-and-forth narrative that can dominate a news cycle, and how to offer readers something more thoughtful and more enlightening.

And we love print for this job.

We want to offer you timely, fair, above-the-fray reporting on the news that just happened. But we also want you to have the opportunity – which can feel all too scarce these days – to read deeply. We want you to have the chance to sit with the magazine like you would an old-school daily newspaper, to contemplate photographs without blue light, to leave an article on your kitchen counter or living room coffee table and come back to it later – without the distraction of pings or notifications.

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We want young people to be able to pick up the magazine – like my own children do regularly – and experience the craft of journalism, and the stories we tell, in a spacious, uncynical, screen-free way. (My teenage daughter once told me that she loved reading the Monitor magazine because she learned about the world without “like, being annoyed.”)

We also hope you will have conversations about what you read, share the magazine with others, and find that it helps your own thoughts. In other words, we hope the magazine will be a beloved part of your home. And we hope that it serves to connect you, expansively, to the world around you.

The U.S. Senate will soon grill Kevin Warsh as President Donald Trump’s nominee to head up the nation’s central bank starting in May. The position is one of the most powerful in Washington. The Federal Reserve, with its mandate from Congress to ensure stable prices and full employment, helps steer both the American and world economy, mainly by setting interest rates.

Given that the Senate easily approved the former Wall Street lawyer two decades ago to sit on the bank’s board – as the Fed’s youngest-ever governor – it might not probe him hard on one of his most intriguing yet disputed ideas.

Yet, it should.

Mr. Warsh, a graduate of Stanford and Harvard, maintains that the American people – in their curiosity, ingenuity, freedom, equality, and collaboration – are as important as the Fed in keeping inflation low. How? Their dynamism and adaptability to failure will keep economic productivity at such a high level that it will sustain wage growth and act as a disinflationary force.

During his adult life, Mr. Warsh has seen the internet and computers, then mobile phones, and now artificial intelligence help drive efficiency in private business and make the economy more competitive. He says the Fed should focus more on keeping interest rates low for small and medium-sized companies to drive such innovation. The bank, he says, has slipped into a role beyond its mandate: subsidizing high government spending and debt.

His optimism on AI’s potential is not widely shared. Its effects in destroying and creating jobs has yet to be seen. He admits the productivity gains will be uneven. But the United States is still ahead of China in adopting and perfecting AI, he says, allowing it to ride a “productivity wave” for the next five years.

AI is special, he claims, because it has reduced the cost of curiosity to zero. The ease of finding and formulating ideas with AI will speed up discoveries in industry and science.

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“What country is most likely to benefit most from the cost of curiosity being zero and the fruits of knowledge being as large as ever? I think it’s the United States,” Mr. Warsh told the financial technology company Aven.

Breaking an inflationary mindset requires that individuals be curious and inventive in finding solutions. As he said in a 2009 speech during his last tenure at the Fed: “I have not lost confidence in the inherent innovation, creativity, and dynamism in the U.S. economy. Nor have I lost confidence in the inherent good sense of our citizens.”

A call for “middle powers” to act together amid big-power politics – an idea voiced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this month – is still reverberating globally. Yet for many small nations, the imperative – and opportunity – for cooperation has been gaining momentum for years.

In most cases, the initial impulse is economic growth. This week, for instance, 11 Southeast Asian nations are discussing a unified visa system for visitors. “Seamless access,” the Philippines’ tourism chief said, will help the region “benefit from each other’s tourism flows.” But getting to this point has taken decades of trust-building, through strengthening diplomatic and trade links.

Elsewhere, initiatives in the Caribbean and West Africa have sought to raise living standards and foster enterprise by reducing barriers to regional movement of goods and people. These blocs are also establishing a shared security, often bolstered by cultural or kinship ties. This, in turn, has enabled coordinated responses to emergencies – such as the severe 2017 hurricane season or the thwarting of an attempted coup in a member country.

Three months ago, four Caribbean nations opted to bring their total population of 1 million people closer: In October, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines instituted fully free movement for citizens to enter, live, work, and receive government services within all four countries.

In a global climate of tighter borders and immigration clampdowns, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace describes the Caribbean move as a “contrasting vision” of regulating human mobility – approaching it as a driver of development and prosperity, rather than as a drain on resources.

This model of integration, however, is rooted in more than economic factors. As one regional official told The Guardian, it underscores deep bonds. “We are virtually the same people. We have no historical animosities ... and we are very similar culturally,” he said.

And in a region that has already experienced many extreme weather events, to quote the speech by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at Davos, joint action “is not naive multilateralism. ... It’s building coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together.”

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In an address to the citizens of Barbados, Prime Minister Mia Mottley emphasized the “dignity of small states” in creating alliances that work for them. Of the decision to ease border restrictions, she said, “It is measured. It is managed. It is ours.

“My friends,” Ms. Mottley added, “in a world where many are building walls, the Caribbean must build bridges. ... We must not allow fear and insecurity to define us.”

As the Monitor’s reporters worked on this week’s magazine, with our look at the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, a biblical phrase popped to my mind: “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.”

This was not for any partisan reason. Across the political spectrum, Americans are grappling with a highly polarized political environment – one that includes emotional questions around everything from immigration to whether the American dream is alive and well (and, if not, what can be done about it), as well as a technological revolution with artificial intelligence and ongoing upheaval in how people get and share information. Distrust of elites coincides with discomfort with rapid change.

In many ways, we have created a society ripe for division and populism. And some historians say it is not surprising that in individualist and entrepreneurial America, the current version of populism includes a billionaire in the White House.

This week’s magazine offers both a review of the Trump presidency and a historical lens on populism, plus coverage of the United States’ intervention in Venezuela. As we put ​it together, we realized that no single article could sum up the American political landscape.

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On the one hand, President Trump has fulfilled public demand for stepped-up border security, imposed a course correction on some less-than-popular social-policy movements, and instigated what many see as a needed toughening of trade relations with China. On the other hand, his approach to wielding power has been testing the rule of law, stressing the constitutional balance of powers, and altering foreign policy in a way that raises the prospect of a might-makes-right era.

We hope our coverage, collectively, helps put the news of the past year in useful perspective. Mr. Trump is no ordinary politician. The whirlwind we are in is no ordinary moment in time. Our goal is to serve you with fact-based and fair-minded reporting. We’re not about telling you what to think. But if we’re doing our job right, Monitor articles should help you think – and act, too – in the midst of the storm.

This year marks 25 years since Al Qaeda flew planes into the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in northern Virginia. The attack was motivated by a violent sectarian interpretation of Islam espoused by Osama bin Laden, which departed from most Muslims’ “peaceful and inclusive version” of their faith, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Still, the attack prompted a 17-fold spike in hate crimes against Muslim Americans.

Much has been written about how 9/11 changed the United States. As staff writer Audrey Thibert reports in this week’s issue, there is a lot to consider about how New York City specifically has evolved since that attack. Marwa Janini, who was 10 years old in September 2001, told Audrey that she remembers even as a child the feelings of mistrust that arose after the attack, even after courts declared the New York Police Department’s surveillance of many Muslim communities to be illegal.

Nobody then would have imagined that New York would have a Muslim mayor, she says. Today, Ms. Janini is part of the transition team for Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim American elected mayor of the nation’s largest city.

He didn’t win in a landslide. Nearly half of New York City voters cast their ballots against Mr. Mamdani. Many critics decried his democratic socialist economic politics, while others objected to his positions on Israel.

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Nevertheless, his victory would have seemed culturally and politically impossible 25 years ago, according to Audrey’s reporting.

His faith was not an insurmountable barrier, reflecting an evolution of thought among New Yorkers. This, perhaps, is a different way to look at national anniversaries. They are not just events that changed history. Often, they are milestones that help us recognize the ways communities have evolved over time, and the changing ways people think.

On Feb. 12, the heads of the European Union’s 27 member states will gather in an emergency summit at the request of Germany and Italy. Why the urgency? The bloc’s economic competitiveness continues to falter – especially in tech innovation such as artificial intelligence – in what is seen as an overly regulated market.

The EU’s growth rate in productivity per worker is less than a quarter of that of the United States, based on latest figures. In 2024, it collected more in fines from U.S. tech companies than in total taxes on its own tech firms.

Such comparisons, notably the productivity gap, are not the only thing driving the EU into a round of introspection over how to further unleash the talents of its 450 million inhabitants.

Criticism from its closest friends has also grown louder. Surprisingly, the foreign rebukes are welcomed by many Europeans.

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said Europe “avoids taking action” on the continent’s future. “Instead of becoming a truly global power,” he said, “Europe remains a beautiful but fragmented kaleidoscope of small and middle powers.” Officials from the Trump administration were equally critical of Europe’s declining economic prowess.

To be sure, the EU is doing much to boost competitiveness. On Tuesday, for instance, it struck a trade deal with India to reduce tariffs, a signal of Europe’s desire to be less dependent on a less-reliable United States. Yet it has made little progress based on a 2024 blueprint for boosting competitiveness, written by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.

“I think we have heard quite a lot of European bashing the last few days,” said Christine Lagarde, the current ECB president, in Davos. “But if anything it has been good, and we should say thank you to the bashers, because I think it has given us a complete realization of the fact that we have to be more focused” on innovation and productivity.

In a similar vein, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “Whether on trade or business, capital or energy – Europe needs an urgency mindset.” She admitted that too many European companies “have to look abroad to grow and scale up – partly because they face a new set of rules every time they expand into a new member state.”

As the EU’s top executive, Ms. von der Leyen often invokes humility as essential to the bloc’s tasks, such as during the pandemic. She sees the trait as essential for being open and trusting – something many startup tech firms tap for ingenuity and collaboration.

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Or, as C.S. Lewis is often credited with stating: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”

Europe was once at the frontier of inventing technologies, from the printing press to television. It still has many world-class companies. Yet, now, with its emergency summit next month, it might be entering a period of earnest reflection. And it is doing so with gratitude for those nudging it along.

Amid a fraught political environment, Americans are preparing to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States this year. It’s a timely opportunity for both honest self-reflection and potential unity – around a remarkable story of national achievement and a recognition of all that still needs doing to fully realize the country’s founding ideals.

Two-thirds of Americans, the Pew Research Center reported this week, believe it is extremely or very important to publicly discuss historical strengths and successes – as well as flaws and failures.

Yet, the nation still disagrees on how to tell its history. The Trump administration has issued directives to parks and museums to remove signage that it views as not in “alignment with shared national values.” Last week, the city of Philadelphia filed a lawsuit against the Interior Department for removing exhibits referencing slavery at the site of a residence once occupied by George Washington. The City Council deemed this “an effort to whitewash American history.” The exhibits were controversial in 2010 when they opened during the Obama administration.

At the same time, according to a report by the center-left Progressive Policy Institute, recent historical scholarship has tended to present “a one-sided and unrelentingly negative portrait” of the U.S., examining its “moral failings but nothing about its virtues.” Studying nearly 100 articles published in American Quarterly, a journal of the American Studies Association, the report found that 80% were critical of the U.S., 20% were neutral – and not one was positive.

Ideally, the researchers said, scholars should “seek to capture the whole of America: the challenges alongside the heroism; the slavery and segregation, but also freedoms and values that gave rise to the civil rights movement; ... economic inequality with an understanding of how the country came to have the world’s most vibrant economy.”

Their observation echoes counsel that President Barack Obama offered in 2015 during a speech honoring civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama.

“To deny ... hard-won progress – our progress,” Mr. Obama said, “would be to rob us of our own agency ... to do what we can to make America better.”

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Attaining a candid and balanced reckoning with history is a worthy endeavor, one that might help bridge political divides and offer guideposts for the next 250 years. The process would call for a willingness to consider varied perspectives, especially from those whose stories and contributions have previously been ignored. But it would also need to avoid what one historian has described as “reading the present into the past” – judging (and condemning) history and historical figures by present-day norms and standards.

Ultimately, coalescing around a shared history is about a civic purpose that goes beyond academic debate or disciplines. As late sociologist James Loewen observed: “We aren’t just learning about the past to satisfy our curiosity – we are learning about the past to do our jobs as Americans.”

Americans have long struggled with notions of “local justice.” Should state or federal laws sometimes bend to a community’s sensibilities and priorities? In Minneapolis, recent instances of violence by immigration enforcement agents, and sometimes by protesters, point to a federal-local split over immigration policies, not to mention which branch of law enforcement should investigate the violent acts.

Local justice was once so embedded in America that Vermont took until the 1970s to curb a Colonial-era practice of having two nonlawyers, or “side judges,” help decide many court cases alongside a professional judge. Vermonters in the 18th century demanded this 2-for-1 balance because they were wary of the British king’s traveling judges and their appreciation of local values and circumstances.

Yet, for every standoff like the current one in Minneapolis, there are today examples of cooperation in implementing law – whether federal, state, or local. The issues are not always simple. Should Minneapolis police, for example, always protect immigration agents from civilians who try to block enforcement? Should the FBI allow the state of Minnesota to join the investigation into shootings by federal law enforcement? A lack of mutual trust driven by policy differences can exacerbate such issues.

One city currently walking this tightrope better than Minneapolis is Memphis. It is one of several cities where the Trump administration has sent in either the National Guard, ICE, or other federal law enforcement. Starting in September, the Tennessee city received some 1,500 federal personnel as well as up to 1,000 National Guard members. The surge was backed by a recent state law, passed by a Republican-controlled legislature, mandating local support of federal enforcement of immigration laws.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, made the decision to work with the federal task force as much as possible to direct it toward the city’s biggest problem: a high violent crime rate. His administration has instituted certain safeguards. Federal officers are integrated into the local police unit fighting gangs and organized crime. Local police are required to report abuses by federal agents, such as racial profiling. And the National Guard must not intervene in a crime situation, only notify police.

Memphis police often patrol with federal agents and will turn over unauthorized migrants arrested for a state or local crime. But the mayor said the city, with an immigrant population of about 7%, has a “crime problem” instead of an “immigrant issue.”

“If there are individuals that have issues with documentation and status that are a part of any efforts around violent crime, then certainly they would be turned over” to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Mr. Young told TV station WKNO.

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In December, the mayor announced that “serious crimes” were at a 25-year low. That partly fulfilled his goal, stated in September, for the surge of federal law enforcement: “to uplift our community and accelerate a safer, stronger future.”

“This is our moment to show the world the truth about Memphis,” the mayor stated.