Democrats in Texas are getting excited.

Ahead of the March 3 U.S. Senate primary, more people have voted early in the Democratic race so far this year than voted in the entire 2022 primary, according to VoteHub, an independent and nonpartisan political analysis website.

The contest pits Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a member of Congress from Dallas, against state Rep. James Talarico, from the Austin suburbs. Voters have been casting their ballots in record numbers, giving the party faithful hope that one of their candidates has a chance of becoming the first Democrat elected statewide in Texas in over 30 years.

Why We Wrote This

In politically red Texas, Democrats rarely have hope. But their U.S. Senate primary race features two candidates whose contrasting styles and online reach are giving the party a jolt of energy.

In one sense, these numbers are not surprising. A midterm election typically favors the out-of-power party, and the in-power party tends to suffer even more if the president is unpopular. Both factors are true here for the Republican Party and President Donald Trump. Most polls show Mr. Trump’s favorability rating has dropped to averages in the low 40s nationally, and to about 50% among Texas voters.

But the Senate race is giving Democrats extra juice this year, experts and pollsters say. With the candidates’ policy positions mostly aligned, the Crockett-Talarico contest has become a clash of styles and strategies. It’s a race that Democrats will be closely watching nationwide, because of its importance to the party’s efforts to take control of the U.S. Senate and how it embodies divisions within the Democratic Party.

“Democrats could use a few high-profile dogfights in the primary because it gins up interest,” says James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “We don’t know if it will generate a victory for them, but so far it’s good to ... excite the base.”

Whoever wins the primary will face off in November’s general election against the winner of the Republican primary, where four-term Sen. John Cornyn faces a tough challenge from Texas Attorney General and MAGA firebrand Ken Paxton.

“Hunger for a different kind of politics”

On a chilly Monday evening in Waco, the line to see Representative Talarico stretched around the block. Whoever wins the Democratic primary is unlikely to win here – Mr. Trump won this mostly rural central Texas county by 33 points in 2024 – but Talarico supporters packed the ornate, century-old Hippodrome Theatre.

The turnout in the Republican stronghold encouraged Oliver Santander, who attended the rally with his sister, Emily.

“I’m just happy to see everyone here,” he said. “You don’t think your voice is as loud until you get around the crowd like this.”

Mr. Talarico entered the race as a relative unknown, but he has shot to stardom following a strategy popular among recent Democratic candidates. He has courted moderate Texans, touting his Christian faith and his work across the aisle as a state lawmaker.

He has also enjoyed several viral interviews. His first major national appearance came when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast in July last year and Mr. Rogan said he should run for president. More recently, CBS pulled his interview with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show off the air over concerns it would violate a Federal Communications Commission regulation on political messaging. The interview instead appeared on the show’s YouTube channel, and the controversy only seemed to attract more eyeballs: at least 6 million more views than Colbert’s quarterly average on TV.

A Presbyterian seminary student, Mr. Talarico’s decision to make his faith – and his opposition to Christian Nationalism – a centerpiece of his politics has helped attract supporters. The hope among some of them lining up in the cold in Waco is that he can attract support from non-Democratic voters as well.

“I am tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I am tired of being told to hate my neighbor,” Mr. Talarico noted at his campaign event. “Across the political spectrum there is a deep hunger for a different kind of politics.”

Both Representatives Talarico and Crockett “have a lot to offer,” said Bill Purdue, a lifelong Democrat, as he waited to enter the theater.

But, he added, “a Democrat like Talarico, who comes from a strong religious point of view, would have a good opportunity to catch the ear of the many religious folks that live in Texas, particularly those that are perhaps sitting on the fence.”

“Try something new”

Mr. Talarico emphasized his calmer style and olive-branch strategy at the Waco event. “When you extend an open hand rather than a fist, you’ll be surprised how many people take that hand,” he said.

If he represents an open hand, Ms. Crockett has unashamedly branded herself as the fist in that analogy.

She entered the race in December with a national profile built through three years of aggressive, viral clashes with Republicans in Congress. Her firebrand style has enthused Democrats critical of the party’s unwillingness to take the fight to the Trump administration.

“We need someone who is a proven fighter in this moment, someone who will not back down, someone who will not fold,” she said in an interview last weekend. “My track record is clear. I have always fought for the people that I represented, and I’ve never folded.”

Ms. Crockett is not the style of candidate Democrats have chosen to run in recent top-ticket statewide races. Former U.S. Reps. Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred – who ran for U.S. Senate in 2018 and 2024, respectively – campaigned as moderates, hoping to win over more centrist Republicans. Both lost.

While branding herself as a fighter, not a conciliator, Ms. Crockett is also running an unconventional campaign. She has spent little on campaign ads so far, and her rallies have often been pop-up events with little advance notice. She doesn’t appear to have a campaign manager or a media spokesperson. The Crockett campaign did not respond to multiple interview requests sent to a general campaign email.

These choices have frustrated national Democrats, NOTUS reported earlier this month, but her campaign says they are her best path to victory.

“We reject the DC playbook of politics as usual, because this moment — and winning — demands something different,” Karrol Rimal, a Crockett campaign staffer, told the news organization NOTUS in a statement.

This reflects a discussion national Democrats have been having, says Renée Cross, a political scientist at the University of Houston.

The discussion has been that Democrats “have to try something new,” she adds. “These two candidates, even though their styles are different, they have Democrats excited.”

Democratic confidence has been further boosted by an unlikely victory in a state senate runoff election in January, where a union president flipped a seat in a district that Mr. Trump had won by 17 points in 2024.

That has “made Democrats feel like, ‘This is really possible now,’” says Dr. Cross. “It really could be possible for Democrats to take a U.S. Senate seat.”

Racial tensions in primary

The primary contest has been marked by some racial tension. Earlier this month an influencer alleged that Representative Talarico had described former Representative Allred as a “mediocre Black man” to her. Mr. Allred broadcast the allegation in a social media video and announced his endorsement of Ms. Crockett. Mr. Talarico later said he had described Mr. Allred as a mediocre campaigner. Two liberal podcasters faced fan backlash – including accusations of racism – after discouraging donations to the Crockett campaign because they don’t think she could win the general election.

One of the early ads in the primary references the claim that Republicans helped nudge Ms. Crockett toward running because they believe she would be easier for the GOP to beat in a general election. That claim, along with discussions of her loud, fiery personality, play into common stereotypes of Black women, critics say.

Because both candidates are staunch progressives with few policy disagreements, these personality differences have been magnified, says Dr. Henson.

“In this race it’s more of an argument about temperament,” he adds. “And you can’t have that without thinking that race and gender are creeping into this race as well.”

Plenty of Democrats, he adds, think “people are using Jasmine Crocket’s combative style and rhetoric to cover concerns about how her race may affect her general election prospects.”

Coming down to the wire

Recent polls have returned different results. A Texas Politics Project poll released this week has Ms. Crockett leading by 12 points, and the overwhelming favorite among Black primary voters. A January poll conducted by Emerson College had Mr. Talarico with a nine-point lead. An internal poll from his campaign, released this week, had him with a four-point lead.

But notably the state lawmaker entered the primary with less name recognition, and that deficit appears to be narrowing. In August 2025, 54% of Texas voters responded “Don’t Know/No opinion” when asked for their view on him, according to the Texas Politics Project. That figure had dropped to 34% this month.

At the rally in Waco, several attendees said that they would support whichever Democrat wins the U.S. Senate primary in November – even if they favor Representative Talarico.

Dennis Hanley arrived at the rally having already voted. He said he’s been voting for Democrats in Texas for 30 years, throughout their long losing streak in statewide elections.

He has liked Mr. Talarico since his Joe Rogan podcast appearance, and he’s confident that the seminarian’s campaign means that Texas will finally elect a Democrat to statewide office.

“I’m also a Jasmine Crockett fan,” he said. “We need her. But I happen to follow [Talarico’s] ideology and his mindset more than hers.”

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“The tide of the country is definitely turning,” he added. “People are sick of it, and I think that enough people are going to cross over – good and decent people from the other side – who’ve also had enough.”

Along with this story on the Democratic primary in Texas’ U.S. Senate race, we will run a separate story looking at the Republican primary in the same race in coming days.

Democrats in Texas are getting excited.

Ahead of the March 3 U.S. Senate primary, more people have voted early in the Democratic race so far this year than voted in the entire 2022 primary, according to VoteHub, an independent and nonpartisan political analysis website.

The contest pits Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a member of Congress from Dallas, against state Rep. James Talarico, from the Austin suburbs. Voters have been casting their ballots in record numbers, giving the party faithful hope that one of their candidates has a chance of becoming the first Democrat elected statewide in Texas in over 30 years.

Why We Wrote This

In politically red Texas, Democrats rarely have hope. But their U.S. Senate primary race features two candidates whose contrasting styles and online reach are giving the party a jolt of energy.

In one sense, these numbers are not surprising. A midterm election typically favors the out-of-power party, and the in-power party tends to suffer even more if the president is unpopular. Both factors are true here for the Republican Party and President Donald Trump. Most polls show Mr. Trump’s favorability rating has dropped to averages in the low 40s nationally, and to about 50% among Texas voters.

But the Senate race is giving Democrats extra juice this year, experts and pollsters say. With the candidates’ policy positions mostly aligned, the Crockett-Talarico contest has become a clash of styles and strategies. It’s a race that Democrats will be closely watching nationwide, because of its importance to the party’s efforts to take control of the U.S. Senate and how it embodies divisions within the Democratic Party.

“Democrats could use a few high-profile dogfights in the primary because it gins up interest,” says James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “We don’t know if it will generate a victory for them, but so far it’s good to ... excite the base.”

Whoever wins the primary will face off in November’s general election against the winner of the Republican primary, where four-term Sen. John Cornyn faces a tough challenge from Texas Attorney General and MAGA firebrand Ken Paxton.

“Hunger for a different kind of politics”

On a chilly Monday evening in Waco, the line to see Representative Talarico stretched around the block. Whoever wins the Democratic primary is unlikely to win here – Mr. Trump won this mostly rural central Texas county by 33 points in 2024 – but Talarico supporters packed the ornate, century-old Hippodrome Theatre.

The turnout in the Republican stronghold encouraged Oliver Santander, who attended the rally with his sister, Emily.

“I’m just happy to see everyone here,” he said. “You don’t think your voice is as loud until you get around the crowd like this.”

Mr. Talarico entered the race as a relative unknown, but he has shot to stardom following a strategy popular among recent Democratic candidates. He has courted moderate Texans, touting his Christian faith and his work across the aisle as a state lawmaker.

He has also enjoyed several viral interviews. His first major national appearance came when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast in July last year and Mr. Rogan said he should run for president. More recently, CBS pulled his interview with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show off the air over concerns it would violate a Federal Communications Commission regulation on political messaging. The interview instead appeared on the show’s YouTube channel, and the controversy only seemed to attract more eyeballs: at least 6 million more views than Colbert’s quarterly average on TV.

A Presbyterian seminary student, Mr. Talarico’s decision to make his faith – and his opposition to Christian Nationalism – a centerpiece of his politics has helped attract supporters. The hope among some of them lining up in the cold in Waco is that he can attract support from non-Democratic voters as well.

“I am tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I am tired of being told to hate my neighbor,” Mr. Talarico noted at his campaign event. “Across the political spectrum there is a deep hunger for a different kind of politics.”

Both Representatives Talarico and Crockett “have a lot to offer,” said Bill Purdue, a lifelong Democrat, as he waited to enter the theater.

But, he added, “a Democrat like Talarico, who comes from a strong religious point of view, would have a good opportunity to catch the ear of the many religious folks that live in Texas, particularly those that are perhaps sitting on the fence.”

“Try something new”

Mr. Talarico emphasized his calmer style and olive-branch strategy at the Waco event. “When you extend an open hand rather than a fist, you’ll be surprised how many people take that hand,” he said.

If he represents an open hand, Ms. Crockett has unashamedly branded herself as the fist in that analogy.

She entered the race in December with a national profile built through three years of aggressive, viral clashes with Republicans in Congress. Her firebrand style has enthused Democrats critical of the party’s unwillingness to take the fight to the Trump administration.

“We need someone who is a proven fighter in this moment, someone who will not back down, someone who will not fold,” she said in an interview last weekend. “My track record is clear. I have always fought for the people that I represented, and I’ve never folded.”

Ms. Crockett is not the style of candidate Democrats have chosen to run in recent top-ticket statewide races. Former U.S. Reps. Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred – who ran for U.S. Senate in 2018 and 2024, respectively – campaigned as moderates, hoping to win over more centrist Republicans. Both lost.

While branding herself as a fighter, not a conciliator, Ms. Crockett is also running an unconventional campaign. She has spent little on campaign ads so far, and her rallies have often been pop-up events with little advance notice. She doesn’t appear to have a campaign manager or a media spokesperson. The Crockett campaign did not respond to multiple interview requests sent to a general campaign email.

These choices have frustrated national Democrats, NOTUS reported earlier this month, but her campaign says they are her best path to victory.

“We reject the DC playbook of politics as usual, because this moment — and winning — demands something different,” Karrol Rimal, a Crockett campaign staffer, told the news organization NOTUS in a statement.

This reflects a discussion national Democrats have been having, says Renée Cross, a political scientist at the University of Houston.

The discussion has been that Democrats “have to try something new,” she adds. “These two candidates, even though their styles are different, they have Democrats excited.”

Democratic confidence has been further boosted by an unlikely victory in a state senate runoff election in January, where a union president flipped a seat in a district that Mr. Trump had won by 17 points in 2024.

That has “made Democrats feel like, ‘This is really possible now,’” says Dr. Cross. “It really could be possible for Democrats to take a U.S. Senate seat.”

Racial tensions in primary

The primary contest has been marked by some racial tension. Earlier this month an influencer alleged that Representative Talarico had described former Representative Allred as a “mediocre Black man” to her. Mr. Allred broadcast the allegation in a social media video and announced his endorsement of Ms. Crockett. Mr. Talarico later said he had described Mr. Allred as a mediocre campaigner. Two liberal podcasters faced fan backlash – including accusations of racism – after discouraging donations to the Crockett campaign because they don’t think she could win the general election.

One of the early ads in the primary references the claim that Republicans helped nudge Ms. Crockett toward running because they believe she would be easier for the GOP to beat in a general election. That claim, along with discussions of her loud, fiery personality, play into common stereotypes of Black women, critics say.

Because both candidates are staunch progressives with few policy disagreements, these personality differences have been magnified, says Dr. Henson.

“In this race it’s more of an argument about temperament,” he adds. “And you can’t have that without thinking that race and gender are creeping into this race as well.”

Plenty of Democrats, he adds, think “people are using Jasmine Crocket’s combative style and rhetoric to cover concerns about how her race may affect her general election prospects.”

Coming down to the wire

Recent polls have returned different results. A Texas Politics Project poll released this week has Ms. Crockett leading by 12 points, and the overwhelming favorite among Black primary voters. A January poll conducted by Emerson College had Mr. Talarico with a nine-point lead. An internal poll from his campaign, released this week, had him with a four-point lead.

But notably the state lawmaker entered the primary with less name recognition, and that deficit appears to be narrowing. In August 2025, 54% of Texas voters responded “Don’t Know/No opinion” when asked for their view on him, according to the Texas Politics Project. That figure had dropped to 34% this month.

At the rally in Waco, several attendees said that they would support whichever Democrat wins the U.S. Senate primary in November – even if they favor Representative Talarico.

Dennis Hanley arrived at the rally having already voted. He said he’s been voting for Democrats in Texas for 30 years, throughout their long losing streak in statewide elections.

He has liked Mr. Talarico since his Joe Rogan podcast appearance, and he’s confident that the seminarian’s campaign means that Texas will finally elect a Democrat to statewide office.

“I’m also a Jasmine Crockett fan,” he said. “We need her. But I happen to follow [Talarico’s] ideology and his mindset more than hers.”

Deepen your worldview

with Monitor Highlights.

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“The tide of the country is definitely turning,” he added. “People are sick of it, and I think that enough people are going to cross over – good and decent people from the other side – who’ve also had enough.”

Along with this story on the Democratic primary in Texas’ U.S. Senate race, we will run a separate story looking at the Republican primary in the same race in coming days.

Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber lobbied members of Congress repeatedly to deter an increase in the endowment tax on colleges and universities. Instead, when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last summer, Princeton became one of a handful of schools whose endowment tax ballooned.

Now, President Eisgruber is preparing his institution for change as it prepares to pay an endowment tax of 8% on net investment earnings next year, up from 1.4%. He’s asked department heads to make budget cuts and says more could come. He announced this month that over the next decade, Princeton expects to lose $11 billion in endowment investment earnings.

“Princeton will continue to evolve, but in the future it will more often have to do so through efficiency and substitution rather than addition,” Mr. Eisgruber wrote to the Princeton community on Feb. 2, in his “State of the University” letter.

Why We Wrote This

Some prominent U.S. universities are paring back campus spending in response to endowment tax hikes passed by Congress and the Trump administration’s drive to reform higher education.

Schools that are expected to pay the new top-bracket endowment tax rate include elite universities with billion-dollar endowments, such as Harvard, Princeton, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, and Yale. Leaders at those schools and other institutions facing smaller, but significant, tax hikes are taking steps now to prepare for the tax hit ahead. Actions include cutting spots in doctoral programs and scaling back campus libraries.

Universities are making these adjustments as the Trump administration continues its sweeping efforts – through lawsuits and the withholding of federal research funding – to reshape university cultures to be, as government officials describe it, more receptive to conservative viewpoints and more oriented toward career training.

Lynn Cooley, dean of Yale University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, says that her school is cutting doctoral programs across the board by lowering admissions targets in response to the coming tax.

She worries that “fewer discoveries will emerge” as a result, and “fewer curious, creative, motivated young people will have access to the education needed to carry out rigorous research that benefits lives across the region, country, and globe,” Dr. Cooley wrote in an email to the Monitor.

Alternatively, Mark Schneider, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, believes the endowment tax will force universities to adapt to market realities. He says the United States is overproducing doctoral students in obscure fields and that Congress could instead allocate endowment tax revenue to workforce programs at regional universities.

“Billions of dollars go into [college and university] endowments, and now that they’re going to be taxed, shouldn’t the Congress decide where that money should go?” Mr. Schneider says. “Should it go to Harvard? Or should it go to a regional campus where we’re training people for jobs in the future?”

“Only a very small part of the American population are in these [elite] schools,” he adds. “Most students go to schools within 50 miles of their house.”

How the endowment tax is changing

Congress initially set the endowment tax on private colleges’ and universities’ investment earnings at 1.4% in 2017 during President Donald Trump’s first term. Last July, Congress included significant hikes in that rate in its tax-and-spending bill, which the White House championed. The new structure includes rates of 1.4%, 4%, and 8%, depending on each school’s endowment size and student population.

The new tax law applies to private, nonprofit colleges and universities with minimum endowments of $500,000 to $750,000 per student. Schools with endowments of $750,000 to $2 million per student will pay a 4% tax, and those with endowments of more than $2 million per student will pay 8%.

Colleges and universities with a total enrollment of 3,000 or fewer students are exempt from the new tax rates, which go into effect this year.

The American Enterprise Institute estimates that about 20 universities will be subject to the endowment tax in the first year. Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and Yale, all of which have endowments worth tens of billions of dollars, will be taxed at the highest rate. Harvard, which leads with a $53 billion endowment, will have the highest bill at $368.2 million, followed by Yale with $280 million and Princeton at more than $217 million, according to AEI estimates.

The money will flow into the U.S. Treasury’s general account, which acts like the U.S. government’s checking account. Funds there are managed by the Treasury Department, with expenditures allocated by Congress.

What actions are universities taking now?

After news of the new tax rate hit, Stanford University announced that it would lay off 363 people. Other schools have taken similar measures.

Dr. Cooley at Yale says the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences now has a smaller budget as a result of the new endowment tax. University officials estimate their new endowment tax bill will exceed the annual budgets of eight of Yale’s 15 schools combined.

As a result, hits to Yale’s graduate programs will include a 13% reduction in Ph.D. students over the next three years. Enrollment in science and engineering doctoral programs will decrease by 5%, a smaller drop because those departments receive more research and foundation funding and are less reliant on the university’s endowment.

MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is also feeling the crunch from the higher tax rate. At the end of the fall semester in 2025, President Sally Kornbluth and other administrators sent a note to the school community outlining an expected $300 million annual cost to the university from the endowment tax and federal research funding cuts.

Her note referenced changes to the institution’s library system, including layoffs, the closure of two service desks, and a shift to digital-first material. MIT will also end leases for office space and freeze merit raises for employees earning more than $85,000, except in the case of promotions. Dr. Kornbluth said that MIT is looking for ways to increase revenue through avenues like fundraising and in-person and online offerings.

“Taken together, the framework we’ve outlined will allow MIT to navigate these rough financial waters while maintaining its famous momentum,” the letter read. “But – as the last year has demonstrated – the policy weather could certainly grow worse. We are preparing scenarios for that too.”

On the tax bubble

Some schools, like Colgate University, sit on the edge of the endowment tax threshold. The liberal arts school in central New York has a student enrollment of about 3,000 to 3,200. As of February, its endowment stands at $1.44 billion. That puts the university close to the 1.4% bracket.

“There are no reasonable nor responsible measures to avoid the tax,” says Joseph Hope, Colgate’s senior vice president of finance and chief investment officer, via email. “When we eventually join the group of schools subject to this tax, it will be because we have achieved a period of robust growth that directly enhances our ability to support our academic mission.”

Mr. Hope says that Colgate administrators have not yet discussed lowering enrollment below 3,000 students to avoid having to pay the tax.

“Our priority is delivering a world-class residential liberal arts education,” he says, “rather than letting tax thresholds dictate what we do.”

Will he or won’t he?

For weeks, Washington, Middle East capitals, and indeed many points beyond have been gripped with speculation over whether President Donald Trump would attack Iran – a move many analysts and some advisers in Mr. Trump’s inner circle have warned could spark a broader war.

At the same time, another question has remained largely unanswered concerning the president’s potential recourse to a military intervention against the Islamic Republic: Why would he?

Why We Wrote This

President Donald Trump’s brief mention of Iran in his State of the Union address was still short of a complete argument for how and why striking Iran, which would risk a wider Middle East conflict, would further U.S. interests.

Now, as indirect talks between the United States and Iran are set to resume in Geneva on Thursday, against the backdrop of the largest U.S. armada assembled in the Middle East since the Iraq War, the answer to the “why” question remains incomplete at best.

Mr. Trump’s recent comments on Iran and those of some of his advisers have suggested four different objectives that could be motivating U.S. policy, numerous U.S.-Iran analysts say. Chief among them is Iran’s nuclear program and eliminating any possibility of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Other objectives the president is considering, comments suggest, are taking out Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capabilities; riding to the rescue of Iran’s anti-regime protesters, as Mr. Trump pledged in January; weakening Iran’s support for its regional proxies; and, lastly, some form of regime change.

The president dedicated only a few lines of his State of the Union address Tuesday to Iran, but he did touch on some of these potential goals underpinning his next steps.

“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy,” Mr. Trump said, “but I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism to have a nuclear weapon. Can’t let that happen.”

Referring to what he’s looking for in the ongoing negotiations, he said, “We haven’t heard the secret words: ‘We [Iran] will never have a nuclear weapon.’”

Touching on other factors that could be driving administration deliberations, the president cited his disdain for a regime “that has killed at least 32,000 protesters,” as well as a missile stockpile “that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas.” (Rights groups monitoring the recent Iranian unrest say the number of dead confirmed so far is at least 7,000, which would still make the crackdown the regime’s deadliest.)

Emboldened, yet hesitating

For many critics and analysts, that hardly explains why the United States would risk a broader and unpredictable war in the Middle East.

In the absence of a clear case for how striking Iran would further U.S. interests, some analysts say the president appears to be emboldened to take military action by what he has characterized as recent successes. First, the airstrikes last June against Iranian nuclear facilities, and then the January special-forces operation that seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

“Trump’s the guy in the casino who’s on a roll. He’s just won a bunch of money at the Venezuela craps table, and he hasn’t forgotten his Iran winnings from June,” says Rosemary Kelanic, an expert in energy security and U.S. grand strategy at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank advocating restraint in U.S. foreign policy.

“Now he’s at the table again,” she adds, “with a lot of chips and some congressional hawks and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu whispering in his ear that Iran is weak so it’s his opportunity to go big.”

She says the lack of clarity on just what President Trump’s objectives are can make getting the deal he says he prefers more difficult. “If the Iranians are unclear if Trump really wants a deal, but suspect he might be bent on regime change, then there’s no incentive for Iran to go for concessions,” she says.

Others say the president appears to be leaning toward a limited military strike that is beyond a token signal but short of full regime change. Nuclear sites would be targeted again, but this time missile infrastructure and government power centers as well, to convince the Iranians to get serious about negotiations. Mr. Trump confirmed last week he is indeed considering such an option.

“What President Trump has on the table seems to be a ‘decapitation strike’ that would be designed to target a range of significant military infrastructure and Iran’s leadership so that the U.S. can start negotiating seriously in a new reality and with a new successor leadership,” says Arash Reisinezhad, a visiting assistant professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School in Medford, Mass.

“So what I see is a strategy of three steps,” he says, adding, “The negotiations that are taking place, then the decapitation strikes, and then a return to serious negotiations” with a successor set of Iranian powers.

“Iran gets a vote”

Such an approach might be “more realistic than complete regime change,” Dr. Reisinezhad says, “but it would still be very risky – which explains why Mr. Trump is hesitating.”

He says Iran could be expected to immediately strike back at U.S. interests in the region, including military bases, energy installations, and Israel.

Others agree the “strike to negotiate” option is fraught with danger.

“The theory that a round of targeted strikes can lead to concessions from Iran is completely wrong,” says Dr. Kelanic. “Iran gets a vote in this, and they’ve signaled every way they can that they are going to respond hard to any attacks. If Trump opts for any attack,” she adds, “any deal is going to be off the table.”

Some analysts suspect that Mr. Trump’s overriding motivation is his assurances to the American public as far back as his 2016 presidential campaign that he could deliver a much better deal with Iran than President Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal – which he withdrew from in 2018. Going to war with Iran instead would sully his self-image as a greater dealmaker than any previous president, they say.

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For Dr. Reisinezhad, an unpredictable military engagement with Iran also risks seriously undermining the administration’s broader national security interests, as laid out in last month’s National Security Strategy.

“The U.S. under this administration has just said it’s most important focus should be Taiwan and the South China Sea, as well as the Western Hemisphere,” he says. “If the U.S. gets stuck in the Middle East and has to turn away from Asia,” he adds, “that’s going to be good for China, and for Russia.”

A new space race is underway. But this one is not so much between nations as it is between tech companies.

The quest? Be the first to launch data centers into space.

The stakes? According to some astronomers, the night sky itself.

Why We Wrote This

While space-based data centers promise to alleviate Earth’s energy crisis, the next frontier of innovation hinges on designing orbital infrastructure that is sustainable and avoids creating a “dumping ground” in orbit.

This month, Elon Musk announced that his space-faring company, SpaceX, had merged with his artificial intelligence company, xAI, in an effort to launch 1 million satellites that could work together to form extraterrestrial data centers. Google’s Project Suncatcher proposed creating data centers in space by using lasers to transmit data between satellites in near proximity to one another. And late last year, a competitor named Starcloud launched a refrigerator-sized satellite into space – the first step toward its own orbiting data center.

None of this will be technologically easy. But tech companies claim that data centers in space could become more cost-efficient than the massive warehouses of computer servers devouring land, water, and electricity on Earth.

“Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment,” Mr. Musk said in a statement after announcing his merger. “By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will transform our ability to scale compute. It’s always sunny in space!”

However, some astronomers and economists are concerned that what might be beneficial to one environment might be harmful to another. There are already about 14,000 satellites in space. Sometimes, they collide. They also spawn space junk – everything from spent rocket boosters to loose bolts. On Jan. 30, for instance, one of Russia’s old spy satellites disintegrated into bits and pieces.

Putting sizable data centers into orbit could compound those challenges. In recent decades, there’s been a growing awareness that mankind could be repeating the mistake it made with the oceans, viewing space as an inexhaustible resource where we can dump things. Out of sight, out of mind. This has prompted scientists, economists, and politicians to focus on solutions that facilitate technological progress yet also reduce pollution of the orbital commons.

“Increasingly, people in this realm ... are beginning to recognize that space is an environment, much as the Earth is an environment,” says Akhil Rao, a former NASA economist.

Still, in 2024, data centers in the United States accounted for 4.4% of the nation’s electricity consumption. A study last year from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute found that large data centers can consume 5 million gallons of water a day.

The trade-off on the other side of the environmental ledger is often less obvious. In 1978, astrophysicist Don Kessler co-wrote an influential paper about the potential consequences of an accumulation of satellites around the planet. Even without data centers in orbit, it’s getting cluttered up there.

Astronomers are particularly concerned about “the Kessler Effect.” That’s when orbital collisions create space junk, which begets even more collisions and even more debris. In 2009, for instance, a communications satellite slammed into a disused Russian military spacecraft. Each object was reduced to clouds of shrapnel that continued traveling around the planet. It takes about 11 years for gravity to bring smaller objects in lower orbits down to Earth.

There are currently 25,000 tracked pieces of debris in orbit, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who recently retired from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. And that’s just the stuff we can see. Smaller objects, such as frozen globules of propellant expelled by satellites, whiz through orbit faster than bullets, becoming hazards for astronauts during spacewalks. In December, a spacecraft docked at China’s space station was rendered temporarily inoperable because of a damaged window after a suspected space-debris strike.

Unless there’s a cleanup, space might eventually become too hazardous to safely traverse. Time to call in the space garbage trucks.

A British and Japanese company called Astroscale is set to launch a debris-removal vehicle this year. It will shepherd disused satellites and rocket boosters into a lower orbit so that they’ll burn up reentering the atmosphere. Other cleanup technologies are being tested. In 2018, a European RemoveDebris satellite successfully captured an object in space with a polyethylene net. A Swiss company named ClearSpace is developing a vehicle with claw-like robot arms to latch onto satellites that need to be scrapped.

“China, which hasn’t in the past had such a great record on space debris, is actually the first country to have done a real debris-

removal action,” says Dr. McDowell. “In this case, in geostationary orbit, 36,000 kilometers up, where they sent a tug up to a dead navigation satellite of theirs and towed it to a higher – what’s called a graveyard – orbit and released it there.”

There’s a common interest in solving the tragedy of the space commons, says Dr. McDowell. An organization named the

Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee provides recommendations about best practices. But these aren’t binding. In violation of the guidelines, Russia conducted a military test to blow up one of its satellites five years ago.

Many commercial companies, such as Starlink, have followed good disposal practices, says Dr. Rao, the former NASA economist. And they have an incentive to do so. If companies leave dead satellites in space, then they are creating risks for their own active satellites.

Still, compliance can be tricky. Satellites become less responsive to commands over time. By the time that satellites pass their expiration date, they’re no longer able to de-orbit.

Economists have been proposing incentive-based solutions. For example, regulatory agencies in various nations could charge companies a tax for as long as their satellite is in space. Agencies could issue a bond whenever a satellite is launched. The bond is only redeemable upon de-orbit. Money raised by the bond could be put toward space cleanup activities.

Among those clamoring for change are astronomers. Satellites create light pollution in the night sky, says John Barentine, former director of public policy for the International Dark Sky Association in Tucson, Arizona.

The man-made celestial objects, whose solar-paneled wings make them look like metallic dragonflies, reflect sunlight back down to the ground. They show up in astronomical images. Astronomers on the lookout for dangerous asteroids – such as the one that crashed in Russia in 2013 with a shock wave that injured 1,500 people and damaged buildings – say that the glint of satellites at dawn and dusk also makes it harder to spot things behind them. Data center satellites would be even bigger and brighter than regular ones.

“Thousands of bright satellites would actually degrade our ability to detect some of the threatening [near Earth objects],” explains Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, via email.

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Today, the average person isn’t thinking a whole lot about space debris. That broader shift in thought will come, Dr. Barentine says, once the public understands how it affects them. That’s what motivated him to co-found the Center for Space Environmentalism last year. His goal is to bring extraterrestrial issues to public attention. That often starts with telescopes in backyards.

“Cultivating a closer relationship between humans and the cosmos through the medium of the night sky could be a way to increase appreciation for the space environment and its inextricable connection to our own environment,” Dr. Barentine says.

The food pantry at Austin Community College’s Highland campus was busy, with a steady stream of students stocking up on essentials. Many items had posted limits – one cabbage, two onions, three potatoes – but zucchini were in abundance. “Take more,” the cashier urged the shoppers, some stopping in between classes.

And they did.

With 3 in 5 American undergraduates reporting food or housing insecurity, a new model of support has taken hold on college campuses. From Harvard University to Hostos Community College in New York City to the University of Minnesota, schools are offering food pantries, emergency grants, and transportation help. It is a matter of survival - for both students and colleges.

Why We Wrote This

Students without basic resources often drop out. Schools that support undergraduates’ basic needs are reporting better retention and narrower achievement gaps.

It’s also a significant expansion of colleges’ traditional role.

“Some people look at these efforts and wonder, ‘Why would a college provide this?’” said Marisa Vernon-White, vice president of enrollment management and student services at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio. “They ask, ‘Isn’t your job education and workforce training?’”

But Ms. Vernon-White and others say it’s in colleges’ best interest to see their roles more broadly. Students who lack resources – who have to skip meals or hunt for a safe place to sleep – often drop out, costing colleges millions in unrealized revenue at a time of declining enrollment and shrinking public funding.

Colleges that have committed to addressing students’ basic needs report improvements in retention and a narrowing of achievement gaps.

In the six years since Lorain Community College opened an Advocacy and Resource Center, the share of students graduating on time has risen 15 percentage points, to roughly 40%.

How we got here

A college education has traditionally provided a golden ticket to the middle class, a stepping stone to higher pay, better job prospects, and a more secure future. But its price tag keeps rising. And student aid isn’t keeping pace. Fifty years ago, the federal Pell Grant covered three-quarters of the cost of attending a four-year public college. Today, it covers less than a quarter.

The result: a growing number of students struggle to afford food or stable housing, especially in the nation’s community colleges, which serve 40% of all undergraduates. About 14% of students report experiencing homelessness, according to a survey by The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Such statistics have spurred colleges of all types – including elite schools trying to help break cycles of generational poverty – to create a range of basic support services. Some even help students apply for food stamps and other public benefits. It’s partly about the math. But it’s also about building community.

An early leader in the culture of care

Few college leaders have tackled student poverty as systemically as Russell Lowery-Hart, chancellor of Austin Community College, a large public college district with 11 locations across central Texas.

Before coming to Austin in 2023, Dr. Lowery-Hart served as president of Amarillo College, a community college in the Texas Panhandle. There, he built a “Culture of Caring” that has been studied by researchers, replicated by colleges, and credited with raising Amarillo’s graduation rate by 13 percentage points during his tenure.

“Our students are an $88 emergency away from dropping out,’’ Dr. Lowery-Hart said on Community College Podcast. “We have to help our students with their basic need barriers if we are going to help them with their learning and their degree completion.’’

Now, as Dr. Lowery-Hart takes his model to Austin Community College, a district with more than four times as many students as Amarillo, the movement he launched a decade ago feels more established and yet more vulnerable than ever.

These days, most colleges – public, private, two-year, and four-year alike – provide students with some basic needs support. Some – mostly wealthier four-year programs – also offer scholarships that help cover room and board.

In Congress and state legislatures, lawmakers from both political parties are raising alarms about student hunger and homelessness, and introducing legislation to expand basic needs support.

Yet many of the basic services colleges offer – running on an average budget of just $12,000 – are understaffed and underfunded. And resources are likely to become even scarcer in the coming years, as state legislatures, forced to shoulder more of the costs of public benefits programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as “SNAP,’’, and Medicaid, scale back spending in other areas.

A vision of care

When Dr. Lowery-Hart first introduced his vision of love-centered leadership to Amarillo’s general assembly in 2015, many faculty were skeptical, he recalls.

Some saw the vision as “unserious” – a threat to academic rigor.

Other faculty members said they resented Dr. Lowery-Hart’s decision to invest in students after faculty and staff layoffs. In one survey, a professor wrote that the college was “killing faculty positions to pay for the president’s ‘poor children’ schemes.”

“They said, ‘You’re asking us to love students, and no one is loving us,’” Dr. Lowery-Hart recalled.

Back then, most college leaders were still in the dark about the scope and impact of homelessness and hunger on their campuses, said Katharine Broton, a researcher and professor studying basic needs insecurity at The University of Iowa. Some college presidents would even insist they didn’t have hungry and homeless students.

“I had people say flat out, ‘I don’t believe it. I think students are lying,” Ms. Broton says.

In 2015, she and her colleagues at The Wisconsin HOPE Lab, a predecessor to The Hope Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published their first survey of basic needs insecurity among community college students. It helped awaken college leaders to the struggles many students were facing.

A decade later, most readily acknowledge that hunger and homelessness are big issues that affect student retention.

But not everyone is convinced that cash-strapped colleges should be responsible for solutions. Skeptics argue that colleges aren’t set up to serve as social service agencies and caution about the costs of “mission creep.”

Pinning improvements in student outcomes on food and housing support programs is tricky; some of the growth seen at colleges like Lorain and Amarillo might be due to other factors. It’s also possible that students who seek help are more motivated or resilient than those who don’t, and thus more likely to persist in college, regardless of the support they receive.

Though some studies have found links between specific interventions and improvements in grades or retention, rigorous research on this topic is rare.

“There’s not a ton of hard evidence on which strategies are most impactful,” said David Thompson, a practitioner-researcher at The Hope Center.

Still, both Ms. Vernon-White and Dr. Lowery-Hart believe that basic needs programs have helped reduce college dropout rates at their schools.

Under Dr. Lowery-Hart’s leadership at Amarillo, from 2014 to 2023, the on-time completion rate nearly doubled, climbing from 15% to 28%. In 2019, the college administration projected a 16-to-1 return on its $300,000 investment in basic needs, counseling, and legal support, driven by higher retention rates and increased revenue.

Making it easier to seek help

But convincing students to use those supports isn’t always easy.

For Luz Martinez, 46, it took hitting rock bottom before she sought help.

It was the winter of 2024, and Ms. Martinez was in her first year in a radiology technician program at Cañada College in Redwood City, California. Her mother had recently died, and she was sleeping in a friend’s living room with her teenage daughter. She knew something had to change.

“My daughter was watching me struggle,” she recalled, tearing up. “I didn’t want her thinking ‘That’s just life.’”

Barely half of students who struggle with food and housing insecurity seek support, according to a recent Hope Center survey. Researchers attribute the low uptake to stigma, limited awareness of available services, and inconvenient hours and locations.

Guilt and shame are also deterrents, according to Allyson Cornett, research director at Trellis Strategies, which studies college populations. Students often say they don’t want to take resources from peers who might need them more, she says.

To normalize help-seeking, colleges like Austin Community College’s Highland campus are creating food pantries that resemble grocery stores, with baskets and check-out lines.

They’re also establishing “basic needs centers” where students can access multiple services in one location, at more convenient times. Some, like Cañada College in California, are placing the support centers mid-campus and encouraging students to stop by.

Ms. Martinez eventually made her way to that center, where a coach helped her apply for a housing scholarship and get her finances in order. She graduated last spring and passed her state licensing exam in the fall.

These days, Ms. Martinez is no longer spiraling down, she says. “I’m spiraling up.”

Poverty at affluent colleges

Basic needs insecurity affects students across all institution types. Still, it’s often hidden at wealthier colleges, where studying and socializing are structured around expensive food and coffee, said Nathan Alleman, co-author of “Starving The Dream: Student Hunger and The Hidden Costs of Campus Affluence.”

Though many schools offer food pantries, they tend to be tucked in a quiet corner of campus, according to Sarah Madsen, assistant professor of higher education at The University of South Alabama and one of the book’s co-authors. That’s partly out of concern for student privacy, Dr. Madsen says, and partly because colleges want to project an image of affluence to prospective students.

Less selective schools are more likely to treat basic needs services as a selling point. At the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, for example, tour guides escort families to the Essential Needs Center, allowing them to see what student care looks like.

“It conveys the moral compass of the college,” says Spencer Moser, assistant dean for student growth and well-being.

Like many campus food banks, the Essential Needs Center was started by students who saw a need among their peers. Students staff the center, managing everything from marketing to food pick-ups.

For manager Kaiya Cocliff, 21, working at the center is a way to develop leadership skills while helping peers.

“When a student walks in and says that they feel seen and appreciated, it makes me feel so good, like I’m doing something for my community,” Ms. Cocliff says.

A tradition of caring for student well-being

The idea that colleges have a moral responsibility to care for the whole student didn’t start with Dr. Lowery-Hart. Jesuit colleges have long been grounded in the values of cura personalis (meaning “care for the whole person” in Latin), says Zachary Reese, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of San Francisco.

But Dr. Lowery-Hart, who once spent a winter weekend sleeping on the street to experience homelessness firsthand, has helped popularize the idea. With Amarillo, he offered both a guiding, love-centered philosophy and a playbook.

“We created something unique, and it inspired people to think about students differently,” Dr. Lowery-Hart says.

Yet some peers questioned whether his love- and care-centered approach could work at the system level.

As chancellor, Dr. Lowery-Hart has quadrupled the district’s emergency aid budget and ensured that every campus has a food bank. He has hired students as secret shoppers to test campus services and tasked the school’s faculty, staff, and students with designing ways to support students’ basic needs.

Along the way, he’s discovered that leading not just one college, but a college system, comes with more resources – and more bureaucracy.

Dr. Lowery-Hart still hears concerns that colleges can’t afford to meet students’ basic needs, and that it’s not their job to do so. Funding remains a challenge for many programs, with nearly 40% of respondents in a survey of service leaders across almost 350 campuses saying they depend on donations – including staff payroll deductions – to stay afloat.

Tim Cook, president of Clackamas Community College in Oregon, says he’s struggled to get policymakers and philanthropists to take basic needs insecurity seriously. Lawmakers tend to trivialize the problem, he says, and often recall with nostalgia their own college days spent eating ramen, considered a budget meal for struggling students. Donors often prefer to have their name associated with a scholarship or campus building.

So this past summer, Mr. Cook did something to grab their attention: He laced up his running shoes and ran the 1,411 miles connecting his state’s 17 community colleges, chatting with reporters along the way. Three state legislators and a U.S. senator met him on his journey, and one state lawmaker joined for part of the run.

While the grueling journey raised over $175,000 for student basic needs support, it didn’t convince lawmakers to pass a bill that would have provided $800 million for the same kind of support, Mr. Cook laments. In an interview, he says while he’s happy with the attention the run garnered, he’s skeptical that it will lead to lasting change.

But Dr. Lowery-Hart remains optimistic. In the two years since he arrived at Austin Community College, the share of students who stay enrolled between fall and spring semesters has climbed by 23%.

And he’s confident that the caring campus movement will continue to grow, despite its challenges.

After all, “It doesn’t just make moral sense” for colleges to invest in their students’ basic needs, Dr. Lowery-Hart says, “it makes financial sense, too.”

Funding for this story was provided by the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, as part of its “Spreading Love Through the Media” initiative, supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

In one of its most significant decisions of the year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs on Friday.

The tariffs had been one of Mr. Trump’s signature policies, but the court held – in a 6-3 decision that split the court’s six conservative justices – that the president could not use an emergency economic powers law to justify imposing the tariffs.

The decision applies only to what Mr. Trump called his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2 last year (though those tariffs applied to over 180 countries). It does not apply to certain other tariffs such as on steel, aluminum and cars. 

Why We Wrote This

The Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s use of an emergency economic law to set broad tariffs, reasoning that the 1977 law did not grant the president such sweeping power. President Donald Trump vowed to use other laws to keep tariffs up.

The majority opinion did not address how the government should respond to the sudden termination of tariffs that have been in place for almost a year and collected over $200 billion, according to government officials. The economic and foreign policy fallout is expected to be far-reaching, but for the Supreme Court the tariffs represented an exercise of presidential power that went too far even for a court that has been reluctant to check the White House.

The Trump administration had argued that, because the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) empowers the president to “regulate…importation” during national emergencies, it empowered him to levy the Liberation Day tariffs.

Six members of the high court – including two justices appointed by Mr. Trump – disagreed.

“The President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion. 

The words “regulate” and “importation” – separated by 16 other words in IEEPA, Chief Justice Roberts noted – “cannot bear such weight.”

He was joined by the court’s three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor, as well as two Trump-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

Mr. Trump described the decision as “deeply disappointing,” and he criticized justices in the majority, implying that corruption had played a role.

“I’m ashamed of certain members of the court…for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,” he said in comments hours after the decision came down. “It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests.” 

His administration is now planning to impose tariffs using other federal laws, he announced,  including a 10% global tariff based on Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to set temporary tariffs. The justices did not weigh in on whether the government must repay the tariff revenue it has already collected. Mr. Trump said the issue could now face “years” of litigation.

Justices look to Congress 

The decision resolves lawsuits brought by U.S. businesses claiming the tariffs threatened their solvency.

No one disputes that the president has some power to set tariffs, but tariffs of the scope and scale that Mr. Trump asserted on “Liberation Day” are outside constitutional bounds, the majority opinion of the Supreme Court held. The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, and while the legislature delegated some emergency powers to the White House with IEEPA, the statute doesn’t mention the word “tariffs” or “duties.”

“It stands to reason that had Congress intended to convey the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs, it would have done so expressly – as it consistently has in other tariff statutes,” wrote Chief Justice Roberts.

In dissent, Justice Brett Kavanaugh – joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – argued that IEEPA does give the president the power to impose tariffs. “Like quotas and embargoes, tariffs are a traditional and common tool to regulate importation,” he wrote.

At the heart of the high court’s 170-page decision is the major questions doctrine, a directive from the court that the White House can advance a policy addressing a “major question” only if Congress “speaks clearly” that it can do so.

The six conservative justices split over this issue. Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Neil Gorsuch, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed that Congress had not spoken “clearly” enough in IEEPA to authorize the Trump administration’s tariffs. 

Justice Kavanaugh, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, argued the exact opposite. Furthermore, Justice Kavanaugh wrote in his dissent, the decision represented the first time the court applied the doctrine in the foreign policy context.

Justice Kavanaugh was also the only justice to acknowledge the practical implications of the Supreme Court’s decision.

“The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers,” he wrote. The decision, he added, “could [also] generate uncertainty regarding various trade agreements.”

Gorsuch reaches out

Chief Justice Roberts, for his part, noted the “limited role” the Supreme Court has in the tariffs dispute – that role being to determine if the Liberation Day tariffs are lawful under IEEPA. The high court, he stressed, “claim[s] no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs.”

As the country begins to grapple with the fallout of the court’s ruling, Justice Gorsuch wrote a separate concurrence seeking to bridge divisions both on the court and in the country.

The arguments among the justices over the major questions doctrine “is an interesting turn of events,” he wrote. “Each camp warrants a visit.” 

Across 46 pages he proceeded to analyze and critique all of his colleagues’ arguments. But he concluded with what seems a broader message to Americans, acknowledging their likely disagreements over Mr. Trump’s tariffs campaign.

“For those who think it important for the Nation to impose more tariffs, I understand that today’s decision will be disappointing,” he wrote. “All I can offer them is that most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people…are funneled through the legislative process for a reason.”

“It can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design,” he added. “There, deliberation tempers impulse, and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions.”

“For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious,” he continued. “But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is.”

Historic consistency

That the high court ruled on a key part of Mr. Trump’s economic policy is not surprising, some historians say.

“The Supreme Court has intervened in economic policy since the beginning of the Republic,” says Richard John, a historian at Columbia University. 

Nor is its ruling against the administration unusual from an historical perspective. “Over the span of the Republic, the trend has certainly been to favor the marketplace over the state,” says Gautham Rao, a legal historian at American University. This decision fits “pretty squarely within that kind of historical trajectory.”

What’s unusual about this case is President Trump’s invocation of a vaguely defined “emergency” to enact sweeping tariffs that affected most of America’s trading partners.

Past presidents have intervened in specific economic conflicts, such as Theodore Roosevelt taking on anthracite coal operators in 1902 and John F. Kennedy forcing steel producers to cancel a price increase. “But using international trade as a sort of a lever in a very public way is distinctive” to President Trump, says Mr. John of Columbia.

The administration has vowed to use other authorities to reconstruct its tariff regime. But those legal options come with restrictions, says Alan Wm. Wolff, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization. 

Some of the laws the Trump administration could base new tariffs on haven’t been used for 50 years or more. Others require formal government investigations to establish that the tariffs are justified. One of them, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which Mr. Trump said he plans to use, allows the president to set temporary tariffs that expire after 150 days unless Congress acts to extend them.

The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor – formerly known as Prince Andrew – on suspicion of misconduct in public office, marks a significant development in the ongoing fallout from the release of documents related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor is just one of many public figures facing renewed scrutiny over their relationships with the convicted sex offender – as details continue to emerge from the files about the various elite figures in Mr. Epstein’s extensive network.

Speculation about the extent of Mr. Epstein’s ties to some of the world’s most powerful people has swirled for weeks as the U.S. Justice Department has made more documents from its yearslong investigation public. 

While other prominent people – from university professors to business leaders – have faced professional consequences from revelations about their connections to the convicted sex offender, Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor is the highest-profile figure thus far to face criminal charges. If convicted, the younger brother of Britain’s King Charles III could potentially spend the rest of his life in prison. He also symbolizes a larger pattern: The fallout for people who associated with Mr. Epstein has been greater, and faster, for those outside the United States than within it.

Why We Wrote This

​The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor​ makes the former ​prince ​the highest-profile person to face criminal charges related to ties with Jeffrey Epstein. But plenty of other big names are “in the files” of now-public documents, and facing scrutiny.

Other figures with known ties to Mr. Epstein have recently been the target of scrutiny but have yet to face any formal accusations of wrongdoing. They include President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, among others. On Feb. 14, the Justice Department sent Congress a list of 300 people who appear in the released files, which now total some 3.5 million pages. The list named government officials or “politically exposed” people whose names appear in the files at least once.

Being in the files does not by itself indicate wrongdoing. Some of those whose names are mentioned appear to have had only fleeting contact with the disgraced financier, who was found dead, hanging in his jail cell, in 2019. The records comprise years of investigative material, not all of which appears directly related to Mr. Epstein or his criminal activities, and much of which has not been vetted.

Yet the documents have begun to paint a clearer picture of the extent of Mr. Epstein's influence. He had numerous contacts at elite universities, from Harvard and Columbia to Stanford; with celebrities such as filmmaker Woody Allen and New York Giants co-owner Steven Tisch; with political figures such as right-wing commentator Steve Bannon; and with billionaire business leaders, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel.

News organizations are still combing through the documents to better understand who is mentioned in them and why. Here’s a look at some of the prominent figures who appear in the files.

People named in the files, who have faced consequences

Ghislaine Maxwell. The socialite daughter of publisher Robert Maxwell, she became Mr. Epstein's long-time associate starting in the 1990s. She was convicted in 2021 by a jury in U.S. federal court on sex trafficking charges tied to Mr. Epstein, for her role in the recruitment and abuse of girls under 18.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. On Feb. 19, the former Prince Andrew was arrested on charges of misconduct in public office, and accused by police of sharing confidential information with Mr. Epstein. For his part, Charles III issued a statement saying he supports a full investigation. Earlier, the king had stripped Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor of his royal titles and forced him to move out of his taxpayer-funded residence in Windsor over long-standing accusations that the former prince had participated in Mr. Epstein’s sex crimes. Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, had alleged that she was trafficked to the former prince and engaged in sexual activities with him at least three times before she turned 18. In 2022, Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor settled a civil lawsuit with Ms. Giuffre for an undisclosed sum but did not admit to any of her accusations. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Sarah Ferguson. Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife had also come under scrutiny for her relationship with Mr. Epstein. In 2011, she publicly apologized for letting Mr. Epstein pay some of her debts and vowed not to ever have contact with him again. Later that year, she emailed Mr. Epstein and asked how she should respond to questions about their relationship. “I just want to make sure you are aware of this and seek your advice on how you would like me to answer,” she wrote.

Thorbjørn Jagland. Mr. Jagland, who served as prime minister of Norway in the late 1990s, was charged with “gross corruption” because of his relationship with Mr. Epstein. Emails show that the two men had a close relationship, exchanging notes about visits, sharing meals, and more. In one email, Mr. Jagland discusses staying at Mr. Epstein’s apartment in Paris with an unidentified person who appears to be Mr. Epstein’s assistant. In another email from 2014, an assistant discusses using Mr. Epstein’s credit card to pay for trips for Mr. Jagland and his family to visit Palm Beach, Florida, and Mr. Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.

Peter Mandelson. Mr. Mandelson resigned on Feb. 2 from the House of Lords, after emails suggested he might have leaked confidential government information to Mr. Epstein. According to The Guardian, while Mr. Mandelson was Britain’s business secretary, he forwarded the financier a document, intended for the prime minister, that outlined a plan for a potential £20 billion ($27 billion) asset sale. Britain’s Cabinet secretary is said to be investigating the emails.

Kathryn Ruemmler. Ms. Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel under Barack Obama, announced Feb. 12 that she would resign from her position as the top lawyer at Goldman Sachs after newly released documents suggested she had a close relationship with Mr. Epstein. In numerous email exchanges, she advised Mr. Epstein on how to push back on unflattering media scrutiny, including in the run-up to his 2019 arrest, and referred to him as “sweetie” and “Uncle Jeffrey.” Emails showed she also accepted various luxury gifts from Mr. Epstein. Previously, Ms. Ruemmler has said that she only knew him in a professional capacity and offered him legal advice.

Lawrence Summers. A treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and a former president of Harvard University, Mr. Summers last year resigned from roles at OpenAI and stopped teaching at the university as it sought to investigate his ties to Mr. Epstein. Mr. Summers exchanged messages with the financier up until Mr. Epstein’s death in 2019, and sought his advice as he pursued an extramarital relationship. The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper, reported that Mr. Summers and his wife, Elisa New, spent part of their honeymoon on Mr. Epstein’s island in 2005 – as police in Palm Beach had started to pursue a criminal case against Mr. Epstein. Last year, PBS said it would no longer distribute Ms. New’s television series, “Poetry in America,” after revelations that Mr. Epstein had helped her secure funding.

Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem. Mr. Bin Sulayem left his position as head of DP World, a global logistics and port giant based in Dubai, on Feb. 13. For years following Mr. Epstein’s first conviction, the two men corresponded by email, including about women. “where are you? are you ok, I loved the torture video,” Mr. Epstein wrote to him in 2009. What the video was is unclear.

Thomas Pritzker. Mr. Pritzker, a cousin of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, announced he would retire as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels to protect the company after documents showed that he had an extensive relationship with Mr. Epstein. The two men corresponded for years, new documents show, including making references to scheduling meetings well into 2018. Mr. Pritzker also wrote to Ms. Maxwell on numerous occasions. In 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Pritzker was a frequent guest at Mr. Epstein’s townhouse.

Jean-Luc Brunel. The late French model scout was accused by Ms. Giuffre of grooming girls for Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. He associated with Mr. Epstein for years, but denied being involved in illegal activities with him. He was arrested by French authorities in 2020 and charged with the rape of minors. Like Mr. Epstein, he was found hanged in his cell before a trial could occur.

Other people named in the files

Again, showing up in the Epstein files or even visiting with him does not indicate wrongdoing. But a number of high-profile people had significant relationships with Mr. Epstein that are being scrutinized through the documents that have been released.

President Donald Trump. Mr. Trump appears in the files thousands of times. He and Mr. Epstein socialized extensively in the 1980s and 1990s, when they both lived in Palm Beach. An email from a federal prosecutor noted that Mr. Trump flew on Mr. Epstein’s private plane “at least eight times between 1993 and 1996.” In an oft-quoted New York Magazine article from 2002, Mr. Trump described Mr. Epstein as a “terrific guy” and said he had known him for 15 years. More recently, Mr. Trump has said that he and Mr. Epstein had a falling out sometime in the mid-2000s, and he has denied knowledge of the financier’s criminal activities.

In early February, The Miami Herald reported that, in July 2006, at the start of the investigation into Mr. Epstein, Mr. Trump called then-Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter and said, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him; everyone knows he’s been doing this.” He also called Ms. Maxwell “evil.”

President Bill Clinton. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Clinton socialized with Mr. Epstein frequently, and flew on his private plane. The New York Times reported on Feb. 8, citing documents released by the Justice Department, that Ms. Maxwell played a key role in setting up the Clinton Global Initiative – an arm of the Clinton Foundation – established in 2005. 

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton are expected to soon give closed-door depositions about their relationship with Mr. Epstein. They had originally resisted congressional subpoenas but bowed to pressure after Democrats and Republicans alike voted to hold them in contempt. The former president has said that he cut ties with Mr. Epstein before his first indictment and had no knowledge of his criminal activities.

Howard Lutnick. While he was a financial executive, Mr. Lutnick at one point lived next door to Mr. Epstein in Manhattan. Now Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary, Mr. Lutnick testified before Congress on Feb. 10 that he and his family spent “an hour” on Mr. Epstein’s private island in 2012 – years after Mr. Epstein’s first conviction for sex crimes. The files also show that Mr. Lutnick and Mr. Epstein exchanged emails in 2018. The secretary had previously said that he vowed in 2005 to “never be in a room” with Mr. Epstein again. Mr. Lutnick has faced bipartisan calls to resign. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the president “fully supports the secretary.”

Steve Bannon. Mr. Bannon, a MAGA influencer and podcast host who was once one of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers, appears to have exchanged friendly text messages with Mr. Epstein up until 2019. In several messages, Mr. Bannon advised the financier on how to rehabilitate his image. “We need to push back on the lies; then crush the pedo/trafficking narrative; then rebuild your image as philanthropist,” he wrote in 2019. In a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Bannon said his focus was on convincing Mr. Epstein to participate in a documentary that would “destroy the very myths he created.”

Elon Musk. In 2012 and 2013, the two men discussed the possibility of Mr. Musk visiting Mr. Epstein’s private island. “Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays. Is there a good time to visit?” Mr. Musk wrote in 2013. Earlier, in 2012, the Tesla CEO (and last year the leader of President Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency) asked Mr. Epstein “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” It’s unclear whether the visits ever took place. On his social media site X last year, Mr. Musk said that “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED.”

Les Wexner. The former chief executive of retail conglomerate L Brands has faced scrutiny for his longtime relationship with Mr. Epstein, including tapping the financier to manage his fortune. One FBI document in the files names Mr. Wexner as a “co-conspirator,” though he has not been charged with a crime. Ms. Giuffre once alleged that Mr. Wexner was one of the people she was trafficked to within Mr. Epstein’s circle. Mr. Wexner has denied wrongdoing, and has said he broke his ties to Mr. Epstein in 2007. He also accused Mr. Epstein of stealing money from him. He answered questions before members of Congress during a five-hour deposition in Ohio on Feb. 18. 

Bill Gates. Newly released documents include emails Mr. Epstein drafted to himself about the billionaire founder of Microsoft, suggesting that Mr. Gates had engaged in extramarital sex with “Russian girls.” It’s not clear whether he ever shared those notes with Mr. Gates. Mr. Gates has called the allegations “absolutely absurd and completely false.” In 2021, he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that he regretted his relationship with Mr. Epstein. The New York Times reported in 2019 that Mr. Gates met Mr. Epstein numerous times beginning in 2011. The released files include numerous communications between the two men, as well as photos.

When the United States military captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, it used an AI tool developed by a private U.S. company. It’s unclear exactly what the tool did, but the company’s policy says its products can’t be used for violence or to develop weapons.

Now, the Pentagon is considering cutting ties with that company, Anthropic, because of its insistence on limits for how the military uses its technology, according to Axios.

The tensions between AI safeguards and national security aren’t new. But multiple events in the last month have brought the issue of AI safety – in contexts ranging from weapons development to ethical advertising – into the spotlight.

Why We Wrote This

Artificial intelligence is developing so rapidly that some industry insiders fear safety concerns aren’t getting enough attention. That’s sparking conversation about how to balance innovation, competition, and safeguards.

“A lot of the people who’ve been involved in the field of AI have been thinking about safety in various forms for a long time,” says Miranda Bogen, the founding director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s AI Governance Lab. “But now those conversations are happening on a much more visible stage.”

This month, researchers resigned from two major U.S. AI companies, citing inadequacies in the companies’ safeguards around things like consumer data collection. In an essay Feb. 9 titled “Something Big is Happening,” investor Matt Shumer warned that AI will not only soon threaten Americans’ jobs en masse, but that it could also start to behave in ways its creators “can’t predict or control.” The essay went viral on social media.

While urging action on very real risks, many AI safety experts caution against overplaying fears about hypothetical scenarios.

“These moments of public attention are valuable because they create openings for the kind of public debate about AI that is essential,” Dr. Alondra Nelson, a former member of the United Nations High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, wrote the Monitor in an email while attending a global AI summit in India. “But they are no substitute for democratic deliberation, regulation, and real public accountability.”

Pressure to compete

In December, President Donald Trump issued an executive order blocking “onerous” state laws regulating AI. For example, his order singled out Colorado’s law that bans “algorithmic discrimination” in areas like hiring and education. The president’s order was supported by Republicans who said forcing AI companies to comply with excessive regulations could leave the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage with China.

That sense of competition appears to be central to Anthropic’s move away from the Pentagon. Anthropic wants to ensure its technology is not used to conduct domestic surveillance or develop weapons that fire without human input.

But the Department of Defense, which stated earlier this year that the U.S. military “must build on its lead over our adversaries in integrating [AI],” wants to deploy AI technology without regard to companies’ individual policies, according to reporting by Axios and Reuters.

“We constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most,” wrote Mrinank Sharma, an AI safety researcher, in a publicly-posted resignation letter from Anthropic last week. He did not refer to a specific event that led him to resign, but warned that, “our wisdom must grow in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world, lest we face the consequences.”

Dr. Bogen says policies designed to compel AI providers to subject their models to certain tests or to invest in safety are often diluted into disclosure requirements or nonbinding recommendations.

“The incentives are so strongly in favor of moving forward quickly, even when there’s a desire to put up guardrails,” she says.

Is the world “in peril”?

Those warning of AI’s dangers have sometimes used existential language.

Zoë Hitzig, a former researcher at OpenAI, cited “deep reservations” about the company’s strategy in an editorial she wrote for The New York Times last week, fearing its decision to start testing ads on ChatGPT “creates a potential for manipulating users in ways we don’t have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.”

Mr. Sharma’s resignation letter from Anthropic warned that “the world is in peril.”

Some experts say such language is counterproductive.

“I find the framing of that ‘point of no return’ to be very disempowering,” says Dr. Bogen.

She does worry that as people choose to turn over more of their decision-making to AI and learn to use the technology in their jobs, they’re creating dependencies that will be increasingly difficult to untangle.

But she says people are ultimately responsible for their choices and actions.

“I don’t think we’ll ever get to the point where it’s truly impossible to … make decisions about how to treat this new technology,” she says.

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Katherine Elkins, an AI safety investigator for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, says she hopes she’s wrong about some of the risks she sees, like an AI chatbot potentially using someone’s data to manipulate them. But until she’s sure, she wants safety to remain an urgent priority.

“Personally, I have felt it’s better to err on the cautious side and devote my time to thinking about the risks of AI” than to think the technology won’t get better.

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in a Los Angeles court Wednesday about accusations that Instagram is exploiting young people and harming their mental health. His company is on trial, alongside Google, in a civil suit seen as a test case for holding tech companies to account for social ills blamed on their products, particularly among young users. 

The plaintiff is a 20-year-old woman who has said she became addicted to Instagram (owned by Meta) and YouTube (owned by Google) as an adolescent and that her mental health suffered severely as a result. Meta has argued that her mental health struggles were caused by other factors, including family circumstances. Two other social media platforms, Snapchat and TikTok, settled for undisclosed amounts before the trial began.

Mr. Zuckerberg was questioned on the stand by Mark Lanier, the plaintiff’s lawyer, about Instagram’s controls on children under 13 using the platform. The app requires users to be 13 or older but didn’t start asking new users to input a birthdate until 2019. Mr. Zuckerberg defended its policy as appropriate. (The plaintiff has said she began using Instagram aged 9.)

Why We Wrote This

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in a trial that’s weighing a hot issue for both U.S. families and tech companies – whether social media is designed to be addictive and poses special risks for teenagers.

“I don’t think we identified every single person who tried to get around [age] restrictions, but you’re implying we weren’t trying to work on it and that’s not true,” he said, according to news reports from the courtroom.

Mr. Lanier also pressed Mr. Zuckerberg about goals set by Meta, the parent company, to maximize the time users spent on Instagram. Mr. Zuckerberg said its policy had evolved from time goals to the “utility and value” of the platform. He said, “There’s a basic assumption I have that if something is valuable, then people will do it more.”

The lawsuit tries to sidestep the broad protections that tech platforms enjoy against being sued for user-created content. Instead of arguing that Instagram was liable for harmful content, it accuses the company of designing an addictive app it knew could prove harmful for teenage girls.

If Instagram/Meta loses the case, it could prove momentous for social-media companies. They face a wave of lawsuits that allege that their platforms are deliberately hooking and harming young users. Separately, Meta has been sued by New Mexico’s state government for allegedly not stopping online predators targeting minors using Instagram. Meta denies the allegation.

Last week Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, testified in the Los Angeles trial. He defended the company and said it weighed “different considerations” in vetting Instagram features, which include photo filters that mimic the effects of plastic surgery. Instagram had an internal debate about whether to permit these filters, according to court documents, before allowing them to be used. He also asserted in court that social media isn’t “clinically” addictive.

Australia recently became the first country to ban social-media access for under-16s. Several European countries have weighed similar legal restrictions.

Matthew Bergman, a plaintiffs’ attorney, said in a statement that Meta’s own safety teams understood the dangers its platforms posed, and that Mr. Zuckerberg’s testimony “carries profound weight” for families who have been waiting for their voices to be heard.

Parents who say their children’s mental health was harmed by social media gathered outside the courtroom before Mr. Zuckerberg arrived. He has previously been quizzed about child safety on his platforms during congressional hearings, but this was the first time that he’d been called to testify in a courtroom.

United Nations Security Council, step aside. Make way for Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.

The U.S. president’s version of international conflict resolution holds its inaugural meeting Thursday in Washington. Among its aims: to display to the world a personalized brand of peacemaking and postwar reconstruction that envisions nothing less than becoming the new standard for such undertakings.

Ostensibly, the Board of Peace is gathering to take up Phase 2 of Mr. Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan. And the board – a collection of 26 largely Arab and Muslim countries hoping to influence the way forward in Gaza – is set to unveil what Mr. Trump says is already $5 billion in commitments for reconstruction of the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave.

Why We Wrote This

President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace is convening amid doubts about this approach to diplomacy. Muslim and Arab countries, hoping to influence Gaza’s path forward, have signed on. Western democracies, wary of further weakening international institutions, are staying away.

Also on the agenda: humanitarian assistance to the territory’s 2 million Palestinians, most of whom are living precariously in tents and bombed-out structures; governance during a transition period; and the prickly issue of Hamas disarmament.

Yet hanging over the meeting will be global perceptions of Mr. Trump’s broader ambitions for his Board of Peace that range from wariness to outright hostility.

Most of the United States’ traditional partners in international security operations and postconflict reconstruction are staying away from the board, which they see as a presidential vanity project that reflects a disdain for established institutions, including the U.N.

Mr. Trump has done little to assuage those concerns, asserting at the board’s signing ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, last month that the new peace and security institution “might” indeed end up supplanting the U.N. Security Council.

More recently, the president declared on social media that his new board “will prove to be the most consequential International Body in History.”

“Not a replacement for the U.N.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed widespread concerns about the board’s ambitions at a congressional hearing last month – even as he echoed the Trump administration’s disregard for international institutions generally and the U.N. in particular.

“This is not a replacement for the U.N.,” Mr. Rubio told senators, before adding, “but the U.N. has served very little purpose in the case of Gaza other than the food assistance.”

Still, Mr. Trump has good reason to sidestep the U.N. and other international organizations in his bid to bring peace to the world’s most intractable conflicts, some analysts say.

“We hear all the criticism out there that Trump is getting rid of the old international order, but I don’t believe there ever was an international order. Look at the U.N.’s track record for resolving conflicts,” says Brenda Shaffer, a faculty member specializing in Middle East politics and U.S. security strategy at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Under President Trump, she says, the U.S. is finally seeking alternatives to an international system it has largely paid for but that has rarely acted in U.S. interests.

“The U.S. is by far the biggest funder of the U.N.,” Professor Shaffer says, “but what it’s got in return is a very anti-American bias, not to mention an even stronger anti-Israel bias.” The Board of Peace, on the other hand, “will be very Trumpian in that the U.S. won’t pay for it but will nevertheless have tremendous influence.”

To join the Board of Peace, countries must be invited by President Trump, the board’s permanent chairman. Countries seeking permanent membership must make a $1 billion contribution, while others may avoid the steep fee by accepting a three-year term.

Less than half the 62 countries that Mr. Trump invited to join the new board have elected to do so.

Why U.S. allies aren’t on board

Yet while some leaders have criticized the “pay-to-play” membership rules, many analysts say the reasons so many U.S. allies have stayed away from the board go well beyond financial concerns.

“There is clearly a strong undercurrent of unease about the board’s broader project,” says Michael Hanna, U.S. program director at the International Crisis Group in New York. “Most of the United States’ closest allies have real reservations about the effort to expand the mandate beyond Gaza and what they see as the undermining of the multilateral system,” he adds. “All of this creates an aura around [the board] that they are not willing to sign on to at all.”

As an example of what many U.S. partners worry is overreach by the board, President Trump has said this week’s meeting will take up a Sudan peace plan that aims to stop one of the world’s most horrifying wars with a permanent ceasefire by early March.

Mr. Hanna notes that while the Board of Peace did win a two-year mandate from the U.N. Security Council for addressing Gaza – notably with both China and Russia abstaining in the vote – misgivings were already evident among traditional U.S. allies.

A British and French effort’s failure to amend the resolution to address some of the unease about the board “helps explain why neither they nor other Western allies have signed on,” he says.

NATO allies Italy and Romania have said they will attend the inaugural meeting as observers, while Hungary – which Secretary Rubio visited this week – has joined the board.

Other critics have been more strident about the board, calling it a “coalition of the authoritarians.” Human Rights Watch, the international human rights monitor, dubbed the board “a rogues’ gallery of leaders and governments with human rights records ranging from questionable to appalling.”

Not clearly on the board’s agenda Thursday are rising concerns in the Middle East that the U.S., Israel, and Iran are heading toward renewed military conflict, despite U.S.-Iran negotiations.

Yet whatever time the board devotes to Sudan and other conflicts, the main focus Thursday remains Gaza. Even there, many analysts have low expectations for what the board can accomplish.

Under the Trump 20-point plan, “things have improved on the ground, but only slightly from what were truly horrific conditions,” says Mr. Hanna. “Basically, the war has slowed,” he adds, “but it is not over.”

More than 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since the October 2025 ceasefire. Members of the new technocratic Palestinian agency that the peace board has set up to administer humanitarian assistance and provide social services remain stuck in Egypt, unable to win Israel’s approval to enter Gaza.

The board will have to show it can somehow bridge stark differences between opposing members like Israel and Qatar, one of Hamas’ chief bankrollers.

Dealing with nonnegotiables

But probably the most intractable issue the board will try to address is Hamas’ disarmament.

“Trump’s approach is that everything can be traded,” something that worked in Phase 1 of the Gaza ceasefire “because both sides were pretty ripe for it,” says Dan Rothem, a Tel Aviv-based senior policy analyst with the Israel Policy Forum think tank, which supports a two-state solution. “But now in moving to Phase 2, the president runs into some nonnegotiables of both Israel and Hamas.”

Mr. Trump is asking for concessions “that Israel sees as falling short of its security needs,” Mr. Rothem says, while for Hamas, “just the demand for disarmament clashes with the movement’s core identity.”

Professor Shaffer of the Naval Postgraduate School says she holds out little hope for the board’s success in Gaza, in part because members like Indonesia that have pledged to provide troops for a stabilization force seem unlikely to take a tough stand with Hamas.

“It’s very problematic, not least for Israel, when the countries likely to provide troops there seem neither willing nor able to disarm Hamas,” she says. “And it’s hard to imagine any stability in Gaza if Hamas remains the most powerful force there.”

At the same time, Mr. Hanna says few countries are likely to go all in with the new board if they decide its activities represent “little more than a way station before Israel restarts the war.”

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He says President Trump is the only leader who has the influence with Israel to get it to take the steps that might allow some progress in Gaza and head off a return to fighting – including allowing in the members of the envisioned technocratic Palestinian governing agency.

“Trump has the leverage with Israel,” Mr. Hanna says. “The question now is whether he’s willing to use it.”

The Trump administration is advocating in court for a novel interpretation of U.S. law in order to arrest and detain refugees in Minnesota, challenging decades of bipartisan policy on refugee treatment.

Over 100 refugees in Minnesota have been arrested and interrogated by immigration officers in recent weeks, according to immigration advocates in a complaint. In a separate court filing, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official put the number of people detained in the operation at 72.

Arrests of vetted, lawfully admitted refugees depart from President Donald Trump’s pledge to target those in the United States illegally and with criminal records. But the arrests align with other administration goals, including to reverse former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and scrutinize people he let in.

Why We Wrote This

Refugees in Minnesota are challenging the Trump administration over its arrest and detention tactics. The case features an unprecedented legal argument that could reshape federal-local immigration cooperation.

Border Patrol encounters, a proxy for illegal crossings, hit a record high under President Biden. Refugee admissions, which are lawful entries, also reached a 30-year high during the Biden administration, which sought to boost refugee numbers to address what it called a growing global humanitarian crisis.

On Jan. 9, the Department of Homeland Security announced the launch of Operation PARRIS in Minnesota, calling it a “sweeping initiative reexamining thousands of refugee cases.”

The effort drew less attention than the administration’s Operation Metro Surge, announced just a month before. At its peak, that operation brought around 3,000 federal agents to the Twin Cities to crack down on illegal immigration and resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens. Both operations started amid a swirl of media attention that spotlighted fraud cases involving Minnesotans of Somali descent. Minnesota has a long history of welcoming immigrants and refugees from around the world.

While Trump administration border czar Tom Homan announced the end of Operation Metro Surge last week, the timing and extent of the withdrawal remain unclear.

The future of the refugee-focused operation in Minnesota, however, is now heating up in court.

U.S. District Court Judge John Tunheim issued a temporary restraining order in late January prohibiting immigration enforcement authorities from arresting or detaining refugees in Minnesota. The order also compelled the release of those detained.

On Feb. 9, Judge Tunheim denied the government’s request to dissolve that temporary order and reiterated that the Trump administration’s legal rationale for arresting refugees in Minnesota is unlikely to succeed. The judge has noted the government appears to be relying on an unprecedented interpretation of immigration law.

Judge Tunheim will hold a hearing Thursday to consider a preliminary injunction in the case, which could replace the temporary restraining order.

What is happening to refugees in Minnesota?

Refugees undergo extensive vetting before being admitted to the U.S. They must demonstrate they have been persecuted – or have a well-founded fear of persecution – based on their identity. The Trump administration and its supporters have warned that refugees from countries hostile to the U.S. could pose national security threats.

When Operation PARRIS launched, immigration authorities announced they were initially focused on 5,600 refugees in Minnesota who had not yet attained green cards. A federal class-action lawsuit has meanwhile been filed by a group of Minnesota refugees and the nonprofit Advocates for Human Rights to stop arrests and detentions that they allege are without warrants or probable cause.

In court documents, plaintiffs described what they say happened to several refugees, identified by their initials. “D. Doe,” for example, was at home on Jan. 11 when a man in plain clothes knocked at his door and told him he’d hit his car, the complaint says.

When D. Doe went to look, according to the document, he was “surrounded by armed men” and handcuffed, then taken to a detention center in Minnesota and flown to Texas, where he was later released on the street. In a separate court filing, Tauria Rich, ICE’s deputy field office director in St. Paul, said detainees were sent across the country due to the “lack of available bedspace in Minnesota,” which she blamed on state obstruction.

Another refugee, referred to as “U.H.A.”, was driving to work when DHS officers stopped him, ordered him out of his car, and then handcuffed and detained him, without apparent justification, the complaint alleges.

Marc Prokosch, an immigration lawyer in the Twin Cities area, said last month that he had started prewriting habeas corpus petitions for refugee clients who might be detained. That way, he could challenge their arrest in federal court in Minnesota before his clients were flown out of state.

Since early January, the International Institute of Minnesota has tracked 12 refugee clients without green cards who have been arrested under Operation PARRIS. Some have since been approved for green cards, and all have been released, according to the nonprofit. All came to the U.S. during the Biden administration.

Jane Graupman, the institute’s executive director, says she has never seen anything like this in her more than three decades with the institute.

“Refugees have just left persecution in their own country,” she says. “It is very heartbreaking to see them living in such fear now in this country.”

Beyond the arrests, which advocates say have halted, refugees in Minnesota have received notices from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to appear for in-person interviews at that agency’s St. Paul field office. At least some of these “call-in letters,” reviewed by the Monitor, say to bring any spouse or children over age 14 who were admitted along with the main applicant.

Representatives from the organizations World Relief and International Refugee Assistance Project say the interviews can last three to eight hours. They also say refugees are still afraid to leave their homes, despite a lower risk of detention.

What is the Trump administration’s argument?

The government points to immigration law to defend its actions.

After a refugee’s first year here, immigration law requires them to apply for a green card, also known as lawful permanent resident status. The law says after that year, the refugee shall “return or be returned to the custody of the Department of Homeland Security for inspection and examination for admission to the United States.”

The word “custody” is key. The Trump administration is interpreting “custody” to mean refugees should be physically detained. Immigration advocates say this reading is new and overlooks the review process already in place as refugees apply for green cards.

How has the court weighed in so far?

In his Jan. 28 order, Judge Tunheim said the government’s interpretation of “custody” in the statute is unlikely to succeed in court.

“At its best, America serves as a haven of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty,” he wrote. “We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos.”

The judge also noted that the order does not impact the “lawful enforcement of immigration laws” by the Department of Homeland Security. DHS includes USCIS, the agency that oversees lawful immigration, and Operation PARRIS.

“The swift reinterpretation of long-held and consistently understood applications of the law raises serious constitutional questions,” Judge Tunheim wrote in his Feb. 9 order.

How has the government responded?

USCIS defends Operation PARRIS as necessary to tackle fraud, and says it’s being stymied by an “activist order.” Judge Tunheim was appointed to the bench by former Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1995.

“This operation in Minnesota demonstrates that the Trump administration will not stand idly by as the U.S. immigration system is weaponized by those seeking to defraud the American people,” said Matthew Tragesser, a USCIS spokesperson, in a statement. It’s unclear to what extent, since arresting the refugees, the PARRIS effort has uncovered suspected fraud.

The court loss is “yet another lawless and activist order from the federal judiciary who continues to undermine our immigration laws,” said Mr. Tragesser. “We look forward to being vindicated in court. American citizens and the rule of law come first, always.”

USCIS declined an interview request and did not directly address several questions sent by the Monitor.

A novel reading of the law doesn’t make it incorrect, says Andrew Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for low immigration.

“The way that we’ve just always done things in immigration … doesn’t always comport with the language of the statute,” says Mr. Arthur, who served as associate general counsel at the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. “The ultimate interpretation of the law rests with the judiciary.”

How does all of this fit with broader policies on refugees?

The Trump administration’s refugee arrests align with broader efforts to strip lawfully present immigrants of deportation protections and tighten scrutiny of others who wish to remain.

After federal officials accused an Afghan national of the fatal shooting of a National Guard member and the wounding of another in November, USCIS announced stricter vetting for nationals of several countries and paused all asylum decisions outside of immigration court. The suspect did not enter the U.S. as a refugee.

This fiscal year, Mr. Trump has set a cap on refugee admissions at 7,500 – the lowest since Congress created the program in 1980. Refugee admissions reached over 100,000 under Mr. Biden in fiscal 2024, his last full year in office, a 30-year high.

Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration; Migration Policy Institute

Under President Biden, the largest numbers of refugees came from Africa and the Middle East, with a significant increase in arrivals from Latin America.

Now, Mr. Trump is prioritizing the admission of Afrikaners, who are white South Africans, after suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program on his first day back in office. Between October 2025 and the end of January, the administration admitted three refugees from Afghanistan and 1,648 from South Africa, according to State Department data.

With ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in custody in New York, and his decapitated regime in Caracas quietly cooperating with the United States, President Donald Trump has shifted his hostile refrain to Cuba.

“Cuba is a failing nation,” Mr. Trump has been saying recently. “It is down for the count.”

And with the Trump administration’s severing of Cuba’s Venezuelan oil lifeline – and a Jan. 29 executive order threatening stiff tariffs on any country supplying the island nation with oil – that assessment looks increasingly accurate.

Why We Wrote This

Deteriorating conditions in Cuba, amid the Trump administration’s aggressive posture toward the Western Hemisphere, are feeding a debate in Washington: Regime change or a deal? Experts say the latter is more likely, while a bigger strategic goal might be to curb China’s presence on the island.

The oil blockade has quickly led Cuba to enact harsh measures, including a halt to all public transportation, the declaration of a four-day work week, the closure of the tourist hotels that provided much-needed revenue, and mounting blackouts.

Families already enduring harsh living conditions are turning to wood and coal for cooking. Some international airlines have canceled their flights to the island.

The rapidly deteriorating conditions in Cuba are feeding an intensifying debate in Washington: deal or regime change? Should Mr. Trump go for a Venezuela-type bargain that leaves a cooperative segment of the existing government in place? Or should he squeeze until he brings down a communist regime that has been a U.S. bête noire since 1959?

The president’s rhetoric might suggest he favors the latter. Accordingly, some Cuban Americans have become suddenly rhapsodic over the prospects of an imminent return to rebuild a democratic and capitalist homeland, and perhaps reclaim properties they left behind some seven decades ago.

Gradual change vs. chaos

Yet anyone hoping for quick regime change in Havana is likely in for disappointment, many regional experts say.

Instead, most expect to see unrelenting U.S. economic pressure leading to some kind of agreement between the Trump administration and Cuban power brokers that favors gradual change on the island over sudden collapse and chaos.

Such a deal might be negotiated with the Cuban government. But for some former U.S. officials and experts, it’s more likely that meaningful talks would be – and if swirling rumors are correct, already are – held with other powerful circles. Among the candidates: senior military leaders, who have long held a tight grip on the economy, or “retired” decision-makers, including Raúl Castro, the former president and the late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro’s nonagenarian brother.

“Trump says we are talking to ‘the highest people in Cuba’ to get a deal, and that may or may not be true,” says Michael Rubin, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

“But what we do know is that if we are talking to any real decision-makers, then it is not with the current president, [Miguel] Díaz-Canel, who is a mere figurehead,” he adds. “It would have to be with someone or a group that matters.”

Dr. Rubin says that could be with what he calls the “troika” – three aging former leaders led by Mr. Castro – or government officials who accept that a deal with the United States is inevitable. Or, with powerful military leaders willing to compromise with the U.S. to keep their share of the economy.

The real focus is China

Still, any discussion of a “deal” raises the question: In the case of Cuba, what is President Trump looking for?

Whereas the major strategic U.S. “get” in Venezuela was access to the country’s oil (and cutting it off from adversaries), what the Trump administration might be going for in Cuba is ouster not of the regime, some experts say, but of China.

“The more strategic goal here ... is getting China but also Russia away from using Cuba as a forward operating base for their intelligence and even military activities,” says Christopher Hernandez-Roy, deputy director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. That goal, he notes, “is 100% in line with the recent National Security Strategy that zeroes in on removing China from strategic locations in the Western Hemisphere.”

“Trump is talking a lot about Greenland, and earlier about the Panama Canal and other places in the hemisphere,” he adds, “but there is no more strategic location than 90 miles off the Florida Keys.”

The Cuban government insists that China has no intelligence-gathering infrastructure on the island. But numerous U.S. government and national security think-tank reports over recent years have asserted that such spy bases indeed exist, as they do in other Latin American countries with close ties to China.

In the debate over deal vs. regime change, many experts and some officials willing to speak under condition of anonymity say the wild card in deciding which option will prevail is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was born in Miami to Cuban parents.

Mr. Rubio’s standing with President Trump has vaulted ever higher in recent months. And he has long advocated – as a Florida senator and as a political darling of the South Florida Cuban exile community – a policy aimed at ridding Cuba of the revolution that prompted so many Cubans to leave their homeland.

For its part, the Cuban government says that, while it is open to talks with the U.S. that are “respectful of Cuba’s sovereignty,” none are currently underway.

The Venezuela model

Yet some experts caution that, as much as the exile community and some of the president’s close associates could be pressing for regime change, Mr. Trump might be better served by considering the potential ramifications of moving in that direction – and by hewing closer to a Venezuela model of action.

“Bringing about regime change in Cuba has been the great white whale for many conservatives for a very long time,” says Rosemary Kelanic, an expert in energy security and U.S. grand strategy at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank advocating a realist foreign policy. “This seems especially true in the South Florida Cuban community and in Trump’s circle of friends at Mar-a-Lago.”

“But while Trump is using oil to increase the pressure on the Cuban regime,” she adds, “I think the Venezuela model and Trump's talk of a ‘deal’ suggests he could have something other than full regime change in mind.”

Dr. Kelanic says unrelenting pressure on Cuba risks destabilizing it and causing a humanitarian disaster just 90 miles off the Florida coast. “The consequences could include refugee outflows from Cuba into Florida,” she adds, “so there’s a real risk of blowback affecting an issue this administration cares about deeply.”

Forcing regime change would “require deploying the Marines to Cuba’s beaches, and that just isn’t in the cards for a president who is not in favor of boots-on-the-ground options,” says Mr. Hernandez-Roy. Instead, he foresees what he calls “regime management” that employs economic pressure to nudge gradual political change.

“Unlike Venezuela, Cuba has no democratic muscle memory to assist with quick political change,” he says.

As for who the Trump administration might turn to for meaningful talks, Mr. Hernandez-Roy says to keep an eye on Raúl Castro’s son, Alejandro Castro Espín, who was the Obama administration’s behind-the-scenes interlocutor on normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.

Dr. Rubin notes that more than 2 million Cubans have fled the island in recent years, many of them professionals and members of the middle class, driven out by economic collapse. He says that group might be encouraged to return and participate in Cuba’s political and economic restructuring.

In terms of what Mr. Trump might want from any negotiations with Cuba, Dr. Rubin advises keeping in mind that the president is a real estate dealmaker who relishes the idea of accomplishing what other presidents couldn’t.

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Especially appealing to Mr. Trump, he says, would be “putting hotels carrying his name on Cuba’s beaches.”

Those signs would be a constant reminder that while Cuba’s communist government stymied 12 U.S. presidents, it was President Trump who finally defeated it.