A century ago, transportation manufacturers came up with a simple idea: Install a switch to kill the motor before an airplane overshoots the runway or a conductor loses control of a streetcar. Now, U.S. policymakers are pushing the same idea for artificial intelligence. This time, however, an AI kill switch might prove far more complicated.

The challenges are numerous. Whereas traditional machines can actually have an on-off switch, AI is by nature a tangled mass of software – not neat lines of human-written code – functioning in ways that even its human developers don’t fully understand. The challenge of how to assure human control may only grow because of what technologists call the “lie detector problem” – the fact that some AI systems have been developing deceptive behavior, even while ostensibly designed and trained to serve humans.

And if a kill switch is deployed, what happens next? Will humans be able to know how to fix the problems that triggered a halt?

Amid a debate over how to regulate advanced artificial intelligence products, one idea is to create better emergency shut-off options. But that raises the question of how humans can exert control over technology they may not fully understand.

What industry leaders agree on is that greater safety mechanisms are needed.

What would a kill switch do?

Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are creating AI agents, products that other companies purchase to carry out specific tasks, such as reviewing mortgage applications or combing through millions of financial transactions to find examples of money laundering.

Increasingly, they are programmed to act independently, making their own decisions in a move that the tech companies say adds efficiency and speed to the work. Unfortunately, in a mounting number of cases these bots or agents have engaged in harmful behaviors their designers say go far beyond the instructions given to them, such as hacking into a rival company or government computer system.

In theory, a kill switch would allow operators to stop AI agents from such harmful behaviors. Because AI can take different forms, kill-switch capabilities could range from taking an entire leading AI model offline to smaller steps like being able to revoke permission for an AI agent (created by that model) to keep operating.

“The ability to switch off AI is only part of the broader challenge,” Philip Ridley of the cybersecurity firm CyberOne wrote in a September online post.

Other key steps include being able to detect that problems exist, and having strategies to mitigate them, whether using a kill switch is part of the process or not.

Why has the idea gained urgency now?

In July, an OpenAI security test of cutting-edge technology went drastically wrong. Agents broke out of their restricted digital space, or “sandbox,” and invaded another company’s computer systems in their quest to complete a human-assigned task – a cybersecurity evaluation. In the process, they disobeyed protocols, cheated, and tried to cover up their tracks. In all, some 700 agents found a way to communicate, using an unauthorized message board, and coordinate an attack on the computer systems of fellow AI company Hugging Face.

It’s not an isolated incident of misalignment, where AI agents don’t operate within the guidelines that their human developers set. More recently, OpenAI revealed that its AI agents inappropriately accessed the websites of federal agencies. The news site Axios has reported that OpenAI and rival AI lab Anthropic, as well as security researchers, are investigating tens of thousands of “problematic” incidents involving cutting-edge AI models.

These revelations raise serious questions about whether the companies are doing enough to control their own technology. In its report about the Hugging Face incident, OpenAI pointed out that it purposely reduced its safeguards in order to robustly test an AI model never intended to be released to the public. Nevertheless, it warned: “Our models are now powerful, persistent, and collaborative enough that, absent sufficient safeguards, they can find and exploit security weaknesses across multiple computer systems. Many external models, including open-source ones, will soon reach comparable capabilities.”

What can be done?

AI companies, security researchers, and policymakers are hard at work on that question.

Some experts argue that, ultimately, the way to defeat trouble-making AI agents will be with AI countermeasures to find and combat them. Others emphasize that, however rapidly AI can develop, safety will hinge on holding humans accountable for the models they enable. Partly, that means mandatory ways to rein in their models when needed.

As a first step, policymakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress have put forward the idea of an AI kill switch. In July, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California and Republican Rep. Nathaniel Moran of Texas introduced the AI Kill Switch Act. In September two Republicans, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey and Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, introduced the AI Emergency Button Act in their respective chambers. California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom also has proposed, among other things, a kill switch for cutting-edge or frontier models.

Can it work?

It depends on the scope of the problem. If the troublesome model were confined to computers controlled by its operator, it would be easier to pull the plug (although problems could still arise). If misaligned agents coded by the AI model spread outside the operator’s control, it could prove far more difficult to locate and terminate those agents, researchers say.

Another challenge: The AI appears to be getting smarter faster than humans can put up guardrails. For example: The agents in the Hugging Face incident tried but ultimately failed to cover their tracks. Smarter agents might be able to cloak their actions such that human monitors might not know that something was wrong. The agents might even be able to disable the kill switch, says Mark Nitzberg, executive director of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley.

“We can do something useful with the kill switch idea, but we have a bigger challenge ahead of us to make trustworthy advanced AI systems,” he says. That might include a federal office that audits new AI models, a standard-setting committee, or even a pause in AI development while regulators catch up to the technology.

Other big questions remain, such as whether these safety efforts should rest in the hands of AI developers or government. Who tests the software? Who has the power and duty to throw the kill switch: a government official or the companies themselves?

“I’m skeptical of an industry-led effort,” says Daniel Schiff, a professor of technology policy at Purdue University.

One reason is that companies may be driven by financial incentives to put corporate ambition ahead of public safety. Yet government entities aren’t necessarily well positioned either.

“The pace of the economic pressure is faster than our regulatory or best practice development,” says Professor Schiff, a co-director of GRAIL, the Governance and Responsible AI Lab.

Should I stop using AI?

Tech experts generally say no.

People by and large are still using AI to seek information from chatbots, which pose much less of a threat than the agents that are just beginning to appear in the public domain.

Companies such as Meta and OpenAI introduced their agents in September, billing them as personal assistants that can find and book vacation flights and hotels, or analyze your email to create a to-do list with deadlines.

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Researchers say the incidents of potential danger are more likely to lie with agents at the cutting edge of technology, which are still being tested by labs.

Staff writer Zachery Proctor contributed to this article.

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The United States is at a crossroads on the divisive question of capital punishment after a botched execution of a Tennessee woman was followed this week by the Trump administration’s announcement of plans to livestream an upcoming firing squad execution.

Tennessee saw its second bungled execution in six months on Sept. 30, when a lethal chemical failed to kill Christa Pike, a convicted murderer. Just over a week later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that military death row inmate Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 soldiers and wounded 32 others at a U.S. Army base in Texas in 2009, would be put to death via firing squad. The Pentagon has said it will be livestreamed for the public.

The events, taken together, have fueled a new phase in the public debate about the overall use – and moral implications – of the death penalty. Mr. Hasan’s execution would be the first military execution since 1961.

Capital punishment remains a fraught issue for Americans. A bungled execution attempt and plans to livestream a firing squad are reigniting debate over the role of the death penalty in the U.S. justice system. 

“It’s not unheard-of to find some way to have people see [an execution], but to have it actually public, this would be an entirely new thing,” says Michael Trotti, a legal historian at Ithaca College and author of “The End of Public Execution: Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South.”

“It is just so far down the list in terms of what most people think of as being the most humane that it seems like the purpose of it is to shock.”

While several Republican lawmakers said Friday that they welcomed a livestreamed execution as a deterrent, other GOP members rejected the Pentagon’s proposal as a corrosive spectacle. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” said Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. “It should not be happening in America.” Vice President JD Vance said, “If livestreamed, I’m not going to be watching.”

Witnessing graphic executions could end up being a public spectacle, an effective deterrent for other would-be criminals, a matter of public revulsion, or all three, says Michael Radelet, a sociology professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder, who has studied the history of botched executions. One possible consequence, he says, is that graphic public executions “would likely fuel anti-death penalty sentiment.”

Current capital punishment law

The death penalty is legal in 27 states, plus under federal and U.S. military law, though four states have governor-imposed moratoriums on capital punishment. Once public spectacles, executions now occur privately inside prisons, with only a handful of official witnesses and a press pool.

While lethal injection is the national norm, states vary; South Carolina defaults to electrocution, and Idaho uniquely mandates the firing squad as its primary method. Nine states authorize the electric chair, while only five – Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah – allow firing squads. On March 7, 2025, South Carolina executed Brad Sigmon by firing squad, marking the first U.S. use of the method in 15 years.

In the recent case of Ms. Pike, the debate around death penalty practices erupted after two injections of a strong sedative failed to complete a jury’s order of death for her role in a 1995 murder.

Her lawyers are now arguing that subjecting her to another execution by a method that she survived amounts to a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. “The state can’t guarantee that would be avoided the second time,” says Christopher Slobogin, director of the Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt Law School.

“If she wins that, lethal injection would be off the table,” adds Professor Slobogin. “This is such a mess that the right move is probably to commute the sentence, because that would nullify the hullabaloo about whether the state is able to carry out any execution completely.”

Execution politics

Americans are divided on their views of the death penalty. Overall support for capital punishment has been declining since the early 1990s, according to Gallup polling. Support peaked in 1994 at 80%. By 2025, Gallup data showed support had dropped to a five-decade low of 52%.

In the last decade, four states have repealed the death penalty, and another, Washington, took this sanction off its statutes after the state Supreme Court struck it down. Meanwhile, a few other states, such as Florida and South Carolina, have stepped up the pace of executions.

As for public exposure, there are precursors to the possible livestreaming of Mr. Hasan’s execution. The execution of the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was streamed via a closed circuit so survivors and family members of those killed could watch. And in the mid-1990s, talk show host Phil Donahue, who opposed the death penalty, tried to get approval to show an execution videotape on live TV. But the Supreme Court denied his request.

Executing Mr. Hasan publicly might turn out to be a moment for Americans to reevaluate capital punishment practices more directly, some legal experts say.

“If we really want to kill people in a competent way and do things efficiently, a firing squad might be the best way to go,” says Professor Slobogin. Lethal injection might seem less cruel, he says, but it also presents possible complications.

Another question, says Professor Trotti at Ithaca College, is whether a public execution portrays strength or provokes horror.

Adds Professor Slobogin, “This is the conversation we’re having.”

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The Department of Homeland Security has renewed its bashing of what it calls sanctuary policies in New York City, after one of its officers shot an immigrant there with a child in the car. As the mayor escalates calls to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement following Thursday’s shooting – one of several this year – legal limits to ICE’s attempts to get help from the state have come to the fore.

The shooting occurred during an attempt to arrest an unauthorized immigrant from the Dominican Republic with a criminal record and gang ties, DHS said. At least one officer fired seven times, local police say, while a 5-year-old child was with the man in his car.

Legal advocates and officials have identified the man shot as Oscar Belgal. Federal officials say Mr. Belgal refused lawful orders from officers who blocked him in, and he then accelerated and smashed into ICE vehicles. He was hospitalized and survived – as did the child, who wasn’t physically harmed or known to officers at the time, DHS said.

The Trump administration is using a federal officer’s shooting of an immigrant in New York City to accuse local officials of providing sanctuary to dangerous individuals. New York is an example of the varying levels of cooperation that immigration officials have achieved across the United States.

While DHS has spelled the man’s last name as Bengal, his legal counsel uses Belgal.

In addition to various arrests, DHS said Mr. Belgal has a conviction for grand larceny, which the Monitor could not immediately confirm. Police arrested Mr. Belgal in December 2023, but he was released a few days later, DHS said.

“ICE undermines public safety,” said Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has called for the agency to end operations in the city. “They are making New Yorkers terrified.”

In the immigration context, sanctuary often implies places that limit cooperation with federal immigration officials.

“Sanctuary politicians, they create an environment for criminal activity to thrive,” said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin at a press conference Friday.

Since January 2025, the secretary said, his department has brought nearly 15,000 detainers in New York for immigrants the administration calls criminals. But those requests were met with “absolute silence.”

The finger-pointing escalates a long-standing argument between places led by Democrats and the federal government over federal immigration law – and who should help enforce it.

Detainers

In New York, state law bans partnerships with ICE made through 287(g) agreements. That federal program deputizes local and state law enforcement with certain immigration authorities, which some New York sheriffs want.

Separate from those agreements, though, is the issue of ICE detainers. Those are requests from ICE to law enforcement agencies that ask for notification ahead of an immigrant’s release from detention and a hold of up to 48 hours beyond the ordinary release so that DHS can take custody.

Marcos Charles, head of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, said Friday that there was a detainer for Mr. Belgal, though he didn’t say when that request was filed. The New York Police Department did not immediately respond to several questions, including for confirmation of the detainer.

“Yesterday could have been prevented,” had Mr. Belgal been previously transferred to ICE in a jail setting, says Scott Mechkowski, a former ICE official who worked in New York. “We would be negligent in our duties” if ICE didn’t file detainers ahead of the release of immigrants with criminal records, he says.

However, a state court decision complicates the Trump administration’s demand for compliance. In 2018, a New York appeals court ruled that holding someone beyond their ordinary release, for the purpose of federal immigration arrests, is illegal. The state attorney general says local law enforcement can’t typically pursue such detentions without a warrant signed by a judge.

Even beyond New York, “Generally speaking, ICE detainers are not judicial warrants. ... They do not have the status of a detainer in the criminal system,” says David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law who has studied the intersection of criminal and immigration law.

Jurisdictions might choose to honor civil ICE detainers, but those requests don’t have the same legal weight as a court order, he says.

Despite noncooperation from officials in New York, ICE has continued arrests there.

This summer, the monthlong Operation Rotten Apple alone led to the arrests of 2,197 unauthorized immigrants across the state, which included “murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug traffickers, and violent assailants,” DHS said. As of this summer, ICE reported that convicted criminals made up less than a third of its detainees.

For now, Mr. Belgal appears to remain in ICE custody. Make the Road New York, an immigrant advocacy group, is asking a federal judge for his release.

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“We are calling for a thorough investigation ... and for accountability for those responsible,” Yaritza Mendez, deputy director for the group, said in a statement.

DHS said an ICE law enforcement branch – criminal investigators at Homeland Security Investigations – arrived at the shooting scene, along with the FBI. The FBI’s New York office said its evidence response team was supporting DHS partners.

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On Sept. 16, a former Cornell University student filed a civil lawsuit alleging that she was gang-raped at a fraternity house in 2024. Within days, her complaint – which names fraternity members and others, and blames Cornell and its police department for failure to act on her original report – became a focus of intense public attention.

The story’s details are one reason: The woman says she was “incapacitated” by alcohol and drugs during a sexual encounter that escalated to involve multiple men.

But there’s another reason, experts say, for the firestorm. A broad set of issues is woven into the Cornell rape story. These include ongoing debates over the trustworthiness of police and institutions. Perhaps equally prominent is fallout from the #MeToo movement spotlighting sexual harassment and assault of women, and the apparent lack of accountability for well-connected men accused of sexual crimes in the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Americans’ responses to the Cornell rape allegations include scrutiny of both the alleged victim and the people and institutions accused of failing her. Those views are informed by recent high-profile and emotionally charged issues, including the #MeToo movement and the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Erik Nisbet, a communications professor at Northwestern University, says the Cornell case has hit a cultural nerve that was already “exposed and vulnerable” in the wake of the controversy involving Mr. Epstein, who was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution and who died in prison of what was determined to be suicide. His case is believed to be connected to many high-profile people, and some believe evidence such as a “client list” has been suppressed.

“I think most importantly, from the public’s perspective and linking back to Epstein and #MeToo as well, is the idea of the institution failing that victim,” Professor Nisbet says.

The Cornell case is perfectly calibrated for platform amplification on social media. It’s a narrative that’s emotionally charged, provokes outrage, and drives engagement, he says.

“You know, what type of content goes viral? Highly emotional content, that social media algorithms tend to reward within the attention economy.”

That attention, says Omar Wasow, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, is boosted by the nature of the case: “There is a clear good guy and a bad guy. The fact that this is seven against one gives this story a certain quality: There is a bully and a victim.”

But people might get information from outlets that reinforce their opinions about an event, meaning that in this case, they will have different definitions about who the “good guy” and “bad guy” are. The United States’ political divisions are at play, as well, says Abigail Saguy, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Sexual assault cases on college campuses tend to reinvigorate debates that have been around for decades, Professor Saguy says, such as the presence of rape culture in fraternity houses, or whether Title IX standards go too far in accusing and punishing young men.

In the Cornell case, students protested this week, calling for school President Michael Kotlikoff to resign for what they say is his mishandling of the case. Two students were expelled, and two received lengthy suspensions. Others were asked to write “reflection papers” about their actions (one, who says he was briefly in the room but did nothing wrong, is now suing Cornell). Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates is reviewing Cornell’s actions. No criminal charges were filed by the local district attorney, although New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading a new criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, conservative writers have questioned the motives of Jane Doe, noting that her description of events seemed to change from the original report, and challenging the strength of the evidence. Jane Doe’s attorney has told reporters that his client has received death threats.

People are identifying with different actors in this drama, Professor Saguy says.

Many young women see this case as a confirmation of conversations about rape culture entrenched in campus life, especially in fraternities. About 1 in 5 women say they have experienced sexual assault while in college, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, and a growing body of academic research examines how people process trauma and why they might change their stories or delay reporting assaults.

Others see this case as an example of the political left’s failure to distinguish between immoral and illegal acts, and its confusing of consent in the moment with regret after the fact. They also say it points to issues with Title IX enforcement. Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sexual harassment, assault, rape, and stalking, and it requires schools that receive federal funding to investigate all allegations of sexual misconduct and respond.

Rachel Vogelstein, a Columbia University professor and director of the Ann F. Kaplan Women’s Initiative, says that the Cornell case shows how the #MeToo movement is evolving. It emerged as a precursor to the criminal prosecution of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and raised awareness about widespread sexual assault and sexual violence. Now, women are posting on social media “I am Jane Doe” in solidarity with the alleged victim.

“Women are saying, ‘You can’t isolate this woman,’ right? ‘You can’t make her bear the cost of coming forward alone,’” Professor Vogelstein says. “And so that’s a shift from the kind of individual testimony we saw in the #MeToo era, to kind of collective protection and solidarity.”

Aldon Morris, professor emeritus of sociology at Northwestern University, says even Americans who don’t take part in protests have some broad understanding of the issues underlying the Cornell case. He credits the work by activists in previous movements like #MeToo, which, he says, created “the context for the issues that make this case unignorable.”

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He says he remains hopeful that student activism will keep up the pressure to ensure that society gets better at dealing with sexual assault. Watching student protesters at Cornell, he notes that they were both men and women, whom he describes as “children” of #MeToo and other movements.

“They know the context for these issues,” he says.

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Americans say they’re looking for generational change in Congress.

Members are, on average, two decades older than the American public. At a time when 3 out of 4 senators are baby boomers or Silent Generation, public polling shows most Americans favor age and term limits. And recently, the public has criticized members for being out of touch with issues like artificial intelligence that may be more easily understood by digital natives.

It appears some change is coming. In 27 House races in which an incumbent is leaving or lost a primary, the seat will get younger, according to a Monitor analysis. In 21 of those, the new representative will be at least a decade younger. And in four, like the one for retiring Texas Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett’s seat, a departing baby boomer will be replaced by a millennial – someone almost two generations younger.

Some members of Congress have been criticized for staying on the job so long that they lose touch with issues affecting many Americans. Retirements and other departures, however, are opening the door for younger lawmakers who may prioritize different issues.

It’s a similar story in the Senate, where in 11 of 14 open races, both candidates are younger than the departing incumbent (including the race for former GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham’s seat, where his replacement Darline Graham was appointed, not elected).

“We seem to be reaching an inflection point,” says Jim Curry, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame who co-authored a study on lawmaker age and representation in Congress. “After 10, 15 or so years of Congress and its leaders continuing to age ... we’re starting to suddenly see that shift.”

The shift won’t be dramatic. Despite voters who are dissatisfied with older generations dominating Congress, many incumbents beat out younger challengers to win their primaries over the summer. But the institution is seeing near-historic rates of members retiring or running for other offices, opening the door for a new generation of lawmakers.

That matters, says Dr. Curry, because those new lawmakers will share lived experience with a wider range of Americans and could prioritize different things than legislators who have been in office for decades. Experts point to 1974, when voters elected the “Watergate babies,” a new class of younger, reform-minded Democrats after President Richard Nixon’s resignation.

“The types of issues that lawmakers may be attracted to, or drawn to, or focus their time on, is related to their age,” says Dr. Curry. “Younger lawmakers are going to bring more energy, attention, effort towards issues ... that are more important to younger Americans.”

Representing younger Americans

Experts point out that younger generations of lawmakers tend to be closer to issues that particularly affect Americans of their age bracket. Layla Zaidane, president of the Future Caucus, a group that supports millennial and Generation Z lawmakers of any party, says younger members elected in recent years were central in making student debt a national issue. The average amount of student debt owed by households increased more than threefold between 1992 and 2022, even after adjusting for inflation, making it a particularly salient issue for these generations.

There are plenty of other issues that resonate with a new generation.

“You look at the challenges facing younger voters,” says Timothy Nokken, an associate professor of political science at Texas Tech University. “Things like health insurance, careers, buying a home. ... Those older folks [in Congress] I don’t think quite have a grasp of how challenging the landscape is in economics.”

Events and trends can also linger in a generation’s collective memory, defining their approach to politics. Dr. Curry calls events like the Sept. 11 attacks “generational moments” that shape what people of a certain age bracket consider important or how they might react to news events. Older generations like baby boomers tend to be more critical of socialism, which many experts attribute to the fact that they lived through the Cold War.

“You certainly have generational splits within the Democratic Party over issues like Israel-Palestine,” says Eric Schickler, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. “Younger members came of age in a different period with respect to what was going on in the Middle East, and so might have different assumptions than older members about that.”

Republicans, meanwhile, have seen generational divides emerge in recent years on issues like America’s openness to newcomers, the necessity of business regulation, and attitudes toward President Donald Trump, according to a Brookings Institution study.

Approach to lawmaking

Members from younger generations might also have different approaches to the lawmaking and governing process. New members tend to be more likely to challenge party leadership, experts say, although it can be difficult to know with certainty whether that’s due to generational attitudes or simply to freshman members being impatient to have their voices heard.

Dr. Schickler speculates younger Democrats might be less willing to take party leadership’s cues or to “understand that [they] probably can’t have every fight that [they] want to have against President Trump.”

Democrats, for example, could present House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries with “some pretty hard competing demands,” he says.

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Ms. Zaidane cautions against making assumptions about how a generation will approach leadership. Her organization found that among 2024 general election candidates, those from Gen Z – born between 1997 and 2012 – were more likely to run as third-party or unaffiliated candidates than any other age bracket. She says this challenges narratives that younger generations tend to take more extreme positions or be more ideologically partisan.

“There’s a lot more nuance to their set of issues and their views that can’t really be summed up by a stereotype,” she says.

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Americans say they’re looking for generational change in Congress.

Members are, on average, two decades older than the American public. At a time when 3 out of 4 senators are baby boomers or Silent Generation, public polling shows most Americans favor age and term limits. And recently, the public has criticized members for being out of touch with issues like artificial intelligence that may be more easily understood by digital natives.

It appears some change is coming. In 27 House races in which an incumbent is leaving or lost a primary, the seat will get younger, according to a Monitor analysis. In 21 of those, the new representative will be at least a decade younger. And in four, like the one for retiring Texas Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett’s seat, a departing baby boomer will be replaced by a millennial – someone almost two generations younger.

Some members of Congress have been criticized for staying on the job so long that they lose touch with issues affecting many Americans. Retirements and other departures, however, are opening the door for younger lawmakers who may prioritize different issues.

It’s a similar story in the Senate, where in 11 of 14 open races, both candidates are younger than the departing incumbent (including the race for former GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham’s seat, where his replacement Darline Graham was appointed, not elected).

“We seem to be reaching an inflection point,” says Jim Curry, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame who co-authored a study on lawmaker age and representation in Congress. “After 10, 15 or so years of Congress and its leaders continuing to age ... we’re starting to suddenly see that shift.”

The shift won’t be dramatic. Despite voters who are dissatisfied with older generations dominating Congress, many incumbents beat out younger challengers to win their primaries over the summer. But the institution is seeing near-historic rates of members retiring or running for other offices, opening the door for a new generation of lawmakers.

That matters, says Dr. Curry, because those new lawmakers will share lived experience with a wider range of Americans and could prioritize different things than legislators who have been in office for decades. Experts point to 1974, when voters elected the “Watergate babies,” a new class of younger, reform-minded Democrats after President Richard Nixon’s resignation.

“The types of issues that lawmakers may be attracted to, or drawn to, or focus their time on, is related to their age,” says Dr. Curry. “Younger lawmakers are going to bring more energy, attention, effort towards issues ... that are more important to younger Americans.”

Representing younger Americans

Experts point out that younger generations of lawmakers tend to be closer to issues that particularly affect Americans of their age bracket. Layla Zaidane, president of the Future Caucus, a group that supports millennial and Generation Z lawmakers of any party, says younger members elected in recent years were central in making student debt a national issue. The average amount of student debt owed by households increased more than threefold between 1992 and 2022, even after adjusting for inflation, making it a particularly salient issue for these generations.

There are plenty of other issues that resonate with a new generation.

“You look at the challenges facing younger voters,” says Timothy Nokken, an associate professor of political science at Texas Tech University. “Things like health insurance, careers, buying a home. ... Those older folks [in Congress] I don’t think quite have a grasp of how challenging the landscape is in economics.”

Events and trends can also linger in a generation’s collective memory, defining their approach to politics. Dr. Curry calls events like the Sept. 11 attacks “generational moments” that shape what people of a certain age bracket consider important or how they might react to news events. Older generations like baby boomers tend to be more critical of socialism, which many experts attribute to the fact that they lived through the Cold War.

“You certainly have generational splits within the Democratic Party over issues like Israel-Palestine,” says Eric Schickler, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. “Younger members came of age in a different period with respect to what was going on in the Middle East, and so might have different assumptions than older members about that.”

Republicans, meanwhile, have seen generational divides emerge in recent years on issues like America’s openness to newcomers, the necessity of business regulation, and attitudes toward President Donald Trump, according to a Brookings Institution study.

Approach to lawmaking

Members from younger generations might also have different approaches to the lawmaking and governing process. New members tend to be more likely to challenge party leadership, experts say, although it can be difficult to know with certainty whether that’s due to generational attitudes or simply to freshman members being impatient to have their voices heard.

Dr. Schickler speculates younger Democrats might be less willing to take party leadership’s cues or to “understand that [they] probably can’t have every fight that [they] want to have against President Trump.”

Democrats, for example, could present House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries with “some pretty hard competing demands,” he says.

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Ms. Zaidane cautions against making assumptions about how a generation will approach leadership. Her organization found that among 2024 general election candidates, those from Gen Z – born between 1997 and 2012 – were more likely to run as third-party or unaffiliated candidates than any other age bracket. She says this challenges narratives that younger generations tend to take more extreme positions or be more ideologically partisan.

“There’s a lot more nuance to their set of issues and their views that can’t really be summed up by a stereotype,” she says.

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During his second term, President Donald Trump has been suing, threatening, and imposing penalties on universities that, in his view, have become promoters of radical leftist politics. Harvard University tops the list, singled out in part for alleged tolerance of antisemitism on campus.

The United States’ oldest and most prestigious university has pushed back, adopting a public profile of defiance that not every castigated university could afford to try. It didn’t capitulate in court and has not cut a deal with the Trump administration.

Yet the Trump administration’s antisemitism lawsuit and investigations, and everything that precipitated those – beginning with the university’s reaction to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 – forced a reckoning. Harvard has made changes that, in effect, reflect some concerns that the U.S. president raised. The changes, many underway before Mr. Trump’s reelection, are visible in efforts to combat antisemitism and elevate a climate where ideas can be freely expressed.

Harvard University faced the glare of lawsuits and investigations over allegations of antisemitism on campus. Recently, a federal judge dismissed an antisemitism lawsuit against the university, and the institution has surged in a free speech ranking.

Pressure on Harvard continues. And plenty of criticism might still come its way, whether from outnumbered conservatives on campus or pro-Palestinian protesters who argue their voices have been unfairly constrained as the university adapts.

But evidence from polling and interviews with students, faculty, and religious advisers suggest a campus that has become safer for the kind of open debate long seen as vital to the mission of any leading university. Some skeptical donors have returned to the Harvard fold. A federal judge over the summer dismissed the U.S. government’s lawsuit against the school over antisemitism on campus, saying the incidents the administration detailed were too “isolated and episodic” to demonstrate that Harvard was breaking the law. The school’s free speech rating, rock bottom in 2024, has surged, according to one widely watched index.

“The whole point of a university is to bring people together and exchange information,” says Jesse Fried, a Harvard Law School professor who served on the university’s antisemitism task force. He says the work the institution has put into a reckoning with free speech and student safety has prompted a deepening of its core values.

“Harvard can play a very useful function in the world by bringing together people ... and getting them to talk to each other,” he says.

Jewish students and campus rabbis now paint a far more nuanced picture of the campus than the federal government does. Many say conversations about Zionism and Israel remain fraught, that antisemitism sometimes rears its head, and that Harvard must push harder to foster free speech for all students.

And yet, most describe a campus not consumed by bigotry but having a vibrant Jewish community – and a university that has made missteps but seems committed to building something new.

“It is true that Harvard had an antisemitism problem,” says Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism and a visiting scholar at Harvard. He says the institution is “coming up with a good balance of protecting people through freedom of speech.”

“This is one of the best places to go to college in the world, and it will remain that way, and it will remain that way for Jewish students,” says Jerry Comar, a sophomore, at an event outside Harvard Chabad, an independent Jewish community center on campus.

“I won’t talk with that person”

To understand the changes, it’s helpful to recall where Harvard was a few years ago.

A pro-Palestinian student protest movement emerged at Harvard and universities across the country after Oct. 7, 2023, when a Hamas attack killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 250 more captive.

Controversy engulfed Harvard’s campus almost immediately. On Oct. 7, the undergraduate student group Palestine Solidarity Committee, alongside some 30 other student groups, released a statement calling Israel “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

The viral post – and a lack of response by the Harvard administration, led by then-President Claudine Gay – drew condemnation from Harvard alumni, including lawmakers, and from former Harvard President Lawrence Summers. Subsequent statements by Dr. Gay fell short of appeasing concerns, and by mid-October, several prominent donors publicly withdrew their support from Harvard over what they said was a “failure” to condemn Hamas.

Meanwhile, supporters of pro-Palestinian students raised concerns, too, with reports of a truck circling campus revealing the names and pictures of students thought to be affiliated with groups that signed the Palestine Solidarity Committee statement.

Rabbi Jason Rubinstein runs Harvard’s Hillel House, a center for Jewish life on campus. He says the Harvard administration had long struggled to “protect its own mission of teaching and learning and research from encroachments of people who said, ‘Oh, I won’t talk with that person. I won’t let them in my club.’”

Turmoil hit a zenith in December 2023 when U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Harvard alum, grilled Dr. Gay and two other university leaders at a congressional hearing. In widely criticized remarks, Dr. Gay gave legalistic answers when asked by Ms. Stefanik about whether calls for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment. After Dr. Gay said it “depends on the context,” Representative Stefanik called for her resignation.

Five days after her congressional testimony, allegations of academic plagiarism against Dr. Gray surfaced, and investigations into her academic work widened. On Jan. 2, 2024, she announced her resignation.

Alan Garber, the school’s long-serving provost, became interim president. His task: to move quickly to stabilize the school.

Debate over protests

Just over two weeks after his tenure began in January 2024, Dr. Garber, who is Jewish, announced the creation of two task forces: one to counter antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias, and another to counter anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias.

Almost concurrently, Harvard released updated guidelines prohibiting protests inside dorms, classrooms, and libraries. Indoor protests against Israel had become commonplace in the fall, rankling many Jewish students and faculty, who felt they inhibited their ability to use university spaces freely.

Protests that were “disturbing places where students [live] ... there’s no room for that. That should never have been able to occur,” says Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, who runs Harvard’s Chabad.

Soon after Dr. Garber’s task forces set up work, Harvard faced another test. In the spring of 2024, pro-Palestinian student protesters erected an encampment on Harvard Yard, staking a claim to the heart of the university’s 400-year-old campus. Students decried Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, which had killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Some Jewish students reported being verbally harassed while walking near the encampment.

Dr. Garber’s administration responded forcefully. Harvard placed at least 22 students involved in the encampment on involuntary leave. In a parallel process, the university suspended five students and prohibited 13 seniors from graduating. Ultimately, most of the punishments were rolled back, in part due to a faculty council finding them too severe.

That fall, pro-Palestinian students on campus argued that their free speech rights were being curtailed by some of Harvard’s new rules. At least 60 students were temporarily banned from the school’s flagship library after they worked there silently with signs condemning Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Turkey taped to their laptops.

Nationwide, Muslim and pro-Palestinian students argued that their speech had been stifled. Muslim students in particular “felt invisible when something happened to them,” says Saher Selod, director of research for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a think tank based in Dearborn, Michigan. “They felt like there was no structure in place to support them if they had experiences with someone discriminating against them for their religious identities.”

A call to action on free speech, constructive dialogue

As these tensions simmered on campus, the task forces addressing bias dug into their work, conducting listening sessions across campus. Each had 15 members, a mix of Harvard faculty, staff, and students.

The two groups say each reached around 500 students and employees, according to internal reports. They agreed on one central charge: Harvard had to do more to foster free speech and constructive dialogue, and live up to its stated values of celebrating diverse perspectives, for the good of all students.

In a survey that the task forces conducted jointly in 2024, and released in their final reports last year, 54% of Jewish students said they felt uncomfortable expressing their religion or ethnicity on campus, and 61% said they did not feel comfortable expressing their political opinions. In the same survey, 72% and 87% of Muslim students said the same to those questions, respectively.

Harvard administrators moved to adopt changes, several based on task force recommendations.

In 2024, Harvard added a supplemental essay question to its application that asks prospective students to detail an instance when they “strongly disagreed with someone” and how they engaged with that person.

Campus leaders provided training for teaching fellows to facilitate difficult classroom conversations, and funding for student events that bring people of different ideologies and cultures together.

Dr. Garber, who shed his “interim” title in August 2024, created a working group on constructive dialogue. He’s fundraising to endow new professorships in a viewpoint diversity initiative. A conservative legal scholar from the University of Notre Dame will join the Harvard Law faculty in January. Debates are in vogue on campus, including a “Change My Mind” debate Sept. 28 between a Harvard law professor and a conservative commentator.

Harvard’s free speech improvement “coincides with President Garber having the interim tag removed, being very clear about the importance of free speech, and directly opposing the efforts of the Trump administration to reform higher education,” says Sean Stevens, chief researcher at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Harvard surged up 174 places in its ranking of free speech on college campuses after coming in last in 2024 and 2025.

Rabbi Zarchi says that Harvard’s leadership is “serious and so committed to correcting what needs to be corrected, to enforcing the rules that need to be enforced, and to building the kind of culture that respects the identity of all its citizens.”

Yet many agree that the university should do more to build a culture of free speech. A Jewish student interviewed for this story requested anonymity in order to speak freely about issues that, despite a cooler campus, remain divisive.

“There is probably no topic on campus that is harder to discuss” than Israel, says the student. “I agree with some figures in the Trump administration that viewpoint diversity is a virtue” for colleges.

“But I don’t think viewpoint diversity is something that can be forced from above.”

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The European Union is grappling with some of the same frustrations facing President Donald Trump in his war against Iran: European leaders unwilling or simply unable to share military resources, even with each other.

In cases of war assistance, these resources – from warships to tanks – have sometimes been removed from service for reasons beyond the control of the U.S. or its allies. The Pentagon, for example, was forced to withdraw its B-1 long-range bombers last weekend from Royal Air Force base Fairford, about 100 miles west of London, following an alleged terrorist plot in which five men were arrested.

Meanwhile, along the Red Sea, Yemen’s Tehran-allied Houthi rebels have been stepping up attacks on European commercial ships transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This strategic waterway has become more important still as the war in Iran disrupts transit through the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil has traditionally flowed.

High fuel prices and an Iran war stalemate give Europe an incentive to try to help end the conflict. But low defense spending has left Europe with weak naval resources.

To support defense, France, Greece, and Italy in 2024 launched Operation Aspides, a naval mission to protect the EU’s interests in the Red Sea and surrounding trade corridors, including escorting commercial ships.

But as the Middle East conflict has widened, amid renewed Houthi strikes, Europe is feeling pressure to do more. The U.S.- and Israel-led mission still lacks ships, but defense spending cuts have left much of the continent with weak navies. That is raising frustrations in European capitals and in the U.S. about what kind of credible military help Western allies can – and will – provide to help end the Iran war moving forward.

Indeed, for months now there has been a sense that Europe would “never act in the Middle East” because of resentment over what they see as President Trump’s “dumpster fire” of a war with Iran, says Edward P. Joseph, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Yet with rising fuel prices and other interests at stake, Europe is increasingly pushing for action, including possibly using “psychological leverage” that could pressure Iran to negotiate, Mr. Joseph says.

“That’s what’s needed to end this thing,” he adds. “Europeans no longer have the luxury of ‘letting the Americans deal with the Iran problem they created.’”

Building a defense threat

Shortly after the war started, France and Britain began assembling a multinational force to provide security in the Strait of Hormuz – to be deployed once the war is over.

More than 20 countries have signed on, but in an effort to spur European action sooner, NATO’s Supreme Allied Headquarters in August convened a “group of interested allies … to facilitate their possible contributions in support of freedom of navigation” in the region “before the French and U.K.-led initiative, the Multinational Military Mission, commences,” Col. Martin O’Donnell, A NATO spokesperson, told The Monitor in a text message.

Meanwhile, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto expressed frustration last month with fellow Europeans over their lack of contributions to Operation Aspides. “We need more ships,” he said in a Reuters interview. “The only nations really supporting [the efforts] are Italy and Greece.”

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas seconded this sentiment in a letter last month to Europe’s 27 member states asking for more resources for Aspides, to ensure the mission has the support of at least 10 ships.

Mr. Crosetto said that Italy planned to forge ahead with action, instead of waiting around for “European bureaucracy” or NATO countries to lead or devise a plan.

Coordination matters

It doesn’t help, analysts add, that the EU is trying to gather ships for Aspides even as France and the United Kingdom have put together a separate initiative. Their Multinational Military Mission, an ad hoc coalition to clear mines and secure the Strait of Hormuz, is competing for European naval resources.

But it’s more than bureaucracy preventing European naval action in the region, analysts say. The EU, for starters, doesn’t have its own pool of European warships, so member states must voluntarily offer up their own. Some smaller European states have only one warship.

Other landlocked countries, like Austria and Hungary, have none. Malta, Cyprus, and Ireland have their own naval forces, but not the sort of frigates or destroyers needed for high-threat escort operations.

How Europe’s ships could help

The effort behind missions such as Aspides is a step in the right direction, says retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington. European navies that contribute to the mission “would lessen the load on the United States Navy so it can do more in the Strait of Hormuz.”

But in taking on other missions, Europe is constrained by the generally “horrific condition” of its navies, he adds, which have historically borne the brunt of scaled-back defense spending. Still, Europe can take steps now, Mr. Joseph says, including establishing an official “fleet in being,” a “classic naval posture” that taps into Iran’s “demonstrable fear” of Europe being pulled into the war.

That means Europe’s ships would stay in port, or nearby, but remain ready to intervene if needed. Such a posture would communicate looming but restrained potential for attack or counterattack, he adds, giving Europe leverage by creating more uncertainty in Tehran and boosting confidence in the Hormuz shipping lanes.

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Iran has shown that “they’re very cautious about attacking” America’s NATO allies in Europe for fear of bringing them into the war,” Mr. Joseph says. Tehran “cannot just blow [European ships] out of the water, because if they do, then they’re engaging NATO in this thing” through Article 5, which states that an attack on one is an attack on all.

This will in turn “exploit Iran’s fear of them entering the war alongside the U.S.,” he argues. “That’s Iran’s vulnerability.”

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Karina Chavez’s father, a U.S. citizen, had been an architect in Mexico when economic collapse in 1994 sent the family to America and, eventually, to Albuquerque.

His degree didn’t transfer, so Richard Chavez began to sell houses. When the real estate industry went digital, he needed his daughter to step in to help. They worked side by side for 15 years, and they became especially close.

He died two years ago. His photograph is still on her business website, the two of them arm in arm, and a crystal locket etched with their faces hangs from her SUV’s rearview mirror.

Solutions to a national housing shortage could come in part through efforts in cities and communities across the country. One such endeavor is playing out in the American Southwest, as onetime tourist attractions are reimagined as a new kind of home.

“I can’t bring myself to bring the picture down,” she says. “Everything I know is from him.”

What she took from him, along with the trade, was a conviction that a city ought to have room for the people who keep it running.

And what she discovered – what is simultaneously a business plan and a strategy to chip away at Albuquerque’s housing shortage – was that an obsolete building may be housing stock in disguise.

■ ■ ■

The image of the motel is fixed in the old American view of the road: a low court of rooms bent around a lot, cars nosed up to nearly every door, a red neon sign promising “vacancy” over an Aqua Velva blue pool.

The word motel itself was coined in 1925, a year before Route 66 became a part of the map, and the two grew up together. A family could drive until dusk and find shelter blinking just over the horizon.

Then the interstates came. Route 66 was struck from the federal map in 1985. The motels it fed were left to whatever the market would bear. Some remained extended-stay rooms rented by the week, then by the hour, then not at all. Roadsides were thinned to a scattering of survivors.

Albuquerque once had almost 100 of them. By one estimate, perhaps 40 now remain.

A few have been restored, neon relit, as tourist draws. Some are boarded shells. Some were razed. But others have been sliced into something new: small apartments for Albuquerque’s low-income residents who often struggle to find somewhere to live.

■ ■ ■

Ms. Chavez has done that three times in five years. These investments are not acts of charity. They are private investments expected to produce rental income, although tenants can use Section 8 housing vouchers. One of her properties received a low-interest loan via the state’s Ventana Fund, which helps affordable housing projects.

She believes community purpose and profit can occupy the same room. “The reason we do this is because we want to make Albuquerque better, and we want to create affordable housing, and we want to make sure everybody has a home,” Ms. Chavez says.

She and her husband first bought Adobe Manor, a vacant 16-room motel on Route 66, in 2023.

A waiting list for Adobe’s studios led Ms. Chavez to acquire two more motels along the old highway’s path: Route 66 Headquarters and Rainbow Apartments, bringing her total to 47 studios.

At first, she thought they would provide homes for refugees. As an immigrant herself, she said, “I was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be like my karma, pay it forward.’”

But the studios proved too small for many families.

“So we house mostly veterans, and we house a lot of single mamas, and we have a lot of partnerships with Cross of Hope and Catholic Charities,” she says.

Utilities and Wi-Fi are folded into the rent. “Otherwise, separate bills just makes it harder for them,” she says.

The units are plain and durable; the numbers have to work for her tenants.

Forty-seven apartments can matter greatly to the people living in them. Against an Albuquerque shortage estimated at roughly 20,000 affordable rental units, however, they also reveal the scale of what remains undone.

■ ■ ■

That scarcity is national. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that the U.S. lacks 7.2 million rental homes affordable and available to extremely low-income households.

There are examples of similar projects around the country. California’s publicly financed Homekey had awarded $3.6 billion by 2024 to 259 projects encompassing nearly 16,000 homes, including motel and hotel conversions. In Denver, the nonprofit Colorado Coalition for the Homeless converted a former hotel into 139 furnished studios for people emerging from homelessness. In Madison, Wisconsin, a private developer turned a Super 8 into 129 compact studios without public subsidy – a model closer to Ms. Chavez’s investment.

Albuquerque has tried to close that gap one project at a time. The city has financed conventional apartment developments, preserved older affordable complexes, loosened rules for backyard casitas and small cottage developments, and encouraged developers to turn motels, hotels, and offices into homes.

Along Central Avenue, the nonprofit New Life Homes rehabilitated Luna Lodge into 30 affordable apartments in 2013 and reopened the Sundowner as 71 mixed-income apartments the following year. Both projects combined tax credits, public money, and nonprofit development.

More recently, Albuquerque bought the former SureStay hotel in 2023 and reopened it in late 2024 as Los Altos Lofts, 90 city-owned affordable apartments. That year, Albuquerque also offered $4 million in gap financing for conversions, though it ultimately went to two office projects.

Renia Ehrenfeucht, a professor of community and regional planning at the University of New Mexico, sees such projects as pieces of an incremental strategy – necessary, in part, because Albuquerque is not a boomtown.

“We can have a housing crunch even without having a growing population,” she says. More people are living alone, the population is aging, and some older homes become uninhabitable. At the same time, sluggish growth makes new projects harder to finance, particularly at rents that lower-income residents can pay.

That helps explain the appeal of motel conversions. They appear to be “a fairly cost effective way to get small efficient units,” Ms. Ehrenfeucht says. Walls, utilities, and private bathrooms are already there, though developers may need to add kitchens, storage, accessibility, and the privacy that turns a room into a home.

Most affordable developments require public subsidy or nonprofit support. What is less common is the private developer, like Ms. Chavez, who can look at comparatively modest rents and say, in Ms. Ehrenfeucht’s words, “I can make this pencil.”

The realtor’s private projects cannot erase a 20,000-unit deficit. But to dismiss them on that ground, Ms. Ehrenfeucht says, would mean “there’d never be any good project because it’s never enough.”

■ ■ ■

The Route 66 anniversary calls attention to the neon, the commerce, the open road. But, Ms. Ehrenfeucht says, “the bigger question is about all these multiple histories and multiple futures the road has to offer.”

Ms. Chavez’s fourth motel is one of those futures.

When she found the old Motel Hacienda for sale, Ms. Chavez expected a fourth studio conversion. The other conversions had waiting lists. Her business model worked.

“I brought my father here and I said, ‘Oh, affordable housing,’” she says. “He’s like, ‘No, we need a community place.’”

Her father, one of 10 children, grew up in Guadalajara, where Sundays meant church, a park, and a family meal. He imagined such a place for southwest Albuquerque, where families could gather and local entrepreneurs could own businesses.

“My dad’s idea was like, ‘Hey, if my mom wants to go get her nails done, I can go sit there, watch the game at the sports bar, the kids can go have a paleta,’” Ms. Chavez says.

This is now a different kind of transformation of an old Route 66 motel. The U-shaped court is becoming a series of restaurants, as well as a nail salon, barbershop, and paletería (ice-pop shop). One of the bars was painted blue to match pieces of the old swimming pool uncovered beneath the parking lot.

The transformation required new sewer lines, an upgraded water meter, and a transformer. Her father died as work was underway; his best friend, the majority investor, helped her continue.

She has had second thoughts.

“Sometimes I’m like, should I have just left it as the motel and just kept making money, or did I do the right thing?” she says. But then she goes there and feels her dad’s spirit.

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Early in the project, plans called for an accessible sidewalk to pass the property’s only tree. Everyone said to remove it. Her father told them: “That tree stays.” They bent the sidewalk around it, cutting one root to make room. Everyone warned the tree would die. The next year, it came back thriving.

“We were like, OK,” Ms. Chavez says. “He was right.”

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As the midterms approach, the Iran war is challenging the adage that foreign policy is only a secondary thought as voters weigh the factors influencing their decisions.

In most elections, a slogan that former President Bill Clinton often used – “It’s the economy, stupid” – reigns supreme in voters’ priorities. Surveys show that this midterm election is no different.

But this year, the unique way the Iran war is affecting the economy and voters’ personal finances – from the cost of filling the gas tank and grocery cart to farmers’ access to fertilizers – means that international events and issues are having an outsize impact on electoral choices.

In election after election, conventional wisdom holds that the economy is the most important issue for American voters. But in these midterms, voters are feeling the impact of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy choices on their pocketbooks.

“It’s true that foreign policy is traditionally well down the list of what’s motivating voters, but these midterms are different,” says Dina Smeltz, managing director of public opinion and foreign policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

“Uncharacteristically, international issues are taking more of a front-of-mind position with voters as they consider how they’ve been hit by high energy costs,” she adds. “People are making the connection between a foreign policy issue and their personal financial well-being more than at any time I’ve seen in the last 15 years.”

The council’s surveys are finding, moreover, that some voters are looking beyond economics to factors like “how our foreign policy is affecting our international relations and our reputation,” she says.

To be sure, several recent surveys, including from the Chicago Council, still show the economy is the unchallenged top priority for voters, with “foreign policy” falling well down the list. In a recent Pew Research Center poll, for example, 29% of registered voters said the economy was their top issue heading into the midterms, while only 4% said it was foreign policy.

But those results mask how voters this year are factoring foreign policy issues into their focus on the economy, some experts say.

“Foreign policy rarely decides elections – midterms or otherwise – but it can play a role when there are pronounced international problems, and that is certainly the case this year with the Iran war,” says Joshua Shifrinson, a professor of security studies at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy.

“It’s especially true when voters see the direct connection between those international issues and their pocketbook,” he adds, “and people are definitely making that connection this year.”

Foreign policy is playing a bigger-than-usual role in this year’s midterms for two reasons, Professor Shifrinson says. “A: because of President Trump’s campaign promise not to start any new wars,” he says, “and B: because the war in Iran that he started, initially with Israel, is raising everyone’s cost of living, from the gas people need to drive to work to the milk they buy to put on the table.”

A range of foreign policy issues are on midterm voters’ minds this year.

The Iran war

The overwhelming majority of voters say the Iran war has been “bad” for the United States on a number of levels, according to a survey released Thursday by the Chicago Council. The poll found that 86% of adults consider the war bad for the cost of living. Not far behind, 72% said the war has been bad for America’s international reputation, with 65% considering the war bad for U.S. national security.

As for the war’s impact on the cost of living, even 76% of Republicans polled say the war has been “bad.”

On a positive note for President Trump, more than three-quarters of those surveyed say the war has “degraded Iran’s position in the Middle East.”

Tariffs

While the Iran war is the top foreign-policy negative for voters, tariffs are not far behind. The Chicago Council survey found that 71% consider the tariffs bad for the economy, with 81% saying the tariffs are bad for their cost of living. Some election analysts say that this year, one need look no farther than farm states such as Iowa and Kansas, both reliably Republican, where surprisingly competitive Senate races are underscoring the direct link between tariffs and voters’ intentions.

On a positive note for President Trump, about half of Republicans say the tariffs have been good for the U.S. economy as a whole, with two-thirds saying tariffs will eventually be good for job creation.

Immigration

While not a top voter motivation, immigration is one foreign policy-related issue that splits Republicans and Democrats. Overall, a majority of Americans say Mr. Trump’s mass deportation policies have gone too far, but Democrats are far more likely to take that view than Republicans.

The Chicago Council survey found that immigration has slipped as a major concern for voters since 2024, reflecting broad satisfaction with President Trump’s border policies. On the other hand, the implementation of the mass deportation policy is especially poorly viewed among Hispanic voters, who had shifted to Republicans and President Trump in historic numbers in 2024.

Israel

For the first time, the Chicago Council survey found evidence of significant tensions within the Democratic Party over Israel, with large numbers of young voters saying Israel’s war in Gaza is a top motivator for getting to the midterm polls. Republicans, too, face internal splits over Israel, though much less pronounced, with “no new wars” MAGA Republicans critical of President Trump’s close relations with Israel.

The Chicago Council survey found that 56% of Americans support reducing or ending military aid to Israel, compared with 24% who took that view in 2014.

China

Voters overall approve of President Trump’s approach to China, finding his cooperative relations preferable to the Biden administration’s confrontational policies. This year, 57% of Americans say the United States should seek to work cooperatively with China and not try to limit it, compared with 40% who took that view just two years ago.

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Of course, no one is voting based on a perception of U.S.-China relations, notes Dr. Shifrinson of the University of Maryland. But he says a sense that President Trump is doing some things right in the world can play a role in influencing voters’ choices on election day.

“Americans see relative stability in relations with Russia and China, they see that things have simmered down with those two countries,” he says, “and for the most part, people like that.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a major climate change case on Monday. The case, the first of the court’s new term, concerns whether Boulder County, Colorado, can sue two fossil fuel companies in state court to reclaim damages caused by climate change.

The Boulder County officials want energy companies to help pay for the county’s investments to mitigate wildfire, drought, and flood threats, especially after the 2018 Marshall fire swept through the county.

The companies Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil argue that such lawsuits must be heard in federal court and that allowing this case to proceed in state court would tie up energy companies in endless, financially ruinous lawsuits across the country.

Dozens of municipalities have tried to sue energy companies in state courts to hold them accountable for climate change damages. In oral arguments, some Supreme Court justices questioned whether states can even hear those cases – and the potential implications of allowing them to do so.

Boulder County has pushed back, arguing that nothing in federal law or the Constitution precludes the suit from proceeding, and that, because the case has not yet been fully litigated at the Colorado Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court should wait to weigh in.

In agreeing to hear the case, the justices had asked for briefings on whether the high court has jurisdiction to hear this case at all. But during the oral argument, the justices spent more time grilling the parties’ attorneys on the other question at issue: whether federal law blocks Boulder County from bringing its case in state court.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that “a wall of precedent” establishes that lawsuits concerning interstate air and water pollution are matters of federal law. To rule otherwise, he added, would see the court “be rightly accused of misleading Congress for decades” as to the scope of federal laws like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.

And yet, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that the high court has allowed similar suits to proceed in state courts. In a 1987 decision, the court held that “nothing in [the Clean Water Act] prevents a court sitting in an affected State from hearing a common law nuisance suit.”

Other justices voiced different concerns. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked whether the case had reached the high court too early. The Colorado Supreme Court has not decided any other claims the companies have made in state court relating to federal law, she noted.

“Why shouldn’t we wait [to] hear all of these claims once the state courts are done?” she asked.

The lawyer for Suncor and Exxon Mobil, Kannon Shanmugam, replied that some three dozen similar lawsuits have been filed around the country, and that no clear ruling on their legality has been reached. “Given the extraordinary magnitude of these cases, ... now is really the time to answer these questions,” he said.

Some justices raised concerns about the potential national – and international – implications of allowing the Boulder County lawsuit to proceed.

Chief Justice John Roberts said if that were to happen, “the next day ... there will be at least 50” similar lawsuits filed in state courts around the country.

“How do you think that will work out on the ground?” he asked. “As a practical matter ... what should happen?”

Another complication in this case is that Justice Samuel Alito has recused himself. He did not participate in the argument and will not cast a vote in the case, which could result in a 4-4 decision. A tie would affirm the Colorado Supreme Court ruling but would not hold any precedential force. In that scenario, energy companies and the localities seeking to recoup funds for climate change damages would remain in legal limbo.

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The U.S. Supreme Court begins a new term on Oct. 5. The court’s docket is still taking shape, with 30 cases accepted so far, about half the court's usual caseload. So far, the term looks relatively quiet, particularly compared with recent years, in which cases involving Donald Trump and his policies as president have dominated the high court’s calendar. 

Climate change, guns, and aspects of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies make up some of the most notable cases so far. The nine justices can still decide to add more cases to their merits docket. That’s the path in which cases undergo a deliberative process of briefings and oral arguments before the justices vote and write opinions that set precedent and guide lower courts. 

Simultaneously, the court operates an “emergency docket” throughout the year, in which fast-track appeals reach the justices for decisions that are usually temporary, while litigation continues in lower courts. Those decisions can be consequential in the short term and have recently attracted headlines about mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections and the White House ballroom. But these rulings don’t carry the long-term precedential effect of a merits decision.

The Supreme Court opens its new term with a lighter docket than in recent years, which were dominated by questions about presidential authority. But it will still rule on consequential issues, from firearms to climate change.

Below are previews of significant merits cases to be decided this term:

Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County

Issues: Climate change, states’ rights

Can localities sue energy companies in state court for damages related to climate change? The Supreme Court will consider the question on the first day of its new term. 

Boulder County, Colorado, which has been litigating the case since 2018, argues that it is entitled to monetary damages from Suncor stemming from the harmful effects of climate change. The company is asking the justices to overrule the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to allow the county’s lawsuit against the company to proceed in state court.

Justice Samuel Alito, one of the court’s most conservative members, has recused himself from the case. The court could issue a 4-4 ruling, which would uphold the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling but would not establish any precedent. The court could also rule that it doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear the case.

Viramontes v. Cook County

Issue: Gun rights

Can states pass laws banning assault-type rifles? Are such laws “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”? 

When the Supreme Court wrote those words in its 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, it created a new test for determining the constitutionality of gun regulations. 

That decision caused instant chaos in the lower courts, as judges grappled with how to apply the test to a flood of lawsuits challenging gun restrictions on “history and tradition” grounds. The justices are now faced with the most high-profile successor to that case.

However the case is decided, it will affect millions of people. The AR-15 rifle, for example, is one of the most popular guns in the country, owned by an estimated 1 in 20 American adults.

Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D.

Issue: Third-country deportations

The Trump administration last year implemented a policy expanding the use of removal of unauthorized immigrants to countries where they have no ties (known as third countries). The administration argues that federal law allows such removals. But a group of immigrants subject to the policy argues that it violates their due process rights and the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which became binding federal law in the U.S. in 1994. 

The Supreme Court allowed the policy to take effect on an interim basis last year, but has not yet ruled on its lawfulness. 

Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha

Issue: Indefinite detention of migrants

This case challenges another Trump administration immigration policy. This directive instructs immigration authorities to detain noncitizens whom they arrest indefinitely. Before the policy went into effect, noncitizens who had been in the country for long periods (years or decades) could obtain release from detention on bond or “conditional parole” because they were not considered flight risks.

District court judges have ruled that the policy is illegal in roughly 90% of all cases, according to a Politico analysis. But appeals courts have split on the issue. Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd, 6th, and 11th circuits have ruled against the policy, while judges on the 5th and 8th circuits have upheld it. In this case and the D.V.D. case, the high court will play a major role in shaping the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda moving forward.

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There are other notable cases the court might add.

Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District

Issue: Establishment of religion

In what could be the most high-profile case of the term, a group of Texas families is asking the justices to strike down a state law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments.

The case provides a test of the high court’s First Amendment jurisprudence in an era when the court has overwhelmingly favored the freedom of religious expression over the constitutional prohibition on government “establishment of religion.”

More than 40 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that a Kentucky law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools was unconstitutional. Most difficult for the court, experts say, will be reconciling this case with its decision last year holding that public schools cannot “substantially interfere with the religious development” of schoolchildren over the preferences of their parents.

“The court has brought the free exercise clause to center stage and consigned the establishment clause to the wings,” says Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School. This case, he adds, “would be a monumental addition to the Supreme Court’s docket.”

United States v. Talbott

Issues: Military policy, transgender rights

In the first week of his second term, President Trump signed an executive order banning transgender service members from the military. 

A group of active and prospective transgender service members challenged the policy, and a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking it, holding that the policy likely violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. An appeals court upheld the preliminary injunction.

The Trump administration argues that the policy is constitutional because the rules issued by the Defense Department apply generally to individuals with gender dysphoria (a psychological conflict between gender identity and biological sex at birth), or a history of the condition, including medical interventions. The policy does not specifically target transgender individuals as a class, the administration adds.

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Over two days in late July, water supply managers from Georgia to South Dakota saw their screens go dark and their controls go haywire.

Hackers gained access to dozens of water utilities around the country, according to state and federal officials. They infiltrated computer systems, seizing control of equipment that prevents flooding and tap water contamination for hundreds of thousands of Americans. The FBI confirmed July 30 that cyber attackers hit water and wastewater utility companies in seven states. The bureau did not comment on the actors behind the attacks. Early investigations indicate that U.S. officials believe Iran may be responsible, according to media reports.

For those familiar with America’s cybersecurity vulnerabilities, the attacks were not a surprise. The country’s critical infrastructure, particularly water providers in rural areas, has long been vulnerable to cyberattacks. Foreign adversaries have attacked before, but federal and some state authorities have been slow to equip these utilities with the resources and training they need to protect themselves.

Why We Wrote This

A spate of cyberattacks on water utilities across the United States last month were resolved quickly. Yet the incidents underscore weaknesses, particularly in small or rural towns with fewer resources to protect infrastructure. Some trade groups are calling for minimum cybersecurity requirements.

In one sense, the water utility cyberattacks highlight improvements in America’s cybersecurity defenses. The warnings arrived quickly and no serious damage was done. At the same time, the volume of successful attacks illustrates the vulnerabilities that remain and could be expanding.

“Utilities were able to notice the attack quickly, take action quickly, and there were no dire consequences,” says Cynthia Finley, director of regulatory affairs at the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, a lobbying group.

But, she adds, “we’re concerned about more sophisticated cyberattacks. … It will be a constant challenge to keep up with the evolving threat.”

Locked out of computer systems

Four days before the attacks began, seven federal agencies updated a cybersecurity advisory raising alarms about “ongoing Iranian-affiliated cyber targeting” of “U.S. critical infrastructure sectors.” The advisory cautioned that hackers were trying to access internet-connected devices controlling equipment used by that critical infrastructure. According to a separate advisory by the FBI following the late-July attacks, hackers accessed those devices remotely and then changed IP addresses and passwords, effectively locking the utilities out of their own computer systems.

“Operational effects reported to the FBI have included loss of pressure and flooding,” the agency said. “Pressure loss in water systems could potentially allow untreated ground water to seep into pipes.”

The FBI did not respond to questions, referring only to that statement. According to reports, water utilities in at least 12 states were hacked – a larger number than the FBI has confirmed – including more than 30 in Minnesota.

For Karleen Kos – CEO of the Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association, a trade group – the attacks caused a variety of issues. Some operators stopped being able to see what was happening in their water systems; some lost automated control over some equipment and had to switch to manual controls; for others, some controls began acting oddly, like a caps lock command getting stuck on a keyboard.

“People started to notice anomalies that didn’t make sense, so they shut the equipment down, rebooted it, and did something to correct what they were seeing,” she says.

Nobody’s drinking water was threatened, she adds. Other utilities in the state took manual control of equipment they could no longer control through computer systems.

The U.S. has had other near misses. In 2024, several small Texas towns had their water utilities targeted by Russia-linked hackers, including one town where hackers caused a water storage tank to overflow for nearly 45 minutes. In 2013, Iranian hackers took control of a small dam 20 miles north of New York City. While the hackers gained access to the dam’s computer systems, they were unable to move its sluice gates.

Smaller utilities targeted

The cyberattacks last month were broader in their geographical scope than past hacks but still relatively low-tech, according to experts. The hackers seem to have successfully targeted specific, internet-connected equipment that also had weak password protection.

“These were opportunistic [attacks], which is in keeping with what we’ve seen [from] Iran,” says Tahira Mammen, an AI security expert at the RAND Corporation.

Other recent cyberattacks on U.S. water infrastructure have largely fit the same profile and have targeted smaller utilities that are understaffed and underfunded.

Water infrastructure in general has only recently been computerized, so operators are often inexperienced in basic cybersecurity practices. Many smaller utilities can’t afford to hire dedicated cybersecurity teams. Federally-funded training and improvements on this front are all voluntary, and many smaller utilities don’t know they exist or don’t have the resources to access them. Nearly 90% of public water utilities in the U.S. serve fewer than 10,000 people, according to a National Conference of State Legislatures report in 2022.

Some water industry groups are now pushing Congress to enact minimum cybersecurity requirements.

On Aug. 5, the American Water Works Association sent a letter to congressional leaders calling on lawmakers to pass a number of bills related to cybersecurity funding for water utilities. The same day, the head of the National Association of Water Companies issued a similar statement, adding that “the absence of uniform cybersecurity standards leaves too many systems vulnerable.”

Some organizations oppose such requirements, however, especially given the pace at which cyber threats are evolving. Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency should prioritize increasing education and funding for programs that already exist, says Ms. Finley at NACWA.

That “is a more practical solution than regulatory requirements, which will take years to develop,” she adds.

Cuts to federal cyber defense department

Amid this changing landscape, America’s leading cyber defense department, which works to protect U.S. infrastructure, has been getting downsized and defunded by the Trump administration.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has lost roughly one-third of its workforce, about 1,000 employees, since January 2025 through a combination of layoffs, buyouts, and early retirements. The administration’s 2027 budget proposes a $707 million cut to the agency. The cuts “eliminat[e] weaponization and waste,” the White House says in the budget. The agency has not had a permanent director since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

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That turmoil didn’t prevent the agency from responding effectively to July’s major cyberattack on U.S. water infrastructure, and cyber experts are optimistic that the half-dozen agencies overseeing the country’s cyber defense are able to protect its critical infrastructure.

“We’re in a moment of strong investment in cybersecurity,” through other federal and private investment, says Ms. Mammen, who previously served as head of the NSA’s Artificial Intelligence Security Center. “We have the technology to be in front of the problem, we just need to apply the technology appropriately.”