Commentary

the Trump administration is mobilizing heritage and architecture as tools of ideology and control. He is seeking to roll back inclusive historical narratives at U.S. parks and monuments. And he is reviving sanitized myths about America’s history of slavery, misogyny and Manifest Destiny, for use in museums, textbooks and public schools. Dictators, tyrants and kings build monumental architecture to buttress their own egos, which is called authoritarian monumentalism. They also seek to build the national ego – another word for nationalism.

Mark Twain would have found Trump the showman – the pre-2016 version – a fascinating figure. He would have been appalled, however, by much about Trump the president. Imagining how Twain would view Trump is timely because when some have tried to look to history for an equivalent political moment, they’ll sometimes point to two decades – the 1880s and the 1900s – that happened to also be important in Twain’s life and career.

Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground, the largest burial ground for enslaved and free people of color in the United States, has witnessed deliberate acts of violence. As the historian Ryan K. Smith writes, Shockoe “was not, as some would say, abandoned – it was actively destroyed.” In recent years, similar threats to Black cemeteries and questions about preservation have been reported at the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, the Morningstar Tabernacle No. 88 in Maryland and a rediscovered graveyard in Florida, among many others.

On Sunday October 19, criminals managed to steal eight pieces of extremely valuable jewelry from the Louvre Museum’s Gallery of Apollo, in Paris. The robbery highlights long-standing issues for criminology in the field of cultural heritage, as museum security has to address traditional and emerging threats as well as a range of symbolic visions and criminal dynamics. From a security point of view, there are five key ideas that can help us understand what the flaws were in the Louvre, as well as how, and why, criminals target museums.

The spectacle of a Spanish-speaking rapper performing during the most-watched sporting event on American TV is a direct rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to paper over the country’s diversity. Beyond that, there’s his gender-bending wardrobe. He has slammed the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies. He has declined to tour on the U.S. mainland, fearing that some of his fans could be targeted and deported by ICE. And his explicit lyrics – most of which are in Spanish – would make even the most ardent free speech warrior cringe.

Throughout modern American history, reporters who cover the Pentagon have played an invaluable role shining a light on military actions when the government has not been forthright with the public. Free press advocates warn that recent changes in a Pentagon policy threaten journalists’ ability to cover the Department of Defense. That’s because it could curb their rights to report information not authorized by the government for release. That’s a big step toward outright censorship.

What happens now? That may well be the question being asked by “No Kings” protesters, who marched, rallied and danced all over the nation on Saturday, Oct. 18. practices used globally to fight democratic backsliding or topple autocracies can be instructive. In a nutshell: Nonviolent resistance is based on noncooperation with autocratic actions. It has proven more effective in toppling autocracies than violent, armed struggle. But it requires more than street demonstrations.

Teenagers can seem to have their phones glued to their hands – yet they won’t answer them when they ring. This scenario, which is all too familiar to many parents, can seem absurd and frustrating, or even alarming to some. Yet it also speaks volumes about the way 13-to-18-year-olds now connect (or fail to connect) with others. If smartphones are ever-present in the daily lives of adolescents, this does not mean they are using their devices in the same way adults do.

Philosophy majors rank higher than all other majors on verbal and logical reasoning, according to a new study. They also tend to display more intellectual virtues such as curiosity and open-mindedness. Philosophers have long claimed that studying philosophy sharpens one’s mind. What sets philosophy apart from other fields is that it is not so much a body of knowledge as an activity – a form of inquiry. Doing philosophy involves trying to answer fundamental questions about humanity and the world we live in and subjecting proposed answers to critical scrutiny.

The consequences of withdrawing from public education could be dire for the U.S. From Horace Mann’s “common school movement” in the early 19th century to the GI Bill in the 20th that helped millions of veterans go to college and become homeowners after World War II, public education has been essential for not only creating an educated workforce but for inculcating the United States’ fundamental values of liberty, equality, fairness and the common good.

Partisanship is the primary problem for the American republic, according to Washington. Washington’s fear that partisanship could lead to destruction of the Constitution and to the rule of “ambitious, and unprincipled men” was so important to him that he felt compelled to repeat the warning more than once in the Farewell Address.

At least a dozen states have considered proposals that would require classrooms to post the biblical laws, and three passed laws mandating their display in 2024-2025. All three laws have been at least partially blocked – most recently Texas’ law – after federal trial court rulings. But the ongoing cases seem aimed at overturning a 45-year-old U.S. Supreme Court precedent prohibiting the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

The unitary executive theory claims that whatever the federal government does that is executive in nature – from implementing and enforcing laws to managing most of what the federal government does – the president alone should personally control it. If the theory gains the official endorsement of the Supreme Court, it can become governing orthodoxy.

Awarding the Nobel prize for literature to László Krasznahorkai today, the Swedish Academy commended the author’s “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”. But in itself their decision is also a commitment to the value of serious and intellectual writing in an age characterised by immediacy, the distractions of digital culture and the entertainment industry.

The latest U.S.-sponsored peace plan for the Middle East was unveiled at the White House on Sept. 29, 2025, and immediately accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The proposal, which U.S. President Donald Trump said marked a “historic” moment that was “very close” to ending the two-year-old war in Gaza, will now go to Hamas.

Artificial intelligence is growing fast, and so are the number of computers that power it. Behind the scenes, this rapid growth is putting a huge strain on the data centers that run AI models. These facilities are using more energy than ever.

For many in Venezuela, the question is no longer whether tensions with Washington will reach a boiling point – they already have. Rather, the big unknown now is whether the U.S. will follow up on threats and the sinking of drug boats with something more drastic: direct military engagement or even regime change.

What the First Amendment makes clear is that it does not just protect the rights of speakers who say things with which Americans agree. Or, as the Supreme Court said in a separate decision it issued one year after the case involving the funeral protesters: “The Nation well knows that one of the costs of the First Amendment is that it protects the speech we detest as well as the speech we embrace.” But free speech is not absolute.

The president’s and the defense secretary’s campaign-like pair of bombastic speeches to hundreds of generals summoned to Quantico, Va., signals an escalation in the administration’s embrace of a militaristic mindset that, as long ago as 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address, and that the nation’s founders deliberately aimed to constrain.

An AI-generated image of Charlie Kirk embracing Jesus. Another of Kirk posing with angel wings and halo. Then there’s the one of Kirk standing with George Floyd at the gates of heaven. When prominent political or cultural figures die in the U.S., the remembrance of their life often veers into hagiography. And that’s what’s been happening since the gruesome killing of conservative activist and Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk.

Bruce Springsteen’s1975 “Born to Run” album was shaped by the times, particularly the malaise of the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate American landscape. There was an energy crisis, and it wasn’t only oil that was in short supply. These lyrical, operatic songs about freedom and fate, triumph and tragedy, still resonate, even though today’s music is more likely to emphasize beats, samples and software than extended guitar and saxophone solos.

At the Department of Justice, a “Weaponization Working Group” has a long list of Trump’s perceived enemies to investigate. It marks the first time since J. Edgar Hoover’s 48-year reign as FBI director that the FBI has targeted massive numbers of people perceived to be political enemies. The recent statements from both Trump and top aide Miller suggest the FBI’s independence, and broader constitutional requirements that the administration remain faithful to the law, are meaningless to them. They suggest that, like Hoover, they would criminalize dissent.

Justices affiliated with the Federalist Society will advance the conservative legal agenda decades into the future. The Federalist Society’s educational mission is pursued chiefly in law schools. That’s where it trains the next generation of lawyers in the approaches and goals of the conservative legal movement. This includes promoting the judicial philosophy of originalism – the idea that the best way to interpret the U.S. Constitution is according to how it was understood at the time of its adoption.

Trump congratulated himself, for turning the US into the “hottest country anywhere in the world” for repelling a “colossal invasion” of migrants at America’s southern border and for ending seven wars – for which he repeated his line that he should have been given the Nobel peace prize.

Use of digital technology to safeguard Holocaust memories for future generations is symptomatic of a global shift towards digitising the Holocaust as the survivor generation passes on and heritage sites decay over time. While the virtual site digitally preserves and encourages historically rooted depictions of the camp, it cannot ensure ethical engagement with the Holocaust. In fact, its creation only raises further issues about the extent to which the Holocaust’s digitisation goes hand-in-hand with ethical modes of remembrance and representation.

For Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, social media – especially YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat – has become their source of information about the world, eclipsing traditional news outlets. In a survey of more than 1,000 young people ages 13 to 18, 8 in 10 said they encounter conspiracy theories in their social media feeds each week, yet only 39% reported receiving instruction in evaluating the claims they saw there. The Civic Online Reasoning program was built to address this gap.

When more than 1,300 people at the U.S. State Department lost their jobs in a mass firing this summer, most headlines focused on what it meant for American diplomacy. But the layoffs are about more than embassies and foreign policy – they could also make it harder for U.S. companies to compete in global markets.

Most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism. During the 2024 election cycle, nearly half of all states reported threats against election workers, including social media death threats, intimidation and doxing. Domestic violent extremism is defined by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as violence or credible threats of violence intended to influence government policy or intimidate civilians for political or ideological purposes.

Rupert Murdoch has succeeded in securing his vision for the future of News Corporation, the global media empire he has always thought of as his family business. To achieve this, he has torn apart his family. He has also ensured his media outlets, especially Fox News, remain committed to his hard right-wing views. Rupert’s chosen successor and elder son Lachlan has headed News Corporation and Fox Corporation since Murdoch stepped aside in 2023, and will inherit the empire.

A large part of Kirk’s political activism centered on what education should look like. Conservatives, well before Kirk’s time, have been trying to reclaim education from liberals whom they view as valuing equity and belonging instead of timeless values of order and traditional values in society. This philosophy overall focuses on reclaiming education from liberals.

The seven Colorado Basin states have been grappling with how to deal with declining Colorado River supplies for a quarter century, revising usage guidelines and taking additional measures as drought has persisted and reservoir levels have continued to decline. The current guidelines will expire in late 2026, and talks on new guidelines have been stalled because the states can’t agree on how to avoid a future crisis.