Caught up in the tariff spat between the United States and Canada is a little-known treaty that shapes the lives of millions of Americans and Canadians. The 60-year-old treaty governs the water rushing down the Columbia River and its tributaries, which snake from British Columbia through Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, and provides the single largest source of hydropower in the United States. But parts of the treaty expired around the U.S. presidential election. Negotiators were still weeks away from completing the details of an updated version of the treaty when President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s term ended. Then a decade of talks crashed into President Trump’s hostility toward Canada. He called Canada the “51st state,” slapped tariffs on Canadian exports and fixated on tapping its water as a “very big faucet.” In a contentious call in February with Canada’s prime minister at the time, Justin Trudeau, Mr. Trump included the treaty among the ways he said Canada had taken advantage of the United States. The implication was clear: The treaty could become a bargaining chip in a broader negotiation to remake the relationship between the two countries. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mr. Trump turned down the heat during their meeting at the White House last week. But the Trump administration has made even treaties with benefits for both sides feel like a negotiation on the edge of a knife. Mr. Trump’s erratic trade policies have thrown uncertainty into the future of the Pacific Northwest, creating new worries around everything from electricity to flood control. Data centers that power the internet and artificial intelligence run off the Columbia River’s power. Twilight soccer games duke it out at riverfront parks funded by local dams. Irrigation from its reservoirs supplies water to rolling acres of Pink Lady and Gala apple orchards. Coordinated dams hold back floods in Portland, Ore., and elsewhere. Mr. Trump touched a raw nerve among Canadians, who have long worried that the United States sees their resources — water in particular — as its to plunder. “They want our land, they want our resources, they want our water, they want our country,” was a mantra Mr. Carney repeated during his successful run for prime minister. “The Canadians feel such a sense of betrayal,” Jay Inslee, until recently the governor of Washington, said in an interview. The treaty ties together an intricate web of cultural and economic interests. “It is not easy to negotiate that,” Mr. Inslee said, “and it makes it much harder when the guy across the table thinks you are a snake in the grass.” A spokesman for British Columbia said there had not been “any movement at all” since the U.S. State Department paused the negotiations as part of a broad review of the country’s international commitments. While that’s typical after a change in administration, “that sounds like a strange euphemism for what’s going on,” Adrian Dix, the province’s energy minister, told almost 600 people in a virtual town hall in March. Mr. Dix said local residents had pulled him aside at the Save-On-Foods market to ask if Canada should pull out of the treaty altogether. “For the people of the Columbia Basin, this is visceral,” he said. “This is part of their lives and histories and souls.” If the pact were to blow up, the United States expects it would become “more difficult to control and predict” hydropower production, and increase uncertainty for preventing floods in the Pacific Northwest, according to a nonpartisan congressional report. The region’s electricity needs could double in the next two decades, according to new estimates from an interstate power council. The discussions to update the treaty before parts expired in 2024 started during the first Trump administration. Mr. Biden paused them briefly, then resumed. In March 2023, the entire congressional delegation from the Pacific Northwest urged getting a deal done. After the slow start, the United States and Canada announced the rough outlines of agreement last summer that reflected a reality far different from what the treaty writers in the 1960s anticipated. The power generated under the original treaty ended up being much more valuable than originally expected, with Canada’s half totaling roughly $300 million a year. That was far more than it needed, so Canada sold a lot of power back to the United States, much to the chagrin of U.S. utilities. The updated plan cut Canada’s take by roughly half over time. That allows the United States to keep more power just as energy demand is growing for the first time in decades. The river’s cheap, clean hydropower has been a major draw for tech companies looking to build data centers over the past two decades, even more so as artificial intelligence increases their hunger for power. “The country, as a whole, needs to understand how important the Pacific Northwest is in that emerging picture,” said David Kennedy, who studies the history of the region at Stanford.

The first group of refugees brought into the U.S. since Donald Trump became President followed an unusual path. On his first day back in office, he suspended all refugee admissions to the U.S.—upending resettlement plans for thousands fearing persecution and violence. Eighteen days later, he announced an exception for white South Africans who “are victims of unjust racial discrimination.” On Monday, the U.S. welcomed a chartered plane carrying about 50 Afrikaners, marking a new phase of the U.S. refugee program that looks nothing like what came before it. Trump’s order specifically referred to Afrikaners, descendants of mainly Dutch colonial settlers who arrived in South Africa in the 1600s and controlled the country from 1948 to 1994 through the racial separation laws known as apartheid.Shortly after their plane landed at Dulles International Airport in Virginia outside of Washington, D.C., the South Africans stood in front of news cameras holding American flags as they were greeted by Trump administration officials. “You are really welcome here and we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,” said Christopher Landau, deputy Secretary of State. Landau called the Afrikaners “quality seeds” who will “bloom” in the U.S. “As you know—a lot of you I think are farmers, right—when you have quality seeds, you can put them in foreign soil and they will blossom. They will bloom,” Landau told the families. “We are excited to welcome you here to our country where we think you will bloom.” Trump’s carve out for Afrikaners was partly spurred in reaction to a 2024 South African law that seeks to address the concentration of agricultural land in the hands of white South Africans. “Farmers are being killed,” Trump said Monday, when asked by a TIME reporter why Afrikaners were being accepted over refugees in other parts of Africa and the world. “They happen to be white but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.” South African officials insist Trump’s allegations of persecuted white South African farmers are unfounded. “The South Africa Police Services statistics on farm-related crimes do not support allegations of violent crime targeted at farmers generally or any particular race,” the country’s Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation said in a recent statement. “There are sufficient structures available within South Africa to address concerns of discrimination. Moreover, even if there are allegations of discrimination, it is our view that these do not meet the threshold of persecution required under domestic and international refugee law.”Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, told reporters on Friday the first flight from South Africa is part of a “much larger-scale relocation effort” and said what Afrikaners face in South Africa “fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created.” Another key Trump ally, Elon Musk, was born in South Africa and has pressed for the U.S. to do more to protect white South Africans from what he described on his X platform as “white genocide”. Refugees coming into the U.S. are typically vetted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which routinely refers people fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries to safer countries like the U.S. The arrivals from South Africa were not vetted by that office. On Monday, The Episcopal Church refused a Trump administration demand that it help resettle the Afrikaners in the U.S. The protestant church has worked with the federal government for four decades through Episcopal Migration Ministries to help newly arrived refugees find jobs and places to live in the U.S. “It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” wrote the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Rev. Sean W. Rowe, in a letter explaining the protestant church’s decision to completely stop working with the federal government on refugee resettlement. Rowe wrote that the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program has been “essentially shut down” since January, and he was “saddened and ashamed” that many refugees denied entrance to the U.S. had served alongside the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service. “Jesus tells us to care for the poor and vulnerable as we would care for him, and we must follow that command,” Rowe wrote.

Trump celebrated the annual National Day of Prayer on May 1 by announcing an Executive Order to establish a presidential commission on religious liberty. “[The Religious Liberty Commission] shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce the historic and robust protections for religious liberty enshrined in Federal law,” read Trump’s presidential action. An accompanying White House fact sheet added that “the Commission will investigate and recommend policies to restore and safeguard religious liberty for all Americans.”Though the Executive Order itself does not explicitly mention Christianity, the fact sheet does, and both exist in the context of other actions by the President, including a Feb. 6 announcement of a “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.” Of this measure, Trump said: “My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians.” The President has also announced the establishment of a White House Faith Office. Trump’s focus on religion is not unprecedented—George W. Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001, which aimed to partner with faith-based organizations and community groups to address social needs. The initiative was subject to controversy, partly as some critics argued that the program could allow groups to use federal dollars to discriminate against members of what is now known as the LGBTQ+ community and others whose lifestyle choices may not be supported by certain religious groupsBut Trump has gone a step further by appearing to openly question the separation of church and state since he entered the White House for his second term. “Separation? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not sure… We’re bringing religion back to our country. It’s a big deal,” Trump said during a Rose Garden event celebrating the National Day of Prayer. Here is what to know about Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission—and what experts have to say about it.The Executive Order states that the Religious Liberty Commission will make a “comprehensive report” about threats to religious liberty and strategies to “increase awareness of and celebrate America’s peaceful religious pluralism.” It lays out specific policies that are of interest for the report. “In recent years, some Federal, State, and local policies have threatened America’s unique and beautiful tradition of religious liberty,” the Executive Order reads. “These policies attempt to infringe upon longstanding conscience protections, prevent parents from sending their children to religious schools, threaten loss of funding or denial of non-profit tax status for faith-based entities, and single out religious groups and institutions for exclusion from governmental programs.”

Wildfires erupted across Britain over the past week amid the driest start to spring in nearly 70 years. Fires burned through forested areas in Scotland, Wales and England, coinciding with declining river levels and warnings of drought. In Scotland, a large forest fire near the village of Fauldhouse, west of Edinburgh, broke out late Saturday morning and was still burning on Sunday. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service deployed around 50 firefighters, supported by a helicopter dropping water over the woodland area. Mainland Scotland remains under an “extreme” wildfire risk warning through Monday, with officials urging the public to take precautions. Residents in nearby areas were advised by the police to keep windows and doors closed as emergency crews worked to contain the blaze. “Human behavior can significantly lower the chance of a wildfire starting, so it is crucial that people act safely and responsibly in rural environments,” officials said. In southwest Wales, a wildfire broke out on Friday evening on the Welsh Government Woodland Estate near Maerdy. Though it was brought under control, the blaze reignited in several places on Saturday morning before being extinguished on Sunday. Last week in England a major wildfire in Dartmoor, Devon, raged across more than 1,200 acres of land before being put out. Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service said at the peak of the blazes, crews from 13 fire stations were deployed to the area, as well as wildlife support officers and a police helicopter. Britain is in a record-breaking year for wildfires. According to data from the Global Wildfire Information System, which tracks fires larger than about 30 hectares, more land in Britain had burned by the end of April than in any full year over the past decade. The risk has been amplified by unusually dry conditions. England has seen its driest start to spring since 1956. The Met Office, Britain’s weather service, reported that April received only 56 percent of its average rainfall, while March saw just 43 percent. In its April report, the European Union’s Copernicus climate service upgraded Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to drought warning status, following an earlier drought watch. In Ireland, a ban on using water for nonessential outdoor activities, like in gardens, was introduced last Tuesday for six weeks. The restrictions were introduced after prolonged dry weather led to sharp drops in reservoir levels. While no such bans have been put in place in Britain, England’s Environment Agency has warned of a medium risk of drought this summer if there is not consistent rainfall. Scotland is already seeing the signs of strain. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency reported falling water levels in rivers across the country, from Dumfries and Galloway in the southwest to Thurso and Black Isle in the far north. Parts of eastern Scotland have gone nearly three weeks without significant rain. Some rain is expected to reach parts of western Scotland by Monday, but largely dry and sunny weather is forecast for the coming days, offering little relief to firefighters battling the blaze in Fauldhouse, in West Lothian.

A slow-moving storm system is expected to fuel intense downpours of widespread showers and thunderstorms from Alabama to Florida and across the Carolinas, Virginia and West Virginia through Wednesday. The storm is meandering its way over the Lower Mississippi Valley, pulling in a blend of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic into the Southeastern United States. “These slow-moving systems bring a lot of moisture up,” said Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center. “They’re not moving much, so they tend to bring repeating rainfall to some of the same areas.” Repeated rounds of heavy rain from this storm since last week have raised the risk of flash flooding in the region. On Sunday, the heaviest rainfall was focused over northern Florida and southern Georgia.Flooding was also a concern for parts of Alabama, northern Mississippi and the Carolinas, where the ground remains saturated from recent storms. The system is forecast to bring further bouts of rainfall and thunderstorms across the Southeast and into parts of the Mid-Atlantic through Wednesday. The Weather Prediction Center said that rainfall could be especially intense along the Southeast coast and in the mountainous regions. Urban areas along the coast of Virginia were also included in the flood outlook as they are especially prone to flooding during periods of heavy rain. “We’re looking at a focus along the Blue Ridge, so that’s the eastern side of the Appalachians,” said Mr. Jackson. “Also, along the Carolina coast, up from Myrtle Beach and eastern North Carolina is another focused area for some significant rainfall.” Farther south, forecasters were concerned for the Miami metro area, where the Weather Prediction Center issued a Level 3 out of 4 risk for flash flooding through Tuesday. Rainfall rates could exceed two inches per hour, with localized totals of three to seven inches, which may lead to significant flooding. A Level 3 out of 4 “slight risk” for flash flooding was also issued from Virginia to the Florida Peninsula. Scattered storms were expected across parts of the Tennessee and Mississippi Valleys, where a Level 1 out of 4 risk is in place. Those areas have seen heavy rains recently, leaving the ground saturated and more prone to flooding. The Raleigh, N.C., office of the Weather Service said it expected two to four inches of rain across central North Carolina, with the heaviest rainfall likely through Tuesday morning. Flood watches had been issued for central and western North Carolina and for portions of western and southeastern Virginia through Tuesday.

Greetings from Los Angeles where the Milken Global Conference concluded earlier this week. For the uninitiated, Milken is a key stop on the conference circuit for many business and finance leaders—a great way to escape Manhattan to brush shoulders with industry titans and top policymakers in Beverly Hills. It is by no means a climate conference. This year, public sessions with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang drew packed ballrooms. But, to many, the real draw of the conference is the behind-the-scenes discussions—an opportunity for information gathering and dealmaking. For me, Milken is a great place to take the pulse on how key figures in the world of business and finance are feeling about energy, climate, and related issues. There is no doubt that climate has slipped from center stage as CEOs contend with tariffs and what might diplomatically be called a fast-changing policy environment. At the same time, it may come as a surprise to those who just follow the headlines, but the issue remains well-placed on the corporate agenda—not just in the ballroom discussion panels of the Beverly Hilton at Milken but in the behind-the-scenes executive conversations taking place in private meeting rooms, nearby restaurants, and even just the crowded hallways. The picture that emerges to me is a dynamic one. Companies are trying to navigate an increase in climate regulation in many jurisdictions around the world while at the same time contending with a U.S. government that doesn’t want to hear about it. They are trying to protect their operations from the risks posed by climate change while conserving their financial resources in uncertain economic times. “I've had hundreds of conversations since the election. I've never spoken with a company that said, ‘You know what? We're going to let go of our net-zero target,’” said Nili Gilbert, vice chair at Carbon Direct, a company that invests in carbon management, on a Milken panel. “However, there is a lot of conversation going on about the interim strategy.” My conversations at Milken will inform my reporting in the weeks to come, but for now I want to highlight a few things that stood out to me: Physical risk Much of the public discussion at the intersection of business and climate has focused on how companies can decrease their emissions. But companies have also been forced to look at how the physical risks of climate change may affect their operations. That rethinking is the result of both climate disclosure rules in Europe that require companies to assess how climate change threatens their operations, and recent climate-linked disasters that have brought those realities home. Advertisement Many companies want to avoid talking about climate risk directly. It’s not exactly a great PR move. But a careful look at many companies’ more recent sustainability initiatives makes the link apparent. Think of an agriculture company that helps farmers in the supply chain use less water or a fashion company diversifying where it buys materials. “Being able to map those impacts and hazards is super important,” said Melissa Fifield, who runs the BMO Climate Institute, on a panel I moderated focused on water and climate. “It's a material impact to a lot of companies.” Investment speed Climate isn’t an island. The trillions in investment that the world needs to mitigate and adapt to climate change will come in forms that might otherwise be classified broadly as infrastructure, venture capital, or private equity. And the uncertainty of the moment—political and economic—has made companies and investors reluctant to make big bets and instead focus on conserving cash. Advertisement “These asset owners… want to focus on climate and infrastructure,” said Mark Berryman, partner at Capricorn Investment Group, an impact investing fund, on a Milken panel. But “they may just kind of tighten their belt in general, even if it was not a climate focused investment,” AI, meanwhile, is a bright spot for how companies might focus their investment. As I’ve written before, the race to build data centers has created a race to build clean energy. Financial innovation Innovation typically draws to mind new technologies, but financial innovation can be just as important to bring clean energy to market. Across the conference, it was reassuring to hear leaders at the intersection of climate and finance talk about different ways companies may soon be able to raise the money necessary to bring climate projects to life. That includes long-standing conversations like carbon markets and blended finance, where public or philanthropic dollars are combined with return-oriented investment. But it also includes new vehicles like private credit, an emerging asset class where investors outside of typical banks lend directly to companies. Advertisement Ultimately, financial innovation is a key ingredient to any energy transition, and these questions will need to be settled.

After a brief, two-day deliberation, a new pope to lead the Catholic Church has been selected to succeed Pope Francis, who died on April 21. Robert Prevost, the first American Pope in history, took the name Pope Leo XIV, and appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening. Much remains to be seen on where Pope Leo will stand on key issues—the cardinal is known to be reserved. But he is steering the Catholic Church at a time where the world is facing a number of pivotal crises—from geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, to global issues regarding migration, human rights, and the climate crisis. Global leaders including U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva hope that, when it comes to the climate crisis, Leo might take up the mantle of Pope Francis, whose strong climate advocacy earned him the moniker of “the Climate Pope.” An invitation has also already been extended to Pope Leo to attend this year’s COP30 U.N. climate conference in Brazil. Little is known about Pope Leo’s commitment to environmental activism, but some indications show that he might be willing to prioritize the climate fight. Last year, speaking at a Rome seminar to discuss the global impacts of the climate crisis, Prevost said that it was time to move “from words to action,” according to an article published by the Vatican’s official news source. “‘Dominion over nature’—the task which God gave humanity—should not become ‘tyrannical.’ It must be a ‘relationship of reciprocity’ with the environment,” the Vatican News described him saying. Following this week's announcement, a handful of influential global decision makers expressed their optimism that Pope Leo might continue on with Pope Francis’s climate legacy. “Our world is in need of the strongest voices for peace, social justice, human dignity and compassion,” said Guterres. “I look forward to building on the long legacy of cooperation between the United Nations and the Holy See – nurtured most recently by Pope Francis – to advance solidarity, foster reconciliation, and build a just and sustainable world for all.” No time was wasted in inviting the new Pope to this year’s annual U.N. climate summit. "The COP30 Presidency hopes to welcome Pope Leo XIV in Belém in November to help us reach a climate agreement that will mark a turning point in the creation of a more prosperous, safer, fairer, and sustainable future," Ana Toni, the summit's CEO, said in a statement. And in a statement posted on Thursday, Brazil’s Lula da Silva also expressed hope that Pope Leo might continue in the footsteps of his predecessor on several fronts—including climate. Brazil, which has one of the largest Catholic populations in the world, is already facing the impacts of the climate crisis. “I hope that he will continue the legacy of Pope Francis, whose main virtues were the incessant search for peace and social justice, the defense of the environment, dialogue with all peoples and all religions, and respect for the diversity of human beings.”

What happened to learning as a national priority? For decades, both Republicans and Democrats strove to be seen as champions of student achievement. Politicians believed pushing for stronger reading and math skills wasn’t just a responsibility, it was potentially a winning electoral strategy. At the moment, though, it seems as though neither party, nor even a single major political figure, is vying to claim that mantle. President Trump has been fixated in his second term on imposing ideological obedience on schools. On the campaign trail, he vowed to “liberate our children from the Marxist lunatics and perverts who have infested our educational system.”Since taking office, he has pursued this goal with startling energy — assaulting higher education while adopting a strategy of neglect toward the federal government’s traditional role in primary and secondary schools. He has canceled federal exams that measure student progress, and ended efforts to share knowledge with schools about which teaching strategies lead to the best results. A spokeswoman for the administration said that low test scores justify cuts in federal spending. “What we are doing right now with education is clearly not working,” she said. Mr. Trump has begun a bevy of investigations into how schools handle race and transgender issues, and has demanded that the curriculum be “patriotic” — a priority he does not have the power to enact, since curriculum is set by states and school districts.Democrats, for their part, often find themselves standing up for a status quo that seems to satisfy no one. Governors and congressional leaders are defending the Department of Education as Mr. Trump has threatened to abolish it. Liberal groups are suing to block funding cuts. When Kamala Harris was running for president last year, she spoke about student loan forgiveness and resisting right-wing book bans. But none of that amounts to an agenda on learning, either. All of this is true despite the fact that reading scores are the lowest they have been in decades, after a pandemic that devastated children by shuttering their schools and sending them deeper and deeper into the realm of screens and social media. And it is no wonder Americans are increasingly cynical about higher education. Forty percent of students who start college do not graduate, often leaving with debt and few concrete skills. “Right now, there are no education goals for the country,” said Arne Duncan, who served as President Barack Obama’s first secretary of education after running Chicago’s public school system. “There are no metrics to measure goals, there are no strategies to achieve those goals and there is no public transparency.” Michael Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a center-right think tank, and a former education official under President George W. Bush, agreed. “There is no talk of achievement gaps, and little talk even of upward mobility or opportunity,” he said. Editors’ Picks 36 Hours in Rome Is There a Least Bad Alcohol? Help! How Do I Make Sense of All These Trends? Vicious debates over critical race theory and D.E.I. have put education at the center of our politics. And yet, these conversations are so often indifferent to the data showing that when it comes to academic learning and social development, too many children and teenagers are suffering. But despite the lack of national direction, an energetic group of educators, parents and researchers is advancing an ambitious agenda for learning. It is centered around one big idea: The breadth, depth and quality of the curriculum matter. How Education Reform Died Many Americans will recall that on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush was in a second-grade classroom, smiling wanly as children read a book called “The Pet Goat.” What they may not remember is why Mr. Bush was there, at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., on that morning. Booker was — and is — an ordinary public school, which served mostly Black children from low-income families. The president was promoting No Child Left Behind, which he was struggling to get through Congress. It would eventually pass with bipartisan support, instituting a national program of annual standardized testing in reading and math. While Mr. Obama critiqued how N.C.L.B. was carried out, he agreed with its core vision and advanced it. States were prodded to adopt the Common Core, a set of shared curriculum standards, which brought changes like more thesis-driven writing assignments and a greater emphasis on conceptual understanding in math. In those years, Washington sought to hold educators accountable for raising students’ scores on tests linked to the new standards. Schools could be labeled “failing.” Teachers with low evaluation scores could even lose their tenure protections. It worked, at least for a time. Achievement in reading and math increased, especially among the lowest-performing students. But tying punishments to test scores led to a predictable outcome: a curriculum that, in too many schools, centered on test prep. Students practiced reading short passages and answering multiple choice questions about those passages, over and over again. And with principals focused intently on raising scores in reading and math, they whittled away time for social studies and science. All of this contributed to a potent anti-education-reform movement, led by teachers and parents. On the right, there was angry resistance to any kind of federal mandate over local schools. On the left, a vocal group of parents began to refuse standardized tests; in 2015, 20 percent of students in New York opted out of state exams.The politics of top-down school accountability had become untenable. Later that year, Mr. Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, largely unraveling his own education agenda. Bipartisan school reform was dead. Since then, Republicans have embraced a free-market vision of parental rights, in which as many tax dollars as possible are freed to help parents pay for private-school tuition, home-schooling and for-profit virtual schooling. That movement accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, when conservative parents organized to resist school closures, mask mandates and progressive ideas about race and gender in the curriculum, picking up support from some centrists and liberals along the way. Over the past five years, the number of students using some form of private school voucher doubled, to more than 1 million. That number is expected to continue to grow quickly. Voucher advocates once argued that school choice would move children into academically superior schools, as measured by test scores. Not any more. Now, their highest goods are parental control and satisfaction. Over the same time period, Democrats drew closer to their traditional allies, the teachers’ unions. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the party had engaged in a constructive internal debate on whether to expand the number of public charter schools, an idea that Mr. Obama supported. Many charters were built around the conviction that poor children deserve an academically rigorous education — but they largely were not unionized. President Joe Biden, a staunch labor ally, marginalized the charter-school sector, despite the fact that it has created thousands of quality public schools. Instead, Democrats focused on investing in teacher pay and improving school buildings. Progressives spoke frequently about schools as community centers filled with counselors and health clinics, and less frequently about reading comprehension or algebra. Health and social supports — even nicer buildings — do help children learn. But as Democrats tried to address poverty and inequality, they sometimes minimized schools’ core functions of learning, socialization and child-care while parents work. This tendency contributed greatly to the party’s inaction in the face of the unions’ push for extended remote learning. The public schools superintendent in Seattle, Brent Jones, whose system was closed for 18 months, has framed that period as, essentially, a triumph. “I saw it as a forced opportunity to step back,” he said. “We were called upon, frankly, to expand our mission to include many other things: nutritional, social, emotional, mental health. There was a cry for support. Schools stepped into that gap.” Maximizing Learning In one classroom, in northeast Louisiana, you can see several ideas that have emerged far from the spotlight of national politics. One recent afternoon at Highland Elementary School, where 70 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a diverse group of fifth-graders sat, rapt, as their teacher, Lauren Cascio, introduced a key insight: that the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution and the Reformation all occurred during the same period of human history. Ms. Cascio reviewed vocabulary words that students would need: heretic, rational, skepticism, heliocentric. Then, over the course of an hour, 10- and 11-year-olds broke into groups to discuss why Leonardo da Vinci was interested in human anatomy. They wrote about how the ideas of Copernicus and Galileo differed from those of the ancient Greeks. Unlike in many elementary-school classrooms, the students did not have computers or tablets on their desks. They had open books, which they were avidly marking up with highlighters and pencils. The work in Louisiana has been celebrated by the Knowledge Matters Campaign, an effort led by Barbara Davidson, a policy advocate and veteran of the Department of Education under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Ms. Davidson supported the goals of No Child Left Behind. That is why she feels a responsibility now to correct for that era’s excesses. Knowledge Matters tries to draw attention to schools that demonstrate strong reading results, often through teaching a notably rigorous, history-heavy curriculum to elementary school students. Ms. Davidson has worked to amplify the ideas of a loosely organized network of educators, curriculum-writers, parents and local policymakers who are rejecting ideological approaches to education, and instead, are focused on how to maximize learning.It starts with reading. One positive development of the past decade has been a shift toward a research-backed focus on structured phonics in the early grades — to successful effect. But now, some of the attention has shifted to additional aspects of literacy instruction that are backed by cognitive science, and crucial for turning beginning readers into proficient ones; namely, the finding that to become a good reader, and thus a well-educated worker and citizen, children need a strong vocabulary and knowledge about the world. The subjects that best build vocabulary and knowledge are social studies and science — the exact subjects that the Bush-Obama reforms often stripped from the school day. But students face an additional challenge that didn’t exist during the education battles of the 2000s: ubiquitous screens. Children cannot learn to focus their attention on books or anything else if they are constantly distracted by addictive technology. The push to ban phones in schools transcends partisanship, and parent activism has helped a dozen states ban or limit cellphones in schools. Still, many educators say that screens remain a problem. About 90 percent of schools now provide a computer or tablet for every student, up from 45 percent before the pandemic. It is common for children as young as 8 to spend an hour or more of the school day staring at screens. Some teachers are moving in-class reading and writing back to paper. Among them is Jon Gold, a middle school history teacher in Providence, R.I., who frequently writes on how to enrich the curriculum and use technology in smarter ways. He now requires his students to close their laptops and read on paper. “Their reading comprehension is stronger,” he said. The push to emphasize learning is not just about the liberal arts, though. Developing a mature attention span is also crucial for work. The previous generation of education reformers sought to enroll as many students as possible in four-year colleges. In many ways, the standard-bearer was the KIPP network of charter schools, whose mantra was “college starts in kindergarten.” The bachelor’s degree still accelerates lifetime earnings, and KIPP leaders still encourage students to strive for it. But given the persistence of high college dropout rates and the burden of student debt, KIPP teachers and counselors are increasingly open to students pursuing remunerative career paths that do not require a four-year degree — think electrical installation, HVAC specialists and radiography technicians. High schools need much more help on this from employers and government, many educators say — establishing apprenticeships that allow teenagers to learn in real work places, and collecting data on what types of vocational programs are most rigorous, as measured by a track record of landing graduates in decently paid jobs. The Politics of Learning Satisfaction with public education is at a quarter-century low, and enrollment in public schools has declined since the pandemic. According to polls, concerns about the curriculum are one reason. But large majorities of voters are enthusiastic about schools doing a better job at teaching the core academic subjects and civics, as well as introducing more work force training. So why aren’t politicians responding to voters’ concerns when it comes to learning? Some elected officials — especially younger ones — are.Jake Auchincloss, a House Democrat from the Boston suburbs, has urged his party to apologize for pandemic school closures. He has advanced a number of proposals to more heavily regulate and tax social media companies, and has said the money should be used to provide every public school student in America one-on-one tutoring. On the Republican side, Senator Tom Cotton, like Mr. Trump, wants to tax elite university endowments, which he argues are not serving most American students. He envisions using the money to finance a $9,000 voucher for high school graduates pursuing workplace apprenticeships, and to offer incentives to companies to hire those trainees into permanent jobs. The country is deeply polarized. But a survey of some of the most exciting work happening in schools shows that educators and parents have the ability to embrace new ideas and come together around the goal of giving the next generation a quality education. It could even be the beginning of a political platform.

Afederal judge on Friday ordered the immediate release of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University who had been held for six weeks in an immigration detention center, ruling that her arrest and continued confinement were unlawful and raised serious constitutional concerns. Judge William K. Sessions III of the U.S. District Court in Vermont found that Öztürk, who was detained in March after co-authoring a pro-Palestinian op-ed in her campus newspaper, had been targeted for her speech in a manner that violated her First Amendment and due process rights. The ruling is a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration’s use of visa revocations and deportation proceedings against foreign students accused of dissenting from U.S. foreign policy.There is no evidence here… absent consideration of the op-ed,” Sessions said in court, describing the government’s case as hinging entirely on her protected speech. “Her continued detention cannot stand.” Öztürk, who appeared virtually from an ICE facility in Louisiana, was ordered released without restrictions on her travel, allowing her to return to her home in Massachusetts. The ruling was announced as White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was in the midst of a briefing with reporters. When asked about the decision, Leavitt suggested Sessions had overstepped. “We’ve made quite clear that lower level judges should not be dictating the foreign policy of the United States," Leavitt said. Later on Friday, Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy, announced that the Administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, the right to challenge a person’s detention by the government when the U.S. has been invaded or during an insurrection. Habeas corpus has only been suspended four times since the ratification of the Constitution: during the Civil War; in South Carolina during Reconstruction to combat the Ku Klux Klan; in the Philippines during a 1905 insurrection; and in Hawaii after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. “The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in time of invasion,” Miller said, just days after a New York federal judge ruled that the Trump administration had not shown evidence that there was a foreign invasion to justify using the Alien Enemies Act for deportations. Sessions’ order in the Öztürk case comes amid mounting scrutiny of President Donald Trump’s policy of revoking student visas on the basis of perceived political threats. Since returning to office, Trump has directed his administration to act aggressively against foreign nationals who the Administration has alleged are undermining American interests, particularly in the context of criticism of Israel and campus protests against the war in Gaza. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who revoked Öztürk’s visa, said her presence in the U.S. was contrary to American foreign policy interests and suggested she had aligned herself with groups hostile to Jewish students. A State Department memo cited the op-ed she co-authored and alleged links to a student organization that was temporarily suspended by Tufts. “We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses,” Rubio told reporters. “If we’ve given you a visa and then you decide to do that, we’re going to take it away.”

Chad de Guzman by Chad de Guzman Reporter Former President Joe Biden was diagnosed with a “more aggressive” form of prostate cancer, his office said in a statement on Sunday. According to the statement, Biden, 82, was diagnosed with cancer on Friday, May 16, upon a medical check after experiencing “increasing urinary symptoms.” It added that Biden’s cancer was characterized by a Gleason score of 9, with metastasis to the bone. “While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” the office said. Biden and his family are reviewing treatment options. Advertisement It’s not Biden’s first brush with cancer: he had a skin lesion removed in 2023 that turned out to be basal cell carcinoma, and his son Beau died in 2015 of brain cancer. The elder Biden also had a brain aneurysm in the late 1980s that almost killed him. But the new prostate cancer diagnosis has been met with a wave of support for the former President, given his age as well as longstanding concerns about his health condition. Here’s what to know about the disease Biden was diagnosed with.