“The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act apportioned more than $1 trillion to a wide variety of projects deemed “infrastructure,” including $550 billion toward “‘new’ investments and programs.” Among its line items, the law included $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle (E.V.) chargers across the country.
The rollout was uninspiring. Under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which controls $5 billion of the $7.5 billion total, only 183 chargers have come online at 44 stations across the country, more than three years after Biden signed the bill into law. (Under federal rules, each station funded by the law is required to have at least four charging ports.)
In fairness, not all of the cash has been spent: The NEVI has only allocated $2.4 billion and awarded $520 million, as of press time.
Still, it’s a dispiriting result from an administration that came into office with big promises to “build a national network of 500,000 charging stations.”
Similarly, the 2021 infrastructure law included the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, with $42 billion to expand broadband internet access across the country. In his speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Biden equated it with the New Deal, calling the broadband expansion “not unlike what Roosevelt did with electricity.”
But three years after its creation, the program has disbursed no money and supplied broadband to zero households. “Thanks to a federal affordability requirement that telecommunications companies say is too tight, many states have sparred with Washington over their funding applications, delaying the rollout,” Politico wrote in September.”
…
“Biden’s supporters would counter that while the initial rollout was underwhelming, much of this spending is designed to pay off over time: NEVI, for example, is apportioned $1 billion per year through FY 2026 when the program’s funding runs out.”
…
“it’s clear by this point that Biden’s big-spending dreams were hamstrung by bureaucracy and red tape, much of which was included in the bills themselves or in administration guidelines.”
“the First Amendment is understood as a general restriction on the government’s behavior, as The Volokh Conspiracy’s Ilya Somin points out.
“The First Amendment’s protection for freedom of speech, like most constitutional rights, is not limited to US citizens,” he writes. “The text of the First Amendment is worded as a general limitation on government power, not a form of special protection for a particular group of people, such as US citizens or permanent residents.”
Setting aside the constitutional issue, the detention of a student activist for engaging in what would clearly be considered First Amendment–protected activity under other circumstances is very alarming. If the State Department wishes to proceed with this course of action, the burden is on the government to sufficiently explain why Khalil should be deported. Authorities must persuasively demonstrate that his conduct crosses some very, very red line.
Yet, at present, the government’s justifications don’t come anywhere close to satisfying such a requirement. On the contrary, the official explanation for Khalil’s detention is so woefully insufficient as to be laughable—except, of course, this matter isn’t funny at all.”
“The markets understand the basic truth about tariffs, which are taxes consumers in our country pay for imported goods. They raise prices, reduce our access to foreign goods and spark reciprocal tariffs that then punish our country’s farmers and manufacturers. They lead to less growth and more unemployment. They increase bureaucracy by requiring officials to calculate duties and enforce them. They create hostilities and have led to actual war.
As economist Robert Higgs explains, “Fiscally, protectionism is a poor source of government revenue that dries up completely as tariffs are increased so much that they reduce trade flows to zero. Morally, protectionism is vicious because it coercively substitutes the ill-informed and ill-directed judgment of government officials for the judgment of people making deals with their own private property.””
…
“Trump threatened them to gain ill-defined concessions from our friendly, highly developed and peaceful allies to the north. Then, after it was clear Canada had already conceded to whatever it was our president demanded, he suspended them. His supporters claimed tariff critics didn’t understand that this was just a brilliant negotiating tool. But then this month the president imposed them anyway. True to form, MAGA shifted back to arguing that tariffs are great policy in and of themselves.”
“Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Gen. Mazloum Abdi make an odd couple. Abdi is a Kurdish rebel leader whose secular army boasts all-women units and fights alongside the U.S. military. Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Golani, is a former franchisee of Al Qaeda who runs the new Islamist government in Damascus.
Yet the two men, both of whom traded in their military fatigues for ill-fitting suits, were shaking hands and grinning for the camera on Monday. They had an agreement—at least in principle—for Abdi’s Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to merge into the government in exchange for Sharaa recognizing Kurds’ hard-won rights. The exact details would be hammered out by the end of 2025 by a newly formed committee.”
…
“President Donald Trump has long wanted to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. But his previous attempt to do so, in October 2019, was a violent catastrophe. Turkey took Trump’s withdrawal announcement as a green light to attack the SDF, and hawks in the administration played what they openly called “shell games” to keep U.S. forces in the country anyway.
A deal between the SDF and the central government might be the best opportunity for a graceful U.S. exit. In fact, Syria TV claims that the deal between Abdi and Sharaa was inked as a direct response to Trump telling his generals to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.”
“What Lutnick is talking about is central planning, plain and simple. It’s also just silly. How much of America’s aluminum supply should come from Canada if not 60 percent? Is 50 percent the right amount? Is it 17.54 percent? Lutnick doesn’t know—because no one does—because that’s a question without an answer.
Clearly, however, the Trump administration wants the figure to be lower. New 25 percent tariffs on aluminum imports might accomplish that, but at significant cost to American consumers and businesses, whose only offense is buying aluminum from sources located within a country that is a close American ally and the signatory of a trade deal that the current president negotiated just five years ago.”
“In 2019, the average girl scored a 517 on the assessment, which is measured on a 1000-point scale, and boys scored a 514, just a three-point difference. In 2023, boys’ scores had dropped 19 points on average, while girls’ scores dropped an astonishing 36 points on average.
“Since 2019, girls’ test scores have dropped sharply, often to the lowest point in decades. Boys’ scores have also fallen during that time, but the decline among girls has been more severe,” writes education reporter Matt Barnum. “Boys now consistently outperform girls in math, after being roughly even or slightly ahead in the years before 2020. Girls still tend to perform better in reading, but their scores have dropped closer to boys.”
Why is this happening? Researchers aren’t sure. One theory is that girls may have taken on more domestic tasks than boys during pandemic lockdowns (for example, taking care of younger siblings) and thus may have missed out on more learning. Another is that girls tend to have fewer behavioral issues, meaning that struggling girls weren’t called to educators’ attention in the same way many boys were.”
“The United States said Russia had agreed to an energy and infrastructure ceasefire. After Moscow and Kyiv agree to stop hitting each other’s power plants and electric grids, negotiators would move on to a potential halt in fighting on the Black Sea − and then to a full ceasefire and peace agreement in the 3-year-old Ukraine war, a White House statement said.
Trump said on social media the talk ended “with an understanding that we will be working quickly to have a Complete Ceasefire and, ultimately, an END to this very horrible War between Russia and Ukraine.”
…
“Ukraine backers immediately slammed the scaled-back agreement as one that would primarily benefit Russia.
The agreement would keep Ukraine from striking Russia’s oil refineries”
…
“Putin was likely to pull back from attacks on energy infrastructure in warmer weather anyway, said Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute.
“Recognizing the need to offer something to stay in President Trump’s good graces, he delivered only the bare minimum,” said Coffey, who was senior adviser Britain’s defense ministry.”
“The lawsuit filed by USAID employees and contractors argued that Musk and DOGE are wielding power the Constitution reserves only for those who win elections or are confirmed by the Senate.”
“The administration maintains that it has the power to revoke Khalil’s green card and deport him because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests. Indeed, it’s becoming clear that Khalil was targeted because of his speech, rather than any other conduct that might be reasonably construed as criminal behavior.”