New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks to reporters after he met with President Donald Trump at Gracie Mansion in Manhattan, Sept. 21, 2026. (Dave Sanders/The New York Times) By LYDIA POLGREEN A few days before the leaders of the world streamed into the cavernous, marble-lined General Assembly Hall to deliver their speeches on the grave crises convulsing our combustible world, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered his own, somewhat surprising solution to the problem of ris

The National Aerospace Park defense and missile exhibition in Tehran, Iran, July 29, 2025. There are reasons Iran could choose to escalate the war. (Nanna Heitmann/The New York) By NICHOLAS KRISTOF In early March, nine days after starting his war with Iran, President Donald Trump held a news conference to crow about his “military success, the likes of which people haven’t seen.” “We’re winning very decisively,” he claimed, and “the result will be lower oil prices.” Peter Nava

“We are supposed to trust that this administration is earnestly looking for fraud in public programs even as it seeks to undermine the programs themselves,” Times columnist Jamelle Bouie writes. (Jens Masmann/The New York Times) By JAMELLE BOUIE Since March, Vice President JD Vance has been tasked with rooting out any fraud perpetrated against the federal government. “This is a very big thing that we’re doing,” President Donald Trump said when he announced the task force. “If

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN President Donald Trump is such an awful human being that just writing about him feels degrading. What president would denigrate his predecessor in front of China’s leader the way Trump mocked Joe Biden, now suffering from cancer, by pointing out that a framed picture of an autopen was hanging in the White House instead of Biden’s portrait? Alas, though, when someone as morally warped as Trump — whose first secretary of state called him a “moron” — assume

Secretary-General António Guterres opens day one of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, at the U.N. headquarters in Manhattan on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. For many of the world’s problems, “the United Nations is becoming almost irrelevant,” Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes. (Dave Sanders/The New York Times) By NICHOLAS KRISTOF Quiz question: What country surpasses Haiti, Somalia and Congo as a deadbeat and rogue nation? Answer: In the halls of the U

President Donald Trump speaks at the Presidents Cup golf tournament in Medinah, Ill., on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The world is facing at least three crises today that cannot be resolved by any one country. Two are longer-term and arguably existential: the threat of uncontrolled artificial intelligence and the growing impact of climate change. One is shorter-term and damaging the global economy: the disruption of shipping l

Israel is treating the new documentary “NAZA,” by the Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, less like bad publicity than a national security crisis. Eyal Zamir, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, pledged to use “every tool at our disposal” against the documentary, which features anonymous interviews with 24 intelligence officers and soldiers, most involved in remote strikes in the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for legislation t

By JAMELLE BOUIE At a fundamental level, artificial intelligence leaders, evangelists and their allies want you to believe that this novel technology demands a novel political approach. Calls for self-regulation from the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI and other such companies rest on the idea that the AI labs and their funders are the only people equipped to handle and regulate this potentially dangerous technology. This is why, for example, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, rec

The OpenAI offices in San Francisco, July 21, 2026. Sam Altman, the company’s chief executive, agreed with the Anthropic chief’s call to slow down artificial intelligence advancements. (Lucas Foglia/The New York Times) By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” That’s what President Donald Trump said about the COVID-19 outbreak on Feb. 10, 2020, about a month before it forced our country and the w

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as he departs the White House in Washington, Feb. 27, 2026. (Damon Winter/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Twice during President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration tried to prevent a journalist whose work it did not like from reporting at the White House. Twice, judges rejected the moves as unconstitutional and restored the journalists’ access. Now the administration is attempting the same move, barring journa