President Donald Trump takes the stage to speak in Garden City, N.Y., on Friday, Aug. 14, 2026. (Al Drago/The New York Times) By JAMELLE BOUIE The principal aim of President Donald Trump’s second term is revenge. Trump is consumed by this lust for revenge. It defined the first moments of his second term. “Within hours of taking the presidential oath,” my news-side colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report in “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald T

President Donald Trump attends a working lunch with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, left, in Evian-les-Bains, France, during the G7 Summit, June 17, 2026. (Photo by Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has proposed that the federal government take small stakes in the leading artificial intelligence companies so the public can share in the industry’s financial bonanza. He has reportedly suggested giving the government a 5% stake in his

The entrance to King’s College, part of the University of Cambridge, in Cambridge, England, Nov. 29, 2018. “There’s no doubt that the press coverage of the [former Cambridge professor Jason] Arday affair was ugly and overwhelming,” Times columnist Michelle Goldberg writes. “But the fault doesn’t just lie with rapacious yellow journalists.” (Tom Jamieson/The New York Times) By MICHELLE GOLDBERG Last year, Jack Grove, a reporter for Times Higher Education, a British magazine, w

A worker with a non-profit helps a woman, not shown, to enroll in health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act in New Berlin, Wis., on Jan. 8, 2024. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have effectively cut subsidies for the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces, making it harder for people who do not receive insurance through work to afford a plan. (Jamie Kelter Davis/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD One of the federal government’s great ach

By Brunella Tipismana, reporting from Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma I thought I knew what poverty looked like. I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Lima, Peru, in a family of former agricultural workers who remembered what it was like to live in thatched-roof houses. So when I drove through Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma, meeting Americans in some of the poorest ZIP codes in the nation, my first reaction was one I’m not particularly proud of. The people we met drov

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF Benjamin Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister Israel has had, as well as its most disastrous for Jews and Palestinians alike. The Gaza Strip has faded somewhat from global consciousness but remains in desperate shape with no clear path forward, while the West Bank endures brutal attacks by settlers that create a widening chasm between Israel and the rest of the world. All this is Netanyahu’s legacy. Finally, polls suggest a chance that his malig

Brandon Herrera, a Republican House candidate in Texas (Facebook via Brandon Herrera For Congress) By MICHELLE GOLDBERG Because this is a family newspaper, I cannot quote the piquant term that Brandon Herrera, a Republican House candidate in Texas, used to refer to children in a 2023 video. I can only report that he called them “trophies” for getting a man to ejaculate. Nor, alas, am I allowed to repeat the obscenities that Herrera, a gun influencer, used to explain why the o

By GREGORIO IGARTÚA DE LA ROSA Special to The STAR A few days ago, I had the opportunity to watch on television the life story of one of my favorite historical figures, Nelson Mandela. His leadership and his liberating revolution place him among the most important leaders of the 20th century. His sense of justice, tenacity, and perseverance move me deeply. I noticed that in many political activities, he and his followers shouted the slogan “Mayibuye Africa!” with great enthus

By ROSS DOUTHAT When I joined this newspaper as a columnist 17 years ago, President Barack Obama was still enjoying the flush of first-term popularity. In both political and cultural circles, there was vaulting confidence that his fusion of social liberalism and technocratic ambition had swept away the conservative era in American politics. The columnist’s job contains multitudes, but it’s useful to have a primary antagonist, a specific worldview that you think needs to be ch

By TRESSIE McMILLAN COTTOM Are we looking at a socialist revival in American politics? A mashup of political analysis since Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City would have you believe that we are living in either the golden age of leftism or that the communists are coming. That might one day be our electoral reality, but not today. Yes, a lot of left-leaning candidates did well this past week, with notable primary victories in Michigan and Kansas. But a lot of mo