As a lawyer, I feel most strongly about the least-discussed benefit: Eliminating bus fares can clear junk cases out of our court system, lowering the crushing caseloads that prevent our judges, prosecutors and public defenders from focusing their attention where it’s most needed.

Something Surprising Happens When Bus Rides Are Free

By Emily Galvin Almanza

Ms. Almanza is the executive director of Partners for Justice, a nonprofit organization that seeks to transform public defense.

Carney is putting Canada above the U.S by making it apparent Trump is a blustering moron trashing our future

 

Canada’s Financial Market SHOCKS the World — USA HUMILIATED!

Paul Krugman's devasting analysis of Canada's PM Mark Carney walking out of the Trump White House on October 7 2025

 

White House $700B Trade Deal IMPLODES 

as Carney WALKS OUT - Paul Krugman Explains

At a pipe plant in Nikopol, a city across the Dnipro River and less than five miles from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which Russia controls, I asked a crane operator, Yevhen Bilousov, when he thought the war might end. The factory was ringed with antidrone nets, its windows covered by metal sheets perforated by shrapnel holes, but the work carried on. The question itself was meaningless, he told me, “because everything depends not on when but on how the war ends.”

 When will the War in Ukraine End?

The Question is Meaningless

By Nataliya Gumenyuk

Ms. Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist who is writing a book about drone warfare. She wrote from Kyiv.

Ukraine is Finally Calling Trump’s Bluff

With Alabama, Loisiana and Mississipi proving to be the best hope in schooling at one third the cost per pupil shows Linda McMahon is not wrong in delisting the Department of Education

 These Three Red States Are The Best Hope In Schooling

Rather, hope emerges in the most unlikely of places: three states here in the Deep South that long represented America’s educational basement. These states — Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi — have histories of child poverty, racism and dismal educational outcomes, and they continue to spend less than most other states on public schools.

Yet, consider:

• Louisiana ranks No. 1 in the country in recovery from pandemic losses in reading, while Alabama ranks No. 1 in math recovery.

• The state with the lowest chronic absenteeism in schools is Alabama, according to a tracker with data from 40 states.

• Once an educational laughingstock, Mississippi now ranks ninth in the country in fourth-grade reading levels — and after adjusting for demographics such as poverty and race, Mississippi ranks No. 1, while Louisiana ranks No. 2, according to calculations by the Urban Institute. Using the same demographic adjustment, Mississippi also ranks No. 1 in America in both fourth-grade and eighth-grade math.

• Black fourth graders in Mississippi are on average better readers than those in Massachusetts, which is often thought to have the best public school system in the country (and one that spends twice as much per pupil).

By Nicholas Kristof

Photographs by Lynsey Addario

Mr. Kristof is an Opinion Columnist who reported from Alabama and Mississippi. Ms. Addario is a photojournalist whose most recent book is “Of Love & War.”

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Trump thinking his Venezuela decapitation worked out well so why not Iran

 

As Diplomats Talk, Pentagon Prepares for Possible War With Iran

President Trump threatened to strike Iran, but the military has needed time to build up its forces in the region.

By Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt

Reporting from Washington

M MuggedByReality El Otro Lado Feb. 4 Estimado Sr. Sanchez, Do in your own country as you wish (at least as long as you can hold your shaky coalition together). But please don't lecture the entire Western world about what it should do re. clandestine migration. One size does NOT fit all. Apparently most of the clandestine migrants in Spain come from Latin America, and these people would be the easiest for your country to absorb. They already speak your language and they share many parts of your culture, especially your religion. Also, apparently there are many lower-wage jobs to be had in Spain, and it seems your native workers have not been displaced in a wage race to the bottom (although I remain a bit skeptical about that). The situation with Italy, which I know better than Spain, could not be more different. In Italy, there are some, but not many low-wage agricultural jobs, but other than that there is no work for migrants. So they come, have nothing to do, hang around train stations and city centers, and get into trouble, sometimes big trouble such as drug dealing, armed robbery and rape. Further, most speak little Italian and do not necessarily share points of Italian (indeed Western in general) culture such as respect for the work and dignity of women and freedom of speech (especially criticism of religion, notably criticism of Islam). Italy, France also, does not need these kinds of migrants, and should not be expected to pick up the fiscal burden of supporting them. They should be deported ASAP.

 

I’m the Prime Minister of Spain. This Is Why the West Needs Migrants.

By Pedro Sánchez

Mr. Sánchez is the prime minister of Spain. He wrote from Madrid.