April 15, 2026

Now, on to the news…

Photo credit: The Washington Post / Contributor / The Washington Post via Getty Images

Florida law forbids state and federal funds from being used to “promote or engage in political or social activism.” But faculty at New College are trying to do just that.

Take an undergraduate thesis that the college approved and archived in January. The thesis covers two books: Gender Queer and Fun Home. Given these books’ sexually explicit content, parents have objected to their inclusion in school libraries. But the thesis describes “book censorship, theft, and destruction” as ways “to specifically target queer, trans, Jewish, and other marginalized communities.” It classifies Gender Queer as essential reading and mocks Governor Ron DeSantis for displaying redacted pages from the book.

“This isn’t ‘academic’ in any meaningful sense,” Colin Wright writes, “but rather activist writing designed to indoctrinate, recruit, and promote activism.”

Read more about New College’s efforts to push activist ideology.

At nearly $6 a gallon, the average price of gas in California is 40 percent higher than the national average. Some economists predict that those prices will get worse.

Of course, expensive gas in California is nothing new. The state’s excise tax is about 70 cents per gallon—the highest in the nation. Its cap-and-trade program adds about 20–30 cents per gallon. The Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) adds another 17 cents. And California requires a specialized gasoline blend to reduce emissions, which can add 10 to 15 cents per gallon.

“In response to past price spikes, California enacted measures aimed at capping oil-company profits during periods of high prices and requiring detailed disclosures to regulators,” Shawn Regan writes. “Such policies discourage refineries from making long-term investments in costly infrastructure. The state has also continued to tighten its environmental mandates, increasing California’s exposure to supply shocks.”

Read more about what the state can do to bring down fuel prices.

As universities have become more transparent about faculty ideology, admissions practices, and grade inflation, trust in higher education has collapsed. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s February survey found that the share of Americans who express little confidence in colleges and universities has almost tripled since 2015.

“Over the last decade, an accumulation of viral controversies, leaked materials, public records, and formal reports has exposed the widening gulf between Americans’ expectations of higher education and its reality,” Kevin Wallsten writes. One analysis, for instance, found that professors often assign left-leaning material on divisive issues such as abortion and Israel-Palestine without pairing it with scholarly critiques. “Such pedagogical one-sidedness reinforces the perception that higher education is steering students toward preapproved conclusions instead of searching for truth,” Wallsten argues.

Read more about higher education’s confidence problem and what colleges can do to make it right.

“Crime is not fungible. If the illegal immigrants were not in the U.S., the crimes they committed would not have happened.”

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Toryhere, commenting on media reaction to President Trump’s response to the Florida hammer attack