April 7, 2026

Now, on to the news…

Photo credit: Anadolu / Contributor / Anadolu via Getty Images

If you’ve visited the U.K. recently, you might get the impression that there’s been a mass conversion to Islam. Before Eid last month, Muslims gathered in a public square in London to pray. Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan hailed the “power of being Muslim.” More schools are changing their uniform policies, banning skirts or allowing girls to wear hijabs, and some schools serve halal meat.

But none of this reflects an increasing number of Britons becoming Muslim. “Rather, a growing Muslim population has become more confident in asserting its identity, while Britain’s political and cultural elite increasingly insists upon respect for Islam as a show of support for the supposedly progressive values of diversity, multiculturalism, and anti-racism,” Joanna Williams observes. The result, she says, is “an extending Islamification of all aspects of British society.”

Read more here.

As part of his preliminary plan for Fiscal 2027, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is seeking $38 billion for the city’s Department of Education. That’s about 30 percent of the entire city budget and a $3 billion increase from this fiscal year—despite declining public school enrollment.

Jennifer Weber argues that, instead of pouring increasing sums into the DOE, Mayor Mamdani should look to cut waste in three areas: “administrative growth, vendor contracting, and ‘due process cases,’ also known as Carter cases.”

On cutting administrative costs, New York could look to cities like Philadelphia and L.A., which have saved hundreds of millions of dollars in spending without laying off teachers. Weber suggests that the city stop automatically renewing vendor contracts. And on Carter cases, which involve private school reimbursements for students with disabilities, Weber recommends reversing a Bill de Blasio-era policy that caused these expenditures to skyrocket. Reforms in all three areas could generate massive savings, potentially eliminating the need for Mamdani’s proposed tax hikes.

“Before asking New Yorkers to pay still more, [Mamdani] should demonstrate that the city is spending its tax dollars wisely,” writes Weber.

Since 2024, Democrats have flipped 30 Republican state legislative seats. And surprisingly, they’ve nabbed several recent wins in Florida, a state that had become a GOP stronghold.

Last November, for instance, for the first time in almost three decades, Democrats gained control of Miami’s mayoralty with Eileen Higgins’s election. And in March, for the first time in 45 years, they took Boca Raton’s mayoralty with Andy Thomson’s victory. Meantime, Republican successes have become less impressive.

“Part of Democrats’ momentum owes to their embrace of the same message used by party colleagues in other states,” Paul du Quenoy writes. “All four recent victors made affordability and consumer prices the bedrock of their campaigns.”

It’s clearly a winning strategy, and Republicans would be foolish to ignore it, du Quenoy warns. Read more about Democrats’ recent wins in the Sunshine State.

Many in America claim to support freedom of speech but object to it when someone they disagree with—like the late Charlie Kirk—engages in it. Kirk’s murder last fall marked a new low for American society. Some even expressed satisfaction at his death.

“Many of the rest of us can only hope that this episode, and the growing acceptance of political violence, do not trigger a downward spiral that ultimately eviscerates the practice of free speech altogether,” Wilfred M. McClay writes. “What is required is a renewed commitment, especially from academic leaders, to the habits of mutuality on which free speech depends but which it cannot, by itself, sustain.”

Read more.

“Tell Chicago to ask Mamdani for a loan. Supposedly, he’s very clever with money.”

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mattcoul, commenting on Chicago’s fiscal woes