August 6, 2026

Photo credit: Joe Doll/Manhattan Institute

Flea-borne typhus cases in Los Angeles have skyrocketed by 2,300 percent since 2009. Why?

Rats.

They are everywhere in L.A. And they feed on trash. Fleas then feed on the rats, and the infected fleas bite humans, who can come down with a mild illness or suffer from a serious one that results in death. How did it get to this point?

Trash-filled streets, homelessness, and state restrictions on rodenticides have all enabled the disease to spread, Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe report in their investigation. “The records we obtained make clear that by 2019, local officials had a good idea of what steps needed to be taken to get the rat population under control: more garbage cans, cleaner streets, and control the fleas,” they write. “But in the years that followed, the situation apparently went from bad to worse.”

Read more.

The Democratic Party has a major problem. Its establishment has been hesitant to distinguish itself from the hardline left, acting as though its beliefs are now liabilities.

Abdul El-Sayed’s razor-close victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary illustrates this dynamic. While El-Sayed did not shrink from defending his left-wing views, his opponent, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, seemed more reluctant to take a stand for moderation. For instance, during the campaign, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib attacked Stevens over the support she received from companies like General Motors and General Mills. Stevens could have said that she’s pro-business because private enterprise enables communities to thrive. Likewise, Stevens seemed uncomfortable in defending the support she received from pro-Israel Americans and groups, like AIPAC.

“Democrats once championed America as a melting pot and assimilation as a civic ideal,” Jesse Arm writes. “Increasingly, too many appear reluctant to defend those principles lest they offend activist factions determined to refract domestic politics through the ethnic and ideological conflicts of the Middle East.”

That reluctance has consequences. Read more.

Many fear that as artificial intelligence advances, jobs will disappear. And for good reason. Tech companies like Meta, Coinbase, and Block have announced substantial layoffs, and AI is already capable of doing work that not long ago required huge teams. Some in the tech community warn of a looming “permanent underclass,” and call for federal intervention, including a Universal Basic Income.

But the real-life underclass already exists, Sanjana Friedman writes. They are the drug-addicted and mentally ill who have been allowed to decay on San Francisco’s streets—and their condition offers a warning about the effects of massive federal assistance that fosters dependency.

“The misery of these people is actively encouraged and supported by the state, both indirectly through tolerance of shoplifting and public disorder and directly through a generous array of cash and in-kind benefits,” she observes. “These include monthly direct cash payments, access to food stamps (easily parlayed into cash), and free needles, foil, and lighters.” Those calling for unconditional subsistence payments to alleviate AI-driven dislocation should be aware, Friedman writes, how often the “cure proves worse than the disease.”

Read more.

“During a wellness check, this person failed to respond, so I followed protocol and opened the dormitory curtain. The client lunged at me and displayed what appeared to be a weapon. I ran and locked myself in the meal-preparation room. Management acknowledged that the client’s behavior was a known problem, but because I had not been injured, nothing was to be done.”

Lee Kuan Yimby started working at a California homeless shelter in 2021, hoping to do work that would help others. The position lined up with his political views: such human suffering, he believed, was caused by corporate greed; to alleviate it, we should tax the rich and redistribute the money.

But working at the shelter made him realize that he was taking part in “a calculated system disguised as a compassionate philosophy,” he writes. “The system derided expectations and consequences for bad behavior as oppressive. It abandoned vulnerable people to addiction, psychosis, violence, and predation. Meanwhile, a network of highly paid professionals administered the decline, took vacations in Europe, and patted themselves on the back as good, selfless people.”

Read his report.