February 10, 2026

Now, on to the news…

Last week, City Journal honored Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro with the 2026 City Journal award. “I am an enormous fan of both City Journal and Manhattan Institute because of their unflagging, unwavering optimism about America,” Shapiro said in his remarks. He went on to express his confidence in American ideals and the American future, saying: “The American dream is the dream my great-great-grandparents had, and that all of our ancestors had: to solve the problems of life using the liberty and virtue and determination granted to us by our Creator, in the freest and most prosperous governmental system ever crafted by human minds. That dream is with us still.”

Read more here.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is bankrolling radical “social-justice” initiatives at universities across the country. In 2024, in keeping with this agenda, the nonprofit gave the California State University System $1.5 million to “Expand Ethnic Studies Pathways.”

John Sailer reviewed internal documents related to one of those Mellon-funded projects. San Diego State University, his reporting reveals, is using the foundation’s money to build “Decolonized Internship Pipelines” for women’s, gender, sexuality, and ethnic studies students, teaching them “how to interrogate capitalism” and challenge the “contemporary colonialism” supposedly embedded in “professional workplaces.”

Students in these fields already struggle to find work. This program, Sailer argues, is seemingly designed to make them even less employable. Read the rest of his reporting and analysis here.

Since 1985, the average cost of an undergraduate education has more than doubled. More than 40 million borrowers owe a total of $1.65 trillion. The median borrower owes between $20,000 and $25,000.

Democrats and Republicans both focus on alleviating student debt rather than reducing the price of college. They push policies like expanded Pell Grant eligibility for workforce programs, debt forgiveness, and lower interest on loans. “We need to flip the script and offer a distinct vision of affordability—one centered on reducing demand for college and expanding viable alternatives,” Neetu Arnold writes.

Indeed, too many people attend college when they’re not ready, which means more students dropping out—inadequate academic preparedness is among the strongest predictors of students leaving early.

“If the system draws unprepared students into expensive programs that they are unlikely to complete,” Arnold writes, “then policies focused solely on easing repayment or subsidizing access will not address the root problem.”

Read her take.

This year, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance will go up by 9 percent. Spending on Obamacare, Medicare, and Medicaid is also rising.

Why? Blame patients’ increased use of services, especially new procedures and drugs. “The more medical science can do for the sick, the more insurance is needed to pay for it,” Chris Pope writes. But whether technological innovation can bring down costs depends on policy choices.

Read his analysis.

“Artificial intelligence (AI) companies may be booming, but they’re still struggling to get around a fundamental constraint: an insatiable demand for electricity,” write Craig Roach and John Garnett. That hunger for power is having the side effect of driving up utility bills for ratepayers in states where new data centers are coming online every day.

The solution is twofold, argue Roach and Garnett. First, government must insist that AI companies pay the full costs of their construction and power-generation needs, not just pass them on to ratepayers. Second, government must get out of the way: “[D]ata centers must be free to source their power from the wide range of energy sources available in the U.S.—especially cheap, abundant natural gas. And that means deregulation.”

Read more here.

“ICE agents wear masks to hinder rioters from doxing them and then assaulting them and their families. The rioters wear masks because they are criminals and don’t want to be identified when they commit criminal acts.”

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Tom W, commenting on anti-ICE groups

Photo credits: David Ake / Contributor / Getty Images News via Getty Images