January 23, 2026

Now, on to the news…

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has proposed expanding the kinds of housing that would be exempted from the state’s environmental-review process. In New York City, that means buildings with up to 500 units in medium- and high-density districts and buildings with up to 250 units elsewhere would qualify for the exemption. Outside of the city, buildings with up to 100 units would qualify.

“If passed, these changes would mean communities that want new housing would be able to get it faster, and with less administrative expense,” Eric Kober explains. “The only question is whether the state legislature will play along.”

Read his analysis.

Near the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency, roughly two dozen states announced that they would create their own watchdog task forces, inspired by Elon Musk’s mission to expose fraud and cut waste. Some states moved quickly, using artificial intelligence to help spot overlapping rules, cancelling outdated contracts, and recovering Social Security benefits still going to the deceased. But not everyone is pleased.

“As with the federal version, their work has sparked controversy—especially among groups that depend on public funding, including public employees and their unions,” Steven Malanga explains. “Local politicians in both parties are wary, unsure whether the push for ‘efficiency and transparency’ will expose corruption or simply shift power.”

Read more about the state DOGE movement, the trend toward deregulation, and the deepening political divide.

Throughout history, technological advances have transformed the way we live and work. Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly do the same.

Of course, no one knows for sure what the next ten years will bring, let alone the next five. But Misha Saul offers a handful of broad predictions: deeper personalization, the end of privacy, and the collapse of moral agency, among others.

But some things won’t change at all, he writes. “An AI can read and write anything, but it can only do it for you in the most superficial sense—it cannot know or feel for you. It cannot delight in a new vein of knowledge for you. It cannot be curious about the miracle of creation on your behalf,” he observes.

Read his analysis.

The Manhattan Institute is proud to serve as the Principal Institutional Partner for the Sun Valley Policy Forum’s 2026 Winter Summit in the iconic resort town of Sun Valley, Idaho on February 11, 2026.

We are thrilled to join Joe Lonsdale and MI senior fellow Christopher F. Rufo for an evening on principled leadership and the future of American institutions in an AI-driven era. Please click here to learn more about the Sun Valley Policy Forum and our partnership and to purchase tickets at a discounted rate for friends of the Manhattan Institute.

Despite lagging in the polls, Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback has built a national following online. How? Through “edgelording.”

He’s edgy, in other words. He attacks other Republicans, has posed in Nick Fuentes-branded hats, and has said that he wouldn’t attend any Hanukkah celebration or Jewish event.

“Other Republican candidates, envious of the attention Fishback gets on the Internet, may be tempted to copy his tactics,” Maximillian Meyer writes. “If they do, they would not only weaken President Trump’s MAGA coalition but also threaten to erase the GOP’s gains in a state that has been transformed from competitively purple to reliably red.”

Read more about Fishback’s approach.

“The root causes of these problems are (1) human greed, (2) Washington’s ability to operate with unbalanced budgets, and (3) the Fed’s willingness to create new money to fund both greed and deficits. This won’t end well.”

—

brian_in_arizona, commenting on health-care fraud 

Photo credit: UCG / Contributor / Universal Images Group via Getty Images