May 6, 2026

Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images

Last week, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced that it was removing 115 job descriptions from its list of occupations. “Elevator operator,” for instance, hasn’t been used in years. And categories like “bowling equipment repairing” and “buffing and polishing” are woefully outdated.

“The goal,” Judge Glock writes, “is to make the federal government look more like private-sector employers, which have in recent decades adopted the practice of ‘broad banding’—placing many different jobs under a general description and giving managers more discretion to hire and set pay for those positions.”

This should come as welcome news. Most employees won’t lose their jobs—they’ll work under new titles and requirements.

Read more about the changes.

An increasing number of individuals have claimed to fall in love with—and some even “married”—AI chatbots. Is this a new low for the state of modern love?

“AI relationship enthusiasts often say that what drew them to chatbots was the attraction of never-ending constancy, supportiveness, withholding judgment, and well, fun,” Joseph Figliolia writes. Valuable attributes in a partner, to be sure. But chatbots can’t think, they have no perspective, and they can’t offer genuine reciprocity.

It may be true that some AI relationships are harmless, especially for those who are ill or disabled and just looking for more joy in their lives. But, Figliolia observes, “the ups and downs of fortune, and life’s inevitable ceremony of losses, are the real crucible for the soul, not an LLM platform.”

Read more about AI relationships and what they mean for society today.

Since the pandemic, families have been flocking to better learning options for their children. But not everyone is able to do so, given the zoning and land-use rules that make it almost impossible for new schools to open in some areas.

“Most states have building codes that treat schools the same if they have six students or more,” Charles Mitchell writes. “That means the same stairwell-width requirements for 2,000-student mega-schools as for 20-child microschools, for instance, which doesn’t make much sense. If a non-school space will be used as a school, it usually needs to be reclassified, triggering expensive upgrades.”

It’s time for lawmakers to change these one-size-fits-all regulations, he argues. There’s one state in particular that offers a path forward. Read about it here.