What the university presidents got right and wrong about antisemitic speech

As I watched the presidents of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania struggle last week to respond to harsh congressional questioning about the prevalence of antisemitism on their campuses, I had a singular thought: Censorship helped put these presidents in their predicament, and censorship will not help them escape.

No evidence for Biden impeachment inquiry? No problem. The House GOP doesn’t seem to care

The politically inspired impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has failed to produce any convincing evidence that Biden has committed the “high crimes and misdemeanors” required by the U.S. Constitution for the conviction and removal of a chief executive. So naturally Speaker Mike Johnson is proposing a floor vote, likely next week, to authorize the inquiry as a “necessary step.”

Human intelligence must rule: AI needs limits impose by people

Days before Sam Altman was fired — and then rehired — as CEO of OpenAI, researchers at the company wrote a letter to its board of directors warning that a major new discovery could threaten humanity. We don’t know more about the details of that breakthrough or its precise role in the soap opera that’s consumed the tech world in recent weeks, but we do know that artificial intelligence is advancing at a rapid pace, and our public policy to regulate it is moving at the speed of Washington.

COP28 needs less talk and more action

In 2015, the world’s governments declared a collective ambition: to limit the rise in global temperatures to just 1.5 degrees Celsius. Since then, two things have become clear. First, the costs of exceeding that threshold are greater than believed eight years ago. Second, the goal looks increasingly difficult to reach. Even if governments enact all the climate policies they’ve so far announced — an optimistic assumption — warming this century is on track to exceed 2C and might run as high as 2.9C. As 70,000 politicians, officials and interested parties gather in Dubai for COP28 — two weeks of talks to review what’s been done and still needs to be done — this failure to align policies with promises should remain front of mind. BloombergNEF is watching 10 areas where progress in Dubai can be measured against identifiable targets. As the meeting began, the expected score across all these initiatives was 3.9 out of 10. Likely progress on the overarching objective — to get global carbon emissions in sync with the 1.5C ambition by 2030 — was a pitiful 1 out of 10.

It’s time for no-cost birth control

In 2010, the Affordable Care Act emerged as a ray of hope for the 64 million women in the United States now entitled to no-cost preventive services. With their health insurance, it promised no-cost access to birth control, a vital component of health care.

India assassination plot against US citizen breaches international order

In a federal indictment this week, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams unveiled an indictment against Nikhil Gupta, an alleged Indian narcotics trafficker who prosecutors say had attempted to hire a hitman— who turned out to be an undercover federal agent — to assassinate Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a U.S. citizen. The feds say Gupta, who was arrested in the Czech Republic, was directed by a senior Indian government official.

America’s high schoolers are running out of time

America’s high schools face a growing crisis: Millions of students who entered ninth grade in the fall of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, are set to graduate this spring, with little hope of recovering from the learning loss incurred while schools were shut. Simply put, they’re running out of time. Since the start of the pandemic, the academic performance of high school students has been abysmal. In 2022, average scores on the ACT exam were the lowest in 30 years; this year’s results were even worse. Barely 20% of students met college-readiness benchmarks in all four areas tested — English, math, reading and science — and 43% met none, up from 35% in 2018. Other data show broad declines in reading and math proficiency, while the number of students receiving failing grades has soared. In Houston, the country’s eighth-largest public school district, as many as half of high school students have flunked at least one course since the start of the pandemic, compared to one-third in 2019.

Guilty plea of Highland Park shooting suspect’s father should be a wake-up call for parents

Robert Crimo Jr.’s guilty plea to reckless conduct for helping his son obtain authorization to own firearms three years before Robert Crimo III allegedly opened fire on Highland Park, Illinois, paradegoers should be a wake-up call to everyone: If you hear or see things about potential violence, you must alert the authorities. And if you do things that could potentially enable it, you will face legal consequences.