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| Data: Gallup. Chart: Sara Wise/Axios |
April 22, 2026
Word
Sky - Speaking today, the Pontiff said: "The destiny ?of humanity risks being tragically compromised without a change of direction in the assumption of political responsibility and ?without respect for institutions and international agreements."
"His [God's] holy name must not be profaned by the will to dominate, by arrogance or by discrimination. Above all, it must never be invoked to justify choices and actions of death," the Pope added.
Polls
Newsweek - A new poll from Echelon Insights on Tuesday shows potential top Democratic and Republican primary contenders for the 2028 presidential election, showing former Vice President Kamala Harris still leading the pack of potential Democrats and Vice President JD Vance still leading potential Republicans.... Harris has 22 percent of the potential vote compared to Newsom's 21 percent, Buttigieg's 12 percent and Ocasio-Cortez's 10 percent. The poll shows 10 percent are unsure.
The poll also shows Vance with 42 percent of the vote compared to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's 14 percent, Donald Trump Jr.'s 10 percent, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' 8 percent. The survey also shows 13 percent are unsure.
Americans Seeking European Passports
Newsweek - For many Americans struggling with the higher cost of living and tired of the growing political tension at home, their European family trees offer a chance to escape the country—or at least to have a Plan B in case things get really bad. Millions of people in the U.S. can trace their ancestry back to the so-called "Old Continent," even if these ties date back multiple generations.
Long-lost connections to Europe gives them the right to apply for citizenship in the country that their ancestors left behind, granting them the right to live and work in the continent as a birthright, through a legal pathway called citizenship-by-descent.
Between 2023 and 2025, U.S. applications for citizenship-by-descent in Europe rose by up to 500 percent, according to firms facilitating the process such as Arton Capital and Latitude.
During that period 80 percent of the applications targeted Italy, but the nation has since tightened its rules, making it harder for Italian Americans to obtain citizenship through their ancestors
22 towns ban smoking
Newsweek - As of March 2026, 22 [Massachuetts] communities—home to more than 600,000 people—have passed what are known as Nicotine Free Generation ordinances. The laws work by raising the legal purchase age for tobacco by one year, every year, effectively ensuring that anyone born after a specific cutoff date—most commonly January 1, 2000—can never legally buy tobacco products in those towns, for the rest of their lives. Though they can still smoke in spaces where that is legal.
A convenience store owners' association challenged it in court, arguing it conflicted with the state's minimum purchase age of 21 and unconstitutionally discriminated against people born on or after January 1, 2000. In early 2024, Massachusetts's Supreme Judicial Court sided with Brookline, ruling that towns had the legal authority to enact such bans. That decision opened the floodgates. Within two years, 21 more communities had followed.
The movement traces its roots to Brookline, which in 2020 became the first place in the U.S. to pass such a law.
A convenience store owners' association challenged it in court, arguing it conflicted with the state's minimum purchase age of 21 and unconstitutionally discriminated against people born on or after January 1, 2000. In early 2024, Massachusetts's Supreme Judicial Court sided with Brookline, ruling that towns had the legal authority to enact such bans. That decision opened the floodgates. Within two years, 21 more communities had followed.
Globally, only a small number of jurisdictions have successfully enacted generational tobacco bans: the Indian Ocean island nation of the Maldives, and these 22 towns in the New England state.
The communities that have adopted Nicotine Free Generation regulations are: Amherst, Belchertown, Brookline, Chelsea, Concord, Conway, Dover, Hardwick, Hopkinton, Leverett, Malden, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Melrose, Needham, Newton, Pelham, Reading, Somerville, South Hadley, Stoneham, Wakefield and Winchester.
Donald Trump
Newsweek - A House Democrat introduced a bill on April 20 that would bar a sitting president from naming public buildings after themselves, following a wave of Trump-linked renaming efforts. The proposal comes amid backlash over President Donald Trump's name and likeness being added to prominent cultural institutions and federal programs during his second term. If enacted, the bill would block Trump and future presidents from attaching their names to public buildings while in office.
The Hill - President Trump said Wednesday that “certain” conservative justices on the Supreme Court have “gone weak, stupid, and bad,” tearing into them for a recent decision on tariffs and skepticism over his effort to limit birthright citizenship. Trump slammed “Republican” justices in a lengthy Truth Social post, arguing that they “don’t stick together” like their liberal counterparts.
“The Democrat Justices stick together like glue, NEVER failing to wander from the warped and perverse policies, ideas, and cases put before them,” he wrote, claiming conservatives on the court have given Democrats “win after win” by doing the opposite.
“No, certain ‘Republican’ Justices have just gone weak, stupid, and bad, completely violating what they ‘supposedly’ stood for,” the president added.
Washington Post - The Trump administration’s contract governing hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations to build President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom shields donors’ identities, excludes the White House from conflict of interest protections and was disclosed only after a lawsuit and a judge’s order, records obtained by The Washington Post show.
The agreement establishing the legal and financial framework for the planned $400 million undertaking — the most significant change to the White House in decades — was signed in early October, less than two weeks before demolition crews started destroying the East Wing. Public Citizen, a government watchdog organization, sued to obtain the contract between the White House, the National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall, the nonprofit managing donations for the project, and shared the document with The Post.
“The Trump administration’s failure to disclose this contract was flatly unlawful,” said Wendy Liu, a Public Citizen attorney and lead counsel on the lawsuit, filed after the Park Service and the Interior Department failed to fulfill a public records request for the document. “The American people are entitled to transparency over this multi-million-dollar project.”
Reuters - The fallout from President Donald Trump’s unpopular Big Beautiful Bill keeps hitting impoverished red states harder than others a hospitals and voters come to terms with yawning debt and healthcare cuts threatening critical hospitals.
Mississippi Today reports state lawmakers face a “daunting task” trying to fill the holes Trump blasted into the state budget with his looming federal cuts. Unhappy with their options, the Republican-dominated legislature failed to address some of the most pressing issues with Trump’s cuts during the legislative session, so the looming blast holes are still waiting.
Mississippi is one of many impoverished state with a high percentage of uninsured population who do not reimbursement hospitals for visits. But Mississippi Today reports Medicaid is expected to lose $1 billion over the course of the next decade as a result of “Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill signed into law in July.” To further complicate matters, Republicans let federal enhanced premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act Marketplace insurance expire late last year, making health care much more expensive for “hundreds of thousands of Mississippians.”
Weather
Washington Post - A massive ocean hot spot is stretching across a 5,000-mile swath of the Pacific — from Micronesia to the coastal waters of California. Across this zone, waters are as much as 6 to 8 degrees above average.
And it has the attention of climate scientists, who say it could boost temperatures, humidity and the threat for tropical storms in the West during the months ahead. Climate scientist Daniel Swain described this increasingly extreme marine heat wave as an “exceptional event” that’s breaking records.
The unusual ocean anomaly — the largest on the planet — could expand and intensify to cover the entire Pacific coast of North America by late summer, he wrote.
Newly nominated FED chair
New Republic - Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego should be commended for some excellent fact-checking of Trump crony Kevin Warsh on Tuesday.
Warsh is Trump’s pick to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve after Jerome Powell’s term expires in May. During Warsh’s Senate committee confirmation hearing, Gallego tried to suss out whether Warsh was going to put the president’s political interests ahead of the country’s economic health.
“Earlier today, you said to Senator [John] Kennedy that President Trump never demanded you to cut interest rates in your job interview. Is that your sworn testimony?” Gallego asked.
“That is, Senator,” Warsh said.
“Well, someone here is lying, then,” Gallego replied. “It’s either you or President Trump. Because in an interview with The Wall Street Journal of December 12, President Trump confirmed he pressed you on your commitment to support interest rate cuts.”
Gallego helpfully cited the Journal article for Warsh: “During a 45-minute meeting … the president pressed Warsh on whether he could trust him to support interest-rate cuts if he were chosen to lead the central bank, according to people familiar with the meeting. Trump, in the Journal interview, confirmed that reporting.”
Warsh responded by claiming the reporters who wrote the story—Meridith McGraw, Nick Timiraos, and Brian Schwartz—were fibbing:
“Senator, there’s, of course, a third alternative. You cite a couple of reporters for a leading financial newspaper.… I think those reporters either need better sources, or better journalistic standards.”
MS Now - There was one question hanging over the room during Tuesday’s meeting of the Senate Banking Committee. According to the hearing schedule, the gathered senators were there to adjudicate Kevin Warsh’s nomination to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Matters of monetary policy were discussed, but the focus would inevitably return to whether Warsh, if confirmed, would stand up to President Donald Trump and ensure the independence of the Fed from political pressure.
It’s an issue that barely came up in the most recent confirmation hearings for a new chair, nine years ago. The good news is that Warsh was adamant about having no interest in merely doing Trump’s bidding as chair. “I do not believe that independence of monetary policy is threatened when elected officials state their views on rates,” Warsh declared in his opening remarks. “Fed independence is up to the Fed.”
Much more troubling, however, was Warsh’s response to a simple question from the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.: “Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?” It is not the sort of complicated economic issue that he’d expect to oversee, though it still had a simple factual answer. And his response wasn’t encouraging given the pressure Trump has placed on Warsh’s predecessor and the current Fed Chair Jerome Powell. More
Work
The American Prospect - The American labor movement will soon have something it’s never had before: a centralized strike fund. Union Now, the new nonprofit and brainchild of Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International President Sara Nelson, began officially fundraising at a kickoff rally on Sunday, April 12th, in Manhattan. National leaders of the Democratic left were there in support; both Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani made rousing speeches, which suggests that the supporters Union Now hopes to enlist will go beyond those who are already union activists.
The Union Now fund will be a centralized, national clearinghouse to get money directly into the hands of workers, Nelson told the Prospect. Too often, workers want to organize but can’t because of money. Some are working two jobs so don’t have the time; some get fired illegally for attempting to organize. Funds from Union Now will supplement the incomes of those still employed so they can spend time organizing rather than on that second job, Nelson said, and financially support those who have been illegally fired while they contest the dismissal or get a new job. Grant applications will be available following the inaugural fundraising; Union Now is deciding how it will approve grants and is considering using a workers’ council to do so.
Britain moves to ban smoking
NY Times - Britain aims to raise a “smoke-free generation” by permanently banning the sale or supply of tobacco and vape products to anyone born in 2009 or after, with a bill that was approved by Parliament on Tuesday. The bill applies to people currently 17 years old or younger and aims to keep them from ever picking up the habit in their lifetime. The proposal is expected to soon go into law after the final formality of approval by King Charles III.
Immigration
Congressional Insider - A wave of immigration-judge firings is colliding with a 3.7 million-case backlog, raising a blunt question: is Washington fixing a broken system—or just swapping one set of “elites” for another?
The dispute highlights a broader tug-of-war over border enforcement, executive control of immigration courts, and the meaning of “due process” inside an overwhelmed system.
....The Justice Department has fired more than 20 immigration judges without public explanation as the court backlog exceeds 3.7 million cases.
The dispute highlights a broader tug-of-war over border enforcement, executive control of immigration courts, and the meaning of “due process” inside an overwhelmed system.
Global electricity sources
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| Data: Ember; Chart: Ben Geman/Axios |
Axios - Global electricity generation from renewables edged past coal in 2025, per new analysis by Ember, a clean energy think tank.
The inflection point with renewables — mostly hydro, solar, wind and bioenergy — helped to keep CO2 emissions from power essentially flat even as consumption rose, it found.
A separate report Monday from the International Energy Agency reached a similar conclusion. It showed coal, long the world's largest power source, barely hanging onto the title last year. Coal and renewables both had about a 34% share, with the former an inch ahead, IEA found.
Both reports show solar's growth is doing lots of heavy lifting in 2026, even though it remains a small share of total global generation (8.7% last year by Ember's tally).
Space
1440 - NASA unveiled its Roman Space Telescope yesterday, an instrument that could allow researchers to observe an area of the cosmos 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope. See the telescope here. Roman could help scientists find exoplanets by identifying distortions in starlight that may indicate a planet passing in front of stars. The telescope also aims to answer questions about the formation of the universe as well as dark matter and dark energy (what’s the difference?). The observatory, estimated to cost over $4B, will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Florida as soon as this fall.
States where people spend the most and least on housing
WalletHub - With housing costs consuming up to 50% of the median income in some states, the personal-finance company WalletHub today released its report on the States Where People Spend the Most & Least on Housing to highlight where homeownership is least affordable for the average resident.
For this report, WalletHub analyzed mortgage and home energy payments across all 50 states. These costs were then combined and compared with each state’s median household income to determine where people spend the largest share of their income on housing.
Full report
For this report, WalletHub analyzed mortgage and home energy payments across all 50 states. These costs were then combined and compared with each state’s median household income to determine where people spend the largest share of their income on housing.
| Highest % of Income Spent | Lowest % of Income Spent | |
| 1. Hawaii (50.02%) | 41. Kentucky (20.34%) | |
| 2. California (43.00%) | 42. Mississippi (20.13%) | |
| 3. Massachusetts (33.67%) | 43. Arkansas (19.93%) | |
| 4. Oregon (33.56%) | 44. Indiana (19.70%) | |
| 5. Washington (32.97%) | 45. Illinois (19.70%) | |
| 6. Colorado (32.58%) | 46. Ohio (19.68%) | |
| 7. Nevada (32.36%) | 47. Nebraska (19.34%) | |
| 8. Idaho (30.88%) | 48. Kansas (18.64%) | |
| 9. Montana (30.47%) | 49. West Virginia (18.39%) | |
| 10. New York (30.41%) | 50. Iowa (17.26%) | |
Full report
Universities
“What they need, in every department, are more skeptics and iconoclasts and people with a capacity to change their minds intelligently.” - Bret Stephens, an Opinion columnist. Read now
Now hospitals are a target
Axios - Washington's anti-hospital animus is gaining momentum with new calls to crack down on federal financing of hospitals coming from a think tank with close ties to the Trump administration.
It's becoming apparent on both sides of the aisle that addressing health care costs means addressing their largest driver: Hospitals.
The Paragon Health Institute, a conservative think tank led by first-term Trump health official Brian Blase, released a report today, "The Hospital Cost Crisis: How Government Policies Drive Consolidation, Undermine Competition, and Fuel Soaring Prices."
- It dismantles several of hospitals' most common arguments about their finances, concluding that "hospitals are not broadly financially distressed."
- It also disputes the industry's longtime claim that facilities lose money treating Medicare and Medicaid patients — an argument often used to justify charging commercially insured patients more for services.
- And it argues that federal policy, in many cases, overpays hospitals, gives them a competitive edge against other health industry players, and encourages consolidation while promoting inefficiencies.
- Paragon played a significant role in shaping the Medicaid overhaul that was included in last year's Republican budget bill, in a sign of its clout on Capitol Hill.
Details: The paper calls for greater scrutiny of "direct subsidy programs" like provider taxes, state-directed payments, and certain Medicare and Medicaid payments, saying such programs are "extensive, opaque and poorly targeted." More
Virginia a win for Democrats
Roll Call - Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to redraw the commonwealth’s congressional map, giving Democrats an opportunity to pick up as many as four additional House seats in this fall’s midterm elections.
The pro-redistricting “yes” side was leading with just over 50 percent of the vote when The Associated Press called the race around 8:50 p.m. Eastern time, meaning that, at least for now, Democrats would be favored to control 10 out of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts under the new lines.
Tuesday’s special election comes after the Virginia legislature began the process to redraw the map last fall, joining a collection of states that have altered their congressional lines ahead of the midterms.
The result represents a big win for Democratic hopes of flipping the House this year when Republicans are defending a razor-thin majority in the chamber.
Middle East
The Guardian - Donald Trump unilaterally announced an extension of the two-week ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday amid frantic efforts to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table.
Hours after announcing that he “expected to be bombing”, Trump said he would extend the truce until Tehran submitted a proposal for peace. The announcement came on a day where JD Vance’s expected trip to Islamabad was put on hold and after Trump stepped up his aggressive messaging, saying the US military was “raring to go”.
Trump’s ceasefire rhetoric received short shrift from Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament and Tehran’s lead negotiator. His personal advisor dismissed it as “a ploy to buy time for a surprise strike”, adding that “the time for Iran to take the initiative has come”.
April 21, 2026
Pete Hegseth
X- Pete Hegseth announces that the War Department will no longer require the flu vaccine for military service members this season.
Middle East
NBC News - President Donald Trump said the U.S. would hold off on new attacks against Iran, heeding a request from Pakistani mediators. Trump said on Truth Social that Iran's "fractured" government needed more time to put forward a comprehensive proposal for negotiations. A U.S. military blockade of Iranian ports would continue, he said.
Pope takes on those "“exploited by authoritarians and defrauded by the rich”
Independent, UK - Pope Leo has delivered a forceful condemnation of global injustices during his ongoing four-nation Africa tour, lamenting that many people are “exploited by authoritarians and defrauded by the rich”. This marks an ongoing shift in his public sermons, showcasing a new, more outspoken style.
Addressing worshippers at a Mass in Saurimo, near the Democratic Republic of Congo border, the first US pope – who has previously drawn the ire of President Donald Trump – said that violence and oppression contradict the Christian message.
He declared: “Every form of oppression, violence, exploitation and dishonesty negates the resurrection of Christ”, referring to the core belief of Christianity that Jesus rose from the dead after being crucified.
ICE Condemned for ‘Police State’ Tactics
Newsweek - A federal judge has issued a scathing attack on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), describing aspects of its arrest practices as resembling “police state” tactics and warning of serious constitutional concerns. The ruling, issued by U.S. District Judge Dora L. Irizarry of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, centers on the detention of an individual on Long Island and ultimately orders the person’s release.
In the opinion, the judge, a George W. Bush-era Republican appointee, points to what she describes as troubling enforcement practices, including the use of after-the-fact documentation to justify arrests, which the judge said raised serious due process concerns.
According to the court, ICE officers arrested the individual without a judicial warrant and later relied on paperwork that appeared to have been prepared after the arrest to justify the detention. The judge said this sequence raised serious questions about whether the government had complied with statutory and constitutional requirements at the time of the arrest. In unusually forceful language, the judge compared such practices to “police state” tactics.
Maryland bns "surveillance pricing" by retailers
Newsweek - Maryland could become the first U.S. state to ban "surveillance pricing" as a new law—the Protection From Predatory Pricing Act—could affect how retailers charge millions of residents for their groceries.
Surveillance pricing—sometimes called dynamic or personalized pricing—is a practice that allows retailers to charge different customers different prices for the same item, based on their personal data.
Retailers use information they've collected about individual shoppers—such as their purchase history, location or online behavior—to determine how much someone is willing to pay for an item.
After Maryland lawmakers passed the Protection From Predatory Pricing Act, Democratic Governor Wes Moore confirmed that he would sign the bill into law, arguing that surveillance pricing could unfairly raise the cost of everyday essentials.
In January, when the bill was first introduced, Moore said in a news release, "At a time when Marylanders are already stretched by the rising cost of groceries, housing, and everyday necessities, we must ensure that new technologies are not used to drive up the bill for working families."
Donald Trump
The Daily Adda - A stunning new report from The Wall Street Journal has exposed a deeply troubling picture of President Donald Trump during one of the most critical national security moments of his second term. According to senior administration officials, Trump completely lost it during an active military rescue operation tied to the Iran war. His own team made the extraordinary decision to physically remove him from the room and shut the door behind them.
The crisis began on Good Friday when a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over Iran and two American airmen went missing behind enemy lines. When Trump received the news, he screamed at aides for hours. The scene inside the West Wing, according to sources, was not one of calm leadership. It was one of a president who had completely lost his grip.
Senior officials including Vice President JD Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles dialed directly into the Situation Room to receive live, minute-by-minute updates on the rescue operation. Trump was not in that room. He was briefed separately, only at what officials described as “meaningful moments,” over the phone.
Heather Cox Richardson - Late Saturday evening, Josh Dawsey and Annie Linskey of the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was so unstable and angry after learning on April 3 that Iranians had shot down an American jet that his aides kept him out of the room as they received updates, simply telling him what was going on at important moments.
The journalists describe an erratic president who entered the war after Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu convinced him the Iranian people would support such strikes and after his successful extraction of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Celia Flores convinced him the military could pull off another quick victory. He seemed to believe that if his gamble worked, he would be saving the world.
But while the strikes did indeed kill Iran’s top leaders and badly damage its military, the Iranians closed the Strait of Hormuz. Trump did not foresee this outcome, although he was warned of it. He told his team that the Iranian government would give up before it closed the strait and, if it did manage to close the strait, the U.S. military would handle it. The journalists report Trump has “marveled at the ease with which the strait was closed.”
Social Security checks come later in May
Newsweek - Millions of Social Security beneficiaries will face a longer-than-usual wait for their next payment, according to the Social Security Administration’s benefit schedule.
The delay isn’t the result of a policy change or benefit cut. Instead, it stems from how the calendar falls this spring. However, it is a quirk that can catch retirees and other recipients off guard if they’re not expecting it.
“Most seniors don't realize their May Social Security check isn't late, the calendar just shifted on them. Because May 1 falls on a Friday, the first Wednesday payment doesn't land until May 13,” Michael Ryan, a finance expert and founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek.
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