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Insight News • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Page 1
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September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026
Vol. 53 No. 39 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
Our stories create a A Different World (2026)
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DIFFERENT WORLD
Credit: Prime Video
A Different World (1987–1993)
Editor
By Al McFarlane
I
watched Netflix’s new A Different World from top to bottom in one sitting — 10 fascinating, spellbinding episodes. The experience felt even richer because I had already dived into Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? and followed A Different World by laughing through Kevin Hart’s 72 Hours. First and foremost, these stories are needed right now. They deserve to be out in the world. We need 40 more stories like them every month, available every day, everywhere.
What connects these works for me is legacy: legacy in the stories, legacy in the production process, and legacy in what we as viewers bring to the screen individually and collectively. A Different World makes that connection almost tactile. Netflix’s sequel arrived Sept. 24 with 10 episodes created by Felicia Pride. Maleah Joi Moon plays Deborah Wayne, the youngest daughter of Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert. When characters from the original series appear, we reconnect not just with actors, but with characters and storylines that helped pioneer a particular space for Black life on American television. We remember what those characters meant when we first encountered them, while seeing what time has done with them. The adults we knew return as older adults — Glynn Turman, for instance, is back as Colonel Bradford Taylor, one of
several original cast members reappearing not as memory, but as people who kept living. The young people who were becoming adults when the original series premiered 39 years ago now appear as fully realized middle-aged men and women. And their children step into view, carrying pieces of familiar personalities while becoming people of their own. That is the beauty and power of the story. We get to witness new legacies being made. The children of characters we remember move through interactions and relationships that sometimes mirror the archetypes, rhythms and vibes of their parents. From the opening music to familiar faces and recurring motifs, you get the feeling that things are different, yet things are the same. Why Did I Get Married Too? produced a similar feeling for me. When familiar characters arrive, there is the pleasure of reconnecting with
old friends, followed by the surprise of seeing what another generation might make of relationships, personalities and patterns it inherited. Hart’s 72 Hours works differently, but it touched another part of the same idea. Its comedy opens onto questions about mid-career stagnancy, relationships, risk-taking and what can happen when an older generation discovers that younger people assemble the world differently. Taken together, these stories gave me a feeling of knowing — of recognizing the universality of experience while appreciating variations on the theme. They also sent me back into my own memory. I thought about the first time I visited my grandfather in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. A town about a mile down the road from our house had one streetlight, at the town’s only intersection. The shop at the inter-
section was where people gathered to snack, play dominoes and drink rum, and be Jamaican culture. Watching the comings and goings, even when I did not understand the Patois being spoken, I felt I was watching something universal: people connected to place, playing out the human drama. That intersection became a stage on which characters entered and departed, relationships revealed themselves and community continually recreated itself. Years later, sitting on the front porch of my inlaws’ home in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, I felt it again — watching and participating as the characters of our own lives unfolded into what we would someday call lived experience. I have recognized that same quality during visits to Africa and Europe: characters in their roles; roles enacted by characters. Maybe that is part of
what we mean when we talk about archetypes. Maybe it even helps explain the persistence of typecasting. We recognize people, behaviors and relationships because some part of them has passed before us somewhere else. But the best stories do more than repeat the type. They reveal its possibilities. That is why we need 40 more stories a month, deep-diving into our lived experiences. Through them, we remind ourselves of all the things we are, who we are and where we come from. We remember. We re-member. We reconnect with the power of our versions of existence itself. We connect, magnify and amplify. And in doing so, we build a different world — one that honors our antiquity, carries our legacies forward and recognizes the futures we bring to one another in community.
Page 2 • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Insight News
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Trump frames unregulated AI as a way to keep ahead of China – but in fact, it harms US national security By Stephen Collins Professor of Government and International Affairs, Kennesaw State University Amid the chorus of voices calling for a slowdown in AI advancement and more government regulation and oversight of the technology, one prominent contrarian voice stands out: that of Donald J. Trump. The U.S president has repeatedly argued that the introduction of robust regulations to slow down progress on AI threatens U.S. national interests by enabling China to seize the advantage. “Whoever wins AI, WINS!” Trump posted on social media on Sept. 21, 2026, and singled out China as the primary threat to America “winning” AI. He followed up with a speech at the United Nations in which he outlined his administration’s total rejection of “any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control” artificial intelligence. Certainly, China seizing the global lead on AI would represent an alarming setback to American strategic and economic interests. As a scholar whose research examines the intersection of international relations and technology, I contend that China’s swift advances in AI constitute one of the leading reasons why regulation of the U.S. AI industry is necessary. Paradoxical as it may sound, slowing down AI advancement in the U.S. would also decelerate China’s advances. Even more important, recent revelations about AI “going rogue,” coupled with the astonishing growth in power and capability of new AI models, strongly suggest that an unregulated sector represents a greater security threat for the United States than the threat of a surge in capabilities by China.
Unregulated AI and security threats
Leading industry and political figures around the globe have sounded the alarm about the security threats presented by unchecked AI growth. About 8 in 10 Americans share these concerns, according to recent polling, as a large majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans support increasing AI regulations. These threats include heightened U.S. vulnerability to attacks from foreign nations and terrorist groups who can exploit AI advances to build more lethal weapons systems – both conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction. Advances in the sector also increase the chance of nefarious actors launching devastating cyberattacks, with AI becoming increasingly adept at identifying and exploiting cybersecurity vulnerabilities. These concerns are known within the industry. On Sept. 10, 2026, Anthropic issued a report revealing a series of incidents in which foreign actors – some based in China, Russia and Iran – used Claude in cyber, influence, surveillance and fraud operations and to support weapons development. Google similarly detected recent attempts by actors linked to China, Russia, North Korea and
Donald J. Trump Iran to use its Gemini AI model to carry out hacking, disinformation, espionage and criminal operations. Anthropic’s report revealed “five case studies of actors using our models in ways that could support biological weapons development.” Unregulated AI poses not just a severe security challenge but a potentially existential threat. An AI-induced nuclear missile launch, the release of super pathogens that cause pandemics and attacks on critical life-sustaining infrastructure have all been raised as potential concerns. Aside from these more extreme scenarios, unchecked AI poses a threat to the digital infrastructure that undergirds the U.S. and world economies.
by Trump – would not guarantee that the U.S. widens its AI lead. Chinese firms will continue to exploit U.S. AI progress to strengthen their offensive capabilities.
Global governance and regulation
As such, rather than jeopardizing American national security,
Credit: The White House/Flickr
U.S. regulations that slow AI advancement could strengthen security by slowing down the Chinese government’s own access to cutting-edge AI. The “China threat” argument against greater U.S. regulation on AI is also predicated on the notion that Beijing does not possess its own concerns about the dangers of unchecked
growth in AI power, and this isn’t the case. Chinese leaders harbor serious security and domestic affairs–related concerns about uncontrolled AI growth. Indeed, if there is one AI area where China leads the U.S., it is in regulations on AI. Consider, for example, that as far back as 2021, Beijing imposed its first major set of AI regulations. And while top figures in the Trump administration were urging less regulation, Chinese officials were calling for the opposite. In recent months, Chinese officials have repeatedly called for greater domestic and international oversight of AI. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has been enthusiastic about AI advances, but his speech at the 2026 World AI Conference in Shanghai urgently expressed the need for strong AI regulations and oversight. Speaking at the U.N. Security Council’s meeting on AI and International Security on
Sept. 23, 2026, Fu Cong, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, made the case for “a consensus-based global governance framework” for AI to “build institutional guardrails that preserve international peace and security.” Beijing appears to be framing unregulated AI advancement not as a race but as a common threat. Should Trump be convinced by such a narrative, then there may be grounds for optimism that Washington and Beijing in the near future will be able to reach agreement on AI governance and regulation – a development that would better ensure a safer future for both nations. Disclosure statement Stephen Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Slowing the speedboat
Trump may dismiss these worstcase scenarios as a “hoax,” but the national security threats are real. Trump’s argument is that the best way to protect the U.S. is to make sure American companies stay ahead of China on AI. Indeed, China’s AI models are not far behind, and China possesses an advantage in a factor vital to AI systems – electric power generation, which AI consumes in large and growing quantities. Still, the consensus of tech experts is that the U.S. remains the world’s top AI power due to American firms’ lead in advanced models and computer chips and the scale of America’s computing power – through chips, processors and servers – as well as the level of capital investment. However, the rapid advance of AI capabilities by American firms has helped China to accelerate its own AI industry. China uses a process known as distillation to exploit cutting-edge U.S. AI models to train China’s own models. The process enables China to develop models nearly as powerful but much more efficient, using far fewer resources. Beijing’s reliance on distillation, according to Matt Sheehan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a result of its own limited computing power, estimated at just one-tenth that of the United States. As a result of its distillation strategy, the pace of China’s AI progress is tightly linked to U.S. progress. Using Sheenan’s analogy, the relationship is much like a speedboat pulling a water skier: If the U.S. eases on the AI throttle, China will be forced to slow down as well. Therefore, racing ahead unchecked at breakneck speed – the approach advocated
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Insight News • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Page 3
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Vol. 53 No. 39 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
Elmore Wonsley and Christine Wonsley at the press conference
Digital forensics reveal cellphone movement and deleted messages in Nolan Wells case Nolan Xavier Wells
Mississippi to Minnesota, McFarlane and Berry confront questions of race and justice after Nolan Wells decision A Mississippi grand jury declined to bring charges in the death of Nolan Xavier Wells, and his family’s attorney says an independent autopsy leaves questions unanswered. On The Conversation, Al McFarlane and Thomas Berry connected the case to experiences of racism in Mississippi and Minnesota and to the November election. Early in the Sept. 22 edition of The Conversation with Al McFarlane on KFAI 90.3 FM, McFarlane called for justice for 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells. “I'm upset, you should be upset too, by what's happening in Mississippi,” McFarlane said. “And we want to say that we want justice for Nolan Wells.” The broadcast followed a Mississippi grand jury's decision not to bring charges in connection with Wells' death. McFarlane invited Thomas Berry, vice president of the Minneapolis NAACP and CEO of
The Watch App, to join him and bring listeners up to date. Berry said the grand jury had come back with nothing filed, and he compared the case to the death of George Floyd, saying that if the public had relied on police testimony, Floyd's death would have been attributed to an overdose. Berry, who said he has lived in Mississippi, argued that the law works differently in the South and that the deeper one goes, the more corrupt law and white supremacy one finds. “This is still Mississippi, even though we're not calling it Jim Crow,” Berry said.
“We might as well call it, you know, James Crow.” Civil rights attorney Ben Crump released a statement in response to the decision, and a news report played on the broadcast read from it. The statement said Mississippi was “attempting to close the chapter on Nolan Wells' death without getting to the truth,” and that the family was releasing its independent autopsy report “in its entirety, so everyone can read it for themselves.” It added: “This grand jury result leaves us with more questions than answers.” A news report on the broadcast also read from a state-
ment by the family of Bart Edmiston Jr., a friend of Wells who was on Horn Island, released through the family's attorney. The statement called Wells' death “a tragedy” and said the grand jury, “made up of Mississippians of all races and backgrounds, did its solemn duty.” The family said it looks forward to “bringing accountability to those who exploited tragedy to divide and injure.” McFarlane called the family's statement, as read on the broadcast, “a spin to soften,
NOLAN 10
Days after a Mississippi grand jury declined to bring criminal charges in the death of 18-yearold Nolan Xavier Wells, civil rights attorney Ben Crump and digital forensics expert Andrew Garrett held a press conference detailing extraction data from Wells’ cellphone. The forensic findings trace the final known physical interactions with the device, establish its precise geographic movements, and document message deletions on social media platforms.
Timeline of Phone Activity and Physical Movement
According to forensic examiner Andrew Garrett, CEO of Garrett Discovery, the extracted GPS, social media, and device log data map out a timeline spanning the trip to Horn Island and the period following Wells' disappearance: • Final Facial Recognition Unlock (2:17 PM / 2:18 PM, July 3): Garrett stated that phone records show the device was last unlocked using facial recognition while on the boat traveling to or situated at Horn Island. The legal team presented this as the last verified instance of Wells actively unlocking his phone. • Left Behind on the Boat: When Wells' friends departed Horn Island later that after-
noon, Wells remained behind. His cellphone remained aboard the boat. The legal team noted that Wells relied heavily on his phone for communication, raising serious doubts that he would voluntarily choose to stay on the island without it. • Transit Log: Garrett presented GPS movement data tracking the locked phone as it continued to log movement traveling back to the mainland aboard the boat, transported in a vehicle, and eventually handed over to Wells’ parents. • No Unlocking Beyond Island: Garrett noted there was no digital evidence indicating anyone physically unlocked the device after it left Horn Island and before it reached the parents.
Deleted Data and Social Media Group Chats
The extraction revealed a 282page archive of social media data, primarily focused on Snapchat and Instagram communications: • Identified Snapchat Deletions: Garrett stated that forensic analysis identified deleted or removed Snapchat content during the period between Wells' last known use of the phone and its return to his family.
FORENSICS 10
Cannabis equity in Minnesota puts Peter Magubane: a repair at center of legalization camera against apartheid
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Jessica Jackson
For Jessica Jackson, Minnesota’s legal cannabis market is not only about creating a regulated industry. It is also about how the state responds to cannabis enforcement that fell disproportionately on Black communities.
Jackson directs the Division of Community and Economic Development at the Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OCM). “We’re talking about injustice and systemic injustice,” she said Sept. 22 on KFAI 90.3 FM’s The Conversation with Al McFarlane, describing “the Black and brown communities that have been disproportionately criminalized for cannabis prohibition.” She described her division’s view of social equity this way: “The way that the Division of Community and Economic Development looks at social equity is it is about repair. It is about responding to the
needs of communities that have been disproportionately harmed from cannabis prohibition.” That repair framework sits against a documented enforcement disparity. A 2020 ACLU report using 2018 arrest data found Black Minnesotans were 5.4 times more likely than white Minnesotans to be arrested for marijuana possession despite comparable usage rates. Discussing federal drug policy of the 1930s and Harry Anslinger, Jackson said cannabis became an easy scapegoat because authorities could exploit racial hostility. “They essentially just projected the hate around Black and brown communities into
this plant,” Jackson said. She said she confronts the resulting stigma directly. “I name it for what it is,” she said. “I say, do you know that the root of that stigma is racism?” She described the issue through her own family. Of her grandmother, Jackson said: “She’s seen her son get arrested, she’s seen her community get broken apart because of the war on drugs, so it’s hard for her to trust and it’s hard for her to trust that there’s any good associated with the plant.” “When we can start talking about the root of the
CANNABIS 10
Passing for white, fighting for Black America: The courage of Walter White By Tamara Shiloh NNPA Walter Francis White was one of the most important civil rights leaders of the first half of the 20th century. For more than three decades, he helped transform the National Associ-
ation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) into one of the nation’s most powerful organizations fighting racial discrimination, segregation, and violence against African Americans. Walter White was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1893 and grew up in a middle-class African American
family. His parents, George and Madeline White, had been born into slavery. Although Walter had blond hair, blue eyes, very light skin and could easily have passed as white, he firmly identified as Black. As a teenager, he witnessed the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906, when white mobs attacked African Americans throughout the city. The
Public domain image
Walter White
experience strengthened his determination to fight racial hatred
WHITE 10
Business
Trump has gotten rid of many of the checks and balances that could stop him from demolishing the Kennedy Center
PAGE 5
Peter Magubane Peter Magubane was more than a photographer. He was a witness, storyteller, historian and courageous chronicler of one of the most turbulent periods in South African history. Born on January 18, 1932, in Vrededorp, Johannesburg, and raised in Sophiatown, Magubane discovered photography as a young boy after receiving a Kodak Brownie camera. That simple camera would eventually become his instrument for documenting the lives, struggles and determination of Black South Africans. He died on January 1, 2024, at the age of 91, leaving behind one of the most important photographic archives of South Africa’s apartheid era. Magubane’s professional journey began at Drum magazine in 1954. He initially
Credit: NNPA
worked as a driver and messenger, but his ambition was to become a photographer. Under the mentorship of Drum’s legendary chief photographer Jürgen Schadeberg, Magubane developed his skills and began photographing major political and social events. His first significant assignment involved covering the 1955 African National Congress convention. From that point forward, photography became his way of documenting a country undergoing enormous change. The South Africa that Magubane photographed was governed by apartheid, a system that legally enforced racial segregation and discrimination.
MAGUBANE 10
I2H
As vaccination rates drop across Africa, new recovery plan faces 5 critical hurdles
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Page 4 • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Insight News
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Commentary The youngest American killed in the Vietnam war By Jordan Meadows, Staff Writer, NNPA Dan Bullock was 15 years old when he was killed in Vietnam on June 7, 1969, making the Goldsboro native the youngest American service member to die in the war. Bullock was born Dec. 21, 1953, in Goldsboro and lived in North Carolina until he was about 12, when his mother died, and he moved to Brooklyn to live with his father. Family members later said he’d talked about wanting to become a pilot, a police officer, a firefighter or a Marine. Unsatisfied with his living situation in New York and discouraged by the lack of opportunity he saw around him, Bullock went looking for a faster path forward—and told his father that enlisting seemed like the quickest way to get an education. In September 1968, at 14 years old, Bullock walked
Dan Bullock into the Marine Corps recruiting station at Albee Square in downtown Brooklyn. At 5-foot9 and roughly 160 pounds, he was big enough to pass for 18, and he had altered the year on his birth certificate from 1953 to 1949. Recruiters never questioned it. He enlisted on Sept. 18, 1968, and his family found out only when he came home with the signed paperwork in his hand.
Credit: NNPA
Bullock reported to Parris Island, South Carolina, assigned to Platoon 3039, and struggled through parts of the 13-week training regimen before fellow recruits helped pull him through. He graduated from boot camp on Dec. 10, 1968, eleven days before his 15th birthday. Private First Class Bullock arrived in South Vietnam on May 18, 1969, assigned as a rifleman in 2nd Squad, 2nd
Platoon, Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. His posting was An Hoa Combat Base in Quang Nam Province, a forward hub surrounded by some of the most contested terrain in the country. Bullock kept largely to himself, and while his fellow Marines didn’t know his real age, several sensed something was different about him. On the evening of June 6, Bullock had been assigned cleaning duty, but took another Marine’s place on the night watch near the airstrip after that Marine was wounded. Shortly after midnight, North Vietnamese Army sappers breached the perimeter wire and launched a coordinated assault with rockets, mortars, and small arms. Accounts of exactly what happened next differ. Fox Company accounts hold that sappers crawled beneath the wire and hurled a satchel charge through the firing slot of Bullock’s bunker, an explosion that killed Bullock; other accounts describe Bullock
being killed by small arms fire on the perimeter. Bullock’s company commander, Capt. Robert Kingrey, described the young Marine’s actions during the attack in a letter home. “Dan immediately realized that the attack was stronger than usual and that the ammunition supply was becoming depleted,” Kingrey wrote. “He rushed to get more ammunition for his unit. He constantly exposed himself to enemy fire in order to keep the company supplied with the ammunition needed to hold off the attack.” Bullock had been in Vietnam for 21 days. A week after his death, the New York Times broke the story of his real age, and the Defense Department subsequently confirmed Bullock was the youngest of the roughly 58,000 Americans killed during the war. His remains were returned to Goldsboro and buried at Elmwood Cemetery with full military honors, but no
headstone marked the grave. It stayed that way for 31 years, until television talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael learned of the unmarked plot in 2000 and purchased a headstone. NYPD officers, state troopers from four states, and two veteran motorcycle groups escorted a 600mile caravan from Brooklyn to Goldsboro for the dedication ceremony. In 2003, the New York City Council renamed a stretch of Lee Avenue in Brooklyn—the street where Bullock had lived—as PFC Dan Bullock Way. North Carolina dedicated a state highway historical marker near his childhood home on West Ash Street in Goldsboro, and the entrance to Elmwood Cemetery in southwest Goldsboro was also named PFC Dan Bullock Way. His name is inscribed on Panel 23W, Line 96 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington. Based on reporting by The Carolinian.
America’s reading crisis demands more than concern. It demands action. By Marc H. Morial National Urban League President & CEO New York City’s troubling decline in reading scores, despite one of the most ambitious literacy reform efforts in the nation, is a wakeup call for the entire nation. Across the country, reading achievement continues to decline. Nearly 40 percent of fourth graders read below the basic level and roughly a third of eighth graders are reading below basic, the highest share ever recorded. Taken together, these numbers reveal a national literacy crisis that threatens eco-
nomic opportunity, educational equity, and our nation’s future competitiveness. Reading is not merely another subject in school. Reading is the foundation upon which all learning rests. A child who struggles to read struggles to learn history, science, mathematics, and civics. A young person who cannot effectively read and analyze complex information faces barriers to college completion, workforce success, and informed participation in our democracy. That is why the growing literacy crisis is fundamentally an opportunity crisis. Behind every percentage point is a child whose future opportunities hang in the balance. Persistent achievement gaps mean that
Black and Latino students continue to bear a disproportionate share of the consequences when reading instruction falls short. If we are serious about economic mobility and educational justice, literacy must be at the center of the conversation. For more than two decades, many schools embraced Balanced Literacy approaches that sought to cultivate a love of reading by putting books in students’ hands and encouraging independent reading. The approach was well-intentioned, but too often foundational skills instruction, particularly phonics and decoding, suffered. The evidence is increasingly clear that explicit, systematic instruction helps more children become success-
ful readers. States and school districts that are embracing these principles deserve credit for moving in the right direction. But millions of students are already in middle school, high school, and even college struggling to read complicated texts, analyze difficult arguments, and complete entire books. What is our plan for them? Too many students arrive in high school lacking the reading stamina necessary to engage deeply with literature, history, or complex informational texts. College professors increasingly describe students who struggle with lengthy assignments that previous gener-
READING 10
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Insight News • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Page 5
Business
Trump has gotten rid of many of the checks and balances that could stop him from demolishing the Kennedy Center By E. Andrew Taylor Associate Professor and Director of Arts Management, American University Who gets to decide the future of the living memorial to former President John F. Kennedy, and who holds those decision-makers to account? This debate is becoming ever more fraught. A photo taken on Sept. 16, 2026, showed President Donald J. Trump in Air Force One reviewing a poster with the words “Kennedy Center DEMOLISH …” that many interpreted to mean “demolished.” The image spread quickly. Like the protests that brought throngs of arts lovers to the center a few days later, it amplified the drama around the fate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. For more than a half-century, the multivenue complex has featured world-class symphonies, operas, dance and theater performances, along with education programs. Whether it would be open or closed to the public, active or dormant, repaired or dismantled, solvent or bankrupt and if it can include Trump’s name in its branding have been the subjects of widespread dispute and speculation since Trump returned to office. As a professor and scholar of arts management, I can explain why the official answers to who gets to decide and
Donald J. Trump who is supposed to hold those deciders accountable are reasonably clear.
Oversight hierarchy collapsed
Congress created the Kennedy Center and determines its governance. It’s up to lawmakers, through their power of the purse, to decide on funding for construction, repairs and a portion of its operational budget. The oversight of facilities and programs falls to a board of trustees that’s authorized by Congress to advance the mission and secure the majority of the center’s earned and contributed revenue. And those operations are, in turn, subject to review by the Internal Revenue Service, which determines the center’s nonprofit status, and federal courts, which determine its compliance with the law. So how did that hierarchy of oversight essentially collapse into a shouting match
between Trump and Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat, and result in two ongoing lawsuits in U.S. District Court? Beatty filed one of the suits and a consortium of architects and preservationists filed the other. The same judge, Christopher R. Cooper, is presiding over both cases.
Presidential control
The main cause of what I would call a governance failure is that most of those official oversight authorities now serve at the pleasure of the president. In 2025, the Republican-controlled Congress approved US$257 million for “necessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures” at the Kennedy Center. But most GOP legislators have remained silent about its oversight, including multiple attempts to affix Trump’s name
Credit: The White House/Flickr
to the building – which Judge Cooper keeps insisting is something only Congress can allow. Trump has chaired its board of trustees and appointed the vast majority of its members since an unprecedented restructuring to the previously bipartisan board in February 2025. In his May 2026 ruling, Judge Cooper found the board of trustees to be “derelict in discharging the full range of its responsibilities to the Center.” More recently, the DC Preservation League has suggested removal of the trustees and appointment of a receiver if current leadership “is unwilling or unable to exercise its fiduciary duty.”
Agencies aren’t responding
With both Congress and the trustees aligned with Trump, there are several federal agencies that could be stepping in to critique the board or its de-
cisions: the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department, the Office of Management and Budget and others. But they are all cooperating with the White House in a dramatic consolidation of power by the executive branch that now reaches into traditionally independent federal agencies. That leaves the federal courts, where Beatty is among the few with standing to sue. She is an ex officio member of the board, meaning that she serves by virtue of her role in Congress. She also is willing to stand up and challenge the Trump administration’s attempt to direct – and perhaps even demolish – the Kennedy Center. Even as these and other construction-related lawsuits are pending, the Trump administration has proven its willingness and ability to build, renovate or destroy federal landmarks without clear authority to do so. Trump had the White House East Wing demolished in October 2025 without getting Congress to sign off or sharing those plans in advance. And he has built a new helipad on White House grounds, to name two examples. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has called Trump’s attempt to build a ballroom where the East Wing used to stand without congressional authorization “likely unlawful.” And yet, construction continues.
Who decides?
The buildings on the Kennedy Center campus are only part of what’s at stake. The Kennedy Center was established as a “living memorial” to former President John F. Kennedy. The “memorial” part is largely associated with the physical campus and its many engravings and artworks honoring Kennedy. But the “living” component manifests in its live performances, original productions, educational program-
ming, artistic leadership and what audiences, educators and students experience both within and beyond the campus walls. There were early indicators that both programs and public engagement were faltering under the board’s new leadership. Revenue from performances began a steep decline after Trump’s takeover in February 2025, well before he announced his intention to close the center for major repairs. It wasn’t just audiences turning away – many artists also canceled their engagements or stopped making customary bookings. Prior to that takeover, The Washington Post has reported, the center’s finances had become increasingly strong as it recovered from the disruptions that all arts venues suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, who gets to decide the future of this living memorial to a revered slain president? In the short term, it’s the center’s board, chaired by Trump. And who holds those decision-makers to account? Ongoing federal court cases have constrained or delayed some of those choices. But most other official checks and balances are currently neutral or skewed in the president’s favor. Public attention through independent journalism and citizen activism can increase friction and shape the political calculus surrounding the Kennedy Center. But any longterm solution will depend on the physical condition of its campus, its adherence to its original mission as a living memorial and the reliable, responsible and accountable governance of its leaders. Disclosure statement E. Andrew Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
US consumers and businesses are now facing a future of more expensive borrowing By John W. Diamond Director of the Center for Public Finance at the Baker Institute, Rice University From mortgages to auto loans to credit cards, borrowing is set to get even pricier. But the Federal Reserve’s decision on Sept. 16, 2026, to hike its baseline interest rate also highlighted an increasingly confounding dilemma: It can raise the price of money across the economy, but it can’t determine which sectors are most affected. That means the rate increase may further slow the weaker parts of the economy, such as housing, while barely affecting the strongest, namely the relentless investment in artificial intelligence. In its statement summarizing its unanimous vote, the Fed’s policymaking committee said it was raising its benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point so that it now stands at a new target range of 3.75% to 4%. It described inflation as still “elevated” and noted that other economic indicators remain strong, from productivity to investment, to domestic spending. As a scholar of public finance, I believe the Fed probably had little choice but to raise rates given its commitment to maintain inflation-fighting credibility. Markets had already expected the hike, and if the Fed had failed to deliver, it might have pushed longer-term interest rates even higher amid concerns it was becoming less wedded to that target. But the Fed’s action
also underscores that the U.S. increasingly looks like an economy moving at two very different speeds. Investment in AI – whether through data centers, computing capacity or related infrastructure – has been booming, while it’s crowding out other kinds of investment. Meanwhile, the housing market is getting crushed by high mortgage rates and diminishing affordability, while consumers are carrying ever more expensive credit card and auto debt. Many small and traditional businesses are also in a bind as they face substantially higher financing costs than they did several years ago. Those costs reflect the rising yields on longer-term U.S. government debt, which have been going up for months on a mix of factors: Longer-term inflation concerns due to soaring U.S. government debt, geopolitical risks driving up energy costs, and ongoing financing demand for AI. On Sept. 14, the yield on the 10-year Treasury crossed 5% for the first time since 2023.
An elusive inflation target
When the Fed hikes short-term interest rates, it slows down economic activity by making borrowing more expensive and saving more attractive. That mechanism works particularly well when consumers are deciding whether to finance a house, purchase a car or take on additional debt. It also discourages businesses from making investments when the expected return is only modestly above their financing costs. As demand slows, businesses have less room to raise prices, easing inflationary pres-
sures.
In this case, the Fed justified its move by citing “elevated” inflation and noting that it “will support a timelier return” to its goal of an annual inflation target of 2%. It also suggested the economy would be able to absorb the tightening and described economic activity as “expanding at a solid pace.” The decision aligns with Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh’s recent comments that restoring price stability is central to the Fed’s credibility. In a key speech in August, he underscored his commitment to bringing annualized inflation back down to 2%, an objective he called a “firm, fixed target” – a turnaround from his more ambiguous comments in July. But in recent months, the economic data has shown that the 2% annual target remains elusive. Consumer prices rose 0.4% in August and 3.4% over the past year. Meanwhile, the war with Iran has pushed oil prices back above US$100 a barrel, adding a new source of inflation pressure through gasoline, diesel, transportation and production costs. At the same time, the labor market isn’t faltering. The economy added 162,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate remained at 4.1%. The one notable concern is the persistence of long-term joblessness despite the strong headline numbers. More than one-quarter of unemployed Americans have now been out of work for at least six months. Taken together, those numbers suggested there was room for the Fed to hike rates, given that the economy isn’t sliding into recession. So inves-
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh tors overwhelmingly expected the Fed’s rate increase.
An uneven economic hit
However, tighter monetary policy carries a risk: It falls disproportionately on sectors that are already struggling and highly sensitive to interest rates, while having less effect on one of the economy’s strongest sources of demand – the booming AI investment cycle. Housing provides the clearest example. Persistently high mortgage rates are reinforcing the “lock-in” effect for current homeowners. Millions of homeowners financed their houses when mortgage rates were 3% or 4%, so they’re staying put, with little incentive to sell their home and purchase another at much higher rates. Mortgage rates are mostly influenced by longer-term factors, including Treasury yields, inflation expectations and market expectations about the future path of interest rates. But the Fed’s decision still matters. Markets increasingly expect today’s hike to be fol-
lowed by additional increases, signaling that it views inflation as a more persistent risk and putting upward pressure on longer-term interest rates. That expectation will keep mortgage rates high – probably resulting in fewer home sales, less mobility and continued headwinds for prospective buyers. It’s also likely to make renting relatively more attractive for potential homebuyers who are priced out of buying. H i g h e r- f o r- l o n g e r rates also change how consumers save. When interest rates were near zero, they earned almost nothing on safe assets. Today, Treasury securities, money market funds and other relatively safe assets offer meaningful returns. Higher rates therefore tend to shift incentives throughout the economy away from borrowing and spending and toward saving. With consumers stretched by inflation and increasingly dipping into their savings, however, this effect
Credit: The White House/Flickr
may be less pronounced.
The AI sugar high
When it comes to the AI investment boom, it’s a different picture. Warsh noted in August that more than half of recent capital-spending growth could be attributed to the AI buildout. The companies that are spending billions of dollars on computing infrastructure are doing so because they expect potentially enormous returns from AI. If those expected returns on investment are exceptionally high, a modest increase in borrowing costs may do little to alter their investment decisions. That stands in sharp contrast to a prospective homebuyer getting sticker shock from mortgage rates nearing 7%. The federal government, for its part, faces a slower adjustment. A Fed rate hike doesn’t immediately increase the interest rate on all outstanding federal debt. Most Treasury notes and bonds car-
BORROWING 10
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INSIGHT NEWS The Roster rail STATEWIDE U.S. Senator: Peggy Flanagan (DFL) · Michele Tafoya (R) · Marisa Simonetti (IND) · Rebecca Whiting (LIB) Governor
&
Lt.
Governor:
Amy
Klobuchar and Ben Schierer (DFL) · Lisa Demuth and Ryan Wilson (R) · Steven Young and Jane Kirby (GP) Attorney General: Keith Ellison (DFL) · Ronald J. Schutz (R) Secretary of State: Steve Simon (DFL) · Tad Jude (R) · Seth Kuhl-Stennes (GP) · George "Chip" Tangen (LIB) State Auditor: Zack Filipovich (DFL) · Scott Jensen (R) · Jay Reeves (FI)
U.S. HOUSE CD3: Kelly Morrison (DFL) · Tyler Bass (R) CD4: Betty McCollum (DFL) · Paul Wikstrom (R) CD5: Ilhan Omar (DFL) · John Nagel (R) · DeVelle L. Jackson (IND)
Mike Freiberg
Kyrstin Schuette
Todd Hesemann
AFFORDABILITY Freiberg's issues page opens with affordability. His campaign points to nearly $1 billion in property tax cuts since 2023, a child tax credit it says will reduce child poverty by a third, and paid leave for Minnesotans. It also lists keeping hospitals open, lowering prescription drug costs, affordable child care and early education, gun-violence prevention and defending constitutional rights. The current House 43B member is running for the Senate seat. "As costs rise across the country for housing, groceries, energy, healthcare, and other essentials of everyday life, I'm working to put more money back in your pocket and make Minnesota more affordable."
MAKING LIFE MORE AFFORDABLE Schuette's first-listed priority is affordability. Her campaign commits to more affordable, stable housing, lower prescription drug prices and an expanded MinnesotaCare, more affordable child care, and support for small businesses. An organizer with more than 15 years of experience, she says she lives paycheck to paycheck. Public education, protecting rights and communities, and strengthening democracy follow. "Families across 43A and Minnesota are working hard, but rising costs for housing, childcare, groceries, and healthcare are leaving people exhausted and stretched thin."
STATE BUDGET Hesemann's first-listed issue is the state budget. His campaign says Minnesota collects more taxes than it needs, spent an $18 billion one-time surplus and grew government by 40 percent, and that the money should have gone back to taxpayers. It also lists education, with a focus on reading, writing, math and science and parental input, and crime and policing. A New Hope resident since 1991 and a software engineer, he served 19 years as a police reserve officer. "Minnesota has a spending problem, and the ever-growing government is encroaching on our livelihood and our freedoms."
Jess Lewis
Zaynab Mohamed
Diane Napper
HEALTH CARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT Lewis's vision page, headed "Bold, science-based leadership for a stronger, healthier, and more equitable community," lists health care first. She says she would move Minnesota toward universal, government-run coverage building on proposals like a Minnesota Health Plan, expand vaccine access, and set minimum hospital staffing ratios. Climate action, affordable housing, affordability, the local economy, public education, community safety and democracy follow. An air pollution scientist and mother, she says she lost her federal job when USAID was dismantled, and she is the DFL- and labor-endorsed candidate.
MAKING MINNESOTA AFFORDABLE FOR EVERYONE Mohamed's first-listed priority is affordability. Her campaign calls for a higher minimum wage, which it says she carried a bill to raise to $20, health care for all Minnesotans regardless of status with a move toward single-payer, and abundant housing for renters and homeowners. Standing up to ICE, banning assault weapons, child care and pre-K, and free in-state public college tuition are among the priorities that follow. "The previous fight to raise the wage has moved our state in the right direction, providing a slight increase to the minimum wage every January, in line with inflation."
EDUCATION FOR OUR CHILDREN Napper's first-listed priority is education. Her homepage says Minneapolis schools are failing children, then turns to public safety, taxpayer money and the fraud she says has cost the state at least $9 billion, and the first amendment. A graphic designer and former communications director for the New House Republican Caucus, she says she wants policies that reduce the size and scope of government. "Minnesota's Education System used to be a model for the country, now it's just an embarrassment."
Samantha Sencer-Mura
Emma Greenman
Nicholas Peters
QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION Sencer-Mura's vision page lists quality public education first. It calls for fully funding schools by raising the general education formula and closing special education funding gaps, recruiting teachers of color, and building a childcare system in which no family pays more than 7 percent of its income. Climate justice, health care for all and reproductive justice, public safety and racial justice, and economic justice follow. Her homepage points to legislation passed under the DFL trifecta, including paid family and medical leave and free school meals. "We need to invest in quality public education that works for all young people in Minnesota."
DEMOCRACY Greenman's homepage frames her campaign around building a democracy that puts people and communities first. She says corporate greed and special interests are dividing people and eroding democracy, and that root issues in the system are holding back progress on climate change, health care, education, criminal justice and racial equity. A voting rights lawyer, she is the current state representative. "I've spent the last twenty years working to protect and build democracy as an organizer, a voting rights lawyer, and now as your state representative."
VOTER TURNOUT Peters's campaign page is a single fundraising message and lists no policy issues. It says he is challenging Greenman because he believes she and the DFL are ruining the state, and that raising voter turnout is critical to electing officials at all levels. He says his aim is to spread a conservative message and get out the Republican vote in the district. "My name is Nick Peters, I am the Republican candidate challenging our State House legislator, Emma Greenman, in November."
STATE SENATE SD34: John Hoffman (DFL) · Karen Attia (R) SD36: Heather Gustafson (DFL) · Heidi Heino (R) SD37: Kristy Janigo (DFL) · Brady Hoag (R) SD38: Susan Pha (DFL) · Brad Olson (R) SD39: Mary K Kunesh (DFL) · Pam Wolf (R) · Ngone Saliou Niang (GP) SD40: John Marty (DFL) · Rachel Japuntich (R) SD42: Bonnie Westlin (DFL) · Kevin Peterson (R) SD43:
Mike
Freiberg
(DFL)
—
unopposed SD44: Sam Rosemark (DFL) · James Tacheny (R) SD45: Ann Johnson Stewart (DFL) · Shannon Bruce (R) SD46: Ron Latz (DFL) · Kayla Wright (R) SD49: Krish Subrahmanian (DFL) · Dustin R. DuFault (R) · Kris Babler (IND) SD50: Karla Hult (DFL) · Owen Michaelson (R) SD51: Simon Trautmann Cordova (DFL) · Juline Birgersson (R) SD59: Bobby Joe Champion (DFL) — unopposed SD60: Doron Clark (DFL) · Abigail Wolters (R) SD61: Scott Dibble (DFL) — unopposed SD62: Omar Fateh (DFL) — unopposed SD63: Zaynab Mohamed (DFL) · Diane Napper (R) SD64: Erin Murphy (DFL) · Robert Bushard (R) SD65: Robyn Gulley (DFL) · Rocco (R) SD66: Clare Oumou Verbeten (DFL) · Kathleen Bart (R) SD67: Foung Hawj (DFL) · Toby Hesselgrave (R)
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Insight News • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Page 7
VOTERS GUIDE The Roster rail STATE HOUSE 34A: Jason Heaser (DFL) · Danny Nadeau (R) 34B: Xp Lee (DFL) · Ruth Bittner (R) 36A: Jim DeMay (DFL) · Sebastian Stoss (R) 36B: Brion Curran (DFL) · Patty Bradway (R) 37A: Darci Smith (DFL) · Tom McKee (R) 37B: Kristin Bahner (DFL) · Luke Doerer (R)
Erin Murphy
Robert Bushard
Meg Luger-Nikolai
HEALTH CARE FOR ALL Murphy's vision page opens with equity, and its first-listed issue is health care. A nurse, she says she co-authored John Marty's Minnesota Health Plan and supports single-payer, and would start by making MinnesotaCare available to all Minnesotans. Education funding, workers' rights and economic justice, infrastructure, and climate follow. Her story page says that helping her mother navigate the health system during cancer care is a big part of why she first ran for office. She says marriage equality passed while she was Majority Leader.
LIMIT REZONING Bushard's issues page lists limiting rezoning first, with no explanation beneath it. It follows with lower taxes and limited spending to reduce inflation, advocacy for families, support for single-family homeownership, voter photo ID, an end to ranked choice voting, and tougher prosecution and long prison terms for violent crime. "The best way to ensure someone is voting who they claim to be is using Driver's Licenses or State Identification Cards for those who do not drive."
HEALTH CARE THAT WORKS FOR ALL Luger-Nikolai's priorities page lists health care first and calls it a human right. It commits her to a single-payer statewide health insurance system, an expanded MinnesotaCare with a higher income limit, state funding for federal marketplace subsidies if Congress does not extend them, and price transparency. Strong public schools, a fair tax system, civil rights and democracy, and older Minnesotans follow. A labor lawyer for the teachers union Education Minnesota, she was elected in a January 2026 special election.
38A: Huldah Momanyi-Hiltsley (DFL) · Charlie Kistler (R) 38B: Samantha Vang (DFL) · Robert Marvin (R) 39A: Aaron Klemz (DFL) · Andy Macko (R) 39B: Amada Marquez Simula (DFL) · KT Jacobs (R) 40A: Aisha Elmquist (DFL) · Luis Withrow (R) 40B: David Gottfried (DFL) · Allen Shen (R) 42A: Ned Carroll (DFL) · Kathy Burkett (R) 42B: Ginny Klevorn (DFL) — unopposed 43A: Kyrstin Schuette (DFL) · Todd Hesemann (R) 43B: Jess Lewis (DFL) — unopposed 44A: Peter M Fischer (DFL) · Justin Middaugh (R) 44B: Leon M. Lillie (DFL) · TJ Hawthorne (IND) 45A: Tracey Breazeale (DFL) · Andrew Myers (R) 45B: Patty Acomb (DFL) · Thomas Bergerson (R) 46A: Larry Kraft (DFL) · Karl Olson (R) 46B: Cheryl Youakim (DFL) · Kim Rich (R) 49A: Alex Falconer (DFL) · Jeff Houdek (R)
Dave Pinto
Robyn Gulley
Rocco
A FAIR ECONOMY Pinto's priorities page lists a fair economy first. He is the DFL chair of the House committee on jobs and labor and says he is working to prevent rollbacks of paid family and medical leave and earned sick and safe time. A great start for kids, safe communities drawn from his work as a felony prosecutor, and DFL majorities follow. A union member, he says he founded House committees on early childhood and on children and families. "As a proud union member myself, I know that there's much more that we need to do to counteract consolidated corporate power and ensure fair wages, dignified employment, and an economy that works for everyone."
PRO-CHOICE Gulley's vision page lists pro-choice first. It describes her as a lifelong advocate and says the term extends to the economic and social conditions that let people decide how to care for themselves and their families. The page also lists pro-labor, pro-immigrant, higher education, gun control, the environment, health care, public education and fair taxes. She is a member of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents and is DFL- and labor-endorsed. "Being pro-choice means creating the economic and social conditions that make it possible for each person to make decisions about how to care for themselves and their families."
ECONOMY AND JOBS Rocco's issues list opens with the economy and jobs. His site says he would cut wasteful spending, lower taxes on families and small businesses, reduce regulation, and back workforce training matched to jobs in manufacturing, agriculture, trades, health care and technology, along with reliable, affordable energy. Education, health care, public safety and housing follow, and the list runs on through good government, immigration and the justice systems. "I will fight to cut wasteful spending, lower taxes on families and small businesses, and reduce the regulatory burden so employers can hire, invest, and grow right here in Minnesota."
49B: Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn (DFL) · Wendy Cregg (R) 50A: Julie Greene (DFL) · Chris Wedum (R) 50B: Steve Elkins (DFL) — unopposed 51A: Michael Howard (DFL) · Frank Pafko (R) 51B: Nathan Coulter (DFL) · Jim Lund (R) 59A: Fue Lee (DFL) — unopposed 59B: Esther Agbaje (DFL) · Kenneth Smoron (R) 60A: Sydney Jordan (DFL) · John Holmberg (R) 60B: Mohamud Noor (DFL) — unopposed 61A: Katie Jones (DFL) — unopposed 61B: Jamie Long (DFL) — unopposed 62A: Aisha Gomez (DFL) — unopposed
Which district are you in? Enter your address at mnvotes.gov to see your Senate and House districts, your polling place and a sample ballot. Early voting is open now at the Minneapolis Early Vote Center and Ramsey County Elections. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
62B: Anquam Mahamoud (DFL) · Bob Sullentrop (R) 63A: Samantha Sencer-Mura (DFL) · Kyle Bragg (R) 63B: Emma Greenman (DFL) · Nicholas Peters (R) 64A: Meg Luger-Nikolai (DFL) — unopposed 64B: Dave Pinto (DFL) — unopposed 65A:
Samakab
Hussein
(DFL)
—
Ellefson
(DFL)
—
unopposed 65B:
Sebastian
unopposed
Samakab Hussein PUBLIC SAFETY AND CRIME PREVENTION
Hussein's priorities page lists public safety and crime prevention first. It calls safety a mix of government-led and community-based efforts and cites trust frayed after the murder of George Floyd and the deaths of Daunte Wright and Amir Locke. He pledges more community-led crime prevention and stronger police accountability. Affordable housing, small business, climate, education, health care and gun violence prevention follow. In a July 2026 report to constituents, he says lawmakers passed $100 million for new affordable homes and $40 million in rental assistance.
Sebastian Ellefson SAFE AND STABLE HOUSING Ellefson's first-listed priority is housing. An attorney, he has advised people in foreclosures, defended tenants facing eviction and sued landlords, and says problem landlords are usually out-of-state corporations. He backs a "right to repair" bill and more affordable housing in Downtown, the West Side and West St. Paul. Workers' rights, reducing gun violence, defending immigrant neighbors and the environment follow. "His experience in housing court has shown him that problem landlords are rarely local 'mom and pop' owners, but instead out-of-state corporations with little concern for the communities where their properties exist."
Your November Ballot: the schedule Sept. 14 Statewide · Congress Sept. 21 SD59 · 60 · 61 · 62 Sept. 28 SD63 · 64 · 65 · 43 (this week) Oct. 5 SD66 · 67 · 44 Oct. 12 SD34 · 38 · 46 Oct. 19 SD36 · 39 · 40 Oct. 26 SD37 · 42 · 45 Nov. 2 SD49 · 50 · 51 Nov. 3 Election Day
66A: Leigh Finke (DFL) · Mark Born (R) 66B: Athena Hollins (DFL) · Mary O'Neal (R) 67A: Liz Lee (DFL) · Jennifer McPherson (R) 67B: Jay Xiong (DFL) — unopposed
Page 8 • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Insight News
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Books, Arts & Culture The importance of teaching students what AI can’t do
each other. It included a factual mistake, too: It’s a bus, not a train, that pulls away. Also missing is any clear acknowledgment of Singer’s fear for the horrors in store for Antonapoulos, and the dramatic irony created by Antonapoulos’ own seeming obliviousness to how his life is being upended. AI simply lacks the lived experience to become contextually aware in ways that allow it to truly understand McCullers’ haunting novel. Because AI largely functions as an optimization engine – relying on synthesizing vast amounts of online data and summarizing the results – its analyses of this scene and others were consistently shallow; they “lacked depth” and were filled with “vague platitudes,” as two students put it.
Accessing the embodied experience Image created with AI
It’s disconcerting to envision human thought becoming redundant or deemed inferior due to advancements in artificial intelligence. But for all its ills, AI cannot be ignored or wished away. It’s here to stay, and I want my students to understand the stakes of becoming too reliant on this technology. I can’t blame them for wondering why they should dedicate so much time and effort to honing their writing and critical thinking skills if large language models appear to do a passable job. Yet this situation has major implications for culture and societies. It’s easy to envision a future where AI dependency leads to intellectual conformity and the erosion of critical thinking. Researchers are already documenting these effects, which threaten to render the hard work of wrestling with
ideas a lost art. This is why I think it’s critical for educators to confront AI head-on. The key, I believe, is teaching students to distinguish AI’s pattern recognition skills from its inability to daydream, inhabit human perspectives and authentically express itself.
Tell me what you think
In a course I recently taught on Southern Gothic literature, I gave my students an exercise. They were tasked with prompting AI to analyze the “emotional atmosphere” of a scene from Carson McCullers’ 1940 novel “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.” Many of the characters readers meet in Southern Gothic works like McCullers’ are freakish and brutal. Rendered from a distorted, unnatural lens, they speak in odd dialects and conjure what Flannery O’Connor called the
“grotesque.” They live in isolated places that are stuck in the past and, to use another term of O'Connor’s, are “Christ-haunted.” Many readers have difficulty synthesizing the strange worlds of these characters. AI has an even harder time generalizing the complex tensions between faith and unbelief, or good and evil, that animate these stories. To limit the range of responses and allow useful comparisons, I provided students with scenes involving the main characters of the novel. One of them was the heartrending sequence in which Spiros Antonapoulos, a deaf character, is sent away to a state insane asylum, leaving his only friend, John Singer, behind. The scene carries a palpable sense of dread and sadness. Further, it invokes righteous anger toward An-
tonapoulos’ cousin for sending him away – a decision driven by convenience and based on a misunderstanding of Spiros’ struggles as deviant, antisocial behavior. That he is from an immigrant background living in small-town Georgia gives the scene an even sharper edge. ChatGPT, however, rendered the scene using sterile, abstract terminology. To pull a representative response that one of my students shared: “The atmosphere is devastatingly lonely and suspended in time. The scene feels quiet, helpless and emotionally one-sided. There is no dramatic farewell; instead, the moment is marked by Singer’s silent anguish. The train’s departure symbolizes irreversible separation.” The assessment is clinical and cold. It fails to capture the weight of deep sadness that exudes from the separation of two friends who have only
Next, I asked my students to have AI generate “a new scene involving at least three characters” of their choosing. The creative output was even more soulless. Students were especially amused that AI had John Singer, who acts as a hub connecting all the other characters, speaking on a variety of subjects. The problem, of course, is that Singer, like Antonapoulos, is also deaf. That AI could not fathom the experience of being unable to hear isn’t surprising. It’s important to remember that engaging with AI means dealing with a synthetic intelligence that lacks a body through which to experience and interact with the world. Without an embodied presence it cannot put itself in the shoes of its users and experience anything approaching human empathy. While tech billionaires such as Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen may see empathy and introspection as
B L A N CO & R E P OSA D O 75 0 M L 8 8 P R O O F | 4 4 % A BV 1 0 0 % P U R O D E AG AV E D O U B L E D I ST I L L E D 5 0 % S M O K E D A N D 5 0 % ST E A M E D D I S C OV E R M O R E AT F O R YO U M A S E S P I R I T U !
R E V E L S P I R I T S .C O M
weaknesses, those traits are the beating heart of literature and art, the wellspring of creativity and human connection. In other words, emotion, empathy and irrationality could be seen as some of the most powerful counterweights to AI.
Embracing human frailty
There may be situations where AI may be useful to my students, and I think efforts to ban the use of AI are unfeasible and counterproductive. The ability to forgo these tools altogether is largely a luxury. Just as many people can’t afford to have someone else clean their homes, landscape their yards or nanny their kids, those struggling to make ends meet may need to lean on AI assistance. But my hope is that my students – especially when it comes to their intellectual work – will understand that deploying the technology requires abandoning capacities that are essential to human thought and creativity: imagination, intuition and self-reflection. I want them to think twice before trying to mask, with a chatbot, the inherent frailties, weaknesses, obsessions and digressions of the human mind. Instead, I want them to embrace these human tendencies and surrender to what poet William Wordsworth called the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” After all, the greatest art often emerges from those who are at their most vulnerable, confused and lost. Disclosure statement Billy J. Stratton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Insight News • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Page 9
Insight 2 Health
As vaccination rates drop across Africa, new recovery plan faces 5 critical hurdles course and linking it with other essential services. Community health workers are especially important to connect families with services. Nigeria’s community health influencer programme, for example, identifies zero-dose children and links them to healthcare services.
By Charles Shey Wiysonge Extraordinary Professor, Global Health, Stellenbosch University; South African Medical Research Council Africa has reached an important moment in its immunisation journey. Coverage is not rising fast enough to keep pace with population growth, persistent inequities and a growing number of vaccines. At the same time, outbreaks and financing pressures are intensifying. Vaccination has transformed child survival. A landmark analysis found that global immunisation efforts have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years, 52 million in Africa. Vaccines have virtually eliminated meningitis A epidemics and eradicated wild poliovirus from Africa. But progress has slowed. In 2025, about 7.1 million African children (15.6% of those under a year old) did not receive even a single routine vaccine dose. Measles and other vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks are increasing, driven by immunity gaps, conflict, displacement and vaccine hesitancy. Meanwhile, donor budgets are under pressure from competing global crises. And rising debt-service costs are squeezing government spending on health. Against this backdrop, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has launched the Continental Immunisation Strategy 2026-2030. It covers six areas: • financing and political commitment • data and digital systems • life-course vaccination integrated with primary healthcare • community engagement • vaccine manufacturing and supply
4. Build trust through genuine community engagement
Credit: UNICEF South Africa/2022/Moultrie
•
emergency preparedness and epidemic-ready immunisation systems. We are immunisation practitioners, researchers and advisers who contributed to the strategy’s development and now support its implementation. We identify five priorities that apply to all these six areas. They are: • sustainable domestic financing • fit-for-purpose digital systems • integration with primary healthcare • genuine community partnership • vaccine sovereignty linked to epidemic preparedness.
1. Put sustainable domestic financing at the centre
The greatest threat to immunisation in Africa is not whether effective vaccines exist, but whether countries can finance and deliver them reliably. International partners such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Unicef, and the World Health Organization have helped countries introduce vaccines, procure doses and strengthen delivery systems. That support remains invaluable, but it cannot substitute for predictable national budgets.
The fiscal squeeze is real. Governments must service debt while also responding to food insecurity, climate shocks and conflict, and financing education, infrastructure and other essential health services. Growing populations increase the number of children who need routine vaccines. Every interest payment reduces the funding available for vaccines, coldchain equipment, transport and health workers. We argue for using scarce resources better. Immunisation is a best buy that returns about US$54 for every dollar invested. Predictable domestic financing gives countries more control over priorities, makes programmes less vulnerable to donor cycles and strengthens accountability to citizens.
2. Use digital technology to reach every person who needs vaccines
Many programmes still rely on paper registers kept by health workers. These records are increasingly ill-suited to highly mobile populations, expanding vaccine schedules and the need to identify missed individuals quickly. Digital systems can
help solve these practical problems. Electronic immunisation registries linked, with privacy safeguards, to birth registration and national health-information platforms can show who received which vaccine (or missed a dose) and improve stock management. Rwanda, for example, integrated its vaccine registry with electronic birth systems in 2022. Better data can improve efficiency and accountability.
3. Make immunisation part of resilient primary healthcare
The original Expanded Programme on Immunisation was designed primarily to protect infants against a few childhood diseases, often through fixed health facilities and periodic outreach. Today’s realities are different. Africa has a rapidly growing and urbanising population; vaccine schedules now include adolescents, pregnant women and adults. Vaccination should therefore become a routine part of primary healthcare throughout life. The Immunisation Agenda 2030 supports expanding vaccination across the life
Immunisation programmes succeed when people trust the vaccines, the health workers who provide them and the institutions running the programme. People are more likely to accept vaccines when they feel respected, listened to and involved. Religious leaders, traditional authorities, teachers, civil-society organisations, youth groups and community health workers can all help. In Sierra Leone’s Kailahun District, rumours that HPV vaccination caused infertility led parents to refuse consent and girls to avoid school. Health teams listened to concerns and worked through trusted local voices to rebuild confidence. In northern Nigeria, traditional and religious leaders have similarly helped vaccination teams address rumours and identify missed children. Trust is built through consistent service quality and partnership; it cannot be manufactured during an emergency.
5. Strengthen Africa’s vaccine sovereignty and epidemic preparedness
COVID exposed Africa’s dependence on imported products and the vulnerability of global supply chains. The continent still imports about 99% of the vaccines it uses. The Continental Immunisation Strategy therefore supports the African Union’s ambition to produce 60% of Africa’s vaccine needs locally by 2040. Africa is not start-
ing from zero. Existing or expanding capabilities include the Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal, Biovac and Aspen Pharmacare in South Africa, and manufacturers in Egypt and Tunisia. But sustainable manufacturing requires predictable demand, pooled procurement, technology transfer, skilled workforces, strong regulators and access to regional markets. Reliable continental supply is most valuable when countries can quickly identify a threat, decide how vaccines should be used and deliver them equitably across borders.
Looking ahead
The Continental Immunisation Strategy already recognises these priorities. The task now is to come up with costed national plans, clear responsibilities, measurable milestones and transparent annual reporting. Governments must lead, while development partners align their support behind country priorities. Success will be measured by whether a child in a remote village, an adolescent in an informal settlement, a pregnant woman in a fragile setting and an older person at risk can receive the vaccines they need, when they need them. The continent will have stronger health systems, greater resilience to outbreaks and healthier populations able to contribute fully to Africa’s development. This article was co-authored by Dr Folake Olayinka and Dr Chris Ngwa Akonwi. Disclosure statement Charles Shey Wiysonge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
How the pro‑nicotine ‘wellness’ movement rebranded an addictive drug By Hasmeena Kathuria Professor of Medicine, University of WisconsinMadison
the brain adapts to nicotine’s presence. Receptors become less responsive, and the brain compensates by increasing the number of nicotine receptors, contributing to dependence.
An ironic development emerging alongside the “Make America Healthy Again” movement is the portrayal of nicotine as a wellness and performance-enhancing product. Across social media, podcasts, wellness communities and tech startups, prominent wellness personalities and other influencers are portraying nicotine as a misunderstood compound whose potential benefits have been overshadowed by its negative association with cigarette smoking. As a result, nicotine is being repositioned from an addictive substance linked to tobacco use to a natural product that can be used for everything from improving focus to protecting against cognitive decline. This trend includes use of nicotine alone in noncombustible products such as nicotine pouches, or in combination with caffeine and nootropics, which are substances marketed to enhance cognition. As a pulmonary physician-scientist who studies nicotine addiction and the health consequences of tobacco and nicotine products, I am concerned about claims that nicotine can enhance wellness, productivity and cognitive performance.
Focus and productivity
Distinguishing between nicotine and tobacco
Some of these claims stem from the observation that nicotine is a naturally occurring plant compound found primarily in tobacco and in nightshade vegetables such as tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant in trace amounts. Pro-
Image created with AI
ponents of nicotine use also draw on studies suggesting that nicotine can affect certain aspects of cognition and brain function. However, extending these findings to broad claims about productivity, brain health, longevity or wellness goes well beyond what has been shown in human studies. Nicotine is the primary driver of tobacco addiction in the form of cigarettes, vapes and most other forms of commercial tobacco. The greatest health risks arise when tobacco is burned, which generates thousands of toxic substances, including carcinogens, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter. Repeated exposure to these combustion products can cause cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease and numerous other smoking-related illnesses. While many smoking-related diseases result from exposure to combustion products, nicotine itself has wellknown negative effects on the brain and body. Nicotine activates the sympathetic nervous system – the body’s “fight or flight” response – which increases heart rate and blood pressure and disrupts sleep. Repeated stimulation of this system can place additional strain
on the heart. Nicotine exposure is of particular concern during critical phases of development. Prenatal exposure to nicotine has been associated with adverse effects on fetal growth and development. Adolescent exposure can alter neural systems involved in attention, learning and reward, increasing vulnerability to addiction.
Nicotine changes the brain
Nicotine also leads to dependence through activation of brain reward pathways. Acetylcholine is a key neurotransmitter – a chemical messenger in the brain – involved in attention, learning, memory and information processing. Nicotine acts on many of the same nicotinic acetylcholine receptors that normally respond to acetylcholine, temporarily increasing alertness, attention and arousal. Activation of these receptors also influences the release of other neurotransmitters, including dopamine, which plays an important role in reward and reinforcement. However, nicotine does not reproduce normal acetylcholine signaling. Unlike acetylcholine, the effects of nicotine last much longer and alters activity throughout the brain. With repeated exposure,
A common claim within wellness communities is that nicotine serves as a cognitive enhancer that improves focus and productivity. Some studies indicate that nicotine may temporarily enhance attention, vigilance, reaction time and some aspects of working memory, but results are mixed. Research suggests that nicotine may benefit people with mild cognitive impairment, but it does not appear to enhance cognition in healthy individuals and may even worsen cognitive performance in higher-performing people. In addition, many of these studies include regular nicotine users who are dependent on nicotine. When they stop using nicotine, regular users commonly experience difficulty concentrating, irritability, anxiety, restlessness and impaired attention. Reintroducing nicotine often relieves these symptoms, making it difficult to determine whether observed improvements reflect true cognitive enhancement or simply reversal of withdrawal symptoms. In other words, nicotine may provide short-term improvements in attention and alertness in select users, but there is little evidence that it meaningfully enhances academic achievement, intelligence, creativity, executive functioning or workplace productivity.
Stress and mood
Wellness influencers also pro-
mote nicotine as a tool for managing stress and improving mood. Nicotine activates reward pathways in the brain, which can create a temporary sense of pleasure and well-being. However, long-term nicotine use can interfere with the body’s stress-response system, which may make stress and anxiety harder to manage. Research consistently shows that people who quit smoking experience reductions in anxiety, depression and stress, along with improvements in mood and overall quality of life over time. In fact, long-term discontinuation of nicotine use is associated with better mental health and well-being. So while nicotine may create a temporary subjective sense of stress relief, current evidence does not support its use to reduce stress, improve mood or treat anxiety or depression.
Healthy aging and longevity
Some of the most ambitious claims emerging from the pro-nicotine wellness movement suggest that nicotine protects against dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and age-related cognitive decline. These claims are based on findings suggesting that nicotine can influence neural pathways involved in memory and attention as well as animal and laboratory studies examining whether nicotine could modify disease processes associated with cognitive decline. However, human studies have not demonstrated that nicotine can prevent dementia, slow Alzheimer’s disease progression, preserve long-term cognitive function or improve outcomes in Parkinson’s disease.
Some wellness and longevity advocates claim that nicotine preserves cognitive function, slows biological aging or promotes longevity. These claims are largely based on laboratory studies showing that nicotine can affect cellular pathways related to oxidative stress and animal studies suggesting effects on inflammation and other mechanisms linked to aging and disease. However, findings from laboratory and animal studies have not translated into evidence that nicotine promotes healthy aging, extends lifespan or prevents age-related disease in humans.
Treating nicotine dependence
Food and Drug Administration-approved nicotine replacement therapies including patches, gum and lozenges, have been shown to help people with nicotine dependence reduce withdrawal symptoms and cravings, making it easier for people to stop smoking. Used as directed, these medications can reduce the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal that often make it difficult for people to quit. But this approved form of treating addiction should not be confused with claims that nicotine enhances cognition, promotes wellness or supports healthy aging. In fact, using nicotine products outside of evidence-based treatment for stopping or reducing tobacco use carries the risk of developing nicotine dependence. Disclosure statement Hasmeena Kathuria receives funding from UpToDate (an evidence-based clinical decision support resource), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).
Page 10 • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Insight News
Nolan From 3 to rationalize, to justify the injustice.” Berry agreed. “That's how they've been spinning us,” he said. Later, the program played Crump discussing the independent autopsy conducted for the family by forensic pathologist Dr. Roger Mitchell Jr. According to Crump, Mitchell found recent unexplained blunt-force injuries to the back of Wells' head and additional areas of his back. Crump said the state's pathologist also noted evidence of injury to the back of
Forensics From 3 • Unknown Intent and Attribution: Forensic examiners emphasized they could not determine who initiated the deletions or what intent drove them, noting that digital logs reflect user actions within group chats rather than identifying physical
Magubane From 3 For Black South Africans, everyday life was shaped by restrictions on where they could live, work and travel. Magubane did not limit himself to photographing politicians or famous leaders. He photographed ordinary people—children, workers, families and communities—giving the outside world a visual record of what apartheid meant in everyday life. One of the defining moments of Magubane’s career came in 1960, when he photographed the aftermath of the Sharpeville Massacre. His photographs helped bring international attention to the violence
Cannabis From 3 stigma, then we can start addressing what the stigma is, and then we can start talking about potential benefits,” she said. Minnesota’s cannabis policy has moved through several stages, including decriminalization of certain possession offenses in 1976, creation of the medical cannabis program in 2014 and enactment of the adult-use framework in 2023. Chapter 342 established social-equity provisions that open eligibility to people with cannabis convictions or family members with convictions, military veterans, longtime residents of heavily policed or economically strained areas, and small farmers.
White From 3 and injustice. After graduating from Atlanta University in 1916, White worked in insurance and became active in the Atlanta branch of the NAACP. His abilities caught the attention of NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson, who recruited him to the organization’s national staff
Reading From 4 ations navigated more comfortably. To be clear, Balanced Literacy alone cannot explain these trends. Increased screen time, constant digital distractions, shortened attention spans, and the dominance of algorithm-driven content all influence students’ reading habits and learning experiences.
Borrowing From 5 ry fixed rates until they mature.
insightnews.com
Wells' head, that both pathologists acknowledge blunt-force trauma, and that the cause of those injuries and their contribution to Wells' death remain unexplained. Crump also described the grand jury's finding: that the position, condition, location and time of discovery of Wells' body were consistent with drowning. But both pathologists, Crump said, note that drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning every other cause must be ruled out first, and he said the district attorney failed to rule out bluntforce trauma. Berry then turned to his own experience. He recalled living in Hattiesburg in 2006
and coming across the scene of a crash on the way home from a Fourth of July visit with relatives. In Berry's account, a young Black woman who was a nurse had been run off the road by two white teenagers he said were clearly intoxicated. All three died, he said, and afterward the nurse was blamed. Berry said the experience taught him that life below the Mason-Dixon line is different from life in the North. But he rejected the idea that such injustice could not happen in Minnesota. McFarlane made a similar connection through his wife, Bobbie Ford McFarlane, who grew up in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. He said she often
reflects on walking home from a high school game with perhaps four or five other Black children when white boys in a vehicle rolled up and threatened them. The children ran, McFarlane said, and she remembers the fear of hiding in a viaduct, a large drainage structure, until she felt it was safe to go home. He said she also remembers being in a small store with her grandmother when she and a white child about her age brushed arms in an aisle. She was struck by fear, McFarlane said, knowing that such contact alone could mean the loss of her life. Then McFarlane brought the story north. He re-
called his first camping trip in northern Minnesota — in Ely, as best he remembered — and coming out of a camping store downtown when a white man driving down the road shouted a racial slur at him. The man drove two blocks, McFarlane said, then came back and did it again. McFarlane drew the two places together. “Mississippi, Minnesota, white supremacy is white supremacy,” he said. “And it doesn't care where you are. And Minnesota has a particular way of trying to act like it's nice. And it is not.” He then said he and Ford McFarlane have written about “trying to find a friendly face” while shopping in down-
town department stores — assessing which employee might treat them with dignity rather than arrogance or dismissiveness. The conversation closed with the November election. Berry, who earlier in the hour said political engagement takes participation in one's community and not only a vote, told listeners: “We don't just need to get people to register to vote. We got to get people to the polls.” He said he most wanted to see Black men at the polls, adding that “brothers have taken a beating over the years,” and ended with a direct appeal: “Black men, get to the polls.”
access to the handset itself. • Expressing Safety Concerns: Ben Crump read excerpts from group chats sent by Wells' friends. The messages revealed that friends on the island expressed explicit concerns about potential racial hostility and anxiety over being left alone with certain individuals on the island.
Disagreements
Official Response and
The findings presented at the press conference drew immediate pushback from local authorities and defense representatives: • District Attorney's Response: Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath issued a statement disputing the legal team's conclusions. She stated that the complete 30-hour digital download discussed by Garrett was not provided di-
rectly to the state prior to the conference, though a 300-page summary had been shared with the grand jury. She maintained that standard user actions within Snapchat accounted for message deletions rather than unauthorized physical access to the device. • Defense Counsel: Attorneys representing the friends on the boat reiterated that their clients were cleared by the grand jury
and maintained that none of the individuals who accompanied Wells had physical possession of the phone to alter its contents. The revelations from the cellphone extraction continue to drive calls from the Wells family and civil rights leaders for federal authorities to intervene and review the case. Sources: 1. Press conference featuring attorney Ben Crump and foren-
sic examiner Andrew Garrett (Garrett Discovery), Sept. 2026. 2. Official statement of Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath, Sept. 2026. 3. Statements of defense counsel representing individuals present on Horn Island, Sept. 2026. 4. News report covering the press conference, forensic logs, and autopsy disclosures.
surrounding resistance to apartheid. He also photographed the 1956 women’s anti-pass march, the Rivonia Trial involving Nelson Mandela and other activists, and numerous other events that became part of South Africa’s historical record. Magubane paid an enormous personal price for his work. In 1969, he was arrested while photographing protesters outside Pretoria Central Prison. He was subsequently held in solitary confinement for 586 days. After his release, the apartheid government placed him under a banning order that severely restricted his ability to work and move freely. Yet the restrictions did not convince him to abandon photography. Instead, they demonstrated just how powerful the authorities believed his photographs could be.
In 1976, Magubane documented the Soweto Uprising, when thousands of Black students protested against the apartheid government’s education policies. His photographs captured young people confronting police violence and became some of the most internationally recognized images of the uprising. Despite the danger, Magubane continued photographing what was happening around him. His work transformed individual moments of protest into permanent historical evidence that could not easily be erased. His creativity was matched by his determination to get the picture. Because authorities restricted photographers and attempted to prevent journalists from documenting certain events, Magubane
sometimes concealed his camera in unusual places, including a hollowed-out Bible, bread and other objects. These methods allowed him to continue working when openly carrying a camera could attract police attention. His photographs demonstrated that documentary photography sometimes requires not only technical ability but extraordinary courage and resourcefulness. After Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Magubane entered another important chapter of his career. He became Mandela’s official photographer and documented the transition toward democracy, including significant moments surrounding South Africa’s first democratic election and the Truth and Rec-
onciliation Commission. The photographer who had spent decades documenting resistance now had the opportunity to photograph a country moving toward a new political era. Magubane’s legacy extends far beyond the individual photographs he made. He published numerous books, exhibited internationally and received major honors, including an honorary Doctor of Literature from the University of Cape Town in 2010. His photographs remain part of the historical record because they show not only the brutality of apartheid but also the humanity, resilience and determination of the people who lived through it. Peter Magubane ultimately demonstrated the extraordinary power of pho-
tography. He understood that a photograph can preserve a moment long after the people who witnessed it are gone. His camera recorded injustice, resistance, suffering, courage and eventually freedom. For photographers today, his life offers an enduring lesson: photography is not simply about making beautiful pictures—it can also be about seeing clearly, standing close to history and making sure that important stories are never forgotten. Magubane’s photographs gave South Africa a visual memory, and his life’s work reminds every photographer that sometimes the most important picture is the one that history needs someone brave enough to make. Based on reporting by The Positive Community.
Jackson said Minnesota built the system around legal proxies rather than an explicitly race-based licensing preference. “If we wanted to make policy that targeted a certain racial demographic, what you’ve seen nationally is that that policy gets overturned very quickly,” she said. “What Minnesota did smartly and also it has created barriers, right, is that it created a social equity program that has six big categories to participate in,” Jackson said. On the market’s first year, she said: “We just closed out one year of adult use sales and this industry has created two hundred and fifty million dollars in revenue.” OCM’s Sept. 15 announcement put combined adult-use and medical sales over the past year at more than $250 million, about $150 million of it
adult-use.
“As we look at what is the potential of reinvestment in dollars going into community, this industry creates those benefits,” Jackson said. She also described a recent state grant round. “We’ve got over a hundred and forty applications in our last round to issue ten point nine million dollars,” she said. Asked whether the effort will succeed this time, Jackson said the skepticism is fair. “This is a state-run grant program, which means that accessing the funds and the dollars means that you need to be able to navigate that process,” she said. A tier-one project, she said, lets groups without as much historic backing in Minnesota apply for smaller amounts with “less monitoring, but more support.” On the cost of enter-
ing the industry, Jackson said: “Cannabis is an industry like any other. And what do you need to run a successful, highly regulated business? You need capital to begin with.” Jackson said she always gives prospective operators an estimate: “I always tell people it’s about two million dollars startup costs to start a cannabis business.” She cited Section 280E of the federal tax code, which still applies to adult-use businesses, and heavy regulation as added pressures. “The cost of running a cannabis business with no tax breaks because of 280E, the high cost of running a cannabis business because of the increased regulation, because it is a federally illegal substance,” Jackson said. She said she creat-
ed what she calls a Continuum of Readiness to help would-be owners prepare. “If you’ve never run a business and cannabis is that first business you’re seeking to run, I’m saying you’re trying to go to college without a high school diploma,” Jackson said. “I say it’s about five years of learning before you’re fully ready.” The state’s equity effort is also moving beyond business ownership toward employment. OCM is hosting its first Resource and Hiring Fair from 1 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22, at the Robert J. Jones Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center, 2001 Plymouth Ave. N. in Minneapolis, for job seekers from social equity eligible communities. Jackson said cannabis businesses and one municipality
with 30 open cannabis-related jobs will be recruiting. She said OCM is looking to have the Cannabis Expungement Board and the state Department of Employment and Economic Development attend. The fair will also offer headshots, résumé reviews by appointment and interview preparation led by OCM’s human resources director, she said. Registration for job seekers and employers is on OCM’s website, mn.gov/ocm. “It is about responding to the needs of communities that have been disproportionately harmed from cannabis prohibition,” Jackson said. Editor’s note: This report focuses on U.S. and Minnesota history. It does not cover the longer global history of cannabis use in medicine, spiritual practice and industry.
in 1918.
He soon became known for his extraordinarily dangerous investigations of lynchings. Because many white Southerners assumed he was white, he was able to enter communities where Black investigators would have faced immediate danger. He spoke with witnesses, law enforcement officials, and even members of lynch mobs, often pretending to share their racial attitudes so they would reveal information.
White personally investigated 41 lynchings and eight race riots. On several occasions, his identity was discovered, forcing him to flee for his life. The evidence he collected helped the NAACP expose the brutality of lynching to Americans and strengthen its campaign for federal anti-lynching legislation. His experiences also influenced his 1929 book, “Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch.” By the early 1930s,
Walter had risen to the NAACP’s top administrative position. As executive secretary, he helped build the organization into a major national political and legal force. Under his leadership, the NAACP challenged discrimination in voting, employment, education, transportation, the military, and other areas of American life. White also recruited attorney Charles Hamilton Houston to lead the NAACP’s legal strategy. Houston and his
protégé, Thurgood Marshall, developed the courtroom campaign that eventually helped produce the Supreme Court’s historic 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. White used his relationships with national political leaders as another weapon against discrimination. He worked with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and President
Harry S. Truman. He supported efforts to end employment discrimination and encouraged Truman to establish the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. Walter White remained an NAACP leader until his death in 1955. His courage, political skill, investigative work, and relentless commitment to equality helped establish the foundation upon which the modern Civil Rights Movement would build.
Yet recognizing these factors cannot become an excuse for inaction. Instead, it should compel us to think more broadly about literacy. The challenge before us is not simply helping children sound out words. It is helping them develop the capacity to wrestle with complex ideas, sustain attention, evaluate evidence, and build knowledge through reading. It is helping them become informed citizens and lifelong learners. And that requires a
comprehensive, systemic strategy. We need high-quality literacy instruction beginning in early childhood settings and extending throughout elementary school. We need to strengthen early intervention so that struggling readers receive support before learning gaps become entrenched. We must carefully examine the quality and effectiveness of programs serving our youngest learners, including Head Start and other early childhood initiatives. At the same time, we
need a national commitment to literacy recovery for older students. Districts and states should be developing evidence-based strategies that help adolescents strengthen comprehension, vocabulary, knowledge-building, and engagement with complex texts. Students who fell behind during the pandemic and those who continue to struggle deserve intensive support, not lowered expectations. We should also have serious conversations about the role of technology in children’s lives. Restricting unnecessary
screen exposure, particularly in the early grades, should be part of a broader effort to rebuild reading habits and attention spans that support learning. More concerning than the decline in reading scores is the absence of a clear, largescale strategy to address the growing crisis. Every year that a struggling reader falls further behind increases the likelihood that they will face lifelong educational and economic disadvantages. The recent reading results from New York City are
a warning. The national NAEP results are an even louder one. Together, they tell us that incremental change is not enough. We know more about how children learn to read than ever before. We know that literacy is the gateway to opportunity. What remains to be seen is whether we have the collective will to act with the urgency this moment demands. Our children cannot afford for us to wait. Based on reporting by Jackson Advocate.
But as the Treasury issues new debt and refinances maturing securities, today’s higher rates gradually become tomorrow’s higher federal interest expense.
That rise in interest costs is a main reason some economists are sounding alarms about the national debt, which recently topped $40 trillion. In effect, the U.S.
economy is facing a reality in which both short- and long-term rates stay higher for longer. The federal government, households and businesses are all adjusting to a borrowing environment that
looks substantially different from the one that prevailed for much of the previous decade. Disclosure statement John W. Diamond does not work for, consult, own
shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Liquor Ware House
Holiday
854 E 7th St.
5710 Xerxes Avenue N
Speedway
RICHFIELD
846 Johnson Pkwy
Cub Food East Side Liquor
1361 Maryland Ave
Sana's Market
1541 Maryland Ave
Jimmy's Food
532 White Bear Ave
Holiday 1770 White Bear Ave
SAINT PAUL
1750 White Bear Ave
Holiday
D & L Foods
Capitol liquor
Liquor Barrel
Cedar & 5th
161 Victoria
7848 Portland Ave S
Otto's Liquors 7850 Portland Ave S
6601 Penn Ave S
CVS 6540 Penn Ave S EDINA
50th France Ave
Edina Liquors Walgreen's
1201 Larpenteur Ave
Big Bottle Liquors
1149 Larpenteur Ave
Grand Ave & Snelling Ave
Noble Laundromat
Beauty Paradise
100 Larpenteur
Grand Ave & Hamline Ave
9056 Lyndale Ave S
Super Casa
6755 York Ave
BP Gas
MGM Liquor
7846 Portland Ave S
Outdoor Box
CVS
Cub Food
Upper Guts Barber Shop
France Ave
301 Mississippi St.
Merwin Liquors
7836 Portland Ave S
Speedway Gas
626 Larpentuer
El Gordo
TBS Mart Foods
BP Gas
Cedar & 6th
LARPENTEUR AVENUE
6000 Portland
7940 Penn Ave S
urban Lights
Outdoor News Box
531 Rice
Speedway Gas
Walgreen's
Snap Market
629 Rice St.
6444 Lyndale Ave S
7845 Portland Ave S
2197 Old Hudson
Outdoor News Box
957 Rice St.
7700 Lyndale Ave S
Walgreens
275 White Bear
Big Discount Liquors 945 Rice St.
Richfield Liquor Richfield Liquor
1177 Clarence St
1559 Larpenteur Ave
9001 Lyndale Ave S
1812 Nicollet Ave
5801 Brooklyn Blvd
Payne Ave Wine & Spirits
Speedway
1196 Rice St.
6044 Brooklyn Blvd
CVS
Cub Food
The Hillock Apt
696 Rice Street
3301 Hiawatha
6930 Brooklyn Blvd
296 E 7th St
MGM Liquor
Moto Market
African Deli
Speedway
Nanny's Jamaican Kitchen
Clinton Laundry Mat
1700 Rice St.
Dragon Star Super Market BROOKLYN CENTER
500 E 7th St
Speedway
46th St Hiawatha Ave
2001 Central Ave NE
Pilgrim Rest Church
Brooklyn Blvd & Starlite Ctr 8020 Brooklyn Blvd
633 W 7th St
Walgreens
1908 4th Ave S
Metro by T-Mobile
Cub Food
B P Gas
University & Rice
137 Maryland Ave
9200 West Broadway
6390 Brooklyn Blvd
8401 Lyndale Ave S
1901 57th Ave N
913B Payne
Holiday
2455 Hennepin Ave S
2501 E. 22nd St
Ebenezer Church
SELBY AVENUE
City Gyro
Brookdale Christian Center
9200 West Broadway
EAST SIDE
Walgreens
8421 Lyndale Ave S
6321 Zane Ave
Ebenezer Church
2057 Marshall Ave
1734 W 7th St
Nomadic Oasis Barber
2124 E. Franklyn Ave
7710 Brooklyn Ste 100
Amoco Gas
6930 Brooklyn Blvd
Minnoco Gas
Fast N Fresh Deli
Family Dentistry
2027 Marshall Ave
Speedway
Uptown Ballons
Holiday Gas
71st & Brooklyn Blvd
Marshall Liquor
Outdoor News Box
1625 Rice St.
4801 63rd Ave
Outdoor News Rack
981 Marshall Ave
Speedway
3541 Cedar Ave S
2622 Franklyn Ave
Welcome Ave & Brooklyn Blvd
1445 W 7th St
438 University Ave
Speedway Gas
Unity Temple
Outdoor News Rack
Book of Acts Church International COGIC
6930 Brooklyn Blvd
2501 Hennepin Ave S
Zipps Liquor
9401 Zane Ave
585 Fuller Ave
Speedway
BLOOMINGTON AVE
2951 Central Ave NE
Hy Vee Gas
Wolter Bros Liquor
Subway
Franklin Ave
9300 Zane Ave
Camphor Memorial United Methodist
Cooper's Food
Check Cash
Liferack Resources
Speedway
Unidale Mall
4440 Snelling Ave S
2329 Central Ave NE
8517 Zane Ave
KFAL Radio
3333 Cedar Ave S
Franklin Ave
Super - USA
451 W Central Ave
Tin Cup liquors
2000 S. 4th Ave & Franklyn
Wells Fargo Bank
5200 85th Ave
B.C. Liquor
Winner Gas
Health Center
Brooklyn Park City Hall
Mount Olivet Baptist Church
Boost Mobil
Walgreens
1815 Central Ave NE
7700 Brooklyn Blvd
1125 W 7th St
The Uptown Diner
Franklin Ave
678 Aurora Ave
Gentlemen's Cuts
Ele. Fetus
Senior High-Rise
St Albans Church of God in Christ
Hook Fish-chicken
1717 Washington Ave NE 2610 Central Ave NE
983 Central Ave. W
Walgreens
440 University Ave
317 E. 38th St
1902 Clinton Ave
New Birth Missionary Baptist
5716 Brookdale Dr
SEWARD
2404 Hennepin Ave S
Grace Temple Church
732 West Central Ave
The Gold Key Liquor Store
Speedway
Seward Co-op
1905 3rd Ave S
Pilgrim Baptist Church
Sunrise Grocery
Spy House
Third Ave Food Market
7 Mile
5700 Brookdale Dr
665 W 7th St
3620 E. 26th St
WHITTIER
608 University
QUICK AFRICAN MARKET
446 University Ave
2327 Hennepin Ave S
801 E. Lake St
Earth's Beauty Supply
7636 Brooklyn Blvd
Outdoor Box
Imaai Church
Global Market
Merwin Liquors
Liquor Barrel
Fit 1st Run
825 E. Lake St
839 University
7638 Brooklyn Blvd
Glamour Cuts
2600 E. 26th St
2448 Hennepin Ave S
Dale & Univrsity
University & Dale
2105 Lyndale Ave
Speedway Gas
Outdoor News Box
Shop
Cedar Food and Grill
2547 Hennepin Ave S
Family Dollar
7525 Brooklyn Blvd
605 University
1808 Riverside Ave
Wedge Co-op
DALE / WESTERN
St. Peter Church
W. 38th St Nicollet Ave
1200 W. Lake St
Brownstone
600 University Ave
Chicago Ave
1450 W. Lake St
970 University Ave
Park Ave Church
401 E. 41st
3240 W. Lake St
Speedway
University & Dale
3400 Park Ave S
2252 Lyndale Ave S
Hair & Wigs
Terriost Shop Chicago Ave
Speedway
756 Snelling Ave
CENTRAL / WEST SIDE
UPTOWN
Auto Shop
7410 Brooklyn Blvd
Speedway
Tobacco Shop
3740 Chicago Ave
1450 W. Lake St
Nice Family African
717 Snelling Ave
6930 Brooklyn Blvd 7330 Brooklyn Blvd #100
589 Dale Ave
1515 Park S
3501 Chicago Ave
Speedway
1539 University Av
1305 University Ave
Lunds & Berly's
Bubble Fresh Laundromat
600 Snelling Ave
Speedy Market
Coffeehouse
Park Elder Center
Holiday
Metro T Moble
1440 University Ave
Elliott Park Grocery
Nails & Tanning
510 Snelling Ave N.
604 Western Ave
Smoke in the Pit 3733 Chicago Ave
Fasika Restaurant
1685 University Ave
1475 University Ave
SUBURBS & NEARBY BROOKLYN PARK
W & T Market
1415 University
ELLIOT PARK
SAINT PAUL — EAST & WEST SNELLING AVENUE
Milburn Clothing
Just Turkey Restaurant 3731 Chicago Ave
The Kenwood
YMCA 1761 University Ave
Family Dental Clinic
Elliott Towers
Holiday
Believer Church
4432 Chicago Ave
730 S. 8th St
Speedway
Laundrat Mat
Chrysali Center
HCMC
Sharret"s Liquor
3357 University Ave SE
3800 Bloomington Ave
53 Glenwood
First Independence Bank
Speedway Gas 5101 S. 34th St
ALWAYS & FOREVER
SAINT PAUL — UNIVERSITY & SELBY
Greater Church 2600 E. 38th St
Outdoor Stand 10th & Marquette
Free
YEARS IN PRINT
Holiday
1345 Hamline Ave
CVS
6975 York Ave
CVS
6905 York Ave
30 Fairview Ave
Cub Foods
6775 York Ave CRYSTAL
Holiday
African Market
9066 Lyndale Ave S
Bottine Blvd & Wilshire Blvd
Walgreen's
9800 Lyndale Ave S
Crystal City Hall
Next Supermarkes
Holiday Gas
Crystal Liquor Warehouse
Walgreen's
HennCty Library - Rockford Rd
Speedway Gas
Liquor Barrel
1280 W. 98th St S
5628 W Broadway
WINDOM
ROBBINSDALE
Holiday Gas
Hy Vee
Cub Foods
Arco Food Mart
Walgreen
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS
1823 Nicollet Ave 1845 Nicollet Ave
4141 Douglas Dr N
50 W. 98th St S
Family Tree Clinic 1919 Nicollet Ave
Flowers by Miss Bertha 2100 Nicollet Ave
A Slice of New York 2407 Nicollet Ave
Park Avenue Center
56 Ave & Elmhurst
9800 Lyndale Ave S
6401 N 42nd Ave
5444 Nicollet Ave
2430 Nicollet Ave
Glam Doll Donuts
3505 Bottineau Blvd
5937 Nicollet Ave
2607 Nicollet Ave
Shawns Hor Supermarket 2712 Nicollet Ave
Caravelle Photo
Bottineau & 42nd Ave
Speedway
W. 66th St Nicollet Ave
Subway
5000 Central Ave NE
Laundermat
4950 Central Ave NE
Top Value Liquor
W. 66th St Nicollet Ave
2529 Nicollet Ave
Pancho
W. 66th St Nicollet Ave
2539 Nicollet Ave
BP Gas
Speedway Gas
W. 35th St Nicollet Ave
PPL Career Center
5400 Lyndale Ave S
CBD Health & Wellness 5315 Lyndale Ave S
1021 E. Franklyn Ave
Outdoor Box
50th Grant Ave S
Super USA
5965 Penn Ave S
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INSIGHT NEWS · INSIGHTNEWS.COM 1815 BRYANT AVE N, MINNEAPOLIS · 612-695-0417
Page 12 • September 28, 2026 - October 4, 2026 • Insight News
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