The Free Press

No foreign country pours money into American universities like Qatar does—and it isn’t even close. The Persian Gulf state has spent about $6.6 billion since the U.S. government started tracking the numbers in the 1960s. In comparison, China has spent about $4.1 billion.

But what does Qatar get in return for all that money?

Some extraordinary clues surfaced in a court order unsealed last month by the federal judge overseeing an antisemitism lawsuit against Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Yael Canaan, who studied architecture at the prestigious Pittsburgh university, alleges that she faced discrimination and harassment because she is Jewish and of Israeli descent. CMU has received $1 billion from Qatar and operates a campus near its capital, Doha.

BUDAPEST — An Arctic wave swept across Hungary in early January, dumping more snow than the country had seen in more than a decade. The temperature lingered below freezing, and people struggled to keep warm in rural villages, where many homes still rely on wood-burning stoves.

Help arrived at one remote location in the middle of the storm. But it didn’t come from the government, which since 2010 has been led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Donald Trump’s top ally in Europe.

It came from Péter Magyar, Orbán’s chief political rival. Magyar showed up in Nógrád County, Hungary’s poorest region, with free firewood, snow shovels, and volunteers from the party he leads, known by its Hungarian initials, Tisza. The name—derived from the Hungarian for “Respect and Freedom”—is an unsubtle riposte to Orbán’s signature concept, “illiberal democracy,” and the corruption that has allegedly crept into his government.

Gavin Newsom crossed the threshold on Sunday from rising political star to an official icon of America’s tastemaking class when he received a splashy profile in Vogue magazine. Few presidential hopefuls have pulled that off, but it isn’t surprising that the California governor made the cut.

After all, he’s had quite a year. While other Democratic politicians have struggled to adapt to the chaos of the second Trump term, Newsom has responded with a blitz of activity that has dramatically raised his profile. At this time last year, he was polling in the single digits for the 2028 primary, stuck in a scrum with other possible candidates and trailing Kamala Harris by a wide margin. Today Newsom tops all three major poll averages—enough to make him the undeniable front-runner.

Newsom’s strength is also showing in the betting markets. On PredictIt, he is far and away the betting favorite for the Democratic nomination, way ahead of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Harris, the second and third most popular choices. He trails only J.D. Vance in the betting for the 2028 general election.

What accounts for this remarkable surge? How did a liberal California Democrat win so much support a year after Democrats got walloped when their candidate was . . . another liberal California Democrat?

In an era defined by rage bait, polarization, and lethal political violence, the idea of nonviolence can feel quaint and sentimental. But what if it’s the most radical idea we’ve got?

On March 9, join author and podcaster Coleman Hughes for a special America at 250 event at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta—the church led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—for a live conversation on the legacy and future of nonviolence.

Coleman will be joined by Andrew Young, a civil rights pioneer and former United Nations ambassador who marched alongside King, as well as Jonathan Eig, whose best-selling book, King: A Life, won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize.

Together, they’ll explore how the earlier Civil Rights Movement used nonviolence to bring Americans together and change the country—and what that strategy can teach us today at a time when America is at a boiling point.

With political violence again making headlines—from protests in Minneapolis to the murder of Charlie Kirk—this timely event brings together three extraordinary voices in a legendary venue for a conversation we won’t soon get again. It’s our first-ever event in Atlanta, and one you won’t want to miss.

Is King’s strategy of nonviolence still useful in 2026? Or is it already a relic of a more hopeful time?

A limited number of VIP tickets are available for those who want to join an intimate pre-event reception—an opportunity to mingle with fellow Free Pressers and meet our special guests.

Paid subscribers get exclusive presale access until Tuesday, February 3 at 3 p.m. ET, when tickets open to the general public. Want early access? Become a paid subscriber now.

This event is part of The Free Press’s America at 250—our yearlong celebration of the country’s founding ideals and their role in shaping our future.

There are no cycles of history—apart from those that are constitutionally mandated.

Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states: “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year.” Article I, Section 3 says that a third of senators will come up for reelection every two years. Article II, Section 1 defines a presidential term as four years. And the 22nd Amendment says that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

All this has the unintended consequence that every president who wins a second term almost inevitably falls victim to what has long been known as the Six-Year Itch.

The second year of the second term has historically been a time of trial and tribulation for the occupant of the White House. Presidents generally face a stalling domestic agenda, public ennui, and either a scandal, a natural disaster, or an international crisis. The president’s party nearly always fares poorly in the midterm elections, and if things go really badly, the president is written off as a lame duck for the remainder of his term.

Despite the Trump administration’s extraordinary dynamism last year—a product of the four-year interlude enjoyed only by Grover Cleveland before him—and despite his continuing ability to outsmart his foreign counterparts—seen most recently at Davos—Donald Trump increasingly looks like the next victim of this domestic-political cycle. A second term is a second term, consecutive or not.

“I’ve been in therapy for five years.”

It was the spring of 2020, and I was teaching a Harvard Business School class on the science of happiness for the first time. This went well, but not without missteps on my part. On the very first day, when a student began her question with that statement, I visibly cringed—in much the same way I did several years ago when an elderly relative at the Thanksgiving table regaled us with information about his “devil of a hemorrhoid.” Therapy, like hemorrhoids, seemed to me something best kept private.

I had recently returned to academia after a decade running a think tank in Washington, D.C. Evidently, things had changed on campus if this kind of self-disclosure was normal, and the other students were completely unfazed by her revelation. Therapy is no longer a private matter, and it is utterly ubiquitous, especially among younger, college-educated adults. Fifty-five percent of Gen Zers and millennials have attended at least one therapy session, and 83 percent of them openly tell others that they are in therapy.

I had to get with the times. And since then, you’ll be pleased to learn that I’ve become like a seasoned proctologist when it comes to hearing about my students’ mental-health treatments.

If you’re still reading after that metaphor, here was the student’s full question:

It’s Monday, February 2. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: from pro-MAGA to anti-ICE. Jason Furman on Trump’s pick for Fed chair. Tyler Cowen and Coleman Hughes on our brave new world. Jed Rubenfeld on the arrest of Don Lemon. And much more.

But first: The detransitioner who sued her doctor.

At the age of 15, Fox Varian began questioning her gender during sessions with a psychologist. At 16, she underwent surgery to remove her breasts. Three years later, she bitterly regretted the surgery and went back to identifying as female.

Then Varian sued her doctor. Hers is the first medical malpractice case by a detransitioner to ever go before a jury. I was the only reporter to attend all three weeks of a heart-wrenching and historic trial in White Plains, New York, that ended Friday. “No amount of reconstruction,” said Varian, “is ever going to bring back what I lost.”

The gender transition field is in precipitous decline. More than half of all U.S. states have banned gender-transition interventions for minors. The Supreme Court ruled last year that states can restrict the ability of minors to get transition treatment. Varian’s trial was closely watched as a harbinger of a long-overdue legal reckoning.

Varian’s lawyer characterized her psychologist as heedless, sloppy, and out of his depth given the teenager’s complex constellation of gender dysphoria and serious psychological problems. And the plastic surgeon who did the mastectomy was inattentive to critical red flags, the lawyer argued.

Read my piece to learn about the verdict reached by the jury on Friday and what it means for the future of so-called “gender-affirming” medical care for minors.

—Benjamin Ryan

Conversations with Coleman: Designer Babies and AI Jobs Are No Longer Sci-Fi

In the aftermath of Covid, one lesson was obvious to Coleman Hughes: Our ability to generate powerful technologies has far outpaced our ability to talk honestly about their risks. That gap between capability and judgment is why he wanted to sit down with Jamie Metzl, a former National Security Council official turned biotech futurist, and one of the earliest public figures to argue that Covid most likely emerged from a lab accident rather than a wet market. They talk about everything about our brave new world, from genetic selection to AI, and discuss whether we are ready for the ethical and social consequences. Catch their conversation wherever you get your podcasts, or at the link below:

• President Trump announced that the Kennedy Center will close July 4 for two years of renovations to bring it “to the highest level of success, beauty, and grandeur.” The move is subject to approval by the center’s board of trustees, which Trump leads, and comes after audience numbers plummeted in the wake of his decision to add his name to the building in December.

• A Democrat flipped a seat in a Texas state senate district that Trump won by 17 percentage points in 2024. Taylor Rehmet’s win over the incumbent Republican by 14 points is “a wake-up call for Republicans across Texas,” said Republican Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick.

• The 5-year-old boy who was surrounded by immigration agents in a Minneapolis suburb while wearing a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack was released with his father from a detention facility in Texas. A federal judge’s order Saturday to release them referred to two lines from the Bible, including “Jesus wept.”

• The frigid blast across the eastern United States will persist well into February, according to meteorologists. They predict a polar vortex in the second week of the month, while much of the West Coast will likely have above-normal temperatures.

• SpaceX wants to launch as many as one million solar-powered satellites and establish an AI data center in space. The plan was detailed in a request to the Federal Communications Commission and described as “the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power.” An estimated 15,000 satellites are now orbiting the earth.

• Four days before Trump’s inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly invested $500 million in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, according to The Wall Street Journal. Two months later, the United Arab Emirates won access to high-powered AI chips that had been blocked by the Joe Biden administration.

• Carlos Alcaraz beat Novak Djokovic to win the Australian Open—and became the youngest man to win tennis’s four Grand Slam titles. Alcaraz is just 22, and the record had stood for 87 years. Elena Rybakina stunned Aryna Sabalenka to win her first Australian Open women’s singles title.

• At last night’s Grammys, Kendrick Lamar became the most-awarded rapper in the show’s history, Olivia Dean won best new artist, and Bad Bunny took album of the year—the first Spanish-language album ever to do so. The ceremony also turned political, with Bad Bunny and others calling for “ICE out.”

In the aftermath of Covid, one lesson should have been obvious: Our ability to generate powerful technologies has far outpaced our ability to talk honestly about their risks. That gap between capability and judgment is why I wanted to sit down with Jamie Metzl, a former National Security Council official turned biotech futurist, and one of the earliest …

Fox Varian had a turbulent childhood. Her parents split when she was 7, triggering a three-year custody battle that ultimately saw her estranged from her father. She suffered from a constellation of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and social phobia. She was diagnosed with autism and bounced around various schools. Her first period sent her into a meltdown, and she battled disordered eating and body-image issues. By mid-adolescence, she was completely lost.

At 15, she began questioning her gender during sessions with her psychologist. She changed her birth name, Isabella, to Gabriel, which she saw as androgynous. Over the next two months, she cut her hair short, began binding her breasts, switched her name again, to Rowan, and started telling people she was transgender.

In December 2019, 11 months after she started this public social transition, Varian underwent surgery to remove her breasts. She was 16 years old.

Imagine AI agents that can access your entire computer, email accounts, and trading accounts if you let them. The “agents” are software: programs that have memory and can expand their abilities by writing their own apps. They can communicate with the outside world, and with each other.

This is the world of OpenClaw, an AI agent creator that in the last week has caused a frenzy in the AI world and beyond. In just a few days, it has gone through two name changes (from Clawdbot to Moltbot to OpenClaw), spawned more than a million digital AI agents, and given rise to what many AI developers see as the wildest, most science fiction-like experiment on the internet.

You can download OpenClaw right now and install it with one line of code. But you shouldn’t, unless it’s on a burner laptop and you really know what you are doing. The OpenClaw AI agents are new, and we are not sure exactly what to expect from them. Give them enough access, and they could drain your crypto wallet or send a hate email to your boss.