Welcome back to This Week In Canada, where two more attacks on synagogues and a big speech by the prime minister led me to tackle a difficult question that has been on my mind for a while: Why is antisemitism in Canada worse than in other Western democracies? (The answer won’t make you feel any better.)

And please join me Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. ET to Ask Me Anything about my coverage of medical assistance in dying (MAID). You can find more details below about how to join the conversation.

Five years ago, Canadians were told that they were living through a national reckoning with bigotry and hate. The federal government adopted a sweeping anti-racism strategy. Universities hired diversity officers. Companies created diversity, equity, and inclusion departments. Politicians spoke about systemic discrimination with an urgency often reserved for wars and natural disasters.

Yet antisemitism continues to surge, even though the infrastructure built to fight it is broader and deeper than any time in Canada’s history. Since October 7, 2023, Jewish schools have been shot at, synagogues attacked, and businesses vandalized. Jews have been harassed, assaulted, and spat upon. Protesters have marched through Jewish neighborhoods, and posters of kidnapped Israelis and a missing Jewish teenager were torn down.

It’s Tuesday, June 9. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Arthur Brooks asks, would you vote for a candidate who cheated on their spouse? Peter Savodnik on Spencer Pratt’s defeat—and California’s broken ballot count. Masih Alinejad on “Persepolis” author Marjane Satrapi. Aaron MacLean on Trump’s Iran mistake. And much more.

But first: A school disciplinary email leads to suicide.

Last summer, Vaibhav Duggal, a promising medical student at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso, learned he would have to face the school’s disciplinary body after a patient accused him of asking inappropriate questions about her relationship status during his ob-gyn clinical rotation, and then following her on Instagram. Hours later, he died by suicide. He left a note behind for his parents saying he “simply cannot bear the shame.”

The Duggal family blames the school for their son’s death. In January, Vaibhav’s parents filed a lawsuit accusing the school of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violating their son’s due process rights.

Vaibhav’s story is one of the many examples of institutional overreach during disciplinary proceedings at universities across America that Frannie Block has reported on. In all of these stories, the students’ families told Frannie two things. First, that the universities failed to grant them due process. Second, that they failed to take the students’ mental health into consideration.

The Duggal family is no exception. But they face an uphill battle. Texas’s laws on sovereign immunity shield state institutions from liability except for in specific cases of negligence approved by each state legislature.

Whether or not they succeed in their legal fight, the Duggals have joined other grieving parents in a burgeoning campaign to persuade lawmakers to protect the rights of students like Vaibhav who face disciplinary action on campus.

“Whatever we are doing right now, he’s not coming back,” Vivek Duggal, Vaibhav’s father, said of his son, “but at least we can save someone else’s life.”

Read Frannie’s investigation into this tragic tale—and what schools owe their students, even when they are accused of misconduct.

—Dana Schuster

America’s 250th birthday bash is less than a month away, and we’re honoring some of the Great Americans of history. Up next: Martin Scorsese.

Comedian Colin Quinn honors the legendary Hollywood director by cautioning him never to leave New York City to make another film. When you make mundane urban infrastructure, like a stoop or fire hydrant, look like a “love poem,” Quinn asks, why cross the Hudson River?

• Israel and Iran ceased military engagement on Monday after a brief exchange of missile fire over the weekend. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed it would hold fire “for now,” but said the war was not yet over. Netanyahu also said IDF operations against Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon will continue.

• On Monday a federal judge blocked a Trump administration policy that attached a $100,000 fee to H-1B visa applications, saying the policy was effectively a tax, a power reserved for the legislative branch. “[T]he Administration is confident this order will be reversed on appeal,” a White House spokesperson said after the ruling.

• Young Americans are souring on their view of America, according to a new AP-NORC poll. Nearly half of adults under 30 say there are other countries better than the United States. The poll also found a decrease in the belief in democracy’s centrality to the nation. Only about half of under-30 respondents consider democracy very important to the identity of the nation, compared to 81 percent of U.S. adults over 60 years old.

• The flesh-eating New World screwworm parasite has spread beyond its initial Texas outbreak, with federal officials confirming four U.S. cases—including infections in calves and a goat in Texas, and a dog in neighboring New Mexico.

• Pope Leo denounced the “scourge” of sexual violence committed by Catholic clergy, saying it is “still an open wound” for the church in remarks on Monday to Spanish bishops. “Every wounded person must be able to find sincere listening, welcome, protection, and real paths to healing,” the U.S.-born pontiff said. Pope Leo also addressed the Spanish Parliament, calling for a global response to the “tragic drama” of mass migration and to defend human life “from conception to its natural end.”

• Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and author Gordon Wood died on Sunday after being struck by a motor vehicle in Providence, Rhode Island. Wood wrote more than a dozen books on the American Revolution and founding era. Wood was awarded the National Humanities Medal by Barack Obama in 2010. He was 92.

• A 7.8 magnitude earthquake off the shore of the Philippines killed at least 35 people and injured more than 200 on Monday. The tremor collapsed several low-rise buildings in the port city of General Santos and triggered a mudslide that killed 13 in the coastal Glan municipality. It is the first earthquake to hit the Philippines this year.

• Trump attended game three of the NBA finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden Monday night, watching the Knicks lose by four points in the final quarter. He’s the first sitting U.S. president to attend an NBA Finals.

A few days ago, Marjane Satrapi’s face kept appearing on my screen. Again and again. The Iranian French graphic novelist, the woman who had drawn an entire generation’s grief in rebellion in black and white. My first thought was that she must have won something. It would not have surprised me.

But then I read the headline: Marjane Satrapi had died.

Four words. I read them, and then I read them again.

She had gained fame for her 2003 autobiographical graphic novel, Persepolis—which, a few years later, was adapted into a film. She passed away Thursday at age 56. Her family said she died of sadness, more than a year after losing her husband, Mattias Ripa, the love of her life.

On the morning of July 28, 2025, Vaibhav Duggal, a third-year medical student, was called in to meet with Dr. Charmaine Martin, dean of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso.

A patient had accused him of asking her inappropriate questions about her relationship status during his ob-gyn clinical rotation a few days prior. She also said Duggal followed her on social media after the appointment.

Duggal denied that he had said anything unprofessional—he claimed he followed protocol typical for an STD screening. But he admitted to following her on Instagram, and then blocking her an hour later once he realized it crossed a boundary.

If you wanted an election system meant to sow doubt and undermine faith in the republic, it’s hard to imagine beating Los Angeles and the way in which it chooses its mayor.

Last Wednesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the polls had closed in the jungle primary, Spencer Pratt, the former reality TV star and registered Republican, was in second place—five points behind Mayor Karen Bass and eight points ahead of city councilmember Nithya Raman.

It seemed very likely—at least, to most voters—that Bass and Pratt would face off against each other in the general election: 69 percent of the vote had been counted. Raman had broken down in tears at her election night party! (Yes, it was true, she was addressing her 10-year-old twins, but the emotion seemed to convey loss.)

Virtually no serious observer of Trump-Tehran diplomacy believes that a deal favorable to the president will result from the current negotiations, at least not anytime soon. Yet President Trump’s commitment to this unlikely outcome has transformed his policy toward the region.

Until recently, Trump’s strategy had been one consistent with his first term, where the United States organized a counter-Iran coalition among its traditional allies. Now he’s embraced an approach that strongly resembles the Obama-Biden way of dealing with the Middle East: restraining allies while seeking accommodation with Iran.

Welcome back to Great Americans, a countdown to our country’s 250th birthday. We’re bringing you a writer we love on an American they love, every weekday between now and July 4. Previously, Will Rahn wrote about the Kennedys—the family America just can’t quit. Today, comedian Colin Quinn pays tribute to Martin Scorsese, who knows better than ever to point his camera west of the Hudson River. 
—The Editors

I love Martin Scorsese because he’s a great example of states’ rights. Because the Founding Fathers understood one thing: Where you were born, that’s where you died. People live in Ohio. They are Ohioans. That’s it. And if you leave to go west, you don’t come back.

Martin Scorsese doesn’t make movies about New York—he paints moving masterpieces set in New York. He makes a fire escape on Kenmare Street look like The Garden of Earthly Delights. Every stoop or fire hydrant his camera catches is a love poem. That should be enough for anyone, right? To have a place they are from and be able to convey the beauty of it to the world.

The neuroscientist, philosopher, and podcaster Sam Harris has built his reputation—and a loyal following—on his integrity, moral clarity, and devotion to reasoned argument. Those traits were on display in an essay Sam published over the weekend. It is a manifesto, disguised as a note to his readers and listeners about why he will not debate people whose monomaniacal obsession with Israel has persuaded them, without evidence they are capable of producing, that a single small country represents a unique form of cosmic and terrestrial evil. He is not speaking about critics of Israel; he has plenty of criticisms himself. Rather, he is referring to those who refuse to acknowledge present reality, pretending away Israel’s jihadist enemies and their avowedly genocidal goals. He is speaking about people who will not honestly answer the question: “What would each side do if it had the power to do whatever it wanted?” Jonathan Swift memorably observed that you cannot reason people out of a position they have not been reasoned into. Far from denying the value of debate, Sam’s essay is an affirmation of “the moral and institutional architecture that free societies require.” – The Editors

Many readers and podcast listeners have been dismayed by my enduring support for Israel and now urge me to debate someone—really, anyone—drawn from a growing cast of scholars, grifters, and moral lunatics who have made that beleaguered country their professional or psychiatric obsession. I’ve explained my position on Israel across several podcasts and in my public talks, but it might help to summarize it here.

First, my general attitude: I’m not interested in exploring all the ways that Israel has missed the mark—from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corrupt alliance with the far right, to the many crimes committed by settlers in the West Bank, to the deaths of innocent noncombatants in several wars—because none of these failings, however grave, will alter my sense that (1) the ethical difference between Israel and her enemies remains vast, and (2) the global preoccupation with the Jewish state, as though it were the worst villain among nations, is contemptible, being the product of perennial lies and delusions.

Would you vote for a candidate who cheated on their spouse?

Moral attitudes in the United States have shifted enormously over the past few decades, and on a whole range of issues: from same-sex marriage to abortion. But Americans have remained foursquare against adultery. A solid 90 percent of adults said in a survey last year that marital infidelity is morally wrong, whereas just 2 percent said it is morally acceptable. (The rest believed it is not a moral issue.)

This overwhelming condemnation transcends age, gender, religion, and political ideology. Given that 20 percent of married men and 13 percent of married women admitted in 2022 to having had an affair (and many more don’t fess up to it), this condemnatory consensus even includes a good many cheaters themselves.

It’s Monday, June 8. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Caitlin Flanagan on Jill Biden’s new memoir. John McWhorter on the state of wokeness. Plus: The college romance show millennial moms can’t stop watching. And much more.

But first: Two big questions about artificial intelligence.

The debate over artificial intelligence seems to be developing as quickly as the technology itself, with programmers, lawmakers, and everyday citizens all having their say. The latest turn was kicked off by Pope Leo, with his AI encyclical last month.

In his evenhanded take on the technology, there was one detail about which the pope was firm: There is no mind in the machines. “Artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean,” he wrote.

The people building the machines aren’t so sure. Last week, we learned that Anthropic, Meta, and Alphabet have hired psychologists, philosophers, and other experts to probe whether there might be a spirit in their digital creations. So is AI conscious? It’s the latest in a series of questions we find ourselves facing that feel like they should be from a science-fiction novel.

Tyler Cowen tackles it in his piece for us today. Don’t miss his take:

In our second offering today, Senator Josh Hawley, the Republican from Missouri, grapples with more practical, but no less significant, questions about AI: Will it cause mass layoffs? How dangerous are chatbots with malicious designs? How will the spread of power-hungry data centers affect energy bills? And what can we do about all this?

Hawley offers a simple and absolute answer: Let the public set the rules about AI, not its creators. “The American economy will not automatically orient itself around the interests of American families,” he writes. “We must make that moral commitment ourselves.” Don’t miss this important contribution to perhaps the most important debate out there right now.

—Mene Ukueberuwa

In case you missed the news, we’re counting down Great Americans as we approach the big 250 next month.

Next up in the series: the Kennedys. Will Rahn writes about Jack and Bobby and the family that was never a dynasty. Instead, he says, they were a “flash of light”—eight years of real power followed by six decades of afterimage that America just can’t quit.

• Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel yesterday in retaliation for Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, jeopardizing peace deal negotiations and the ceasefire between Tehran and Washington. No major damage or casualties were reported. “I am going to call Bibi right now and tell him not to retaliate,” President Trump told Axios. “We are very close to a final deal with Iran.”

• A standoff over the appointment of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence led to a warning from Senators Tom Cotton and Chuck Grassley to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “plan for a potential significant gap in foreign intelligence collection.” To protest Pulte, Senate Democrats have blocked the reauthorization of an important foreign surveillance program.

• President Trump walked out of an interview on Meet the Press, accusing NBC of being a “one-sided crooked network” during a heated exchange over what he claims are “rigged” elections. In the interview, Trump also denied promising “no new wars” during his presidential campaign. “I didn’t promise anything,” Trump said, adding that the Iran conflict “is not an endless war.”

• A report commissioned by the leaders of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis concluded that there has been a “deterioration in scholarly standards” in the social sciences and humanities. “Every field” reviewed by the report’s authors showed some signs of ideological distortion where “political criteria” substituted for “scholarly criteria,” the report said.

• The White House is considering a plan to buy the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean from the United Kingdom, which would snarl UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s plan to cede the territory to Mauritius, according to The Telegraph. U.S. leaders fear giving up control over the home of the joint U.S.-UK Diego Garcia military base to China-allied Mauritius. Starmer did not allow the U.S. to strike Iran from Diego Garcia at the beginning of the war.

• The Trump administration must restart asylum and immigration processing for people from 39 countries, a federal judge ruled on Friday. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services put a hold on all asylum claims and froze decisions on immigration applications from the 39 countries, largely in Africa and the Middle East.

• Nithya Raman edged past Spencer Pratt into second place as more votes were counted in the primary race for Los Angeles mayor. Election analysis firm Decision Desk HQ projected on Sunday that Raman will face off against incumbent Karen Bass in the November general election, while the Associated Press had not called a winner as of Sunday night. (Watch: Inside Spencer Pratt’s Viral Video Machine.)