The Free Press

When I was very young, maybe 5 years old, I enlisted in one of the great pastimes of American childhood: the town soccer league.

Twice a week—once for practice, once for a game—my parents shuttled me to the small field behind our elementary school, dropped me off wearing a jersey and hand-me-down cleats, and watched me scamper toward the other girls, while the coach (usually somebody’s dad) fruitlessly attempted to corral us into formation.

The games lasted an hour or so. Parents lined the sidelines in folding chairs, displaying varying levels of engagement: Some followed every touch and shouted instructions, as though hapless 5-year-olds understood what a “through ball” was; most of the others made small talk, occasionally flitting their eyes toward the field.

At halftime, we enjoyed orange slices. After the final whistle, if we were lucky, an indulgent parent emerged with a cooler full of freeze pops.

And so it went, year after year. Our skills improved—though not by much. Practices multiplied, games lengthened, and the freeze pops went away (though the orange slices remained). Gradually, season by season, more and more kids dropped out. By high school, only the truly dedicated players were left; I myself made it only through freshman year.

If you’re an American who grew up in the suburbs, this probably sounds familiar. Suburb culture revolves around soccer: weekends at the fields, friend groups shaped by whichever team you happened to be assigned. The reality is that soccer, played by almost a quarter of American children who participate in sports, is among the most popular youth games in the country.

Which is why I’m dismayed by the lack of enthusiasm for this year’s World Cup, which begins on Thursday and is being hosted right here on North American soil—in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Fifty-four percent of Americans have already deemed themselves “not at all interested” in the World Cup, while 59 percent say they probably won’t watch a single match.

On Sunday, the war with Iran reignited—yet again. Iran fired a ballistic missile barrage at Israel, a move that followed Israel’s targeting of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

President Trump urged Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to strike back. But Netanyahu did anyway—prompting observers everywhere to ask: Did Bibi just defy the president? Did the t…

Mubin Shaikh grew up in Toronto, in a devout Muslim family, caught between two worlds he couldn’t reconcile. By day, he was a public school kid with non-Muslim friends, playing sports and going to parties. At night, he sat in Quran class, where he was beaten with a stick for mispronouncing Arabic words. The identity crisis that built slowly through his …

If the kidnapping was the Crime of the Century, then the trial that followed was the Trial of the Century. At the center of it all stands the accused—a man who insists on the stand that he is innocent. Nearly a hundred years later, we ask: Could he have been telling the truth?

We used to watch Love Island for the glorious, unapologetic trash that it was: a human zoo with neon lights and troughs of pinot grigio, housing the beautiful and brainless, desperately competing for a fast-fashion brand deal and a few hundred thousand Instagram followers. It was a low-stakes, low-IQ evening escape—and for a while there, nobody took it too seriously.

Ten years ago, the most dramatic denouncement to take place in the Love Island universe was Miss Great Britain getting stripped of her beauty queen crown after having sex in the show’s Hideaway—which is separate from the main villa—with a scaffolder named Alex. The pageant organizers stated that public shagging went against their requirements for a “positive role model,” and that was that.

But in the decade since, the colosseum has opened its gates, and the spectators have decided that they no longer wish to watch beautiful people kiss and couple up. They want to watch them bleed. The latest season of Love Island USA—which will air on Peacock six days a week for the next month or so—hadn’t even begun when they claimed their first scalp.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) Iran Program and a senior fellow specializing in Iranian security and political issues, returns to School of War to discuss the latest round of fighting between Israel and Iran. Why did this latest wave of Iranian missile attacks feel different? Why does a weakened Iran …

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.