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President Trump promised to bring 500,000 Chinese students to American universities and allow China to own U.S. farmland—leaving the MAGAverse enraged. “But if you don’t have those students—good students, by the way—if you don’t … if they’re good and they want to stay in America, we won’t give them a green card and things like that,” Trump rambled on to Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Friday. “Frankly, I think that it’s good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture, and many of them want to stay here. I think it’s a good thing. Not everybody agrees with me, and it doesn’t sound like a very conservative position. And I’m as conservative—I’m a conservative guy. I’m really a common sense guy, I think, more than a conservative.” “People would argue they worry about whether they have nefarious intentions,” Hannity said.“Sure, I know, and we worry about that, and honestly, you know, they do things to us, and we do things to them. It’s a very fine line, the whole thing with students,” Trump replied. NOW - Trump says it's good to have 500,000 foreign Chinese students in the U.S. and for China to purchase U.S. farmland; otherwise, colleges and farm prices would collapse: "I frankly think that it's good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture." pic.twitter.com/3vQDXpjchz— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) May 15, 2026This triggered a meltdown in MAGA’s considerable Sinophobic wing. “I respect President Trump, but if he brings 500,000 Chinese students to Florida colleges, I will raise tuition on them to $1,000,000/year,” Florida’s racist, groyper gubernatorial candidate James Fishback wrote. “As Governor, I refuse to let the  limited admission spots at our taxpayer-funded colleges be stolen by foreigners.”“Actually, no, those 500,000 students are by law required to act as spies for China. This is the law in China. If removing them sinks some schools, then they deserve to sink,” MAGA influencer Robby Starbuck opined. “The only Chinese students we should invite are the top 0.001% who we should invite to defect to America. And farmland? Lol. We shouldn’t even let a Chinese company visit American farmland let alone own it. No exceptions. I give the Chinese credit, they would NEVER let Americans own their farmland. America First.”“Trump says it’s insulting to tell China their students can’t go to our universities, imagine being an American student and receiving a rejection letter while 500,000 Chinese students get in!” former MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote. “And NO it is not ok for China to buy our farmland!!! And no that’s not common sense!!!”It certainly makes sense for MAGA to be confused. Letting in hundreds of thousands of international students from the same country our leaders claim to be in a deep political rivalry with is not very “America First” of the president.

The Trump administration is hoping to trick Americans into thinking that prices are going down—while the actual numbers indicate the opposite. The U.S. Department of Labor posted a graphic on X Friday claiming that the prices of “many” goods were falling year-over-year, touting “THE TRUMP EFFECT!”Independent journalist Justin Wolfers cross-referenced the chart with data from the Consumer Price Index and revealed that the dozen or so products the agency had chosen to highlight were blatantly cherry-picked. “You can lie in any language, including charts. But because charts come dressed in the authority of arithmetic, the betrayal often cuts deeper,” he wrote in his newsletter. “And sometimes, the lies are breathtaking.”Missing from the Department of Labor’s graph are the many, many, many more products that have become more expensive—some by double digits. There are the obvious ones: the price of fuel oil has increased by 54.3 percent, and gasoline has increased by 28.4 percent, as a result of Donald Trump’s disastrous military campaign in Iran. Other products that have seen double-digit price increases are coffee (18.5 percent), beef (17.8 percent,) and airline tickets (20.7 percent). Computer software and accessories rose 13.9 percent, delivery services by 13.6 percent, and public transportation by 13.7 percent. The price of fresh vegetables grew 11.5 percent, and even the humble hot dog is now 10.7 percent more expensive than it was last year.  These are just some of the biggest jumps. Wolfers found 238 other products and services that saw price increases in the past year. The  inclusion of some products highlighted by the Labor Department are extremely misleading. The price of eggs had already crashed at least 70 percent by mid-September since the highs of March that were brought about by the bird flu outbreak last year. The price of health insurance is not going down because health insurance premiums are increasing as millions could lose access to Medicaid. There are not triumphs of the Trump administration—they’re a smokescreen. Americans don’t need to be told that prices are increasing—they can feel it. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly report, released Tuesday, found that inflation rose to 3.8 percent in April, outpacing wages, which grew at a rate of 3.6 percent. 

The Washington National Opera has found new life since it steered away from Donald Trump’s control.The 70-year-old opera company departed its longtime home at the John F. Kennedy Center when the president and his allies assumed control of the historic cultural institution last year. Yet the difficult exit has apparently not hurt the company—instead, it is well on its way to a full reinvention, raising questions about whether or not the group needs the $2.75 million federal subsidy and support of the Kennedy Center in order to survive, The New York Times reported Friday.“We didn’t lose any artists,” Francesca Zambello, the artistic director of the Washington National Opera, told the Times. “We didn’t lose any staff when we rebooted as a new company. Nobody lost a paycheck. Nobody lost their benefits. Everyone has been very united.”Zambello added that it has been difficult to fundraise and, effectively, create “an opera company out of nothing,” though they have also found “incredible freedom” in the process.The opera company’s program has shifted. It has more operas scheduled this year than it did during the 2024-25 season, but it will also have fewer performances of each opera. “This reflects the competition for stages at auditoriums that have already booked shows well in advance,” noted the Times.The company’s budget has also grown, from $25 million last year to about $30 million next year. That’s due to the additional costs tied to renting venues, and the loss of in-house staff and government subsidies. A $17 million endowment also hangs in the balance.“We had to increase our fund-raising budget significantly to cover new costs and to account for limited weeks available in new venues, which means fewer revenue-earning performances per production,” Timothy O’Leary, the general director of the opera, told the daily. “Thankfully, we have received leadership support from our board and donor base, as well as a groundswell of new donors from around the country.”Long before Trump’s meddling, the Kennedy Center was widely considered a premier global arts institution. But since the White House became directly involved in its operations and programming, its normally star-studded lineup has fallen apart. In December, the president suddenly decided to rename the venerated cultural institution “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” in a flagrant rejection of the laws that created the center in the first place.

After Israel destroyed the Strip’s literary and arts institutions, Palestinians are launching new initiatives to preserve knowledge and insist on a right to life. The post Reviving Gaza’s cultural scene from beneath the rubble appeared first on +972 Magazine.

The insurance industry veteran says executives have an obligation to do hard things.