‘Our solution to the housing crisis’
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Tina Smith at The New York Times
It’s “becoming nearly impossible for working-class people to buy and keep a roof over their heads,” and Congress “must respond with a plan that matches the scale of this crisis,” say Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.). Instead of “treating real estate as a commodity, we can underwrite the construction of millions of homes and apartments that, by law, must remain affordable.” These “models of rent caps and homeownership are already working around the world.”
‘Paging Hezbollah: How Israel will follow up exploding beepers’
Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet at the New York Post
It seems Israel was able to “infiltrate Hezbollah’s communications supply chain and implant small explosives,” say Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet. Something is “abundantly clear: Israel resides in Hezbollah’s communications network, as well as in Iran’s air defense network, and has established dominance in the cyber domain — and now its supply chains.” For Israel to “reveal this level of penetration into Hezbollah’s command and control communications, something big is likely in the making.”
‘Get this under control’: Mark Robinson’s anti-birth control tirade spoils Trump’s Project 2025 spin’
Amanda Marcotte at Salon
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has “explicitly sneered at the idea of birth control,” and “Donald Trump and his allies want voters to believe that Robinson’s views are an outlier and not reflexive of what Trump intends to do if he wins office,” says Amanda Marcotte. The “truth is this hostility to contraception is baked right into Project 2025.” This is “why Republicans in Congress continue to block efforts to enshrine contraception rights into law.”
‘Hired teen hitmen test limits of Swedish justice’
Elisabeth Braw at Foreign Policy
Swedes “used to think of teenage killers as an American problem, but now they’re a domestic one,” says Elisabeth Braw. Sweden has been trying to “rein in the country’s rampant gun violence by stiffening prison sentences” for 15-to-17-year-old murderers. These teens are “sent to youth centers for rehabilitation treatment,” but the “effectiveness of such treatment is questionable and has been further undermined by offenders’ habit of escaping.” Sweden’s “plans for more prison sentences make eminent sense.”