The One Big Beautiful Bill ratchets up work requirements for Medicaid. In the process it will force states to pay millions more to one company -- Equifax -- to verify that residents qualify for the program. Wild @sangerkatz @sarahkliff @a_elkeurti story here:

Evidence in New York’s own pilot and other cities suggests free fares drive more ridership. BUT those added riders can wipe out the time savings of getting rid of the fare. To reap time benefits, you’d need to add service. Which costs yet more $$.

Rollet 2025 Fig 3b shows that the average upzoning raises FAR by 1.0, but only increases built FAR by 0.10 over ten years. Upshot: theoretical zoned capacity needs to be at least 10x bigger than the target amount of housing.

I’m seeing a lot of fighting over this. I find it a bit weird. Ezra isn’t saying to run pro-life candidates in Michigan. He’s saying that if Democrats want to keep the GOP out of power, it means running candidates that don’t fit their platform on certain issues. That includes pro-life candidates in certain states, like Louisiana and Mississippi. But it may also mean running candidates that are aggressively restrictionist on immigration in R 20 states like Nebraska. It may even mean running candidates who may not share certain views on trans rights states like in Iowa, Florida and Montana. The more worried you are about authoritarianism coming from the other side, the more your stance has to be “win by any means necessary” — and that means accepting candidates significantly to the right of the party on certain topics in red states. FWIW, Democrats already do this to some degree. And I actually see people like Bernie being very clear-eyed about it — more than most establishment Dems, in fact, who like nothing more than griping to POLITICO. But in most cases, like Tim Ryan, the degree of separation established from the national party/platform is nowhere near what is necessary to win states even as red as Ohio.

Or it might be that Spanberger is the right candidate for Virginia and Mamdani is the right candidate for New York City, and elements of both need to be present in whoever becomes the 2028 nominee.

CBO put out their final distribution analysis of the reconcilation bill yesterday. If you combine those numbers with the most recent @The_Budget_Lab tariff burden estimates, you get a striking result: all income groups but the top decile are made worse off on net.

estimated drop in new international enrollment to american universities this fall: -30/40% (!) contributing to a 15 percent drop in overall enrollment - nafsa: association of international educators

Redfin: U.S. housing market now 508,715 more home sellers than homebuyers That’s the most home sellers have outmatched homebuyers in over a decade, according to Redfin

Important piece from @davidautor & @gordon_h_hanson about the next "China shock" and how to deal with it. nytimes.com/2025/07/14/opini…

This is really fascinating. Forest and grassland converted to crops in 19th cent. 20th cent urbanization. But also notice some re-forestation in TX and South East. After 1920, total forested land is fairly stable. This was a lot of fun to make. Data from @HanqinTian et al.

Here's what's in the bill Congress just passed. More in my latest for @nytopinion nytimes.com/interactive/2025…

Full-day kindergarten increases maternal employment rates.

We've updated our big, beautiful list of (almost) everything in the GOP bill. Link in reply, for twitter reasons. @aliciaparlap

Since some drama about the "current policy baseline" is clearly headed our way this week, may I recommend this piece decoding that boring but consequential language using metaphors and illustrations? nytimes.com/interactive/2025… @aliciaparlap

I have obtained new nonpublic data from ICE that shows that 2/3 of the people it had booked into detention facilities this fiscal year had no criminal convictions at all. Less than 7% have violent convictions. Most convictions were for immigration, traffic, and vice offenses.

One important thing to note. Yesterday's report had revenue at $3.009 trillion. Now, with the add'l 50% tariffs on China, it's $2.843 trillion. We've now flipped to the right side of the tariff Laffer Curve.

NEW: There’s a dire situation in Vietnam, at the largest Agent Orange spill in the country. When Trump and Marco Rubio cancelled foreign aid, froze funding and began dismantling USAID, those who were cleaning up the Bien Hoa air base had to halt work. 1/

A woman was assaulted at her job at a nursing home. She reported it to Michigan police. The police department alerted ICE, and now she's being deported.

I remember reading about "peak populism in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023...

Alternative version of the President map, by raw vote margin per square mile: