It’s Monday, August 10. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: The transformation of the Democratic Party. Russ Greene on the return of the suburban dream. Liz Wolfe on Montessori gone wrong. And much more.
But first: The celebrity-backed nonprofit facing scrutiny for terror ties.
For nearly 40 years, a Bay Area charity called the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) has been one of the most high-profile backers of the Palestinian cause. The charity itself has also had high-profile backers, including luminaries from Hollywood, academia, and beyond.
MECA says it spends its money solely on schools, scholarships, water projects, and medicine. But were the donations it sends from progressive Americans to the Middle East in fact channeled to terror-linked groups? And is the charity partnered with groups aligned with hostile actors?
Those are the questions being investigated by Washington, and the subject of Jay Solomon’s latest report for The Free Press.
—The Editors
Two Views of the Democratic Party’s Transformation
The year 2026 is proving to be pivotal for the Democratic Party. In primary after primary, voters are picking candidates further and further to the left. Nearly a third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists, backing policies like Medicare for All, free college, and ending U.S. military aid to Israel. The party is changing fast, and today, we have two conversations to help make sense of where it’s heading.
First, Coleman Hughes sits down with Rep. Ro Khanna on the latest episode of Conversations with Coleman. Khanna hails from the party’s progressive wing and has distinguished himself as one of the Democratic Party’s loudest critics of Israel, and last month went viral after claiming he was detained by Israeli settlers and the IDF in the West Bank. Coleman presses the Silicon Valley congressman on his claim that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, his theory of progressive capitalism, and whether Democrats can actually deliver for the working class they keep promising to fight for. This is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
Then, for a view from inside the DSA itself: Jake Altman joined the organization in 2013, when it was a coalition of middle-aged social democrats. By the time he left in 2022, it had become something unrecognizable. Altman wrote about his experience in our pages a few weeks ago, and today joins Maya Sulkin on the latest episode of Confessions to dive deeper, discussing what he saw from the inside and why the Democratic establishment still doesn’t understand what it’s up against.
What do young Americans really want? They want the lifestyle that their parents had but took for granted. Russ Greene argues that the suburban dream of a home, a yard, and a safe neighborhood has become the aspiration of a generation that can’t afford it. And they aren’t just blocked by high prices. Read Russ on how the American dream is being locked away from those who want it, and what it would take to unlock it.
American parents are burned out. Liz Wolfe thinks that part of the problem is that we’ve stopped letting children actually do much of anything. She makes the case that parents have embraced the Montessori aesthetic while rejecting its actual premise: that children crave meaningful work and are more capable than we think. “Children don’t need the weight of the world placed on their shoulders,” she writes, “but thoughtfully meting out little pieces of the adult world can be a real joy for them.” Read Liz’s piece on why we need to raise our risk tolerance.
What does a museum look like when the idea that some art is simply better than other art is considered oppression? Caitlin Flanagan visited Los Angeles’s newest museum to find out. The David Geffen Galleries opened this spring to great fanfare—$700 million of grey concrete, one enormous floor without stairs, and artworks from wildly different eras jumbled together with no discernible logic, while much of the greatest art in the permanent collection sits in storage. “I visited the new LACMA three times over two weeks, and it radicalized me,” she writes. “Here was the first museum I’ve ever wanted to tear down.”
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu rejected on Sunday a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hamas, saying Israel would not cede any territory until the militant group gave up its weapons. “We are talking about real disarmament,” he said. The move marks a significant break with President Donald Trump, who celebrated the agreement as a major breakthrough when it was announced. (For more on whether Hamas will ever really disarm, read Michael Oren’s analysis.)
The Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as attorney general Saturday in a 50–49 vote, making Trump’s former personal defense lawyer the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Two Republicans, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, crossed party lines to oppose Blanche over concerns about the Justice Department’s independence under his leadership.
Former president Joe Biden’s prostate cancer has spread to his bones, his son Hunter Biden revealed late Friday in an interview, saying the condition is taking a serious toll. “I wish he would complain more, because it’s not good,” Hunter said, adding that despite the “very painful” and “very debilitating” consequences of his father’s cancer, the former president remains publicly engaged and “still doing his thing.”
The father of a 14-year-old student who opened fire at a school outside Bangkok apologized on Sunday “to all the families.” At least eight people died from Friday’s attack, including the shooter’s grandparents, while 23 were wounded, most between the ages of 12 and 14. The shooter took his own life.
Chicago Sky guard DiJonai Carrington was ejected from a WNBA game on Saturday after hitting the Indiana Fever’s Sophie Cunningham in the head during a layup. Carrington then posted “WHITE PRIVILEGE” on social media and tagged the Fever. Cunningham called the foul intentional and said race had nothing to do with it. (Read Kat Rosenfield on why Cunningham’s refusal to back down from controversy this season represents a cultural turning point.)
A woman and an infant were killed when a boat overturned in New York Harbor near the Statue of Liberty on Saturday night, and a dozen people were rescued from the water. The captain was arrested Sunday on charges of reckless endangerment.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russia plans to send up to 50,000 North Korean troops into the four-year war. He also said Ukrainian forces had recovered North Korean missiles on Ukrainian soil and urged South Korea to step up military cooperation, particularly on air defense.
Italian divers discovered a 2,100-year-old Roman shipwreck off the coast of Sicily, packed with hundreds of remarkably preserved clay jars. Italy’s culture minister called it “one of the most important underwater archaeological discoveries of recent years.” The wreck was found after a tip from local fishermen who spotted something unusual on their sonar.
