It’s Tuesday, April 21. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Patrick McGee on Tim Cook’s legacy at Apple. Arthur Brooks on why American Catholics don’t have to choose between Trump and the pope. A study finds anti-Zionism distorts moral judgment. Can a former Republican lieutenant governor win as a Democrat? And much more.
But first: Can you escape AI disruption—or should you embrace it?
Around a year ago we published an essay about how the world was about to change—and what you should do about it. “AI Will Change What It Is to Be Human. Are We Ready?” asked the headline of the piece. In the opening line, Tyler Cowen and Avital Balwit—no AI doomers—posed another question: “Are we helping create the tools of our own obsolescence?”
That question has grown only more urgent since last spring, with AI technology advancing at an eye-watering pace. Today, we bring you two stories about how AI is changing how we work—and two radically different approaches to the question on everyone’s mind: Will I survive the AI revolution?
Up first, River Page visits a trade school to investigate the idea that as the AI “jobpocalypse” comes for white-collar professions like lawyers and accountants, people who work with their hands (think plumbers and electricians) will remain safe. But does the logic really hold, or is “learn a trade” the new “learn to code”—a meaningless slogan that is no match for the fearsome disruption already underway? Read River’s piece to find out.
For another perspective on the disruptive power of this new technology, we turn to futurist Jamie Metzl. He’s just published a book about AI—with AI. And no, this is not a tale of a writer caught in an AI authorship scandal. In fact, it’s right there on the cover: “By Jamie Metzl and GPT-5.” Jamie argues that you don’t need to dismiss the risks of the AI revolution to harness its miraculous power.
—Oliver Wiseman
Apple CEO Tim Cook announced he plans to step down after 14 years on Monday. John Ternus, the company’s hardware engineering chief, has been named his successor. Patrick McGee, who wrote the book on perhaps the most fateful decision of Cook’s time at the helm, looks at what Ternus brings to the job, and why the company is a long way from the pirate ship run by Steve Jobs. If Jobs himself returned to Cupertino today, as one of his former colleagues put it, “he’d probably find himself retrained on ‘collaborative communication norms’ by HR.”
After Donald Trump called the pope “weak” and cut funding to Catholic Charities, American Catholics are being asked to choose between their country and their church. In his latest column, Arthur Brooks, a practicing Catholic, argues the choice is a false one.
A new study finds that people with strongly anti-Zionist views are more likely to rate the human-rights records of authoritarian regimes—Iran, China, North Korea—more favorably than democratic ones. Zack Dulberg and Adam Louis-Klein argue this isn’t a coincidence: Anti-Zionism, they contend, systematically distorts moral judgment, turning oppressors into victims and victims into oppressors.
Geoff Duncan was a conservative Republican lieutenant governor who backed Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, supported constitutional carry, and opposed Medicaid expansion. Now he’s running for governor as a Democrat—and apologizing for all of it. Jonas Du profiles a candidate who’s betting that being the most prominent Republican to stand up to Trump is enough to win over a party he spent his career opposing.
On School of War, our new podcast where Aaron MacLean (CBS News National Security Analyst) sits down with top military strategists and decision-makers, retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan assesses America’s performance in the Iran war: Is the conflict winding down or just beginning? How does it connect to the Pacific theater? And are the U.S. and its adversaries adapting fast enough for what comes next?
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THE NEWS
As the U.S. and Iran are set to resume peace talks in Islamabad this week, a White House official has told The Wall Street Journal that Donald Trump is not inclined to extend the ceasefire past Wednesday evening, when it expires.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has resigned, the White House confirmed. Her departure follows months of reported misconduct allegations, including an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, drinking on the job, and travel fraud—all under investigation by the Labor Department’s inspector general.
At the start of the 2026 cycle, Democrats retaking the Senate seemed like a long shot—they needed to flip four Republican-held seats, including two in states Trump won by double digits. Now, with Trump’s approval at 40 percent and strong candidates in Ohio, Alaska, North Carolina, and Maine, the betting markets have moved to a toss-up.
White House strategists are growing increasingly alarmed that rising gas prices, up more than $1 a gallon since the U.S. war against Iran began in February, could devastate Republicans in the midterms. Trump’s own energy secretary has acknowledged prices may not drop below $3 until 2027.
A gunman opened fire at Mexico’s Teotihuacán pyramids yesterday, killing a Canadian woman before taking his own life. At least six people were wounded, including tourists from Colombia, Canada, and Russia.
FBI director Kash Patel is suing The Atlantic for $250 million over a story alleging excessive drinking and unexplained absences on the job. The magazine, which cited six current and former officials, says it stands by its reporting.
The House Ethics Committee published a list of all 28 publicly disclosed sexual misconduct investigations into members dating back to 1976, as two congressmen resigned last week over separate allegations. At least half of the probes occurred in the past decade and one sitting member, Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL), remains under active investigation.
Free Press fam — because I'm a dork and love cross-tabs and opinion data on topics like these, I built an interactive app to gauge how different communities stack up on a variety of takes across different dimensions to see the fault lines. Dedicated page for the TFP community: https://votto.app/freepress
Check it out if you like interesting cross-tabs and cool charts like I do! Meant to be more like a living vibe check than a traditional survey, so don’t expect question statements to read like typical, dry polling mush.
I had another moment of peace when it comes to the AI apocalypse last night — properly-designed NIDS and NIPS strategies could stop AI more effectively than a haxxer from .cn. These tools absolutely rely on good network access to function.
Former Republicans running as Democrats and vice-versa is nothing new. I’d planned on voting for Biden over Trump. Why? Because the math for the last quarter-century of spending can’t ever work. Is there really that much difference politically between Jim Webb and JDVP?
(After Biden dropped out, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Officer Harris and ended up voting for Chase Oliver…)