It’s Monday, May 18. 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 architect of a genocide who died without facing justice. How teachers’ unions became political big spenders. Did MAHA just sink a senator? Plus: Michael Shellenberger joins Conversations with Coleman.
But first: the Jewish prosecutor yanked from a case against campus protesters.
Last week, I got a video call from Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeffrey Rosen. It was late, and he looked tired. When I asked how things were going, Rosen smiled wanly. Earlier this month, a judge removed Rosen from a high-profile case because he had been a vocal opponent of antisemitism.
Rosen’s father emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust to seek a better life in America. He achieved that in Los Angeles, and for decades, it felt as if the family had escaped forever the backwardness of the Old World. That started to change when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. In June 2024, anti-Israel protesters broke into the president’s office at Stanford University. Rosen and his team were tasked with prosecuting them.
But now Rosen has been barred from finishing that job.
I wanted to talk to Rosen about what has happened to him, and about how much the world that Rosen thought he knew, the world that his father created here in America, has turned dark and uncertain.
—Peter Savodnik
Teachers’ unions have long said that their top priority is advocating for the rank and file, from pay and pensions to working conditions in the classroom. But a new report accuses the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA) of putting politics first. Frannie Block reports exclusively on the findings, including that only 9 percent of the NEA’s disbursement budget in fiscal 2025 was spent on activities directly representing its members.
Félicien Kabuga was an architect of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed almost a million Tutsi. He died on Saturday after being held in custody for over five years. He had been declared unfit to stand trial due to dementia. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, a former United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide, explains how Kabuga managed to evade justice, and what is lost when we do not hold monsters like him to account.
Donald Trump never forgave or forgot that Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was one of seven Republicans in the Senate who voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trial after the 2021 attack on the Capitol. On Saturday night, Trump got his revenge at last: Cassidy was trounced in his primary race. Tanner Nau explains how the president was helped by the MAHA movement, which spent big on Cassidy’s challenger. Read his piece for a look at whether MAHA will be a force to be reckoned with this cycle.
Michael Shellenberger is the author of “San Fransicko” and “Apocalypse Never,” a former progressive activist, and one of America’s most prominent nuclear energy advocates. As Coleman Hughes, Shellenberger also is “a rare public figure who actually evaluates and sifts through the evidence of conspiracy theories on a case-by-case basis.” Listen to their discussion of everything from Shellenberger’s political journey to what he makes of the Jeffrey Epstein saga.
Claude, the AI without ads
Anthropic keeps conversations with Claude ad-free: no sponsored links, no advertisers shaping answers, no paid product placements you didn’t ask for.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency following an outbreak of a rare variant of Ebola in Congo and Uganda. Health officials have tracked over 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths as of Sunday. The outbreak claimed 50 lives before being detected by health officials, with the first known death in late April. The WHO has not declared it a pandemic.
Ukraine carried out deadly drone strikes on Russia on Saturday, including one of the largest attacks on Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia’s defense ministry said that over 1,000 drones were shot down or jammed. The strikes were seen as retaliation for a Russian drone attack that killed 24 people in Kyiv last week.
Two Navy jets collided in midair at an air show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho on Sunday afternoon. All four pilots successfully ejected before their Boeing EA18-G Growlers crashed, about 50 miles outside of Boise. The pilots were unharmed.
Cuba has been discussing plans to use drones to attack the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay and even the Florida Keys, according to classified intelligence described by Axios. The Cuban government now has over 300 military drones, Axios said. On Sunday, the Cuban embassy in the U.S. said Cuba “has the right to defend itself against external aggression.”
“Our rights do not derive from the government. They come from you, our creator and heavenly father,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson in a prayer gathering on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. The event was promoted as a “rededication of our country as One Nation under God.”
Claude, the AI without ads
Anthropic keeps conversations with Claude ad-free: no sponsored links, no advertisers shaping answers, no paid product placements you didn’t ask for.
and the California judge just ruled no cars for kids Commercials in the Golden State because the charity doesn't disclose in the commercials that it's Jewish and sends Jewish youth to Israel and the kids in the commercial are younger than the kids they send to Israel no, I'm not making this up
From the linked article about the Jubilee Prayer Day: "Instead, they continue to threaten this foundational principle by advancing a Christian Nationalist crusade to impose one narrow version of Christianity on all Americans."
There were Catholics there, as well as Evangelicals, black Tim Scott and white Franklin Graham, and a rabbi, and Jonathan Roumie, and even some bishop from Minneosota, of all places. Hardly a profile of a group demanding to impose "one narrow version of Christianity on all Americans." Only among hate-filled lefties does an earnest call to humble ourselves before God seem like a Nationalist crusade.