Sunday, Sep. 13, 2026

Good morning,

Welcome to MS NOW’s Sunday Spotlight, where you can find a selection of the week’s most interesting and important stories. America may not have forgotten Sept. 11, but it has forgotten some of its lessons. Meanwhile, the president held a party for Republicans where he made a big-but-empty promise, and the AI industry thinks its own product could hurt humanity. Plus, what the “protecting women’s sports” advocates get wrong about women in sports.

Don’t forget to check out more top columns and videos from the week below.

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Seen from a distance, firefighters and construction workers stand around debris in a smoky city.

Peter Turnley / Getty Images

The lessons of 9/11

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. launched major reforms to address the failures that led to it. But 25 years later, the country has walked away from many of those lessons, writes national security reporter Felicia Schwartz. Counterterrorism teams have been hollowed out, alliances that provided crucial intelligence have been strained, and new threats such as drone attacks or infrastructure sabotage haven’t been fully reckoned with. But the biggest problem may be that much of the discussion has been politicized. Read more.

Breaking with convention

President Donald Trump sought to re-energize the Republican Party ahead of November with an unusual midterm convention in Dallas. But the only surprises were which Republicans skipped it and a video from Democratic senator John Fetterman, argues Matthew Bartlett. Even Trump’s speech was a lackluster reprise of his old campaign rallies. The GOP has some advantages, including gerrymandered maps, a massive money edge and attack lines about socialism. But “Trumpapalooza,” as some called it, did nothing to change the underlying math, which looks bad for Republicans. Read more.

Check republic

At the convention, Trump pledged to send $5,000 checks to every adult American citizen if Republicans win the midterms. It’s safe to wager that the checks will never arrive, because they would cost $1 trillion, never pass Congress and face legal challenges, argues Zeeshan Aleem. Trump also pledged similar checks related to tariffs or the DOGE effort, which never materialized. This time, the proposal seems like a slapdash attempt to bribe voters who are facing a cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by Trump’s own policies. Read more.

The fourth risk

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman outlined three risks for advanced artificial intelligence: humans using them to cause harm, developers losing control of a rogue AI and humans handing over decisions to them. But there’s a fourth risk: AI taking dangerous actions because they are the most efficient, argues Democratic strategist Max Burns. The lack of any constraining human morality could already be seen when OpenAI’s models hacked the AI company Hugging Face in order to solve a simulated test, deciding it would be more efficient to cheat. Read more.

Disrespecting women

Former Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner and former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom have both recently said — joking or not — that they would try out for the WNBA. Aside from the fact that this is a manufactured issue, these comments also show serious disrespect to the women playing in the league, argues freelance journalist Katelyn Burns. Statistically, cisgender men have only about a measurable 10% athletic advantage over cis women, which means most men are not going to be able to compete with elite female athletes, much less a 76-year-old former athlete and a middling NBA player. Read more.

Editor’s Pick

a picture of border wall construction and photos of signs protesting the construction

MS NOW; Brandon Bell / Getty Images; Sara Diggins / The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images

Almost immediately after Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, he declared an emergency at the southern border and allocated more than $45 billion to continue construction of his border wall. That construction has recently reached the Big Bend region, a stretch of southwest Texas along the Rio Grande that is home to its namesake national park.

For MS NOW’s Cities Under Siege series, Antonia Hylton, Jake Newton and Emily Berk drove more than 1,000 miles across this rugged region to speak with residents who fear the destruction of pristine desert land. The Trump administration’s decision to press ahead has prompted some longtime Texas Republicans to consider voting Democratic in this year’s pivotal midterm races. Watch and read more.

In Broad Daylight

Photoillustration of an ICE Police tactical vest beside the silhouette of a child on a tricycle in an immigration facility, with orange circles layered across the collage.

Anna Lefkowitz / MS NOW; Ryan Murphy / Getty Images; Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images

A special MS NOW series this week showcased the stories of people suffering at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, enduring indefinite detention, lawless tactics, living in fear of the ever-present threat of the unmarked car pulling up or the knock on the door.

Law professor Elora Mukherjee wrote about an 18-month-old who nearly died while being held at Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas. Cato Institute immigration expert David J. Bier wrote about a Salvadoran man who, though married to an American with two young children, was arrested at a routine green card appointment. New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim wrote about the poor conditions he’s seen in visits to the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey. Law professor César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández wrote about how Democrats can respond to the Trump administration’s cancellation of Temporary Protected Status for refugees. And immigration lawyer Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu wrote about how the administration’s policies prevented her from helping a 1-year-old child navigate an immigration hearing. Read the entire series here.

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