Andrew Varsanyi

Articles I liked from March 29 to April 20, 2026

Each week I share the articles and essays that I found most interesting, annoying, challenging, or important. Hope that you check them out too.

• Back to the Dumb Phone by Magazine Non Grata in Magazine Non Grata – Read here
• Yale Report Finds Colleges Deserve Blame for Higher Education’s Problems by Alan Blinder in New York Times – Read here
• Watching The Pitt at the End of an Era for HBO by newrepublic.com in The New Republic – Read here
• How red states are killing college by Richard A. Greenwald in UnHerd – Read here
• “TACO” Trump Is a Dangerous Mirage by Jason Linkins in The New Republic – Read here
• The enduring influence of Al Sharpton by Jason Beeferman in POLITICO – Read here
• Anthropic says its latest AI model is too powerful for public release and that it broke containment during testing by Brent D. Griffiths in Business Insider – Read here
• Mark Carney’s Middle-Power Gambit Can’t Save Canada by Stephen Nagy in Macleans.ca – Read here
• Will AI kill off populism? by Richard Hanania in UnHerd – Read here
• Sven Beckert’s History of Capitalism Is Too Light on Theory by Jan Toporowski in jacobin.com – Read here
• Thatcherism is still the problem by Ben Glover in New Statesman – Read here
• Why the ‘heterodox’ university failed Contrarianism became a new conformity by Edmund King, Thomas Prosser in UnHerd – Read here
• The agonising death of liberal atheism by Aiden Abbott in New Statesman – Read here
• Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? | The New Yorker by Ronan Farrow,Andrew Marantz in The New Yorker – Read here
• The Iran War Is Making the American Economy More Dominant Than Ever by Greg Ip in WSJ – Read here
• The British Energy Crunch by Iain Macwhirter in The American Conservative – Read here
• Stephen Lewis’s Complicated Legacy for the Canadian Left by Taylor C. Noakes in jacobin.com – Read here
• Why we need religion by Iain McGilchrist in UnHerd – Read here
• The AI Book Scandal Roiling Reform UK by Fraser Myers in The American Conservative – Read here
• Yanis Varoufakis: Trump has been betraying Maga’s base since day one by Yanis Varoufakis in New Statesman – Read here
• In wrangling dark matter, some scientists find inspiration in the Torah, Krishna and Christ by ABC News in ABC News – Read here
• Analysis: A new oil shock is building. The next few weeks of war will be decisive for the economy. by Matt Peterson in CNBC – Read here
• NDP says goodbye to the past, ponders what the future holds by cbc.ca in CBC – Read here
• The End of the Carter Doctrine by theamericanconservative.com in The American Conservative – Read here
• A New Non-Aligned Movement? by Nils Gilman in Dissent Magazine – Read here
• Will Mark Carney Make Canada the Sane World Order Superpower? by Lisa Van Dusen in Policy Magazine – Read here
• Reforming our way to dynamism, with Philip K. Howard by Philip K. Howard in Niskanen Center – Improving Policy, Advancing Moderation – Read here
• The UK’s Fiscal Apocalypse by theamericanconservative.com in The American Conservative – Read here
• The Epstein Class by Lindsay Beyerstein in Dissent Magazine – Read here
• To End the Iran War, Trump Must Divorce Israel by Joseph Addington in The American Conservative – Read here
• Among the Private Spies by Christopher Steele in London Review of Books – Read here
• Democrats Have Fundraising Edge in Virginia Redistricting Battle Ahead of April Referendum by nytimes.com in New York Times – Read here
• Don’t be fooled by the UK’s pre-war inflation print — a ‘brutal’ surge could be coming by cnbc.com in CNBC – Read here
• This Is Why Flying Is So Awful by Ganesh Sitaraman in New York Times – Read here
• Top central banker thinks businesses may be quicker to raise prices due to Iran war by abcnews.com in ABC News – Read here
• Posthaste: Canada sets two new population records as ‘demographic engine’ backfires by Gigi Suhanic in financialpost – Read here
• ‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI by Alice Speri in the Guardian – Read here
• Big Tech’s War on Democracy by Conor McGlynn in compactmag.com – Read here
• The Trump administration still isn’t fascist by Alex J Kay in Prospect – Read here
• Who Wants This War? by Lee Smith in Tablet Magazine – Read here
• Why Washington is hamstrung on protecting workers from AI by Yasmin Khorram, Cheyenne Haslett in POLITICO – Read here