The American Prospect

In 2024, election officials, social media platform managers, and artificial intelligence developers were poised for an “AI apocalypse” that didn’t arrive. They feared that fake content would deceive voters and sway election outcomes. But the fakes that voters did run into—like the 2024 New Hampshire presidential primary robocall imitating former President Joe Biden’s voice that told voters to wait until November to cast their ballots—had limited impact.

Arindrajit Dube has written a lucid, empirically rigorous, and—in the current political climate—audacious book. The Wage Standard marshals decades of labor economics research to make a case that should be obvious but somehow still needs making: Most American workers have been systematically underpaid for the past half-century, not because markets dictated it, but because power did. This argument deserves to be read widely, taken seriously, and debated vigorously.

Six months after Gov. Kathy Hochul scolded New Yorkers for telling her to tax the rich, she joined New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to do just that. The two officials instituted a “pied-à-terre tax” on second homes worth over $5 million, a fee that would apply to the ultra-wealthy who “store their wealth in New York City real estate but who don’t actually live here,” Mamdani said in a video announcement of the new tax set to music that sounds like the theme song to Succession.

The Revolving Door Project, a Prospect partner, scrutinizes the executive branch and presidential power. Follow them at therevolvingdoorproject.org.

On November 12, 2019, Jolayne Houtz received the news that every mother fears: Her child had died. Sam Martinez was just weeks into his freshman year at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, about 75 miles south of Spokane. The 19-year-old from Bellevue had recently pledged Gamma Chi, the WSU Pullman chapter of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.

BEIRUT – Following Donald Trump’s apparent threat to hit Iran with nuclear weapons Tuesday night, as part of his unprovoked war of aggression on that country, he abruptly announced a two-week cease-fire between the U.S. and that country, reportedly mediated by Pakistan. However, per the terms announced by the Iranian government, the deal was conditional on Lebanon’s inclusion under the umbrella of peace.

This article appears in the April 2026 issue of The American Prospect magazine. If you’d like to receive our next issue in your mailbox, please subscribe here.

As the Trump administration bombs hospitals across the Middle East, it’s blowing them up throughout the United States, too. Since the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, more than 800 hospitals, nursing homes, maternal wards, psychiatric centers, and other health care facilities across the country have either closed entirely, cut services, or are at risk of doing so, according to a Protect Our Care report released last week.

Programmatic advertising is the technology behind banner ads, sidebars, and pop-up videos you see on websites—the ones that seem to “follow you around” based on what you’ve been browsing. Unlike a directly sold ad, where a brand negotiates a deal with a specific website to show their message, programmatic advertising uses automated technology to instantly match ads to audiences across millions of sites at once.

This article appears in the April 2026 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Read more from the issue. When I was an 18-year-old protesting the impending war on Iraq, I had my reasons: Saddam Hussein didn’t do 9/11, Dick Cheney was in it for oil, and yes, there was simply too much diversity in the Bush administration. You see, when I got arrested outside of the United Nations, it wasn’t because Colin Powell was lying about evidence of weapons of mass destruction. It was because he was Black.