New York Times Opinion

“The Houthis today are what ISIS was before it seized Mosul in Iraq and proclaimed a caliphate: a terrorist movement the world underestimated,” writes Reema Bandar Al-Saud. “The international community should set a clear goal to end the Houthis as an armed terrorist force.”

"Israel’s problem is that it must cultivate two reputations, one for the West and one for the Middle East. These two reputations clash. Israelis want the Western world to love them, but their enemies in the Middle East to fear them," Micah Goodman writes.

About a Republican candidate’s ad in Ohio: “I could understand politicians going there if they think it will help them win,” Colby Anne Kingsbury writes in a letter to The Times. “But this? If someone can explain to me why this was perceived to be a winning strategy, I’m all ears.”

“Mr. Lula’s victory is well worth celebrating,” Vanessa Barbara writes. “It delivered a blunt rebuke to the Bolsonaro dynasty and stalled their revanchist project, at least for now.”

"The Cornell case shows how hard it can be for universities to enforce Title IX well and also why they have to keep trying," Emily Bazelon writes. nyti.ms/4i3CKzy

If Democrats win control of Congress in the midterms, Trump can blame them “for not acting on his priorities in ways that were less available to him when dealing with Republicans during his first two years of office,” the political scientist Frances Lee writes in a Q&A with Times Opinion.

With just about a week to go before the 2026 midterms, Times Opinion asked six pollsters and pundits to predict who will win the House and the Senate. Their predictions offer a fairly optimistic outlook for Democrats.

“I wanted to hug him, and I still want to hug him. I miss him,” writes Penn Jillette about Bob Saget.

Deregulation is Trump’s gift to green energy, writes Michael Sonnenfeldt.

“All in all, North Carolina is poised to prove that a president and a political party can’t outrun reality, not with shady scheming, not with mountains of cash, not with all the swagger and bluster in the world,” writes Frank Bruni.

“India is once again in the vanguard,” writes Lydia Polgreen. “As governments struggle and discontent flourishes worldwide, the country offers a lesson for us all.”

Benjamin Netanyahu’s political resilience is based in part on the following he has cultivated, similar to President Trump’s bottomless MAGA support, but also on his cleverly crafted narrative of growing Israeli triumphs, Michael J. Koplow writes.

“Most Israeli Jews now see the world the way Netanyahu has long seen it. That is Netanyahu’s great victory. But it is matched by his great loss: Much of the world now sees Israel the way Gazans see it,” our columnist Ezra Klein writes.

Ramaswamy’s “malicious” ad featuring Amy Acton’s mother shows how “every institution takes on the character of its leader,” writes our columnist David French.

The Nov. 3 midterms "could be a defining test for the rule of law in this country, and both our democracy and our prosperity are on the line," Robert E. Rubin, a former U.S. Treasury secretary, writes. nyti.ms/3ULWajr

President Trump seems not to understand that the global standing of the United States suffers when our leaders play into the stereotype of the ugly American, writes the Times editorial board.

“Christians hardly have a monopoly on language that enlarges the human heart,” writes Bishop Lydia Sohn.

“Instead of asking which intervention will fix education, school leaders might start with a more useful question: What experience do our students need, and how do we align our time, people and resources around delivering it well?” Rob Jentsch writes in a letter to The Times.

“Starting around a decade ago, the Brazilian echoes of American politics became too eerie to deny, like watching a Brazilian spinoff of a U.S. television series with a two-year production lag and a few homegrown plot twists,” Brian Winter writes.

"Trump is in absolute command of the Republican Party, but outside of his own victories, he has steered it, more often than not, into troubled electoral waters," Jamelle Bouie writes.

“As they handed him the baby, his body was flooded with a sense of purpose that had previously eluded him,” Lena Dunham writes of her father’s reaction to her birth. “Like an EpiPen chased with a shot of Jack.”

“The Israeli election on Tuesday is being touted as one of the most consequential in Israel’s history, not just for Israelis but also for large parts of the world,” Mairav Zonszein writes. Yet in the last three years, “the electoral landscape has barely changed.”

"The comforting narrative of humane slaughter — as federal law terms it — bears little relation to the horror that livestock and poultry often endure in their final moments on the way to our dinner plates," our columnist Nicholas Kristof writes. nyti.ms/4kcGWy9

“One can only hope that more thoughtful care is taken when the human work force is discarded than has occurred as New York’s horses and drivers face their extinction-level event,” Mary Haverstick writes about carriage horses being banned from Central Park.

“You Can See Everything” is more like a film noir thriller than a meditation on deceit, our columnist Maureen Dowd writes, “with a manipulative femme fatale, a destructive romance, a man who’s meant to play the fall guy, and an atmospheric cottage by the sea.”

“Everything empirical is saying that this could be a blue wave, this could be a blue tsunami,” our columnist David French says on “The Opinions” about the midterms. But can Democrats dare to believe it?

“The principles and strategies that over multiple generations have made the United States the world’s leading nation in effect are on the ballot, and these midterms mark a potential turning point,” our columnist Nicholas Kristof writes.

On a horse-carriage ban in Central Park in New York: “This is a great victory for those horses that have survived,” Elaine Sloan writes in a letter to The Times. “They deserve to be sent to sanctuaries or to people who will let them live on farms to enjoy peace and quiet in the countryside."

“You Can See Everything,” the new documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, has a universal message, Eve Sneider writes: “Every person has a unique perspective, and that makes it impossible for anyone to produce a narrative that is absolutely true.”

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“With her fame-hungry dreams and money-ravenous schemes, she didn’t violate the Trump ethos,” Frank Bruni writes about Kimberly Guilfoyle. “She paid tribute to it. She didn’t contradict the Trump brand. She was its gaudy, greedy hood ornament.” nyti.ms/4yXUqCB

“It’s quite a feat, in this numb and debased era, to create a political advertisement so shocking and indecent that people from across the political spectrum feel the need to denounce it,” our columnist Michelle Goldberg writes about Vivek Ramaswamy.

The political strategist Sarah Longwell has conducted hundreds of focus groups with Trump voters. “When I listen to Trump voters in focus groups, they’re sad. They’re bummed out. They don’t like their candidates. They think they’re lame,” she says on "The Ezra Klein Show."

Have you ever used a chatbot for personal advice or emotional support? Whether it’s a one-off question you were hesitant to ask anyone else or an ongoing coversation you return to daily, Times Opinion wants to hear about your experience.

“There are problems that predate Trump,” Catherine Rampell tells Natasha Sarin on “The Opinions” about the state of the U.S. economy. “The problem is that he has made all of them worse.”

The investigation of Ilhan Omar “is a chilling example of the federal government using its immense power to silence a critic,” the editorial board writes. “It is an affront to free speech, the rule of law and American ideals.”

”Rather than continuing to subordinate American interests to debatable assessments of Israel’s security needs,” Jon Finer writes, a new approach to international relations with Israel “would acknowledge that the world has changed.”

“The U.S. can successfully address both its manufacturing needs and its national security — but only if the administration fully embraces the newcomers who wish to build their lives here,” Dan Wang writes about the Taiwanese immigrants who moved to Arizona for a semiconductor plant.

“A new map of Africa, even if it’s more true to scale, poses the same central questions as the old one,” Richard Poplak writes: “What does a jumble of countries locked inside a (slightly bigger) continent actually tell us about how Africa, and by extension the world, works?

“Even if we closed business schools tomorrow, the damage done to the system is so pervasive that it will take at least two generations of new and improved leaders to purge the culture of personal gain,” the Rev. Shaun S. Brown writes in a letter to The Times.

"The fear of mutual escalation cannot be used to turn government service into a law-free zone, where unscrupulous actors can exploit the public trust, enrich themselves and harm the Republic — and then demand leniency because accountability is somehow just too dangerous and destabilizing."

Nancy Lacore, a former three-star admiral fired by Pete Hegseth, is running for Congress in South Carolina. Watching her "interact with voters, it’s clear that many understand how the administration’s dereliction in national security matters has hit their pocketbooks,” W.J. Hennigan writes.

Ahead of next month's elections, Times Opinion spoke with 13 Iowans who are either Republican or independent voters. Some of the group’s biggest worries included costs, Iowa’s cancer rates and the state’s education system.

President Trump "desperately craves being the center of attention, and seeing blind devotion mirrored back at him as that devotion wanes with an increasingly disgusted, exhausted public," our columnist Maureen Dowd writes. nyti.ms/4hY1ER8

“I truly and fundamentally believe that superintelligence will be the biggest unlock for scientific discovery in the history of our country,” Michael Kratsios, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, tells Tyler Cowen on “Interesting Times.”

“I don’t want young people deterred from public service. I do want them deterred from public corruption, and I want America spared from Trump’s grotesque rerun of the Gilded Age,” our columnist David French writes.

“My larger worry is that Europe’s immigration failures have simply breathed life into the once-dead European far right,” Bret Stephens tells Frank Bruni in their weekly conversation.

After almost two years of peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, President Trump “has succeeded not in resolving the conflict, but rather in making the United States a sideshow to the actual process of peace,” Michael Kimmage writes.

“Being a Palestinian Israeli voter is a paradox: We are asked to participate in a political system that does not treat us as an equal part of that democracy,” Rula Hardal writes.

“After about a decade of national confusion on this point, the Republicans have shown themselves to be the unmistakable party of wealth, particularly the smash-and-grab kleptocratic variety,” David Wallace-Wells writes.