Dear Commons community,

Financial news outlet Money has published its annual list of the Best Colleges in America, a practical analysis of more than 700 four-year colleges, focusing on affordability and outcomes to help students make informed decisions about where to spend their tuition.  Each school received a rating out of five stars, based on its educational quality, affordability, and student outcomes.

Along with star ratings, the list includes important metrics such as acceptance rates, estimated full price for the 2025–2026 academic year, estimated net price after average aid, and graduation rates.

Star ratings are based on:

• Quality of Education – Graduation rates, student-faculty ratios, Pell Grant outcomes, academic stats
• Affordability – Net price, aid amounts, debt levels, and outcomes by income
• Outcomes – Alumni earnings 10 years post-enrollment and economic mobility

Most schools earned between 3.5 and 4 stars. Fewer than 6% earned a five-star rating.

To search for a college and for the full rankings and methodology, visit Money’s Best Colleges in America.   

Tony

Kateryna Kon Science Photo Library via Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Those sniffles may not be a summer cold; COVID-19 cases are rising.

And things are expected to get worse before they get better. Some experts predict virus rates will continue to rise as we ride a summer infection surge.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

Jay Weiland, an infectious disease modeler, shared on social media that he predicts the summer COVID-19 wave will hit a peak in early September. So, now’s the time to follow COVID prevention strategies such as wearing a mask in crowded spaces and washing your hands well.

Jenn Dowd, a professor of demography and population health at the University of Oxford in England, referenced Weiland’s prediction model in her Substack newsletter, Data for Health, along with recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shows COVID infections rising in all but five states. “Since the data are lagging by a week, it’s likely levels are already higher, with a predicted peak in early September, just in time for back-to-school,” Dowd wrote in her newsletter.

This prediction should be taken with a grain of salt, though, experts say. COVID has proven to be anything but predictable over the last five-plus years.

“One thing to know is that a September peak is a best guess based on current trends, but we can’t know for sure how big or long-lasting the current upswing in cases will be until we are on the other side of it,” Dowd told HuffPost via email.

COVID levels are lower than last summer, thankfully, according to wastewater data and hospitalization levels, “but, back-to-school could pour fuel on the fire of any viral spread, so we’ll get a better picture in the next few weeks,” Dowd added.

The models that are used to predict COVID peaks are an imperfect tool, but still contain valuable information, added Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious disease epidemiologist.

“If we look at the past, we’ve always had a summer wave [and] we’ve always also had a back-to-school flu season wave. So it’s no surprise that they’re cross-referencing both the historical incidence of COVID and what we’re seeing in wastewater to say it’s pretty likely that this many people probably have COVID right now, or may likely get COVID right now, because this many people are shedding the virus,” added Malaty Rivera.

But, Malaty Rivera said that wastewater data is only accurate to a certain extent.

“You can’t always say that the presence of virus [in wastewater] is infectious virus,” she explained.

Wastewater data can’t distinguish between active virus and non-infectious virus fragments from someone who was infected months ago, Malaty Rivera explained. (Just like how, early in the COVID pandemic, PCR tests could come back positive for months after someone recovered from a COVID-19 infection, she noted).

“And so the presence of COVID-19 [in wastewater] is not necessarily the presence of active virus. It could be a virus from people who were sick weeks ago or months ago who are still shedding virus, but it’s not an infectious virus,” she added.

That being said, we are in a COVID surge right now and we should expect another bump as kids head back to school in September and as folks return from summer vacations, said Malaty Rivera.

“The fall, back to school, return from vacation, has always historically shown an uptick in respiratory illnesses, and COVID is not exclusive to that. COVID is now part of our annual cadence,” she said. “And so the summer surge is no surprise, and to expect another bump is also completely based on evidence.”

We’re currently in a summer COVID wave, and some experts say COVID infections could peak in early September.

If you get infected with COVID, the CDC’s recommendations say you should stay home when you’re sick and isolate from other people in your home. The CDC guidance goes on to say you can exit isolation once you’re fever-free and your symptoms are improving or resolving for at least 24 hours.

At this point, you can return to your daily life, but should take additional steps to protect others, such as wearing a mask, staying away from other people, and washing your hands frequently for five extra days.

Malaty Rivera said you should take this one step further because “resolving symptoms” is completely subjective, she noted. What’s “resolving” for one person could mean being very sick for another.

“And no fever… fever is not the only indicator… for infectiousness to others,” she added.

“Based on the evidence, if you are testing positive on a rapid antigen test, that means that you are likely infectious to others. If you are infectious to others, that means you should be isolating from other people and wearing a mask in indoor settings if you’re forced to be in indoor settings with other people,” she said.

If you need fresh air, it’s OK to go outside without a mask, but you shouldn’t be close to other people, said Malaty Rivera.

“I don’t think people should be unmasked in places with other people unless they are testing negative on an antigen test,” she said.

If you are sick, you can also check with your doctor to see if you’re eligible for Paxlovid, which is an anti-viral COVID medication, Malaty Rivera said.

“If you didn’t get an updated COVID vaccine in the past year, it might be a good time to get one, especially before any changes in eligibility come into effect,” said Dowd.

If you are over 65 or immunocompromised, you’re eligible for another COVID shot, she added, so long as you’re six months out from your last dose.

“But, besides protection from vaccines, when there is more COVID around, it’s a good time to ramp up our trusty precautions that work for most respiratory viruses,” Dowd said.

“This includes paying attention to ventilation when socializing (such as being outside or opening doors and windows [and] using HEPA filters), staying home when sick and masking strategically in higher-risk situations like airplane travel or other crowded places,” noted Dowd.

While COVID levels are lower than previous summer waves, it is still a serious infection that can lead to death, complications and long COVID.

Do what you can to stay safe this summer, but “with COVID prevention, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Dowd said.

“You don’t have to do everything right, but even small precautions can add up to lower transmission and protect our communities,” she noted.

Get vaccinated if you haven’t already!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The much-anticipated meeting between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin began with a warm welcome and a flyover by screaming jets at a U.S. military base in Alaska but ended with a thud Friday after they conceded that they had failed to reach any agreements on how to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

After about 2 1/2 hours of talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, the two men appeared before reporters for what had been billed as a joint news conference — but they took no questions.  As reported by The Associated Press.

“We had an extremely productive meeting and many points were agreed to, there are just a very few that are left,” Trump said. “We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”

Putin, welcomed into the U.S. after being shunned by Western allies since early 2022 for ordering the invasion of Ukraine, thanked Trump for hosting the meeting and suggested with a chuckle that the next time the two sit down it could be in Moscow.

Here are takeaways from the summit:

A warm welcome underscoring the friendly Trump-Putin relationship

Putin got a red carpet welcome and even rode in Trump’s presidential limousine from the tarmac to the summit venue. There, the pair were joined by two of their top aides: Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff for Trump and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and national security adviser Yuri Ushakov for Putin.

Putin, who spoke first after the meeting concluded, lauded the historical relationship between the United States, Russia and the former Soviet Union, recalling joint missions conducted by the two countries during World War II.

He said the U.S. and Russia share values, a standard talking point for Russian officials when trying to woo Trump and his aides. Putin also noted that Trump has frequently said the Ukraine war wouldn’t have happened had he won the 2020 election.

“I think that would have been the case,” the Russian leader said, a comment sure to please Trump.

However, there is no indication and no way to prove that Moscow would have acted differently toward Ukraine had Democrat Joe Biden not been elected.

Trump touts progress but concedes there was no deal

Trump had gone into the meeting hoping to get Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine — or at least a commitment from Russia to enter into negotiations to reach one.

Instead, Trump conceded that “we haven’t quite got there” and said he would be conferring with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO leaders about next steps.

Trump said he and Putin had made some significant progress toward the goal of ending the conflict but gave no details on what that entailed and had to acknowledge that they had been unable to bridge substantial gaps.

“I believe we had a very productive meeting,” Trump said. “We haven’t quite got there, but we’ve made some headway. So, there’s no deal until there’s a deal.”

In a subsequent conversation with Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel, Trump again offered no details on his discussions with Putin.

With diplomatic progress creeping along, time is on Putin’s side

Amid drawn-out diplomatic moves to end the war, time appears to be on Putin’s side. That gives a leg up to Russian forces, who have used their larger numbers to slowly grind down defenses in eastern Ukraine 3 1/2 years into the conflict.

Putin got a pleasant reception from the leader of the free world on U.S. soil and walked away hours later without either providing details on what they discussed, whether a ceasefire was any closer to reality or what the next steps would be.

Putin praised Trump for the “friendly” tone of the talks — Trump said nothing publicly about the killing of Ukrainian civilians in Moscow’s attacks — and for “understanding that Russia has its own national interests.”

Putin said Moscow and Washington should “turn the page,” with relations having sunk to the lowest point since the Cold War.

Putin appearing in the U.S. for the first time in 10 years was celebrated as a sign that Moscow was no longer a pariah on the global stage. In a social media post, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told followers that the Western press would be on the verge of “losing their minds.”

“For three years, they talked about Russia’s isolation, and today they saw the red carpet being rolled out to greet the Russian president in the United States,” she said.

There were no details and no questions

Both men said the talks were “productive” but the lack of any announcement of solid achievements was revealing.

The news conference ended up being less than 15 minutes of rather standard diplomatic comments — and gave no indication that any concrete results were achieved — and offered little departure from their previous comments on the war in Ukraine.

Trump has made it a feature of his second term to parry questions from reporters in front of world leaders, but in the clearest sign of his disappointment, the president abruptly cut short his plans to take questions.

Trump had gone into the summit saying here was a 25% chance that the summit would fail and that it was meant to be a “feel-out meeting,” but he had also floated the idea of bringing Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting if things went well. It’s unclear what comes next.

I would have rather watched Jeopardy than see these two say nothing!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

How hard should it be to become a teacher?

It’s an ongoing debate, with proponents of higher barriers to entry arguing they’re necessary to ensure quality candidates—and skeptics saying they unfairly shut out prospective educators who could be effective in the classroom. The research on certification requirements, licensing exams, and other professional screening mechanisms generally points to tradeoffs, rather than clear-cut answers.  Education Week in this morning’s edition reviewed the issue.

When the pandemic began five years ago, it presented a natural experiment to study the question in more depth. Many states relaxed their teacher licensure rules and created emergency certification processes, removing requirements for prospective educators to take the exams that they would have otherwise had to pass.

Studies of this time period out of several states, including Massachusetts and New Jersey, showed that, in the wake of these policies, teachers’ performance held steady, and a more racially diverse group of candidates entered the profession.

But two new papers from the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, or CALDER, at the American Institutes for Research present a more complicated picture.

Nationwide, there’s no definitive evidence that emergency waivers resulted in large numbers of new teachers entering the profession. And in one state, Massachusetts, where the emergency licensing process remained in place past 2022, teacher performance of newly hired teachers declined over time.

Taken together, the research provides more evidence of how the pandemic period affected the composition of the teaching profession, and offers clues about how permanent changes to licensure requirements could play out for student achievement.

It’s possible that the comparable performance that some states initially saw between traditionally licensed and emergency licensed teachers wouldn’t last if those changes were to become permanent, said Dan Goldhaber, the director of CALDER and an author on both papers.

“That is what we saw initially, but it isn’t what we saw downstream,” he said.

Mixed teacher effectiveness outcomes

To determine the overall change in teachers entering the profession, the researchers analyzed federal teacher workforce data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, comparing measures of teacher supply—such as initial licenses awarded, and graduates from teacher-preparation programs—between states that offered flexibility in licensure test requirements in 2020 and states that did not. They controlled for a series of demographic and economic factors.

“We do not find definitive evidence that states that put in place waivers of licensure tests saw increases in teacher supply,” Goldhaber said.

That finding comes with a caution, though, he added. Because of statistical limitations, the research can only determine there weren’t large effects. It’s possible there were smaller increases in the teacher workforce that the analysis doesn’t capture, he said.

It’s also possible that the temporary nature of the waivers influenced the findings. “People are not that likely to make career decisions based on a short-term regulatory change,” Goldhaber said.

The other CALDER paper, a research brief, examined who received emergency teaching licenses in five states that instated pandemic-era policies: Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Washington state.

They found that teachers who entered the profession under these licenses were, on average, more racially diverse than their peers who went through a traditional certification process from 2017 onward. These emergency-licensed teachers were also more likely, in all but one state, to work in schools serving larger shares of Black and Hispanic students, and students from low-income families.

In the school year immediately after these policies were put in place, teachers who had emergency certification and those who had regular certification performed about the same—they scored similarly on measures of teacher effectiveness, and received similar performance ratings.

But in Massachusetts, which did not reinstate its testing requirements until 2023, teachers who went through emergency certification in later years were less effective in math and science.

The study, the researchers write, “underscores the idea that loosening licensure rules alone is an incomplete—and, in some cases, potentially counterproductive—strategy for reshaping the composition and quality of the teacher workforce.”

Some argue for widening pathways to the profession

Still, some experts say there’s still not enough evidence to suggest that testing requirements need to continue in their current form.

“It’s not a slam dunk that the licensure requirements are definitely boosting teacher quality, but they are definitely limiting supply, especially for teachers of color,” said education analyst Chad Aldeman.

Aspiring teachers of color fail these tests at higher rates than their white peers, and some researchers have argued that they don’t capture important components of success in the profession, like the ability to build healthy relationships with students.

Research on licensure tests shows that, in most cases, scoring higher on the test means teachers will be more effective in the classroom. But there’s still a “reasonable argument to be made” for widening pathways into the profession, Alderman said.

“I’m willing to tolerate some risk of lower performance, for the benefit of greater supply and greater diversity,” he said.

The reports cited above from the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research contain interesting data and are available as free downloads.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In a virtual summit with Trump on Wednesday, European leaders cautioned him not to make a unilateral Ukraine peace deal during his one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage today. French President Emmanuel Macron said Trump was “very clear” that Washington wants to obtain a ceasefire and that Ukraine’s territorial issues cannot be negotiated without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump told reporters that if his summit with Putin goes well, a follow-up meeting between the Russian leader and Zelensky could happen “almost immediately.” However, Trump also said that Russia will face “very severe consequences” if Putin doesn’t agree to end the war. The president wouldn’t say if that meant he’d order new sanctions or tariffs.

All eyes will be on Alaska today!

Tony

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.  Provided by Barchart

Dear Commons Community,

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has become one of the most influential voices in artificial intelligence (AI), known for his candid assessments of both the promise and disruption brought by new technologies. In a recent Bloomberg interview, Altman addressed the looming impact of AI and robotics on employment, stating, “AI is for sure going to change a lot of jobs, totally take some jobs away, and create a bunch of new ones. This is what happens with technology, and in fact, if you look at the history of the world of technology-driven job change, it’s been happening for a long time. And the thing that is different this time is just the rate of which it looks like it will happen.” As reported by MSN News.

While Altman largely downplays the impact of AI on the job market, he did say humanity isn’t prepared for something else he believes will have a much greater impact: “The thing I think the world is not ready for is, I don’t think the world has had the humanoid robots moment yet, and I don’t think that’s very far away from a visceral ‘this is going to do a lot of things that people used to do.’ It’s coming. We have always tried to be super honest about what we think the impact may be, realizing that we may be wrong about a lot of the details.” When asked what will happen when humanoid robots arrive, Altman predicted that their presence will feel “very sci-fi,” fundamentally altering daily life and the job market.

Altman’s authority on this subject is rooted in a career defined by technological foresight and leadership. After dropping out of Stanford, he co-founded Loopt, a location-based social networking startup, and later became president of Y Combinator, where he helped launch and scale some of Silicon Valley’s most successful startups. Since 2019, Altman has led OpenAI, guiding the organization through the development of advanced AI systems such as ChatGPT and DALL-E, which have set new standards in natural language processing and generative AI. Under his leadership, OpenAI has secured major investments, including a multi-billion-dollar partnership with Microsoft, and has been at the center of global discussions about the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence.

Altman’s comments reflect a pragmatic understanding of technological change. He draws on historical precedent, noting that job displacement and creation have accompanied every major wave of innovation, from the Industrial Revolution to the rise of the internet. What distinguishes the current era, in Altman’s view, is the speed and breadth of change that AI and robotics are likely to bring. His prediction that the world is unprepared for the “humanoid robots moment” signals a belief that the next phase of automation will be more visible and rapid than previous shifts, with robots performing tasks previously reserved for humans.

This perspective is particularly relevant as businesses and policymakers grapple with how to adapt to AI’s accelerating capabilities. Altman’s insistence on honesty about the uncertainties involved, and his acknowledgment that even experts may be wrong about the details, offers a measured approach to navigating the future of work. His leadership at OpenAI, marked by a focus on transparency and ethical considerations, lends credibility to both his warnings and reassurances alike.

As AI continues to reshape industries, Altman’s insights serve as both a caution and a call to prepare for profound changes that will challenge existing structures but also create new opportunities, as has been the case throughout technological history.

Altman knows of what he speaks!

Tony

Governor Kathy Hochul rallied with students, staff and faculty at LaGuardia Community College to celebrate the free community college program for adults in high-demand fields through CUNY and SUNY Reconnect. (Office of the Governor)

Dear Commons Community,

New York’s free community college program is drawing strong interest, with more than 16,500 people applying to the new $47-million initiative. The program covers the tuition of adults interested in high-demand fields, such as artificial intelligence, nursing and green energy.

“Just since we started getting the word out, just since a few months ago when this became the law of New York State, we have over 16,000 people who’ve already signed up for this, and these are the lives that we’re going to be changing forever,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said Tuesday at LaGuardia Community College.

Hochul touted the program as a way to expand access to higher education and good-paying jobs, strengthen the state’s workforce, and invest in community colleges. CUNY’s community college enrollment increased by 6% last year but remains below pre-pandemic levels.

Adults must be ages 25 to 55 to apply. Eligible degree programs also include advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, engineering, technology and education.

About 7,000 adults have applied for free community college at CUNY, plus 9,000 more interested in the program at SUNY, college officials said. While there’s no guarantee all those applicants will ultimately enroll, Hochul insisted the number of people already taking advantage of the opportunity is a sign it’ll be a “game-changer.”

Asked if the degree programs already exist at CUNY or if campuses are propping up new ones aligned with qualifying fields, Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez expected a mix of both.

“We wanted to have an infrastructure that was able to respond to the early demand, but it allows us to continue to build,” he said.

On top of tuition, Hochul and her team said the program covers fees, books and supplies after all other financial aid is applied. It also includes funding for SUNY and CUNY to help keep adult students enrolled, such as for academic advisers and “student success” coaches.

CUNY is launching a $1.2-million marketing campaign to promote the program online and on the subways and buses, a spokesman confirmed.

The governor suggested she would stand by those investments, including in the face of federal budget cuts under the Trump administration.

“Despite the disastrous policies coming out of Washington,” Hochul said, “it would be too short-sighted on our part to disinvest in a brand-new program that we think is going to be wildly successful. The more people working, guess what? More people paying taxes as well.”

Congratulations Governor Hochul for this initiative.

Tony

The unveiling of former president Barack Obama’s official White House portrait in 2022.  Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Trump continues to prove that deep down inside he’s a teeny tiny little baby man.

Case in point, according to CNN, Trump decided to essentially hide former president Barack Obama’s official portrait from the White House — and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) is calling the move like he sees it.

Typically, White House protocol calls for portraits of the most recent American presidents to be featured prominently in the entrance way, so that they’re visible during official events and visitors on tours.

But Trump directed staff to move Robert McCurdy’s photorealistic painting (above) of the 44th president to the top of the Grand Staircase into a corner where most can’t see it. CNN, who obtained a photo of the portrait’s new location, also noted that it’s now hanging on a landing leading into a private residence that is heavily restricted.

Portraits of former presidents George W. Bush and his father, George H. W. Bush, have also been moved to the same location.

A portrait of Trump’s most recent predecessor, Joe Biden, has not yet been completed — and once it is, we’re sure Trump will find a nice home for it in the White House’s basement. Or he’ll just pave over it, like the rose garden.

When news of Trump’s latest jab at Obama made its way to Newsom, he only needed six words to sum up why Trump would do this.

“Small men hide from history’s giants,” Newsom wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

This is not the first time Trump has moved Obama’s portrait. In April, it was removed from the Grand Foyer and replaced by a painting of Trump — complete with a gold frame ― pumping his fist in the air after last year’s attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania. Obama’s portrait then hung in the East Room, until it got demoted to its dusty corner.

Trump’s interior design move comes amid high tensions between the president and Obama. Last month, Trump accused Obama of participating in a “coup” against him in 2016 — an allegation Obama later called “outrageous.”

Trump has beef with the Bush family as well. George W. Bush, whom Trump has called a “failed president,” skipped Trump’s first inauguration. In 2017, the late George H. W. Bush called Trump a “blowhard,” and said he voted for Hillary Clinton for president in 2016.

Small man indeed!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Looking for some fun summer reading, my wife, Elaine suggested I might try Elena Ferrante’s work entitled, The Neapolitan Novels, also known as the Neapolitan Quartet. They are a four-part series of fiction by the pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante, published originally by Edizioni and translated into English by Ann Goldstein and published by Europa Editions (New York). In October 2016, investigative reporter Claudio Gatti published an article jointly in Il Sole 24 Ore, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the New York Review of Books that relied on financial records related to real estate transactions and royalties payments to draw the conclusion that Anita Raja, a Rome-based translator, is the real author behind the Ferrante pseudonym.   

The English-language titles of the novels are My Brilliant Friend (2012), The Story of a New Name (2013), Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2014), and The Story of the Lost Child (2015). In the original Italian edition, the whole series bears the title of the first novel L’amica geniale (literally translated, “the brilliant friend”). The series has been characterized as a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story. In an interview in Harper’s Magazine, Elena Ferrante has stated that she considers the four books to be “a single novel” published serially for reasons of length and duration. The series has sold over 10 million copies in 40 countries.

The series follows the lives of two perceptive and intelligent girls, Elena (sometimes called “Lenù”) Greco and Raffaella (“Lila”) Cerullo, from childhood to adulthood and old age, as they try to create lives for themselves amidst the violent and stultifying culture of their home – a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Italy.

I have just finished Book One,  My Brilliant Friend (2012), which begins in the 1950s, in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, where the narrator Elena meets Lila, her best friend, her mirror, and at times her fiercest critic. This first novel follows Lila and Elena from their meeting as six-year-olds through their school years and adolescence, until Lila’s marriage at the age of sixteen.

I found it a most enjoyable read and have begun Book Two, The Story of a New Name (2013), 

Tony

California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Getty Images.

Dear Commons Community,

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a committed thorn in Donald Trump’s side, told the president Monday that he’s prepared to redraw California’s districts in Democrats’ favor if he doesn’t call on Texas and other red states to halt their own GOP-friendly redistricting plans.

Newsom made the threat in a letter to Trump, who’s backing a GOP-led effort to redraw five Texas districts in Republicans’ favor ― something the president has said his party is “entitled” to ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“If you will not stand down, I will be forced to lead an effort to redraw the maps in California to offset the rigging of maps in red states,” Newsom vowed. “But if the other states call off their redistricting efforts, we will happily do the same. And American democracy will be better for it.”

It’s not a step he takes lightly, continued Newsom, who said he believes legislative district maps should be drawn through “independent, citizen-led efforts,” not via political maneuvering.

“You are playing with fire, risking the destabilization of our democracy, while knowing that California can neutralize any gains you hope to make,” he continued. “This attempt to rig congressional maps to hold onto power before a single vote is cast in the 2026 election is an affront to American democracy.”

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on Newsom’s threat.

The letter comes after Democratic members of the Texas state House left the state to deny Republicans a quorum on the redistricting vote, outraging Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who sought to arrest them and remove at least one of them from office.

Republicans are also leading redistricting efforts in multiple other states, including in Indiana, Missouri, Ohio and South Carolina.

Tony