The world experienced some serious shifts this week. BRICS flexed its muscle by parking warships in South Africa, Israel continued to violate ceasefire agreements amid allegations from the UN that they're running an apartheid state (with a new UN human rights report concluding there are reasonable grounds to believe Israel's system in the occupied West Bank amounts to apartheid through decades-long racial segregation, discrimination, unequal laws on movement/land/water, settlement expansion, settler violence often with security forces' involvement, and impunity for over 1,500 Palestinian killings since 2017 with only one conviction, and the situation has intensified since late 2022 and especially after October 2023), and the UAE got into it with the Saudis over militant groups in Yemen. But really I thought our choice came down to two stories for the most important of last week.

First is that the situation in Iran is quickly spiraling out of the control of the government and it is increasingly unclear how and if they will be able to establish authority and impose order given the scale and intensity of the nationwide protests (now in their sixth day, largest since 2022, triggered by currency collapse and inflation, spreading from major cities to smaller towns with chants like "freedom, freedom" and "Death to Khamenei," security forces firing on demonstrators, internet shutdowns to cut off information, and at least 36 killed according to rights groups). The president of the United States has seemingly taken great interest in the ongoings, demanding that the Iranian government cease killing protestors and warning in a Truth Social post that if Iran "violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom," the U.S. will "come to their rescue" and "We are locked and loaded and ready to go." The news of massive civil unrest is somewhat delightful as Iran is currently host to a government on a generational run of repressive tactics and from my perspective deserves to be overthrown. Nonetheless that is clearly a major story, but it seems somewhat routine in that countries (at least in the last year) have routinely been having breakouts of revolutionary fervor and deposing governments.

This trade deal that occurred with the EU and Latin America has the potential to radically reshape the world for decades to the same or greater scale as something like NAFTA. Not only is it significant, in my opinion, it falls right in line with the terrible neoliberal logic that has rewarded us with the current breakdown in markets and political stability globally. Government officials continue to be obsessed with metrics like growth and GDP and think that all problems can be solved by getting the price of consumer goods down. But the well-being of a nation isn't merely determined by how many things the citizens can buy.

Lots of good options. The government released a new food pyramid and it was one that if followed wouldn't result in a host of medical maladies. ICE raids in Minnesota resulted in a woman who appeared to be fleeing being fatally shot in the face, and the escalating tensions in Venezuela resolved with the U.S. capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and bringing him to stand trial in New York, thereby unleashing a host of political, legal, and moral questions. But ultimately the most important story was the U.S. pulling out of nearly every international organization. (including 31 UN-affiliated entities like UNFCCC, UN Women, UNFPA, UNCTAD and 35 others like IPCC, IRENA, Global Counterterrorism Forum, citing agendas contrary to US interests often labeled "woke" on climate, labor, migration, following prior exits from Paris Accord/WHO/UNESCO, with an executive order to withdraw participation and funding ASAP, accelerating retreat from multilateralism, slashing foreign aid, and prioritizing unilateral/national interests like fossil fuels over collective efforts).

The world, if we zoom out, is remaking itself and in my opinion this process will result in its betterment because it will result in what we might call a multipolar world. While the U.S. has always deployed shadowy intelligence actors to keep tabs on and coerce Latin American governments, the pulling out of the international bodies suggests something is truly changing. A vibe shift, as the kids say. The U.S. has long been interested in being represented in those bodies and often offering to play the chief role both in terms of authority and in terms of funding. Without this participation it is unclear if these types of institutions can exist at all, making this the biggest story of the week (especially as it forces UN bodies to scale back, reduces US dominance in global agendas, and lets other powers fill the voids).

Iowa gaining more autonomy over its education system by opting into the new deal takes the top spot this week (becoming the first state approved for the federal "Returning Education to the States" waiver, which consolidates certain federal programs into a single state-level block grant shifting nearly $8 million and thousands of staff hours from bureaucracy to classrooms, expands district flexibility on funds like Title I for things like tutoring/instructional materials/teacher training, streamlines reporting while cutting red tape and separate federal rules). There were a host of really interesting things happening in education: teachers in Texas suing the state over investigations into comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk being assassinated, teachers in over 50 schools in North Carolina threatening to walk out over teacher pay. However, it is early to speculate how these lawsuits will play out, and the walkout seems par for the course in a system that pays teachers as though the rewards of the job are purely those that come with a vocation like being a monk.

The move in Iowa though, I think represents a real turning of the dial. The administration has been adamant, correctly so, that education is in the domain of the states and the only way to return power downward was to dismantle the institution that had been increasingly centralizing decision-making about the education system all throughout the country (with U.S. Secretary Linda McMahon calling it "a groundbreaking first step that gives state leaders more control over federal education dollars," and Governor Kim Reynolds praising how cutting federal red tape lets Iowa "increase education quality," strengthen teacher pipelines, narrow achievement gaps, and redirect resources from bureaucracy to classrooms especially for smaller districts and vulnerable students). What takes place in Iowa, as they are the first state to gain such high levels of autonomy, will hopefully tell us a lot about the feasibility of returning autonomy and responsibility for education back to the states. And, if that's where we're headed, at least for the next four years this was probably our most important local story this week.