A Tale of Two Seasons at Columbia, and Two Responses to Student Arrests
When Mahmoud Khalil was detained by immigration agents last year, the university’s response was restrained. It was different with Elmina Aghayeva this week.
MONDAY, 23 MARCH 2026, 06:59
When Mahmoud Khalil was detained by immigration agents last year, the university’s response was restrained. It was different with Elmina Aghayeva this week.

Encounters with great art can be absorbing, unsettling and even painful. How has this been tamed into mere ‘reading for pleasure’?
It is the UK’s National Year of Reading. Specifically, this government-led scheme is about “reading for pleasure” and “the joy of reading”. This is not a matter of whimsy. Research has linked reading for pleasure in childhood to a host of positive...
Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, was placed on paid leave after F.B.I. agents raided his home and district office this week.
Elmina Aghayeva has 114,000 followers on Instagram and has seemingly never posted about politics, unlike other Columbia University students detained by immigration officers.
Federal agents do not have any special privileges on campuses. To arrest a student at Columbia University this week, they used a tactic of questionable legality.
Any Lucia López Belloza was deported by mistake. A judge ordered her return by Friday. When the Trump administration sent a plane, she decided not to get on.

A group of low-fee paying private schools have challenged the government’s removal of the VAT exemption.

Parents opposing plans told they can home school their children if they object to sending them to state schools
The court of appeal has rejected the latest challenge to the addition of VAT to private school fees, telling parents they have the option to home school their children if they object to sending them to state schools.
The appeal was launched by families and leaders of four independent...
Philosophers have long wrestled with what to do about the onlookers and profiteers surrounding those who have done terrible things.
At a gala in New York, the orchestra recognized two of his daughters, who are underwriting a scholarship to its academy.
President Trump’s approach is a revival of the mission of empire — acquiring the territories and resources of sovereign peoples.
The meeting comes after agents raided the home and office of Alberto Carvalho, the Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent. The F.B.I. also searched the Florida home of a consultant with ties to the schools chief.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and others respond to a Nicholas Kristof column. Also: Reagan’s warning about nuclear weapons; aging doctors.

Republican lawmakers push for conservative professors to counter purported leftwing indoctrination in schools
This story was produced by the Hechinger Report, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.
One glossy insert stuck out from the orientation packet handed to hundreds of Ohio State University freshmen last August. It advertised a...

People at the start of their careers are particularly affected by the UK’s weak job market.
Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said that the federal officials had misrepresented themselves to gain access.

As the dust settles on the government’s landmark changes to children’s special educational needs and disabilities provision, what will their impact really be on young people, their families and schools? John Harris and Kiran Stacey look at what we know so far. And, a growing backlash from graduates over student loan payments, led by the influential consumer champion Martin Lewis, is causing...

Met urges pupils not to get involved and asks platforms to ban accounts promoting ‘fights’ with images of weapons
Pupils as young as 11 are being encouraged to join in school fights in posts on TikTok and Snapchat, prompting police to urge children not to get involved.
The Metropolitan police have asked social media platforms to ban accounts promoting “school wars”, while headteachers have...

Ministers want to tackle the high number of young people not in education, employment or training.
Via essays, poems, videos, artwork and graphics, 35 students across the globe reflect on how this technology is affecting teenagers.
We asked high school educators what it’s like to teach at a time when A.I. is transforming education. They answered in images, essays and videos.