The School Rebuilding Education for an AI World. Plus…

May 15, 2026 - 21:49

It's Friday, May 15. Maya Sulkin visits a school without teachers. Aaron MacLean reveals the American academic Xi Jinping loves to cite. Charles Lane explains what everyone gets wrong about illegal immigrants and crime. River Page tells the story of the racist streamer who allegedly shot someone in broad daylight. And much more.

But first: an update on Pastor Ezra Jin. Today in China, Donald Trump told reporters that Xi said he is giving "very serious consideration" to the release of Pastor Jin. No reporter has been following this case more closely than Frannie Block. Her long read on this case, with exclusive details on Jin's brave fight to worship freely, is the most important story we have published this week. Read Frannie's deep dive into Beijing's war on Christianity and say a prayer for Ezra Jin.

Next: Maya Sulkin visits a school where there are no teachers, the academic day lasts two hours, and a perfect test score earns kids $100. Is this the future of education?

How to prepare kids for the Age of AI? One place with a radical answer to that question is Alpha School in San Francisco, where the children of the city's tech elite are taught to the tune of $75,000. I visited it recently, and it is unlike any school I have ever seen. It's a place where kids are given most of the day to work on their own projects, and where good work is rewarded with cash. It sounds like a tech-bro fever dream, and critics say it is gamifying education in a way that misunderstands how learning actually happens. But could it work? To find out, I spoke to students, parents, guides, and critics. Read my dispatch on this experiment in education for the automated age.

In recent years, a popular theory about U.S.-China relations has taken hold. It's called the Thucydides Trap, named for the ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War, and it's the idea that when a great power is challenged by an upstart, war between them is all but inevitable. One of its adherents is the president of China himself, Xi Jinping, who brought it up in his meeting with Trump this week. The problem, according to Aaron MacLean: It's a silly idea. Read his piece on what's wrong with the theory and why it's being wielded as propaganda by Beijing.

Over the past year, Joanna Stern set out to weave artificial intelligence into every corner of her existence and see what would happen. She read AI-generated books, cooked AI-generated recipes, and spoke to an AI therapist. But how far could she take it? Could AI substitute for a human romantic partner? There was only one way to find out. Read her story of what happened when she tried to take a robotic lover.

Dalton Eatherly, a 28-year-old livestreamer who goes by the moniker Chud the Builder online, rose to internet virality with a very specific, very unpleasant niche: taunting black people on camera in the greater Nashville, Tennessee, area, including with the N-word. His fans call him a free speech hero, and pushed him to escalate his content even further. In a recent X post, Eatherly bragged that the "Series finale is a dead chimp on the pavement." He was just arrested for allegedly shooting someone. This is a dark saga that says a lot about our internet-driven culture. Read River Page's latest to understand what gave rise to the proudly racist streamer, and how the darkest corners of the internet are increasingly spilling into real life.

Stephanie Minter, a 41-year-old single mother, was waiting at a bus stop in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Fairfax County, Virginia, when Abdul Jalloh, an illegal immigrant with a long criminal record, approached and allegedly slashed her to death in February. The case immediately drew local outrage, with many pointing fingers at the progressive prosecutor and sheriff's lenient immigration enforcement policies. On Thursday, that battle finally reached Capitol Hill, where the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to highlight their stories. Chuck Lane was listening in and today, he explains how the testimony he heard reveals what both sides get wrong in the immigration debate.

New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof's incendiary article this week alleging that Israeli security officers systematically subject Palestinian prisoners to horrific sexual assaults has earned plenty of pushback and criticism, including in our pages. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gone so far as to threaten Kristof and the Times with a libel suit. But would Netanyahu's case have a chance in an American courtroom? Jed Rubenfeld weighs in with his verdict, and explains why such a suit would go nowhere. And for an in-depth look at how such extraordinary claims make it into The New York Times, check out this invaluable conversation between Call Me Back podcast host Dan Senor and our columnist Matti Friedman. Matti, a veteran Middle