The percentage of students claiming to have disabilities — and thus qualifying for accommodations such as extra time for assignments and tests — is higher than the percentage of male students at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. As reported by The New York Post, more than one-third of students enrolled in the law school — 37% — are also in UC Berkeley’s Disabled Students Program. By comparison, male students make up approximately 30-33% of enrollees. The most common disabilities listed were emotional and psychological — primarily attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and anxiety, but occasionally depression as well. According to data from the Disabled Students Program office, 98% of the disabilities claimed by law students fell into those categories. The change is staggering: in 2021, just 3% of UC Berkeley law school graduates were part of the Disabled Students Program. Among undergraduates, the number was slightly higher at 10%. The dramatic swing has some critics wondering whether some of the claims are less about real disabilities and more about the fact that enrollment in the program allows students to have 150% or even 200% of the time allotted to students outside the program for the grueling legal exams they must pass in order to graduate. Campus exam proctoring services have reported a dramatic increase in requests for accommodations that reflects the jump as well, more than tripling from under 4,000 in the 2021-2022 academic year to over 14,000 in 2024-2025. Andrew Testerman, a graduate who dug into the program’s use and laid out his findings in a report for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, commented, “We are asked to believe that students at elite law schools are significantly more likely to be disabled than our nation’s senior citizens.” But the statistical anomalies did not stop there. “At U.C. Berkeley, proportionally more women than men seek accommodations for ADHD — even though in the population at large, men are several times more likely to have this disorder,” Testerman wrote. “Thus, either many students are falsely claiming to be disabled, or the number of disabled students is truly staggering — to the point where disability status would in fact be the norm, and the exception would swallow the rule.” Testerman also proposed a solution to the problem, arguing that President Donald Trump’s administration could easily take action: “President Trump could go a long way toward solving this problem. A single executive order, together with revised administrative guidance and a notice of proposed rulemaking, could change the incentive structure.”

Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) funded a trip to the Super Bowl with cash from a joint campaign account he shared with disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA). According to a report from POLITICO, Gallego used campaign donations to fund a number of private excursions — including child care expenses and family trips to Disney World in addition to Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona, in 2023. Gallego recently hired Andrew Bates, who served as deputy press secretary for former President Joe Biden, to manage crisis communications related to his long friendship with Swalwell as well as any interactions with the Senate Ethics Committee — interactions that may be coming sooner rather than later. As POLITICO reported, Gallego’s campaign finance records reveal that he used money from his leadership PAC to pay for personal travel — trips to Disneyland and Disney World as well as to Chicago and Miami — and other personal and family expenses. At least once, the report claims, Gallego used campaign cash or money from his PAC to pay his mother-in-law $400 for child care — and since 2019, withdrew more than $18,000 for child care-related expenses. Gallego, according to the outlet, appeared to concede that he had spent campaign funds on child care, saying in a statement, “This is not breaking news. With the rising costs of child care and the burden it has on the budgets of American families, Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the White House alike regularly travel with their wives and children, as is permitted by the FEC.” The FEC does allow payments designated for child care, travel, and food — provided the events are campaign-related. Any expenses that would exist regardless of the campaign are not covered by those exemptions. In addition to managing the questions likely to come from the Senate Ethics Committee regarding his spending habits, Gallego has worked to distance himself from Swalwell — his friend and former roommate — as he prepares for a potential presidential run in 2028. Since the report also details the Super Bowl trip with Swalwell and his wife — paid for with funds from a joint campaign account that he and Swalwell shared — maintaining that distance may prove more difficult in the future.

Keir Starmer finally did what millions of Britons had been waiting for, announcing his resignation as Labour Party leader on Monday after losing the confidence of his own MPs — capping a tenure marked by free speech crackdowns, grooming gang scandals, and a Palestinian statehood blunder that left allies fuming. “Every decision I’ve taken has been about putting the country I love first,” the embattled prime minister declared outside 10 Downing Street. “That is why I will resign as leader of the Labour Party.” Watch live: My statement. https://t.co/MX7ga3FRGq — Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 22, 2026 The writing had been on the wall for months. Labour’s vote share had cratered to a humiliating 17% in May’s local elections, with Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. surging past them at 26%. Starmer — already the least popular prime minister since records began — had lost his party, lost the public, and finally lost his nerve. The human rights lawyer-turned-prime minister spent his final months under fire for his failure to address Britain’s broken National Health Service and immigration crisis and for banning foreign speakers from a conservative rally. In May, Starmer blocked seven international figures — including elected Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński — from attending the “Unite the Kingdom” rally in London, with his Home Office declaring their presence “not conducive to the public good.” Tarczyński wasn’t having it. “This is what communism looks like in the 21st century,” the Polish lawmaker raged, vowing to sue Starmer personally. “Once you lose the next election, communist, we’ll meet in court!” The ban drew instant accusations of hypocrisy — Starmer said nothing about blocking participants from the pro-Palestine “Nakba Day” march happening the same day. Critics noted the selective enforcement was vintage Starmer, echoing his days as director of Public Prosecutions when, many argue, his office dragged its feet on prosecuting the Pakistani grooming gangs responsible for sexually abusing at least 1,400 children in Rotherham. On St. George’s Day, he called patriots “plastic” — mocking Britons who dared to fly their own national flag. In 2020, he championed Black Lives Matter rioters as “people rightly demanding justice.” In August 2024, he called anti-immigration protesters — outraged after a man whose parents emigrated from Rwanda knifed three little girls to death in Southport — “far-Right thugs.” Then, Starmer’s government surrendered British territory to Mauritius for $46 billion in what critics called a stunning act of national self-harm. Topping it all off, Starmer recognized Palestinian statehood with zero conditions — handing a diplomatic prize to a movement that celebrated the October 7 massacre — prompting Tory leader Kemi Badenoch to declare, “We will all rue the day this decision was made.” “They cannot fix the NHS, so they push assisted suicide,” Badenoch scorched. “He will spend the next four years delivering the hobby horses of the Labour left to stay in power and leave a HUGE mess for us to clean up.” Now the scramble is on to replace him. Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham is the frontrunner after he won an election to return to the House of Commons. Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Ed Miliband, and Deputy Prime Minister-turned-resigned Angela Rayner are also circling. Starmer says he’ll stay on as caretaker prime minister until a new leader emerges before Parliament returns in September.

Until its recent by-election, few in Britain (let alone the rest of the world) had heard of Makerfield. Sandwiched between Manchester’s northwestern border and the town of Wigan, the history of the Makerfield constituency is typical of that part of the world. Home to the satellite towns that helped power the Manchester “cottonopolis” during the nineteenth century, when the city was renowned for its textile industry, the area was once relatively affluent. The years since have not been so kind. While Makerfield has a relatively high home ownership rate, much of the constituency exhibits the hallmarks of British post-industrial decline – economic inactivity is high, with 10% of the population claiming Personal Independence Payments, a form of disability welfare. As if life wasn’t hard enough for residents, they now have another issue to contend with: Andy Burnham. In the most consequential by-election of this century, Burnham — representing the Labour Party — won the constituency with 54.8% of the vote. The reason this was no ordinary local election is that Burnham has used this victory as a springboard to challenge the faltering Prime Minister Keir Starmer for leadership of the Labour Party, and thus the country. Keen followers of politics in the U.S.A. may have noticed that Starmer isn’t doing so well. After failing to deliver on almost all of his electoral promises over the last couple of years, Starmer has, for some time now, been in multiple Mexican standoffs as he has attempted to fend off leadership challengers in his own party. As President Donald Trump has announced on social media, Britain’s adenoidal prime minister knows the game is up, and it is widely expected that he will resign as soon as Monday, paving the way for Burnham to re-enter parliament (he had been Mayor of Manchester since 2017) and trigger a leadership vote that he is the favorite to win. In his victory speech at Makerfield, Burnham acknowledged that “everyone knows that politics isn’t working.” The question is, is he really the man to change that? Burnham has been the favorite for a while to succeed Starmer as prime minister. Despite his net favorability ratings taking a hit in recent weeks, according to research from Public First, he is still the Labour Party’s greatest hope for taking on Nigel Farage and Reform U.K. — who could well win the next general election. On the surface, part of Burnham’s appeal is that he does a decent job at the “normal guy” routine (that is, when he’s not shouting at journalists on the campaign trail). For a U.S. audience unfamiliar with the Greater Manchester area, it is apparently political suicide not to constantly pay homage to the region’s cultural heritage. This largely involves making regular references to football (soccer), the band Oasis, and beige fast food — in Burnham’s case, chips and gravy. He achieves this with flying colors, but it takes more than regional sycophancy to run a country. Here, Burnham has his work cut out for him. Not only has Starmer done little to address the deep cultural divisions in Britain brought about by decades of short-sighted mass migration, but he has also failed to fix our economic woes. In the build-up to the general election in 2024, which Starmer won with a historic landslide, he and Rachel Reeves (now Chancellor of the Exchequer and also on the chopping block) promised that their Labour Party would differ from previous iterations. They would boost economic growth by ushering in a housebuilding revolution through radical supply-side reforms; they would give businesses the room they needed to innovate; and make tough, necessary reforms to the welfare state to get Britain back on a stable fiscal footing. With housebuilding stagnant, businesses straddled with yet more red tape and higher taxes, and his already minor welfare reforms diluted beyond all recognition, he has failed on every metric. There is little evidence that Burnham will prove much better. First, his economic literacy is highly questionable. Among the British Right, Burnham is most notorious for having said Britain is too much “in hock” to the bond markets, implying that we should be able to borrow as much as we like without any consequences. Our national debt is approximately £2.9tn — approaching 100% of GDP — and bond traders are understandably nervous that Burnham is going to be fiscally reckless. Though Burnham has recently softened his approach to the bond market, some of those whom he is rumored to have taken on as economic advisors have called for wholesale reform of Britain’s fiscal rules. It would be one thing if Burnham were considering changing these rules to facilitate pro-growth, free-market reforms, but he isn’t. Burnham will take into government the approach he adopted as mayor of Manchester, what he calls “business-friendly socialism.” Manchester — where skyscrapers now stand where mills once lined the streets — is used as evidence of his success. Yet the extent to which Manchester’s regeneration can be attributed to Burnham is widely questioned, and Manchester City Council is heading towards being the most indebted in the country, with liabilities of around £1.6bn. The grim likelihood is that Burnham will join what is becoming a very long line of failed recent prime ministers. It may shock American audiences to learn that the last prime minister to serve a full term was David Cameron, and he left office over a decade ago. On our current trajectory, the metrics point to things getting worse in Britain before they get better, and Burnham shows no sign of wanting to reform the economy and state in a way that would make us more prosperous. If international onlookers are genuinely invested in the future of Britain, then they shouldn’t look to Burnham for a sign of what the future may hold, but to the debates currently raging at the other end of the political spectrum. *** Joseph Dinnage is Senior Press Officer at the Prosperity Institute.

On June 2, Karen Bass emerged from the Los Angeles primary having secured roughly 34% of the vote. The math is damning: two-thirds of Angelenos essentially voted to fire their mayor. Yet, the machine delivered a runoff regardless. This November, Bass will square off against Nithya Raman, a councilwoman deeply aligned with the city’s Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) bloc. Spencer Pratt, the Palisades fire survivor who campaigned as the authentic outsider, was relegated to third place and is out of the running. This outcome was no statistical quirk. It was the calculated result of a teachers’ union political operation that has spent years colonizing every tier of L.A.’s government and is now poised to seize the final office it does not yet control. The mechanics are not complicated. The L.A. County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, which represents 800,000 workers across 300 unions and counts United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the American Federation of Teachers’ (AFT) L.A. affiliate, among its members, formally endorsed Bass for re-election in November 2025. UTLA’s own 2026 endorsement slate skipped the mayor’s race and built out the rest of City Hall around her. Council picks Hugo Soto-Martinez, Eunisses Hernandez, and Estuardo Mazariegos, all listed on UTLA’s official endorsement page, belong to the same DSA-aligned bloc reshaping the city. The fix was in months ago. What did the union have to fear from Spencer Pratt? Look at what he told Bill Maher on his podcast in May. Maher asked whether Pratt was strong enough to “buck the unions.” Pratt answered that union leadership was running “a scam” on its own members and pledged to push back. “You had me at hello,” Maher told him. Pratt was the only candidate in the field who promised to take on the racket controlling California schools and run it into the ground. He was the candidate the union needed to be gone. On June 8, CBS News called the runoff for Raman over Pratt. Within days, Pratt acknowledged defeat. The union got the November matchup it wanted. The union’s political project does not stop at L.A.’s city limits, and it is not abstract. A new Defending Education report finds that state and local teachers union affiliates have funneled $336 million to left-wing groups and political action committees since 2015. UTLA itself has spent more than $7 million on this kind of activity. The California Teachers Association’s PACs have spent over $106 million. None of that went to teaching kids to read. It went to elections, ballot measures, and ideological allies. Some of it went directly to anti-ICE organizing. The union is not even pretending the money is for classrooms anymore. What has all that buying bought? Ask Bass. In April 2026, UTLA threatened a massive strike against the Los Angeles Unified School District. Bass personally jumped into the talks. “I stepped into negotiations to make sure that every effort was made to find an agreement,” she said afterward, citing her concern about disruption to kids and parents. Within days, UTLA had a tentative two-year contract with an 11.65% raise and a $77,000 starting salary. Two months later, the union helped deliver Bass her runoff slot. Call that a coincidence if you want. The union didn’t. For Angelenos, the November ballot is a runoff with no real choice. Bass and Raman are both progressive Democrats. Raman ran to Bass’s left as a DSA ally and gained ground in the count precisely because the city’s most committed left-wing activists turned out for her. The roughly two-thirds of LA voters who picked someone other than Bass wanted accountability for the coalition that delivered Bass to a runoff against an even further-left challenger. In both cities, the candidate who threatened to break the union’s hold lost. The Teacher Freedom Alliance was founded because teachers should never be conscripted into politics they did not choose. Voters should not be either. AFT president Randi Weingarten has spent the last several months touring bookstores promoting a manifesto her members paid for. Her local affiliates have used the same months to hand themselves their next mayor. They have until November 3 to make it stick. Same machine, same playbook, and the same political casualty: anyone who tried to compete with the union for the right to govern an American city. L.A. didn’t pick its mayor on June 2. UTLA did. November is the formality. *** Ryan Walters is the CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance and former State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Oklahoma.