Biden Faces Pressure on Immigration, and Not Just From Republicans - The New York Times   

Mayors and governors from President Biden’s own party are looking for help with overflowing migrant encampments, packed shelters and busted budgets.

Michael Shear reported from Washington, and Miriam Jordan from Los Angeles.

President Biden is under growing pressure to curb record numbers of migrants crossing into the United States — not just from the usual Republican critics, but also from Democratic mayors and governors in cities thousands of miles from the border.

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New York City Sues Bus Companies That Brought 30,000 Migrants From Texas - The New York Times   

The lawsuit accuses 17 companies of carrying out a plan by the governor of Texas to send tens of thousands of migrants to New York.

Mayor Eric Adams of New York on Thursday ratcheted up his feud with Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, filing suit against 17 transportation companies that he said had carried out a plan by Mr. Abbott to send more than 30,000 migrants to New York City and make the city pay for their care.

New York is seeking more than $700 million in damages from those companies, an amount the lawsuit describes as the cost of caring for and sheltering the migrants.

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Happy Puppies and Silly Geese: Pushing the Limits of A.I. Absurdity - The New York Times   

A recent update to ChatGPT made it easier to create images. It wasn’t long before some began pushing the chatbot to its limits.

What is the happiest dog you can imagine? Is it beaming with joy on a celestial plane or frolicking in a field of psychedelic flora?

If those images are hard to conjure, have no fear, or perhaps a healthy dose of it: Artificial intelligence can vivify even the most absurd scenarios in vibrant color, and on social media, some are seeing how far it can be pushed.

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Opinion | The Claudine Gay Debacle Was Never About Merit - The New York Times   

Claudine Gay’s resignation this week as Harvard University’s president marks the end of a shameful chapter for the institution. The debacle’s architects promise to make America’s elite institutions great again. They say they pushed out Dr. Gay and, nearly a month ago, the University of Pennsylvania’s president as a warning to the nation’s cultural institutions. How they will continue to wield their influence and if they will succeed depends on how willing we all are to keep buying age-old ideas about merit from power-hungry peddlers.

Dr. Gay’s resignation comes nearly a month after the presidents of M.I.T., Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania testified before Congress. (Columbia University was also invited. It declined. As the kids say, Columbia understood the assignment.) These particular schools were chosen not because of their academic bona fides but because of their cultural significance. Yes, Harvard, Penn and M.I.T. boast highly selective admissions and lauded faculty. But they are also institutions with strong international brands built on prestige, history and the perception of excellence. A hearing ostensibly about antisemitism on campus quickly became little more than a coordinated political spectacle about power.

You do not have to take my word for it. You can believe Chris Rufo, a conservative activist who was one of the architects of the debacle, who celebrated on X this week for having “SCALPED” Dr. Gay. Distinct from the campaign waged against Penn’s former president Elizabeth Magill, the attacks against Dr. Gay have been cut from whole cloth, from a historical narrative about merit and diversity that is a hallmark of America’s higher-education prestige hierarchy.

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