Opinion Today: The new exiles
They were looking for safety — they landed in limbo.
Opinion Today
September 22, 2026
Susan Collins is seen from just her neck up, sitting at a table. Her name plate is in front of her.
Mark Peterson for The New York Times

Notable

Is Susan Collins’s luck running out? “Her national-vibes-versus-local-results construct is, at best, outmoded. These days, Ms. Collins is not delivering for Maine so much as she is delivering up Maine to the Trump agenda.”

— Michelle Cottle, an Opinion writer

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A.I. is dangerous for science, too. “If OpenAI and Anthropic really want to help advance science, there is one obvious way they can do so: They can spend a tiny fraction of their vast fortunes to fund the kind of humble but essential research that’s increasingly starved for resources.”

— Zeynep Tufekci, a contributing Opinion writer

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The National Book Awards are no longer national. “The bald politicization of the nation’s highest literary prizes is achieving several forms of injustice at once.”

— Bret Stephens, an Opinion columnist

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Spotlight

A man from Colombia sits in his hotel room in San José. 

The New Exiles

The Trump administration’s policy of deporting migrants to third countries is undermining a bedrock notion of international law.

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ICYMI

Germany can get out of this mess. “How do you go about transforming an aging society that is deeply skeptical of change, with the far right breathing down your neck?”

— Anna Sauerbrey, an editor and writer at the German weekly Die Zeit

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More in Opinion

An image of a mountain reflected in shards of mirror.

David Wallace-Wells

The Climate May Have Some Surprises in Store

Harrowing temperature increases remain unnervingly possible.

By David Wallace-Wells and Zeke Hausfather

President Trump in profile, looking out at a crowd of his supporters, many of them wearing red or white.

Guest Essay

Trump Makes Republicans More Racist and Democrats Less So

The president is recasting the U.S. government as an instrument of prejudice.

By Thomas B. Edsall

In Your Words

Re: In the Land of Billionaire Barbarians

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