Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mani Basharzad
“A public company in the UK was building a high-speed railway when it suddenly faced a regulation that few could have predicted: a £100 million ($132 million) bat tunnel. The railway passed through Sheephouse Wood, an area inhabited by rare Bechstein’s bats. To comply with environmental regulations that protect the bats from colliding with high-speed trains, the company had to build a roughly one-kilometer covered structure alongside the railway. This structure has since become widely known in the UK as the ‘bat tunnel.’ If you think this is just one case, let me tell you about the fish disco.” (10/16/26)
“I have been a doctor for over 40 years. I have cared for patients in their most critical moments, seen families face unexpected diagnoses, and made split-second decisions in intensive care where every second counted. I have witnessed both remarkable recoveries and painful losses. I have taught new doctors, published research, and worked on treatments to help people I might never meet. All this time, I thought I knew what it meant to be a physician. When Covid began, something shifted in me. It didn’t happen all at once or because of one argument with an administrator or a policy. It was a slow realization that grew as I kept caring for sick people.” (10/16/26)
“Lawyer Juan Francisco Solorzano Foppa, known for his high-profile cases against powerful businessmen in Guatemala, has died after being shot by two men during a visit to a sports centre. The attack on Saturday at the Campo Marte sports complex in Guatemala City resulted in the deaths of Foppa and another man, Gustavo Adolfo Aguilar Gamarro, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Foppa was a 43-year-old former prosecutor and anticorruption lawyer who denounced wrongdoing by some of Guatemala’s most powerful politicians, business leaders and companies, and in 2023 briefly joined the defence team of a prominent journalist.” (10/18/26)
“As the U.S. midterms approach, headlines regarding the Ukraine war are emerging at breakneck pace. But amid the noise and recurring outrage, the fundamental dilemma has not changed: how can the United States build up a self-sustaining European equilibrium that maximizes Washington’s room for maneuver in an increasingly multipolar world? Achieving a comprehensive settlement to the war in Ukraine is a necessary, albeit insufficient, part of the answer. European leaders perceive Russia’s war of aggression not just as a security threat but as a fundamental breach of the post-Cold War continental compact. It will not soon be forgotten. As long as the fighting continues — and even in the event of a ceasefire that leaves deeper political cleavages unaddressed — Europe and Russia will not arrive at a stable balance of power on their own.” (10/16/26)
“Trump’s effort to fire a Fed governor may be political interference, but it exposes a real problem: central bankers exercise enormous power with little accountability for their mistakes.” (10/16/26)
“Data centers have quickly become very unpopular, with more than 70 percent of Americans now opposing the construction of one in their area. It’s tempting to assume these attitudes are driven by anxiety over artificial intelligence, and as such have little relevance for housing debates. But data center skeptics are far more likely to mention environmental, cost of living, and quality of life concerns than negative views of AI. Many of these critiques are familiar to anyone who has attended public meetings about any residential or commercial development (right down to complaints about the size, noise, and traffic). In other words, the data center backlash … is in many respects just an amplified version of normal anti-development politics.” (10/16/26)
“Katie Zacharia is no longer the White House press secretary after five days in the role, bringing an abrupt end to a tumultuous tenure …. Zacharia’s brief stint started off rocky and went downhill from there. Her first press conference was widely panned. Then followed revelations that she inflated her credentials, calling herself an attorney when she never passed the bar exam — though she did graduate from Pepperdine University Law School.” (10/16/26)
