Nonrival

Expert analysis from think tanks and academia, on public policy, economics, and technology.
Human experts. AI summaries.

Colorado Watered Down Its AI Discrimination Law — and Might Still Lose in Court

the_conversation

• Colorado scrapped its pioneering AI anti-discrimination law in May 2026, replacing it with a narrower transparency requirement after Elon Musk's xAI and the DOJ sued to block the original.
• The rewrite eliminated the provisions that required companies to proactively audit AI systems for bias, shifting the burden from corporations to individual consumers to seek explanations after the fact.
• But the revised law may have made it more legally vulnerable, not less: by keeping only disclosure requirements, Colorado handed critics a cleaner target for a First Amendment 'compelled speech' challenge.

U.S. Grid Operators Are Far from Ready to Power the AI Data Center Boom

csis

• The federal government is pushing electric grid operators to speed up how they connect massive new data centers to the grid, but a new analysis finds that most operators fail to meet even basic standards — only about 20% of criteria are currently satisfied.
• The core tensions are cost and fairness: as data centers drive up electricity demand, ordinary ratepayers are absorbing the infrastructure costs, and regulators have so far done little to stop it.
• The result will likely be years of piecemeal, region-by-region reforms rather than a clean national fix — a fragmented process that may slow the AI buildout and leave consumers paying higher bills in the meantime.

Most Small U.S. Businesses in Goods and Retail Are Being Hit Hard by Tariffs — and Passing the Costs to Customers

ny_fed

• A New York Fed survey found that 55–67% of small goods and retail firms reported tariff-related financial challenges in 2025, with even higher shares in the New York region — and firms correctly distinguished these from general inflation pressures.
• About 80% of affected firms passed at least some higher costs on to customers, while 60% also absorbed some internally; older and more profitable firms had more pricing power to do the former.
• Small businesses that faced tariff challenges were more pessimistic about revenues and employment in 2026, and by a large margin expect their export sales to fall — suggesting tariffs are weighing meaningfully on small business outlook.

In the News

Ukrainians distrust Trump but still love Americans — a distinction Washington should pay attention to

the_conversation

• A new poll of 1,801 Ukrainians finds that only 17% view Trump as a friend of their country, while more than double that consider him an enemy — largely driven by his pressure on Kyiv to cede territory and his administration's reduced military support.
• Despite their dim view of Trump, 73% of Ukrainians still consider Americans in general to be friends, suggesting ordinary Ukrainians are drawing a sharp distinction between U.S. leadership and the American people.
• The researchers argue this reservoir of goodwill is an opportunity for Washington, but it's eroding fast: just 7% of Ukrainians feel positively about the U.S. role in world affairs today.

Analysis

Latino Trump Voters Don't See Their Latino Identity as Central to Who They Are — and That May Explain a Lot

pew

• Latino voters who backed Trump in 2024 are far less likely than Harris voters to see their Hispanic identity as important to their sense of self, feel solidarity with other Latinos, or report experiencing discrimination — differences that hold even after controlling for demographics.
• Trump-supporting Latinos are twice as likely as Harris-supporting Latinos to identify primarily as "American" rather than by their ethnic or national-origin label, suggesting a fundamentally different relationship with ethnic identity.
• The findings, from a Pew survey of nearly 5,000 Hispanics, suggest the Latino political divide isn't just ideological — it reflects deeper differences in how people experience and weight their ethnic identity in daily life.

Also Worth a Look

• Central banks need both gold and dollars — and new research shows exactly why (voxeu)
• The Strait of Hormuz Crisis Is Rewriting the Rules of Global Oil Markets (atlantic_council)
• The U.S.-Iran War Is Already Disrupting the Global Economy — Just Ask Formula 1 (csis)
• Hispanic Americans Are Deeply Divided — by Politics and Generation — on Whether Being Hispanic Helps or Hurts Their Chances (pew)
• Americans Now View Israelis and Palestinians Almost Equally Favorably — a Dramatic Shift From Just Three Years Ago (pew)
• The Workers Who Care for America's Elderly Are Disproportionately Immigrant, Low-Wage, and Vulnerable to Trump's Immigration Crackdown (kff)
• A Running Timeline of Every Major Move in Trump's Second-Term Trade War (peterson)