Top 5 US news stories

U.S. High School Seniors' Math and Reading Scores Hit Record Lows

Republicans Highlight Fatal Stabbing Video to Accuse Democrats of Being Soft on Crime

Lachlan Murdoch Cements Control of Media Empire with $3.3 Billion Family Deal

Anthropic Reaches $1.5 Billion Settlement with Publishers in Major AI Copyright Case

New Sino-Russian Gas Pipeline Deal Will Reshape Global Energy Market

Newsletter sponsor

1. U.S. High School Seniors' Math and Reading Scores Hit Record Lows

American high-school seniors’ scores on major math and reading tests fell to their lowest levels on record, according to results released Tuesday by the U.S. Education Department. Twelfth-graders’ average math score was the worst since the current test began in 2005, and reading was below any point since that assessment started in 1992. The share of 12th-graders who were proficient slid by 2 percentage points between 2019 and 2024—to 35% in reading and 22% in math. There also were drops in the proportion of students who were able to reach at least a basic level of performance, a tier below proficiency. The results are from tests that are part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, administered to tens of thousands of students in early 2024.

WSJ

2. Republicans Highlight Fatal Stabbing Video to Accuse Democrats of Being Soft on Crime

MAGA influencers are drawing repeated attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban crime — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering shocking cases. Shocking video of the fatal Aug. 22 knife attack on 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a light-rail car in Charlotte, North Carolina, dominated weekend conversation on Trump-friendly social media. North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley — a former chair of the national GOP — invoked the case to accuse his Democratic opponent, Gov. Roy Cooper, of being soft on crime. Zarutska recently arrived in Charlotte from Ukraine to escape the war there, The Charlotte Observer reports. The suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, was charged with first-degree murder. His criminal record includes charges of armed robbery, felony larceny, breaking and entering, and shoplifting, according to jail records cited by WBTV. Whatley wrote on X that in June 2020, "Cooper signed a soft-on-crime executive order, and just three months later, Brown was released from prison." The executive order established a "racial profiling task force" and sought to reduce "systemic" racism. But it didn't call for the early release of suspects. Cooper's campaign accused Whatley of "lying," and said: "Roy Cooper prosecuted violent criminals and drug dealers, increased the penalties for violence against law enforcement, and kept thousands of criminals off the streets and behind bars." Whatley spokesperson Danielle Alvarez countered that Brown was released from prison early, just as Cooper was spending more time talking about "fighting racism" and less about keeping "career criminals" like Brown locked up.

Axios

3. Lachlan Murdoch Cements Control of Media Empire with $3.3 Billion Family Deal

The question of succession has hung over Lachlan Murdoch his entire life. It has finally, definitively been answered. The family’s empire, built over more than 70 years by his father, Rupert, is his to control for probably decades to come. Thanks to a $3.3 billion deal he reached with his three oldest siblings, Mr. Murdoch will be able to oversee the family’s media business until at least 2050. The agreement immediately cements Mr. Murdoch, 54, as one of the world’s most powerful men. And it means that his companies — which own Fox News, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, among other properties — are likely to maintain their firm conservative tilt. Keeping that ideological bent has been a top priority for his father, who has preferred his elder son as his permanent successor over the three less politically conservative siblings. Now the global Murdoch kingdom will fall under the control of an intensely private former philosophy student, a New Yorker turned proud Australian who transplanted his family to Sydney, and a digital enthusiast who has pushed his father’s analog media business into the realms of podcasts and streaming platforms.

NYT

4. Anthropic Reaches $1.5 Billion Settlement with Publishers in Major AI Copyright Case

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the popular chatbot Claude, will pay $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by book publishers and authors, according to documents filed in federal court Friday. The settlement allows Anthropic to avoid trial over claims that it violated copyrights by downloading millions of books without permission and storing digital copies of them. The company will not admit wrongdoing. The deal represents a significant victory for copyright holders in a high-stakes legal struggle between human creators and AI firms.

Washington Post

5. New Sino-Russian Gas Pipeline Deal Will Reshape Global Energy Market

China and Russia have signed an agreement to build the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, a huge gas project that could reshape global energy flows as both countries seek an alternative to Donald Trump’s US-led global order. Russia announced the deal as President Vladimir Putin met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing on Tuesday. Russia’s pipeline gas monopoly Gazprom said the two sides had signed a legally binding “memorandum of construction” after years of stalled negotiations. the deal signalled a significant shift in the global gas market. Once built, in the early 2030s, the 50bn cubic metre-a-year Power of Siberia 2 pipeline will run east from the gasfields that once served Europe. It also gives China an alternative to importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US, Qatar and Australia. The project may change the economics for companies currently considering whether to invest further in building LNG export terminals, particularly in the US, said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a global research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

FT

September 9 2007: NFL nabs New England Patriots in “Spygate” scandal

On September 9, 2007, the NFL catches the New England Patriots illegally videotaping coaching signals of the New York Jets from an unauthorized location in a Week 1 game in East Rutherford, N.J.—a scandal the media soon dubs "Spygate."

Found a mistake? Have a news tip or feedback to share? Contact our newsroom using the button below:

citizen journal offers three flagship products: a daily national news summary, a daily Kansas news summary, and local news and school board summaries from 12 cities across Kansas. Each issue contains 5 paragraph-length stories that are made to be read in 5 minutes. Use the links in the header to navigate to national, kansas, and local coverage. Subscribe to each, some, or all to get an email when new issues are published for FREE!

Sponsors (click me!)

Sources

1. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/test-scores-low-reading-math-naep-d87099b6?mod=hp_lead_pos10
2. https://www.axios.com/2025/09/08/iryna-zarutska-stabbing-video-republicans-maga
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/business/media/lachlan-murdoch-fox-news-corp.html
4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/09/05/anthropic-book-authors-copyright-settlement/
5. https://www.ft.com/content/52d3b560-7ee7-4aad-aebf-21270d661ced

See the citizen journal Podcast! Released on Apple, Spotify and YouTube around 10a CST.