It’s not often that I find myself agreeing with a Fox News host, but this week, I found myself sympathizing with these comments from Fox’s Will Cain in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination: “I don’t know where we go from here as a news program and I don’t know where we go from here in America.”

Well, we kind of know the direction Fox News is going to go — after all, other Fox commentators, such as Jesse Watters, were vowing on air that “We’re going to avenge Charlie’s death” — but “where we go from here in America,” that’s an open question.

This would be a good time for some cool-headed leadership from the U.S. president, but that does not appear to be in the offing from Donald Trump, who once again is blaming the radical left — and only the left — for political violence in the United States. Trump has conveniently ignored the fact that this violence has targeted both the right and the left. And it’s not unreasonable to worry that Trump will use Kirk’s murder as an excuse to crack down on opponents of the administration, as The New York Times outlines in this story.

Adrienne LaFrance, the executive editor of The Atlantic, has written about political violence for years. In this new piece, she argues that even though political violence in the United States is on the rise, most Americans would rather not see the country slide into outright civil war. I know what you’re thinking: That’s not a lot of comfort — but let’s work with what we’ve got.

McKay Coppins, The Atlantic writer who has written sympathetically but with clear eyes about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had an interview Friday night with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. Cox started Friday’s press conference announcing the arrest in the Kirk case by saying, “We got him,” but he comes across in Coppins’ piece as much more thoughtful than that.

I also don’t always agree with Ezra Klein in The New York Times, but I think he’s on the mark with this opinion piece.

Graphic video of Kirk’s assassination was readily available on social media; in fact, you almost had to make an effort not to stumble across the footage. In this powerful piece from the Poynter’s Institute’s Ren LaForme, he ponders the human cost of absorbing these horrific images, over and over. And he poses this question: “If every act of violence becomes inescapable, what does that do to a nation’s soul?”

David Bauder, who covers media for The Associated Press, writes how the rapid spread of the graphic footage on social media highlights (again) how the “gatekeeper” role of mainstream media outlets is fading fast.

In the meantime, it might be helpful if we stopped saying things like “Political violence has no place in America,” the way Kamala Harris tweeted, because it’s clearly not true. What might be more helpful would be a discussion about what we, as Americans, intend to do about it.

OK. Take a deep breath. It might be useful to take a couple of days off from social media — never mind that the people who advised that all were writing on social media.

Here’s a selection of other stories that caught my eye over the last week:

Like other school districts around the state, the Corvallis School District is facing steep declines in enrollment — and, frankly, has been for years. Superintendent Ryan Noss says that, in general, enrollment in Corvallis schools has been trending downward since 1970, for a variety of reasons that you probably can guess. Demographic experts say they see little indication that the trend will reverse in the foreseeable future (if there is such a thing as a “foreseeable future” these days). Noss and other administrators presented the school board this week with a wide-ranging plan to close Cheldelin Middle School and to reconfigure other schools in the district. The plan doesn’t say as much just now, but Crescent Valley High School also is likely to close by the 2028-29 school year. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention, but Noss and other administrators told the school board it needed to make a decision by mid-November for the 2026-27 school year — in other words, next school year. That doesn’t allow much time for the community to absorb such a sweeping proposal — and, as Tom Henderson writes in the Gazette-Times — opponents already are lining up.

Remember the door that blew off an Alaskan Airlines jetliner on a Portland flight last year? Of course you do. The Federal Aviation Administration has proposed a $3.1 million fine against Boeing for a variety of safety violations.

The 2026 election season is officially underway: Thursday was the first day to file for federal and state offices, and a number of candidates didn’t waste any time, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reports.

The writer Stefan Fatsis has a new book documenting hard times in the dictionary business. (Who knew — and, really, who even thought to ask the fairly obvious question about whether the business model for dictionaries was in trouble?) An excerpt from the book appears in The Atlantic, in which Fatsis chronicles the difficulties facing these critical references — both print and online — and outlines why their survival is essential.

Does your dog need a bit more privacy? It’s an interesting question, and Ross Andersen of The Atlantic poses it — and another questions about whether humans are watching animals too closely — in this intriguing read.

That’s it for this week, Treat yourself to a break from social media for a couple of days. And stop spying on your cat. We’ll see you next weekend.