By The Free Press | Created at 2026-08-26 13:30:28 | Updated at 2026-09-04 04:22:28
1 week ago
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It’s Wednesday, August 26. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: What college freshmen need to hear. Aaron MacLean on Trump’s “D-Day” sanctions. Join The Free Press Book Club. And much more.
But first: Dolly Parton, RIP.
How does someone do all that? How did she go from a one-room cabin on Tennessee’s Little Pigeon River to the commanding heights of American celebrity? How did the daughter of an illiterate sharecropper become one of the world’s foremost lyricists, the woman who wrote more than 3,000 songs, including both “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” in the space of a single day?
The short answer is that Dolly Parton was a genius, a singular figure, someone who could do things that no one else could. But it’s so much more than that. She died yesterday at the age of 80 but had long ago achieved a kind of immortality, both through her artistry and her philanthropic efforts. She was one of the last universally beloved figures in our scattered, splintered, angry age.
Sometimes we look around at this dizzying country of ours and wonder what binds it all together. We should recognize that Dolly Parton was part of the glue.
So today, we celebrate this great American. First, Caitlin Flanagan—a lifelong fan—takes a heartfelt look at Parton, who headlined the first concert she ever went to as a girl growing up in the Bay Area. This was before Parton became a movie star, before Dollywood, before she amassed the great fortune she was so eager to share with others. But for Caitlin, it was love at first sight.
Next, Hannah Long explores Parton’s inextricable ties to the American South, which is key to understanding her. “To Appalachians like me, this is something like the passing of Queen Elizabeth,” Long writes. But how did Parton manage to be “equally beloved by Baptist church ladies and buxom drag queens” while remaining so purely herself, and so fixed to a particular place while becoming a worldwide phenomenon?
Again, how does anyone do that? Read these two pieces for answers to that question.
—Will Rahn
Carlos Carvalho • Education
The best advice a wide-eyed college freshman ready to take on the world could get? Forget yourself. That’s what University of Austin president Carlos Carvalho told new students this week. As “the whole world will keep telling you to find yourself,” Carvalho told the class of 2030, “forget yourself and discover the durable joy of being absorbed in something greater than you.”
Aaron MacLean • International
Aaron MacLean is tempted to call the Iran war the Tantric War. “Strategic climaxes are promised, but ever deferred,” he writes in his column today. The latest promise? “Economic D-Day,” as Trump put it this week, as his administration announced a major crackdown on Iran and, maybe, its trading partners. But does the president mean it? And will it work?
Fewer Americans are reading today than ever before, and even fewer are reading together. We want to change that. That’s why we’ve launched The Free Press Forum Book Club. For our first installment, writers, editors, and subscribers will all read and discuss East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Peter Savodnik will be part of the crew, and he wants you to join him over at The Free Press Forum to dive into what might very well be the Great American Novel.
Read Peter on what makes East of Eden great, and how the book club works:
And click here to join the book club today:
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THE NEWS
CIA director John Ratcliffe arrived in Moscow Tuesday to meet with Russian officials, the first known trip of a CIA director to the country since 2021. The unannounced visit came a day after Ukraine marked its 35th Independence Day—and as the U.S. reportedly asked Ukrainian officials not to strike Moscow with long-range missiles while Ratcliffe was there.
Canada announced retaliatory tariffs up to 50 percent on hundreds of American goods, mirroring the tariffs the United States levied against Canada in recent days. Prime Minister Mark Carney also announced billions in spending to support Canadian workers and businesses, warning the tariffs “will raise costs and reduce choice for Canadians.”
Darline Graham, the sister of late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, secured the Republican nomination for South Carolina Senate in Tuesday’s runoff election. Graham bested Rep. Ralph Norman, who unsuccessfully ran for governor earlier this cycle. President Trump endorsed Graham, campaigned for her last week, and provided over $800,000 from his PAC a day before the runoff election.
Pennsylvania recorded its first two deaths connected to measles in 35 years, the state health department announced Tuesday. Neither deceased person had received the measles vaccine. Approximately 92.5 percent of kindergarten-age children received the measles vaccine this year, down from 95.2 percent at the beginning of the 2019–2020 school year.
Diplomats from Oman and Iran met in Tehran on Tuesday to discuss how to manage maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. A joint statement announced a “joint temporary navigational corridor” in the region and an agreement to clear mines from the strait. President Trump said last week he would bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of an American deal with Iran.
At least one in four NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had CTE, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma, according to a study released yesterday. Researchers caution that the study could be underestimating the extent of CTE in professional football players. The NFL Players Association said the findings “should serve as a call to action across the entire football ecosystem.”
