SACRAMENTO, Calif. — It’s almost like slapstick comedy — the budget act that California’s Legislature and governor perform every year.

OK, it’s not really funny. But it is a joke — all the gymnastics the politicians go through trying to hide their red-ink spending and convince us they’ve met their legal obligation to produce a ...Read more

Across much of the industrial world, trust in government is low and declining. Why is this happening and why, exactly, does it matter?

An unusually thorough new study looks at these questions and finds answers that are somewhat unexpected and, in one way, more disturbing than you might have guessed.

The fact of diminished trust is hardly a ...Read more

As former President Ronald Reagan famously noted, if you subsidize something, you’ll get more of it. But when it comes to higher education, that’s only half the story.

For decades, America’s education establishment pushed most students toward attending college. This year, The New York Times described the phrase “college for all” as �...Read more

The setting: a two-story home in Whittier, California, prettied with holiday decorations, pet beds, American flags and a shelf of tchotchkes dedicated to John Wayne.

The face-off: 63-year-old Gloria Valles and her daughter, 33-year-old Brittney Valles-Gordon.

The debate: What else these days? Politics. For two hours on a recent morning, the ...Read more

With the tech takeover of Hollywood coming fast, legacy film studios now face an existential crisis. Paramount was swallowed by Skydance during a months-long $8 billion merger finalized in August. Warner Bros. is next, but this time the stakes may be higher.

With Netflix winning the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery— agreeing to pay more...Read more

Frank Gehry taught students at our nation’s most prestigious private universities, and at California’s most underresourced public schools, that their signatures were invaluable. He had them compare and contrast theirs with their classmates’: It was a simple but profound lesson in personal expression, in the importance of both knowing ...Read more

It is hard to imagine a worse decision than the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday allowing Texas to use its new congressional maps designed to elect five more Republicans to the House of Representatives. In a 6-3 decision, the six conservative justices have opened the door to states being able to adopt unconstitutional laws on voting — with...Read more

It's a bad look when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is ahead of you on scientifically sound health policy — women's health, to make matters worse — but that's exactly what happened to Gov. Gavin Newsom last week.

Ouch.

In a Cabinet meeting, Kennedy went on a six-minute-plus grovel to Trump. That's pretty standard for these increasingly weird ...Read more

The angry queries from GOP legislators over possible U.S. military war crimes in the Caribbean are welcome. Yet, too many Republicans avoid the urgent question that hangs over the killing of more than 80 people allegedly smuggling drugs in small boats: Why is a massive American armada hovering off Venezuela in the first place?

The official ...Read more

For a while, it seemed Elizabeth Holmes was everywhere.

Peering wide-eyed and black-turtlenecked from a shelf load of magazine covers. Honored as a "Woman of the Year" by Glamour. Touted as one of Time's "100 Most Influential People."

At age 30, Holmes was regarded as a preternatural business talent — and, more impressively, described as ...Read more

In early September, officials in Utah announced a plan to build an encampment just outside Salt Lake City where up to 1,300 people experiencing homelessness would be forced to receive treatment for mental health challenges. Unhoused people who refuse to stay in this state-run facility could instead end up in jail.

Forcing people to relocate to ...Read more

The Supreme Court heard arguments last week in one of the few First Amendment cases it will decide this term, and the justices appeared poised to side with defenders of free speech.

The case involves a group of faith-based woman’s reproductive clinics that were targeted by the Democratic New Jersey attorney general, who alleged that they may ...Read more

If you're even minimally attuned to the zeitgeist, you've heard the term "AI slop." It's a generalized disdain for almost anything generated by "artificial intelligence," as though the involvement of AI at all renders the product suspect, even dangerous.

It's easy to say that AI slop is everywhere. "AI slop is clogging your brain," warns NPR.

...Read more

Although we have replaced our jack-o-lanterns and skeletons with evergreen wreaths and festive lights, the specter of masked Halloween figures continues to haunt our community. In my leafy suburb just outside of Chicago, on Oct. 31, our normally bustling evening of trick-or-treating was eerily quiet. Federal immigration agents’ aggressive and ...Read more

Tulsa Remote has become a national success story: the poster child for a new American experiment, luring remote workers from coastal hubs with cash and charm.

The program offers remote workers $10,000 to relocate, with the intention of bringing in new talent, new incomes and glowing headlines. This summer the Los Angeles Times glowingly ...Read more

We are nearing a tipping point with artificial intelligence. Scientists call it the singularity — the moment when machine intelligence surpasses our own. Some experts warn that it could come as soon as next year. AI already writes our code, drives our cars and designs our weapons — yet no one truly controls it.

In Guillermo del Toro’s ...Read more

By his account, Donald Trump has been repeatedly denied the Nobel Peace Prize he was due. Like the 1980s standup comedian Rodney Dangerfield, he complains: “I don’t get no respect.”

This time, Trump is determined by hook or crook or shady diplomacy to get a Nobel. He’s proposed a peace plan to end Russia’s bloody war in Ukraine.

In ...Read more

President Donald Trump has always been just insider-enough to placate the Republican establishment and just outsider-enough to excite conservative populists. But keeping that political coalition together will be difficult for his successor in 2028.

Indeed, less than a year into Trump’s second presidency, the electoral consortium that made him...Read more

For the first time in the group’s 17-year history, the G20 summit in Johannesburg last month was marked by a complete absence of the United States at the negotiating table. The situation was made all the more striking by the fact that the meeting had been held just days before the U.S. government took over the G20’s rotating, yearlong ...Read more

We are starting to see the consequences of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s open disdain for military lawyers. The recent war crime allegation reported by The Washington Post was a long time coming.

Since September, Hegseth has ordered at least 21 strikes on civilian fishing boats in international waters, killing more than 80 people so far in...Read more