In 2006, three days after a 14-year-old boy named José was shot and killed in front of his house, I rang his mother’s doorbell holding nothing but a handwritten condolence note from a city councilman.

I was 27, a former cocktail waitress and aspiring actress who had stumbled into a job as a field deputy for the City of Los Angeles. For years...Read more

In between patients at my oncology clinic, I couldn’t catch my breath. I asked my nurse to check my oxygen level and pulse. My chest felt heavy, as if something were pressing on it.

I sat in the same examination chair my patients use, watching the monitor and running through possible diagnoses. But I knew what this was.

A panic attack.

My ...Read more

When the speaker of the Texas House recently outlined his priorities for the next legislative session, he mentioned tax relief, the development of data centers and a notion that sent many eyebrows skyward.

Dustin Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock, directed the chamber's governmental oversight committee to study the legal and economic ...Read more

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s newest book, “Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry” is an easy read that packs a lot into its roughly 60 pages.

The tiny tome is the text of the closing lecture at the Library of Congress that Limón delivered last April, as she finished her term as Poet Laureate. She wanted, she said, “to make...Read more

Amid all the alarming and unhinged comments of the president of the United States in recent days threatening Iran with genocide — remarks beyond even the usual cray-cray blather from Donald Trump — it was a statement from his spokesperson on Tuesday that really put the madness in the White House in perspective.

"Only the President knows ...Read more

Michael Gates is basing his run for California attorney general on his decade-long reign as Huntington Beach's top lawman.

When we met at a Starbucks a block away from City Hall, he rattled off his hometown's bona fides: A drop in crime and homelessness. Tourists from across the world. A thriving Main Street. A small-town feel "almost like the ...Read more

It’s spring, which means kitten season—the time of year when shelters are inundated with calls from people who find tiny, defenseless kittens outdoors and want to help. Increasingly, the response they hear is not “bring them in,” but “leave them where you found them.” Yes, really.

At the same time, a multimillion-dollar “no-kill�...Read more

Americans’ fatigue is rising as costs climb, crises multiply, and leaders focus on spectacle instead of solutions. This exhaustion is not personal — it is political, weakening the Republic's guardrails.

Across party lines, Americans are drained of energy and trust. A nonstop cycle of crises leaves little room to absorb or recover from each ...Read more

It’s often said a parent’s love can’t be measured, but a recent survey on youth sports may come close. For each day a child plays a sport, researchers found, parents expend three hours and 23 minutes in effort: organizing and driving, watching games and practices, making snacks and doing laundry.

Then there’s the money. At $40 billion ...Read more

Like most Americans, we were relieved that President Donald Trump’s potentially cataclysmic pledge to kill off Iranian civilization Tuesday night did not proceed as the president’s unacceptably violent rhetoric had threatened.

A ceasefire, even a fragile ceasefire, coupled with negotiation is far preferable to the bombing of civilian ...Read more

Given the charged and, at times, apocalyptic rhetoric coming from the White House in recent days — particularly President Donald Trump’s warning that a “whole civilization will die tonight” — absent a deal, the newly announced two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran is a welcome development.

But it is only a pause. The ...Read more

Stocks soared and oil prices cratered on Wednesday after the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire in the ongoing conflict. But whether the fragile peace can hold for that long remains the looming question. It’s in Iran’s hands.

The deal came after President Donald Trump had threatened Iran in increasing apocalyptic terms, ...Read more

As the tenuous two-week ceasefire with Tehran wobbles already, there is a new reality in the Middle East. But it’s not the one President Donald Trump thought he would achieve when he started the Iran war.

Both sides are already quarreling over the terms of the ceasefire, and are miles apart in their positions, with opening negotiations ...Read more

A ceasefire now appears to be holding between the United States and Iran, the result of President Donald Trump's repeated threats against the country to open the Strait of Hormuz and resume global commerce.

It's a significant development. It may even be the outcome Trump was aiming for.

But even if it holds — even if it becomes lasting peace...Read more

Pa. Gov. Josh Shapiro is correct to join 23 other states in challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that instructs the U.S. Postal Service to regulate mail-in voting across the 50 states. The states have the Constitution on their side.

It is particularly brazen for the president to attempt to use federal power to regulate ...Read more

The long-promised bankruptcy of Social Security is coming into view, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warning checks could be automatically cut by 20% in just six years.

Will we spend our golden years driving delivery for the golden arches?

The CBO is warning that, under current law, Social Security checks will automatically shrink ...Read more

Tax day is nearly upon us, reigniting the debate over President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, passed in 2017 and extended last year. In a front-page story last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that last year’s legislation is “delivering bigger refunds and smaller tax bills to high-income Democratic-leaning regions that didn’t vote” ...Read more

Student test scores aren’t looking good, and schools aren’t being held accountable for poor results. That’s not even considering whether the right things are being tested.

I learned this the hard way. My family is zoned for a high-performing public elementary school in Texas — one where students consistently score above average on ...Read more

What must it be like, we wonder, to be an American child in the era of President Donald Trump?

Prior to this president, it was long understood that presidents, be they Democratic or Republican, should avoid rhetoric unfit for a family audience. That’s not to say they did not speak of serious matters, nor that they sometimes discussed that ...Read more