We ply our trade with words and we like to think they have weight. But the wild Donald Trump-Zohran Mamdani news conference at the White House Friday almost convinced us of the opposite. When it comes to saying what we mean, or not, America has gone totally bananas.

Consider: Mamdani has often said Trump is a “despot who betrayed the country�...Read more

For generations, home ownership has been part of the very definition of capturing the American dream. First-time buyers face a process that can be both exciting and daunting—the right home, in the right community, and with the right financing.

As housing costs continue to rise and first-time home purchases are being delayed more than ever, ...Read more

When the president of the United States pointed angrily at a reporter and called her "piggy" last week, I wish she had gone full Muppet: "Who? Moi?"

Of course, Bloomberg White House reporter Catherine Lucey did nothing of the sort. She was a consummate professional and did not respond to President Donald Trump's gratuitous insult after she ...Read more

The bloodstains are visible from space.

In the last weeks, the Rapid Support Forces — one party in Sudan’s years-long civil war — captured the desert city of el-Fasher after a 17-month siege. Since then, fighters have embarked on a campaign of horrors: lining up and executing civilians, systematically killing patients in the city’s last...Read more

There are plenty of sophisticated materials that the world is counting on to limit global warming. Polysilicon for solar panels. Rare-earth magnets for wind turbines. Lithium for electric vehicle batteries. But propane?

Believe it or not, the fossil hydrocarbon — produced from oil and gas wells, and mostly used as a cooking and heating fuel ...Read more

For followers of medical disinformation, the claim that autism is linked to childhood vaccinations is the reddest of red flags. The issue is among the most intensively studied in the scientific literature, and the results among the most conclusive: There's no connection.

That's why the revision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...Read more

A federal judge has dismissed indictments against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The move should be a lesson for the White House.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie, appointed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, sided with Comey, who had argued that the prosecutor who brought the case ...Read more

By now, Americans have become familiar with seeing masked federal agents snatching people off the street and outside courthouses. Separations of families of asylum seekers and other non-citizens, and occasionally even citizens, are all part of the malevolence of U.S. immigration policy.

But far less attention has gone to another measure that ...Read more

It is no secret that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are under attack in our country. They have been blamed for undermining free speech, meritocracy, and America itself. The University of Virginia is the latest to settle with the government and walk away from its DEI initiatives rather than defend its programs or find a new ...Read more

Science has always relied on young innovators to drive progress. In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, still PhD students, founded Google. More recently, in 2020 and 2021, Kizzmekia Corbett, then a senior research fellow at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Vaccine Research Center, led a team of scientists in developing the COVID-19 ...Read more

The U.S. military runs on hierarchy. Orders flow down the chain of command, and discipline keeps everything moving in sync. That structure is what allows the armed forces to act quickly and effectively, even in the toughest situations.

But the system also recognizes a hard truth: Not every order is automatically lawful. That’s why there are ...Read more

Two stories anchor our oldest holiday. Both took place in times of division and deprivation. And both offer a hopeful note about who we can be when we try.

The first, of course, unfolds in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. After a devastating first winter that wiped out nearly half the pilgrims, the Wampanoag people taught the survivors to ...Read more

More than half a million women left the labor force this year. Many are mothers with young children. It's being called the next she-cession.

This may be a good thing to the extent that it reflects women’s preferences, such as wanting to spend more time with their families, or that it represents the improved ability of a partner to support a ...Read more

The recent presidential pardons of figures who tried to overturn the 2020 election are part of a broader effort to rewrite one of the most sordid episodes in recent memory. The effort should be rejected, and the pardon power — abused by presidents of both parties for far too long — needs to be reined in.

Earlier this month, the president ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — To be elected governor of California, a candidate needs six vital assets.

Maybe not the entire six-pack, but almost. They include:

–A salable message. How’s the candidate going to make life better for the voter? Specifics, not just poll-generated platitudes. And beating up on President Trump isn’t going to be ...Read more

Today we discuss Texas, overreaction and the voluminous field of candidates for California governor.

Is there anyone who is not running for governor?

I'm not. And neither are my two cats. At least they weren't as of this morning, when we discussed the race before breakfast.

That leaves us somewhat short of the 135 candidates who ran in ...Read more

In a video posted to X late Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., announced she’d be resigning from Congress in early January, only halfway through her third term. Greene explained the decision in a direct-to-camera speech from her home, saying she’s “always been despised in Washington, D.C., and just never fit in” and suggesting ...Read more

When President Donald Trump claimed that members of Congress deserved the death penalty last week, he showed yet again that he doesn’t respect the rule of law.The president turned to social media Thursday morning to accuse six Democratic members of Congress of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.” The commander in chief made this ...Read more

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell famously described the high inflation that had just started dragging down U.S. consumers in July 2021 as “transitory.” His word choice suggested that elevated inflation, like stormy weather, would soon pass.

But not only have high prices persisted, inflation rates have remained elevated since the ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s tight grip on the GOP, long assumed to be an inevitable feature of American life (like gravity or the McRib’s seasonal return), has started to loosen.

Republicans are now openly defying him. The man who once ruled the GOP like a casino boss can’t even strong-arm Indiana Republicans into gerrymandering themselves ...Read more