A strange quirk at San Quentin state prison is that most of those incarcerated behind its towering walls are unable to see the San Francisco Bay that literally laps at the shore a few yards away.

That changed recently with the completion of new buildings — holding among other accouterments a self-serve kitchen, a library, a cafe and a film ...Read more

This is the Year of the Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac — but for the White House, it's more like the Year of Babies.

No, not the ones in the Trump administration. Actual babies.

Parents can take advantage of a larger child tax credit. July 5 will see the launch of $1,000 stock investments funded by the Treasury Department for children born...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Throughout Operation Metro Surge the Trump administration repeatedly berated Minnesota for its lack of cooperation in this deportation operation. But if it wants more assistance from Minnesota and other states, it ought to try cooperating with state law enforcement agencies in investigating the homicides of Alex Pretti and Renee ...Read more

There have been times throughout history when a single event is so significant that it snowballs into international news. Think of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the killing of Osama bin Laden a decade later.

For Mexico, the killing of drug lord Nemesio Rubén ...Read more

Every morning over buckwheat pancakes and sausage, my father and grandfather would decide which fields to work that day and share an update about their cattle. Then, inevitably, the talk would move on to the low price of milk and the government’s part in it.

“It’s all a game,” my grandfather would declare, throwing up his hands. “They...Read more

Will 2026 be remembered as the year of the starter home? Since January, bills have been introduced in Florida, Connecticut, Maryland and at least nine other state legislatures to allow smaller houses on smaller lots. And in Massachusetts, voters will decide by referendum whether to override town zoning rules and allow small-lot houses across the...Read more

Your grandmother trusted her doctor. Your mother trusted Consumer Reports. You trust the 4.7-star rating from 2,300 strangers.

But if you’ve recently used the internet to look at reviews for a stroller, or even for help selecting a health insurance plan, you likely noticed that it’s not very helpful anymore. Real information has become ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Every farmer knows there comes a time to thin the crop to allow the most promising plants to grow bigger and reach their potential.

The same is true in politics. And it‘s now time to cull some Democrats from the dense field of candidates for governor.

Put another way, it’s time for some lagging Democrats to step ...Read more

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has a way of saying the quiet parts out loud in defending President Donald Trump's economic policies, told the truth again Friday, during a public appearance a few hours after the Supreme Court threw out most of Trump's tariffs.

Asked about the prospects that Americans would be receiving refunds of the ...Read more

U.S. politics is apt to conflate disagreements about whether a policy is good or bad with disputes about whether it is constitutional. Reactions to the Supreme Court’s ruling on President Donald Trump’s tariffs are a good example.

Most commentators seem drawn to one of two positions: The tariffs are either bad policy and an abuse of ...Read more

This month, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the individual entrusted with safeguarding the health of 330 million Americans — posted a 90-second video of himself and Kid Rock doing shirtless calisthenics in blue jeans, riding a stationary bike in the sauna, doing a slow-motion cold plunge and toasting glasses of...Read more

In November, I halted a rehearsal and walked out.

My choir was preparing for our winter concert at Chicago's Symphony Center. Thousands would attend the two performances. But the singers really struggled with Samuel Barber’s haunting “Agnus Dei,” which was to accompany huge overhead photographs of loved ones that our singers and staff had...Read more

SAN DIEGO — Light rain slicked the pavement in San Diego's East Village neighborhood on a recent morning, forcing some homeless people to scatter while others huddled under tents or slept through the drizzle.

I was on foot with Dr. Aaron Meyer, a psychiatrist frustrated by California's most visible crisis: The failure to provide help for ...Read more

Strikes by public employees aren’t good for the taxpayers, but they sure can be revealing.

This month, teachers in the San Francisco Unified School District went on strike. They wanted a 9 percent raise over two years and more funding for their health care plan. If those demands sound familiar, they should. No matter the rhetoric that ...Read more

It takes two to tango — and to reach a compromise.

The federal government’s Valentine’s Day deadline for an agreement on the Colorado River has come and gone. The seven states connected to the river failed to reach a deal on future water allocation. They also missed a deadline last November. Previous agreements will expire at the end of ...Read more

At 84, I am an analog guy in a digital world. Sure, I do Zoom meetings and check my smartphone too often. Yet my mental health suffers, I swear, from the almost vertical rate of societal change; political mayhem; transition from a human to digital-dominated world, and the sense that Big Brother’s cameras know my every move.

Stop the world, I ...Read more

The decline of California’s kelp forests since the marine heat wave of 2013-17 has seen only minor recovery despite heroic efforts at restoration carried out by scientists, fishermen, coastal tribes, volunteer divers and conservationists. Nor is the threat to kelp localized. Rather the loss, like the expansion of mega-wildfires on land from ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- A Nobel Peace Prize for Minneapolis? I say heck yes, knowing full well that this immodest boosterism is darn near heretical in Minnesota.

Politeness is hardwired into the North Star State. We famously don’t take the last doughnut in the box a colleague shares with the office. “That’s interesting” is about the worst we’...Read more

The Supreme Court’s decision invalidating President Donald Trump’s tariffs sends a clear and crucial message: The justices will not be a simple rubber stamp approving presidential actions. In the first year of Trump’s new term, 24 challenges to presidential actions came to the court, almost all on its emergency docket. In 22, the justices ...Read more

On Thursday morning, I awoke before dawn to the news that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, had been arrested in England on suspicion of misconduct related to his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. I immediately thought of the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the brave survivor of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking ring, who’d ...Read more