The government shutdown may be over, but Congress still hasn’t solved the biggest problem left on its plate: Extend the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies to avoid a doubling of insurance premiums or replace them with something new altogether. Lawmakers have committed to a vote in December.

While public debate about the issue has centered...Read more

President Donald Trump and Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth, at first glance, do not look like a natural match.

Hegseth joined the Minnesota Army National Guard in 2003 and served tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trump, on the other hand, followed the path of other white guys with resources and avoided military service altogether ...Read more

In a stunning decision that defies all expert advice and scientific evidence, the influential group that shapes U.S. vaccine policy will no longer recommend that all infants receive the hepatitis B vaccination shortly after birth.

It’s a dangerous change that will cause real harm, made by a panel — the Centers for Disease Control and ...Read more

President Donald Trump had a blunt message for anyone struggling to make ends meet: He does not feel your pain.

During a lengthy cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the president called the issue of affordability a “fake narrative.”

Between nodding off and a racist rant, Trump declared during the gathering that the cost-of-living squeeze felt by ...Read more

A profound unraveling is underway in the American Southwest, happening across a thousand-mile arc from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the central Sierra. In an unprecedented calamity, the most widely distributed, most iconic tree of the region — the beautiful ponderosa pine — is disappearing. So significant is this loss, both visually and ...Read more

It’s hard enough for most of us to predict what we’re having for dinner tonight, much less how the the world will look in 2100. By that time we might have cured cancer and started building giant space brains. Or maybe we’ll be nothing but batteries for our robot overlords. Or spraying crops with a sports drink.

And yet without such ...Read more

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