The Comet Ping Pong Pizzagate shooting, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a man’s livestreamed beheading of his father last year were all fueled by conspiracy theories. But while the headlines suggest that conspiratorial thinking is on the rise, this is not the case.

Research points to no increase in conspiratorial thinking. ...Read more

Elon Musk’s “America Party,” launched on July 5, sent shockwaves through Washington. It’s not likely to sweep the 2026 midterms, but it’s a loud signal that Silicon Valley and younger Americans are fed up with Democrats and Republicans dodging the national debt crisis. Politicians on both sides of the aisle would be wise to take ...Read more

Right now, it feels like America is being held together with duct tape. We’re living through a steady drumbeat of instability. And in all that chaos, one quiet crisis continues to unfold, largely ignored but deeply damaging.

America has a diaper problem.

Nearly half of all families with young children can’t afford enough diapers to keep ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The affordability agenda promised by Sacramento Democrats hasn’t had measurable impacts on the intractable problems of electricity, gasoline, property insurance, or housing, which are all too expensive. So lawmakers are now focusing on something they can achieve.

A bipartisan juggernaut is emerging to hold the line on ...Read more

"I'm going to give you everything you want," President Donald Trump told disaster-stricken residents and local officials. "I'm going to give you more than any president would have ever given you."

That was in January, in Los Angeles, in the wake of the catastrophic Palisades and Eaton fires. If Trump could express such magnanimity in California...Read more

Democrats are sure they’ve found a winning formula in instigating voter anger over Republican “cuts” to Medicaid. The progressive talking points are already set for the midterms: Thanks to the GOP and President Donald Trump, vulnerable men, women and children will lose their health care coverage and be thrown out of hospitals and onto the ...Read more

A college education used to be considered, along with homeownership, one of the key pillars of the American Dream. Is that still the case? Recent experiences of college graduates seeking employment raise questions about whether a university diploma remains the best pathway to pursuing happiness, as it once was.

Consider the case of recent grad ...Read more

When President Donald Trump signed his tax bill into law, he acknowledged it included deep spending cuts but suggested people “won’t even notice it.”

“The people are happy, they’re happy,” he added.

Judging from the reaction of Republican lawmakers, including those the swing states that will decide the partisan makeup of the House...Read more

I have been a pension nerd since I was 20 years old. So I have been hearing for literally decades that there is a simple, magical solution to all our retirement funding problems: Just take more risk! When the investments pay off, the coffers will be replenished and all will be well.

Now two U.S. senators, Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana ...Read more

The White House has hailed H.R. 1, aka the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as a “once-in-a-generation piece of legislation” that puts “America First.” Most of the public debate focused on its extension of lower taxes for the rich, the ballooning federal debt, and massive cuts in Medicaid spending. Yet equally important is what the act will ...Read more

DENVER — Roger Hutson was never a huge fan of Donald Trump.

In 2016, he supported Marco Rubio for president, helping raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for his Republican primary bid.

In 2024, Hutson worked with "No Labels," a group of Democrats, Republicans and independents, to forge a bipartisan ticket with the express purpose of ...Read more

Opinions of the One Big Beautiful Bill tend toward the extreme. One of its main authors calls it “the greatest piece of Republican legislation in a generation,” while one of its most authoritative critics says it makes him ashamed to be an American. So allow me to offer what counts as a radical view: The bill is neither as terrible as its ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Huntington Park High School Principal Carlos Garibaldi was preparing to host a graduation on his campus when frantic colleagues radioed him: Immigration is coming.

A fleet of trucks and vans was speeding up Miles Avenue in front of the school's main building.

School staffers followed the emergency plan that Garibaldi had ...Read more

When I saw the news a few weeks ago that President Donald Trump’s administration was trying to deport eight men to South Sudan, I was shocked. I had worked and lived in South Sudan as a diplomat and know the country well. It is on the brink of yet another civil war, and its government has a horrific human rights record. America’s own travel ...Read more

In victory, top chefs are much like the classiest of professional tennis players: self-deprecatory, admiring of their rivals, grateful to their teachers. A few weeks ago, just after his restaurant Maido was proclaimed No. 1 among the 50 Best Restaurants in the World at a ceremony in Turin, Italy, Mitsuharu Tsumura told me, “There is ...Read more

In a memo last month listing its law enforcement priorities, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice prioritized stripping citizenship from naturalized citizens who pose threats to the U.S., including national security dangers, terrorism, gang affiliations and fraud. Given the administration’s aggressive — and sometimes lawless — ...Read more

Welcome to 2025, where a memorial to a searing tragedy is deemed to be a political message, and improvements proven to make intersections safer are banned in the name of safety.

That’s the message behind the Trump administration’s evidence-bare attack on art painted on the asphalt of intersections. It’s a blow that hits particularly hard ...Read more

We’ve said little about Jeffrey Epstein, the serial sex offender who wormed his way into the upper echelons of elite America in no small part by trafficking underage teenage girls to powerful men. The affair is sordid, the conspiracy theories legion and much of the media coverage both exhausting and troublingly salacious.

But on Monday, the ...Read more

Earlier this year, I wrote about Jesreel Chimilio, a father of two from Philadelphia who was seized outside his home by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and whisked away for deportation.

His wife, Charlene Maddox Chimilio, came running out after him with their 9-month-old son, Zechariah, on her hip, but it was too late.

Neither ...Read more

I was born in 1957. The word “colored” is on my birth certificate. The civil rights movement educated me around race identity, and I now identify as Black or of African descent.

When I was growing up, there were only two pronouns to describe oneself: she and he. As for gender, you checked a box, male or female. Same for bathrooms—it was ...Read more