It was a cold, breezy October evening in 2015 when a foul odor swept through neighborhoods in the north San Fernando Valley. The smell — reminiscent of rotten eggs — invaded homes, forcing residents to seal windows and doors in vain. Soon many fell ill with headaches, rashes, nosebleeds and nausea. Those symptoms were only the beginning of a...Read more

A few years ago, I heard about a family who had surprised their children with what they thought was the “perfect” Christmas present: a tiny calico kitten named Freya, complete with a big red bow tied loosely around her neck. The kids were delighted and spent hours caring for their new family member. But by New Year’s Day, they had lost ...Read more

It’s time to stop treating the trafficking of deadly drugs as a non-violent crime.

President Joe Biden’s mass clemency spree last week included Lawrence, Massachusetts, woman Luz Perez DeMartinez, who was sentenced five years ago to 11 years in federal prison for participating in a large-scale fentanyl trafficking conspiracy. DeMartinez ...Read more

Kaream Akton Moore probably knew that the plastic bag that a stranger paid him $30 to deliver, one August day in 2023, contained drugs. He probably didn’t care. Moore, 42, had been caught in the cruel grip of addiction for nearly three decades at that point; he was homeless and destitute, living behind a Merritt Island apartment complex and ...Read more

It’s hard to imagine the holidays without “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The 1965 broadcast has become a staple of the season for many generations.

But this beloved TV special almost didn’t make it to air. CBS executives thought the 25-minute program was too slow, too serious and too different from the upbeat spectacles they imagined ...Read more

Defeated Democrats are looking for new ways forward, and one of their most articulate leaders is Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut. They should be “an aggressively economically populist party that builds a wide tent,” he says, “asking working class voters to come inside even if they don’t align with us on every social and cultural issue.�...Read more

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the once-indicted and once-impeached attack dog for right-wing causes, is trying to use the courts to impose his state’s harsh abortion limits elsewhere with his specious state lawsuit against New Paltz Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter for prescribing and sending abortion medications to a woman in Texas. He needs...Read more

A note to Europe’s leaders: When it comes to sending sufficient aid to help Ukraine end Russia’s invasion, if not now, when?

In October, I visited and wrote about a critical mine at Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, which had become the primary focus of Russia’s efforts to maximize the territory it holds amid looming economic pressures from ...Read more

After more than a century as a fixture on Main Streets across the country, one of Chicago’s signature companies is grabbing at a lifeline.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Walgreens Boots Alliance has engaged in talks to go private, which would end its nearly century-long run as a public company. The reported potential buyer is Sycamore ...Read more

Romania’s presidential election last month shocked the country and its government when Calin Georgescu, an obscure far-right candidate, secured the most votes in the first round.

Romania, an Eastern European country bordering Ukraine, has been a strong member of NATO for two decades and a member of the European Union for nearly as long. The ...Read more

FBI Director Chris Wray is resigning several years before the end of his statutory 10-year term for one, terrible reason: Donald Trump had promised to fire Wray when he’s sworn in as president next month and install the unqualified and unfit Kash Patel, a real disaster for justice.

With the exception of Trump, no president has ever fired an ...Read more

As President Joe Biden heads to the end of his time in the Oval Office, he is leaving with an act of compassion for those serving unnecessarily long federal prison sentences and who have perhaps been targeted by punitive laws that no longer fit in with our contemporary understandings of fairness and proportionality.

These grants of clemency ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee as the next director of the FBI, has big plans.

He has called for the prosecution of a long list of people he accuses of conspiring to undermine Trump, including President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and outgoing FBI Director ...Read more

When I first heard the phrase "rape culture" years ago, it sounded so dystopian that I wanted to believe it was an exaggeration.

But then came shocking revelations from all corners: the Catholic Church sex scandal, the Boy Scout sex scandal, the Fox News sex scandals, the Bill Cosby sex scandal and the numerous revelations of the #MeToo ...Read more

My MAGA friends keep telling me to just get over it. Election 2020 is history, they say. Donald Trump has been reelected, and we should, as J.D. Vance put it when pressed on the 2020 election during the vice presidential debate, focus on the future.

But the 2020 election is as much about the future as it is the past. It’s a mistake to just ...Read more

For almost 80 years, America’s nuclear arsenal has served as the ultimate guarantor of security for ourselves and our allies. But our missile systems are aging and are well past their programmed lifespan. Unless dramatic action is taken—and soon—it won’t be long before our adversaries can discount any threat from the U.S. nuclear arsenal...Read more

For many people, America has become a country where nothing works. And that is very bad for American democracy.

Daily life is filled with frustration, disappointed expectations and routine indignities. And that is very bad for American democracy.

For millions of Americans, it is hard to imagine a better future. And that is very bad for ...Read more

Donald Trump won Fresno County for the first time ever in the November election, and in fact the Republican president-elect made it a clean sweep of all the counties of the San Joaquin Valley.

But now California’s farm country faces a “be careful what you wish for” moment.

That is because the tariffs that Trump has said he wants to ...Read more