“Will it pass?” a Republican donor and occasional source from New York asked me, referring to the sweeping $2.5 trillion reconciliation package of tax cuts and fresh spending priorities working its way through Congress.

I’ve been getting that question a lot lately. Mostly, I hear from interested political observers who work in business or...Read more

From Istanbul to the Vatican to the Oval Office, everyone seems to want peace in Ukraine — except Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin says it prefers to end the brutal war it launched in 2022 through “political and diplomatic means,” but that’s like a pickpocket claiming to prefer charity: The bluff only works if others fall for it. Ukraine’s ...Read more

These are nervous times in the food industry. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy is centralizing control of health-related agencies under his authority. He’s advancing his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign by, paradoxically, slashing more than 80,000 from the federal health workforce. That sets the stage for what ...Read more

For many college students these days, life is a breeze. Assignments that once demanded days of diligent research can be accomplished in minutes. Polished essays are available, on demand, for any topic under the sun. No need to trudge through Dickens or Demosthenes; all the relevant material can be instantly summarized after a single chatbot ...Read more

Imagine President Donald Trump waking up to the news that California faces a $12 billion deficit, and instead of letting the state reckon with its budget bloat, announcing a plan to make taxpayers in West Virginia, Ohio and the Dakotas help bail out the likes of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Unfortunately, a small band of Republicans in the House has been ...Read more

When Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy visited Philly Shipyard, they did more than highlight Philadelphia’s leading role in the Trump administration’s effort to revitalize the American shipbuilding industry. They emphasized the positive economic effect this effort will have at Philly Shipyard: “We�...Read more

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred recently removed Pete Rose’s permanent ban from baseball, which will make him eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame. Manfred reinstated 17 other banned players as well, including members of the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox who threw the World Series, including the team’s star “Shoeless” Joe Jackson....Read more

Door after door, the response was the same: “Why would I vote? It’s not going to change anything.” Even in Grand Rapids, Michigan, one of the key swing counties of the 2024 election, people felt despondent—powerless. But three months later, those neighbors had organized with hundreds of others in the city to win $20 million for their ...Read more

As Republicans work to advance their mega bill, the debate over the $10,000 cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes (SALT) is again heating up. GOP lawmakers from high-tax blue states, facing pressure from constituents burdened by aggressive state and local tax regimes, have been lobbying President Donald Trump and Republican ...Read more

The AI race that warrants the lion’s share of our attention and resources is not the one with China. Both superpowers should stop hurriedly pursuing AI advances for the sake of “beating” the other. We’ve seen such a race before. Both participants lose.

The real race is against an unacceptable status quo: declining lifespans, increasing...Read more

The president of the United States spent his Tuesday morning publicly harassing a 16-year-old high school junior. Her only crime? The talented student athlete won two California Interscholastic Federation titles in the girls’ long jump and triple jump at the Southern Section finals held Saturday and is now entitled to compete in the state ...Read more

The recent Blue Origin space mission, and its all-female crew, faced widespread criticism for their rocket’s climate impact. Although the purported mission of Blue Origin is to “restore and sustain Earth,” a few minutes in space is known to release more planet-warming carbon dioxide than 1 billion people will in their entire lifetime.

...Read more

I’m a woman of a certain age, and recently an influencer on Instagram asked me to join a new club: The We Do Not Care Club.

Actually, the influencer, known as Melani Sanders or “justbeingmelani,” said I could join if I wanted to. She really doesn’t care if I do.

Sanders is guileless and deadpan in her videos, “We are putting the ...Read more

They came to the baking desert to honor one of their own, a political professional, a legend and a throwback to a time when gatherings like this one — a companionable assembly of Republicans, Democrats and the odd newspaper columnist — weren't such a rare and noteworthy thing.

They came to bid a last farewell to Stuart Spencer, who died in ...Read more

The first couple of years of the Reagan administration were rough on most Americans. His 1981 cuts to safety net programs led to an additional 6 million people falling into poverty between 1980 and 1983. Coupled with an unemployment of nearly 11% during his first term, Reagan ended up raising taxes more than 10 times during his presidency to try...Read more

For millions of Americans, filing taxes is already a frustrating, time-consuming ordeal. Now, a free online tool that promised to make the process easier is under political threat.

Last month, The Associated Press reported the Internal Revenue Service is planning to eliminate its free Direct File tax-filing program, which debuted to positive ...Read more

Since news of the new pope, Robert Prevost, who assumed the name Leo XIV, hit the wires, he has been universally celebrated as being an American from Chicago.

But he’s also another important first, something that wasn’t divulged at the same time or with the same fanfare: the first known pontiff of demonstrable African descent. This is ...Read more

The Republican tax bill contains flashy goodies for families with kids. The flashiest: savings accounts for children — branded Trump Accounts — created and initially funded by the Treasury Department. These will consist of $1,000 in invested assets for each American citizen born through 2028, plus whatever funds parents later add.

So if you...Read more

I’m a 68-year-old baby boomer. I was born colored, then Negro, then African American, and now Black. Oh, and I am a Blesbian too.

I attended segregated schools more than a decade after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which was ruled three years before my birth. Thus, I was not surprised by the recent Pew Research Center survey finding ...Read more

Thanks to a recent blizzard of executive orders and late-night congressional maneuvers, the nation’s public lands have become the latest target in the giant sucking vortex of current American politics. The current administration is proposing that we the people sign away our invaluable citizen estate, ostensibly to “create jobs, fuel ...Read more