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

The resistance to Donald Trump has failed. He has now shaped American politics for nearly a decade, with four more years — at least — to go. A hard truth his opponents must accept: Trump is the most dominant American politician since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

This dominance unsettles and destabilizes American democracy. Trump is a would-be...Read more

Thirty years ago this fall, California’s Latino voters coalesced into a multigenerational ethnic voting bloc for the first time in response to a draconian, citizen-led initiative targeting immigrants who were in the state illegally. Proposition 187 sought to deny most of the state’s taxpayer-funded services to undocumented immigrants.

...Read more

What Donald Trump wants most, once he becomes President 2.0, is to throw the book at all his perceived enemies who were – and may still be – embedded in the bowels of Official Washington.

So, no wonder Trump rushed to choose as his designated-thrower and new FBI director the man who wrote the book that names the names of Trump’s perceived...Read more

The politics surrounding Nippon Steel Corp.’s controversial bid for United States Steel Corp. evidently haven’t improved since November’s election. Here’s what else hasn’t improved: the tortured rationale for rejecting the deal.

Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that President Joe Biden plans to block the $14.1 billion acquisition later...Read more

Donald Trump knows that in politics, sometimes you can win by losing.

After making immigration reform a focus of his campaign, Trump, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” promised to end birthright citizenship, calling the concept “ridiculous.” Perhaps the president-elect disfavors citizenship for people born in the U.S. as a ...Read more

The aerospace industry was relieved last year when the Federal Aviation Administration, the main regulator for all things that fly, finally got an administrator after an 18-month vacancy.

The choice, Michael Whitaker, was hailed as a true aviation expert. His resume portrayed a wide range of industry experience, including as an FAA deputy ...Read more

For many parents in middle age and beyond, the prospect of having grandchildren awaits as one of life’s undisputed joys. What could be controversial about wanting to deepen familial ties and savor spending time with one’s adorable progeny — this time without middle-of-the-night feedings?

Yet the longing for grandchildren became cannon ...Read more

Republicans should be enjoying a blissful post-election honeymoon, if only they could stop bickering long enough to bask in that loving feeling.

Instead of building on the coalition that carried Donald Trump back to the White House and the GOP to full control of Congress, the party is doing what it did in 2016, driving out anyone who fails a ...Read more

Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is being hailed by many as a hero.

There’s something profoundly wrong with that.

From the time of Thompson’s murder on a Manhattan street caught in surveillance camera photos, to snippets of Mangione’s alleged movements while on the run, online praise for Mangione...Read more

The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan has spotlighted the fury that many Americans feel toward the nation’s dysfunctional health insurance system.

It has also tapped a profane undercurrent in national discourse today that makes otherwise rational people think it’s acceptable to express such fury with dehumanizing ...Read more

When I was a kid, going to the mall for our family’s annual Christmas shopping trip was an event. We looked forward to it every year. But the joy of those outings came to an end when one year, a horse who was hauling shoppers around the icy parking lot in a carriage stumbled and collapsed. Heaving and wide-eyed, the horse was in obvious ...Read more

Thank Israel’s resolve for helping to topple Syria’s dictatorship.

Over the weekend, rebel forces succeeded in running strongman Bashar Assad out of Damascus. After his father ruled for 30 years, Assad took over in 2000 and ran Syria “with an iron fist that crushed all dissent and relied heavily on the country’s feared security forces,�...Read more

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in private and public university admissions. Now a federal district court has upheld essentially the same practice as used by the U.S. Naval Academy. Although that might seem inconsistent, it isn’t. The Supreme Court specifically exempted the military academies from its ruling, and...Read more

The NFL season is well past the halfway point, with eyes focused on the 2025 Super Bowl in New Orleans, now just two months away.

The Detroit Lions and the Kansas City Chiefs have set the standard for excellence this season, despite some recent nail-biters, with both sporting near-perfect records. Close behind are teams like the Minnesota ...Read more

Pharmacies in the United States are closing at an alarming rate. The ACT Pharmacy Collaborative, a partnership between community pharmacy networks and academia, reported that 244 pharmacies closed in just the first six weeks of 2024. Similarly, Rite-Aid has closed 500 stores, CVS will close another 300 stores by the end of the year and Walgreens...Read more

I’ve always had an ambivalent relationship with Starbucks. But especially post-pandemic, the java juggernaut has become my coffee shop of last resort. And I’m not alone — U.S. sales in the latest quarter were down 6% compared with a year earlier.

The company’s new chief executive recently sketched out a rescue plan that includes ...Read more

Thirty-one years ago, my husband, Bruce, and I took on the role of a lifetime. I became the legal guardian, and Bruce the caregiver, for my nephew Dan Bivins, who was 7 years old at the time and born with Down syndrome. That still stands as one of the luckiest days of my life.

Dan has since come far toward taking care of himself and living a ...Read more