Easter is coming, and families may be thinking twice about shelling out $8 or more for a dozen eggs to decorate. Here’s a better idea: Use potatoes!

If any food truly represents the rebirth and fresh beginnings of Easter, it’s the potato — one of the first crops that can be planted in early spring, often as soon as the ground is workable....Read more

It was time. Time, in late March, for me to see what early January had done.

From the flats of Pasadena, I drove uphill, into Altadena, with my heart going steadily downhill at each ashen block.

On the radio, KUSC was playing one of the most celebrated of operatic works, a poignant duet from "The Pearl Fishers," the music of friendship and ...Read more

What the century scholars call “the democratic century” appears to have ended on January 20, 2025, when Donald Trump was sworn in as America’s 47th president. It came almost one hundred years after German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolph Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.

Let me be clear. Trump is not America’s Hitler.

He ...Read more

Bad policies have consequences. Nevada Democrats who look to California for inspiration would do well to keep that simple truism in mind.

Two years ago, Golden State Gov. Gavin Newsom made a show of signing legislation to crack down on Big Oil for “price gouging.” California consistently has the highest gasoline prices in the country and ...Read more

As a missionary for five years in Ethiopia, then minister at a large church in Southern California for 11, I’ve been keenly aware of people’s need for certainty — spiritual, personal, political, professional.

The doubt of living through unfolding history can be acute, all the more so when news cycles spin faster than ever before and we ...Read more

Big law firms that have offended President Donald Trump for representing a cause or client he doesn’t like are being forced to make a choice: Either cut a deal with him to protect their billion-dollar businesses, or sue him to assert their right to continue representing clients as they please.

It was extremely disappointing when Paul, Weiss, ...Read more

As President Donald Trump laid out his case for sweeping new tariffs, it sounded reasonable. He was only imposing on other countries the burden they impose on us. Those tariffs, he said, would boost our national revenue and decrease our deficit. He recalled a wealthy America 150 years ago funded entirely by tariffs instead of a pesky income tax,...Read more

Sometimes, a small incident reveals larger truths about our world. Consider reports that some North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies are rethinking plans to buy American-made F-35 fighters. This story isn’t just about a plane: It is a window into the remarkable power imbalances and dependencies at the heart of the modern international ...Read more

As antacid-chugging Americans watched their portfolios and retirement account balances drop Thursday, it was easy to forget another consequence of Donald Trump’s ill-considered splaying the day before of new U.S. tariffs on nations large, small and uninhabited.

The likelihood of this nation losing its role as a global leader, leadership being...Read more

Investors crushed the stocks of consumer discretionary companies on Thursday in response to President Donald Trump’s tariff announcement, making little distinction between home goods companies such as Williams-Sonoma Inc., apparel names including Nike Inc. or restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory Inc. The concern about consumers makes sense; ...Read more

This past week, the Sundance Film Festival announced it will soon leave its four-decade-plus home in Park City, Utah, for Boulder, Colorado. The gut reaction from many was “Why did they leave?” Some close watchers answered by focusing on the “political” angle to explain the hop over the state line — that it was all about “leaving the...Read more

Not yet three months into a second term, President Donald Trump has taken difficult, but necessary, actions to rein in the scope of a federal government on a fiscally unsustainable path. He is also working with Republicans in Congress to extend his 2017 tax cut bill, allowing Americans to keep more of their own money. These are positive steps.

...Read more

As Democrats attempt to unite around a new economic populism, Republicans can hardly believe their luck. Five months after President Donald Trump defeated then-Vice President Kamala Harris to win a White House encore, Democrats are still refusing to jettison the politically damaging progressive dogma on cultural issues — blunting any advantage...Read more

The first two months of Donald Trump’s second presidency have been marked by a whirlwind of dangerous climate-related executive orders and frightening, fossil fuel industry-friendly cabinet confirmations.

Every day makes more clear what climate advocates have been warning us about: Trump is actively and deliberately destroying any hope of ...Read more

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s grand plan for Making America Healthy Again is taking shape. It centers on dismantling the public health systems that have kept Americans safe for decades.

The damage from sweeping cuts this week at the Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy oversees, will be felt within public health, the biomedical ...Read more

Any Supreme Court case involving Planned Parenthood is likely to attract attention, and Medina v. Planned Parenthood, argued on April 2, is no exception.

But this case’s implications go far beyond Planned Parenthood. The court’s decision could open the door even wider for lawsuits against any number of federal spending programs.

In this ...Read more

The concept of the common good in American society has undergone a remarkable transformation since the nation's founding. What began as a clear, if contested, vision of collective welfare has splintered into something far more complex and individualistic. This shift reflects changing times and a fundamental reimagining of what we owe each other ...Read more

Lawyers know that President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting individual law firms, and now, the entire legal profession, are illegal and unconstitutional.

The situation puts a choice to every lawyer and every law firm. Do you fight – speak out and act out against this lawless behavior? Or do you accommodate it, keep your head down...Read more

Something new has entered American consciousness: fear of the state.

Not since the Red Scares (the first one followed the Russian Revolution and World War I, and the second followed World War II and the outbreak of the Cold War) has the state taken such an active role in political intervention.

The state under Donald Trump has a special ...Read more

The death penalty should be off the table for Luigi Mangione, accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. And not for any reason sympathetic to Mangione.

Attaching the death penalty to Mangione’s trial would only make a martyr out of an accused killer who has already inspired zealous support among legions of fans.

Ever since ...Read more