President Trump’s executive order seeking to impose federal oversight on state-run elections is not needed and is not legal. And tasking Elon Musk’s incompetent DOGE team makes it even worse. Voter fraud and multiple votes by the same person in a single election is a largely nonexistent bogeyman of Trump’s. Voting by people who are not U.S...Read more

If you've driven on the freeway in recent years, been to the grocery store, attended a movie or a live performance — heck, if you've been at all sentient — the findings of a new poll will startle you about as much as the sun rising at dawn and setting at dusk.

America has gotten ruder.

At least, that's how a plurality of Americans perceive...Read more

On March 12, French artists, DJs, and musicians united to fight the threat of the far-right government in France that they felt was a threat to democracy in their country.

More than 1,200 artists, DJs, and promoters from the French music industry came together to galvanize “the world of the night” into political action and to protest the ...Read more

Of all the things Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is trying to do in Washington, putting the squeeze on government contractors is generating the least popular backlash. There’s a widespread and seemingly bipartisan belief that, as tech entrepreneur and Obama administration veteran Josh Miller put it on X a few weeks ago, “...Read more

Anyone who has been fired, or knows someone who has, must be shocked at the callousness of Elon Musk talking about taking a “chain saw” to agencies and Russell Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget, saying he wants government employees to be “traumatically affected” and “viewed as villains.” Making trauma for government...Read more

Attention, please!

We are losing the liberty of controlling our own minds. And education must be restructured to meet this challenge.

The corporations that define our economy are manipulating and harvesting our individual focus in unprecedented ways. This is “attention capitalism,” and authors Chris Hayes and Jonathan Haidt have each ...Read more

Some years back, I fired off a forgettable social media post referencing the “three co-equal branches” of government. A friend — a smart journalist steeped in American political history — responded with a gentle correction reminding me that Congress was the “supreme branch,” befitting its Article I status in the United States ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Trump administration’s screwup texting about military attack plans while using an unsecured app instantly reminded me of a phone call I made when Ronald Reagan was president.

The anecdote illustrates the contrast in competence and grasp of real world dangers between Reagan’s team and Trump’s toadies — and ...Read more

In a moment defined by fracture and division, a surprising development has emerged in America's religious landscape. The decades-long decline of Christianity is leveling off.

According to new research from the Pew Research Center, the share of Americans identifying as Christian has stabilized at around 62% — a dramatic shift from previous ...Read more

About 63% of U.S. public school students now have the freedom to choose not to dissect animals, according to data published in the journal The American Biology Teacher. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have passed dissection-choice laws, which give young learners the ability to complete a similar assignment using a modern, ...Read more

President Donald Trump likes superlatives: He often asserts that everything—the economy, the military, his ratings—is better, bigger and stronger than ever before. Everything is at levels no one’s ever seen. That’s what everyone is saying.

It’s certainly true for presidential impeachments. The United States had experienced only two of...Read more

By now, most newspaper readers know the basics: Somehow, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and a dozen other high-ranking officials were chatting on ...Read more

Oskar Jakob, 94, is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who once assembled V-1 flying bombs in a subterranean concentration camp, and I’m the granddaughter of the engineer who developed those secret Nazi super weapons. Despite or perhaps because of our respective histories, we’ve worked to become friends. And while I’ve known Oskar for a few years...Read more

While seeking another stay in the White House, Donald J. Trump did what most politicians do: promised the moon to those who might help him get elected. Trump also assured us that promises made would be promises kept. But as former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo is famously quoted, “You campaign in poetry. Some of the promises called for ...Read more

Some of the fiercest blowback in recent years against “diversity, equity and inclusion” greeted Stanford University in 2022 when it launched the website of its Elimination of Harmful Language initiative. Back then, it was the right that was appalled by the efforts to limit language.

Developed by campus experts in technology and inclusion, ...Read more

I remember walking into my local library as a child, breathing in that distinct scent of books and possibility. The tall shelves, the peaceful atmosphere, the librarians who seemed to know exactly what book might capture my imagination. These experiences shaped my understanding of what it means to be part of a community that values knowledge.

...Read more

The stretch of Interstate 5 that runs through the heart of California’s sunbaked Central Valley would be forgettable if not for the stench of manure. Cattle ranches, some tightly packed with livestock, sprawl to the horizon.

As demand for meat continues to soar, it’s hard to blame these hardworking ranchers for earning a living. Yet the ...Read more

There are many intriguing mansions in the great house of MAGA but perhaps the most intriguing of all has its own name: MAHA or Make America Healthy Again. America undeniably suffers from a serious health crisis: Almost half of Americans have high blood pressure, three-quarters are obese or overweight, and 15% have type 2 diabetes. Previous ...Read more

Fort Knox, home to much of the nation’s gold reserves, doesn’t get many visitors. That may soon change: President Donald Trump and his sidekick, Elon Musk, claim there’s a chance someone has stolen the shiny stuff. They want to visit and see it with their own eyes.

It’s tempting to dismiss this demand as paranoid raving, but history ...Read more

“Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country!”

So began a recent post by President Donald Trump on social media. He seeks to end the practice that allows a judge in a single district to issue an order that blocks his policies from taking effect nationwide. His proposal is ...Read more