In 2006, Jimmy Carter published a controversial and best-selling book on Palestine with the word “apartheid” in the title. Then he went on a whirlwind book tour, captured on film by Jonathan Demme, to promote it. Carter spoke, signed books and calmly rebutted criticism and attacks with his trademark Sunday-school demeanor. Allies, including ...Read more

“I will never lie to you.” So went the plain-spoken refrain of Jimmy Carter, the man from Plains, whose improbable century-long journey came to an end on Sunday. Carter became the 39th president in no small part because voters felt that simple offer of honesty was sufficient after the turmoil of the Richard Nixon era. Unfortunately for ...Read more

WASHINGTON — I spent much of 2024 warning readers that a second Trump presidency would do serious damage to American institutions, beginning with democracy and the rule of law.

"The former president neither understands nor respects the Constitution," I wrote. "He would use the powers of the federal government as an instrument of his whims, ...Read more

President Joe Biden’s commutation of the death sentences of 37 out of 40 men on federal death row in advance of a Trump administration that’s eager to speed up executions was a meaningful act of principle, as was keeping three politically motivated mass murders waiting for the fatal needle.

The problems with the death penalty are well known...Read more

Nobody asked me, but there are basically two kinds of people in this world: One sees a nearly new scarf on a city sidewalk, picks it up and ties it to a drain pipe near where it was found (on Baltimore’s Fallsway, under the Orleans Street Viaduct) in the hope that its owner will find it there. The other takes it home, wraps it up and gives it ...Read more

Among President-elect Trump’s unconventional Cabinet choices, the potential appointment of one in particular worries me: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services.

RFK Jr. has long espoused anti-vaccine views, and they are promoted by his nonprofit Children’s Health Defense. During his presidential campaign, he ...Read more

A shocking story about a Texas congresswoman came out last week. A local reporter got a tip that, after quietly missing months of votes on Capitol Hill, Republican U.S. Rep. Kay Granger had moved into Traditions Senior Living, an assisted-living facility in Dallas.

When the reporter went to the facility to ask how Granger planned to vote on the...Read more

Forty years ago this month, a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, sprung a toxic gas leak, exposing half a million people to toxic fumes. Thousands of people lost their lives in the immediate aftermath, with the death toll climbing to more than 20,000 over the next two decades. Countless others, including children of survivors, ...Read more

A new Gallup poll shows Americans have about as much confidence in our legal system as people living in democracy-challenged nations like Syria, Venezuela, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That’s a shame but also understandable given how politicized our courts have become, and how too many judges have questionable ethics.

Americans�...Read more

In the midst of a flurry of presidential pardons and commutations by President Joe Biden, there is talk in the White House of preemptive pardons for people who could be at risk of prosecution by the next administration.

One of the top names reportedly mentioned is former chief medical adviser to Biden during COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fauci�...Read more

Many Americans fear what Donald Trump will do after assuming the presidency in January — and understandably so. Trump's pathological self-absorption has no place in American government, let alone at its very top.

But the specific type of threat Trump poses is often misunderstood. Like all presidents, his domestic powers are limited. He will ...Read more

After much back-and-forth, which the former congressman used to try to sow doubt and muddy the waters, the House Ethics Committee has released the full report of its investigation into Matt Gaetz, and it is not pretty, which is why it was so important for it to come out. Thank you to the Republicans on the panel who voted against the wishes of ...Read more

The ripple effects of the brawl that broke out between Ohio State and Michigan football players in late November are still spreading. A massive scrum ensued when celebrating Michigan players tried to plant a team flag on Ohio State’s field.

Are the fines levied on each team — $100,000 — too low for high-stakes college football? Was the ...Read more

As we wrote nearly two years ago when Jimmy Carter entered hospice care, “He was not a great president like Washington or Lincoln. Indeed, Carter had a troubled presidency for four years, but had a very successful post presidency for more than 40 years, promoting peace, democracy, human rights and development.”

Hospice generally means time ...Read more

He left office in a stunning landslide defeat after a single term as the nation’s 39th president. But Jimmy Carter wasn’t done yet.

Instead of withdrawing quietly from public life as most former presidents have, James Earl Carter Jr. went to work. As a champion for democracy, human rights, public health and housing the poor, he has been ...Read more

In the lives of public figures a tale often takes hold and that narrative becomes their story.

In the case of Jimmy Carter, it goes like this: A humble peanut farmer and former Georgia governor defies extraordinary odds and wins the White House, through a combination of virtue, decency and a post-Watergate political cleansing.

Over the next ...Read more

Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, might be one of the most popular people on the planet right now. Nearly a month after his militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) shocked the world by ending the Assad family’s 53-year reign of power in Syria, the onetime detainee in a U.S. military prison in Iraq is now the de facto...Read more

Lately, I made a point of reading the posts I normally skip on X, formerly Twitter – the ones that parrot disinformation as if it were well-known fact.

Some of these accounts have followings in the hundreds of thousands, including the likes of Elon Musk or the economist Jeffrey Sachs, so you may assume that much of what they write is true. ...Read more

For many, the real meaning of Christmas lies in sharing meals with family and friends. These feasts are often extravagant in style or size (or both) and are designed without our gut microbiomes and arteries in mind: Such is their joy.

They’re also often laden with tradition. My family’s festive table, however, has been through a series of ...Read more

America’s national debt would have horrified Ronald Reagan. When he inherited a nation on the cusp of an unnerving milestone of $1 trillion in debt in 1981, he described it as a problem that had grown “literally beyond our comprehension.”

“We can leave our children with an unrepayable massive debt and a shattered economy, or we can ...Read more