As a new workweek begins, here’s a reminder that businesses and investors hate uncertainty most of all.

President Donald Trump last week should have received that message clearly, as his will-he-or-won’t-he gyrations over tariffs on Canada and Mexico prompted a Wall Street sell-off. Before last week, markets were riding the Trump roller-...Read more

President Donald Trump’s recent declaration of English as the official language of the U.S. may seem relatively benign. Most residents already speak English and most immigrants are eager to learn it.

Under most presidents, such a directive might have been largely symbolic. After all, 32 states already have English as their official language. ...Read more

FAIRFIELD, Calif. — Michael Duncan was adjusting the screen on his front door when he paused recently to consider what he wants from California’s next governor.

Duncan admittedly hadn’t given the matter much thought. But when you get down to it, he said, the answer is fairly straightforward: Do the basics.

Fight crime. Fix the state’s...Read more

After the 2008 financial crash threw millions of Americans out of their homes, Congress created a new agency — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — to protect families from predatory financial firms.

Now President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are “winding down” this agency and ...Read more

If you want to make this country great, imagine the strength of a nation whose children have been fought for and know they have been fought for.

Last month, my son reached two years in remission from a rare, malignant cancer that almost took his eye and his life. He is alive, well and enjoying 20/20 vision because of a groundbreaking treatment ...Read more

To walk through Leicester Square in central London is to endure a pummeling of the senses. Its jostling tourists, the glaring lights of its supersized casino and M&M‘s store, and a backing track of buskers’ out-of-tune guitars put it among the worst places in one of the world’s best cities.

The area also symbolizes an inevitable truth ...Read more

After the presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump last June, I called my French, German and Ukrainian contacts to get their take. They felt Biden was doomed — along with the NATO alliance.

The president of the United States has guided the Free World since 1945, contributing to the fall of the Soviet Union. However, Trump’s �...Read more

Donald Trump is doing everything he can to help his friend Vladimir Putin prevail in Russia’s three-year long invasion of Ukraine and unfortunately it’s working on the battlefield.

Following the infamous Oval Office ambush by Trump and Vice President JD Vance of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the U.S. suspended military and ...Read more

In 1972, thousands of Californians came together in what was a defining moment in state history. They were united by fears that the spectacular coast was in danger of becoming overdeveloped, heavily industrialized, ecologically diminished and irreversibly privatized.

Rue Furch, a Sonoma State University student, signed on as a volunteer for ...Read more

I’ll concede that I’ve never read “The Art of the Deal,” nor have I done much deal-making myself. In fact, almost none.

But isn’t “deal” just another word for “compromise”? Doesn’t “deal” describe the middle ground that two parties with conflicting interests somehow hammer out for their mutual benefit?

If this is an ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Governors are like card sharks when dealing out budgets. They’ve usually got gimmicks tucked up their sleeves.

Legislatures tend to follow suit — at least when there’s lopsided one-party rule, as there has been in Sacramento for the last 14 years.

Budget season has just opened in California’s Capitol. Gov. Gavin...Read more

Democrats keep pointing fingers for reasons they lost last November. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new role leading the Department of Health and Human Services underscores an important factor deserving more attention: Democrats spent millions trying to bully Kennedy, Jill Stein, and other insurgents off the ballot rather than respect their ...Read more

It isn’t often in the fast-paced political news cycle that a single email can cause days of sustained frustration, and endless headlines, in Washington. And yet, that’s precisely what Elon Musk accomplished with his email asking federal employees to respond with an overview of what they had done the previous week.

In his capacity at DOGE,...Read more

Once upon a time, the conservative position on economics was easy to describe: It was in favor of free markets. In terms of public policy, this meant support for lower taxes, less regulation, smaller government and fiscal prudence. Republicans did not always adhere to those principles, but at least they aspired to them. Call them free-marketish....Read more

When Vice President JD Vance addressed the Paris AI Summit, he unknowingly made a strong case for public artificial intelligence infrastructure. His vision—of AI that empowers workers rather than displaces them, enables small businesses to compete with tech giants on a level playing field and delivers benefits to all Americans — cannot be ...Read more

On Jan.19, the last day of the Joe Biden presidency, I went to my neighborhood supermarket and priced 28 items, including milk, eggs, bacon and potatoes.

Six weeks into the second Donald Trump presidency, I went back to the same store and priced the same items.

Why?

Because during the last presidential election, voters repeatedly complained ...Read more

When I was a teenager, a professor my parents knew heard that I wanted to major in physics. Because I am blind, he told my parents that wouldn’t be possible: “Physicists,” he informed us, “have to be able to write on blackboards.”

I went on to earn a physics degree from UC Berkeley, proving him wrong about blackboards. But his warning...Read more

After years of grinding lower, a widely watched measure of fertility in a country battling significant demographic headwinds notched a small increase. While welcome, there’s little chance South Korea’s popular narrative of a nation blighted by empty schools and a deserted countryside will be put aside. Smaller families are here to stay.

...Read more

The Earth didn’t exactly shake when the New York Yankees announced that they would allow their players to wear beards. However, the change in the half-century-old policy could stand as a symbol of our cultural epoch. That’s because, for the first time in over a century, beards are coming to be seen as markers of the ruling class.

No, ...Read more

California can’t seem to decide whether it wants to maintain its status as the nation’s rooftop solar leader.

Two years after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointees slashed incentive payments for newly installed solar systems, there’s a chance they’ll go further, reducing energy credits for utility customers who installed solar panels before ...Read more