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

Amid all the blaring headlines coming out of Washington, here’s a piece of news that is getting far too little attention: The U.S. is on course for fiscal breakdown.

That’s the unambiguous message from the Congressional Budget Office’s newly updated long-term projections. Unless Congress changes course, there’ll be a reckoning, and it ...Read more

We all know an emergency when we see one — in our personal lives, it can be a car accident or a sudden illness. Emergencies happen to nations as well: Earthquakes and hurricanes, invasions and pandemics — they’re easy to recognize.

If you’re president, though, all bets are off. Congress gave presidents power to act in emergencies and ...Read more

One thing you can say in favor of President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday from the Rose Garden: He did what he promised during the campaign.

For months as stock markets gyrated on news and rumors of Trump’s tariff plans, with the president making protectionist pronouncements and then backtracking in the face of resistance from ...Read more

The old political adage that "where you stand depends upon where you sit" has been getting aired out in Washington.

Republicans and conservatives used to celebrate judges' issuance of nationwide court injunctions to block Biden policies or progressive government programs.

Now that nationwide court injunctions are being used to block Trump ...Read more

Linda McMahon, the new secretary of education, has her hands full. Her game plan is to dissolve the Department of Education. Given her business background, she would be wise to look at the state of financial literacy in the population as the “canary in the mine shaft” for not shuttering the department, but remaking K-12 education.

The ...Read more

Chicagoans got a taste of the macabre when a story broke last November of the discovery of the dead body of a woman found next to her own severed foot at the bottom of a South Loop stairwell.

But the story behind the grisly finding was all too familiar a tragedy. The dead woman was Caitlin Tracey, 36, who had reported multiple incidents of ...Read more

In the end, the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union accepted a contract that largely mirrored what Chicago Public Schools leadership had offered for months.

The spin, of course, from CTU and Mayor Brandon Johnson depicts this four-year labor deal as “transformative” for Chicago’s beleaguered public school system. “This is a ...Read more

According to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, Greenland and Canada have everything to gain and nothing to lose from being annexed to the United States.

"Denmark hasn't done a good job at keeping Greenland safe," Vance said at America's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland last week. Denmark, which oversees Greenland's ...Read more

Recent detentions and deportations of international students have sparked controversy, raising concerns about the long-term damage to the United States’ reputation as the global leader in higher education. Meanwhile, the increasing number of U.S. students studying abroad underscores the importance of international academic exchanges.

Several ...Read more

Since the COVID pandemic began five years ago, the U.S. has gone from being merely polarized to split into two separate and incompatible realities. Worse, according to a recently released survey, we lack a “common understanding of facts.” So much for the new normal.

Your reality depends on whether you identify with the political right or ...Read more

The World Trade Center Health Program, providing essential medical care to the heroes and the victims of 9/11, was spared a 20% Trump administration budget cut in February only when Republican members of Congress from New York fought back and saved the WTCHP. Those members must now ride to the rescue again.

GOP Reps. Andrew Garbarino, Nick ...Read more

I am one of thousands of Americans sitting in limbo while working abroad on a Fulbright grant. The recent funding freezes have left many of us stranded in foreign countries without funds or guidance on how to proceed. Rather than just detailing this crisis, I want to illustrate Fulbright’s importance through my experience as an English ...Read more