ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- As a newsman who has been on the job for nearly four decades, I'm embarrassed to admit that the happiest people I know make a point of not following the news.

I don't blame them. These days, the process of following current events is often dark, depressing and disempowering.

Still, totally checking out of news coverage isn't the...Read more

It "seemed like a good idea at the time," Charlie Rangel remarked in 2021, referring to the draconian drug penalties he supported as a New York congressman in the 1980s. "Clearly, it was overkill."

Rangel, who died on Monday at the age of 94, came to that conclusion after enthusiastically supporting the war on drugs for decades, going so far ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I always wondered why Harvard turned out so many lawyers. Now, due to overreach by the Trump administration, I know the answer. It's all the better to sue you with.

My MAGA friends think that President Donald Trump can perform miracles. Yet, as a "Never Trumper" who thinks the con man is desecrating the country, I was skeptical. ...Read more

Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" continues to be highly praised over a month after its April 18 release date. People are still flocking to theaters to see this horror thriller set in the early 1930s in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Many have seen it multiple times for its deep analysis of the cultural and historical impact of Black music -- primarily the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I feel sick. But that is par for the course. America is also not well. Too many Americans are afflicted with what Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter this week correctly diagnosed as "moral depravity."

Leiter was responding to the killing of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, a young couple who worked for...Read more

Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

I’m glad most people have abandoned chirping, “See ya in the funny papers.”

Because that quaint farewell would reopen old wounds, since folks will definitely NOT be seeing me in the funny papers.

You see, 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of my ill-fated attempt to become a professional cartoonist.

...Read more

During the last year of Donald Trump's first term as president, drug-related deaths in the United States rose by 30% -- the largest annual increase ever recorded. During Joe Biden's final year as president, according to preliminary estimates reported last week, that death toll fell by 27% -- another record.

On the face of it, Biden did a far ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The God of politics has a wicked sense of humor as well as a taste for irony. She delights in making members of both parties confront thorny subjects they've been trying to avoid.

It makes for an agonizing moment for Democrats, and a complicated one. It's a moment filled with sadness for a former president but also anger from ...Read more

One concern at the forefront of offseason discussions regarding college sports is reform in the current era of name, image and likeness -- or NIL -- deals. President Donald Trump recently met with retired University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban, who is currently an analyst on ESPN's "College GameDay." Saban was thought to be Trump's ...Read more

I hope Trump pushes forward on tariffs. Hear me out.

He has already backtracked faster than a hiker who spies a rattlesnake. Trump spent the first weeks of his second term spitting out tariff rates in a twitchy staccato. On Feb. 1, he announced 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada (along with a 10% tax on goods from China) supposedly ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Racists take care of their own. And so naturally, President Donald Trump is offering affirmative action to Afrikaners.

Recently, the Trump administration put out the red carpet to welcome into the United States several dozen white South African refugees. In response, Black and brown migrants who are turned away at the U.S.-Mexico...Read more

After mountain runner Michelino Sunseri ascended and descended Grand Teton in record time last fall, his corporate sponsor, The North Face, heralded his achievement as "an impossible dream -- come true." Then came the nightmare: Federal prosecutors charged Sunseri with a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail for using a trail that...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Just when I thought I was out of the Catholic Church, something extraordinary -- an American pope -- might pull me back in.

It's beautiful to see how many people, places and things are claiming a piece of Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old Augustinian pastor who will now and forever be better known by the handle Leo XIV.

...Read more

It's graduation season, and the overflowing joy of my friends and family with children earning high school diplomas and undergraduate and graduate degrees is being displayed on social media feeds and reels. Since I've been out of college for a while now, seeing my peers celebrating their kids' milestone accomplishments is a remarkable full-...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- For the last few months, the Trump administration has offered undocumented immigrants nothing more than scapegoating, harsh rhetoric and one-way passage to scary foreign lands.

That was the stick. Now for the carrot.

The administration is offering a $1,000 stipend plus travel expenses to undocumented immigrants who volunteer to ...Read more

Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

My son recently interviewed for an internship as part of his master’s degree program in engineering management.

We’re still waiting for news, but it started me thinking about the whole phenomenon of job interviews.

Back in the late Fifties, when my father was manager of a farmers cooperative, a young man ...Read more

As recently as March 27, Elon Musk was still confident that the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative he unofficially headed, could reduce annual federal spending by $1 trillion. But during a Cabinet meeting two weeks later, Musk projected that the savings in fiscal year 2026, when DOGE sunsets, would be more like $...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Harvard University stands accused of not defending a group of students on the margins.

You don't say! I could write a book on that subject. Oh wait, I did. In 1993, just a few years after graduation, I wrote a memoir about being a Mexican American student at America's oldest university.

In the fall of 1985, I was one of just 35 ...Read more

May 1 was the National Day of Prayer, and President Donald Trump issued a proclamation that included thanking "God for His endless blessings" and asking Him to "grant us fortitude, wisdom, and a renewed spirit of justice." The Scripture focus selected for this year was Romans 15:13, which reads: "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and ...Read more

The White House lawn was festooned for the past week with mug shots of supposed illegal immigrant criminals the administration has arrested or deported. It formed a backdrop for "Border Czar" Tom Homan's threats from the briefing room warning that every illegal immigrant within our borders needs to register immediately with the Department of ...Read more