To most of us who aren’t federal employees, the government shutdown has, so far, been a distant partisan spat with limited direct impact on real life. That will change this weekend when, barring legislative action, tens of millions of America’s poorest families will start losing access to government food subsidies.

The Supplemental ...Read more

Recent stories about the parlous state of Democratic Party fundraising have raised an issue regarding a perhaps unnoticed constitutional decision. It appears that some big donors are concerned about how various independent groups spent their money during the last election cycle.

But should the party’s nominee try to do better next time ...Read more

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently announced plans to expand the national stockpile of minerals such as lithium and rare earths needed in the production of renewable energy technologies and military weapons.

This is nothing new; the U.S. government has stockpiled minerals for decades. What is new is that the government is buying stakes ...Read more

Politics isn’t working for most Americans. Our government can’t keep the lights on. The cost of living continues to rise. Our nation is reeling from recent acts of political violence.

79% of voters say the U.S. is in a political crisis, and 64% say our political system is too divided to solve the nation’s problems.

There’s no silver ...Read more

Having brokered what appears to be a groundbreaking ceasefire leading to a longer-term Middle East peace settlement, supporters of President Donald Trump, and the president himself, are lobbying the Nobel committee to bestow a 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Trump. Whether next year’s committee honors him may depend less on the durability of the ...Read more

Five decades after the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the wake of the Arab oil embargo, the United States is facing a new threat to its economic, energy and national security that calls for similarly decisive action: the weaponization of mineral supply chains by China. The time has come to create a Strategic Minerals Reserve.

...Read more

As the government shutdown drags on, the widespread destruction of the country under Donald Trump and the Republicans who control all three branches of the federal bureaucracy is coming into full view.

Roughly 42 million Americans — including nearly two million in Pennsylvania — won’t receive SNAP benefits in November if the shutdown ...Read more

Just over a decade ago, when Congress was taking its periodic look at the food stamp program, House Republicans lined up with their legislative hatchets.

Their plan was to slice some $40 billion out of the program over 10 years, a benefit reduction of more than 5%. Among the promoters of the cut was Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Republican from the far ...Read more

This past weekend, President Donald Trump landed in Malaysia to kick off a tour in Southeast Asia that could either make or break his trade agenda. Ever the showman, Trump inaugurated the week’s events by presiding over a ceremonial signing of a ceasefire agreement between Thailand and Cambodia that he helped broker during the summer. Next, he...Read more

What if the federal government shut down and few people noticed — or cared? Nearly one month since the lights went out in Washington, most Americans don’t seem all that aware, let alone upset. Perhaps that’s why Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and President Donald Trump, are showing little interest in supporting compromise ...Read more

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Georgia Republican, has been breaking ranks with President Donald Trump and the GOP leadership in Congress on an increasingly long list of issues.

She wants Congress to end the government shutdown by agreeing to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. She has demanded the release of the Jeffrey Epstein...Read more

November is a season of change—trees let go of their leaves, geese fly south and we settle into early nights and cozy blankets. It’s only fitting that it’s also World Vegan Month, reminding us that changing the world starts with our plates. So let the “no” in November stand for “no” to meat, eggs and dairy—and instead, say a ...Read more

Today we're taking a tour through the mythical Land of Election Fraud, where President Donald Trump has built a palace of lies, imprisoning both truth and democracy.

I put it in fairy tale terms because the idea that American elections are corrupt should hold about as much credence as a magical beanstalk growing into the sky. Countless lawsuits...Read more

The country once celebrated those who scaled mountains. Now bureaucrats seek to prosecute them.

Michelino Sunseri is a trail runner. Last year, he set a record for running up and down Wyoming’s Grand Teton mountain. It’s an imposing route of 13.1 miles out and back with 7,000 feet of elevation gain. His time of 2 hours, 50 minutes and 50 ...Read more

The massive outage that crippled Amazon Web Services last week sent shockwaves through the digital world. Overnight, the invisible backbone of our online lives buckled: Websites went dark, apps froze, transactions stalled, and billions of dollars in productivity and trust evaporated. For a few hours, the modern economy’s nervous system failed....Read more

Friday lunchtime, a guy was walking his fluffy dog at the corner of Henderson and Lakewood streets in Chicago’s leafy Lakeview neighborhood. On any other sunny, autumnal Friday, such a stroll would have been as calming and uneventful as the city gets.

But on this most recent one, the man found himself at what looked like a scene from the TV ...Read more

I may be revealing a secret cherished by columnists the world over, but I admit that among the columns we relish writing the most fall into the "I told you so" genre.

Case in point: In April last year, in a column about the gambling mess ensnaring Shohei Ohtani's then-interpreter, I warned that the pro sports leagues' enthusiastic embrace of ...Read more

Over the course of just three days recently, five scientists affiliated with the University of California won Nobel prizes for discoveries that can help us more effectively treat conditions such as multiple sclerosis and arthritis, clean pollutants from the atmosphere, capture drinking water from desert air, and help build the world’s most ...Read more

A great many Americans today wonder, with good reason, whether America’s democracy can survive Donald Trump’s presidency.

Now it’s becoming increasingly clear that another question we should all be asking is whether America can afford Trump’s presidency.

The latest stunt from the most corruptly self-dealing president in U.S. history is...Read more

I’m old enough to remember when there was no annual open enrollment. You got health insurance through your employer, and unless you changed jobs or had a major life event, you kept the same plan. Year after year. Simple. Stable. Sane.

Today, we’ve built a multibillion-dollar theater production called “open enrollment” that costs more to...Read more