Huzzah, hosanna and hallelujah: To U.S. President Donald Trump for brokering a ceasefire that could, possibly, mark the beginnings of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. To the hostages and their families, who are reunited at last. To the Gazans who can finally face their trauma without new bombs dropping on them. And yet, and yet.

It may ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s executive order designating antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization” was never really about antifa. It was about building a template for repression. Now, with his latest order on “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” the blueprint is clear: free expression, political dissent ...Read more

Now that the Missouri GOP has jettisoned any quaint notions of fair and equal representation and moved to blatantly disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Kansas City-area Democrats, what can responsible Missourians (of any political persuasion) do to stop them?

Plenty. Citizens can join the effort to put the issue to a statewide vote next ...Read more

A new study reveals that programs intended to reduce agriculture water use are the most effective means of stretching the Colorado River’s scarce resources. This should be self-evident but tends to get lost amid rhetoric about urban water consumption.

The analysis, by the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, examined more than...Read more

A mounting biosecurity crisis is unfolding in U.S. laboratories, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention knows it. Newly published data from the agency show that imported monkeys infected with tuberculosis —the world’s deadliest infectious disease — are slipping through federal quarantine and into American research facilities.

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Heather Reams, the president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES), stepped onto the stage at Breckenridge’s Mountain Towns 2030 summit — a room full of progressives accustomed to negotiating with Republicans on climate policy. She faced an audience from Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado — areas that often depend on ...Read more

President Donald Trump deserves credit for the current ceasefire in the bloody war in Gaza and freeing the remaining hostages.

But the military and human cost of the war was steep, and big questions remain.

Such as: How long will the ceasefire last? Will an Arab-Muslim peace force be sufficient to disarm Hamas and police the strip so Israel’...Read more

The most important optic of President Donald Trump’s Gaza summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, was who was absent from the roster of world leaders standing behind him as he declared peace had come to the Middle East.

Among the missing were the key players who will determine whether the president’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza ever gets beyond ...Read more

We’ve all heard the refrain that crime is down in Chicago — and, in general, that’s true. But while shootings and homicides overall have fallen, one category of violence has grown alarmingly worse: domestic violence.

Homicides in Chicago are down nearly 30% and fatal shootings have dropped by 32% year over year, according to city data.

...Read more

Finance ministers and central bankers, gathering in Washington for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund, face a global trading system in disarray, uncertainty over the dollar’s standing and the likely course of interest rates, and financial markets that are (for now) unnervingly complacent.

Amid all these challenges, ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s populist renovation of the Republican Party is ushering in a new era of America’s center-right as a champion of the New Deal social safety net.

What’s a Democrat to do? (More on that momentarily.)

No less than Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has become an outspoken voice for extending the Affordable Care ...Read more

Defying the odds and expectations of many, President Donald Trump went to the Middle East this week and announced what many thought impossible — a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and, hopefully, a path to peace in the Middle East.

As a part of getting both sides to agree to a ceasefire, they each had to give up the hostages and prisoners ...Read more

Last year’s flu season was long, brutal, and ultimately tragic. By the time infections had subsided in May, as many as 1.1 million Americans were estimated to have been hospitalized and as many as 100,000 had died. Among them were 280 children — the highest number recorded in a non-pandemic year since health agencies began tracking the virus...Read more

It’s ironic that some of America’s worst presidents in terms of domestic leadership have succeeded spectacularly on the world stage.

Both before and after his disastrous presidency, Herbert Hoover was a leading architect of European reconstruction following both world wars. Richard Nixon was indeed a crook, but he also broke through decades...Read more

Of all the federal government shutdowns that I've covered over three decades, the current one, now in its third week, is the weirdest by far.

Most other times, by this point the battling sides — Democrats versus Republicans, White House versus Congress — have reached some split-the-baby resolution, pressured by an American public disgusted ...Read more

Until recently, no one would have mistaken Arianna Barrios for a wokosa.

The Orange city council member comes from O.C. Republican royalty. Her grandfather, Cruz, was a Mexican immigrant and civil rights pioneer who registered with the GOP in the late 1940s after Democratic leaders wouldn't help him and other activists fight school segregation ...Read more

As the partial government shutdown grinds on, with no end in sight, Catherine Cortez Masto stands ready to end it right now.

The lawyerly senator from Nevada is one of just two Democrats to repeatedly vote with Republicans and Maine's independent senator, Angus King, to have the federal government up and running.

She's not only bucking her ...Read more

Los Angeles County officials dismissed their recent after-action report on the January wildfires as “inadequate.” For me, the McChrystal Report is a precise, comprehensive account of failure, revealing the nation’s system for alerting the public as little more than paper, pencil and prayer.

At its outset, the report drops you into the ...Read more

As a young recruit, the first thing I learned when I pinned on a badge was simple but profound: Power must always be visible and accountable. A nameplate, a badge number, an agency insignia — those aren’t just pieces of metal and cloth. They’re promises that those who wield the authority of the state can be identified, questioned and held ...Read more

Back-to-school season looked starkly different for my family this year. Instead of joyfully stuffing backpacks, dressing up for school days to come and taking toothy front-porch photos, my spouse and I found ourselves having a serious discussion: How would we get our kids to school safely as federal agents and the National Guard roamed the ...Read more