There is a familiar saying that you can choose your friends, but not your family. For most of the year, that fact can feel like a blessing and a curse. During the holidays, when we squeeze around crowded tables, eat more than we should, and bring many personalities into one home, it should feel like a blessing.

Family members are the people who...Read more

My family will be shocked when they read this piece. One of them might even call and suggest I am a victim of identity theft, and I should proceed with caution.

For almost three decades, I have explicitly ruled out political talk at our holiday meals. Our gathering is huge and meaningful, and I love the Kumbaya moment of extended family and ...Read more

Floridians are not used to hearing the word “extinct” applied to species that play significant roles in the state’s ecological and economic landscape.

So last week, when researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the grim news that two key species in Florida’s iconic coral reefs had become “...Read more

I heard about the special prison favors granted Ghislaine Maxwell while I was reading “Nobody’s Girl” by Virginia Giuffre, one of her reported victims. The most poignant moment is not the first time Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein allegedly sexually violated her. It’s the morning before, when Giuffre sits at the reception desk at the Mar-a-...Read more

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has waged war on suspected drug smugglers in the waters off Venezuela, blowing up boats of what he calls “narco-terrorists” — people accused of bringing fentanyl and other deadly drugs into the United States.

These military strikes have drawn deserved condemnation. First, President Donald Trump’...Read more

In October of 2018, U.S.-based journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. The CIA concluded that the assassination was carried out by Saudi operatives, on order of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The prince denied the accusations, although other U.S. ...Read more

By the time James Watson died earlier this month at the age of 97, he was one of the world’s most famous — and infamous — scientists.

In 1953, he and three fellow researchers co-discovered the double-helix structure of DNA — a breakthrough that unlocked the secrets of how life works. The discovery revealed how a molecule could store ...Read more

Dayanne Figueroa was on her way to work in Chicago last month when she drove onto a street where an immigration enforcement action was in progress. As she attempted to drive around the chaos, an unmarked vehicle collided with her car. Masked men jumped out of the vehicle, guns drawn and dragged Figueroa from her car by her legs. She was thrown ...Read more

When President Donald Trump was booked and fingerprinted at the Fulton County Jail in 2023, there was just one elected official there to support him — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

When Trump was huddling with his lawyers to defend himself in criminal cases around the country, Greene joined then-U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to hold “...Read more

As affordability politics take center stage across America, at least 18 states are attempting to lower or eliminate property taxes to offset the dramatic rise in property values. It’s a worthy debate, but wiping out property taxes, or dramatically limiting them, is dangerous.

It not only strips local communities of an economically efficient ...Read more

In an ancient fable, a scorpion wants to cross a body of water, but because he can’t swim, the creature asks a frog to hitch a ride on the amphibian’s back.

The frog retorts that he fears the scorpion will sting him. The scorpion denies this and promises he will do no such thing, so the frog agrees to the request.

As the frog swims to the ...Read more

Audiences already know the story of Frankenstein. The gothic novel — adapted dozens of times, most recently in director Guillermo del Toro’s haunting revival now available on Netflix— is embedded in our cultural DNA as the cautionary tale of science gone wrong. But popular culture misreads author Mary Shelley’s warning. The lesson isn’...Read more

While America has been obsessing over Jeffrey Epstein, Vladimir Putin has been making dangerous headway in Ukraine — and expanding his war into Europe.

Under such circumstances, genuine peace negotiations are impossible because Putin thinks he is winning. America’s top foreign policy priority should be to reverse the Russian leader’s ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- May Sun stood on Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown on Tuesday morning, looking through the fence at the memorial she and another artist designed to honor Robert F. Kennedy near the site of his 1968 assassination.

Graffiti smeared the monument. Scattered trash included a potato chip bag, a smashed beer bottle and a sneaker. Weeds ...Read more

With pressure mounting, the House and the Senate this week passed legislation mandating the release of a slew of government documents involving financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. President Donald Trump signed the bill late Wednesday.

The Justice Department files have been the source of rumor, innuendo and distraction, as ...Read more

For more than 40 days, an impasse among members of Congress and President Donald Trump over funding the federal government left millions of Americans in limbo. That ended last week when eight senators — seven Democrats and one independent — voted with 52 Republicans on another continuing resolution, this one lasting until Jan. 31, to restart...Read more

Seven years have passed since Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

A year after the killing, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency concluded that Khashoggi, a critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had been assassinated at the crown prince’s direction, his ...Read more

I come from a long line of racists.

Tracing my ancestry back to the early nineteenth century, I discovered that my great-great-great-grandfather emigrated from Ireland and then drifted south, eventually settling in Dallas County, Alabama. Daniel Brislin called Selma home.

He was a cabinet maker, and a decent one at that. The Selma Times ...Read more

The Trump administration is moving forward with efforts to neuter the Department of Education. The move couldn’t come fast enough.

The Washington Post reported this week that various grant programs within the department will be moved under other Cabinet agencies. This includes the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Office of...Read more

Artificial intelligence has become a societal disruptor. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT have reached across society, giving everyone with a smartphone the opportunity to interact with AI in new ways. With such capabilities now in the mainstream, though, the tasks that AI systems can deliver means that the list of jobs at risk for elimination ...Read more