You don’t need AI to figure out why some big businesses invite government oversight.

Over the last few days, leaders of major AI companies have expressed support for an industry-wide slowdown. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently wrote about his concerns over recursive self-improvement. That is when AI builds a better version of AI. These...Read more

The ongoing debate over the development of artificial intelligence took an apocalyptic turn last week. No longer is the discussion just about job-killing AI chatbots or resource-sucking data centers. Suddenly, the conversation has veered into the possibility that this technology could end human civilization — literally — within the next few ...Read more

Three heavyweights in AI development recently called for a significant slowdown in the technology, an unusual consensus among competitors that is setting off alarm bells in the industry.

But for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, this is turning into an I-told-you-so moment.

Republican DeSantis has been a well-known skeptic when it comes to the uses ...Read more

Artificial intelligence may be the closest thing our age has produced to “Star Trek”’s Mr. Spock: brilliant, analytical and seemingly governed by pure logic.

Ask AI a question, and it can process enormous quantities of information in seconds. It does not tire, become embarrassed or hesitate because of sentiment. Like Spock, it appears to ...Read more

Political polarization has become so extreme that when Democrats and Republicans find common ground on a single issue — like their shared hatred of AI data centers — it becomes major news.

But those same data centers could also be mending the nation’s political divisions. The large language models people increasingly rely on to understand...Read more

Trade talks between the U.S. and Canada broke down at the last minute late last month. The result was a temper tantrum. Apart from the tariffs President Donald Trump announced and which were matched by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America.

A few days earlier, U.S. ...Read more

When U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new economic pressure campaign on Iran last month, the goal was simple: Keep the squeeze on Tehran’s economy without resorting to the return of a full-scale war that would send the Middle East back into turmoil. The strategy was designed to play to Washington’s strengths as the world’s...Read more

With so much attention being paid now to upcoming elections and candidates, a long-ago memory nudged me and made me think about what I would really like to hear from anyone running for public office.

Deep into my father’s first term as president, I met my parents, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, at their ranch near Santa Barbara one weekend. It was ...Read more

Since its inception, National Hispanic Heritage Month has been problematic, and never more so than now.

It began as Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968 under President Lyndon Johnson, and then in 1988 President Ronald Reagan turned this commemoration of heritage and culture into a full month. The expansion mirrored the growing political, social and ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress have unintentionally provided California state government with the financial means to subsidize — help save — endangered local news reporting.

Now it’s up to Gov. Gavin Newsom to capitalize on the unanticipated gift.

He can sign or veto legislation to end state ...Read more

Should the federal government give subsidies to parents who stay home to care for their young kids? Absolutely. Should it also subsidize childcare for working parents? For sure. This shouldn’t be an either-or question, but the Trump administration’s new childcare subsidy plan makes it one.

Under the draft proposal, as previewed in a leaked ...Read more

The fall harvest is looming, and you might think Illinois’ farmers and landowners would be preoccupied with bringing in the corn and soybean crops. But they’re also focused on reaping taxpayer money from a federal government that just keeps pouring it on.

The practice of farming the government for subsidies is thriving in the heartland.

...Read more

At Republicans’ recent midterm convention, Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, began his remarks with his own version of a land acknowledgment.

“I’d like to acknowledge that we stand here today in the great state of Texas and the United States of America is the ancestral homeland of great American patriots, pioneers and explorers who put down ...Read more

Another cry for help came from the billionaires building the artificial intelligence machinery that threatens to upend — if not end — the world: Save us from ourselves before it is too late!

Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, posted a 3,800-word essay over the weekend that called for a global ...Read more

Nevada gas prices aren’t the only thing California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to raise.

Newsom recently put out a release touting California’s economic growth. He says the state is adding jobs at a strong pace, and its GDP is growing. It’s quite easy to imagine Newsom spouting off statistics like these as he campaigns for president.

It’s ...Read more

At the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention in Dallas, Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman appeared in a prerecorded video. It was a stunning and unconventional moment.

In the clip, Fetterman praised what he called “common-sense leadership,” criticized “extremes” on the left and used language that echoed GOP ...Read more

A camp counselor was offered a job, and then lost it. An editor was denied entry to a business. A dog trainer was physically assaulted in downtown Chicago.

And I was denied service on a rideshare — all because we were wearing medical masks.

While some see medical masks — such as KN95s or N95s — as unnecessary relics of a bygone era, ...Read more

It’s no secret that 2026 has tested our democracy. This year alone, the Supreme Court has continued to dismantle the Voting Rights Act, state legislators are rushing to execute a generational gerrymander in the South to undermine Black and Latino voters, and state houses across the country are considering more than 330 laws that make it harder...Read more

For 15 years, I worked in financial regulation and consumer protection, most of that time at the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. My job involved bringing Republican and Democratic state regulators together to go after payday lenders who were writing loans engineered never to be repaid and debt collectors chasing debts that did not exist.

...Read more