ArcaMax

The unprecedented turmoil at the top U.S. health agencies, under the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is sure to have a long-term impact on the well-being of Americans. Although ...Read more

Here's a quick quiz about some cultural icons on the verge of experiencing a kind of rebirth:

1. What was the original storyline of the Dagwood and Blondie comics?

2. What was Blondie's maiden name?

3. In her original ...Read more

In one of its most consequential rulings of the year, just before breaking for the holidays last week the Supreme Court held that President Donald Trump acted improperly in federalizing the National Guard in Illinois and ...Read more

For President Donald Trump’s supporters, 2025 has been a year of transformation. For his opponents, it’s been nothing short of a long nightmare. The holiday season is a perfect time to look back, reflect and remember ...Read more

Fifteen months ago, this page warned that Illinois faced likely electricity shortages in the next few years if Gov. JB Pritzker’s landmark Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, passed in 2021, wasn’t made more flexible to ...Read more

Millions of families just survived the longest shutdown in U.S. history. Now they’re bracing again as politicians turn food assistance into a bargaining chip.

Food assistance should not be subject to politics, yet the ...Read more

In a society that treasures and protects free speech, it’s important to focus a spotlight on people who were hunted down because their ideas were too dangerous or offended too many people.

These names are threaded ...Read more

So much climate news comes out in any given week that it can be hard to keep up with it all. Much is gloomy, but there are positive developments all the time — so many, in fact, that it’s easy to miss some of the ...Read more

It was a year when the ground finally started to shift under our feet. So much felt uncertain in 2025—politics, weather, the pace of the world itself—but one thing became beautifully, unmistakably clear: Compassion is ...Read more

This is a column about lies. Big lies. Presidential lies. Dumb lies. The type of lies that have made life in the United States a daily dumpster fire of bad news. The kind of lies that would've made Frank Sinatra want to ...Read more

It was hard to know what to believe this year. In the old days, there were conspiracies about the moon landing. These days, it feels like there’s a conspiracy about everything — that the truth is up for grabs, ...Read more

I know boats. Catamarans where water laps at your legs. Fishing boats with bright colors and splintered seats. Even though I grew up in the heart of Silicon Valley in San José, California, I come from a line of ...Read more

A candidate in the crowded Democratic primary to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky said Tuesday he plans to drop out of the race following a pressure campaign from AIPAC, an influential but controversial pro-Israel...Read more

Guinea’s military leader Mamadi Doumbouya won a widely expected victory in Dec. 28 elections from which several opposition figures were barred from running.

Doumbouya, who seized power in a 2021 coup, secured 86.7% of ...Read more

Idaho’s U.S. senators have sounded the alarm with President Donald Trump over his recent decision to relax federal marijuana restrictions.

Republicans Mike Crapo and Jim Risch each signed a letter sent to Trump opposing...Read more

Is there a dumpster somewhere to torch and bury this year of bedlam, 2025?

We near its end with equal amounts relief and trepidation. Surely we can’t be expected to endure another such tumultuous turn around the sun?

...Read more

For the first time in decades, the federal bureaucracy is getting smaller.

According to the latest federal jobs report, the government has shed roughly 271,000 civilian positions in the past year, putting President Donald...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will end 2025 behind on judicial confirmations compared to the pace of predecessor Joe Biden, but ahead of the rate Trump set during the first calendar year of his previous term in the...Read more

End of the year predictions about the future have been around at least since the days of Nostradamus, but what about past predictions? There were plenty of predictions that electing Donald Trump the first time and then re-...Read more