ArcaMax

When Pope Leo XIV addressed the College of Cardinals two days after he was elected to the papacy, he explained why he took the name that he did.

"Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV," he said. "There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical ...Read more

President Richard Nixon, a native Californian, promoted an idea in 1972 to turn an iconic stretch of California's coastline into a national park.

It would include the headlands around the Golden Gate and two nearby islands.

One was Angel Island and the other was Alcatraz -- where a federal prison had been permanently closed nine years ...Read more

This story -- that sadly has a tragic ending -- began 15 years ago when an immigration court looked at the case of a Guatemalan national named Jose Paxtor-Oxlaj.

He was arrested in Oklahoma in 2023 -- 13 years after he had been deported.

"A check of records confirmed Paxtor's identity and confirmed he is an alien who was ordered removed by ...Read more

When Pope Francis spoke in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 10, 2018, he was not talking about gangsters when he spoke about a "hit man." He was talking about abortion.

The pope started by citing the Fifth Commandment: "You shall not kill."

"One could say that all the evil carried out in the world can be summed up in this: contempt for life," he ...Read more

A week before Christmas in 2018, both Democratic and Republican senators went down to the Senate floor to congratulate each other for backing a bipartisan piece of legislation that they knew President Donald Trump was going to sign.

"This bill, with strong bipartisan support, should pass this afternoon with strong bipartisan majorities," said...Read more

When Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) was in the midst of his record 25-plus hours of speaking on the Senate floor on April 1, he yielded to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who wanted to ask him a couple of questions.

One was on the tariffs that President Donald Trump was set to announce the next day.

"And all of America is paying...Read more

When President George Washington was in his second term, there was nothing in the Constitution that prevented him from seeking a third.

But he did not.

In his Farewell Address in 1796, Washington explained why he was not seeking another term.

"The period for a new election of a Citizen, to Administer the Executive government of the United ...Read more

This January, when President Joe Biden was serving his last weeks in office and turning over the presidency to Donald Trump, the United States ran a $31.7 billion trade deficit with the People's Republic of China.

That was the largest trade deficit the United States ran that month with any nation -- and it continued a long-standing pattern.

...Read more

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lives in one of San Francisco's poshest neighborhoods -- that nonetheless sits only about 2 miles from the Tenderloin, one of the most drug-infested corners of the city.

In 2019, when President Donald Trump was in his first term and Bill Barr was serving as attorney general, David Anderson, who was then the U...Read more

"This may be the most beautiful commute in the world."

My father sometimes said that back in the 1970s when we were driving from our home in San Rafael to my high school in San Francisco's Sunset District.

San Rafael was founded in 1817 when Spanish Franciscans established a mission there. St. Ignatius College Preparatory, my high school, ...Read more

After the United States declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776, this nation sent diplomats to France -- seeking an alliance with a country then led by King Louis XVI.

One of these diplomats was Benjamin Franklin.

In 1778, France signed a treaty of alliance with the United States and Franklin would later write a letter to ...Read more

The number of human beings living in freezers in the United States now outnumbers the population of Dallas, Texas.

"Estimates place the number of frozen embryos at greater than 1.5 million," reported the March 2022 edition of Fertility and Sterility, a journal published by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

According to the ...Read more

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Belgium last week to participate in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group -- a gathering of officials from countries supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia. He delivered there a clear and rational explanation of the Trump administration's policy on this conflict.

"The bloodshed must stop," he said. "...Read more