One of the essential principles of free enterprise depends on an understanding so conventional that it largely goes unspoken: When people borrow money, they must pay it back—usually with interest.

We’ve established guardrails to protect naïve borrowers from usurious lenders, and defaulting on a loan has legal consequences. But our system ...Read more

With the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Iraq War, I’m reminded of the remarkable consensus behind that decision, which passed with strong bipartisan support. Experts, journalists and well-known media personalities joined the bandwagon too.

Often, consensus is good. It clears away opposition and helps make things happen. But too often, ...Read more

This month, a very significant event for millions of Americans took place: the National Resident Matching Program’s annual residency match. This is when medical school graduates hope to find a residency program where they will continue their graduate medical education. These are the physicians who will be caring for you and me, and our ...Read more

No matter your position on whether abortion should be legal, Idaho’s existing law is broken.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, Idaho had enacted a trigger law that would become effective on that day. The intention was to outlaw abortion in nearly all cases, with narrow exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

But when the ...Read more

Donald Trump is beginning to sound panicky.

"WHY WON'T BRAGG DROP THIS CASE?" he wrote on his Truth Social account last week of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is investigating Trump's alleged payment of hush money to a porn star. "... THIS IS NO LEGAL SYSTEM, THIS IS THE GESTAPO, THIS IS RUSSIA AND CHINA, BUT WORSE."

In a string ...Read more

A few years ago, parents and teachers in Chicago were facing a new threat as e-cigarettes began showing up in classrooms and school lockers. While smoking cigarettes has thankfully become less popular among young people, fruity flavored “vapes” became the trendy new teenage accessory as they spread like wildfire throughout Illinois and the ...Read more

North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature last week approved the expansion of Medicaid to more low-income adults, leaving only 10 states that continue to reject the federal government’s incentives under the Affordable Care Act. Medicaid expansion, aimed at adults who make too much money to qualify for conventional Medicaid but not enough ...Read more

Ten years ago, I wrote a book called "The Golden Shore: California’s Love Affair with the Sea." Back then, I suggested that California, with almost 40 million people and the world’s fifth largest economy, was proof that you could grow a progressive society while protecting your coast and ocean. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the book...Read more

Former Vice President Mike Pence has said he won’t resist every aspect of the subpoena from the special counsel investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Nonetheless, the dispute isn’t over. Nor is the necessary conversation about the nature of the office Pence held — a conversation with potential lessons for the current VP, Kamala Harris....Read more

No one sells the future more masterfully than the tech industry. According to its proponents, we will all live in the “metaverse,” build our financial infrastructure on “web3” and power our lives with “artificial intelligence.” All three of these terms are mirages that have raked in billions of dollars, despite bite back by reality. ...Read more

Florida legislators don’t want teachers to talk with kids about racism or being gay. Soon we might be able to add puberty to the list of verboten subjects. The state is considering a bill that would ban elementary school teachers from talking about puberty and menstruation with students, many of whom would already be experiencing those changes...Read more

This month, a hunk of space junk hurtled toward the International Space Station, putting the safety of astronauts and their orbiting outpost at risk. Fortunately, the cosmic hazard was detected early and an emergency maneuver rocketed the $150 billion station out of harm’s way. Such episodes, which burn gallons of valuable propellant, cost ...Read more

If you want a good summary of all that’s wrong with U.S. politics right now, you could do worse than “The most important U.S. election this year is the runoff for a seat on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.”

The April 4 run-off vote for a swing seat on the court would typically attract little notice. But Wisconsin, a fiercely divided ...Read more

Since describing the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” that’s not a vital national interest, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has received criticism from leading Republicans — including some of his rivals for the 2024 presidential nomination — and rightly so. DeSantis’s comments echo a faction of the party eager to end U.S. ...Read more

Tuberculosis surrendered the title of the world’s deadliest infectious disease after COVID-19 struck, but it reclaimed that terrible distinction last year. As with COVID, a new vaccine could go a long way to sharply curtailing the disease, which killed about 1.4 million people a year before the pandemic and increased its deadly toll a bit ...Read more

TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew did not have a successful appearance before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday.

He did not assuage skeptical members of Congress that his enormously popular social media platform can isolate itself from Chinese government interference. Nor did he convince them that TikTok has done enough to ...Read more

The ubiquitous social video app TikTok did not have a great day as CEO Shou Zi Chew was dragged before Congress to ostensibly testify, but really be berated, by lawmakers out for blood. In more than five hours of testimony, they painted the company as some sort of nefarious Chinese government sleeper agent, plotting against an unsuspecting ...Read more

Why should Florida taxpayers fund a secret airline and travel agency for the governor and the state’s political elites? That’s the question raised by a patently ludicrous bill that would shield any public information about how and where Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials go. Florida’s open-government laws may be a drag to ...Read more

For at least 50 years, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has been plagued by secretive "deputy gangs" — organized subgroups of deputy sheriffs who allegedly engage in violence, corruption and illegal activity. And for almost as many years, reformers have hoped to eradicate those gangs, going back to the Kolts Commission 30 years ago,...Read more

After months with little apparent progress, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to hold the oil industry accountable for high gas prices and deter price gouging is now on a fast track toward passage in the California Legislature.

A deal between the governor and legislative leaders, announced earlier this week, was passed by the Senate on Thursday ...Read more