Two tragedies happened in suburban Chicago the other day. A 14-year-old boy was shot and killed for allegedly trying to steal a car from a driveway and the five teenagers who were with him were charged with a murder they did not commit.

That's because of an obscure Illinois law that allows authorities to charge people with murder if someone ...Read more

Now the Trump administration is trying to rewrite history -- and poetry.

In an interview with National Public Radio this week, Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said that the storied lines on the Statue of Liberty urging the world to "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to ...Read more

President Donald Trump took a break from summer vacation at his personal New Jersey sleepover camp to try to persuade people in New Hampshire to back his reelection. And he gave them every reason to not do so -- by lying.

Though being lied to has not been a deal-killer for his supporters in the past.

Fact-checking Trump has given rise to ...Read more

Wednesday's prolonged shootout in North Philadelphia that injured six police officers may be the opportunity to turn the tide on gun control.

A narcotics warrant turned into a 7 1/2-hour standoff between police and Maurice Hill, who was barricaded in a Tioga rowhouse with a hand gun and an AR-15. None of the officers' injuries were life-...Read more

Our love for steaks and burgers is contributing to rapidly exploding climate change and ironically setting up the planet to one day not have enough to eat.

That's the warning more than 100 experts from 52 countries sounded off in a United Nation's Report about how global warming will destroy the world's food supply if humans don't change their ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Jerry Brown was right. His successor Gavin Newsom isn't -- at least about whether a state should be allowed to dictate qualifications for a presidential candidate.

States should butt out and defer to the U.S. Constitution. It spells out simple criteria that have worked for 232 years: A president must be a natural-born...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Last week, Roman Catholic leaders all over the U.S. expressed collective shock and outrage at a new Pew Research study finding that the majority of Catholics -- a whopping 69% -- don't believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, a teaching central to the Catholic faith.

For those unfamiliar with the ...Read more

It happened like clockwork. Every few weeks, especially in the winter months, when snowbirds traveled to my then-home in Tucson, Ariz., from parts north that included Michigan and Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois, a letter to the editor would turn up at the paper where I worked. With slight changes, it would go something like: "I stopped in a ...Read more

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

-- Plaque inside the Statue of Liberty

"Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge."

-- Update proposed by Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

The Trump ...Read more

Last we checked, both the United States and Israel were democracies -- and allies. Yet on Thursday the leaders of both countries sounded more like crazy autocrats with a penchant for silencing their critics. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to prohibit U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) from entering ...Read more

Almost daily, educators across the country tell me that at least half of their students use electronic cigarettes, mainly the Juul brand. Many of these young people show clear signs of addiction. They are agitated, emotional and unable to sit through an entire class period. They often need to leave class to "take a puff."

National data about ...Read more

The National Institute for Standards and Technology just delivered a final plan to the White House for developing artificial intelligence standards for the private sector, in order to "maintain and strengthen America's leadership in AI." But the private sector seems to be developing standards just fine on its own. Where we really need to promote...Read more

Benjamin Netanyahu says he had no choice but to forbid two first-year members of Congress from visiting Israel. Israeli law bans those who boycott it, and after reviewing the itinerary of Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the Israeli prime minister determined their visit's "sole purpose was to support boycotts and deny Israel's legitimacy," ...Read more

Last week, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo got into an argument with a man who called him "Fredo," a weak-minded, childlike, cocktail-sucking, loser who was Don Vito Corleone's eldest son in the movie "The Godfather."

The sad-eyed chump would declare: "I'm smart and I want respect!"

No one would want to be called Fredo.

I know this because, being the ...Read more

The first weekend of August 2018 had danger written all over it for some neighborhoods of Chicago. Summer weather brings people outside, and that raises the odds of gunfire.

The fear was justified. A horrific number of people were killed and wounded. And in a frustrating but common twist, the Chicago Police Department struggled to arrest ...Read more

This month's heartbreaking mass shootings have re-energized calls for Congress to strengthen gun control and regulation. Dishearteningly, proposals for how to do so appear to be cleaving largely along entrenched party lines.

There is a better way.

The mayors of Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Auburn and Lynnwood are among 254 mayors joining ...Read more