Amid wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, Western governments have limited capacity to deal with another humanitarian crisis. Yet a decision by Pakistan to expel hundreds of thousands of Afghans threatens to create a new wave of refugees and destabilize an already volatile region. Preventing the chaos from spreading needs to be a priority for ...Read more

If there’s one climate-change solution everybody seems to agree on, it’s that trees are good. Even Donald Trump, who has called climate change a Chinese hoax, has proposed planting a trillion trees.

So it might seem that the holiday tradition of chopping down one of these precious planet-savers and dragging it into your living room to ...Read more

A culture and legal system that is pro-life is healthy for Texans, for Americans, and a society that hopes to value life, from conception to natural death and continue to thrive.

However, life is messy and imperfect. Texas law after the fall of Roe vs. Wade makes only a narrow, rare exception for abortion — to save a woman’s life. That ...Read more

When Nikki Haley was elected governor of South Carolina, one of the first things she did was require all state employees to answer their office phones with: “It’s a great day in South Carolina.”

This continued for five years until she left to become Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. The forced cheeriness was annoying to ...Read more

The approval of Casgevy, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Crispr Therapeutics Inc.’s gene therapy for sickle cell disease, is a transformative moment in medicine. Not only is it the first Crispr-based drug to reach the market — it’s a potentially life-altering advance for a patient population that has been for too long ignored and ...Read more

The White House must get serious about reaching a deal with Republicans over aid to Ukraine and border security. It’s time for President Joe Biden to end the bluster and work toward compromise.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked the administration’s $111 billion package on a procedural vote that required support from 60 senators for ...Read more

SOUTHERN GAZA — Until two months ago, my life as a 17-year-old in Gaza was marked by the predictable anxieties and aspirations of a student applying to university. I dreamt of crossing borders to pursue a better life — of landing on my feet at an American school and, eventually, of returning to serve my community as a doctor. Education was ...Read more

Only five months ago, President Joe Biden promised at a NATO summit that the United States and its allies would help defend Ukraine against Russia's wanton aggression for "as long as it takes." Just after Vladimir Putin's invasion, and amid his soldiers' ongoing war crimes, former Vice President Mike Pence promised a roomful of Republican donors...Read more

Twenty years ago, I moved from L.A. to San Francisco and then Bellingham, Washington — so far north I could spit across the border and a Canadian would apologize for being too close. For the longest time I regretted the move from areas with strong synagogues and significant Jewish populations to a town with so few Jews and one synagogue. It ...Read more

The fourth Republican presidential debate thankfully featured just four candidates rather than the cattle call we saw in previous sessions. But, whether there are four or 14 running, the same problem persists.

There’s only one — former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — willing to tell primary voters what too many of them apparently don’t...Read more

Violent conflicts and atrocities can seem omnipresent in the world — and all the more traumatic in an age when wars are fought by terrorizing civilians more than by squaring off against a rival military.

Wars and violent conflicts in Congo, Gaza, Israel, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen and many other places have resulted in ...Read more

Finally, the federal government is putting serious money behind a greener and faster transportation system.

This week, the Biden administration announced $6 billion in funding for two high-speed rail projects that will eventually whisk passengers across California and Nevada on electrified trains that can travel 200 mph or faster. It’s a ...Read more

In this dark moment for free speech, when Florida leads the nation in book banning — pulling more books from public school shelves than any other state — a homegrown beacon of literacy is broadening its reach, a spark of hope that we need in Miami.

Books & Books, the beloved bookstore that has served South Florida for decades, has started a...Read more

There is good reason for cynicism about the prospects of holding Donald Trump accountable for his misdeeds.

He has more than enough money to pursue his legal strategy of delay, delay, delay in the multiple criminal cases against him. He has a federal judiciary that moves ponderously in the wake of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that...Read more

Over the last 20 years, the West has politically transformed.

The onetime Republican stronghold has become a Democratic bastion, dramatically reshaping the fight for the White House as Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon joined California and Washington in the ranks of solid-blue states.

Arizona and Nevada, once reliably red, have become two of ...Read more

Are you waking up with a lump in your throat that never used to be there? Is there an ache in your chest — best described as heartache — relatively new to you? Do you look at your children, fearing for their future and well-being? Do your eyes fill with tears, but you are not sure why?

If so, I join you. We are experiencing societal burnout...Read more

California has committed to substantially reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, aiming for carbon neutrality by 2045. The pledge is key to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s claims of climate leadership, which featured prominently in his recent visits to China and the United Nations.

But the California Air Resources Board recently released a preliminary ...Read more

The new Dollar General store in my rural Illinois hometown couldn’t open for the longest time because it couldn’t find workers. Apples rotted on the ground at Arends Orchard nearby because the 50-year proprietor couldn’t find help — for the first time in his long history of providing apples and cider to our area.

How many times have you...Read more

One of the best ways to get a picture of a nation is through its numbers and, perhaps more importantly, its averages.

But Americans like to believe that their nation is exceptional. And in some ways, it is. Yet what transpires on an “average day” for the “average person” tells a story that each of us should listen to.

Americans love ...Read more

A year ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT — a free generative artificial intelligence chatbot that creates text in response to user prompts.

With its launch, millions of people started using ChatGPT for tasks such as writing school essays, drafting emails and personal greetings, and retrieving information. Increasingly, more people and public ...Read more