Elon Musk was entitled to be elated when he welcomed two NASA astronauts back to Earth on Sunday. His company, SpaceX, had blasted them into space and then brought them safely home 63 days later. The entire mission was a marvel of engineering and a milestone for American enterprise. In its current mood of exhaustion and discord, the country ...Read more

Fidel Castro has risen from his oversized, corn-kernel-shaped tomb in Santa Ifigenia Cemetery to play a role in another American presidential election.

This time, Castro's ghost looms over Democrat Joe Biden's all-female short list of candidates for vice president.

"The passing of the comandante en jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba," ...Read more

When Louis DeJoy became postmaster general in May, he was the first person in more than 20 years to run the U.S. Postal Service who had never worked there. His predecessor, Megan Brennan, had spent her entire career with the service, originally as a mail carrier.

On the other hand, DeJoy, an accountant, founded and sold a company, New Breed ...Read more

If there is any blessing in the medical and financial crises brought about by COVID-19, it is the light they've shone on our tragic economic inequality. And the United States' bold reckoning with race has broadened the meaning of that inequality and heightened the urgency to confront it.

Low-income and Black, Latinx and Native Americans are ...Read more

To hobble the U.S. Postal Service under the guise of "treating it like a business" is to undermine public confidence in yet another vital American institution at exactly the time when confidence is most needed, as much of the nation prepares to vote by mail in the Nov. 3 election. Such an attack would be an obvious strategy of a terrorist group ...Read more

Just like the country itself, the nation's capital is deeply divided on nearly every critical issue. But Congress and the White House must compromise and coalesce on continuing aid for the millions of Americans facing economic calamity due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The need is intense and immediate. Unemployment was at 11.1% in June, and ...Read more

Add Trader Joe's grocery chain to the outlets, companies and institutions pushing back against accusations of racism based on far-fetched theses.

The popular niche grocer a few weeks ago seemed to tilt toward petition-gatherers who objected to the store's private label Trader Jose, Trader Ming and other names assigned to international food ...Read more

The Hong Kong government has now postponed its legislative elections for one year.

The excuse was a spike in the coronavirus, but that was a transparent excuse.

Opposition candidates were clearly poised to make gains in September.

The cancellation was preceded by banning some candidates.

And this was preceded by the crackdown on protests, ...Read more

When President Donald Trump ordered the ejection of all foreign students whose studies were completely online, several universities moved to thwart the order by scheduling hybrid (combined online and classroom) classes for the fall. Since President Donald Trump has withdrawn his order, some schools have moved almost fully online while many ...Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 150,000 Americans is likely to end the woeful presidency of Donald Trump. With the economy, once his strongest suit, in tatters, and two-thirds of Americans disapproving of his handling of the pandemic as well as broad disapproval of how he dealt with recent racial unrest, both Trump and his ...Read more

In nearly four years in office, President Donald Trump has challenged the independence of the judicial branch more than any other president. He's accused judges of being "Obama judges" or "Mexican judges." When he's been investigated for corruption or obstruction of justice, he's routinely portrayed himself as above the law. He's directed his ...Read more

Attorney General William Barr left us with a terrifying certainty in the wake of his testimony on July 28 in front of the House Judiciary Committee: Under him, the Department of Justice stands ready to advance any pro-Trump policy, justifying it on the basis of a blinkered, tenuous view of the facts and the law, or maybe just Barr's personal ...Read more

The announcement Friday that Hong Kong's legislative elections, originally scheduled for September, would be delayed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic is the latest example of the increasing authoritarianism in China. It came weeks after Beijing adopted a new security law that ostensibly prohibits "secession, subversion, terrorism and ...Read more

Let's dispense with the myth that the Trump administration has no strategy related to the coronavirus pandemic.

In his statements and the actions of federal agencies under his control, as well as the positions held by his Republican congressional caucus, the strategy is clear: Use the pandemic to make America a crueler place.

In only the last ...Read more

One of the most momentous but least well-known challenges facing U.S. cities in the age of COVID-19 is that public transit may be on the verge of collapse. Many of the nation's transit agencies are in an existential crisis. Transit fares and the local taxes that fund this essential service have fallen by up to 90% in major cities.

In addition, ...Read more

The good news in Gallup's recently released global poll on world leadership is that the U.S. slightly improved. The bad news is that approval across 135 nations is only 33% -- just ahead of China (32%) and Russia (30%), but well behind Germany (44%), which leads the quartet of consequential countries. Even worse, disapproval of U.S. leadership ...Read more

Here's something you don't hear in American politics every day: A pro-immigrant message could be a winning strategy in a presidential election.

That may seem counterintuitive given immigration has been a lightning-rod issue for some time, even more so since President Donald Trump made tough action, particularly on illegal immigration, central ...Read more

One of the defining features of the Trump years has been the collapse of bipartisan consensus on foreign policy. There is at least one notable exception, however: support for a democratic transition in Venezuela.

When Juan Guaido, the leader of Venezuela's national assembly and the man recognized by the U.S. and more than 60 other nations as ...Read more