Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis yields to no one in positioning himself as promoter of the most ghoulishly irresponsible pandemic policies in the nation.

But now he's outdone himself.

On Tuesday, DeSantis introduced as Florida's new surgeon general Joseph Ladapo. A medical doctor, Ladapo has what looks superficially like a sterling pedigree — a ...Read more

Now that the top U.S. health regulators have delivered their verdict on COVID-19 booster shots, who exactly is in line to get one in the coming weeks? Sadly, too many of the wrong people and too few of the right ones, adding more messiness to a rollout process that’s been far from smooth.

The Biden administration already jumped the gun on ...Read more

For all the nation's problems — resurgent COVID-19, tragic weather extremes and the economic tolls of both — you'd think political leaders wouldn't crash us into an easily avoidable crisis as well. Yet here we are, facing the catastrophic threat of defaulting on the federal debt.

It's a recurring political game, a favorite of Republicans. ...Read more

Welcome to Florida’s weekly show of COVID-19 quackery, with Gov. Ron DeSantis taking center stage.

We’ve got a lot to unpack since the ambitious DeSantis is completely out of the closet now, shamelessly peddling disinformation debunked by leading infectious-disease experts and those pesky know-it-all “disease detectives,” the ...Read more

Florida’s new surgeon general says the state “will completely reject fear” when it comes to COVID-19.

Apparently Florida will embrace ignorance and recklessness instead. In fact, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, is a trifecta of recklessness when it comes to the pandemic.

He questions the value of vaccines and ...Read more

With their domestic priorities facing do-or-die votes in the coming days, congressional Democrats are coalescing behind their all-too-common strategy: Ready, fire, aim. Not content with capitalizing on their majorities in Congress, Democratic centrists and progressives are bickering over two spending bills, threatening both pieces of legislation...Read more

Retweets are not endorsements, goes the formula. But is a tweet linking to an existing article a republication of the article, legally speaking?

A federal appeals court said that the answer may be yes, and on that basis revived a libel lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes against the journalist Ryan Lizza. The consequences are significant, ...Read more

Everything was gently great on the beachfront at Cornwall, England, last June 12. Gentle waves were rolling gently onto the beach. A gentle summer breeze kept the shoreline shrubbery waving, ever so gently.

And sitting with their backs to that gently idyllic backdrop, Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron were sitting side by side in white cane lawn ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The word is out that major land zoning bills signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom don't amount to much because they were so watered down by compromising legislators. Don't believe it.

If my next-door neighbor can convert her single-family home into a fourplex, that amounts to a lot. Suddenly there are more cars parked on the ...Read more

Two of America’s toughest problems can be tempered with one solution.

The baby boom generation is graying, creating an ever-larger population of older people, many isolated, whose needs the nation is ill equipped to meet or even monitor.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service has gone $160 billion into debt, in part as digital communications ...Read more

“Ted Lasso” is a match made in globalizer heaven. It took a U.S. media/tech platform to make an iconic show about English football, and it took English football to make Apple TV+ a legitimate global media player. Certain Brits and certain Americans might be offended by this truth, but “Ted Lasso” would not have the same global reach if ...Read more

It was the kind of news story that would have been utterly shocking ... before March of 2020, anyway. An everyday occasion normally associated with joy — a baby shower — pivots into a squabble over something trivial. In this particular saga, which took place last weekend in a Pittsburgh suburb, the argument was over who would transport the ...Read more

In October 2017, as a deadly fire tore through the heart of Sonoma's wine country, scores of elderly residents were forced to fend for themselves after being abandoned by staffers at two care homes.

More than 20 people would have died, investigators said, if family and police hadn't come to the rescue and steered the old and infirm aboard city ...Read more

Sudan’s transition to democracy was rudely jolted this week, when a group of military officers loyal to the ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir attempted a coup in Khartoum against the civilian-led administration of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. Their failure is cause for relief, but neither the government nor the wider world can afford to exhale....Read more

There exists something transcendent in the best of what the African American experience has to offer. It is reflected in the many cultural contributions made throughout American history. Africans brought to America have had a profound influence on the American civic landscape. I use "soul" as a metaphor to describe this sense of awareness. It ...Read more

Manatee deaths in Florida have reached the point of calamity in 2021. But that’s no surprise — almost a decade ago, there were already signs that our beloved sea cows were in trouble.

In 2013, manatee deaths reached 830, a sad record that has been broken in 2021. This year hasn’t even ended, and 942 perished as of Sept. 10, according to ...Read more

The electoral farce that took place in Russia last week was hardly interesting as a political event: Once again, the main Kremlin-backed party, United Russia, retained a constitutional majority in parliament in a procedure that only President Vladimir Putin’s propagandists could deem free or fair; this time around, the Organization for ...Read more

If anyone will close the curtain on Trumpism, it will be people like Angélica Salas. She's a 50-year-old Latina matriarch and immigrant rights activist who helped save Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election.

Salas crossed the border from Mexico as an unaccompanied child 45 years ago, and this year, she set a national example for how Latinos ...Read more