What’s your thinking, Mr. President, about the images of the border agent grabbing and menacing a Haitian migrant with what looks for all the world like a whip, a migrant who, like hundreds of others, seeks to enter this, ahem, land of the free; a hungry migrant who, if you look closely, is bringing food back to his encampment.

Not only are ...Read more

The Jan. 6 House Select Committee has only just begun its work and it’s already proving the great value of congressional investigations to the country.

The committee was established against the backdrop of vast gaps in our knowledge about the Capitol attack. It is a national imperative — one that all public leaders should share — to get ...Read more

I have spent 50 years teaching college students from coast to coast and points in between, and while much has changed over those years, one thing has not: an often abysmal ignorance among my students of the less-than-glorious side of American history.

That disturbing reality slapped me across the face anew when, early this month, I asked a ...Read more

What is a COVID-19 vaccine mandate worth if it includes exemptions for “sincerely held religious beliefs”? Very little, if anything at all.

If the definition of religious beliefs were contained to major, established religions, there would basically be no exemptions because no major religion bans vaccination against COVID-19 or other ...Read more

With 86% of major U.S. corporations predicting that artificial intelligence will become a “mainstream technology” at their company this year, management-by-algorithm is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

AI has already transformed the way workers are recruited, hired, trained, evaluated and even fired. One recent study found that 83% ...Read more

Recently, as he bathed in the afterglow of his romping, stomping recall victory, Gov. Gavin Newsom was asked the inevitable question.

Did the smashing result, Major Garrett of CBS News wished to know, "accelerate or diminish" Newsom's ambitions to be president?

"Literally 100% never been on my radar," said the conquering Democrat, delivering ...Read more

In the final days of Donald Trump’s administration, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered some very unusual instructions to senior military officials. If they received orders to launch an attack, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons, they were to “do the process” of consulting with him first. The...Read more

It’s three o’clock in the morning and a piercing tone from your phone jolts you awake. Your heart pounds and your hands shake as the urgent message sinks in: A disaster is heading straight for your area, and it will hit within an hour. What should you do? Where should you go? Will your whole family — including your animal companions — ...Read more

A lawsuit with more than a million plaintiffs?

It boggles the mind to imagine that many people involved in a single lawsuit.

But that’s the potential fallout from U. S. District Judge Andrea Wood’s decision at the end of last month to grant class action status to a lawsuit against the city of Chicago over its police department’s long-...Read more

The California Coastal Commission is well known for protecting public access to the coast — the ability to walk onto a beach and not be stopped by walls, gates and signs illegally put up by beachfront property owners. Recalcitrant violators who refuse to remove a barrier can be fined up to $11,250 a day by the Coastal Commission.

But the ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Larry Elder never should have been on the gubernatorial recall ballot. Neither should have Kevin Faulconer, Kevin Paffrath or Angelyne.

Only one name should have been presented to voters: Gavin Newsom. And just one question: Should he be recalled as governor?

If the answer had been yes — highly unlikely given ...Read more

One week into the school year, all 1,800 New York City public schools are open to in-person learning for all students. That’s a substantial achievement — with an asterisk to be informed by unknowns that need to be answered quickly.

What we know is that, after two years disrupted by COVID, kids flooded back into the schools, masks on. New ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Earlier this month, in a house on a Venice canal, three people who reportedly thought they were using cocaine died after apparently ingesting the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. A fourth person was hospitalized and survived.

Stories about accidental overdose deaths involving fentanyl are becoming increasingly common.

There ...Read more

It makes all the sense in the world: If someone is accessible, easier to contact, then it is not much of a reach to assume that we can easily establish and maintain a connection with that person, right?

Not so much.

The fact is that the more accessible we are, the less connected we have become.

Remember when there were no cellphones? Some of ...Read more

As a climate scientist in the deep South, I am often asked whether climate change is real. My usual response is to say, “Look out the window.”

As I type this in mid-September, 5.5 inches of rain have inundated our town, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in six hours. Recently, Hurricane Ida — the 13th named storm of this season — ripped through...Read more

Climate change is having a breakout performance this year. Throughout the U.S., the slow-motion calamity long described in scientific studies and news articles has been visible to the naked eye or felt on tingling flesh — here too wet, there too dry, everywhere too hot. It’s only human to wonder where the higher, safer ground might be. Where...Read more

It’s been less than two weeks since President Joe Biden said the federal government would throw its weight behind new COVID-19 vaccine and testing mandates for corporate America. And there are already signs of progress.

Last week, Biden hosted some of the country’s top business leaders at the White House to discuss the push. Afterward, ...Read more

Twice now, bills requiring California high school students to take a semester of ethnic studies haven’t made it to law, both times because the model curriculum for the course was deemed unacceptable. Sadly, despite the necessity of this course at this time of racial and ethnic division and misunderstanding, the bill should be rejected again.

...Read more

In 1777, there weren’t chants of “My body, my choice” at political rallies or governors selling “Don’t Fauci my Florida” campaign T-shirts.

But George Washington’s decision to mandate that Continental Army soldiers be inoculated against smallpox wasn’t easy. There were no safe, widely tested vaccines like the ones used for the ...Read more

The battle over Democrats' ambitious spending plan is heating up in Congress, but one piece of the outcome is already clear: The $3.5 trillion price tag is being whittled down.

That will disappoint progressives, who see the budget plan as their best chance in a generation to enact big changes in domestic policy from universal pre-K and free ...Read more