You can’t blame the messenger for not being clear if the message is a mishmash. And last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offered such a messed-up message about unmasking that its director still has not been able to clean it up. As a result, many of us are more confused than ever about masks, and we have a right to be angry...Read more

A quarter-century has passed since gay NYPD cops sued for and won the right to march in the annual Pride Parade in their police uniforms, notching a small victory in the decades-long battle to end anti-LGBT discrimination within the now 36,000-uniformed-member force.

The long arc of history just bent the wrong way. The woke folk at Heritage of ...Read more

The federal government’s decision last week to relax its guidance on masks marked a turning point in America’s fight against COVID-19. While the reversal created confusion, and concern among some experts and skeptics, the move was appropriate given the encouraging trends, the effectiveness the vaccines have shown and the precautions ...Read more

The scandalized National Rifle Association, a target of allegations of financial mismanagement and corruption, is attempting to duck and cover. The maneuver is not working.

New York's attorney general in August filed a lawsuit alleging mismanagement of funds by top NRA officials. Among the claims: the organization's funds were used for such ...Read more

Following the CDC, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is rightly revising New York’s rules to allow fully vaccinated people to go maskless, both outdoors and in, with some major exceptions including nursing homes, schools and transit. The move shows that healthy respect for scientific expertise cuts both ways: toward caution when appropriate, and toward a ...Read more

There was a time when deadly attacks in the Middle East such as those the world has witnessed in recent days — including the destruction of a high-rise building in Gaza City housing offices of two international media organizations — would demand high-profile U.S. intervention with an envoy shuttling between representatives of Israel and the ...Read more

The Internal Revenue Service is the branch of government Americans most love to hate. Yet strengthening the much-maligned IRS may hold the key to spurring economic recovery, reducing inequality and restoring our democracy.

President Joe Biden’s ambitious American Jobs and Families Plans, detailed in a joint session of Congress on April 28, ...Read more

WASHINGTON – While campaign junkies everywhere are focused on the 2022 midterm elections, I’m already thinking about the fight for the Senate in 2024.

Sure, what happens in next year’s congressional elections will impact the future, as will the next presidential contest, the state of the economy and dozens of other unknowns. If you are ...Read more

Over the last pandemic year, we’ve seen doctors work heroically to save lives. Their dedication, expertise and work ethic represent the best of medical culture. But as we return to normality, we need to acknowledge that the same culture that turns doctors into heroes is also contributing to a health care crisis of rising costs and decaying ...Read more

On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a second round of Golden State Stimulus checks — cash payments that will go to 2 out of 3 Californians to help them make ends meet after a year of tremendous hardship for so many.

Many political analysts raised a collective eyebrow. They pointed out that the cash giveaway would take place while the ...Read more

For home-schoolers everywhere, the pandemic was the first real opportunity for their lifestyle choices “to be seen” and appreciated.

Non-home-schooling parents, forced by lockdowns to facilitate the day-to-day educational activities of their children, began to realize the scale of effort and sacrifice involved in teaching children at home. ...Read more

Unrelenting airstrikes from Israeli fighter jets on Gaza, and barrages of Hamas rockets onto Israeli cities, have moved into a second week. On the Palestinian side, the death toll topped 200, including 59 children, as of Sunday evening. At least eight Israelis have been killed in the violence. As has been the case with previous wars between ...Read more

Israel's war on Gaza is killing innocent children and assaulting press freedom. I fear parallels between its broken vision and the American Experiment.

The situation involving Israel, the Palestinian people, war-torn Gaza and the West Bank seems to change by the hour, and so does the way that so many people feel about it. That was really driven...Read more

Here come the psychedelics. A striking new study published in Nature Medicine argues that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy represents “a potential breakthrough treatment” for post-traumatic stress disorder. Other studies are in the works considering the potential therapeutic applications of psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms), ...Read more

Lots of ink has been spilled over the announced divorce of Bill and Melinda Gates, the software billionaire couple who became two of the world's most generous philanthropists.

Perhaps that means that thousands of ordinary people care, as they seem to about the British royals.

And maybe that means there is something for the rest of us to learn....Read more

Dear Mayor Lori Lightfoot,

I’m writing to ask you to reconsider your decision to cancel your Chicago Tribune subscription.

Maybe you already resubscribed, in which case this column was simple for you to access. If not, I’m hoping a member of your staff might print it out for you and leave it on your desk.

You are this city’s leader. We ...Read more

Elected prosecutors like Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón must be able to set their own prosecution and sentencing policies, within the limits of the law, because there will never be enough court time or prison space for them to chase every possible criminal charge or seek the maximum allowable sentence in every case.

But ...Read more

On Monday the Supreme Court bolstered the Fourth Amendment's ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures," ruling that police officers may not enter a home without a warrant and seize property as part of their so-called "community caretaking" role. But in another decision handed down that day, the court was depressingly less protective of the ...Read more

President Joe Biden cannot deliver on his climate pledges if his administration keeps allowing meat and dairy corporations to emit vast amounts of planet-warming pollutants unchecked.

Greening the energy, transportation, manufacturing and housing sectors — the focuses of Biden’s American Jobs Plan — is not enough to prevent devastating ...Read more