When Shyara Hill of Philadelphia was 16 years old, she was arrested in school after defending her little brother from a bully. Three years later, she still couldn't close her juvenile justice case because, having just started her very first job the previous week, she didn't have the $420 in fees that the court required. For that reason only, she...Read more

We often deliver frank advice to members of Congress. Today we deliver a frank alert: If companies that provide high-quality reporting and commentary can't freely bargain with the likes of Google and Facebook for a fair marketplace, then the news industry's downward financial spiral will only intensify. News staffs will continue to shrink, ...Read more

The Camp fire in Butte County is unbelievable. Dozens of people dead. Hundreds missing. Thousands of structures destroyed. Tens of thousands of acres burned. And still maybe 10 days from full containment. After years of stories about severe wildfire risks in California, how could this have happened?

According to a Bay Area News Group report, ...Read more

Alarm bells understandably rang earlier this month when Matthew G. Whitaker, the chief of staff to fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, leapfrogged over more senior -- and Senate-confirmed -- Justice Department officials to become President Trump's acting attorney general.

It's hard to imagine a less reassuring replacement. As a commentator, ...Read more

When Nancy Pelosi's supporters talk about her strengths for the job of speaker, "counting votes" is usually right at the top of the list. But counting hardly describes the process that Pelosi has deployed for the last 16 years as the Democratic leader in the House to pass more landmark pieces of legislation than any other sitting member of ...Read more

Uh-oh, it's here again. The day we are supposed to use to give collective thanks for our blessings, but we fear that our Thanksgiving table will become a bloody battleground, not over who gets the wishbone, but between the left and right wings of the family.

The fear of dysfunction is not imaginary.

"Argumentation could be high, as there are ...Read more

Supporters of Hillary Clinton in 2016 -- and even a few non-supporters -- are having a good laugh over the report that first daughter/senior advisor Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to transact official business.

On Twitter, John Dean (yes, that John Dean) opined: "Dems should run this to ground given her father thought a very big ...Read more

This time the bloodshed that indelibly stains Chicago violated this city's first chartered hospital, a haven and healer that's given life for 166 years. We'll likely learn more in coming days about the why of this massacre on a Monday. For now, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's characterization will suffice: What took the lives of innocents at Mercy Hospital...Read more

Leftovers are not only the best part of Thanksgiving; for many of us, leftovers are actually the best parts of life.

Most people won't give you the evil eye if you're going for what remains after they've made their choices. I learned early that if you focus your appetite on what others don't want, you can feast every day. Here's the real secret...Read more

My phone has been blowing up -- perhaps a poor choice of words in this context -- dinging and donging with calls, texts, emails, direct messages.

How did you do it? Where can I get a fire pump? What's the name of that chemical?

The number of those asking for my firefighting tips is nearly as long as the list of friends needing a place to live....Read more

As extreme weather strikes with greater frequency and ferocity -- especially on the East and West coasts of the U.S. -- media attention rightly focuses on the often heroic response of the emergency services. What is missing from these accounts, however, is a similar emphasis on climate change as a source of the increasing extremity of these ...Read more

Forty years ago, an American preacher and madman named Jim Jones orchestrated the largest mass murder in recorded history when he forced more than 900 men, women and children to drink a cyanide-laced punch at his eponymous settlement in Guyana.

Early news reports referred to Jonestown as a "cult of death" and spread the idea that residents ...Read more

When fast-moving fires swept through both suburban neighborhoods and rural enclaves in California wine country last year, many residents complained that they only learned of the late-night blaze from neighbors banging on their doors, barking dogs or calls from friends -- not from official emergency alerts. With flames at their doorsteps, people ...Read more

With the Democrats having retaken the House of Representatives, and with socialists gaining more clout within the Democratic Party, the U.S. is awakening to the reality of a reinvigorated left. Long decades of increasing inequality have taken some of the shine off of capitalism, and the disappointment wrought by the Great Recession seems to have...Read more

Now that Democrats are poised to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January, taxpayers can expect a major push to achieve the "progressive" goal of total government control over American health care.

Their leading legislative proposals for government-controlled health system -- H.R.676 and S. 1804 -- are broadly similar. Rep. ...Read more

Sheep are such gentle individuals that children sing nursery rhymes about them and adults count them to help us doze off. Yet when we buy wool sweaters and winter coats, we are supporting a violent industry that leaves these animals broken and bloody.

Surprised? In the past four years, PETA and its international affiliates have exposed the ...Read more