As we race to Election Day, one polling question will gain enormous importance in our understanding of the race — who are the actual voters? Using likely-voter screens, pollsters are now trying to figure out who will vote and who will sit this one out. In most polls, there is usually a small difference in the preference between the total ...Read more

The Supreme Court is back at work this week, and among the more important arguments the justices are set to hear is a lawsuit filed by the government of Mexico against American gun manufacturers.

A data leak from the Mexican military indicated that more than 90% of the firearms found at crime scenes in Mexico between 2018 and 2022 originated ...Read more

Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters desperately wants the Bible — well, a bible — in state classrooms.

As the Oklahoman newspaper reported last week, Walters’ play here is actually a good bit greasier than a straightforward Christian nationalist effort to impose his own religion in the state’s 43,000 classrooms. ...Read more

We are constantly reminded that we are experiencing a climate crisis, but as a climate scientist, I can tell you that’s not what the science has shown us so far. Other than modest warming, there has been little change in any kind of severe weather that can be attributed to global greenhouse gas emissions.

You don’t have to take my word for ...Read more

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Alice cried after falling down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

In nearly every arena of our lives we might observe the same, from our changing climate and increasingly high-stakes global conflicts, to space travel, energy conservation and the accelerating use of ...Read more

In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, U.S. politicians aren’t just bad-mouthing vaccines — they’re pushing through laws that undermine them. If the trend continues, we risk losing the layer of protection we enjoy from preventable diseases like the measles. And we risk losing more lives to seasonal illnesses like the flu and COVID.

A new...Read more

Now that inflation seems to be largely tamed, another threat has sprung up in its wake: the misguided notion that politicians can and should deal with high prices by capping or controlling them.

Both parties are guilty of this economic malpractice. President Joe Biden released a plan in July that would set a cap on certain rents. Vice President...Read more

"I grew up middle class" is not the answer to any question other than, perhaps, "How did you grow up?"

Yet that's the response incessantly offered by Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, when pressed on almost any issue.

This middle class virtue signaling is aimed at assuring voters the Democratic ticket ...Read more

An odd pattern has emerged in the history of presidential politics. Every time the United States celebrates a major birthday milestone, a Republican sits in the White House.

When America celebrated its golden jubilee in 1826, Democratic-Republican John Quincy Adams was enjoying his second year as the country’s chief executive. When the nation...Read more

Caitlin Clark can’t win.

On one side of the court, she’s catching it from petty players who think the only reason she has achieved rock star status is because she is white.

On the other side of the court, she’s catching it from critics who think she’s not doing enough to denounce the racist backlash against the petty players.

...Read more

Despite huge enthusiasm for shifting from fossil fuels to green energy, this transition just isn’t happening. Implementing a significant change in our current trajectory would be prohibitively expensive. A major policy overhaul is needed.

On a global scale, we are investing nearly $2 trillion annually to create an energy transition. In the ...Read more

Who knew? Oklahoma needs Bibles.

Lots of them. Like 55,000. That’s the scale of the request issued by Ryan Walters, superintendent of public instruction for Oklahoma. Walters earlier mandated that every public school classroom in the state be equipped with a Bible and that the Bible be taught in those classrooms.

I suspect that the citizens ...Read more

One of the more curious benefits (or perhaps “obligations” is the more apt description) of working as a journalist for four decades is that you hear a lot of campaign speeches. I mean a whole lot. From small-town mayors to big-time presidential candidates, one gets accustomed to the familiar script whether it’s a Democrat, a Republican or ...Read more

In August, Texas surpassed California in the amount of utility-scale solar energy it produces, claiming first place and adding to its longtime lead in wind energy. The Lone Star state, one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel energy producers, has shown that the future of energy is renewable.

It isn’t a mystery why the renewable energy ...Read more

Republicans who understand the unacceptable dangers of a second Donald Trump presidency face an unenviable choice this year. Do they vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, endorsing policies they deeply oppose in order to stop what they understand is the more fundamental threat that Trump poses to the nation? Or do they opt for a third-party ...Read more

With the Chicago Teachers Union making unrealistic contract demands, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson taking its side and Gov. JB Pritzker eyeing a potential political train wreck, you might have thought things couldn’t get much worse for the Chicago Public Schools.

Then the school board announced it would resign en masse.

That’s as bad as it...Read more

There’s an old saying that a recession is when you lose your job and a depression is when I lose mine. A similar logic applies to floods. Hurricane Helene brought a flooding disaster to southern Appalachia unlike anything seen since Katrina. But getting just an inch of water in your house could be life-changing in its own way.

It shouldn’t ...Read more

The American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration think tank, issued a report last week estimating the costs — financial costs only — of deporting all the undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

The financial impacts of deporting between 11 million and 14 million people are, not surprisingly, vast. The group’s low estimate starts at $315 ...Read more

By every definition, I am a frequent flyer. Every Thursday afternoon, after I cast my last vote in the Senate, I head to the airport to fly home to Illinois, where I take meetings with constituents and attend state events through the weekend. Come Monday morning, I’m back on a plane to Washington.

I understand the practicality of airline ...Read more

The federal government has fumbled one of its largest obligations in education.

The result is chaos for colleges and millions of students who depend on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to access loans and scholarships.

The lack of accountability raises a deeper question: Why do federal bureaucrats have so much power over ...Read more