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

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

Harvey Levin's gossip juggernaut TMZ reported Wednesday that Michael Avenatti, nattily dressed lawyer for Stormy Daniels, had been arrested on domestic violence charges.

The article set off alarms. Initially it claimed the victim of Avenatti's alleged abuse was his estranged second wife, Lisa Storie. Storie issued a statement denying TMZ's tale...Read more

I was a regular Facebook user for about 10 years, and I still keep an account open that I check from time to time. But, shortly after my children were born, I decided that using Facebook was not helping me to live my life in a meaningful way and might have been adding to my re-emerging feelings of depression. So, after a few false starts, I ...Read more

Wednesday's announcement that President Donald Trump would back a remarkably broad bipartisan coalition in support of federal sentencing and prison reform -- joining Charles and David Koch on the right, the American Civil Liberties Union on the left and even some law enforcement groups like the Fraternal Order of Police -- could be a landmark ...Read more

Recent history shows that mass killings in the U.S. don't follow a single script.

But there is one common element shared by many of these tragedies: legal access to semiautomatic guns.

Domestic terrorists such as the mass shooters in Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh and Parkland, Fla., come from different demographic backgrounds and have different ...Read more

A familiar pattern has emerged over the past decade with Facebook. A journalistic investigation or a watchdog group shows the world's most popular social network -- with more than 200 million users in the United States and more than 2.2 billion worldwide -- has broken promises about safeguarding its users' privacy or protecting them from ...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas -- For white Christian Republican pastors stung by election results, it is no longer enough to just say Democrats are wrong.

The Democratic Party is "basically godless," a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention said in defeat on election night.

Pastor Ed Young of Houston is not the only pastor saying that.

The ...Read more

A federal criminal-justice reform bill designed to make sentencing more rational and inmates' return to society more successful has bipartisan support and last week won the backing of President Trump. But in the current topsy-turvy political landscape, that may not be enough. Continuing pushback from a key Republican lawmaker and an influential ...Read more

Marijuana is almost legal in Michigan. After the results of the Nov. 6 election are certified sometime next month, recreational marijuana use will no longer be a crime.

But thousands of Michiganders have already been marked with the stigma of a marijuana conviction, for actions that wouldn't be illegal once Proposal 1 is in force.

Michigan ...Read more

Major corporations make big promises to potential customers. Beer companies sell refreshment. Insurance companies offer protection. Facebook, the social media network used by an astounding 68 percent of American adults, peddles a warmer, fuzzier concept: togetherness.

But what happens when a company runs afoul of its own mission statement? It ...Read more

WASHINGTON – When my eight brothers and sisters and I were young, our parents took us on a camping trip through Yellowstone National Park.

Aside from the family lore we brought back -- the family who slept through a bear crashing through their tent next to ours, the bear who carried off a bag of baby food jars, the bear who chased our father ...Read more

Every year at this time I wonder why we, as American Indians, bother to celebrate Thanksgiving. Despite all our social ills and battles with state and the federal government, we always manage to find reasons for gratitude.

Of course, some native people reject the holiday altogether. A native man I know once told me he refused to celebrate ...Read more