Despite the proven health risks in vaping — inhaling misted nicotine — e-cigarette companies have marketed it as a healthier alternative to cigarettes.

But there’s nothing healthy about vaping. It exposes users to cancer-causing chemicals and metals that are toxic to their lungs, as well as seriously addictive levels of nicotine. Users ...Read more

As Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to suffer humiliating battlefield defeats, his growing desperation may lead him to conclude that Russian-backed terrorist attacks against Western countries are a legitimate response. Attacks could be directed toward European military targets, NATO-related facilities or even civilians. Russia’s ...Read more

The stories coming out of the most hurricane-devastated areas of Florida’s Southwest coast are heart-rending: Residents leaving on foot from Fort Myers Beach, rolling small suitcases of whatever they could salvage. Pleas for food, water, propane and toilet paper posted on social media. Pine Island, Naples, Matlacha — all hit hard. Sanibel ...Read more

How encouraging that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has discovered the importance of setting aside partisan rancor to help suffering Americans in times of crisis. DeSantis’ willingness to shelve his usual attacks on the Biden administration to politely request emergency federal aid in the wake of Hurricane Ian is an inspiring example of ...Read more

It’s been a banner few years for parents having to talk about deadly things with their children. A pandemic. Mass shootings. Climate change. The end of democracy.

And now fentanyl.

Catastrophes like COVID-19 and global warming are problems on a scale so vast that they can be difficult to understand, let alone explain to our children (and ...Read more

A free and robust press is a central ingredient of a flourishing and democratic society — and given the number of existential crises we now face, also critical to its survival. Yet today, the journalism sector is collapsing. The number of newsroom jobs has declined by more than 30,000 since 2008, while local news deserts continue to grow and ...Read more

When the midterm election winds shifted direction this summer toward Democrats, powered by a gust of anger among women voters over the Supreme Court and abortion rights, no incumbent GOP U.S. senator looked in worse shape than Wisconsin's Ron Johnson.

Johnson had already broken a promise to retire in 2022 — which would have spared him from ...Read more

After the U.S. Supreme Court repealed the constitutional right to an abortion, Washingtonians knew their conservative Idaho neighbors would lean hard against a woman's right to choose. Few suspected, however, that things would get so out of hand that the University of Idaho would stop distributing contraceptives based on a 150-year-old law.

...Read more

Last year, a House Judiciary subcommittee heard a harrowing, but increasingly common, story of injustice. Robert Williams, a Black man, was arrested in 2020 on suspicion of stealing watches from a store in Detroit. But even though he hadn’t been in that store in several years, police took him away in a squad car in front of his two young ...Read more

The Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol is not a top-tier issue for voters. According to my colleague Melanie Mason in The Times, there is little sign that it — or the precarious condition of American democracy it has come to symbolize — will draw many people to the polls in November or determine a swing voter's choices.

Similarly, climate change...Read more

A recent study by Japanese researchers observing that dogs cry happy tears when reuniting with their guardians should surprise no one. Science long ago proved that dogs, like all animals, experience a full range of emotions, including joy, sorrow, empathy, grief and doubt. The evidence is both academic and empirical.

Elephants repeatedly return...Read more

Our cultural hypocrisy toward mental illness and addiction, not to mention fame and fortune, is never more evident than when some poor famous soul dies by suicide. "Why?" we ask. "Why would a person who seemed to have it all end their own life?" And then someone writes a book or makes a movie about it.

How many stories of the rich, famous and ...Read more

When authoritarian regimes strip away the humanity of their own people, blowback invariably follows. That is now happening in both Iran and Russia, where the autocrats in charge are seeing firsthand their nations’ boiling points reached, both on the streets and in the minds of infuriated citizens.

In Iran, fiery demonstrations against Supreme...Read more

Some editorial writers are keen to describe the looming midterms as "the inflation election." Then again, their average readers are millionaires by household net worth. They skew 62 percent male and in their 40s. The last time I checked, the great thing about America is that it's a democracy. It includes non-millionaires. It includes women. It ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The first thing to know about the Republican candidate for California governor is that he's a good guy, not a jerk or a crackpot.

You could confidently vote for state Sen. Brian Dahle and smile — not feel the urge to throw up.

A seed farmer from the tiny Lassen County town of Bieber in the mountainous northeast, Dahle,...Read more

As a member of Congress, Ron DeSantis voted against providing federal financial assistance to New York and New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy. Now, as governor of Florida, he’s all for delivering federal money to his state.

A little dose of hypocrisy is nothing new in politics. But DeSantis’s rise to political stardom since becoming governor...Read more

The price of “living with COVID” in a free and open society is turning out to be much heftier than public health experts predicted.

Even with good vaccines and treatments, this year’s U.S. death toll is already many orders of magnitude higher than that of the other virus that circulates each year, the flu. A terrible flu season kills ...Read more

My kids and I began reading banned books together when they were just learning sight words. Snuggled with my kids on the couch, I’d read aloud from a slim paperback volume of the “Captain Underpants” series. My son, 6, and my daughter, 4, followed along by looking at the images.

We giggled through the antics of fourth graders George and ...Read more

After weeks of reverses, Russia's army is still losing ground in the battlefields of Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin's response, characteristically, has been to escalate on other fronts.

Putin expanded the military draft, announcing a call-up of 300,000 reservists and prompting an exodus of Russian men to neighboring countries.

On Friday, ...Read more

As the Supreme Court begins its new term, it’s clear that the court’s majority is determined to move the law much further to the right. The last term ended with the court overruling Roe v. Wade, dramatically expanding gun rights, rejecting the separation of church and state, and limiting the power of administrative agencies.

About half the ...Read more