Politics
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Commentary: GenAI will save lives -- If properly applied
In medicine, rare moments arise when technological breakthroughs and shifts in leadership create an opportunity for sweeping change. The United States now stands at that crossroad.
A major advance in artificial intelligence, combined with a shake-up at the highest levels of federal healthcare leadership, has the potential to save hundreds of ...Read more

Commentary: The cards are stacked against the humanities. How should colleges respond?
“You don’t have the cards right now.” In his now notorious news conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump offered the image of a poker match or, less grand, a game of war. It was characteristic plain speak from the real estate developer-turned-politician.
Negotiation and the “art of the deal” ...Read more

Commentary: Medicaid plays key role in preventing overdoses
Thanks to the implementation of effective policy, the number of drug overdose deaths in the United States fell by nearly 24% in 2024. Members of Congress must act to preserve these policies and gains. And one of the most valuable players in combating the opioid crisis response is Medicaid, which is now very much at risk.
More than one million ...Read more

Commentary: LA fires expose flawed housing policies
Tens of thousands of people in Los Angeles lost their homes to the devastating fires that raged in early January. The Eaton and Palisades fires reveal how vulnerable and interdependent we all are. The people of Los Angeles have risen to support their newly displaced neighbors, while state and local elected officials took immediate steps and ...Read more

Tom Philp: From California, I've tried to help Ukrainian families being abandoned by my country
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine, once with some 4 million residents. It is also only 19 miles from Russia. When the missiles and drones started raining down on the city in 2022, a college student named Svetlana was taking care of her ailing grandmother. A young mother, Anastasiia, was living with her son and ...Read more

Commentary: What is AI's place at March Madness?
The madness of March is here. College basketball teams from across the nation are preparing to battle it out on the courts, to soundly beat their competition or pull unfathomable upsets. The mantra of “survive and advance” in the nation’s most watched and followed single elimination college basketball tournament is what every coach has on ...Read more

Editorial: Floridians need a property tax break, but here's why DeSantis' proposal is dangerous
There is no doubt that Floridians are struggling to afford living in the state, especially in South Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis’ solution is to eliminate property taxes, and he’s pushing the Legislature to put that idea up for voter approval.
Slashing taxes is a popular political stance for a governor trying to remain relevant. It also ...Read more

Nolan Finley: Inside Trump's helter-skelter mind
An acquaintance who worked in the first Trump administration offers some insight into the president's decision-making process.
While most people start with fact-finding, analysis and negotiation before acting, Trump turns that process on its head.
He begins with the decision, and that's when the bargaining starts.
I've described what Trump is...Read more

Allison Schrager: Tariffs won't help more men get jobs
Say this about President Donald Trump: Even when he has crazy ideas — and his tariff policy certainly seems crazy — he is often trying to address a legitimate concern.
In the case of tariffs, they are part of the president’s economic plan to provide men with better opportunities. It is a worthy goal, but tariffs will not help him reach ...Read more

Andreas Kluth: The US has a long history of bad peace deals
A truce is always better than no truce, and that includes the ceasefire which Ukraine, after discussions with the United States in Saudi Arabia, says it’s ready to comply with, provided that Russia does so too.
It’s also good that the Americans and Ukrainians are talking at all, after President Donald Trump so contemptuously dressed down ...Read more

Editorial: GOP must rediscover importance of judicial review
Republicans have rightfully criticized Democrats in recent years for leaning on the Supreme Court in an effort to intimidate the justices into supporting a progressive agenda. It’s unfortunate that some members of the GOP now exhibit a similar intolerance for judicial independence.
Five years ago, Sen. Chuck Schumer stood in front of the ...Read more

Patricia Lopez: Drop the unrealistic deportation goal and go after criminals
Border Czar Tom Homan was hand-picked by President Donald Trump to carry out the mass deportations that were central to Trump’s winning campaign. Since his appointment, Homan has sown fear among immigrant communities, blustered on television about prosecuting mayors of blue cities who don’t comply, and staged photo ops of shackled migrants ...Read more

James Stavridis: Ukraine needs US weapons but it needs intelligence more
Over the past couple of weeks, America’s Ukrainian partners have been riding a roller-coaster of President Donald Trump’s making. The low point was the disastrous blow-up in the Oval Office between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which led to the U.S. cutting off military aid and intelligence sharing until the Ukrainians ...Read more

Commentary: How to revive America's 'golden middle'
The share of U.S. workers represented by a union ended 2024 at 9.9 percent. Strip out public sector workers and the rate was 5.9%. Both numbers are even more stunning once you realize union representation is less now than 1934, the year before the right to organize was enshrined into law by the National Labor Relations Act.
Logically, the ...Read more

Michael Hiltzik: Are White House insiders using Trump's tariff announcements to play the stock market? It's not that easy
In what may be a sign of the times, and not an especially healthy one, my readers and friends recently have been filling my email inbox with questions about whether Donald Trump and White House insiders have been manipulating the stock market with his vacillating announcements about tariffs and the economy.
Speculation along those lines broke ...Read more

Jackie Calmes: When it comes to Trump's economy, the adults have left the room
The great and powerful Oz, as Donald Trump models himself, never warned Americans that the road to his promised Golden Age would be full of speed bumps, stops and starts and big tolls in the form of higher shopping bills and reduced retirement accounts. Candidate Trump also didn't caution voters that they'd have to be patient. No, he would work ...Read more

Commentary: Why the Trump administration is easing up on crypto crime at exactly the wrong moment
The Securities and Exchange Commission is scaling back its cryptocurrency enforcement unit. Why does this matter? Because crime pervades the crypto industry.
Just last month, a hacker stole about $1.5 billion from the crypto exchange Bybit in the biggest theft the industry has ever experienced. As this incident suggests, crypto crime seems to ...Read more

Editorial: Boston makes it easy to be in US illegally
Boston has a message for all those new citizens sworn in every year at naturalization ceremonies around town: Why bother?
If you’re here illegally, the mayor and city council will bend over backward to make sure you face no consequences for your actions.
The Boston City Council held a community-based hearing where advocates pushed for ...Read more

Commentary: Trump's plan to privatize the Postal Service should be stamped 'return to sender'
Many observers suggest that the United States is coming apart as a nation. They parse us into red states and blue states, urban areas versus rural. Some believe that our social and political divides are too wide to overcome.
I don’t accept that.
As someone who grew up in Peoria, Illinois, lived and worked in Chicago, and is raising a family ...Read more

Sammy Roth: The protectors of Santa Monica Bay are caving to Trump's dangerous demands
Even as many businesses and universities rush to abandon their climate goals, diversity commitments and small-d democratic values for fear of reprisal from an increasingly authoritarian Trump administration, you might think an environmental group based in progressive West Los Angeles, at least, would hold firm to its principles.
Alas, you’d ...Read more