You wouldn’t think that it would be that hard to kill someone.

History indicates that we’ve always been good at it. It took only one generation before Cain killed Abel in a fit of jealousy over divine approbation. Murder had been invented and we’ve never looked back.

In fact, we’ve only gotten better at killing. Cain must have used a ...Read more

Children across the country returned to school this year after enduring the hottest summer in recorded history, one punctuated by extreme heat and wildfire smoke that kept millions shuttered indoors for days, even weeks, on end. As parents and families seek solutions to the mounting climate crisis, they should embrace the important role that K-...Read more

In February 2013, Pope Benedict XVI did something truly remarkable: He resigned the papacy.

In his letter of resignation he explained that physical strength “has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

At 85, the rigor and demands of his job were ...Read more

In a world where war is waging, disease is ravaging, poverty is crippling and homelessness is out of control, does it really matter all that much whether a senator wears a suit and tie?

Well, yeah. It does.

No one understands that better than Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who, despite his respect for decorum, relaxed the Senate’s ...Read more

U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler is repeatedly listed as a potential Republican statewide candidate for 2026 for obvious reasons. She’s a billionaire with a vast national political network. And she’s remained so active in GOP politics since she lost her election to U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2021 that she created a new statewide political ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump is on the campaign trail again, and most of the attention he's getting is for bare-knuckled attacks on his chief opponents, President Biden (whom he derides as "Crooked Joe") and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ("DeSanctimonious"), as well as the prosecutors who have indicted him ("fascist thugs").

Amid ...Read more

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to drop the Senate dress code is being assailed from Republican quarters — and by at least one Democrat — with critics invoking the hoary old charge of disrespect for the decorum and dignity of Congress. Schumer, they say, is trashing time-honored tradition to accommodate the scruffy freshman from ...Read more

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's relationship with the U.S. and its presidents may seem surprising to those unfamiliar with the confident populist from the rural Mexican state of Tabasco who won his nation's top office on his third try in 2018. Mexico's larger neighbor to the north never seems to faze the politician known ...Read more

Florida’s extremism has come home to roost. The Sunshine State has the distinction of championing misinformation on COVID-19 vaccines and intolerance on book bans.

Just as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration recommended people under age 65 do not get the new COVID-19 vaccine boosters, the state led the country in coronavirus hospitalizations....Read more

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed last year, gave Medicare the authority to negotiate drug prices for the first time. The government will start with 10 medications, which were announced last month. Now it just needs to figure out how much they should cost.

When Congress created Medicare’s prescription-drug benefit in 2003, it prevented the ...Read more

The Senate finally approved three important military promotions, including the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. of the Air Force. That’s a victory for the Pentagon, but the way it happened is a defeat not only for the Senate but for competent government.

Some background: In addition to hundreds of judicial...Read more

In one week, the system for handling most people after they’re arrested in Los Angeles County changes, finally giving L.A. a safer and more just approach to the pretrial process.

The current regimen — pay money bail at the police station without a hearing or go to jail — is to be replaced for most suspects.

Police will issue citations on...Read more

Supreme Court oral arguments have gotten too long. How do I know this? It used to be that during one of my longer morning runs, I could listen to an entire Supreme Court oral argument. Now, that’s getting harder and harder to do. I end my run, and the argument is still going. So I listen to it while I make breakfast. Then I listen to it on my ...Read more

How are you liking your days without enough immigrant labor, Florida?

The demagoguery of political leaders has consequences — and as draconian state immigration laws take effect and are enforced in the state, employers are learning just how good they had it before Gov. Ron DeSantis anointed himself border czar.

A South Florida no-party-...Read more

For years, I stalked the Capitol halls amid Congress' fiscal-year-end follies, waiting with other reporters for a breakthrough to end the latest faux crisis. I'm hard-pressed to recall a budget fight so politically self-defeating as the one now cleaving the House — waged for stupid reasons by stupid people.

And lest that sound too harsh, I ...Read more

During the last government shutdown, for a record 35 days in 2018-2019, Everglades National Park was operated by volunteers.

Will that have to happen again?

As the country hurtles toward an increasingly likely federal government shutdown on Oct. 1, it’s easy to think that this is all just Washington politics, partisan infighting with little ...Read more

I wasn’t a Rolling Stone subscriber growing up.

My magazine of choice was the more alternative Spin. It was easier convincing my mom to shell out for an annual subscription to the magazine than it was to get her to pay for cable, for MTV.

I learned about Radiohead, Elliott Smith, Portishead and Weezer from Spin. It was through its pages that...Read more

The retirement of Rupert Murdoch, the global media mogul perhaps most responsible for our contemporary media dysfunction, prompted renewed speculation about the future of his far-flung media holdings. In the US, questions swirled about what this change might mean for Fox News’ dominance, not to mention its penchant for disinformation.

If you ...Read more

The retirement of Rupert Murdoch, the global media mogul perhaps most responsible for our contemporary media dysfunction, prompted renewed speculation about the future of his far-flung media holdings. In the US, questions swirled about what this change might mean for Fox News’ dominance, not to mention its penchant for disinformation.

If you ...Read more

It’s rare for a lawsuit to be invited by the Supreme Court. But that’s the background to the case brought by Students for Fair Admissions against the U.S. Military Academy at West Point over the school’s pursuit of racial diversity.

In last June’s decision on affirmative action in university admissions, Chief Justice John Roberts ...Read more