As the first Monday of October nears, the U.S. Supreme Court prepares for another term. On the docket in coming months are cases touching on a variety of important subjects, including the First Amendment, the separation of powers, immigration, gun rights and the reach of the federal bureaucracy.

The justices have thus far agreed to hear 21 ...Read more

The Western news media’s focus on China’s recovering economy, following a significant downturn last year due to COVID-19 restrictions, has been unrelenting. There has been extensive speculation about the potential crash of China’s economy, yet few have delved into the critical questions: What is the likelihood of China’s economy ...Read more

To all the ways that Americans have traditionally distinguished between the nation's two major parties, mostly on policy grounds such as taxes and social issues, add another: ethics. Republicans condone ethical transgressions and even alleged criminality, Democrats not so much.

This week provided only the latest examples.

First and ...Read more

The last two Supreme Court terms were a shock to the system. First came the Dobbs ruling that overturned the fundamental constitutional right to abortion care when it struck down Roe v. Wade.

Then last year, the Supreme Court gutted affirmative action in college admissions, struck down the Biden administration’s student loan reforms, and gave...Read more

Most of the Republican presidential candidates came out swinging Wednesday night — at each other.

But former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie threw the first punch at ex-President Donald Trump, who again did not deign to show up at the second GOP debate: “He should be here!” Christie said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis followed up: “Donald ...Read more

A few days before attending a small gathering of friends, I came down with cold, allergy, flu or possibly COVID-19 symptoms.

It was at the beginning of what has become a summer surge of COVID-19 cases, and though I had tested negative for COVID-19 twice over 48 hours, I decided it was still better to not attend. My daughter, who had no symptoms...Read more

Finally, the hunt for answers about long COVID is yielding some clues. A new study, led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Yale School of Medicine and published in Nature, defines some critical differences in certain biomarkers of people with long COVID. The next step is even more critical: coming up with a way to cure them. ...Read more

Anything was possible.

Adidas executives knew that back in 2013, when they signed the artist formerly known as Kanye West away from Nike. Companies shouldn't get away with feigning shock after a provocative artist does something provocative.

By 2013, Ye, as he is called now, had already said President George W. Bush didn't care about Black ...Read more

While federal and state regulators have spent years nibbling around the edges of unrestrained tech industry power, a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states, targeting e-commerce giant Amazon’s fundamental business practices, puts us in a different ballgame.

The effort will broadly be described as one to break up Amazon (...Read more

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect when I opened philosophy professor Clancy Martin's new book, "How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind."

I'd been meaning to read it ever since I heard his interview in April with Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air," and found myself both shocked and captivated by his story. With Suicide ...Read more

October is National Seafood Month, but the deadly seafood industry doesn’t deserve even one day of recognition, much less a whole month. The consumption of fish and other aquatic animals is fueling an environmental catastrophe. Seafood is unsustainable.

In the 1970s and ’80s, “Save the Whales” became an inescapable campaign catchphrase....Read more

The Federal Reserve’s policy-setting meeting in late September brought the expected news on interest rates: no change for now, but a possible increase before 2024 as the Fed feels its way toward the vaunted “soft landing” that cools inflation without driving the economy into recession. But before making any further decisions on rates, the ...Read more

The impeachment inquiry House Republicans have launched against President Joe Biden is a transparent, shameless and embarrassingly weak attempt at political retribution.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has launched the probe not because it has merit but because the most extreme members of his party demanded it to damage Biden’s re-election ...Read more

In a casual conversation with liberal organizations last week, Attorney General Dana Nessel possibly undermined the cases she has brought against the 16 Republicans who signed a false certificate after the 2020 presidential election to challenge President Joe Biden’s victory.

“These are people who have been brainwashed,” Nessel said to ...Read more

If you want to know if the government is going to shut down on Sept. 30, there’s no need to bother asking House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He doesn’t know. Without being able to control his caucus, McCarthy’s guess is as good as yours or mine.

Instead, you’d be best served to ask U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who...Read more

Our nation faced only two presidential impeachments during its first 222 years. Suddenly, in 2021, President Donald Trump was impeached for the second time, and now we’re facing a third impeachment in four short years. This flurry of impeachment activity requires us to ask: Is President Joe Biden facing impeachment because he deserves it or ...Read more

Aiming for more gun safety, the California Legislature fired away with hits and misses in its recently concluded annual session.

The misses are attracting the most attention.

My No. 1 example of a bad miss was the bill the Legislature passed to impose a new 11% state excise tax on firearm and ammunition sales. Again, the ruling Democrats' ...Read more

An ill-conceived federal government shutdown could soon be imposed on America by hard-right members of the House of Representatives.

The House, led by Bakersfield Republican Kevin McCarthy, has 435 members. At least 52 of them are members of the so-called Freedom Caucus, a far-right group that seeks to impeach President Biden and cut federal ...Read more

People arrested for felonies are generally held on money bail. That means that they either pay a preset amount and then go home, or go to jail for several days to await their first court hearing.

Testifying in August in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of money bail, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said the value of this system...Read more