Can Donald Trump win the Republican presidential nomination?

The contest is now in full flight, even though only one candidate, Trump, has formally announced. In echoes of 2016, political observers have been debating whether Trump could capture the nomination with a relatively small share of the overall vote.

Indeed, it appears that the Trump...Read more

Thank you for your service, Iowa and New Hampshire. But it's time to end the prominent, influential perch you two small rural states have long enjoyed in winnowing the list of presidential contenders.

Another state or states should get a chance to sort through candidates and make an early choice in the nation's first caucus or primary. ...Read more

In the first days after his acquisition of Twitter on Oct. 27, Elon Musk rattled the platform's users and advertisers with a series of tweets associating himself with far-right memes.

These included a grotesque conspiracy claim about the violent assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, and an accusation that "activist groups" had ...Read more

Texans, did you know you reelected — cue dramatic music — an “election denier” as governor?

That’s according to the news site Axios. The way it reached that conclusion about Gov. Greg Abbott is a tale of our fractured media era, obliteration of nuance and Abbott’s efforts to straddle the fence. Let’s unpack it.

Shortly after the ...Read more

Perhaps it’s a mere coincidence that Donald Trump, white nationalists and far-right extremists find themselves so often mentioned in the same sentence.

But we don’t think so.

The former president — poor guy — claims to know nothing about them. In 2016, Trump feigned ignorance about former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, who ...Read more

The strategically vital city of Kherson is back in the hands of Ukrainians, albeit under threat of Russian shelling and attacks on its electricity supply. But as combatants on both sides of an increasingly static firing line prepare for winter war, there are effectively two separate conflicts emerging: one on the land, the other in the air. What...Read more

There comes a time when the social media-consuming public needs to step back and ask whether their continued use of a particular service might be doing more harm than good. Elon Musk’s Twitter might have reached such a turning point in the public’s eye, just as Donald Trump’s recent dinner with two well-known antisemites is causing ...Read more

To wallow in a sewer is to smell like one. To consort with noxious racists has the same effect.

No excuse remains for anyone to pretend that Donald Trump isn’t an antisemite after he welcomed two of the worst of them to Mar-a-Lago last week, the entertainer Kanye West, now known as Ye, and the white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

It’s no ...Read more

From what I’ve heard (and heard and heard and heard and heard again), Mariah Carey doesn’t want a lot for Christmas, but she did want the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to grant her the designation “Queen of Christmas.”

Which seems like, you know, a lot.

Carey’s application was denied, I presume on general principles, but my ...Read more

History will never forget a Chinese man who stood alone to block a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square.

It was June 5, 1989, and the world was watching.

The world is watching again. Stocks have fallen as worries climb over protests in China over harsh COVID-19 lockdowns. Protesters in Shanghai and Beijing are even calling for China’s Xi ...Read more

The purpose of bail is to get people out of jail.

There continues to be broad misunderstanding of that basic principle among Californians generally, and blatant violation of it — knowing or otherwise — among police and judges. The right to bail under the state and federal constitutions routinely gets stood on its head, so that instead of ...Read more

Los Angeles has been presented with a rare opportunity to redistribute political power and improve representation and governance. The leaked recording of three City Council members and a labor official breezily exchanging racist comments about their colleagues, while plotting to carve up the city into districts that protect their own interests, ...Read more

The global financial crisis of 2008 dealt a blow to thousands of Indian laborers. They were set to join hundreds of thousands of compatriots providing the workforce for a construction boom in Dubai. Then the world economy spasmed, the price of oil tanked and international finance dried up. Hundreds of construction projects across the United Arab...Read more

Syria’s civil war, which entered its 11th year this March, may at first look like a clear-cut case of good versus evil, in which a bloodthirsty dictator, Bashar Assad, tries to snuff out any semblance of opposition to his rule. Yet, the conflict is far more complicated than that. Far from being a game of checkers, Syria best resembles an ...Read more

Sleep is finally having its moment. I’m a sleep researcher and clinician, and it’s exhilarating to see broader recognition that sleep is important, yet I am often dismayed about the framing of why sleep is valuable. Messages equating sleep with laziness have long been woven into our cultural consciousness, with aphorisms such as “I’ll ...Read more

My son chose “Hispanic or Latino/a/x” in the demographics section of college applications he began filling out two months ago. It was an easy decision for him, though I have quietly agonized over this one box for years. I have encouraged him to excel academically so that no one could claim he had gotten into college because of his ancestry. ...Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument Monday in the most important case you’ve never heard of. Although Percoco v. United States has generated few headlines, its reach could alter the way businesses deal with regulators and legislators.

The case arises from the 2018 conviction of one Joseph Percoco, who took a break from his job in ...Read more

To many animal advocates, the day after Thanksgiving has long been known as “Fur-Free Friday.” Compassionate people have held demonstrations, used donated fur coats as bedding for injured or orphaned wildlife, given unwanted furs to homeless people—the only ones with any legitimate excuse for wearing fur—and much more. But now that ...Read more

For a six-month period last year, something life-changing happened for tens of millions of American families: They started receiving automatic monthly payments of as much as $300 per child to use for whatever they needed.

But Congress allowed the payments to expire in January, ending an expanded child tax credit that slashed child poverty and ...Read more

I first shot methamphetamine when I was 17. As an abused child seeking relief from trauma and stress, I’d turned to alcohol at age 12 and had used numerous drugs to excess before sticking that needle in my arm. In 1979, at age 18, I was arrested for possession of meth and syringes.

Knowing I was a good student headed to college, without a ...Read more