There is no reason to think that the shooting death of a 14-year-old African American boy by a legal gun owner in suburban Chicago had anything to do with race.

Lots of people, black and white, have been killed at the hands of legal gun owners. And the unjust law that allowed Lake County prosecutors to charge the victim's teenage cousins and a ...Read more

California has its own laws to protect endangered plants and animals from extinction, and they are more important than ever as the Trump administration weakens enforcement of the landmark federal Endangered Species Act. But those state protections will mean little without additional action in Sacramento, where the real issue is water.

The U.S. ...Read more

Slowly but surely, day by day, Donald Trump and abortion foes are winning their War on Women in America.

They are rapidly grinding down hard-fought victories achieved half a century ago for a woman's right to choose, access to birth control and basic family planning services. Their ultimate goal is to re-create a Dark Ages of reproductive ...Read more

Many people around the world will be watching and waiting to see how the next American election turns out, but one group doesn't have that luxury: those in the Pentagon. They have a little less than two years to get ready to explain to the next administration, a new Congress and their fellow Americans how they plan to protect America from ...Read more

Many people around the world will be watching and waiting to see how the next American election turns out, but one group doesn't have that luxury: those in the Pentagon. They have a little less than two years to get ready to explain to the next administration, a new Congress and their fellow Americans how they plan to protect America from ...Read more

Accused rapists have long defended themselves by claiming it didn't happen, or the victim "asked for it," maybe by dressing too provocatively. But never, to my knowledge, has a defense rested on a claim that rape itself isn't such a bad thing.

Iowa's U.S. Rep. Steve King said as much recently by suggesting that forcible sexual intercourse with ...Read more

He spins like a top, President Donald Trump does. He can get you going one minute, disappoint you the next and leave you wondering whether, in three more minutes, it will be tears or cheers that ultimately await the nation.

Notice for instance how he said he was not going to toy with Social Security taxes, which would be oh, so wise, and how he...Read more

I once sat next to Joe Biden at an event where one of the speakers committed a classic gaffe: He unintentionally uttered an obscenity into a live microphone. The offending speaker wasn't Biden; it was me.

"What do I do now?" I asked the former vice president, figuring he was the world's leading authority on misstatements.

"Own it," he advised....Read more

As a new generation of college students gets ready to return to campus, I'm reminded of the late Allan Bloom, the University of Chicago professor, philosopher and -- on the subject of university education -- famously eloquent grump.

No one had any reason to expect his 1987 book with the stuffy title, "The Closing of the American Mind: "How ...Read more

Racism is increasingly unacceptable to most Americans. It's increasingly unacceptable to conservatives as well as liberals, and among those with and without a college education. But what's behind the United States becoming a place where racist expression is more and more unpopular are the beliefs and behaviors of the generation born between 1982...Read more

When David Petraeus issues a public warning about Afghanistan, it's worth paying attention. That's what the retired general did earlier this month in the Wall Street Journal, urging President Donald Trump not to be lulled into believing the Taliban's promises to cooperate against international terrorism and respect the country's elected ...Read more

Hey America. Canada here. Yes, we're still friends, though we're going through a bit of a rough patch. (Tariffs? Really?) We wish you the best -- even your president, although just 25% of us have confidence in him. Well, not just -- that's a big number. I'm kind of stunned.

Never mind. I'm writing to meddle in your election. Why? Health care. ...Read more

Humanity was recently served with yet another reminder that our appetite for flesh is rapidly destroying the environment. This reminder arrived in the form of a report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels without a transformation in ...Read more