After last week’s oral arguments, many predict the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to diminish — or even strike down — the landmark 1973 abortion case Roe v. Wade. If that happens, they say, it will signal the beginning of the end of reproductive freedom in the United States.

That’s not really accurate. If Roe v. Wade falls, the impact ...Read more

The assault on academic freedom at the University of Florida is real, dangerous and spiraling out of control. President Kent Fuchs needs to get off the sidelines and decide: Will he stand behind his faculty in the pursuit of scholarship and speech or will he cave to Republicans in Tallahassee who suffer no dissent to their agenda and methods?

...Read more

LOS ANGELES — We all know we're in the midst of a terrible drought in California.

And we all know we've got an 1,100-mile coastline.

Is desalination the answer to our problems?

No. It comes after water conservation and recycling, and is just one tool among many that might prevent the state from going dry.

But not all desalination plants ...Read more

The video summit between President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin didn’t resolve the most dangerous foreign policy crisis so far for the Biden presidency: Can the United States and its NATO partners prevent Russia from taking over Ukraine by force?

Amazingly, no one is yet certain whether Putin has massed nearly 100,000 Russian troops on three ...Read more

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Americans understandably became obsessed with terrorist threats from abroad, particularly the “safe haven” of Afghanistan that was the launching pad for the attacks.

Today, however, perhaps the greatest threat to our nation comes from within, and we are ill-equipped to fight it.

The U.S. has become a de ...Read more

For years officials in U.S. cities hit hard by the opioid epidemic — San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston, to name a few — have been trying to open facilities where addicts could safely self-administer their illicitly obtained substances without the fear of overdosing or of being arrested.

These efforts have been stymied by a combination ...Read more

What is a history teacher to do? Fingers wag at us from left and right. Do not disturb the students. Issue trigger warnings to your classes. Avoid inducing guilt. Teach patriotic content. Steer clear of violent or disturbing content. Keep the customers satisfied.

Which makes it a good time to remember Mamie Till-Mobley, who would have been 100 ...Read more

Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that surveys show support for stronger gun control is at its lowest point in years, given the surge in gun purchases during the coronavirus pandemic.

A Gallup poll released in November, before last week's shooting at a Michigan high school, showed a majority of American adults still support stronger gun ...Read more

Public health officials are beginning to wonder whether the definition of “fully vaccinated” should be revised to include booster shots — to push people to have the fullest protection against COVID-19. But even if getting a booster is a good choice for most people, making them mandatory at offices, schools, restaurants and elsewhere could ...Read more

Countries from around the world are rightfully skeptical of learning anything other than what not to do as they come to the United States for the first gathering of the Summit for Democracy this week. When it comes to identifying strategies to make democracies more resilient and inclusive, U.S. officials should take the role of learner rather ...Read more

Most of the dire forecasts of the effects of rising carbon emissions and global warming assume no significant human response. Rising sea levels will flood the coastal cities to which people have increasingly moved. Crops will wither due to too much summer heat. Perhaps the dinosaurs died out because they couldn’t adapt to climate change, but ...Read more

In the middle of a crazy week signaling another long American winter of discontent, former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock — that rare Democrat who could win an election in a blood-red rural state — published an op-ed in The New York Times. Bullock urged his party, which has seen its rural support plummet toward zero, to get out more and tell ...Read more

There may never be satisfactory answers to what led to the senseless tragedy last week at Oxford High School that cost four teens their lives and injured seven others. But every effort should be taken to figure out why it happened and how to prevent future violence.

All reviews of the deadly shooting should be welcomed.

Yet Oxford ...Read more

In the post-Watergate era, Congress shored up the integrity and transparency of the executive branch by creating inspector general offices and charging them to ferret out misconduct and abuse and report it to the public. The offices were correctly deemed an essential supplement to the traditional checks and balances engrafted by the founders ...Read more

Democrats have recently lost electoral ground with Hispanic voters for a variety of reasons, chief among them the belief that voters with dozens of distinct ethnic and cultural backgrounds are a monolith that will pull the lever for their party with little effort and no specifically tailored messaging.

The least they could do is not shoot ...Read more

Whenever I find myself thinking, "I can't believe Texas would do that," I remember that former Gov. Rick Perry used to invite lawmakers to his family's hunting camp. A place fondly known by some locals as "N—head." According to The Washington Post, the name was painted "in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated ...Read more

We didn’t quite see this coming. Before the NCAA began to allow endorsement deals this summer, many people in the industry assumed that high-profile male athletes from major programs would be the prime beneficiaries, but the impact has been much broader.

Maxim Bets offered a deal to every female student-athlete in Colorado over the age of 21....Read more

The latest school shooting tragedy, in Michigan on Nov. 30, shares many common traits with those that came before it. The suspect was a young male student at the school in the midst of a noticeable crisis. He had communicated intent to do harm. He got a firearm from a family member who had failed to store it securely.

But one crucial thing is ...Read more

In the last decade, Aung San Suu Kyi has gone from being one of the most prominent symbols of democracy in the world to being one of the most rebuked.

Her father, the founder of Myanmar’s military, became a politician and activist who devoted himself to the effort to win independence from Britain but was assassinated before he could see that ...Read more

We live in a time of division and uncertainty. Some people say that the only path forward is to fundamentally “update” our government, including such basic documents as the Bill of Rights.

At first glance, it might seem like a good idea. After all, the Bill of Rights changed the original Constitution by adding 10 amendments. And now the ...Read more