Education reform has long been a contentious issue in American politics, and the debate over school choice is especially divisive. Ironically, President-elect Donald Trump’s support of efforts to provide families with educational options presents Democrats with a critical first opportunity to embrace bipartisanship and pivot toward the ...Read more

During most of the 100 years of his life, and even in these first two weeks of his death, former President Jimmy Carter has been gifting us with the enduring example of how he chose to live his life.

We have heard eulogists – the famous, the friends, the family – reflect upon the examples most Americans sort of knew but mostly forgot. Now, ...Read more

That wagging tail and those hopeful eyes that keep glancing toward the door are telling you something: January is Walk Your Dog Month. Even if wet, dreary, chilly weather has you tempted to stay indoors, your canine companion is counting on you to get out there and give them a chance to stretch their legs, see the sights and sniff the hydrants. ...Read more

Last month, The New York Times published a disturbing story about the expiration of health protections for migrant children in custody. The protections, which were the result of a legal settlement in 2022, implemented measures to safeguard the well-being of children held in certain areas along the southern border.

The impending end of ...Read more

To say that President-elect Donald Trump has a lot of plans for his second term would be a gross understatement. He has vowed to implement the largest deportation operation in American history, secure the U.S.-Mexico border and negotiate a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia.

Yet for Trump, all of these items may be minor when compared ...Read more

As a student, like many of us, I liked to read Henry David Thoreau. Many of his ringing one-liners thrilled me and got copied down in my commonplace book, but there was one sentence I hardly registered: “Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.” In my early...Read more

California is growing again, news that comes as a relief, vindication or vexation, depending on where you stand in regard to the Golden State. Or, perhaps more aptly, where you reside.

The state, which had its modern birth in a fever of money-lust and speculation, gained population in every assay going back to those Gold Rush days. Growth — ...Read more

A vitriolic debate has engulfed what’s typically an arcane corner of immigration policy: the H-1B visa for college-educated foreigners. Proponents say the visa is an essential but insufficient pipeline of global talent for hard-to-fill jobs — jobs that have long been part of the lifeblood of the American economy. Critics say visa holders are...Read more

The middlemen that comprise a growing share of America’s convoluted health care system find themselves in a bind. The public is angry about the inflated costs and opaque dealings that govern their access to medical care. Lawmakers, despite recent setbacks, are eager to respond. Intermediaries have become an obvious target for blame and reform....Read more

The United States faces a nationwide crisis in which our young people are reading at alarmingly low rates, with just 1 in 3 fourth graders meeting proficiency standards. So why are some on the right focused on standardized testing, not for students but for teachers?

Make no mistake, literacy is the big problem in public education. But it’s ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — My niece and I walked to the end of the Venice Pier on Tuesday to watch brilliant, orange flames creeping up the Santa Monica Mountains in Pacific Palisades. Thunderclouds of smoke loomed over the ocean as ferocious winds drove them offshore and whipped sand at our faces.

On Thursday, I drove into the Palisades with my friend ...Read more

Austria, the birthplace of Adolf Hitler, looks set to welcome its first far-right Chancellor since World War II, in the form of Freedom Party head Herbert Kickl. This looks less like an anomaly than part of a trend that’s sweeping the developed West, so for those of us who believe in the value of liberal democracy and its institutions, how ...Read more

California's burning and its political foes are practically dancing in the flames and reveling in the ashes.

From the mountains to the sea, the wreckage and ruin are biblical in size, scope and wall-to-wall destruction.

At least 10 people are dead. Thousands of structures have been laid to waste. Roughly 150,000 people have fled for their ...Read more

The destructive winds and devastating fires that are sweeping through the Los Angeles area this week drove many, understandably, to their phones seeking information — and seeking to help.

Downloads of apps like Watch Duty soared as Angelenos anxiously searched for information about evacuation boundaries, evacuation sites and the fate of their...Read more

Indians have long been proud of what they see as their outperformance in the information technology sector. Companies such as Infosys Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. dominate IT-enabled services, bringing home billions of dollars in profits. U.S. technology giants including Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., and International Business ...Read more

I should have known better than to turn on the television.

For the second time in 15 years, my family and I had fled our foothills home. During 2009's Station fire, we were given evacuation notice only when clouds of smoke filled the streets and flames were clearly visible on nearby mountainsides.

This time we left as soon as our phones buzzed...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — OK, I admit it. I'm biased. I hate it when an opportunistic politician capitalizes on other people's miseries and tries to score political points.

I'm especially biased when it's a president-elect who shoots off his mouth without regard for facts and blames a governor for fire hydrants running dry.

Not that Democrat ...Read more

Is anyone surprised that even as the Los Angeles region's fires rage and before funeral arrangements have been made, there's been an outbreak of politics and second-guessing?

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has been ripped by some critics for being out of the country when the killer fires began.

President-elect Donald Trump has blamed California Gov. ...Read more

As California was literally on fire, our next president was erroneously blaming us for our disaster. We had wrongly denied Southern California water. “Beautiful, clean, fresh” water. Without water, the Southland was left to burn.

“Governor Gavin Newscum,” as Donald Trump calls him, “is the blame for this.”

First, the facts: ...Read more

The Donald Trump honeymoon is over before it even got started because Democrats and the media are determined to trip him up and fan the flames of dissent.

The minority party’s strategy is to tie Trump up in court, file lawsuits and fabricate a narrative of chaos, similar to what they did in Trump’s first term and after he left office.

Any ...Read more