The Amazonian rainforest in Brazil, it's often said, serves as the Earth's lungs, taking in huge amounts of carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen. Now those lungs are ablaze.

Some 74,000 fires have raged this year in the world's largest rainforest, about 80% more than at this time last year, according to the Brazilian research institute that ...Read more

An exploding federal budget deficit can spell political trouble for the White House and opportunity for the opposition party as a presidential election approaches. But this week's announcement that the annual deficit is expected to surpass $1 trillion for much of the coming decade may actually put more pressure on Democratic challengers than on ...Read more

I wasn't going to write about this, because I knew that other people would be writing about it, journalists who cover the city and the police department as their regular beats. I figured that there would be some comments critical of former Commissioner Richard Ross, and some comments praising his good work and devotion to his hometown over a ...Read more

In quirkily related business news that may have caught your eye: Uber plans to lease enough space in Chicago's soon-to-be-renovated old post office building to accommodate thousands of workers, while restaurant managers in Fort Smith, Arkansas, are struggling to hire enough people to staff their kitchens and dining rooms.

These are two scenes ...Read more

Less than a week after Mayor Jim Kenney called Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross the best police commissioner in the country for his role in a standoff between a shooter and police, Ross resigned. The announcement Tuesday followed a complaint filed with the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission and a subsequent lawsuit by Cpl. ...Read more

A federal push to weaken the Endangered Species Act -- the latest target in the Trump administration's crusade against environmental protection -- is troubling on its face.

Making it worse is the behavior of the Interior Department. The agency is supposed to be a trusted steward of precious public resources, including endangered species and a ...Read more

While talking to reporters on the White House lawn Wednesday about his plans for prosecuting a trade war with China, the president of the United States looked up briefly toward the heavens.

"I am the chosen one," Donald Trump allowed.

Others had given the president gentle nudges toward divinity even before that. Wayne Allyn Root, a ...Read more

The latest economic news appears to be driving President Donald Trump into a deep emotional funk. As much as he likes to portray his economic management as a miracle that outpaces anything his predecessors accomplished, it's more like a myth. The numbers don't lie, no matter how desperately Trump tries to blame Democrats and the Federal Reserve ...Read more

President Donald Trump's apparent view that Americans want a federal government that abandons humanitarian norms is once again on display this week with two more decisions about the treatment of detained unauthorized immigrants.

The first is the Trump administration's attempt to nullify a 1997 court agreement, known as the Flores settlement, ...Read more

I recently went to a parents' meeting at my children's elementary school in the rural town of Aguacatan, Guatemala, a few hours from the Mexico border. As usual, I was one of the only men there.

This disparity has nothing to do with machismo or Latin gender roles; it's that there just aren't many men in Aguacatan. They're all in places like ...Read more

Headlines on the purported genetic basis for mental illness -- like this one from The Washington Post: "Some children born with the genetic risk for schizophrenia, scientists say" -- have been staples of scientific journalism for years now. But what do they really mean?

Is mental illness really just a matter of bad luck in the genetic lottery? ...Read more

If you are a middle-class or poor parent, the college admissions scandal may seem like a steel door closing on your child's future. The very rich bribed their kids' way into elite schools, preventing average Americans from the financial, professional and other opportunities available at elite universities.

While these people spent $400,000 to ...Read more

That didn't last long.

For a while, it looked as though the distance between the parties had narrowed on the issue of criminal justice reform. Bipartisan cooperation passed the First Step Act, a small step indeed toward remedying America's mass incarceration crisis that disproportionately, in a historically skewed system, burdens minorities and...Read more

DETROIT -- If you follow the inexhaustible torrent of bilious braggadocio that is Donald Trump's Twitter feed -- and honestly, what serious student of abnormal psychology can look away? -- then you know that the incumbent president would be way better at running most everything -- Israel, the European Union, FOX News, etc. -- than the very ...Read more