News that Sandra Day O’Connor, the Supreme Court’s first woman justice, had died Friday at age 93 brought back fond memories in these offices of her gracious — and well-attended — visit 10 years ago to our Editorial Board.

Although retired since 2006, she politely disappointed us by holding to the high court’s practice of refusing to ...Read more

After a tenuous few days of calm during the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the fighting has started anew in Gaza, with Hamas firing rockets and Israel responding with airstrikes. It’s not clear when the hostilities may stop again, only that at some point, hopefully in the near future, the war will be over and the explosions will ...Read more

Days before Sam Altman was fired — and then rehired — as CEO of OpenAI, researchers at the company wrote a letter to its board of directors warning that a major new discovery could threaten humanity. We don’t know more about the details of that breakthrough or its precise role in the soap opera that’s consumed the tech world in recent ...Read more

In the wake of the 2023 elections, the bulk of media coverage and analysis has understandably focused on whether Democrats or Republicans have more momentum going into 2024. But there’s no question that Election Day 2023 gave momentum to the fastest-growing nonpartisan voting reform in the nation: ranked choice voting.

On Nov. 7, 11 cities ...Read more

It’s often noted that the Latino vote is “not monolithic,” and Latino voters do in fact come from an array of countries, generations, regions, races, faiths and classes. But with a few exceptions, this loosely connected group has voted strongly Democratic, meeting all conventional definitions of a voting bloc.

Until recently.

The Latino ...Read more

This is the season of controversial big-government actions by Republicans and Democrats. They too often want to direct people’s actions toward how politicians see fit. While these range from policies dealing with industrial support, climate change, and labor markets, one concern is regulating social media.

From the Supreme Court's scrutiny of...Read more

After collapsing in a Houston studio during a recording session last year, R&B star Al B. Sure wound up in a coma that lasted longer than some of his concert tours.

For nearly three months, the hitmaker behind such classics as“Nite and Day” and‘Off on Your Own” was flat on his back, hooked up to a ventilator preparing for what could ...Read more

I’d never heard of Sandra Day O’Connor when the news broke that she was President Ronald Reagan’s likely nominee for the new vacancy on the Supreme Court. This was in 1981, toward the end of my term as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, and a bunch of us crowded around the one Lexis terminal in the court library — yes, one, and ...Read more

Years ago, I had the good fortune to be in Washington, when the National Portrait Gallery had a show starring portraits of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who died Friday in Phoenix at 93.

In October 2006, nine or so months after she'd stepped down from the high court, O'Connor had agreed to sit for members of the Painting Group, two...Read more

The summer of 1973 was my baptism into national politics, as my teenage self was riveted by the legendary saga of Watergate.

I watched the months of Justice Department investigations, congressional hearings and news reports that laid out the case against a president, Richard Nixon, accused of ordering, and then covering up, a break-in at the ...Read more

The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has fostered an almost daily deluge of campus controversies.

Here’s a sampling: The Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center called on 200 college presidents to investigate pro-Palestinian student groups. Faculty members and instructors at several public and private colleges have either been placed on leave ...Read more

When House Speaker Mike Johnson announced the results of the expulsion vote Friday morning at 11:00:20 (they keep very precise records) Con(gress)man George Santos became plain old regular con man George Santos, ending what we hope is his first and only term in elected office just shy of 11 months, a very short tenure, although he did last ...Read more

Betty Rollin, writer and national correspondent for NBC, ABC and PBS, died on Nov. 7 at age 87.

Rollin was known for two memoirs: Her account of her breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy, “First, You Cry” (1976), contributed significantly to a growing openness about breast cancer and the need for early detection; “Last Wish” (1985) ...Read more

When Israel pounded Gaza with airstrikes after Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attack, it opened a dramatic divide among Democrats over a war that has claimed thousands of civilian lives.

Progressive activists staged protests across the country, demanded an immediate cease-fire and accused President Joe Biden of complicity in genocide. A handful of ...Read more

One big question after Thursday night's hyped red-vs.-blue states debate is whether California Gov. Gavin Newsom is helping President Joe Biden or hurting him.

Or maybe he's having no impact on the president. Maybe Newsom is just helping himself. Or not.

Sure, Newsom is locked in as a dedicated Biden surrogate, loyally defending the president ...Read more

More than three years out from the pandemic’s onset, when America’s office workers suddenly had to do their jobs from their homes, a substantial majority of those employees have no desire to turn the clock back to 2019.

It’s clear in survey after survey. Bosses intent on herding their workforce back into the office have met consistently ...Read more

When it comes to seniors’ economic security, America is in poor shape. This October, an annual assessment of pension systems worldwide gave the United States a barely passable C+, ranking the country’s retirement security apparatus below Kazakhstan and just a slight notch above Colombia, two far poorer nations. How can this be?

Similar to ...Read more

Argentina’s new president-elect, Javier Milei, met officials from President Joe Biden’s administration in Washington last week. Having campaigned as a Trump-style scourge of the elite, who sees climate change as a “socialist lie,” he said closer alignment with the U.S. will shape his foreign policy and that he was “very comfortable” ...Read more

I arrived in Palestine and Israel just months after Hamas’ election victory. It was July 2006, and Israel’s first Gaza war (with Hamas) and second Lebanon war (with Hezbollah) were just finishing. My wife and I were living in East Jerusalem, where our two kids would learn to walk and over the years form indelible memories in Israel and the ...Read more

The last Saturday in November this year marked Holodomor Memorial Day, the 90th anniversary of the Great Famine when Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s autocratic regime ruthlessly starved 4 million Ukrainians to death.

This horrific event is part of the historic backdrop shaping Ukraine’s response to Russia’s war. This experience is why, even ...Read more