Today, less than half of rural hospitals in the U.S. still offer labor and delivery services, and since 2020, 139 of them have stopped delivering babies altogether.

That's usually treated as a public health statistic. It's also an economic one. Each closure doesn't just push expectant mothers into longer drives to the hospital, it pushes out ...Read more

The jokes about President Donald Trump’s secret escape from Turkey last month via an airport catering truck are still flooding the internet. Typical mockery included AI-generated images of the president hunched inside the truck gorging himself on bags of McDonald’s fries, while making his furtive getaway.

The jests about Trump’s transfer ...Read more

It's come to this: pain gloves.

Just when President Donald Trump's efforts to deport immigrants his administration deems not the right kind — and you're deluding yourself if you think it's all about legality — news came recently that Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to spend up to $20 million on electrically charged gloves so that ...Read more

As a people, have we become too cynical for our own good? We live in an age where we routinely assume that all politicians have the worst motives, that they are driven by self-interest and that they are dishonest and/or corrupt.

It’s our default attitude. And we are not always wrong. There are certainly politicians like this, but not everyone...Read more

A man slammed me onto the concrete on East 7th in Skid Row — fast, hard and without warning.

One moment, I was walking. The next, I was on the ground, my head hitting the pavement inches from a tree trunk. He stood over me, screaming words I could not understand, with his arms swinging wildly. I covered my head and braced for blows that never...Read more

I know what it’s like to walk out of prison believing your debt has finally been paid.

I served time, as I should have. And in a twist of remarkable fate nearly a decade ago, I went back to prison after earning my release. At the time, my unique situation didn’t fall through the cracks of our legal system, like many do. It became a national...Read more

After enduring 14 of the most destructive wildfires in its history over the past decade, California has started waking up to a related crisis: its dysfunctional and inadequate insurance system. Before the next catastrophe, reform is urgently needed.

For nearly four decades, state-imposed constraints on premiums gave property owners a false ...Read more

Remember all the way back in 2023, during the height of the migrant influx, when Tribune reporting uncovered that a city contractor running operations at migrant shelters was submitting some eye-popping bills?

During one week in March of that year, the majority of Favorite Staffing workers at city migrant shelters logged 84-hour workweeks, ...Read more

The Trump administration’s latest assertions about executive privilege — that it protects the confidentiality of a president’s communication with private advisers who aren’t part of the government — are like too much else in this White House: politically unprecedented, legally wrong and morally dubious.

From a legal standpoint, the ...Read more

The youth movement among our political leaders, especially among Democrats, is in full cry. On the whole, this looks to be a positive inflection point in our political leadership, empowering a new generation of leaders advocating needed changes in the government's relationship with its constituents.

But in some particulars it's misplaced. As ...Read more

As summer vacation ends and children return to school, record-breaking heat continues across much of the country. Fortunately, many states and athletic governing bodies have adopted measures to protect their student athletes from extreme heat.

But when those athletes step off the field and into the classroom, the protections disappear. Few ...Read more

We aren’t yet finished with what has undeniably been a long, hot summer — emphasis on the hot. The weather this summer has brought alternating drought and floods, but almost always excessive heat (made worse, of course, by accompanying humidity).

That can be dangerous and even life-threatening. In recent years, heat waves have sent ...Read more

The abrupt departure of longtime, loyal White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt could mean Trump 2.0 is winding down, burdened by the Iran war and the rough economy and looking to transition to JD Vance after the potentially disastrous midterms.

The Republican president looks increasingly tired and running out of steam, has not introduced ...Read more

At the heart of the crisis facing journalism — and hence democracy, too — is the question of bias. Can journalists ever really be intellectually independent and open-minded?

Take your pick of surveys. Most Americans think the press is rife with slant. According to a 2024 survey by a research center at the University of Chicago, roughly 7 in...Read more

In this last year, the University of California has been dismantling support systems that help underrepresented students succeed, while simultaneously debating whether to raise the barrier through standardized testing for those same students to even get in the door. This combination, which is a direct result of the UC system’s silent ...Read more

The nation just learned that last month, when we thought President Donald Trump had fled his Qatari-donated luxury plane for the relative safety of a proper Air Force One, he was actually on a third plane out of Turkey. Fearing an Iranian assassination attempt, military and security officials had secreted him off the official aircraft and onto ...Read more

The rise of Donald Trump could have been a plus for Harley-Davidson, given that many of its longtime customers are proud fans of the Republican president. When the GOP held its National Convention in Harley’s hometown of Milwaukee two summers ago, Republican delegates streamed in by the busload to the local Harley-Davidson Museum.

Yet Trump�...Read more

It’s prime season for weddings, graduations, showers and family reunions. But some of these memory-making moments include staged “send-offs” that come at a hidden cost. Behind every butterfly and dove release is an animal who was bred, shipped, confined and treated like a disposable party favor. For many, the celebration ends in injury, ...Read more

If the bad news is that members of Generation Z can’t afford to buy a house until they are middle-aged — which isn’t really bad news, honestly, but anyway — then the good news is that at least they are investing their money in high-performing assets. Or so we thought.

Now we are learning that they might not be very good investors, or ...Read more

A nation will be measured by how it treats the vulnerable. Governors who aspire to lead this country will be measured the same way. As pastors in Illinois and Pennsylvania, we urge Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to answer this urgent call to action. Black and brown families need access to schools that are safe, ...Read more