SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California may be headed toward killing the billionaire birds that lay the golden eggs needed to nourish this Golden State.

The English fable about the farmer and his wife who foolishly whack their golden goose comes to mind when I think about the proposed billionaire tax in California.

The couple possessed a bird that ...Read more

It says a lot about the state of affairs when a Puerto Rican singer and rapper does more to unify the country in about 13 minutes than the president of the United States has done in the past 13 months.

Bad Bunny’s halftime performance at Super Bowl XL was all about love, while Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office is focused on hate.

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America’s largest libertarian thinktank just produced a study that blows up the Trump administration’s claims about the horrible economic damage immigrants are doing.

Specifically that, in the words of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, they “suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars” who “snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS,�...Read more

President Donald Trump’s defenders often counsel me along these lines: Don’t listen to what Trump says; watch what he does.

But saying something is also doing something. And some things, once said, cannot be unsaid. Here are three examples:

Let’s make the point with an example that pre-dates Trump’s presidencies: During the 2016 ...Read more

For decades, Los Angeles business and political figures have focused their attention on creating a sleek, vibrant downtown. The common thought, as the late Eli Broad suggested, has been, “a great city needs a great downtown.”

This notion of a revived downtown is still embraced by booster groups and the Urban Land Institute. Yet despite the ...Read more

More than a year after the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, the economic aftershocks of the disaster still permeate the lives of the people who survived it. Fewer than a dozen homes in some of the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods have been fully rebuilt. Families remain scattered across temporary rentals, and many are still grappling with letters ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her flunkies may have expected a population that would cow before the masked, armed agents dispatched to Minnesota. Instead, the Twin Cities refuse to break.

Individuals organized. Tens of thousands have marched. While Operation Metro Surge continues, its implementation here is a ...Read more

Mayor Zohran Mamdani was wrong and frankly rude to skip Friday’s investiture of the new Catholic archbishop of New York, Ronald Hicks. As leader of the city — the whole city — it is important for the mayor — any mayor — to participate in the major milestones of our varied communities and here Mamdani failed.

A new archbishop is a ...Read more

Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” may have persuaded the American colonists of the need for independence, but it is one thing to favor independence and quite another to pick up arms to obtain it.

We tend to think of war as being won by large armies on vast fields commanded by generals. But small victories can have a big effect. One such ...Read more

The president of the United States posted a racist video Thursday night depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. On Friday, the White House dismissed criticism — but the president deleted the post. Was this episode disappointing? Yes. Surprising? Not anymore.

Last spring, after Pope Francis had died, Donald Trump posted an AI image of ...Read more

You may have missed it, what with President Donald Trump’s endless pyrotechnics, but California voters will decide in November who succeeds Gavin Newsom, the highest-profile governor since the Terminator returned to Hollywood.

Unfortunately for those attempting to civically engage, the current crop of contenders is, shall we say, less than ...Read more

I am living with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often called Lou Gehrig’s disease. The average survival time after diagnosis is two to five years. I’m in year two.

When you have a disease like ALS, you learn how slowly medical research moves, and how often it fails the people it is supposed to save. You also learn how precious time ...Read more

America’s largest libertarian thinktank just produced a study that blows up the Trump administration’s claims about the horrible economic damage immigrants are doing.

Specifically that, in the words of our Secretary of Homeland Security, they “suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars” who “snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS,” as she...Read more

Generative artificial intelligence is all the rage these days. We’re using it at work to guide our coding, writing and researching. We’re conjuring AI videos and songs. We’re enhancing old family photos. We’re getting AI-powered therapy, advice and even romance. It sure looks and sounds like AI can create, and the output is remarkable.

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President Donald Trump’s penchant for tariffs has turned many Democrats into born-again free traders. Now his affection for industrial policy has them sounding like free-market enthusiasts.

On Monday, three high-ranking House Democrats expressed concern about the administration’s move to buy pieces of various mining interests as a means of ...Read more

After the dreadful year 2025, I’ve decided to parse my anger. It’s a good time to specialize so as not to wear out one’s psyche.

There are so many reasons to be mad; the mostly baseless and endless attacks on higher education, the dismantling of life-saving research, ICE, the subverting of policy that redresses shameful social harms. But ...Read more

Bernie Sanders and Ron DeSantis don’t agree on much, but the data-center boom is a rare exception. Vermont’s Democratic Socialist senator and Florida’s right-wing governor want to slam the brakes on the hundreds of resource-intensive new facilities springing up across the country to power the artificial intelligence industry. And both ...Read more

In a series of YouTube ads viewed more than 195 million times, a red-lipped Taylor Swift tells viewers about a “new thing” in Florida: Just visit a website, answer two questions and the state will send you a $6,400 stimulus check.

Sound too good to be true? It was — and the narrator wasn’t Swift but an AI deepfake. The ads, since taken...Read more