At first glance, AI companions for lonely seniors can seem dystopian, looking less like innovation than a bleak sign of social failure.

Spending a couple days last week in Tokyo nursing homes, I watched plushie robots the size of human babies being handed to aging parents and grandparents, and prototypes of conversational dolls aimed to fill ...Read more

Elon Musk recently posted a pronouncement on X: "Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI." Andrew Yang cheered. Sam Altman concurred. Their message: AI is coming for your job, and only the government can save you.

This is not a new script. It is the latest ...Read more

Something strange has happened to the language of politics. Everything is now a “deal.” Not a framework, not an accord, not a negotiated architecture — just a deal. The word appears everywhere, from headlines to cable news chyrons, as if it were the most natural way to describe diplomacy.

But it isn’t natural. It is imported. And its ...Read more

On Israel’s Independence Day on Wednesday, as Israelis mark 78 years since the founding of our state, a word that once expressed hope and liberation has become, for many, a source of confusion and division. That word is “Zionism.”

In today’s discourse, “Zionism” is often used as a slur or stand-in for “Jew,” conveying prejudice ...Read more

I recently heard a terrifying prediction: Advances in defense technology will change the way war is waged today as much as industrialization did in World War I. If true — and I don’t know one way or another, my area of expertise is economics — then we could be facing casualties on an unimaginable scale, just as the mechanization of ...Read more

Chief Justice John Roberts was the driving force behind the rise of the Supreme Court’s emergency docket as a powerful tool to empower the activist conservative majority — that’s the main takeaway of a cache of memos leaked to the New York Times.

Roberts’ immediate motivation was to enforce the major questions doctrine, another tool of...Read more

The Democratic Party cannot win in rural areas without clarifying—not changing—its position on the cultural issues that are so important in rural areas across the country.

The reason why people in these areas consistently vote Republican and thus against their best economic interests is that these cultural issues are more important to them....Read more

The razor-thin outcome in Virginia’s recent redistricting referendum, which allowed the state to move forward with a heavily gerrymandered map favoring Democrats, should serve as a national wake-up call. When margins are so narrow, every structural advantage matters. And few advantages are more powerful or more corrosive than gerrymandering.

...Read more

Voters love to pass tax burdens on to someone other than themselves, especially voters who are struggling under the high property tax burden we face in Illinois.

And since most of us make less than $1 million a year, we think many will be tempted to vote for a so-called millionaire’s tax on the Prairie State’s fortunate seven-figure ...Read more

On March 28, a sunny Saturday in southwestern Utah, Jack Hoopes and his wife, Lorna, brought their homemade signs to the local "No Kings" rally.

The couple joined a crowd of 1,500 or so marching through the main picnic area of a park in downtown St. George. Their signs — cut-out words on a black background — chided lawmakers for failing to ...Read more

It felt like the Olympics. Crowds cheering. The American flag stands tall above the bleachers. Trainers jumping with anticipation. A swimmer staring in disbelief at the clock after his final stroke. The Jumbotron announced: Kristian Gkolomeev — 20.89 seconds. A new world record in the 50-meter freestyle.

Well, kind of.

I’ve left out some ...Read more

You can’t make this stuff up: Florida lawmakers are going to reconsider a proposal to expand vaccine exemptions for school children just as the state is battling a measles outbreak with 145 cases so far, the fourth-highest number in the nation.

Legislators have already spoken on this issue: During the regular session earlier this year, they ...Read more

In 1966, the famous American psychologist Abraham Maslow came up with a description of a mental bias that became known as “Maslow’s hammer.”

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, I suppose it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail,” Maslow contended. Or, as some have reworded his theorem: When all you have is a hammer,...Read more

It has long become clear that those of us who saw a glimmer of hope in President Donald Trump's appointment of Lori Chavez-DeRemer as secretary of Labor got snowed.

It wasn't just, or even chiefly, the miasma of sleaze and corruption that seemed to surround her wherever she went. Or her slavish sucking up to Trump in public, notably at a ...Read more

Donald Trump, the president who fancied himself a “very stable genius,” shows very little of that stability these days. More than 80 Democratic members of Congress have called for invoking the 25th Amendment to sideline him.

Trump’s vice president and a majority of his Cabinet are the only ones who could actually exercise their powers ...Read more

White evangelical Christians helped bring President Donald Trump to power. They remain among his most ardent supporters. This, even as the president seemingly has gone out of his way to mock Christianity and its first commandment.

One year in, the vast majority (69%) of White evangelicals continue to approve of Trump’s job performance, ...Read more

If prediction markets are any indication, Democrats are heavy favorites to take the House in November, with a likelihood approaching 85 percent. That’s no surprise. Republicans have a tiny four-vote majority in the chamber, and the president’s party historically struggles in midterm balloting.

But many Republicans have become increasingly ...Read more

The resignations of three members of Congress over misconduct allegations demonstrate that the U.S. House — which most Americans think can’t get its act together — not only has the capacity to hold members accountable, but can also do so rapidly. At least, when it wants to.

Florida Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick is the latest member to ...Read more

Since the nation began building roads, it has been widely accepted that the drivers who use them should pay for them. That was the foundation of the federal gas tax since it was created. Drivers bought fuel, paid the per-gallon fuel tax, and the money was supposed to go toward maintaining and improving the roads and highways they used. Drivers ...Read more

The Highway Trust Fund — the primary federal account dedicated to funding highways, bridges and transit — is going broke.

The HTF is funded largely by federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel — revenue sources designed decades ago for a very different transportation system. That revenue isn’t keeping up with surface transportation ...Read more