As the chair of the governor’s Minnesota Truth Council, retired Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill has inviolable ground rules.

“I’m there to run a good meeting,” Cahill said. “I think that’s basically what it is, and having experience with politically charged hearings, my job is procedural fairness.”

When he isn’t in a black ...Read more

On the surface, the Supreme Court's June 30 opinion upholding state laws barring transgender girls from women's and girl's sports teams looks like a victory for women's rights.

The 6-3 opinion by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh certainly presents itself that way. "Females and males have inherent physical differences relevant to athletic performance,...Read more

It’s budget season, and advocates are once again mobilizing to steer public funds toward communities with the greatest needs — even as budgets are rushed through the process with little analysis of who benefits and who bears the cost.

But across the country, leading cities are transforming budgeting into something far different: They are ...Read more

The Trump administration is asking Congress to pay for the consequences of a war with Iran that Congress never authorized. Before lawmakers write that check, they should require a serious accounting of what the war has already cost — and what the administration is asking them to pay for.

In addition to the tragic loss of 13 American ...Read more

For more than two decades, I, a Black woman, lived with my family in a small Illinois town filled with white residents, many with a staunch fidelity to God, country and guns.

Although I don’t live there anymore, it was a delightful place because our family and several others in our small subdivision — particularly the family next door — ...Read more

The separation of church and state is under attack from familiar quarters.

Not only does Texas require a copy of the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms, but it has also voted to make Protestant translations of the Bible required reading in English classes. To add insult to injury, the recently released report by the president’s ...Read more

The next time you fill up your gas tank, you may be paying for President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.

Just days into the new 60-day agreement, Iranian officials began discussing new charges on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The Trump administration says they are not tolls. Iran calls them fees. American families will pay either ...Read more

Last month, the Texas State Board of Education adopted a required reading list that includes Bible stories and scriptures at every public-school grade level, from kindergarten through high school. In first grade, for example, students will learn about Jonah and the whale.

OK. Everybody should know the story of Jonah and the whale. Father Mapple...Read more

A republic, if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin famously responded when asked by a Philadelphia socialite what it was that he and the other Founders had wrought.

Her question, and his answer, in the 1787 conversation framed the choice for the emerging new country as being between republic and monarchy. Today, in some quarters, the choice ...Read more

To test whether our nation’s founding principles remain strong enough to make it another 250 years, PBS surprised a group of nine prominent Americans with a hypothetical worst-case scenario for the midterm elections.

We started by assembling notables who were willing to go on national TV to game out a gripping story in which our democracy is ...Read more

A farmer in Ames, Iowa, pulls up to a gas station and stares in shock at the numbers on the pump. The price of fuel has jumped sharply since the outbreak of war with Iran. His next thought is simple: every extra dollar spent on diesel is a dollar he cannot spend elsewhere. Before long, those higher costs will show up in the price of food, ...Read more

Ask almost any adult about their first summer job, and they’ll remember it instantly. Usually with a smile on their face.

Maybe you scooped ice cream or bused tables (or both). Perhaps you perfected your mopping form on dirty linoleum floors or folded endless piles of shirts mussed by casual shoppers.

Whatever your first gig, you likely ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Could the Declaration of Independence be signed today by this crop of political leaders, particularly the one who occupies and defaces the White House?

Not just sign, but sincerely mean it.

Especially the guy who bangs a wrecking ball against the historic East Wing to make room for an incongruous ballroom monstrosity, ...Read more

What in the actual Stage 4 melanoma is going on around here?

"Auntie, look at my tan lines!" my 16-year-old niece commanded after spending a few hours at the beach the other day. Every day this summer, like a weather reporter, she announces the "UV index."

Initially, I assumed she was trying to avoid the worst part of the day for sun exposure....Read more

The U.S. government’s monthly reading on inflation is due July 14, but American consumers already know the score. Even if the consumer price index dips from last month’s three-year high, the cost of living has gone up across the economy, putting a squeeze on household budgets.

One result? People are becoming better shoppers, spending their ...Read more

Let’s say you drive over a pothole in front of your house in Denver and call the city. They come fix it within a few days. Problem solved.

Now let’s say the problem is the sidewalk in front of your house. You call the city again.

Until recently, city staff would have pointed you to their “Homeowner’s Do-It Yourself Guide for Hazardous ...Read more

During his 26 years as a night-shift nurse, Ed Collum watched colleagues nod off mid-conversation, battle chronic illnesses and, too often, die young from cancer, stroke or suicide.

Collum puts it bluntly: “The night shift is not good for you.”

The science backs him up. Shift work, especially overnight and rotating schedules, is a major ...Read more

The Social Security trust fund will run out of money by late 2032, according to the annual report the program issued last month. The specific date is new — last year’s report projected insolvency by early 2033 — but the overall trend is not: Social Security’s long-run imbalance was first projected in 1985. Even for Congress, ignoring 41 ...Read more

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order this spring to speed up FDA approval of psychedelic treatments, he echoed a push for healing long championed in California. I know these benefits myself — but also devastation.

In 2023, my husband and I enrolled in a clinical trial using MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy). I found this ...Read more

My daughter has a life.

That sentence should not be remarkable. For most of American history, it would have been. The Trump administration, it seems, would like to go back.

My eldest daughter turned 25 in September. We had a St. Louis Cardinals-themed birthday party — chocolate cake, her favorite — and she stood at the counter and helped ...Read more