Politics
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Gautam Mukunda: AI's greatest threat is biological, not robotic
Anthropic PBC researcher Jacob Coxon quit last week and posted on social media that it was because “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” Evan Hubinger, who leads the artificial intelligence company’s alignment science team, put the odds above 10% in the next 10 years. Anthropic Chief...Read more
Commentary: Is the Iran war turning young voters away from Republicans ahead of the midterms?
President Donald Trump won a surprising number of Gen Z voters in 2024, with a particularly strong performance among young men. Although Kamala Harris still won a majority of the 18-29 age cohort, Trump received the largest share of the youth vote for a Republican candidate since George W. Bush in 2004. But as the midterm elections approach and ...Read more
Commentary: Bring your cat indoors -- Before it's too late
When police in Salem, Ohio, received a call for assistance for an injured cat, they couldn’t have been prepared for what they found. He had been shot with a crossbow, lost the use of his legs and, with the bolt still lodged in his body, lain in agony for days before a kind person discovered him. Despite the shocking nature of this crime, it ...Read more
Commentary: Why Trump's renaming fixation is frightening
Heard the latest? President Donald Trump, after deciding that Lake Ontario will henceforth be known as Lake America, has floated the idea that New Mexico should be renamed New America. This continues a trend that began on Trump’s first day in office, when he issued an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Can ...Read more
Abby McCloskey: Finally, a Mamdani policy even Republicans can love
It used to be conservatives who wanted to tread carefully with new things. These days, it’s progressives sounding the alarm on artificial intelligence. And I’m not just talking about the risk of human extinction.
Two of the country’s largest school systems have dramatically restricted AI access for students this year. They also happen to...Read more
Jackie Calmes: Trump loves to throw around taxpayers' money
Donald Trump Jr. has a lot more in common with his dad than just a name, sharing the president's penchant for shady dealings and for kleptocratic Russians. Sometimes the two proclivities go together. That was the case in May, we learned this week from ProPublica, when Don Jr. married his second wife during a three-day Bahamian bacchanal ...Read more
Patt Morrison: News helicopters are very LA It's a dangerous job
LOS ANGELES -- They’re as far away as a couple of thousand feet over your head, and as close as your radio and cellphone.
They were aloft before GPS, before Waze and Google Maps, and they still are.
Where, literally, would Angelenos be without the flying eyes that guide us to our destinations through our traffic mangles and bring us close to...Read more
Mark Gongloff: AI is already damaging human life. We gave it a head start
The AI-industrial complex is in turmoil after several of its executives and engineers warned the technology could kill some or all humans, possibly before the 2036 election. This could be real cause for alarm or just brilliant marketing. Whatever the case, artificial intelligence is already harming humans through environmental devastation ...Read more
Noah Feldman: The Supreme Court's conservatives have a clear logic on voting
This week, four of the six conservative justices helped to block the Trump administration’s mail-in ballot scheme from going into place this Election Day. That’s a relief, but such partisan shenanigans aren’t permanently out of the question.
First, we can’t assume federal attempts to interfere with state-run elections are forever off ...Read more
Editorial: Power down regulations to power up debate
A major change by the Trump administration will reduce future power prices around the country. Unfortunately, it took a unilateral act of the executive branch rather than an act of Congress.
On Monday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced sweeping changes to the U.S. power sector. The agency is rolling back greenhouse gas requirements on ...Read more
Editorial: Chicago's domestic violence homicides are falling. What's working?
Just weeks ago, Crystal Salter was cuddling in bed with her two young daughters.
Salter was soaking up time with her girls. Until her boyfriend stormed in with a gun and shot her multiple times in the face and torso. He was found later in his car, having turned the gun on himself.
How can a child ever feel safe again having witnessed something...Read more
Editorial: Voting by US mail will remain free and fair
It took them a few tries, but a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has now correctly ended President Donald Trump’s cynical and partisan effort to muck around with mail ballots during the fast coming midterm elections. The justices behind the ruling were anonymous except for Brett Kavanaugh, the only one brave enough to publicly oppose Trump. ...Read more
Editorial: Trump's assault on the midterm election is down but not out
At a dark moment for American democracy, it qualifies as a relief that the U.S. Supreme Court has finally acknowledged that the U.S. Postal Service has no legitimate role in running elections. The court’s ruling this week put a well-deserved end to President Donald Trump’s plot to interfere with the midterms by steering absentee votes to the...Read more
Aaron Brown: Could a subscription model for health care cure our broken system?
What if, for $100 a month — less than many of us pay for cell service — you could go to the doctor anytime you feel sick?
You get an annual physical that takes as long as you need, where you can ask any medical question without worrying about an extra bill. You and your doctor get to know each other. In fact, your medical relationship ...Read more
Commentary: Video gamers alone can't keep our skies safe
The Federal Aviation Administration is recruiting video gamers for air traffic controller job openings. This effort has yielded more than 2,000 recruits being added to the pipeline, offering a novel approach to resolve a staffing problem that has persisted for many years.
The issue is not whether video gamers will be the breakthrough that ...Read more
Commentary: AI models are the good, the bad and the ugly, all at once
In 1966, Sergio Leone put three gunslingers in a desert scramble for buried Confederate gold and called it “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” No one in that film is innocent, and no one is purely evil. What separates them is the code each follows — or refuses to follow.
Understanding artificial intelligence requires the same three-way ...Read more
Mark Z. Barabak: As Newsom winds down in California, things heat up in Nevada
There are many states in America where a governor shares the ticket with his or her running mate. Nevada is not one of them.
That, however, is but a small detail.
Joe Lombardo, Nevada’s Republican governor, is seeking election to his second term. His chief opponent is Aaron Ford, Nevada’s Democratic attorney general.
But to hear Lombardo ...Read more
Commentary: Give the federal childcare subsidy to parents, not daycare
The Trump administration is drafting a rule that would let qualifying married couples draw from the existing Child Care and Development Fund when one parent stays home with the children and the other works at least 35 hours a week. The typical benefit runs about $9,000 per child each year.
The change would not invent a new entitlement or demand...Read more
Kaitlyn Buss: America is getting richer. Are Americans getting richer, too?
If Americans are getting so rich, why does President Donald Trump think they need a $5,000 dividend?
That’s the contradiction at the center of Republicans’ economic message with the November midterms seven weeks away.
Trump says the economy is booming. Yet last week he promised a $5,000 “Trump dividend” to every American adult citizen ...Read more
COUNTERPOINT: China's not a competitor -- It's an adversary
Is China a competitor — or an adversary?
The distinction matters because "competitor" implies a contest governed by rules. Competitors agree to play the same game, use common standards, submit to refereeing and accept the outcome. Economic competition assumes a positive sum: companies compete, consumers benefit, innovation expands the market ...Read more

















































