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

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

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

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

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

The men and women of the U.S. Army work hard. They work hard at physical conditioning. They work hard at knowing the enemy. They work hard at training for battle.

And these days, they work harder than ever at staying out of politics and focusing on the task at hand.

“Control what you can control,” the Army tells its people. Ignore the ...Read more

Xi Jinping sees the United States as the primary obstacle to China’s ultimate ambitions: communism’s victory over capitalism, the forced “re-unification” of Taiwan, and China’s return to the center of the global stage. However, Xi is also a pragmatist. Recognizing the U.S. remains a formidable power that still benefits China’s ...Read more

You don’t need AI to figure out why some big businesses invite government oversight.

Over the last few days, leaders of major AI companies have expressed support for an industry-wide slowdown. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently wrote about his concerns over recursive self-improvement. That is when AI builds a better version of AI. These...Read more

The ongoing debate over the development of artificial intelligence took an apocalyptic turn last week. No longer is the discussion just about job-killing AI chatbots or resource-sucking data centers. Suddenly, the conversation has veered into the possibility that this technology could end human civilization — literally — within the next few ...Read more

Three heavyweights in AI development recently called for a significant slowdown in the technology, an unusual consensus among competitors that is setting off alarm bells in the industry.

But for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, this is turning into an I-told-you-so moment.

Republican DeSantis has been a well-known skeptic when it comes to the uses ...Read more

Artificial intelligence may be the closest thing our age has produced to “Star Trek”’s Mr. Spock: brilliant, analytical and seemingly governed by pure logic.

Ask AI a question, and it can process enormous quantities of information in seconds. It does not tire, become embarrassed or hesitate because of sentiment. Like Spock, it appears to ...Read more

Political polarization has become so extreme that when Democrats and Republicans find common ground on a single issue — like their shared hatred of AI data centers — it becomes major news.

But those same data centers could also be mending the nation’s political divisions. The large language models people increasingly rely on to understand...Read more

Trade talks between the U.S. and Canada broke down at the last minute late last month. The result was a temper tantrum. Apart from the tariffs President Donald Trump announced and which were matched by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America.

A few days earlier, U.S. ...Read more

When U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new economic pressure campaign on Iran last month, the goal was simple: Keep the squeeze on Tehran’s economy without resorting to the return of a full-scale war that would send the Middle East back into turmoil. The strategy was designed to play to Washington’s strengths as the world’s...Read more

With so much attention being paid now to upcoming elections and candidates, a long-ago memory nudged me and made me think about what I would really like to hear from anyone running for public office.

Deep into my father’s first term as president, I met my parents, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, at their ranch near Santa Barbara one weekend. It was ...Read more

Since its inception, National Hispanic Heritage Month has been problematic, and never more so than now.

It began as Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968 under President Lyndon Johnson, and then in 1988 President Ronald Reagan turned this commemoration of heritage and culture into a full month. The expansion mirrored the growing political, social and ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress have unintentionally provided California state government with the financial means to subsidize — help save — endangered local news reporting.

Now it’s up to Gov. Gavin Newsom to capitalize on the unanticipated gift.

He can sign or veto legislation to end state ...Read more

Should the federal government give subsidies to parents who stay home to care for their young kids? Absolutely. Should it also subsidize childcare for working parents? For sure. This shouldn’t be an either-or question, but the Trump administration’s new childcare subsidy plan makes it one.

Under the draft proposal, as previewed in a leaked ...Read more

The fall harvest is looming, and you might think Illinois’ farmers and landowners would be preoccupied with bringing in the corn and soybean crops. But they’re also focused on reaping taxpayer money from a federal government that just keeps pouring it on.

The practice of farming the government for subsidies is thriving in the heartland.

...Read more