Politics
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Commentary: Lurie is no Mamdani. San Francisco is fine with that
It’s hardly been lost on America’s political class that even as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani leads a resurgent local and national left, the famously progressive city of San Francisco, under Mayor Daniel Lurie, appears to be moving decisively in the other direction.
Yet despite their vast ideological differences, Mamdani and Lurie ...Read more
Commentary: 'The Odyssey' isn't real, but American diversity is
After Christopher Nolan’s "The Odyssey" was released in theaters, Elon Musk declared he would use Grok to create a more “historically accurate” version of the ancient epic poem.
The uproar over the film’s supposedly woke casting has been loud and sustained, but the people most upset have ignored a pretty significant detail: "The ...Read more
Editorial: What do Democratic socialists want? We took a look at their platform
Who doesn’t love a good wish list? Come dream with us right here.
First step, we abolish capitalism. Without that most ultimate of evils? No more bills. No more debt. We’re all carefree now.
That’s the basic premise of the Democratic Socialists of America’s vision. If you haven’t looked at the platform lately, we offer you the ...Read more
Commentary: Cyclospora outbreak raises risks for some
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in February 2025, I knew my life would become more complicated.
I am among the estimated 14 million Americans under age 65 who are considered immunocompromised; an additional 58 million over age 65 have immune systems that are naturally ...Read more
Allison Schrager: Why are Americans so financially illiterate?
I recently joined the board of my Manhattan co-op, and I love it. One of my duties is reviewing applications for apartments, which — as both a prospective neighbor and a retirement economist — has been a revelation.
It turns out, based on not only my limited sample but also more rigorous and representative surveys, a surprising number of ...Read more
Editorial: The way out of Trump's failed Iran war
Much like the rest of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, the latest outbreak of hostilities has produced nothing but death, destruction, and disorder. The current flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz makes the Schuylkill Expressway look fast, Tehran retains its capacity to terrorize its neighbors with cheap drones, and more ...Read more
Steve Lopez: In this Hollywood courtroom, defendants are sentenced to get help, and graduations are celebrated
LOS ANGELES — The defendant was in an undisclosed jail.
The judge was in Department 213 of the Hollywood courthouse, where he could see the defendant on a video feed.
"All right, listen," said Judge Ronald Kaye, who runs one of four mental health courts in the building. "So a couple of weeks ago, I made this ruling to get you out of the jail...Read more
Mark Z. Barabak: O, Canada! Caught in crossfire, California wineries despair over Trump tariffs
It’s hard to hate on Canada. It’s like cursing a cotton ball, or raging about tapioca.
The friendliest of neighbors, the country has fought alongside the U.S. in conflicts going back to World War I, purchased many trillions of dollars worth of American goods and blessed this country with, among other gifts, ice hockey, Drake, Joni Mitchell ...Read more
Jackie Calmes: Trump is still playing a reality-TV role
For 14 seasons right up to his first run for president, Donald Trump was the star of his own reality shows, "The Apprentice" and then "The Celebrity Apprentice." The shows stopped, but Trump as president is still creating his own reality.
When so many Americans say they've tuned him out — like a bad TV episode — the metaphor is an apt one. ...Read more
Michael Hiltzik: Senate Republicans try to smear Fauci over COVID, but he refuses to play their game
There's a comic trope beloved by playwrights, novelists and screenwriters about the fighters all suited up for battle, only to discover that their adversary refuses to play.
A real-life example of this stratagem unfolded Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., convened a committee hearing aimed at trapping Dr. Anthony Fauci into...Read more
Jenice Armstrong: The incalculable impacts of Trump's attack on TPS
It’s terrible what’s going on with Haitians and Syrians who have been living under a special designation known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
They’ve literally been in panic mode since last month’s U.S. Supreme Court 6-3 ruling cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip away their ability to legally work and be ...Read more
Editorial: Intent behind Trump's election bluster couldn't be clearer
The Trump administration on Monday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to ignore the Constitution and allow the implementation of an executive order that would severely restrict voting by mail nationwide. Even high school civics students know elections are the dominion of the states, but President Donald Trump naturally believes that power should ...Read more
Michael Hiltzik: Republicans want to turn the clock back -- to the red-baiting Fifties
The Republican desire to turn the clock back to some (largely mythical) halcyon period of yore is well-known. President Donald Trump often has expressed his admiration for the 1890s in America, an era of high tariffs. The conservative assault on women's reproductive rights harks back to the time before the ratification of the 19th Amendment in ...Read more
Lisa Jarvis: The No Surprises Act needs a dose of sunlight
The Trump administration recently said it wants to “clean up” the No Surprises Act, the law that ended surprise billing for medical emergencies but opened up the healthcare system to exploitation. Now, a law that does a lot of good for individual patients could wind up raising costs for everyone.
To understand what went so wrong, ...Read more
Commentary: College degrees no longer last a lifetime. UC schools can help graduates keep up
Nearly half of all American workers today are college-educated adults, with many holding jobs for which their degrees are no longer enough to help them to remain effective or sometimes even employable. Now, artificial intelligence is accelerating the issues, technological shifts and investor pressures that white-collar work has faced for decades...Read more
Editorial: Congress should pass the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act
“The reason Congress needs to act,” Sen. Ted Cruz told us Monday, “is that Congress screwed this up in the first place.”
The chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation was talking about college sports. More specifically, he was railing against the infusion of massive amounts of money into one sector of...Read more
Gautam Mukunda: AI can create start-ups, just not good ones
The U.S. Census Bureau said July 9 that it received 531,423 business applications in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, capping what was for the first half of the year the highest sustained rate of such applications in the 22-year history of the series. The surge is being interpreted as the first real evidence of an AI-driven entrepreneurial ...Read more
Ronald Brownstein: Democrats' 2028 map reshapes the fight between left and center
The calendar for the 2028 primaries that Democrats tentatively approved last week flips the racial dynamics of their old presidential nominating process — and maps a path to an epic confrontation between progressives and centrists.
From 1972 through 2020, Democrats empowered Iowa and New Hampshire — two small, preponderantly White and ...Read more
COUNTERPOINT: Price the product, not the person
Should the price of your groceries depend on what a retailer knows about your shopping habits or your neighborhood? How would you feel if the person behind you was charged less for the same tank of gas?
That’s the reality dynamic pricing threatens to create. Dynamic pricing, often called surveillance or algorithmic pricing, allows ...Read more
Commentary: Don't eat your hosts this summer
Summer is the season of beaches, lakes, bays and family vacations. We head to the shore to swim, kayak, paddleboard and enjoy the beauty of the water. But while we’re busy making memories, it’s worth remembering one simple fact: When we’re in the water, we’re visitors in someone else’s home.
Beneath the surface lives an astonishing ...Read more




















































