Two of the five biggest studios in America want to become one. If Paramount is allowed to absorb Warner Bros. Discovery, a single company will control roughly a third of the movies that reach theaters and roughly a third of basic cable programming, along with two of the largest streaming services and two national news organizations, CBS News and...Read more

Did California come out a winner when Attorney General Rob Bonta settled a multistate lawsuit against Paramount Skydance on Monday, allowing its $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery to move forward?

That's the question everyone is trying to figure out, as the 32-page agreement is parsed, with pundits poring over minutiae of cable ...Read more

Last week, the Senate Special Committee on Aging made history with the first congressional hearing on menopause. It was long overdue — and marked the latest development in a growing menopause movement reshaping access to treatment for women across the country.

This moment is ripe with potential — and in many ways, California is at the ...Read more

The nanny state needs a timeout.

A judge recently found Karyann Parkinson, a Virginia mom of five, guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She was given a suspended jail sentence and placed on the state’s child abuse and neglect registry. She has appealed.

That charge makes it sound as if Parkinson committed a serious offense. ...Read more

The War on Poverty is proof that good intentions don’t produce good results.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson used his first State of the Union address to declare an “unconditional war on poverty in America.” He proposed a host of remedies to cure it. They included a “broader food stamps program,” higher minimum wage and revamping...Read more

Not far from where I live, a very large billboard stands alongside one of the busiest interstate highways in the nation, in full view of many thousands of motorists every day. It reads: “Texans: Democrats Want COMMUNISM. Republicans Do Not.”

This is disingenuously misleading. It echoes, in tone and content, an allegation gathering steam ...Read more

Here is one for the annals of editorials we never thought we would need to write: The president of the United States should not ban established and respected news outlets from reporting on his daily doings.

But, in fact, we do.

If Donald Trump won’t listen to this reason, those with thicker skin around said president should gang up on the ...Read more

For most of my career as a political scientist, representation was the central theme of my teaching and research. Early on, I studied how legislators understood their responsibilities to constituents — whether they saw themselves as delegates carrying out constituent mandates, trustees exercising independent judgment, or politicos combining ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s ever-cruel administration is wrongly trying to put up even more roadblocks to block legal immigrants from getting green cards and a coalition of states and cities, led by New York in the persons of Attorney General Tish James and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, is correctly fighting back.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration ...Read more

Last month, the Census Bureau published a strange little document claiming that “over 24,000” votes were cast by noncitizens in the 2020 U.S. general election.

The anonymous report has come under fire for its provenance and methods: It was reportedly produced outside of regular Census Bureau channels by political appointees and staffers at...Read more

Far from the halls of Congress, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis are making factual assessments about how artificial intelligence is affecting workplaces in the real world.

So far, the hype machine is getting a reality check. Contrary to the predictions of AI boosters, who have much to gain from promoting the technology, ...Read more

As of last Friday, a quarter century has elapsed since the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) became law. When U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and U.S. Reps. Danny Davis and Jan Schakowsky depart D.C. in January, no Illinois legislator who voted for the AUMF will remain in office. In fact, only 32 lawmakers of the 2001 Congress will ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Three state bond measures are on California’s November ballot. You probably haven’t paid much attention to them. So here’s my read on these big-ticket proposals.

One is a no-brainer “yes.” It would help middle-class Californians buy a new home by allowing them to borrow most of the down payment. And it wouldn�...Read more

KYIV, Ukraine — It’s not easy to get to Ukraine, where the airports have long been closed and where Russia is now targeting the country’s essential railway network, hitting tracks and destroying hundreds of locomotives.

On my sixth visit since 2022, I decided to fly to neighboring Moldova and taxi across the border, even though Moscow has...Read more

Repeat after us: The Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP), in development on 128 acres of the former U.S. Steel South Works site on Chicago’s South Side, will not be a collection of power-sucking, water-drinking data centers.

Repeat after us: Quantum computing is not threatening to take over humanity.

The emergent technology ...Read more

In the second week of the college football season, in a clash of titans, the University of Texas scored 21 unanswered points to surge past Ohio State in the fourth quarter and win, 24-23.

The comeback, Gov. Greg Abbott decreed, was the greatest home victory in more than 130 years of Longhorn football.

A screen grab of one celebratory moment ...Read more

As a young adult Barbie collector, I vividly remember seeing the first Bob Mackie Barbie doll in a print ad of Barbie Bazaar magazine in 1990. I was mesmerized by this plastic goddess. Mackie, the fashion designer who died last Monday at 87 years old, had taken inspiration from Cher’s wardrobe, sheathing Barbie in a sleek, gold-sequined gown. ...Read more

A country that’s $40 trillion in debt can’t afford to provide generous welfare benefits to the world.

On Monday, a group of states sued the Trump administration over its efforts to limit green cards for immigrants who receive government assistance. The contested rule was set to go into effect this week. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, ...Read more

As Democratic senators in Washington, D.C., coalesce awkwardly — and in some cases reluctantly — around the Michigan Senate campaign of liberal firebrand Abdul El-Sayed, the candidate himself has his own uncomfortable relationship to navigate.

We refer to the incendiary Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, with whom El-Sayed seemed almost ...Read more

During the same summer in which Americans marked the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, disabled Americans have faced a renewed threat to their freedom: an effort by the administration of President Donald Trump to reopen the door to forced institutionalization.

On June 18, Trump’s Department of Justice issued...Read more