Bad things happen when progressive politicians attempt to solve nonexistent problems. Consider gasoline prices in California.

In 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill he claimed would stop price gouging by oil companies. In 2022, average gas prices in California topped $6 per gallon. Because Nevada receives around 88 percent of its ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran has sent crude oil, gasoline and diesel prices through the roof. In addition, farmers are facing sharp increases in the cost of fertilizers produced from oil and gas.

But while the costs mount for regular people, the administration’s allies in the fossil fuel industry stand to ...Read more

At last Friday’s Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, California author Amy Tan was honored with the 2025 Robert Kirsch Award, which recognizes a writer with deep connections to the American West. As Kirsch’s son introduced her, he noted that she was a “birthright citizen.”

The author of “The Joy Luck Club” was born in Oakland, California...Read more

The Artemis II mission around the moon provided a conflicted nation with a much-needed wave of shared enthusiasm derived from achieving a lofty goal. The mission — a more comfortable and less complicated repeat of the Apollo 8 flight in 1968 — was the first step toward the dream of returning to the moon and never leaving.

Now comes the ...Read more

American higher education is approaching a structural demand shock. Whether one labels it the “demographic cliff” or the “enrollment cliff,” the underlying dynamic is straightforward: In many parts of the country, the pipeline of traditional-age students is softening, and institutional business models built around predictable cohorts of ...Read more

President Donald Trump has the power to end a civilization. But it’s not Iran’s. It’s America’s.

As an Iranian-American born and raised in the United States, I love both my homelands equally and unreservedly. But I’ve never worried more about America or less about Persian civilization.

Because even if Trump demolished every building ...Read more

While the United States has been focused on fighting an old-fashioned air war against Iran, Ukraine has been showing the world how to fight the new global drone war.

Despite the massive U.S. air bombardment of Iranian military and industrial sites — which still hasn’t ended the war — the Pentagon was unprepared to counter thousands of ...Read more

As a new round of opinions begins to arrive in the coming weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court enters its most consequential season. From April through June, the justices release decisions that do more than resolve legal disputes; they shape the country’s direction.

Alexander Hamilton once called the court the “least dangerous” branch, lacking ...Read more

Few of us needed convincing, but a new study on medical debt provides a harrowing look at just how badly broken our nation’s health care system is — through the prism of our experiences here in Virginia.

Researchers at George Washington and Stanford universities examined the state’s public court records and determined that Virginia ...Read more

As a blizzard blasted the East Coast in late February, a thousand booksellers from independent bookstores across the U.S. packed their winter gear, changed flights and braved snow to get to Pittsburgh by any means possible. They were there to attend an annual industry event, but this year was not like previous ones. A spirit of community and ...Read more

Back in 2017, the Economist ran a cover story calling data the “new oil.” The phrase has worn well, artificial intelligence has made sure of that. After all, AI is nothing without data to train on.

Thus, the race for new data sources has reached unprecedented levels, unsurprisingly at the expense of our privacy. Just this month, a new class...Read more

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been no stranger to controversy in his 14 months in office, from his vaccine advisory reforms to his downsizing of federal agencies. But there should be broad agreement on one recent initiative: his joint announcement with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin to ...Read more

Ambition is the enemy of patience and preparation.

Just look at Sen. Elissa Slotkin. The Michigan Democrat has spent the past several weeks visiting the key presidential battleground states of Iowa and Ohio as she tests the waters for a 2028 run for the White House.

Slotkin, 49, told the Des Moines Register she wants to help the Democratic ...Read more

There’s a good chance you’ve never actually seen a film from a woman’s point of view.

For decades, mainstream storytelling has been shaped by a largely masculine narrative logic: linear progression, cause and effect, escalating stakes, resolution. It is clean, structured and goal-oriented. The universal “hero’s journey.” Even when ...Read more

Noncompete agreements, once reserved for executives with unique access to trade secrets, have gone mainstream in America. According to the Government Accountability Office, between 18% and 20% of U.S. workers are covered by one. From artificial intelligence organizations to sandwich shops, employees have been left unable to leave for competing ...Read more

I fell in love with democracy before I fully understood it.

In high school civics classes in the 1990s, I learned about a system that was imperfect in its origins but evolving toward something better. I believed in that evolution. I believed that democracy, if nurtured, could become more inclusive than the one it started as.

That belief stayed...Read more

When will the U.S. government confirm that aliens exist? How many people will fall ill with measles this year? Will President Donald Trump be impeached?

Today, you can bet on all of these — and much more — at the websites of booming prediction markets. Their meteoric rise in just the last year is deeply troubling, and state Attorney General...Read more

About a year ago my friend John died, alone in his house.

John was a 62-year-old divorced doctor. At a spring party the day before his death, he mentioned to some friends that he hadn’t been feeling quite right — some dizziness, some forgetfulness. One friend asked if he had seen a doctor, and his answer was, “Yes. Myself.” After a ...Read more

The close relationship between the U.S. and Israel has become foreboding for both nations.

That’s evident in a Pew Research Center poll, a month into President Donald Trump’s unprovoked war in alliance with Israel, which has led to an alarming shift in U.S. public opinion.

Sixty percent of U.S. adults view Israel unfavorably, compared to ...Read more

To tell you the truth, America’s 47th president was apparently way more than just peeved at his vice president after the first round of the Iran war ceasefire talks suddenly collapsed in Islamabad, Pakistan.

And you could tell President Donald Trump was really not pleased because he didn’t even bother to conceal it from us the way his ...Read more