While in China, Donald Trump said the pile of 440 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium that was at the heart of his justification for going to war with Iran is, in fact, safely under 24/7 surveillance by nine cameras and no one is getting close to it. In fact, although he’d prefer to get the material out of the country altogether, he said that ...Read more

For an administration that has been all too willing to weaponize the Department of Justice, the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey marks a new low.

Comey’s purported crime came a year ago, when he posted a photograph on social media of seashells arranged as “86 47,” and writing, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.�...Read more

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth returned to Capitol Hill this week to promote the Trump administration’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget. The request is colossal, in both relative and absolute terms. It is 44% larger than the 2026 fiscal year budget, which was already a 17% increase over 2025.

President Donald Trump’s team claims this ...Read more

In the months that followed last year’s Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires, something quieter but no less consequential has happened in those same neighborhoods. More than 900 people affected by the blaze logged onto a California state digital platform, shared more than 1,300 comments about what they needed most from recovery, weighed 19 ...Read more

The Trump administration has made no bones about its frustration with the coverage it receives from various media outlets. And it’s true that many in the press haven’t been subtle about their discomfort with policies pursued by the White House.

But it would be prudent for President Donald Trump and those who serve him to remember the value ...Read more

For the sixth and final time before votes are counted, the leading contenders for California governor gathered Thursday night for a televised debate, this one a 90-minute session in San Francisco.

Times columnists Gustavo Arellano, Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria absorbed the rhetorical blows, followed the heated back-and-forths and took in ...Read more

Picking the wildest fantasy promoted by President Donald Trump as a basis for public policy is increasingly challenging — is it his yarn about schoolchildren being secretly abducted from their classrooms and given sex-changing operations? The notion that the vaccines given to children are like "a vat, like a big glass, of stuff pumped into ...Read more

Spring can be a dreadful time to be in school. The end of the year is in sight, but with weeks of mandatory work still to be done, daydreaming students are tempted by the miracle taking place outside to ditch their books and wish they were anywhere but the classroom. And their teachers wonder why they ever returned to the classroom instead of ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Dana Williamson, one of the political heavyweights at the center of a financial scandal involving gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, looked shell-shocked Thursday morning in a federal courtroom in downtown Sacramento, as most folks do when bad choices collide with the hard realities of the justice system.

A thousand...Read more

San Francisco’s luxury housing market is booming, fueled by the stunning wealth created by the nascent artificial intelligence industry and a record stock market. Sure, the California city has always been an outlier relative to the rest of the real estate market, but the recent developments nevertheless suggest the modest gains in ...Read more

Step within the stone gates of a liberal arts college, and it’s easy to see the appeal: small classes and sprawling lawns, neo-Gothic architecture and modern amenities. When such institutions were established, many hoped they’d foster an intellectual “awakening” among students. A string of recent closures suggests this mission has gone ...Read more

A cow named Veronika recently made headlines around the world, reportedly leaving scientists “stunned.” But Veronika was simply doing the same thing she’d done for years: scratching. Specifically, she was choosing the best scratcher for each itch, be it a stick, broom or rake, and holding it in her mouth to savor a satisfying rubdown. When...Read more

Dear graduates of 2026,

Welcome to the world you will be taking jobs in and where you will begin building careers, and at times shaping history.

It isn’t the world of your parents, and it isn’t the world your college has taught you about, because it is changing too fast. It begins anew daily. As Maya Angelou said, “This is a wonderful ...Read more

From the moment he took office, Pope Leo XIV became a distinguished proponent of peace, human dignity and concern for disadvantaged people wherever they might be.

He was critical of U.S. immigration policy, pointing out that people who had been living decent lives were being rounded up in a way that was “extremely disrespectful” and called ...Read more

Using artificial intelligence to forecast the weather is getting so good – and so cheap – that meteorological services are starting to retire the expensive physics-based systems they have relied on. That’s a potentially big problem – and not just for weather forecasting.

Models built by Google DeepMind, the European Centre for Medium-...Read more

The government agency responsible for handling natural disasters is something of a disaster itself. The good news is that its prospects are marginally better today than they seemed just a few months ago. The bad news is that those prospects would still mean a federal response and preparedness body that struggles to respond to and prepare for ...Read more

Last week, Grammy-winning singer and songwriter Noah Kahan revealed that in 2025, while on a trip to Joshua Tree, he was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder at age 28. This debilitating condition affects an estimated 10 million people in the U.S. and 240 million globally, causing unwanted intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors. ...Read more

Imagine you are sick with a serious medical condition. How would you feel if someone constantly told you to buy their product because it would cure you, but this “cure” is actually worse than other treatments, and the price tag is enormous?

This is the reality of prescription drug advertising. Whether on television or online, drug companies...Read more

In last week’s mayoral debate, candidate Spencer Pratt said “super meth” was driving homelessness in Los Angeles.

After several years reporting and writing a book on this topic, I can say that Los Angeles, indeed the United States, doesn’t necessarily have a “super meth” problem.

Meth is meth. Like aspirin is aspirin. What matters ...Read more