In a country bitterly divided on virtually everything, from the major to the mundane, there’s one issue that could unite Republicans and Democrats: age limits.

An uncomfortable conversation about the acuity of aging politicians, from Republicans Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Thad Cochran of Mississippi to Democrats Robert C. Byrd of ...Read more

Are the United States and Iran, adversaries for more than 45 years, on the cusp of striking a new nuclear agreement?

After two rounds of indirect diplomacy between high-ranking officials of the two powers, it’s still too early to answer that question with confidence. What is abundantly clear is that Washington and Tehran are at least trying ...Read more

On Sept. 11, 2014, at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George told the audience: “Before I went to the Conclave of the College of Cardinals this past February to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, I asked Rabbi Poupko, ‘What would the Jewish community like to see in the next pope?’ He answered: ...Read more

In a time roiled with fear, division and rancor, the loss of Pope Francis is a cruel and stunning blow. The pontiff — who died early Monday morning at the age of 88, after celebrating Holy Week — made a deep and profound impact on the face of Catholicism worldwide and was a voice for healing and justice that resonated beyond the boundaries ...Read more

Donald Trump announced his first run for president on June 16, 2015. He lashed out against Mexican immigrants, environmentalists and other supposed enemies foreign and domestic.

Two days later, Pope Francis clapped back.

Francis’ landmark climate change encyclical, “Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home,” wasn’t meant as a response ...Read more

If I believed in miracles as strongly as I did as a Catholic school student, I could hope that Vice President JD Vance would be transformed by his audience with Pope Francis on Easter Sunday just hours before the pope died, that he'd embrace Francis' compassionate views on the world's migrants. But I don't much believe in miracles anymore, ...Read more

For now, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living legally in the U.S. and South Florida have gotten a reprieve after the courts put on hold the decision by the Department of Homeland Security to revoke their Temporary Protected Status.

More importantly, the courts so far have rebuked the Trump administration’s claims that allowing those ...Read more

In 1805, New York made a deal. State officials granted taxpayer funds and a corporate charter to a private organization known as the Free School Society, which agreed in return to provide a free education to poor children in New York City. Over the next decades, the society became a precursor to modern-day charter school networks that are ...Read more

Thank you to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli for publishing an analysis of the balance of payments between the 50 states and the federal government. This is his ninth annual review, continuing a tradition that began when Pat Moynihan first arrived in the U.S. Senate in 1977 and that Moynihan kept up for all his 24 years of service.

Moynihan, ...Read more

More than a dozen private companies around the world are looking to profit from extreme measures to combat global warming — filling the sky with sunlight-blocking particles, brightening clouds or changing the chemistry of the oceans. We live in precarious times when it’s not hard to find the technology and the money to change the Earth’s ...Read more

In 1992, the new Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Barry was commissioned. A powerful warship of over 9,000 tons, she is still in service and carries a formidable array of offensive and defensive weaponry. The commissioning motto, which the crew selected and was put on the ship’s crest, was “Strength and Diversity.”

I was ...Read more

America is having a Liz Truss moment. The problem is that America doesn’t have a Liz Truss solution.

Let me take you back to the fall of 2022 when the United Kingdom experienced its own version of political whiplash. In the span of seven weeks, no less than three Prime Ministers (and two monarchs, incidentally) tried to steer the British ...Read more

Every archaeologist remembers the first time they came to a layer of blackened dirt while excavating. For me it was at Tel Halif, in southern Israel. I was crouching in a hole; the dig’s director spotted the dark soil from up above.

That black dirt was a burn layer, created when fire tore through a settlement. It was the material residue of ...Read more

If the government shouldn’t be in your bedroom, why is it spying on your bathroom?

This month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order repealing the federal government’s definition of “showerhead.” That definition was 13,000 words long. The White House argues that this move will make “America’s showers great again.”

If ...Read more

Here’s an SAT-style question that college administrators should be required to answer: What is the best predictor of a student’s academic success at an elite college?

A) Family income.

B) Skin color.

C) High school GPA.

D) Score on a standardized test, such as the SAT or ACT.

A new study from professors at Brown University and Dartmouth...Read more

When a bridge collapsed in Baltimore in March 2024, Mayor Brandon Scott was derided as a “DEI Mayor,” a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion.

While the wildfires in Los Angeles were still burning earlier this year, some people looked at Karen Bass, the city’s first Black mayor, and Kristin Crowley, its first woman and openly gay ...Read more

It has become as predictable as the sun rising and setting each day, that the REAL ID requirement for air travel gets delayed.

The current deadline requiring REAL ID for air travel is May 7, with no word from the Department of Homeland Security that it will be moved. The Transportation Security Administration will enforce the deadline, while ...Read more

On Friday, as Americans were heading home for the weekend, the Pentagon made a significant announcement: U.S. troops were in the process of withdrawing from Syria.

Multiple U.S. outposts in the northeast of the war-torn country would be vacated, and U.S. service members would be consolidated into fewer bases. “This deliberate and conditions-...Read more

“No king in America,” said the hand-lettered signs at protests across the nation Saturday.

It was the 250th anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord that started the American Revolution, which rid our nation of despotic rule forever.

Or so we thought.

Our new tyrant plans to dominate next year’s 250th anniversary of the ...Read more

A number of otherwise skeptical senators took at face value the pledge by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Senate hearings in January to "follow the science" on issues related to the causes of disease in the U.S., helping him receive confirmation as secretary of Health and Human Services.

As he demonstrated last week at his very first news conference ...Read more