If nations can suffer from cognitive dissonance just as individuals can, it’s easy to see why we elected Donald Trump.

A good place to start thinking about this is football:

As I often do in late summer, I was considering chronic traumatic encephalopathy when a shooting spree in Manhattan left four dead and a fifth critically injured. The ...Read more

Housing affordability is a key issue for the American consumer on which the Trump administration has done nothing useful. From tariffs on construction material to higher budget deficits driving up interest rates to deporting building trades workers, virtually every policy lever is being thrown in an anti-supply direction.

At the same time, good...Read more

The Federal Reserve resisted pressure from the White House last week and left its policy rate unchanged. It was the right decision. As Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged, the case for a cut was a bit stronger this time than in June — and two of the Fed’s policymakers, in rare dissents, voted to lower the rate by a quarter-point. For now, ...Read more

In the media, the U.S. Federal Reserve is under siege. President Donald Trump constantly threatens to fire Chair Jerome Powell. Others hurl criticism in hopes of becoming Powell’s successor. Two Fed governors opposed last week’s decision to hold interest rates steady, the first multiple dissent since 1993.

Don’t be fooled by the drama. In...Read more

Having prevailed in mid-July on party-line congressional votes to slash foreign assistance and zero-out public broadcasting, senior Trump administration officials immediately signaled intent to seek still more “rescissions” of money already appropriated for the current fiscal year. Even more provocatively, they are discussing plans to engage...Read more

Like many who have endured childhood trauma, Shannon Hicks turned to drugs at an early age. Pregnant by 16 and a mother of two by 19, she was married and living in her first home — believing she was living the dream.

Shortly after her 20th birthday, Hicks was in a serious car accident and prescribed opioids for the resulting pain. But the ...Read more

On Friday, Donald Trump followed up a concerning jobs report with massive new global tariffs, driving markets down and once more raising prices on consumers for no reason after weeks of supposed trade negotiations. Like with his first round of import duties, announced in the Rose Garden on his ludicrous April 2 “Liberation Day,” these ...Read more

If you’re still looking for someone to blame for Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection, don’t just look at the usual suspects — the MAGA die-hards, the QAnon crowd or your uncle screaming at Fox News. Consider the bros at your local gym’s squat rack, the Discord server or the gaming lounge who suddenly swung right— or, better yet, consider ...Read more

Even before the Trump administration’s headline-grabbing assaults on public institutions, our democracy was showing alarming signs of distress. A 2023 Brookings Institution report found that the United States “is experiencing two major forms of democratic erosion in its governing institutions: election manipulation and executive overreach.�...Read more

In our era, they might seem like performative gestures for the president. A quiet visit with the wife of a wounded soldier. A conversation with a battlefield nurse or a kitchen worker. A hand extended to a Black woman who had once been enslaved.

Abraham Lincoln didn’t publicize these moments, though. He prioritized them for personal reasons. ...Read more

A few weeks after the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, several published statements have called for a referendum and a transition beyond the Islamic Republic.

One of these, signed by 800 domestic and international activists, was issued by Mir Hossein Mousavi, formerly the prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war. Mousavi was also the leader ...Read more

Nations like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are going to be crucial to the future of the Palestinian people trapped and famished in the Gaza Strip, so it was a positive development last week when those countries collectively called on Hamas to disarm and give up power in Gaza.

This was the first time such a collective declaration has been issued...Read more

California is often criticized for high electricity costs and slow development timelines. Rightly so: My electricity bill has doubled in a decade, and as a renter I can’t buy solar or batteries to cut the costs.

But critics confuse the real reasons for this problem. According to California’s utility regulators, our power bills are soaring ...Read more

In recent months, the Trump administration has terminated thousands of federally funded medical research grants, gutting $9.5 billion in critical health science efforts. More than half of those cuts — 1,246 grants worth $5.5 billion — targeted studies focused on LGBTQ+ health. These cuts don’t just reflect shifting policy priorities. They ...Read more

America is once again gripped by multiple political and societal crises. Most days in our local communities and in our wider public lives it can feel like we’re living through dizzying confusion, chaos, and division.

Acrimonious partisanship only deepens in Washington, DC, and our state capitols. Renewed calls for a third party are heating up...Read more

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes $100 million for the Office of Management and Budget “to pay expenses associated with improving regulatory processes and analyzing and reviewing rules.”

Following the Department of Government Efficiency initiative, this small investment won’t make many headlines — but it ...Read more

A few years ago I came across a profoundly unnerving historical photo: A lineup of terrified, naked Black babies cowered over the title “Alligator Bait.” As it turned out, the idea of Black babies being used as alligator bait was a beloved trope dating back to the antebellum South, though it didn’t really take off until after the Civil War...Read more

The same day President Donald Trump launched his AI Action Plan, his Energy Secretary Chris Wright pulled federal support for a power project with ties to renewable energy that could help that plan. Not coincidentally, Trump instructed Wright at his AI summit that he must say “clean, beautiful” before any mention of the word “coal” and ...Read more

One of the barriers to understanding the world is our fixation on sports thinking: Who is winning and who is catching up? This has long been true of politics — we focus obsessively on the race for the White House while ignoring the debt mountain that may bring the whole system crashing down. It is also becoming true of business. We tend to ...Read more

This editorial board is a firm believer in the importance of the Fourth Estate, which serves as a fundamental check on power. But we’re well aware many Americans have their doubts.

Trust in the press has been on the decline for years. In Gallup’s 2024 survey, only 31% of Americans said they trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a ...Read more