Suddenly, artificial intelligence is everywhere we look. Three years ago, I had no exposure to it personally, but now it tries to auto-populate my emails, shows up at the top of my online searches and answers my consumer queries (or tries to, at least).

Any new disruptive technology comes with costs and benefits and growing pains, but AI seems...Read more

As a people, we feel lost. Our political life is full of division and animosity. Our society struggles to find its sense of meaning. Violence erupts far too often. And beyond our borders, we find ourselves embroiled in conflicts with enemies and allies.

We are a nation divided and adrift. Our Declaration of Independence can help us refocus on ...Read more

There is much debate around the world regarding both physician-assisted dying legislation—often called "Death with Dignity"—and expanding the circumstances in which it is applicable. Eight countries and 19 states already permit it in some form.

It is controversial for many reasons. Part of the controversy stems from our cultural discomfort ...Read more

We Americans have always felt anxious about our democracy. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, ours is only “a republic, if you can keep it,” and we’ve been plagued by a nagging feeling ever since that we can’t. The latest bout of handwringing is brought on by declining literacy and the threat it poses to liberal democracy, and—aware ...Read more

School’s almost out for summer, great news for class-weary kids looking forward to a break. For Chicago Public Schools, though, the year is winding up in the red.

CPS is projected to end the current school year with a $45 million deficit, WBEZ reported, following a $102 million deficit last year, a shift that returned the district to deficits...Read more

The Iran war, which Donald Trump started in February for no good reason and which could flare up again at any moment, broke a streak of easy American military wins. This raises a question for other countries that the U.S. president might coerce or attack, from Cuba to Nigeria, and from Danish Greenland to North Korea: Will the strategic fiasco ...Read more

The hype surrounding the psychedelic drug ibogaine reached a fever pitch in April, when President Donald Trump talked up its potential at a White House event promoting increased access to psychedelics. Ibogaine, which comes from the root of a West African shrub, has long been used for ceremonial and spiritual purposes. Now, for the first time, ...Read more

Artificial intelligence might be the most transformative technology ever devised. Exactly how its effects will work through the economy is impossible to say, but serious disruption of one kind or another seems likely. Millions of jobs — in the end, maybe most jobs — could radically change, and many will disappear entirely.

How should ...Read more

“A whole bunch of everything for both, especially going wrong,” said a friend who didn’t want to be named, and declined to give examples. I had gone to our local place and asked people to name one thing they think is going right in America and one thing going wrong.

She views the world from a resigned distance, I think, and doesn’t see ...Read more

No amount of advertising money can sell a bad product — or at least, a product that consumers have determined they don’t want (see: New Coke). This time-tested business principle also applies to American politics.

That’s helpful to remember as midterm elections proceed.

The Democratic and Republican parties, their candidates and their ...Read more

A wise man — possibly Winston Churchill — once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” And if he’d lived long enough to see President Donald Trump in office, he might have added, “Especially if you can turn it into a real estate project.”

In the aftermath of the chaos at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, Trump was ...Read more

Conservatism is in decline. True, it’s not dead — in 2025, a larger share of Americans described themselves as conservative (35%) than liberal (28%) — but this seven-point difference is the smallest Gallup has measured since 1992.

This is bad news for American politics. As a philosophy, conservatism possesses the key virtue that’s ...Read more

If you take the long view, America’s economic outlook is pretty bleak. Like a lot of rich countries, it is overwhelmed by debt it has no plans to reduce. Even more troubling is its aging population, which will reduce growth and leave fewer people to pay all that debt.

There is only one hope: a sudden increase in productivity that will boost ...Read more

Few any longer dispute that America’s public debt is growing unsustainably and that, sooner or later, the task of reining it in will be unavoidable. Oddly, this presumption of inevitability has bred a kind of complacency. In the end, whether we like it or not, the problem will have to be solved. Therefore, it will be solved. So what’s the ...Read more

In one respect, the soaring national debt is a lot like the weather. Everybody complains about it, but nobody does anything about it.

Nobody, that is, but Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican.

Eight years ago, Sen. Paul introduced his “Penny Plan Balanced Budget,” an effort to balance the federal books within five years. Under his ...Read more

The Supreme Court has again dealt a devastating blow to voting equality in the United States.

On Wednesday, in Louisiana v. Callais, six justices effectively nullified a 1982 federal statute that prohibits states from running or establishing election systems, such as election districts, that have a discriminatory effect against voters of color....Read more

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is pleasing President Donald Trump by supporting a ridiculous indictment of former FBI Director James Comey over a benign photo.

Maybe Blanche thinks this foolishness will prevent him from being 86ed like Pam Bondi was, but even she didn’t try to sell a case of some seashells by the seashore. Blanche is ...Read more

Iran is again playing the four-corners stall game with its latest peace proposal — a sign that American leverage is paying off. President Donald Trump and the United States should continue to put maximum pressure on the regime to exacerbate the Iranian economy’s free-fall.

News outlets reported this week that Trump had rejected an offer ...Read more

The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has struck down Louisiana’s newly created majority-Black congressional district, narrowing the scope of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The ruling is consequential not only for Louisiana but for how the nation understands representation, race and the future of redistricting.

At its core, ...Read more