SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Some witty person long ago gave us this immortal line: “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”

Humorist Will Rogers usually is credited — wrongly. Mark Twain, too, falsely.

The real author was Gideon J. Tucker, a former newspaper editor who founded the New York Daily ...Read more

Restaurant owners talk about how hard it is to survive, but they keep one gripe pretty much to themselves because the public might take offense: They’d like us to act more like our parents and less like the tourist who backed into and damaged a painting while taking a selfie at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, Italy.

To put it in gentler ...Read more

Being a millionaire isn’t what it used to be. This isn’t a lament, it’s a fact: As Bloomberg News reported recently, almost one-fifth of U.S. households have a net worth of more than $1 million. Fully one-third of them have gained that status since 2017.

There is, however, an important caveat to this data, which is through 2023: Most of ...Read more

In the first week of October, with the government shutdown underway, the Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee to head up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Neil Jacobs.

Jacobs, who served as the acting under secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere during the first Trump Administration, is best ...Read more

Banned Books Week just ended, but the fight it highlights continues every other week of the year. This year’s theme was Censorship is So 1984: Read for Your Rights, invoking George Orwell’s famous novel to warn against the dangers of banning books.

It was a powerful rallying cry. But now that the week has ended, we need to face two ...Read more

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are vigorously fighting for a world where your health care costs more, covers less and gives even greater power to private insurance companies.

That is not good for you. It is not good for America. You deserve a health care system that is universal, affordable and humane — one in which ...Read more

In the annals of American politics, few figures have reshaped the landscape as profoundly as President Donald Trump. His bombastic style, unfiltered rhetoric, and policy disruptions galvanized the Republican base while triggering a seismic reaction among Democrats.

As Trump’s second term approaches its end in 2029, the GOP stands at a ...Read more

Don’t believe the headlines. The government shutdown is not really about Obamacare. That’s just the pretext.

The shutdown is a tactic employed by the Democratic congressional leadership to create a high-profile platform from which to oppose President Donald Trump. More dangerously, it’s a political trap for the GOP, aimed at influencing ...Read more

When you think of role models, there are probably a number of women who come to mind before Angela Lansbury: women who boldly and sometimes loudly shook things up like Rosie the Riveter, Riot Grrrl rebels, and RBG. Maybe even Miss Piggy, though that could just be me. In contrast, Lansbury, who died in 2022, is associated with cozy Cabot Cove (...Read more

The American immigration system is broken, and the arrest and detention of a Fresno mother poignantly illustrates this tragic reality.

On Oct. 8, Maria Francisca Villanueva Caballero, accompanied by her lawyer, followed the rules set out by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and showed up at the Fresno office expecting to walk out ...Read more

The weekend of July 4, 2024, was a bloody one in Chicago. Over 100 people were shot in the city and, for 19 Chicagoans, this was the last holiday weekend they ever would see.

In its wake, this city’s business leaders announced a remarkable thing: They had come up with $104 million to fight the violent crime that they could see was ...Read more

State Sen. Scott Wiener is a strategic and effective legislator who rarely lets emotion make his decisions — much like Nancy Pelosi, whose congressional seat he would like to take.

It has been a wide-open secret for years that Wiener wanted to make a run for federal office when or if Pelosi retired, but he's also been deferential to the ...Read more

So make it three for three (so far) on Donald Trump’s enemy list to be charged with federal crimes, as former National Security Advisor John Bolton has now been indicted.

While the Bolton charges might be more solid than those lodged against former FBI Director Jim Comey and New York Attorney General Tish James (of which there are no grounds)...Read more

In case anyone thought Donald Trump’s over-hyped Mideast peace deal proved he had the guts to finally get serious about the war in Ukraine, think again. Once more, the president has bowed to Vladimir Putin.

The day before his scheduled White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, when optimists predicted he might let Kyiv...Read more

In recent weeks, Apple’s Live Translation for the latest iPhone and AirPods models has been everywhere. The pitch is simple: Two people speaking different languages can understand each other instantly. In the same season, Congress moved to trim federal support for international and area studies under Title VI, and agencies have begun signaling...Read more

Airport security is a necessary evil to enjoy the privilege of air travel. Most of us would prefer just to pack our bags, go to the airport, and get on a plane. For nearly all travelers, the air system would remain just as secure as it is today. However, a few “bad actors” make it necessary for all of us to traverse through the airport ...Read more

Other than frustration at surging migration, Latin America has not merited the same level of attention in Washington as the Middle East, Europe or Asia in recent history. That indifference has ended with the second Trump administration, but the nature of our renewed attention is not exactly what many of our neighbors might have hoped for.

...Read more

Sarah stared at us — her knees shaking, hands trembling, eyes holding back tears — and asked: “Where do I go now?”

Sarah, whose real name I’ve withheld to protect her privacy, had just courageously left her abusive partner when she arrived at our center, the Nashville Office of Family Safety. But now, she found herself without a place...Read more

The Amazon Holiday Kids Gift Book, which just recently hit mailboxes months ahead of Christmas, has become the modern child’s wish book — a glossy stand-in for the toy store aisles their parents once roamed. It sparks the same giddy anticipation that used to come from pressing noses to store windows, something today’s kids see in old-timey...Read more

Back in 2007, President George W. Bush was being challenged on his opposition to the Children’s Health Insurance Program — which provides health coverage for children in families too poor to afford private insurance, yet too “wealthy” to qualify for Medicaid. His response was honest, if characteristically clumsy: “People have access to...Read more