Defying the odds and expectations of many, President Donald Trump went to the Middle East this week and announced what many thought impossible — a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and, hopefully, a path to peace in the Middle East.

As a part of getting both sides to agree to a ceasefire, they each had to give up the hostages and prisoners ...Read more

Last year’s flu season was long, brutal, and ultimately tragic. By the time infections had subsided in May, as many as 1.1 million Americans were estimated to have been hospitalized and as many as 100,000 had died. Among them were 280 children — the highest number recorded in a non-pandemic year since health agencies began tracking the virus...Read more

It’s ironic that some of America’s worst presidents in terms of domestic leadership have succeeded spectacularly on the world stage.

Both before and after his disastrous presidency, Herbert Hoover was a leading architect of European reconstruction following both world wars. Richard Nixon was indeed a crook, but he also broke through decades...Read more

Of all the federal government shutdowns that I've covered over three decades, the current one, now in its third week, is the weirdest by far.

Most other times, by this point the battling sides — Democrats versus Republicans, White House versus Congress — have reached some split-the-baby resolution, pressured by an American public disgusted ...Read more

Until recently, no one would have mistaken Arianna Barrios for a wokosa.

The Orange city council member comes from O.C. Republican royalty. Her grandfather, Cruz, was a Mexican immigrant and civil rights pioneer who registered with the GOP in the late 1940s after Democratic leaders wouldn't help him and other activists fight school segregation ...Read more

As the partial government shutdown grinds on, with no end in sight, Catherine Cortez Masto stands ready to end it right now.

The lawyerly senator from Nevada is one of just two Democrats to repeatedly vote with Republicans and Maine's independent senator, Angus King, to have the federal government up and running.

She's not only bucking her ...Read more

Los Angeles County officials dismissed their recent after-action report on the January wildfires as “inadequate.” For me, the McChrystal Report is a precise, comprehensive account of failure, revealing the nation’s system for alerting the public as little more than paper, pencil and prayer.

At its outset, the report drops you into the ...Read more

As a young recruit, the first thing I learned when I pinned on a badge was simple but profound: Power must always be visible and accountable. A nameplate, a badge number, an agency insignia — those aren’t just pieces of metal and cloth. They’re promises that those who wield the authority of the state can be identified, questioned and held ...Read more

Back-to-school season looked starkly different for my family this year. Instead of joyfully stuffing backpacks, dressing up for school days to come and taking toothy front-porch photos, my spouse and I found ourselves having a serious discussion: How would we get our kids to school safely as federal agents and the National Guard roamed the ...Read more

The interstate highway system transformed the U.S. economy and American life in the 20th century. High-speed rail can have a similar effect in the 21st century, reindustrializing and reconnecting America and solidifying its global leadership.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways in 1956,...Read more

It's not my habit to preface my columns with "trigger alerts," so this is a first:

If talking about circumcision makes you cringe, feel free to move along.

If, on the other hand, you wish to understand what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was talking about during a White House meeting Oct. 9 when he tried to connect circumcision with autism, follow ...Read more

On her mother’s instruction, a toddler gives her pink stuffed horse, Snap Snap, a big cuddle. Then, as told, she plants a kiss on his soft fur and, because he’s hungry, feeds him a pretend bowl of food.

This scene is at once adorable and a remarkable feat of science. Born with a rare form of congenital deafness, the toddler received a gene ...Read more

Gov. Gavin Newsom and leaders in the California Legislature have reached a general agreement to provide long-term funding for the high-speed rail line from the “cap and invest” program.

Before state residents breathe a sigh of relief that this train is back on track, a recent piece on cost increases for the first section provided a sobering...Read more

You don’t have to have fled two communist-leaning countries, as I have, to find it appalling that Philadelphia recently celebrated the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by flying its flag at City Hall.

But this proud U.S. citizen knows America’s Founding Fathers would turn in their graves if they had seen this emblem of ...Read more

The Trump administration’s recently released Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education has landed in the inboxes of nine universities, including our own University of Southern California.

Included in the proposed terms — which, if agreed to, are supposed to loosen the spigots of federal funding for academic collaborators — is a...Read more

President Donald Trump insists that top universities must pay dearly for not protecting Jewish students. This includes cutting $790 million in medical and scientific research previously led by Northwestern University scholars.

Michael Schill, then president of Northwestern, was berated by congressional Republicans for brokering a compromise ...Read more

It should be obvious by now that President Donald Trump’s deliberately aggressive incursions into blue cities are not about curbing crime, but about exercising raw power. Militarizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, attempting to federalize National Guard troops and issuing threats to jail opponents — these are not the actions of a ...Read more

The “free Palestine” movement needs to find a new chant after President Donald Trump brokered a peace deal between Israel and Hamas, triggering the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the release of all living hostages held by the terrorist group.

It must be frustrating for the Trump haters to see the images of the president getting thunderous...Read more

I had a difficult time reading the gut-wrenching accounts from the parents of gay children who are part of the Supreme Court case about conversion therapy bans and freedom of speech.

All claim their family relationships were seriously damaged by the widely discredited practice, and that their children were permanently scarred or even driven to ...Read more

Last month, a federal judge observed that masked figures were creating terror on American streets — not criminals but agents of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. “Law enforcement in the United States has usually been performed in the open,” wrote Judge William G. Young, a Ronald Reagan appointee to the U.S. District Court in ...Read more