He “could count by twos and tie his shoes.” That’s the opening line in episodes of Franklin, a children’s TV series about an eponymous turtle that goes on to do a lot of learning. The same thing, minus the learning, could be said about Pete Hegseth, who has now adopted Franklin as an improbably martial alter ego in his evolving fantasies...Read more

President Donald Trump is promoting the idea of sending a $2,000 check to most Americans funded by revenues brought by his tariffs on imports.

The scheme has received a frosty reception from Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress and economists alike, and they are unlikely to happen. If the White House really wants to ease the burden that ...Read more

The Wall Street Journal nailed it last week with a headline that read, “Make Money Not War: Trump’s Real Plan for Peace in Ukraine.”

That headline captures why the president is so eager to end Vladimir Putin’s war by sacrificing the Ukrainian victim to the Russian aggressor. And it helps explain why Donald Trump’s negotiators are ...Read more

Reading week is quiet at Northwestern University. It’s a time for students to write papers and study for exams and for professors to grade and prepare new courses for winter quarter. But right now, it’s a different kind of quiet. On Friday evening, Northwestern announced a “deal” with the federal government. Media reports thus far have ...Read more

When the College Board canceled SAT testing in 2020, hundreds of colleges adopted test-optional admissions policies for that fall. The Urban Institute reported that the number of four-year colleges and universities going test-optional nearly doubled in one year, from 713 to 1,350.

Test-optional admissions had been spreading before the COVID ...Read more

In almost every election cycle, politicians toot their own horn when it comes to rising wages, pointing to higher paychecks as proof that the average worker is thriving. But under the Biden administration, millions of Americans—faced with mounting grocery bills, rising rent, and shrinking savings—could see that these higher paychecks did not...Read more

Democrats see an opportunity to hammer Republicans and the White House on “affordability,” counting on voters to forget that inflation soared to 9 percent in 2022 — the highest in four decades — under President Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress.

President Donald Trump took the bait, of course. On Tuesday, he called the issue “a ...Read more

The COVID pandemic brought out the worst of the Nanny State in the name of public health. From school closures, to scientifically dubious social distancing and mask mandates, few elected officials missed a chance to exert their authority.

But five years later, there may finally be consequences for a handful of the worst offenders.

Last month, ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)— famously helmed by Elon Musk — has been decentralized, its functions transferred to the Office of Personnel Management. And while it didn’t deliver on Musk’s promise to realize $1 trillion in budget cuts, it nevertheless served a useful purpose.

DOGE, as the exercise...Read more

For more than a century, American education has been driven by the same invisible engine: standardization. Rows of desks. National tests. Rankings.

From No Child Left Behind to statewide report cards, we have long measured success by what can be quantified, compared and controlled.

This model, born in the industrial age, is buckling under the ...Read more

The decision to attend college was a no-brainer during the second half of the 20th century. It almost assured higher earnings and job security. Tuition wasn’t even very expensive. None of this is true now.

The economic returns associated with a college degree are falling. Adding insult to injury, unemployment rates for recent graduates aren�...Read more

The priorities that drive the making of President Donald Trump’s urgent, yet sometimes helter-skelter, international security initiatives – from the Ukraine war to the Middle East – can best be understood by viewing them through the eyes and insights of his secretary of state.

After all, Marco Rubio’s years on the Senate’s Foreign ...Read more

Let me paint you a picture: Imagine you’re an ancient hunter surveying the icy tundra of what is now California’s Sierra Nevada. Covered in furs, armed only with the tools you’ve made by hand, and sporting a hefty mane of hair, you’re the picture-perfect human of the Pleistocene era. You’re also starving.

If you’re skeptical of your...Read more

California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom recently convened a meeting that might rank among the top sweat-inducing nightmare scenarios for Silicon Valley's tech bros — a group of the Golden State's smartest, most powerful women brainstorming ways to regulate artificial intelligence.

Regulation is the last thing this particular ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s renewed crusade against legal immigration poses a direct threat to the long-term financial interests of the older White Americans who remain his core supporters.

Since the tragic shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., last week by a man from Afghanistan, Trump has directed a fusillade of invective ...Read more

On Nov. 17, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that officially endorsed the U.S. peace plan for Gaza. It was a big moment for President Donald Trump’s administration, which spent months negotiating the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and weeks lobbying other countries to support the plan’s key tenets: the ...Read more

On Thanksgiving evening, as Americans offered grace for their blessings and feasted with loved ones, President Donald Trump's contribution to the country's dinner table was the digital equivalent of a flaming turd pie.

On social media, he published a screed that drew from his tried-and-true playbook — personal insults against political ...Read more

The killing of Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old serving her country in the National Guard to help pay for college, is horrific.

Her fellow soldier, Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in a fight for his life.

Their alleged attacker, Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, is in custody and will likely face the federal death penalty.

It's ...Read more