A federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles was illegal, which the sane and democracy-loving among us should applaud — though of course an appeal is coming.

During the trial, though, a concerning but little-noticed exchange popped up between lawyers for the state of California ...Read more

One reason for persistent political disagreements is that it can be hard to discern the outcomes of certain policies.

Consider the minimum wage. Raising it provides an immediate boost to minimum wage workers. But there’s a lot of evidence that it reduces hours and job opportunities for low-skill workers. It can lead businesses to increase ...Read more

Could most of the tariffs with which President Donald Trump has shocked the world actually be illegal? Sometime in the coming months, the Supreme Court might provide an answer. Meanwhile, the task of managing the U.S. economy will become all the more difficult.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District has given Trump until Oct. 14 to ...Read more

For five years, I dodged every bullet.

I don't know how I managed to beat COVID-19 for so long, even as family, friends and colleagues got hit with the coronavirus. Although I took precautions from the beginning, with masking and vaccinations, I was also out in public a lot for work and travel.

But my luck has finally run out, and it must have...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — There are echoes from California Republicans’ disastrous past in their solid support of the Trump administration’s ugly raids targeting Latinos suspected of illegal immigration.

California’s GOP apparently still hasn’t learned. Scaring, insulting and angering people is not an effective recruiting tool. It doesn’...Read more

The afternoon sun glimmered off the ocean as I drove down MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach to fulfill a promise.

This September marks five years since I debuted as a columnist for The Times. My first dispatch was from the mausoleum niche at Pacific View Memorial Park that holds the cremains of one of my predecessors, Ruben Salazar.

Exactly...Read more

On July 1, Ramsi Woodcock was promoted to full professor at the University of Kentucky Rosenberg College of Law, where he has taught since 2018, mostly focusing on business and antitrust.

On July 18, he was informed that he was suspended from teaching and banned from campus for remarks he made at a conference calling for the destruction of ...Read more

Here’s something that Democrats and Republicans ought to be able to agree on: When Americans serving in the military are trying to protect our country and each other, they should not be strangled by red tape that prevents them from fixing broken weapons and tools. And yet that is exactly the danger they currently face.

If a war broke out ...Read more

Given the hostility of the U.S. government to anything green and the daily drumbeat of headlines about canceled wind farms, tax breaks and environmental rules, you might mistakenly think clean energy is on its deathbed. In fact, by at least one measure, it’s healthier than ever.

Global investment in renewable energy sources hit $386.5 billion...Read more

In little more than six months, the White House has sent uniformed troops into the streets of U.S. cities more frequently and on thinner pretexts than any of its modern predecessors; it’s even proposing to create standing units available for the president to deploy domestically on short notice. Administration officials say they’re restoring ...Read more

Recently, a major Alabama construction project suddenly went silent. Nearly every worker, despite apparent sign-off through the “E-verify” system, failed to show up on a $20 million job site. The reason? They were scared by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on a work site 230 miles away. When it’s a matter of being deported and ...Read more

A recent lawsuit against OpenAI over the suicide of a teenager makes for difficult reading. The wrongful-death complaint filed in state court in San Francisco describes how Adam Raines, aged 16, started using ChatGPT in September 2024 to help with his homework. By April 2025, he was using the app as a confidant for hours a day, and asking it for...Read more

Most states want to woo new businesses. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento are trying the opposite approach.

Recently, Bed Bath & Beyond opened its first location since filing bankruptcy two years ago and closing hundreds of stores. Along with its online operations, it now plans to debut hundreds of new physical...Read more

When it comes to paying for college, retired NBA player Matt Barnes is like any other Gen X dad in America. With his twins Carter and Isaiah in high school, Barnes — a member of the Golden State Warriors 2017 championship team — is looking at the rising cost of higher education with wary eyes.

"Do you need college now to be successful in ...Read more

“On this site President Theodore Roosevelt sat beside a campfire with John Muir on May 17, 1903,” reads a wooden marker, not far from Bridalveil Fall in Yosemite Valley.

I stumbled across it last November, alongside other bundled-up tourists enjoying the valley’s autumn shades of green, orange and red and snapping photos of the chiseled, ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The rancor that dominates Minneapolis politics fell silent in the aftermath of Wednesday’s mass shooting of children in southwest Minneapolis.

The shocking event called for some unity around a leader who could articulate — loudly — what many were feeling. And Mayor Jacob Frey proved up to the task.

It began immediately ...Read more

BOSTON -- President Donald Trump’s bid to expand the National Guard to other major cities could throw a spotlight on Boston’s crime rate and put Michelle Wu’s campaign claim it is the safest major city in America to a test.

With the Guard possibly moving into Chicago and Baltimore, just the threat of an expansion into Boston would be a ...Read more

We are witnessing an unprecedented drop in social trust in America. This lack of trust is directed toward other people and the government.

Social Trust began to decline in the United States in the mid-1970s, after Watergate, and it has gotten significantly worse in the last decade. The Pew Research Center has established that in 2024, social ...Read more

In the American political conscience, there lingers a myth: That real change comes from exhortation — passionate, unyielding exhortation — that moves the hearts of men and women. According to this story, virtuous citizens advocate relentlessly for what is right until the sheer moral force of their persistence breaks through.

This sentiment ...Read more

I used to think the answer was obvious; it was self-evident. But it's not, at least not in today's political context. MAGA Republicans and Democrats have a very different take on the meaning of this phrase in the Declaration.

I said in my book, "We Still Hold These Truths: An America Manifesto," that it is in the interpretation of our founding ...Read more