The presidential election has brought back a topic that always seems to need more momentum to succeed, but always has enough support to stick around: ending the Department of Education. Why has it stayed in political purgatory? While there are good reasons to end the department, there is no huge benefit if the programs it administers remain.

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Marie-Louise stood in Boston’s Logan Airport, clutching her two young children. Behind them was a life shattered by violence in Haiti, forcing them to flee for safety. Now, they face an uncertain future with no place to go. Access to housing will determine their fate.

Policy decisions, such as determining who gets access to emergency shelters...Read more

Whenever the topic of China comes up for discussion, President Joe Biden’s administration has a talking point waiting in its back pocket: While the U.S. and China are global competitors, Washington seeks to ensure that relations are managed responsibly so “competition doesn’t veer into conflict.”

U.S. officials, from Secretary of State...Read more

During a press conference at his golf resort in Rancho Palos Verdes last week, former President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from the state if Gov. Gavin Newsom doesn’t divert more water to farmers in Southern California.

It was the former president’s latest swipe at Newsom, an attempt at punishment delivered via a ...Read more

If right-wing lawmakers really cared about what they call “parents’ rights,” they would not be spreading misinformation to pit parents against teachers. They would be listening to what parents really want instead of stoking racial and social divisions to drain resources from public schools.

In contrast, President Joe Biden has made ...Read more

It shouldn’t take another attempt on Donald Trump’s life to convince the Secret Service its strategy for protecting the former president is inadequate.

A second apparent try at assassinating the former president came Sunday, when a man with a high-powered rifle and scope set up on the perimeter of the Florida course where Trump was playing ...Read more

Australia’s government wants to ban children up to age 16 from social media, and is spending millions of dollars to figure out how. I’m willing to wager it won’t take long for tech-savvy teens who grew up on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to figure out how to log back on.

The promised regulation, currently sparse on details, comes at a ...Read more

A large national survey released last week by PRRI, a nonpartisan, nonprofit polling organization, applied some sharp detail to the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. The overall trend, of course, is unmistakable. Donald Trump lavishes praise on international thugs and promises to unleash vengeance on any American who excites his insecurities ...Read more

Mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) is back in the news. As of early September, the World Health Organization has reported more than 5,000 laboratory-confirmed cases this year. Given the well-documented shortcomings of mpox surveillance, these numbers underestimate the true magnitude of the disease burden.

The highest number of cases are in the ...Read more

As a scientist, I view every animal behavior as a crucial data point, revealing an animal’s well-being through the collective story they tell. After 25 years in the wildlife world, this skill is finely tuned. That’s why watching the HBO docuseries “Chimp Crazy,” from the producers of “ Tiger King,” is so distressing. The image the ...Read more

Anyone glancing at the headlines might think the electric vehicle market is doomed: Mainstream shoppers are skeptical, old-fashioned gas guzzlers are making the profits, and ex-President Donald Trump has vowed to target the Democrats’ pro-EV policies if he wins on Nov. 5.

In fact, the market for EVs is growing at a good clip, albeit more ...Read more

Since President Jimmy Carter created the modern Department of Education in 1979, the department has faced continuous calls for its abolition. This threat has persisted through Republican administrations, from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.

Never following through on their campaign promises to abolish it, some presidents have often used the ...Read more

Tax increases get the attention, but regulations can be even costlier.

The Committee to Unleash Prosperity recently found new rules imposed during the Biden-Harris administration will cost taxpayers almost $50,000 per household in net present value. That means those costs won’t all be felt immediately. Study author Casey Mulligan, a senior ...Read more

Everyone needs to stop talking about the lube. Right now.

The arrest of music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs is not about the 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lube discovered during the March raids on his Los Angeles and Miami properties; it's about allegations of coordinated and documented physical and sexual abuse.

It's not about the slickly named "...Read more

Former President Donald Trump isn’t a threat to democracy. Vice President Kamala Harris should acknowledge this before someone else tries to murder the former president.

On Sunday, the Secret Service stopped a would-be assassin at a golf course Trump was playing on. A federal criminal complaint stated that Ryan Wesley Routh may have been ...Read more

Once again, former President Donald Trump is talking about his candidacy as if he doesn't have a presidency we can refer to.

This time the topic is the construction of Nord Stream 2, a controversial gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. For years members of both parties had opposed Nord Stream 2, fearing it would increase Europe's dependency...Read more

Three tiny puppies born last year at an Ohio breeding facility were just 3 days old when they took their last breath. According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection report, the breeder noticed they weren’t gaining weight but didn’t bother to seek veterinary care.

Three days later, a fourth puppy from the same litter ...Read more

There now is no question that Chicago needs the gunfire detection technology known as ShotSpotter.

We sympathize with those who wish this financially strapped city did not have use for an expensive system designed to get police officers more quickly to a bloody scene on its streets. We dearly wish the same. But the data is clear. Need it we do....Read more

For the first time since the Nazi era, a far-right party made a significant political breakthrough in Germany. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won a regional election this month in the state of Thuringia and came second in neighboring Saxony. Visceral angst for democracy has befallen the country, but all is not as bleak as it seems.

As ...Read more

Could our unshakeable addiction to plastics be broken?

That’s certainly the hope of activists. The U.S. — birthplace of the modern polymers industry, and the biggest producer of its key feedstocks, oil and gas — has joined a bloc supporting a worldwide treaty capping plastics production. That could make a United Nations meeting in South ...Read more