Chicagoans got a taste of the macabre when a story broke last November of the discovery of the dead body of a woman found next to her own severed foot at the bottom of a South Loop stairwell.

But the story behind the grisly finding was all too familiar a tragedy. The dead woman was Caitlin Tracey, 36, who had reported multiple incidents of ...Read more

In the end, the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union accepted a contract that largely mirrored what Chicago Public Schools leadership had offered for months.

The spin, of course, from CTU and Mayor Brandon Johnson depicts this four-year labor deal as “transformative” for Chicago’s beleaguered public school system. “This is a ...Read more

According to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, Greenland and Canada have everything to gain and nothing to lose from being annexed to the United States.

"Denmark hasn't done a good job at keeping Greenland safe," Vance said at America's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland last week. Denmark, which oversees Greenland's ...Read more

Recent detentions and deportations of international students have sparked controversy, raising concerns about the long-term damage to the United States’ reputation as the global leader in higher education. Meanwhile, the increasing number of U.S. students studying abroad underscores the importance of international academic exchanges.

Several ...Read more

Since the COVID pandemic began five years ago, the U.S. has gone from being merely polarized to split into two separate and incompatible realities. Worse, according to a recently released survey, we lack a “common understanding of facts.” So much for the new normal.

Your reality depends on whether you identify with the political right or ...Read more

The World Trade Center Health Program, providing essential medical care to the heroes and the victims of 9/11, was spared a 20% Trump administration budget cut in February only when Republican members of Congress from New York fought back and saved the WTCHP. Those members must now ride to the rescue again.

GOP Reps. Andrew Garbarino, Nick ...Read more

I am one of thousands of Americans sitting in limbo while working abroad on a Fulbright grant. The recent funding freezes have left many of us stranded in foreign countries without funds or guidance on how to proceed. Rather than just detailing this crisis, I want to illustrate Fulbright’s importance through my experience as an English ...Read more

In then-President Joe Biden’s words, Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israeli civilians was an act of “pure, unadulterated evil,” resulting in “the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust,” with “more than 1,000 civilians slaughtered,” “stomach-turning reports of … babies being killed.”

Yet, over the last year and a ...Read more

When the U.S. Census Bureau recently revealed a small increase in California’s population, it came as a welcome sign to some that the state was growing again. The data even showed a slightly reduced level of out-migration.

Good news, right? Unfortunately, not good enough.

Last year’s count still leaves the state’s numbers below where ...Read more

Congressional Republicans face some tough math. They want to extend tax cuts, set to expire this year, that would add perhaps $4.5 trillion in new deficit spending. To offset such extravagance, they plan to come up with $2 trillion in spending cuts. Can it be done, as the White House suggests, without touching benefits? Possibly — but not the ...Read more

The U.S. Department of Education is calling colleges to account for racist and antisemitic incidents on campus — and its move to withhold taxpayer dollars from violators has gotten university officials’ attention.

The University of Michigan just disbanded its multi-year, multi-million-dollar boondoggle in diversity, equity and inclusion (...Read more

It wasn’t quite a “where were you when” moment, but almost. I’m talking about Richard Dawkins — the world’s most famous atheist — announcing that he’d become a “cultural Christian.”

Initially I was confused. Dawkins a Christian? Then I realized what he was saying. The Oxford professor wasn’t embracing faith; he was joining...Read more

There is a new global war raging, and the West is losing. It is not the war in Ukraine, though that is the most visible front. It is the fierce but largely unrecognized global war in the cognitive domain, where our enemies, particularly Russia and China, have gained the upper hand. And let us be crystal clear: Despite the Trump administration’...Read more

If Republicans dare broach the subject of waste and fraud in Medicaid or Medicare, it will be seconds before Democrats accuse them of seeking to throw grandma out of her wheelchair or to leave impoverished children to fend for themselves in some dark Dickensian dystopia.

In fact, there are real issues that need attention, as Elon Musk’s DOGE ...Read more

Nevada Democrats are outraged at an executive order that Donald Trump issued to regulate elections. But while the president’s authority in this area is limited, he’s more aligned with voter sentiment than his critics.

The order promotes proof of citizenship requirements and seeks to ensure all mail ballots are returned by Election Day. It ...Read more

You think the Signalgate debacle is a national security disaster? You may not realize the half of it. This Pentagon blunder (don’t call it a mistake) lays bare the security risks posed by President Donald Trump’s unqualified and ill-prepared national security team.

The incompetence on display is the real scandal — one which goes deeper ...Read more

In a rare rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump said this week he was “very angry” with the dictator for thwarting a Ukraine peace deal and that he’d consider new sanctions on Russia’s oil exports and its biggest international consumers. “If I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil,...Read more

Against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding measles outbreak, what we need right now is urgent assistance from the federal government to support immunization and strengthen vaccine delivery, not more challenges. Unfortunately, vaccine expertise is instead being sidelined while anti-vaccine perspectives are being elevated.

On Friday, Dr. Peter ...Read more

Given that a hallmark of the Trump administration is the gulf between its appointees' responsibilities and their qualifications for their jobs, it may be hard to pick out the quintessential example of the wrong person in the wrong place.

But the Department of Health and Human Services may have a winner. He's David A. Geier, a well-known anti-...Read more