Politics

A girl uses her phone while sitting on a bench in Sydney this month. (Rick Rycroft / Associated Press) Australia’s House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ban children younger than 16 years old from social media, leaving it to the Senate to finalize the world-first law. The major parties backed the bill … Read more

Gina Haspel, a Kentucky native, loves Johnny Cash so much she keeps a 5-foot-tall poster of the country music star in her office at the Central Intelligence Agency. She became a spy more than three decades ago, a time when few women filled that job, and rose through the ranks holding some of the agency’s … Read more

Then-President Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in 2017 in Hamburg, Germany. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) They tend to gush over each other in public, but their private dealings are often opaque. Both are brazenly transactional, and cling tenaciously to grudges. Each likes to keep everyone around him guessing. … Read more

Like millions of Americans, Sandy Banning strongly supports the Pledge of Allegiance. As a single mother, she encourages her 9-year-old daughter to participate in this familiar daily ritual at her child’s public elementary school in suburban Sacramento. As Banning sees it, the pledge represents a succinct but powerful statement of the nation’s foundational principles and … Read more

At 76, Sen. Robert C. Byrd is the longest-serving Democrat in the U.S. Senate, and a man who Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), with a combination of exasperation and appreciation, recently called “a master at the game” of parliamentary procedure in the upper chamber. Byrd’s mastery of the Senate’s convoluted rule book makes him … Read more

All three of your Oct. 5 letter writers decrying Schroeder’s weeping before reporters, when she announced her withdrawal from the Democratic nomination race, branded this as a weakness making her unfit for the presidency. However, any serious Abraham Lincoln student is well aware that possibly our greatest President openly shed tears on many occasions. Even … Read more

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in 2018. (Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock) The Senate Judiciary Committee this week is considering the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Progressive groups fear she will move the high court significantly to the right on abortion, guns and other … Read more

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors says it plans to funnel millions in funding to support immigrants and transgender residents as it prepares for another Trump presidency. (L.A. County Board of Supervisors) Gearing up for another Trump presidency, Los Angeles County supervisors will funnel millions in funding to beef up support for immigrants and transgender … Read more

State Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) displays his smartphone as he urges lawmakers to approve a data privacy bill during a Senate floor session in June 2018. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A landmark California law signed last year to enact the strongest privacy rules in the country and regulate the online marketplace of personal … Read more

Piers Morgan is taking aim at Alec Baldwin. This summer, Alec Baldwin’s manslaughter trial ended with a dismissal. It turns out that the court did not appreciate the prosecution’s alleged Brady violation. Some viewed this as a technicality. Others saw it as an overdue end to a baffling prosecution. Now, Piers Morgan, who openly sympathizes … Read more