The Texas State Board of Education has approved a required K-12 reading list, the first state to mandate a common core of books for all its 5.5 million schoolchildren statewide. Such selections are usually left to individual teachers, English departments, local school boards, or a mix of all three.  The Republican-controlled education board recently voted […]

There was a time when nearly every city council member expected someone from the local newspaper to be sitting in the front row. Today, in hundreds of counties across America, no one is there. They are known as “news deserts.” The declining number of professional and objective media outlets covering local news is disturbing and […]

In Tehran, appointments to the Supreme National Security Council are rarely bureaucratic reshuffles. They are signals — about fear, factional power, and the threats the regime believes it is about to face. The return of Mohsen Rezaei, one of the oldest surviving figures of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is therefore more than another personnel […]

The car that starts in the driveway. The hospital that stays lit during a power outage. The data center that keeps the internet running. The military vehicle that moves when ordered. All of it depends on a narrow set of critical minerals and on the industrial capacity to transform those minerals into something usable. President […]

Major infrastructure projects deserve careful review. They also deserve to be judged on the facts, not on outdated objections and hypothetical concerns.  The $71 billion Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger is ready to be assessed on its merits and approved. When the companies first filed their application with the Surface Transportation Board, critics questioned whether the […]

In cancer care, every hour a patient spends getting treatment is an hour away from the rest of their life. It could mean another afternoon in an infusion chair instead of at home. Another childcare arrangement to make. More missed work. Another exhausting drive to a distant treatment center. Medical advances that turn a seven-hour […]

President Donald Trump faces declining public approval and criticism from both parties as a long-running war with Iran reaches a stalemate despite his initial claims of quick victory.

The Senate is gearing up for a busy day of votes on Friday as lawmakers try to clear its legislative to-do list before leaving Washington for the August recess. The chamber is expected to take up a series of nominations, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s bid to formally lead the Justice Department. Blanche’s nomination...

Michigan health officials eased the state's guidance on lettuce consumption on Thursday amid declining numbers of cyclosporiasis cases.  State residents are now advised to follow “routine guidance” when consuming produce, following earlier “broad, precautionary recommendations” against the purchase and consumption of bagged salad mixes during the height of the outbreak.  The state has reported 12,485...

Scientists have used artificial intelligence to design complete, functioning viruses with genomes never seen before in nature — a breakthrough that could open new avenues for fighting drug-resistant bacterial infections. A Stanford University-led research team used generative AI models trained on millions of genomes to design viruses, known as bacteriophages, that can kill bacteria like...