News

The Comstock Act and Mail-Order Abortion Pills

When people hear “Comstock Act,” they often assume it is a relic: a Victorian-era morality statute, technically still on the books but with little practical relevance today. But the law is back in the spotlight after the Restoration of America Foundation urged Attorney General Todd Blanche to use...

Which States Lead on Today’s Biggest Education Policy Fights

[content] Public education is where America’s biggest cultural arguments keep finding a stage, from transparency demands to disputes over identity and curriculum. A first-of-its-kind, 50-state ranking is now putting numbers to those fights by grading every state and Washington, D.C., across the...

Why the Senate Stock-Trading Vote Got Stuck

When Americans say they want Congress to “clean up Washington,” they often mean something very specific: stop letting lawmakers write the rules and trade on the information those rules create. That is why proposals to limit members of Congress from trading individual stocks tend to draw attention....

Should BB Guns Be Treated Like Firearms?

Most Americans learn the word firearm the same way they learn the word speech . We assume we know what it means until the law forces us to define it. That definitional pressure is back, this time aimed at a category many people file under “kid stuff” or “backyard plinking”: BB guns and pellet guns....

Flydubai Pilot Allegedly Stabbed Co-Pilot in Hijacking Attempt on Tel Aviv Flight

A Flydubai passenger flight headed from Dubai to Tel Aviv diverted and landed in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after Israeli officials said one of the pilots attempted to hijack the aircraft, setting off a violent confrontation in the cockpit. Flydubai later confirmed there had been an "altercation" on...

Maine’s 72-Hour Waiting Period Heads to the Supreme Court

A multistate coalition led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Beckwith v. Frey , a challenge to Maine’s 72-hour waiting period for firearm purchases . The coalition filed an amicus brief urging the justices to grant certiorari. The filing comes...

Attempted Hijacking on a Tel Aviv Flight: What Happens Next

An attempted in-flight hijacking is aviation’s nightmare scenario because it compresses decisions into minutes. On September 30, 2026, that fear became very real on a Flydubai passenger flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, when Israeli officials said one of the pilots stabbed his co-pilot and attempted...

Why Alito’s Recusal Matters in the Supreme Court Climate Case

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from a closely watched case over climate change liability less than a week before oral arguments were scheduled to begin. That is what happened in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County , a dispute over whether Boulder,...

Florida Audit Fuels Moskowitz-Singer Clash Over COVID Relief Oversight

Federal relief money is designed to move fast in an emergency. But once the checks clear, the question shifts to oversight: who tracked where the dollars went, and what safeguards were actually in place? That debate has become a campaign flashpoint in one of the country’s most competitive...

Can DEI Policies Be Challenged in Court? What the Seattle Case Means

A unanimous federal appeals court ruled Monday that a jury should decide whether Seattle’s DEI initiatives created a racially hostile work environment for a White employee, while emphasizing that federal anti-discrimination law protects workers regardless of race. The three-judge panel did not rule...

Due Process and Second-Home Property Taxes

Property taxes feel like the most ordinary kind of government power. A bill arrives. A due date follows. Life moves on. But when a city rolls out a new surcharge aimed at second homes, ordinary turns into something sharper. A government notice can carry real consequences. And that is where the...

Cornell Chi Phi lawsuit: what we know

Most high-profile campus cases are loud in the usual way, through accusations, denials, and institutional statements. This one is loud in a different way, because so much of it turns on what was said after the fact, what was put in writing at the time, and what different systems can do with the...

Jack Smith Defends Trump Probes Under GOP Fire

A four-hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing put former special counsel Jack Smith back in the hot seat over two federal investigations into Donald J. Trump: one tied to efforts to undo the 2020 election and one tied to classified documents kept at Mar-a-Lago. Republicans repeatedly argued the...

Healthcare Fraud and Congress’s Power to Stop It

When Americans hear the phrase healthcare fraud , it often lands as a moral headline. Someone is cheating, someone is getting rich, and someone else is left holding the bag. But the practical issue is more concrete. Fraud and abuse in federally subsidized healthcare can drain taxpayer dollars and...

Temporary Protected Status Is Shrinking

Temporary Protected Status is one of those programs that sounds like a promise until you read the fine print. The promise is protection. The fine print is time. This moment is being defined by three concrete developments: the TPS population has shrunk to 274,000 after terminations , the White House...

Why Pete Buttigieg Is Back in the National Conversation

Pete Buttigieg is having one of those political moments that looks sudden, but really is not. One day he is a familiar Democratic voice making the occasional appearance. The next, he is a headline name again, framed as both a policy combatant and a potential future contender. The spark is...

Why the 2026 Midterms Are Getting Loud Already

The 2026 midterms are starting to feel loud, and it is not because Americans suddenly became obsessed with congressional procedure. It is because people can feel the equation forming: a president in the White House, an anxious opposition, a governing party trying to defend its record, and a...

Trump’s Approval Hits a New Low: What It Really Means for 2026

Presidential approval ratings are treated like the national mood ring, and in a way they are. But they are also something more practical: a rough measurement of how hard it will be for a White House to govern with Congress, defend its party in competitive districts, and keep its own coalition from...

Supreme Court Temporarily Allows SAVE Database for Voter Checks

The Supreme Court just did something that sounds sweeping and, in practice, is more like a legal pause button. In an emergency order issued Friday, the Court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to move forward with a mass voter verification system that relies on a federal database, while...

Can the UN Veto Be Changed?

The United Nations keeps running into the same hard limit: the Security Council can be ready to act, and one of the biggest powers can still stop it. That friction is not abstract right now. The council has been deadlocked on issues ranging from Israel’s war on Gaza to Russia’s war in Ukraine and...