News

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...

Supreme Court Freezes Missouri’s 2025 House Map for 2026

Missouri will not be using its newer 2025 congressional map in the 2026 election. In a brief, unsigned order issued Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court directed the state to run the 2026 congressional election under the boundaries from Missouri’s 2022 map instead. For everyday voters, the practical...

What It Means When the White House Blocks a News Outlet From Air Force One

When the White House decides a particular news outlet will not travel on Air Force One , it feels like a modern version of an old problem: the government controlling who gets close enough to ask questions. This week, the administration signaled that CNN would not be part of the press traveling with...

Trump Asks Supreme Court to Review Bond Hearings for Some ICE Detainees

One of the easiest ways to misunderstand immigration detention is to assume it works like the criminal justice system, with quick bail decisions and a clear end date. In reality, many immigration cases move slowly, and some people are held in custody while their removal cases proceed. Now the Trump...

SCOTUS Clears Trump Voter-Purge Database

The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to proceed with a new election-related use of a federal citizenship verification system , clearing the way for states to request access to data that could be used to identify and remove alleged noncitizens from voter rolls . For readers who...

The Supreme Court’s Emergency Docket, and Why Justice Jackson Says It’s Corrosive

The Supreme Court has always had a fast lane for true emergencies. The trouble, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sees it, is that the fast lane is starting to look like a main highway. Speaking at the University of the District of Columbia on Thursday, Jackson warned that the Court’s increasing...

When Reservists Miss a Paycheck

Missing a paycheck is not an abstract policy problem. It is rent. It is child care. It is a credit score. And when the employer is the federal government, the power imbalance is baked in. You cannot exactly threaten to take your labor elsewhere when you are a reservist with orders in one hand and a...

SCOTUS and Voter Citizenship Checks: What States Can and Cannot Do

When the Supreme Court steps into the weeds of voter registration, the headline almost always sounds simpler than the law. This explainer uses a Virginia voter-roll dispute as the running example because it tees up several recurring issues at once: what states can do to check citizenship, what...

Ballot Custody and Court Power in California Elections

When people argue about “election integrity,” they often skip past the least glamorous part of the system: who physically controls the ballots, and under what rules. Ballots are paper, but they are also process. The legitimacy of an election depends not only on how votes are counted, but on whether...

Why Missouri’s Redistricting Fight Is Back in Court

When people say Missouri’s redistricting fight is “back in court,” they usually mean one practical question: which set of district lines will be used for the next congressional election . Important note: This explainer is a general guide to how congressional map disputes move through federal...

Susan Collins and the Price of “Moderation”

Americans love a comforting story about politics. The independent-minded senator. The brave centrist. The reluctant partisan who just cannot bring herself to go along with the worst impulses of her party. Susan Collins has lived inside that story for decades, and she has profited from it. Maine...

Susan Collins and the Price of a Vote

Here is the civics question nobody in Washington likes to answer out loud: How much is a senator’s “independence” worth when the money shows up right before the budget add does? Sen. Susan Collins has built an entire brand on being the grown-up in the room. The reasonable Republican. The one who...