How US schoolchildren can stop trailing their international peers

U.S. educators better hope Santa doesn’t check test results. New results from an international comparison of K-12 students showed they continue to fall behind their peers around the world. If American students are to bounce back, policymakers nationwide need to ignore the calls for lower—yes, lower—standards coming from some sectors and reject claims that more spending in education is the answer.

Rickey Henderson was about so much more than the stolen bases

When Kevin Towers was the San Diego Padres’ general manager, he received a voicemail delivered in a high-pitched, high-energy voice then familiar to most baseball people: “KT! It’s Rickey! Calling about Rickey! Rickey wants to play baseball!” Rickey Henderson, in 2001, became a Padre again.

Here’s what is so unusual about the Wisconsin school shooting — and what isn’t

The Dec. 16 shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, has shocked the nation, not only for its horror but for its unique profile. This time, a teenage girl opened fire inside her school, killing a teacher, another student, and apparently herself, and injuring six others. Although female school shooters are exceedingly rare, the patterns that lead to such tragedies are painfully familiar.

How to approach Trump’s second presidency

The resistance to Donald Trump has failed. He has now shaped American politics for nearly a decade, with four more years — at least — to go. A hard truth his opponents must accept: Trump is the most dominant American politician since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

How Democrats could use the lame duck to save medication abortions

Before Democrats lose the White House and the Senate, they should push through legislation to repeal the Comstock Act, which could be used to prevent legal medically induced abortions everywhere in the United States. Given the success of ballot initiatives that protect the right to abortion in even conservative states in last month’s election, the politics could be right to repeal that 1873 law.

No one should go hungry in America

It is an astonishingly large number: 5.3 billion. That’s how many meals were distributed by the nation’s largest domestic hunger relief organization, Feeding America, in 2023 alone. In a country of more than 330 million people, it is evidence of how widespread and persistent food insecurity remains in the United States.