Conservatives are, by and large, thrilled by the Supreme Court’s recent decisions. It has expanded its conception of gun rights that states have to respect, and ruled that states have to include religious schools in voucher programs. It has also allowed states to ban abortion. All of this before the court has even ended its current term.

In the latest chronicles of Big Tech’s most contentious tycoon — Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, founder of SpaceX and self-described “free speech absolutist” — the illusion of a populist hero is flickering. Earlier this month, several workers at SpaceX were fired after issuing a letter criticizing Musk for his online antics, labeling him a frequent source of “distraction and embarrassment” and alluding to reports last month of sexual assault allegations.

In a supreme bit of irony, the day after U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg met with airline leaders about the massive number of recent flight disruptions and cancellations, his own flight was canceled, forcing him to drive from Washington, D.C., to New York.

Returning the determination of abortion legality to the states will, without question, harm economically disadvantaged women and further compound health disparities.

What some insisted was a still-incubating draft majority decision overturning Roe v. Wade was fully born Friday: The Supreme Court has completely dismantled Roe and the series of cases upholding that core precedent, giving the states the ability to ban abortion starting from the moment of conception.

Today, the 911 system is taken for granted. Anyone, virtually anywhere in the United States, should be able to dial three digits during a physical health emergency and expect a fast, local response — sometimes making the difference between life and death.

The prolonged negotiations among four senators that produced this week’s compromise on a modest gun control bill show how hard it is to reach bipartisan agreement on contentious issues in a time of sharply partisan politics.

The Biden administration this week launched a broadside against Big Tobacco in an effort to break its hold over millions of Americans. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced it will seek a rule forcing dramatic reduction in the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, to render them less addictive and make it easier for smokers to quit. It won’t be easy to implement — cigarette manufacturers will view it as an existential fight, and their political allies will join them. But with some 1,300 Americans a day dying from tobacco-related causes, it’s a fight worth having.

At a panel discussion at the Holocaust museum in New York this week for his forthcoming film, “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” Ken Burns said that instead of the planned 2023 debut, he intentionally moved up the six-hour PBS broadcast date of the documentary, which has been in the works since 2015, to this September so it would air before the midterm elections. He is not endorsing any candidate or any party, but he wants the lessons of the past to be taught.

As of this week, parents in all but one state in the U.S. will be able to obtain vaccination against the coronavirus for children under 5 to as young as 6 months. Florida, as usual, remains an outlier, with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis putting his political ambitions above the health and safety of his constituents by refusing to preorder the new vaccines or to make them available through state health departments. Still, the fact Missouri and other red states didn’t follow his example is an encouraging sign that perhaps some in the GOP are starting to recover from this aggressive infection of antiscience zealotry.

The Biden administration reportedly is considering using executive orders to protect women whose right to abortion may soon be eliminated in Republican states like Missouri, if and when the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Presidential over-use of these unilateral orders has long been a legitimate concern, but if ever an issue cried out for this kind of intervention, it’s this one. Most Americans continue to support some level of abortion rights, but are close to being overruled by a radical political minority.

On June 17, Americans found ourselves at the convergence of two crises of shattering assaults on our democracy.

As an economist and business school professor, I teach about markets, valuations and the fundamental principles of negotiations. In any negotiation, strong positioning is the most important factor.

It’s been 10 years since President Barack Obama announced from the White House Rose Garden that tens of thousands of people who grew up in the United States would be allowed to temporarily work here without fear of deportation.

File it under depressingly predictable: Wednesday and Thursday, Senate Republicans and Democrats were running into political friction as they tried to turn the modest set of “breakthrough” gun safety proposals into actual legislation. Though we are decidedly underwhelmed by the ideas — including incentives to states to enact “red flag” laws; extra scrutiny of young gun buyers; and more spending on mental health care and school safety — it would be an epic failure if, in the wake of two galvanizing mass shootings by 18-year-olds and amid record gun violence, nothing gets done, again.

Don’t unplug your computer! Don’t throw away that smartphone! Just because a Google software engineer whose conclusions have been questioned says a computer program is sentient, meaning it can think and has feelings, doesn’t mean an attack of the cyborgs through your devices is imminent.

With gas prices nearing $5 per gallon nearly everywhere, you’d think the Left would be a little more careful “saying the quiet part out loud.”

This is it? This is all?

For too long, a bipartisan, commonsense agreement to fix America’s broken gun laws has seemed out of reach. A new effort in Congress offers reasons for optimism.

As we are dealing yet again with the horror of our children falling victim to a mass murderer, let’s keep our focus squarely on what unites us, because within hours of the news breaking, the political and media voices that benefit from keeping us divided were already out in full force.