It’s rare for a company with the size and power of Amazon to experience anything resembling capitulation to regulatory authority, which is why it was such a welcome surprise for the National Labor Relations Board to have reached a wide-ranging settlement with the e-commerce giant. Among other things the agreement mandates that the company notify current and former warehouse workers about their full suite of rights and permit greater labor organizing in its workplaces, such as by barring it from ejecting employees from worksites 15 minutes after the end of their shift.

It is one of the most worrisome economic statistics of a year that was full of them: In 2021, according to the Census Bureau, the U.S. population grew at the slowest rate in recorded history.

We are sticking our heads into the sand regarding the reality of omicron, and the results may be catastrophic.

President Joe Biden had a difficult job to do in his speech on Tuesday afternoon. He had to urge action on the omicron variant without sparking panic; show that his administration is taking action on the latest COVID-19 variant without making it seem as if it hadn’t done enough so far; and empathize with people who have had enough of the pandemic without sounding pessimistic.

As the head of Bridges, which sponsors 25 ministries in six states, I’ve seen our local leaders learning how to live and function during a dangerous malady which is impacting millions of people. But I don’t mean COVID-19; I mean the PTSD that results from it.

As we reach the end of another tumultuous year, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Besides the ongoing pandemic and concerted assault on democracy, we’ve had deadly tornadoes, another mass school shooting, and a U.S. Supreme Court poised to outlaw abortion.

When Joe Biden took over as president, millions of Americans were relieved to finally have a leader who could be counted on to consistently shepherd the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in a coherent and fact-driven way. But Biden’s record has been far from spotless.

In a 288-page report as long and detailed as any Supreme Court ruling, a 34-member, bipartisan presidential commission couldn’t reach consensus on whether the nation’s highest judicial panel should grow from nine, where it’s been since 1869, to some larger number. It should’ve been easy, especially for a panel so large, to grasp: Of course having a president pack the court won’t solve any of its underlying problems.

The last “normal” Christmas, December 2019, was the last time I saw my grandma. She was years into an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and she had to be moved to an assisted living facility soon after the holidays. COVID made it next to impossible to visit.

Before the pandemic, finding good quality child care could be challenging. Now, it’s even harder.

The Democrats should have listened to Joe Manchin. As their “Build Back Better” agenda assumed legislative shape, the Democratic senator from West Virginia kept telling them what he didn’t like about it.

Joe Biden was on the right path as a presidential candidate when he said that “the federal government should not use private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants.” Corporate profit motive has no place in decisions about locking people up.

America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over, but the actions of many of the troops who served can continue to uplift a fractious nation. President Biden Thursday paid tribute to three such soldiers with the Medal of Honor.

The holidays should be a time for getting together with friends and family, but instead we have a double dose of coronavirus strains — Delta and omicron. Whether we are exhausted from the pandemic or not, we still need to prevent the spread of infections. Fortunately, we know what works.

Nobody wants a repeat of last year’s postal delivery delays during the holidays, especially not my fellow postal workers.

The Federal Reserve has recognized an important reality: Sometime soon, it might actually have to raise interest rates significantly to curb inflation. Officials are right to put themselves in a position to act if necessary, even if markets might not like it.

Over the past few months, Newsweek has been following the progress of a petition from citizens asking Congress to continue sending monthly stimulus checks to Americans for the duration of the pandemic. With nearly 3 million signatures, it is one of the best-supported petitions ever run on Change.org.

Last Monday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett paid the first official trip by an Israeli leader to the United Arab Emirates, where he laughed and joked with its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.

One of the reasons Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy withdrew GOP participation from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection was Democrats’ refusal to let Trumpian firebrand Jim Jordan be seated on the committee. Now Democrats’ stance regarding the Ohio Republican has been validated, in spades.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Tuesday hailed his company’s antiviral pill Paxlovid as a “game changer” after final trial data showed it reduced risk of hospitalization among high-risk groups by nearly 90%.