In December 2023, the Chicago Police Department quietly entered into a free six-month pilot for a database called CrimeTracer by SoundThinking, the company behind the controversial ShotSpotter technology. CrimeTracer is a police database and search engine, repackaging and sharing large pools of data across different agencies. The approval occurring without public oversight prevents a good-faith assessment of the hidden public costs large-scale databases can wreak, showcasing a larger pattern of U.S. cities’ rash tendency to adopt technology built on legacies of racist policing and state violence.

How did Ronald Reagan’s party become Donald Trump’s party? That is a question asked by many of the GOP faithful. Although Reagan was the first MAGA president (recall that in 1980 he ran on the slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again”) I don’t believe that he would be welcomed in today’s Republican Party.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “the first lesson of history is the good of evil.” A contrary statement, but one that describes the impetus that must often take place to move people and nations to action. Such a time is now.

The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it will consider Donald Trump’s claim that as a former president he enjoys immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes connected to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. By taking the case and scheduling oral argument for the week of April 22, the court has further complicated the timeline for a Trump trial, which a district judge originally scheduled for March 4.

Democrats can’t have it both ways, casting violent incidents as either signs of societal collapse or no big deal, depending on the agenda.

In April 2023, Betty Glover, a 91-year-old grocery store clerk in Oregon, was finally able to retire after a GoFundMe campaign raised $82,000 for her. After seven decades in the workforce, Glover couldn’t save enough to retire and cover basic expenses such as for food and medicine.

If you’re struggling to pay for groceries, you’re not alone. Staples like bread, lunch meats, dairy products and eggs have seen price increases of 20% to 40% in the last three years. President Joe Biden is blaming grocery stores for “gouging” consumers, but there’s just one problem with that explanation: His administration’s own data disprove it.

For too many American children, the future is already written. Their parents’ income broadly predicts what their earnings will be in adulthood. For those in poverty, the chances of breaking out are dwindling — resulting in a less prosperous, increasingly ossified society.

When I started working with cats almost 25 years ago, it was purely out of self-interest. My own cat, Kittums, had recently passed away. I decided to volunteer at a local animal shelter to get more hands-on feline time: I was mourning and needed more cats in my life. There was plenty of instant gratification to be found at San Francisco’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals — cuddling with purring cats and playing with frisky kittens. These individuals had no problems finding new homes.

When a New York jury delivered a verdict Friday evening against the National Rifle Association and its longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre, my first thoughts were oddly not about the NRA or all the lives destroyed by the gunplay that the organization did so much to foster. I didn’t think of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died by suicide, pulling the trigger on a gun that LaPierre had so desperately urged them to buy (to keep them safe from harm). Instead, I thought about the elephant that LaPierre encountered in Africa, and how the animal provided a capstone to LaPierre’s morbid career.

“What are you doing, Alabama?” Neil Young sang. The question must be asked again and at the top of the nation’s lungs, as abortion fundamentalism has just resulted in a ruling by the state’s top court that, in the name of protecting life, shows patent disrespect for families and the children they seek to bring into the world.

Four years since the COVID pandemic began, many US school districts are hurtling toward a fiscal crisis. An exodus of students and the pending expiration of federal relief money is forcing officials to weigh the need to close schools. Although that’s certain to cause some disruption, propping up failing schools will only worsen America’s learning-loss crisis.