Breaking News

Columns/Opinion

Abortion flip hurts Biden and his party

Maybe Joe Biden had to flip on the question of taxpayer funding for abortion in order to win the Democratic presidential nomination. All of his rivals supported that funding, and the party has become more and more aggressive on abortion. Where the 1990s Democratic platforms said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare,” the 2016 platform dropped that defensive note and included an explicit call to end the longstanding ban on using federal Medicaid funds for elective abortions. But there will be a cost to Biden’s choice. First, it puts Biden on the unpopular side of the ...

Special prayers (or not) for the nation’s president

Only the most partisan person would begrudge prayers for the president of the United States, but a recent visit by President Trump to the mega McLean Bible Church in Virginia has rubbed some congregants the wrong way. The White House informed the church with only a few minutes notice that the president would be coming to the service after finishing a round of golf at a nearby course. It was a Sunday on which some Christian leaders had called for special prayers for the president and others wished to pray for the victims and relatives in the recent shooting in Virginia Beach. The ...

New laws may save Roe v. Wade

Alabama’s historic ban of abortion from the onset of pregnancy has jolted the public and highlighted the fragility of reproductive rights. This law comes on the heels of “heartbeat” statutes passed this year in Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana and Missouri, and under consideration in numerous other states. These statutes earned their title because they outlaw abortion at six to eight weeks, when the “fetal heart” supposedly begins to beat. In fact, at that stage, there is no fetus, let alone a beating heart — only an embryo with a cluster of vibrating ...

What they really see when they see us

It’s a story that will lacerate your heart. Indeed, you’ll watch “When They See Us,” director Ava DuVernay’s new Netflix miniseries, in disbelief and horror. That may sound like a warning. It’s actually a recommendation. DuVernay tells the story of the so-called Central Park 5, four of them black, one Hispanic, who were convicted of the brutal 1989 rape and assault of a white woman jogger. It is an unsparing re-creation of an ugly time. Halting and confused, the boys struggle to describe a crime they did not commit in order to stop police officers from yelling at ...

Horses not alone losing on racetrack

BY JENNIFER O’CONNOR These are desperate times for the horse racing industry. Even people who pay no attention to racing — which is just about everybody — are aghast by the carnage on America’s racetracks, where horses are collapsing and dying in shocking numbers. But some tracks are in such dire straits that they’re resorting to even more gratuitously cruel promotions to try to get customers through the gates: Forcing ostriches, camels and zebras to race with human jockeys on their backs. Spectators may find these races novel, but the animals always lose. Even ...

Cigarette tax saved millions of lives. A soda tax could too

Benjamin B. Lockwood, Hunt Allcott And Dmitry Taubinsky Los Angeles Times You might want to think twice before downing that 12-ounce can of Coke. Since sugary drinks can cause a host of health problems, drinking one sugar-filled soda ends up imposing about 10 cents of health costs on others because the resulting medical bills are paid through Medicare, Medicaid or private insurers. We came to this conclusion while studying what economics says about the benefits of soda taxes, which have been embraced by seven cities across the country. After Berkeley became the first city in ...