Search results for

President-elect Donald Trump promised to limit transgender health care access and ban trans athletes from school sports. We asked two experts what that would mean for trans people in the U.S.

Melissa Block speaks with our regular political commentators, E.J. Dionne, of the Washington Post and Brookings Institution, and David Brooks, of the New York Times.

The annual where-we-stand lecture delivered by the president to a joint session of Congress has for decades been an opportunity for a national report card putting current events in calm, codifiable context. It was a monumental moment in a relatively quiet world. But does it work in the age of Twitter?

Some people enjoy the Super Bowl commercials more than the football game. Host Michel Martin and Tampa Bay Times media critic Eric Deggans run through the best and worst ads; from senior citizens making late night trips to Taco Bell to nerds getting really sloppy kisses.

The controversy over President Obama's targeted-killings-by-drone policy is a reminder that the default position of presidents in times of crisis is to side with national security over civil liberties. That instinct has been true throughout history, and has been acted on by liberal presidents and core conservatives.

We already know demographic trends can drive election results, but what's surprising is how quickly the map could change for good.

Analysts and reporters focused on the dip in optimism from the election four years ago. But at virtually no point did they appear to entertain the idea that President Obama may have won voters' trust on a personal level, identified policies that voters found appealing, or notched any worthwhile accomplishments.

In his new novel, The Testament of Mary, Irish author Colm Toibin imagines Mary's life 20 years after the crucifixion, as she wonders what she might have done differently to ease her son's suffering. "I felt that I was Mary," he says. "I was her consciousness, watching the thing happening."

Imagine how cool would it be if, by some twist of time, the National Archives were to make available detailed census information from the future. Will we have melded with our machines, as one futurist predicts? Join us on a short (round)trip to 2080.

Chief Justice John Roberts cast the decisive fifth vote, crafted an unusual and precedent-setting opinion, and upheld the health care law. The complicated, nearly 200-page ruling initially provoked confusion but ultimately left President Obama's key legislative achievement largely intact.