This was for us. And that was a new thing, so we gathered faithfully to the television as that hardworking cartoon engine chugged across the screen, rainbow smoke pouring from its stack, the...

David Osmek's commentary ("Stop the light-rail obsession," Feb. 2) was misleading, because he conveniently ignored the staggering costs of business as usual -- which seems to be his...

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has dropped notably during the Obama administration -- from a high of 11.9 million in 2007 to 11.2 million in 2010. That fact may be lost on...

LOS ANGELES The worst day of Sugar Bear's 55 years was one of the days -- there have been many of them -- when he got out of prison. In the early 1990s, in a prison where persons whose...

FactCheck.org , which tracks accuracy in political messaging, found that the "avalanche of negativity" in recent Florida ads also contained a fair share of distortions and outright lies. ...

Today, virtually all American women use contraception at some point in their lives. And we have a large body of medical evidence showing it has significant benefits for their health, as well as the...

Yet in drawing up the rules that will govern health care reform, the Obama administration didn't just cross that line. It galloped over it, requiring employers affiliated with the Catholic Church to...

"I think it's very harmful to Republicans because instead of the candidates presenting their views and their policies and their proposals, it's all gotcha," harrumphed Sen. John McCain, no primary...

As a retired economics professor, I have seldom heard of anyone who begrudges self-made individuals. However, what no rational person can or should buy is privilege. Medved's statement that we...

On ReligionFaith. Religion. Spirituality....

We all agree that smoking isn't healthy, but neither is excessive drinking of alcohol or overeating. Does opposing view writer Paul Terpeluk, Cleveland Clinic's medical director of Employee Health...

In protest of the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen froze $192 million in funding for USAID programs, including a Palestinian version of 'Sesame Street.' The...

Romney was a one-term governor, but he is surely the 24-carat chief executive officer. There are huge differences in skills required to be a successful CEO and a president of the United States....

First-time wonders deserve our awe and applause. But almost every good thing in life -- from careers to ideas, products to poetry -- is more reinvention than...

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning warms up before the NFC championship game against the San Francisco 49ers last month in the City by the Bay. Oddsmakers have their money on Manning and his...

1. UCSF scientists declare war on sugar in food 2. Peyton Manning as 49er makes sense, but not enough 3. Morford: Please do not eat this 4. North Bay girl died of 'date rape' drug...

It says something about the brazen attitude of American politicians that Congress enacted a measure to create a program that was impossible to implement - and named it the CLASS Act. CLASS stands for...

France can't seem to decide how quickly it will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan after a rogue Afghan soldier opened fire on unarmed French soldiers, killing four and wounding 15. Over the...

A legal action filed in 4th District Court by a group of Cedar Hills residents against their city is one of the more unusual cases we've seen in awhile. They think the city has been hiding the...

– Oct. 7, 2011 But veiled contempt for Mormonism is becoming too regular of a feature on the opinion pages of the Times which published an incomprehensible screed against the faith by scholar...

WASHINGTON — Imperial regimes can crack when they are driven out of their major foreign outposts. The fall of the Berlin Wall did not just signal the liberation of Eastern Europe from Moscow....

On Feb. 1, a federal court near Seattle, Wash., heard closing arguments in a case about the right of conscience, a fundamental American principle (Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky). That right is the...

– Aug. 16, 2011 It seems to me that the presidential campaign has become like a game of survivor: Who can lie, outlast and outwit to the end will win. The difference may be who is willing to...

The great U.S. President Abraham Lincoln chose for himself a Cabinet that had members that were certainly not his friends and often opposed him and his views. Yet he wanted their expertise and input,...

– Feb. 8, 2011 Two powerful forces are pushing crude oil prices up. First, the administration is restricting production of oil through its energy policy, in which it obstructs efforts to...

BYU women's coach Jeff Judkins. A recent article in the paper congratulated Jeff Judkins, coach of the Brigham Young University womens basketball team, on his 221 wins ("BYU women's...

The current Republican debates have become the latest episode of "Presidential Apprentice, Debating With the Candidates," or "Survivor of D.C." We wait to see who has the most...

For the first time in history, Utah has candidates running in four different congressional districts. Most of the interest is in the wide-open contests for the GOP nominations in the 2nd and 4th...

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Gasoline prices rose sharply in 2008 and again in 2011, largely as a consequence of rising global demand and limited supply. People's reactions were mixed. Some called...

CALIFORNIA labor unions are bracing for a fight this fall. They face a one-two punch, a right-left combination of sorts. From the right comes a November state ballot initiative backed by Republicans...

Everybody agrees that there's something wrong when the horrific murder of a 12-year-old black girl in Detroit gets far less newspaper ink and television footage than the slaying of a white...

The rap against Mitt Romney is that the only thing conservative about him is his business suit. And the more he yaps off the cuff, the more he reinforces that impression. At the rate he's going,...

A rgentina once again is harassing the British-ruled Falkland Islands 500 miles off its southern coast, islands Argentine soldiers seized in 1982 and from which the British ejected them in a...

I t’s not just campaign strategy, but democracy itself, that is being tested this year across the country. As the electoral cycle moves forward, who will be voting and with what result?...

W ASHINGTON - Imperial regimes can crack when they are driven out of their major foreign outposts. The fall of the Berlin Wall did not just signal the liberation of Eastern Europe from Moscow. It...

Think Seattle spent too much for snow removal during the most recent storm? University of Washington professor Christopher Hrdlicka thinks spending more would be good insurance against the greater...

President Obama cites the military as a model for politics, similar to the aim of Chief Justice John Roberts for consensus on the Supreme Court. Why are both goals not...

On Tuesday, if history is any guide, several tens of thousands of Minnesotans will join others who are more or less like-minded politically for a biennial event known as the precinct caucus....

Last week they finally came -- Rick Santorum to Luverne, Mitt Romney to Eagan, and Ron Paul to Rochester, Chanhassen and Arden Hills. Anybody sighted a Newt? The Republican presidential nomination...

Thorough reform of the way Minnesota taxes businesses is at least a year away at the State Capitol. But for understandable economic and election-year reasons, the political itch is intensifying to...

The Legislature's careful and limited use of private meetings to create safe space and the need for "sunshine" are not irreconcilable. We must have both. Sunshine should be the general...

The ugly partisanship displayed by Senate Republicans during the first days of this year's legislative session was extremely disappointing. It belied their professed desire to work cooperatively...

It was in the 1970s, and I was 20 years old. On a cold November night, my friend and I were walking to our car in an adjacent parking lot in our small hometown in Minnesota, when a man jumped us and,...