The State Department should plan better for worst-case scenarios, strengthen its crisis-management capabilities and ensure that top officials hear “the broadest possible range of views,” including ones that challenge their assumptions and decisions. Those were some of the key findings of a State Department review of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in summer 2021, which…
Month: June 2023
Five Ways College Admissions Could Change After Affirmative Action Decision
Students may change what they write about in the college essay. And they may no longer be tortured by the SAT and ACT. As for children of alumni? The pressure is on to end their advantage in the admissions game. The Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday that ended race-conscious admissions is widely expected to lead…
Man Accused in Jan. 6 Riot Is Arrested With Weapons Near Obama’s Home
A man accused of involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol was arrested Thursday afternoon near the Washington home of former President Barack Obama, as police found weapons, ammunition and materials that could make explosives inside the suspect’s van, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the case. Taylor Taranto, 37,…
Supreme Court Sides With Postal Carrier Who Refused to Work on Sabbath
The Supreme Court broadened protections on Thursday for religious workers in a case that involved a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service who refused to work on his Sabbath. In a unanimous decision, the justices rejected a test that had long been used to determine what accommodations an employer must make for religious workers, but…
Biden Slams Supreme Court Ruling on Affirmative Action
President Biden declared on Thursday that the Supreme Court “is not a normal court” shortly after the conservative majority ended nearly a half-century of affirmative action in college admissions. In brief remarks at the White House after the 6-to-3 ruling, with the court’s three liberal justices offering blistering dissents, Mr. Biden assailed the decision and…
Republicans’ Problem in Attacking Biden: They Helped Pass His Economic Bills
President Biden isn’t the only one doing a full summer embrace of federal spending on infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing — so are some of the Republicans aiming to remove him from office next year. The White House has labeled the president’s new economic campaign Bidenomics, a portmanteau that until now has been a pejorative used…
Ron DeSantis Helicopter Photo Spurs Questions About Campaign Ethics
It was a photo op intended to turbocharge Republican voters, one showing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posing in front of a helicopter on Sunday at the southern border in Texas. But the display is creating an unwanted spotlight for Mr. DeSantis: The helicopter is funded by Texas taxpayers, raising questions about the political nature…
Fourth of July Travel: What to Expect This Weekend
A dayslong disruption of flights into and out of the Greater New York area is raising concerns about how prepared airlines are for the Fourth of July holiday, a weekend that is forecast to have record numbers of air travelers. More than four million Americans are expected to fly this holiday period, according to the…
Biden Says He Is ‘Turning Things Around’ on the Economy in Chicago Speech
President Biden began a concerted campaign on Wednesday to claim credit for an economic revival in America, powered by policies that he said represent a fundamental break from the Republican approach “that has failed America’s middle class for decades.” Flanked by blue signs with the word “Bidenomics,” Mr. Biden delivered to a Chicago crowd what…
Religious Freedom Arguments Underpin Wave of Challenges to Abortion Bans
After she received the medication, the process took a different turn. Via Zoom, a minister prompted Mikayla to look in a mirror to reflect on self-empowerment and recite: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” After swallowing the first pill in the two-drug regimen, Mikayla recited a tenet about prioritizing science. The minister…