Most American Catholics were probably not expecting to spend the first week of Easter trying to figure out whether their government was threatening to overthrow the first American-born pope. Yet a handful of news reports this week raised that very strange possibility. They landed just as both the Roman Catholic Church and right-wing Christian influencers […]

Most weeks when I meet with my therapist, she triages some aspect of my life that is actively bursting at the seams — my inability to rationally talk about politics, for example, or the state of my personal finances. But, every so often, life feels uneventful, and I head into sessions with nothing to talk […]

Here is one narrative violation in the usual drumbeat of doom that we’re used to hearing about housing in America: The rent, in many cities across the US, is getting cheaper.  After soaring to Covid-era highs, rents have cooled. Last month, the national median rent was down 1.7 percent from one year prior, according to […]

Even before the Trump administration went to war with Iran, it was talking differently about its approach to combat.  President Donald Trump relabeled the Department of Defense to something more in line with his values: the Department of War. His Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, promised to deliver on a philosophy of “maximum lethality.” For many […]

The focus of the US-Iran war — and now the negotiations over the US-Iran ceasefire — has shifted to Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, to such an extent that the main original justification for the war (destroying Iran’s nascent nuclear program) can sometimes feel like an afterthought.  It’s not clear to what extent it’s […]