If you wrote a novel in which the first Latin American pope died on Easter Monday — which happened to fall on April 21, the traditional anniversary of the founding of the city of Rome — it would be rejected by any decent editor. But that is precisely what has happened. Pope Francis, a symbol for […]

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could lead health insurance plans to offer narrower coverage. The case, known as Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, challenges the authority of a group within the US Department of Health and Human Services tasked with requiring insurers to cover some forms of preventative care. […]

President Donald Trump ran on a promise of more fossil fuels, fewer environmental regulations, and outright climate denial — and now he’s following through. His administration is gutting clean energy policy, fast-tracking oil and gas projects, and reshaping environmental policy with sweeping consequences. At the same time, though, there’s another force pulling hard in the […]

At every light switch, power socket, and on the road, an unstoppable revolution is already underway.  Technologies that can power our lives and jobs while doing less harm to the global climate — wind, solar, batteries, etc. — are getting cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant. The pace of progress on price, scale, and performance […]

The tricky thing about generating electricity is that for the most part, you pretty much have to use it or lose it. This fundamental fact has governed and constrained the development of the world’s largest machine: the $2 trillion US power grid. Massive generators send electrons along a continent-wide network of conductors, transformers, cables, and […]