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Editorial

Letter: Investigating emissions from animal farming

Lawmakers are now investigating toxic gas emissions from animal farming, including ammonia pollution that threatens nearby communities (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Feb. 17, 2026). For residents living near these facilities, this isn’t new—it’s daily life. We often talk about factory farming in terms of animals or climate, but the human cost is just as real. Families are breathing contaminated air so the rest of us can consume cheap meat and dairy. This raises an uncomfortable question: how cheap is “cheap” if others are paying with their health? If we value ...

Guest Editorial: Hegseth’s Zombie Reaganism

You almost have to admire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth taking the stage at the Ronald Reagan presidential library and immediately opening fire. “Most who invoke Ronald Reagan’s name today, especially self-styled Republican hawks, are not much like Ronald Reagan,” he said. “Donald Trump is the true and rightful heir of Ronald Reagan.” Who says the Gipper is irrelevant in Republican politics? Mr. Hegseth aimed to locate the Trump project in Reagan’s mantra of peace through strength, and their slogans are the same. But the history of Reagan’s success is worth recalling as ...

The 2025 ‘Tax Armageddon’

That headline isn’t our phrase. It comes from Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who like other Senate Democrats has been laying out in public the party’s tax strategy for the next Congress. Democrats are saying out loud that they plan to use the scheduled expiration of the 2017 tax cuts at the end of 2025 to insist on the largest tax increase in history. “The main goal here is this can’t just be a debate about the 2017 tax cuts,” Mr. Warner told Bloomberg. “This is going to be Tax Armageddon.” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, who runs the Finance Committee, on Thursday revived his pitch ...

War in Gaza and Houthis

As hopes for a cease-fire in the war in Gaza continue to dim, it’s important to underline that the United States is already engaged militarily in a broader Middle East conflict. More than 37,000 Palestinian men, women, and children have been killed and many more displaced since Hamas terrorists set off the war nine months ago by murdering 1,200 Israelis and taking dozens of others hostage. American involvement goes beyond weapon sales and aid to Israel. It also comes with the daily participation of 7,000 sailors and jet pilots aboard ships in a strike group that includes the USS ...

Instability in the Mideast

The Antony Blinken spelled out the paradox when he spoke in Washington on Tuesday. Despite the rapidly escalating rhetoric, and the clashes along the Israel-Lebanon border, the US secretary of state insisted: “I don’t think any of the potential belligerents actually want to see a war or conflict spread. I don’t believe Israel does. I don’t believe Hezbollah does. Lebanon certainly doesn’t because it would suffer the most. I don’t believe that Iran does. And yet you have momentum potentially in that direction.” This week, the Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, said a ...

Keep families together

Two weeks after establishing perhaps the most restrictive refugee policies in our nation’s history, President Joe Biden has about-faced and announced more compassionate, and reasonable policies regarding undocumented immigrants. This late in his presidential term and in the final months of a neck-and-neck reelection campaign with Donald Trump, there’s little doubt that Biden’s action is a purely political move. However, it’s a welcome step toward doing what’s right as a humanitarian matter. Biden on Tuesday announced an executive order that allows undocumented residents who ...