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Joe Klein: At 80, Here’s What I’ve Learned About Politics—and Life
I am 80 years old, this year of our 250th anniversary, and I find myself a cliché. My life has been a common political journey, from left to center. I recently took the Pew Research Center’s “political typology” test and found that I was a “pragmatic and polite conservative,” which seemed a rather abstruse basket: A politically mixed (though Republican-tilting) group, they lean conservative on economics and the role of government, while tilting more liberal on issues related to race and foreign policy. They prize civility and cooperation in politics. Well, that sounds pretty mushy—and I find it hard to square with the strong opinions I have on many issues. I’ve voted for Democrats in federal elections, but I grow more Republican the closer I get to local politics. Democrats, I’ve found, simply aren’t very good at running things, especially school systems, where they are in the thrall of the teachers unions. My friends joke about my obsession with the unions. They know all my lines. If industrial unions are organized against the power of capital, who are the public employees organized against? But enough of that. I’ve ranted that rant too often, and my political journey has been more complicated than that one issue. It has been empirical, based on actual experience—on a lifetime of reporting and a lot of reading. An early example: I was a journalist with the underground press in Boston at the turn of the 1970s and considered myself a member of the antiwar and civil rights movements. The first big issue I covered was busing to achieve school integration. Yes, the white bigots were disgusting. But I couldn’t find any black parents who favored the plan to bus their children to schools outside their neighborhoods either. Black activists and politicians—and white liberals—were gung ho, but not actual parents of black kids in school. Busing was a form of social engineering imposed from on high, by a judge—W. Arthur Garrity—who lived in a wealthy liberal suburb. Wealthy liberal suburbs were not affected by his plan, of course. I began to see that there were limits to what government could do, especially when it came to changing a society’s culture.
Opinion: Jacobs Entertainment's application for a massive sign along I-80 should be denied.
The proposed Reno's Neon Line District sign is argued to be an advertising display, not an area identification sign. Public comments can be submitted until July 24.
Graham Platner and the Politics of ‘Star Search’
It’s now a talent show, with agents and casting directors combing the countryside to find the next big thing.
Cutting federal science funding threatens Kansas’ economic power
Sen. Jerry Moran stood up for vital research done in his state. We need everyone to follow his lead. | Opinion
Opinion: Conor McGregor's return exposes the UFC's biggest failure
Conor McGregor's long-awaited return to the UFC has reignited excitement around one of mixed martial arts' biggest stars, but it also highlights a lingering problem for the promotion, writes Dayne Fox.
America was founded on strong political opinions, not violence: Rep. Byron Donalds
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., discusses political violence in the United States on 'Hannity.'
Opinion | Northern Metropolis’ science and education focus key to Hong Kong’s future
Developing a ‘science and education city’ will put Hong Kong on course to support China’s national strategy.
How to Embrace the 'Science of Math' Without Abandoning Your Existing Curriculum (Opinion)
Teachers can improve mathematics instruction with these straightforward changes.
Young Cuban Americans’ political shift is real. It just hasn’t hit the ballot box yet
Young Cubans in Miami who never experienced Castro’s oppression have inherited only the memory and not the wound. | Opinion
Fiscal Prudence Requires Real Science, Not Simplified Assumptions
The recent opinion piece framing Lakeside’s septage facility expansion as “safe” and “fiscally prudent” relies entirely on the rosy assurances of industry engineers while completely ignoring the actual science on the ground. Proponents claim the project’s design is backed by “rigorous consulting,” but independent expert reports from Hauer Environmental LLC and HydroSolutions Inc. paint a […]
Marine Le Pen Gives a Lesson in Power Politics
By Leo Klimm and René Pfister in Paris She saw her chance and wanted to seize it. Why wouldn’t she? For months it looked as though the French judiciary would rob Marine Le Pen of her dream of the French presidency, her dream of the Élysée Palace. It looked like the right-wing matriarch would be unable to run for the office – at precisely the moment her party leads the public opinion polls by a wide margin. But then, a French appeals court opened the door to another candidacy. It was just a crack, but the 57-year-old used the opportunity to kick the door wide open. DER SPIEGEL - The German View is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
Opinion: The Lexington Problem: Beating the Literacy Odds Without the Science of Reading
The science of reading has largely won the policy debate. Over the last decade, state after state has embraced evidence-based reading instruction. Legislatures have passed literacy laws, and teacher p...
American Culture Is Warping British Politics
The power emanating from the country across the ocean has changed how Britons and their politicians view themselves. It’s embarrassing.
Littwin: Lynn Bartels was the greatest political reporter I ever knew. And that’s not even half the story.
Lynn Bartels was one of one, a legend, who dominated state politics like no reporter before or since. And I was her friend — one of a million.
U.S. opinions toward Israel are shifting, poll finds
Democrats have become much more likely to say the U.S. is overly supportive of Israel in recent years.
Opinion | How Socialism Emerged in American Politics
The debate has shifted from whether the government should redistribute wealth to how much redistribution is enough.
Opinion | Patriotic Politics and a Moderate Rebranding
Republicans believe America is the greatest country on earth.
Opinion | Trade Uncertainty Is Bad for Business
The Trump administration’s failure to renew the U.S.-Mexico-Canada pact in its current form is a gift to lobbyists and will discourage investment.
Opinion | Put Student Learning Before Partisan Politics
If a state refuses to participate, educational resources generated by taxpayers will support students elsewhere.
Opinion: Legislating fisheries management from DC is fishy politics
Sen. Dan Sullivan’s bill risks turning a science-based system into election-year politics, with coastal communities left to pay the price.
Opinion | Telling Time Is a Complicated Business
To stay in sync, we rely on an intricate and fragile system.
Opinion | The Government’s Costly Definition of ‘Small Business’
A system of subsidies and exemptions wastes taxpayer dollars and discourages companies from growing.
Maui County’s fringe mayoral candidates add unique ideas, opinions, entertainment to race
"It's one of my favorite aspects of politics is the fact that all of these folks get to run no matter how realistic their candidacies are. And sometimes they bring up really important issues, and sometimes they help shift the nature of what the mainstream candidates are talking about," political scientist Colin Moore said. "And sometimes it's just really entertaining."
Opinion: Science Under Attack, But Undefeated
The latest Russian attack damaged the historic Palladin Institute of Biochemistry, but Ukrainian science will remain strong
Opinion
The evidence for needing eight hours of sleep a night is shakier than we might assume.
The Seattle Times | Local news, sports, business, politics, entertainment, travel, restaurants and opinion for Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.
Local news, sports, business, politics, entertainment, travel, restaurants and opinion for Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.
How the Supreme Court has changed on transgender rights since 2020
In 2020, when the Supreme Court declared that transgender workers were covered by federal anti-discrimination law, the opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch marked a legal breakthrough.
Opinion | The science of the Declaration of Independence
On our 250th anniversary, a different look at America’s founding document.
Opinion: Sports is one of America's greatest traditions and a powerful force that unites us
From Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier to Pat Tillman enlisting after 9/11, American sports showcase patriotism and unity at their finest.
The Political Recap: Exploring how politics shaped Virginia and the country’s history
Guest host MaryCatherine Price talks to political expert Rich Meagher about political movements, the Founding Fathers’ opinions on today’s political sphere and how the country was found…
Governor Moore Announced Energy Assistance To Lower Utility Bills for 200,000 Maryland Households, Wrote On How To Improve Young Men’s Mental Health, Applauded SCOTUS Decision To Uphold Birthright Citizenship, And A Local Farmer Said ‘Gov. Moore Takes Action For Farmers’
This past week, Governor Wes Moore announced energy assistance programs to help lower utility bills for 200,000 Maryland households, published an opinion piece on how to improve young men’s mental health, applauded the SCOTUS decision to uphold birthright citizenship, and a local farmer applauded his work to secure a USDA Secretarial Disaster Declaration. Governor Moore […]
Opinion | Trump administration move poses an existential threat to science
"The new threat can be found in the 412-page proposed rule from the Office of Management and Budget," two professors emeriti write. "It seeks to put all federal funding decisions, for science and non-science, in the hands of political appointees with no expertise."
Opinion | When Scholarly Societies Play at Politics
They are meant to cement scholarly authority. Sometimes, they threaten it instead.
"Am I going back to PS4 days?" - Former PlayStation leader Shuhei Yoshida has tried the Steam Machine, and he doesn't sound very impressed
Yoshida has a mixed opinion of Valve's new Steam Machine, which he has shared online.
Bonus 236: A Term of Self-Inflicted Wounds
Within minutes of the Supreme Court handing down the birthright citizenship ruling on Tuesday and rising for its summer recess, its defenders were pointing to that decision (alongside the late-arriving mail-in ballots ruling on Monday and the tariffs ruling from February) as decisive proof that the Court really is “above politics,” and that criticisms of the justices for behaving more like politicians in robes than like judges are thus unfair. For a particularly thoughtful version of this claim, see Professor Will Baude’s opening response to the latest New York Times written roundtable about the Court with Baude, Professor Kate Shaw, and me. In that roundtable, I already offered one of the two major arguments against this thesis—that it’s an assessment of the numerator without regard to the denominator, and that a full account of the Court’s behavior throughout OT2025 suggests that the Court behaved even more politically during the current term than during even the previous (highly politicized) one. Just to take one of many data points, last term (OT2024), there were six rulings in argued cases in which all six Republican-appointed justices were in the majority and all three of the Democratic appointees were in dissent (along with a slew of such rulings on the emergency docket). This term, there were … 13. (Along with two 6-3 summary reversals and 10 rulings on the emergency docket from which the three Democratic appointees all dissented.) Today’s bonus issue addresses the flip side of that coin. In particular, below the fold, I identify four different moments in which the justices could have acted in ways to specifically defuse charges of political behavior—and opted instead to lean all the way in. As much as end-of-term narratives focus on what the Court did, and on the takeaways from individual rulings, consider today’s post an attempt to identify opportunities that the Court missed, as well. At least in the examples discussed below, by opting for the outcome that made the Court look more transparently political, the Court inflicted a series of (unnecessary) credibility wounds on itself. For those who aren’t paid subscribers, we’ll be back Monday with our regular coverage of the Court. For those who are, please read on.
Opinion: When politics becomes personal
Political losses can trigger emotions similar to grief, as people's identities and values become tied to their political beliefs.
Opinion | The Transgender Sports Decision Was About Something Deeper Than Law
It’s never just a game.
Opinion: Proposed federal grant rules are attempt to ‘muzzle’ science | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
A proposed overhaul in how federal grants are awarded is aimed at shutting down scientific research on disfavored topics such as health disparities, climate change, gender identity, and vaccines, according to Harvard Chan School’s Nancy Krieger.
Opinion: Michigan’s nonprofits are vital infrastructure, not a nice-to-have
Nonprofits work every day standing at the center of some of the hardest realities of our time.
Opinion | California Politics Is Bought With Donations
We won’t get true policy improvements until we break the connection between fundraising for campaigns and our electoral system.
Opinion: Proposed cuts to federal funding put the stars out of reach for Alaska science students
For students at UAA and across the state, federal research support can be the difference between opportunity here and leaving for good.
Supreme Court upholds bans on transgender athletes participating in women and girls' sports
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has long coached his daughters' and other girls basketball teams at school, wrote the court's majority opinion.
Supreme Court to rule on birthright citizenship and rights of transgender athletes
The Supreme Court will hand down the final opinions of its term today. Follow for live news updates.
Opinion | Protect the workers who protect our health
Massachusetts lawmakers should pass bipartisan workplace violence reforms before the legislative session ends.
Use of artificial intelligence for mental health splits opinion
Two-thirds of those aged 25 to 34 have asked chatbots for wellbeing support
Primaries expose America’s drift toward political extremism
Opinion: The greatest casualty of this primary season was the political center, writes Bobby Zirkin.
Opinion | America Is the Land of Endless Choice, Except in Politics
There’s a case to be made for a two-party system, but what do you do when your party loses its mind?
Opinion | The Political Dilemma for Jews Today
Repelled by the GOP, they are attacked in the Democratic Party.
Supreme Court issues opinions
Major rulings are anticipated this week in cases involving presidential power, birthright citizenship and transgender rights.
My wait for a psychiatric bed in Denver highlights this nation’s overburdened system (Opinion)
Just before my birthday, a Denver doctor placed me on an involuntary 72-hour mental health hold. What came next wasn’t treatment but a drawn-out search for a bed, as the U.S. grapples with a shortage for those in crisis.
Opinion | The Trump Vibe Shift Was Just a Mirage
The country does not love its president.
Opinion: Bring back respect in politics
No matter your party or political persuasion, it is undeniable that American politics has taken on a tenor of anger and pessimism. This national mood has made American politics atoxic stew of rage, discontentment and despair. Many Americans don’t feel that the reforms they would like to see in their government are possible. These...
Opinion | Trump’s Science Cuts Betray America’s Past Since Lewis and Clark
America has funded scientific research since 1804 — and remembers that first project as a national glory. Cutting similar funding today is a betrayal.
Carman: Tuesday’s election is more than just a primary. It’s a colossal opportunity to change history.
The template for tyrants goes back at least to Ancient Rome and, as Nero discovered, generally ends badly.
Mary Means Business: Raising Cane's eyes Starkville location
I’m about to act a fool, because it looks like Raising Cane’s is finally on its way to Starkville. The, in my opinion, premier chicken joint is officially
Germany news: Heat soars as political reforms split opinion
As Europe's heatwave rages, Germany continues to swelter with new records expected Saturday. Elsewhere, politicians bicker over reforms and industry blames train operator DB for billions in losses. DW has the latest.
California is in for a summer of wild billionaire spending
OPINION: With competing tax measures on the ballot, California billionaires will be spending like... billionaires, political columnist Joe Garofoli writes.
Disagreements between Supreme Court justices bubble into public view as major rulings loom
The Supreme Court is handing down major opinions at a rapid clip, but even with some of the biggest decisions yet to come there are signs of tension between the justices.
Opinion | Don't apply politics to scientific research
Under recently proposed rules, federal grants could be terminated midstream for reasons having little to do with science or merit.
As Colorado votes, rural voter politics could influence key races
Rural doesn’t necessarily mean conservative, and the opinions of these 10 voters run the gamut.
AI Assistant Tool QED Scores bioRxiv Preprint Quality
QED, an AI assistant tool, evaluates the originality and validity of bioRxiv preprints, assigning them QED Scores. Researchers report that its rankings often align with expert opinion.
Making Our Own Luck
We are cross-posting a piece that former NIH official Kris Willis wrote for Macroscience. Kris is now the President and Founder of the Woodley Park Institute, for which I’m a board member. Picking winners or hedging bets? Federal science agencies have long wrestled with the question of how to ensure their billions of dollars of grants and contracts result in maximum benefits for Americans. On the surface, it might seem that a goal-oriented, interventionist style of management would be the best policy: prioritize our most pressing problems and distribute funding accordingly.This top-down strategy creates a unique hazard, though: bad choices can send resources in the wrong direction, resulting in slow progress that impedes the delivery of tangible benefits to citizens. Moreover, if decision makers pursue an applied advance when the underlying scientific principles remain poorly understood, they risk costly failures and a loss of support for the research enterprise at large. Examples include Nixon’s 1971 War on Cancer, undertaken on the premise that a cure could be achieved in less than a decade, the drive to build an operational commercial fusion plant by the mid-1990s, and the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, which failed to produce the effective treatments and prevention strategies promised by 2025. The contrasting laissez-faire approach is to hedge your bets. If the path to an advance is impossible to predict, then the wisest choice might be to distribute funding to as widely as possible. The main risk of this strategy is that spreading funding thinly may limit the resources available to the most promising research, resulting in the same negative outcomes as the interventionist approach: limited support for the most promising topics, slow progress, and delayed returns. In reality, at science agencies like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, program managers navigate between these two extremes, setting some funds aside to target high-priority areas and using the rest to cover the widest possible range of meritorious proposals. This middle path seems like the most rational way to proceed, but it still requires making choices. How much should be set aside for high priority topics? What should those topics be? How should we define merit? Expert opinion can provide a helpful guide, but leading experts can have remarkably different opinions about what matters and what should be prioritized. Moreover, experts and administrators alike can be risk averse, giving an edge to high-profile, well-established concepts. What’s really needed is a data-driven framework to help guide decision-making, one that doesn’t simply repackage prestige or incumbency. Recognizing breakthroughs years in advance Many breakthroughs fail to attract funding or recognition at the earliest stages of development. Katalin Karikó, for example, spent years struggling to win grants for work on mRNA that would eventually win her and Drew Weissman a Nobel Prize. Similar stories can be told about Jim Allison’s groundbreaking studies leading to the development of cancer immunotherapy, Stan Pruisner’s demonstration that prions can self-replicate without DNA, or Robin Warren and Barry Marshall’s proof that Helicobacter pylori, not stress, causes ulcers. Yet at some point, the scientific community recognizes and responds to transformative breakthroughs like these. How does that change happen? And what if science funders could identify the areas that are on the cusp of a breakthrough? Those questions led my collaborators and me to study how scientists responded to past breakthroughs. Based on patterns in that data, we developed a means of predicting future breakthroughs, using biomedicine as a proof of concept. It’s worth taking a moment to describe how our approach works. Briefly, our prediction process begins by grouping the 18 million or so peer-reviewed papers in PubMed, the authoritative database of biomedical research, into roughly 50,000 unique topics. A small subset of these topics are so widely acclaimed as breakthroughs that they have been recognized with a major prize like a Nobel or a Lasker Award. We theorized that studying the development of these outliers over time, especially before they gained acclaim, was the key to identifying future instances of them. After defining topics, we chose 21 representative breakthroughs and asked what they looked like before they won prestigious prizes. To answer that question, we re-ran our topic-mapping algorithm repeatedly, winding back the clock one year each time, stringing together the years to follow the progress of each field as it grew and advanced. We found that in each case, the years leading up to a discovery followed a pattern: a burst of papers on a new, rapidly evolving topic, many of which quickly became influential. These characteristics—the percent of papers that are new, the percentage of papers that are brought in from other topics, and the influence of each individual paper—can all be measured separately for any given topic. Together, they act as a predictive signal that is detectable an average of five years before a transformative discovery is made, and up to thirty years before the discovery receives a major prize. Scanning the current research landscape for topics that display this signal allows us to predict what work will likely produce a future breakthrough. Each year we analyzed includes four or five signals, a number that appears to have remained constant across a twenty year time frame. In their classic work on the sociology of science, Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar established that the desire to participate in a major discovery is an important motivator for scientists as they consider whether they should take up (or abandon) a research problem. Although further work is needed, the simplest explanation for our results is that this behavior is widespread enough to detect at scale. A foundational advance, or something like it, draws the attention of scientists and causes them to change the direction of their research. They vote with their feet, staking their own reputation and careers by publishing on and citing the new idea. That upswell of interest is the foundation of our breakthrough signal. What kind of research does our model identify as a breakthrough? After building a model based on the patterns in our 21 preselected breakthroughs, we tested it by identifying all early signals of discovery from 1994 through 1997. Of the 18 signals we found in that time period, 17 can be traced forward in time to a breakthrough. Examples include super-resolution fluorescence microscopy (see the image above), the directed evolution of proteins and enzymes (Chemistry Nobel, 2018), and sequencing the human genome (National Medal of Science, 2008). The discovery of the role of leptin signaling in obesity is a particularly interesting case study. Around 1950, scientists noticed the existence of a type of lab mouse that suffered from a unique inherited form of obesity. When given the freedom to choose their own diet, these mice ate more than normal and preferred food that was high in fat. Researchers had few clues as to why the animals overate; early experiments pointed to the existence of a soluble ob factor found circulating in the bloodstream that regulated appetite, but its identity was unknown. In 1994, Jeffrey Friedman and colleagues identified and sequenced the ob gene, noting that the protein it encoded appeared to fit the profile of a circulating factor. A year later, a trio of high-profile publications demonstrated that ob was a hormone that regulated body weight and fat deposition by regulating appetite. One of these was co-authored by Friedman, who christened it leptin from the ancient Greek word for thin. Using our model, the data from 1996 make it clear this advance would become a breakthrough. Scientists had flocked to study the biology of the new hormone, generating the flurry of new papers and citations required to produce a signal. One of these demonstrated that serum leptin concentrations reflected the amount of adipose tissue in the human body, providing clinical validation of the earlier mouse studies. Before the identification of leptin, scientists were unable to point to a specific molecule that controlled appetite and adiposity, so that it was impossible to rule out non-physiological causes of obesity; its characterization fundamentally changed our concept of weight gain. In 2010, Friedman and fellow pioneer Douglas Coleman were awarded a Lasker for the discovery. Our work also identifies breakthroughs in clinical practice and behavioral and social sciences, even though these areas are less likely to draw the attention of major prize committees. One example that falls into this category is the introduction of endovascular aneurysm repair, a minimally invasive surgical procedure for the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm, a leading cause of death among Americans over the age of 65. Relative to the previous standard of care, it reduces in-hospital mortality by almost four-fold. In 2017, Timothy Chuter received the American College of Surgeons’ prestigious Jacobsen Innovation award for his multiple refinements to the technique. Another under-recognized breakthrough identified by our model is the development of standardized survey instruments to assess the quality of life for HIV+ patients. The antiretroviral cocktails introduced in the mid-1990s reduced AIDS mortality, but treatment came with serious side effects. The new evaluations showed that patients whose disease progressed had worse physical functioning than Americans with other chronic diseases, while those who were asymptomatic maintained a health-related quality of life on par with the overall US population. This evidence made it possible for patients and activists to argue that even in the absence of a total cure, and in spite of the side effects, alleviation of symptoms was a worthwhile priority for clinicians. My colleagues and I have failed to identify any significant recognition for the physicians and health policy experts who pioneered this advance, although in 2016, researchers called for the World Health Organization to set targets for good health-related quality of life as part of its framework to end the AIDS pandemic. From forecasting to funding How should science funders use our predictions? Any serious discussion of what we should do with this new capability needs to begin with an understanding of its limitations. We can’t (and shouldn’t) invest all of our resources in the small number of topics predicted to produce breakthroughs. Innovative new fields are born from existing ones; they rarely arise de novo. If funders don’t maintain a diverse portfolio, the breakthroughs of tomorrow will have no antecedents. Think of this as eating the seed corn, or killing the goose that lays the golden egg. There are also multiple goals of funding beyond basic scientific discovery, including translating discoveries into clinical practice, developing new technologies, supporting economic development, and training new scientists. The investments needed to accomplish these goals are likely different from those required to support emerging breakthroughs. Finally, we must be aware that we may not capture every instance of a breakthrough. The concept is fuzzy, and not every significant discovery is recognized with a major award. Further, breakthroughs are rare, meaning that our dataset is, by necessity, small. This makes formal estimates of accuracy challenging. Although our overall success rate appears to be high, any one signal may turn out to be a false positive. We found one apparent example: the development of the third generation COX-2 inhibitors, Vioxx and Celebrex, which were much celebrated in the early 2000s as effective but non-addictive pain relievers, meets all the algorithmic criteria of a breakthrough. Five years after it received FDA approval, researchers demonstrated that Vioxx was associated with serious cardiovascular complications, and the manufacturer voluntarily pulled the drug from the market. Celebrex remains available, although like other NSAIDs, it carries an FDA warning for increased cardiovascular risk. Decision makers who were overly focused on the breakthrough potential of this research might have wasted substantial resources nurturing an area that ultimately proved to be a failure—but so would those who relied on expert opinion at the time. That said, the potential benefits of funding the next mRNA vaccine or cancer immunotherapy years earlier than we might have are large. When we can’t assume the outcome of an action, it’s worth conducting an experiment. Can targeted support for areas that are poised to produce a breakthrough increase the return on scientific investment without cannibalizing future advances? With the necessary administrative infrastructure in place, conducting this experiment would be straightforward. First, identify all the breakthrough signals between 2018 and 2023, select half at random, and commit to a decade of investment. For biomedicine, a six year window should yield about 30 topics with the potential to produce a breakthrough. Providing strong support to half of these might be accomplished for $300 million a year. That’s roughly half of the recent annual budget of the NIH Common Fund or around 20% of the fiscal year 2025 budget for ARPA-H. After five years, then again at ten, compare to see which group — the one that was actively managed, or the control — produced more breakthroughs, and on what timescale. Although we used biomedicine as an example, the same experiment could just as well be run for physics, materials science, or any other discipline. Any attempt to undertake such an experiment should keep three points top of mind. First, we can predict the topic of future breakthroughs, but the people and vision for how to move the work forward are still important. In practice, this means success requires active program managers with the expertise to develop the science and the authority to do so, including by recruiting investigators. Second, we would be wise to learn from the failures of past attempts to fund transformative research. High among these are funding modestly repackaged work, confusing the genuinely novel with the merely unfamiliar, and relying too much on incumbent investigators. All of these risks can be mitigated by thoroughly and intelligently integrating high quality data into portfolio management. Finally, we need to have patience. Even with strong funding support, producing a breakthrough takes time. If supporting breakthroughs is the best way to nurture the birth of new fields, we also need to accurately describe and properly manage the other two stages, so that we invest wisely throughout the productive lifetime of ideas and divest once they reach the point of diminishing returns. We would benefit from more study of all of these phases, especially the transition from one to another. More research could answer questions like: When does a breakthrough become an established field? How do the availability of funding, the size and characteristics of the available workforce, and the accumulation of evidence that disagrees with prevailing models affect a field’s decline? Exactly how do old ideas give birth to new ones, and can we speed up the process? The more we understand about the dynamics of scientific progress, the better we can maximize the odds that our curiosity leads to results. I’d call that finding a way to make our own luck.
EPA Tells Staff Not to Smuggle Politics Into Official Opinions
The EPA’s comment letters to other agencies seeking input on environmental reviews must stick to the topic—clean air, water, and land—according to a Wednesday memo from David Fotouhi, the agency’s deputy administrator.
Meta Thinks 'Social Learning' Can Fix Smart Glasses' Privacy Problems
Meta's CTO, Andrew Bosworth, suggests privacy expectations about smart glasses will be decided in the court of public opinion.
Tom Brady Makes Opinion On 2026 World Cup Very Clear
NFL icon Tom Brady has clearly been tuning in to the World Cup and he made it pretty clear how he feels about the event.
‘This moment demands attention’
Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
Opinion | Michigan has a strong maternal, child health budget. We can’t afford to lose it
Strong maternal and child health systems require sustained commitment. Programs that improve outcomes only work when families can count on them being there.
Hahn can lead Boise State University, Idaho business into the future
To ensure continued success, we must have effective education institutions with strong leadership at the helm. | Opinion
Opinion | What high schoolers get about politics that adults don’t
In high school debate, we can disagree about an issue without devolving into caricatures and misrepresentations of the other side, Eagan High School's debate captain writes.
Opinion | Covid Politics Don’t Have to Be Toxic
Nirav Shah is something that would seem anathema in contemporary politics: a public health technocrat who became a household name during Covid.
Opinion | Is This the Year Florida Turns Blue?
David Jolly must persuade voters who have been increasingly hostile to Democrats that he’s a different kind of Democrat.
Business Must Prepare Now for Mandatory E-Invoicing Challenges
Opinion: As mandatory e-invoicing spreads worldwide, businesses need to build flexible, central compliance architectures that can scale globally rather than react to each new mandate individually, say RSM practitioners Philip Munn and Christian Balk.
Opinion | The I Ching, Leibniz and AI: how old China-West links shaped modern science
The connection between Chinese civilisation and Western scientific thinking is far deeper and more intricate than commonly understood.
Video: Opinion | Why Democrats Need a Politics of Joy
The joylessness of metrics-obsessed, achievement-oriented elite culture is eroding the simple joys of living, the novelist Gary Shteyngart argues on “The Ezra Klein Show.” And, he says, this antipathy toward pleasure is a problem for Democrats.
Opinion: Chicago is where automation moves from idea to industry
With Chicago hosting North America’s largest robotics and automation event this week, it showcases being a practical hub for the next era of industrial automation.
‘The United States is showing troubling parallels’
Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
Opinion: Grievance, Bewilderment and Ethnic Amnesia: Poland, Ukraine and the Politics of Historical Memory
An explainer from a Ukrainian perspective to warn against a black-and-white approach to historical issues that serves politicians’ purposes but divides neighbors.
Opinion: Michigan has policy options to help curb online betting addiction
More than five years into legal sports betting, it is time for a fresh look at how Michigan regulates the industry and addresses the ripple effects on public health.
Opinion: Michigan’s goal should be to protect its online gaming market
As Michigan enters the next chapter of its legal sports betting and online gaming industry, we should pursue policies that strengthen the regulated market
Opinion: We should restrict gambling marketing to protect youth
If we are going to permit online gaming and sports betting in our state, this is the least we can do to protect Michigan youth from misleading, coercive ads.
Opinion: We should restrict gambling marketing to protect youth
If we are going to permit online gaming and sports betting in our state, this is the least we can do to protect Michigan youth from misleading, coercive ads.
Opinion | Are Boomers to blame for everything?
Three writers debate whether older Americans are holding on too long — or whether younger generations need to do more to claim their place.
Opinion: Is the role of the Alaska Board of Fisheries sustainability or politics?
The recent decision by the Alaska attorney general’s office to overturn several Area M management proposals raises serious concerns about the state’s commitment to sustainable fisheries management.
Opinion: AI tools help small businesses thrive
Utah small businesses are not waiting for the future. They are already using AI to shape it
Opinion | Menopause and the Failure of Women’s Health Care
Readers respond to “Menopause Should Not Be Such a Mystery,” an Opinion guest essay by Melinda French Gates.
The time has come for Arab politics in Israel to stop fearing coalition power
Opinion: Israel’s Arab public is more aware, more involved and less willing to settle for declarations; the question is no longer only who is right, but who can actually influence policy
Opinion: Trump's 'Drill, baby, drill' serves himself, oil companies
“Drill, Baby Drill” domestic oil production was supposed to protect us from international price fixing, bad behavior in the Middle East. It hasn't.
Opinion
Politicians now think it is fine not to release their tax returns. But that only feeds distrust.
Opinion: Alaska’s healthcare crisis starts with the price of care
Lower costs will require confronting the structural forces that keep medical bills so high.
Joe Tirio: The most dishonest thing in American politics isn’t a candidate. It’s a map.
"The argument that 'the other side does it too' is the weakest possible defense of a bad practice," McHenry County Clerk Joe Tirio writes of gerrymandering in a guest opinion.
Miami Dolphins Fans Opinion Of The Roster Following OTA’s
Miami Dolphins fans share both the positive and negative takeaways from the team's recent OTAs.
Karl Rove analyzes political fallout from US-Iran deal, public opinion of the conflict
Fox News contributor Karl Rove joins ‘Fox News Live’ to discuss the political implications of the Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) and the potential impact of U.S. public opinion of the deal.
Opinion | We Need to Keep Funding Weird Science
Science turned a serendipitous finding about lizard venom into one of the most important drugs of the century, but that type of research is getting harder to do.
Guest opinion: Rural Wisconsin workers lose health insurance twice as fast as before the pandemic
Wisconsin should expand Medicaid, invest in renewal pathways that don’t assume broadband internet access and revamp the renewal system so eligible people do not lose coverage, Jiyue Wang writes.
Opinion | Spectacular Scoring! Political Intrigue! Heroic Defending! The World Cup Has It All.
The history of global soccer, in some sense, is a history of the world’s political problems.
OPINION: Politics, AI, and human dignity
Whether we are building technology, running campaigns, serving in government, or participating in our local political party, the measure of success is not simply whether we win. It is whether we remember that every person has dignity and value independent of their usefulness to our cause.
SF Giants Opinion: Time to clean house
The Giants have a problem. And it might be time to clean house.