May 17, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above 40,000 but then dropped back below it; today it closed above 40,000 for the first time in history, ending the day at 40,003.59. This extraordinary performance means investors have confidence the Federal Reserve will get inflation under control w..
May 15, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
All three of the nation’s major stock indexes hit record highs today after the latest data showed inflation cooling. Standard and Poor’s 500, more commonly known as the S&P 500, measures the stock performance of 500 of the largest companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges. Today it was up 61 poin..
May 14, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Today the White House announced tariffs on certain products imported from China, including steel and aluminum products, semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries and battery components, solar cells, ship-to-shore cranes, syringes and needles, and certain personal protective equipment (or PPE). Ac..
May 13, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Today illustrated that the Democrats have become America’s cheerleaders, emphasizing how investment in the nation’s infrastructure has created jobs and rebuilt the country. This week, the Biden-Harris administration is touting its investments in rebuilding roads and bridges, making sure Americans ha..
May 12, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
I write a lot about how the Biden-Harris administration is working to restore the principles of the period between 1933 and 1981, when members of both political parties widely shared the belief that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, a..
May 11, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
If you google the history of Mother’s Day, the internet will tell you that Mother’s Day began in 1908 when Anna Jarvis decided to honor her mother. But “Mothers’ Day”—with the apostrophe not in the singular spot, but in the plural—actually started in the 1870s, when the sheer enormity of the death c..
May 10, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
On October 31, 2020, former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon—who had left Trump’s administration in 2017—explained to a group of people that, knowing that votes for Biden would accumulate throughout the evening as mail-in ballots were counted, Trump planned simply to declare victory on electio..
May 9, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Last night, 163 Democratic representatives joined 196 Republicans to stop far-right Republicans from removing House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene led the effort to remove Johnson, but her motion received only 43 votes: 32 Democrats and 11 Republicans. Twe..
May 8, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Today, in Racine, Wisconsin, President Joe Biden announced that Microsoft is investing $3.3 billion dollars to build a new data center that will help operate one of the most powerful artificial intelligence systems in the world. It is expected to create 2,300 union construction jobs and employ 2,000..
May 7, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
The past two days of former president Trump’s criminal trial for falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, to silence her before the 2016 election have been illuminating in different ways.
May 6, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
In the New York Times today, Amy Qin and Patricia Mazzei reported on the new Florida law that prohibits many Chinese citizens from buying property in Florida, especially near important infrastructure like airports, refineries, and military installations. Qin and Mazzei note that more than three doze..
May 5, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
In 1776, as British colonists in North America were contemplating how to construct a new nation, Massachusetts lawyer John Adams famously wrote to friends about the relationship between government and the law. A republic, he wrote, “is an Empire of Laws and not of Men: and therefore…that particular ..
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May 4, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
I’ve worked my way out to the West Coast over the past several days, and in the process, stopped by this vernal pool in Michigan. Not my usual haunts, but it said “Spring” just as clearly as the peepers do in Maine. Headed to bed before an early wake up call tomorrow to head back to the other coast.
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May 3, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
It has been quite a week of news, and I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one who’s tired. So I figure it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to look elsewhere for a bit of a break. Tomorrow is the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby, and in its honor, I'm posting a piece my friend Michael..
May 2, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
More than 2,000 people have been arrested at protests on college and university campuses around the country opposing Israel’s military strikes on Gaza since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, and the subsequent humanitarian crisis there. It is unclear how many of the protesters are stud..
Oh, all right. I've never been asked. I lied.
I am a fiction writer, after all.
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May 1, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Today, Florida’s ban on abortions after six weeks—earlier than most women know they’re pregnant—went into effect. The Florida legislature passed the law and Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed it a little more than a year ago, on April 13, 2023, but the new law was on hold while the Florida Supreme..
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April 30, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
This morning, Time magazine published a cover story by Eric Cortellessa about what Trump is planning for a second term. Based on two interviews with Trump and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisors, the story lays out Trump’s conviction that he was “too nice” in his first term ..
April 29, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
In December 2020, when the pandemic illustrated the extraordinary disadvantage created by the inability of those in low-income households to communicate online with schools and medical professionals, then-president Trump signed into law an emergency program to provide funding to make internet access..
April 28, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
On Friday, in an interview with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, Trump’s former attorney general William Barr brushed off the recent news that Trump, furious that the story he had taken refuge in a bunker during the Black Lives Matter protests in summer 2020 had leaked, called for the White House leaker ..
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April 26, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Yesterday, in a long story about “the petty feud between the [New York Times] and the White House,” Eli Stokols of Politico suggested that the paper’s negative coverage of President Joe Biden came from the frustration of its publisher, A. G. Sulzberger, at Biden’s refusal to do an exclusive intervie..
April 25, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
“I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S. Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act,’” lawyer Marc Elias, whose firm defends democratic election laws, wrote today on social media. He added: “I am in despair that s..
