WASHINGTON — The first year of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House was defined by clashes with the judiciary branch, as the president and his administration pushed forward with an aggressive immigration agenda. In the past year, the Trump administration has aimed to drastically change immigration policy in the United States, including by stripping millions of immigrants of their legal status and attempting to redefine the constitutional right of birthright citizenship. The moves have often run directly against the judiciary branch. Federal judges briefly stalled the Trump administration’splans to deploy…
Posts published in “Opinion”
CARACAS, Venezuela. It was 1:58 a.m. on Jan. 3 when a thunderous roar made the windows of my apartment in downtown Caracas shake. Are the New Year’s celebrations still going on? Is a storm coming or is it an earthquake, I wondered. Despite multiple threats from the United States against Venezuela, I couldn’t believe that bombing was possible; not like this, not now. As people say in Venezuela, “It’s one thing to call on the devil, and another to see him actually arrive.” As the missiles began to fall one…
One year after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, a pattern emerges. Across dozens of executive orders, agency memos, funding decisions and enforcement changes, the administration has weakened federal civil rights law and the foundations of the country’s racially inclusive democracy. From the start, the U.S. was not built to include everyone equally. The Constitution protected and promoted slavery. Most states limited voting to white men. Congress restricted naturalized citizenship to “free white persons.” These choices were not accidents. They shaped who could belong and who could exercise political power, and they…
When Donald Trump pulled back on his plan to impose eye-watering tariffs on trading partners across the world, there was one key exception: China. While the rest of the world would be given a 90-day reprieve on additional duties beyond the new 10% tariffs on all U.S. trade partners, China would feel the squeeze even more. On April 9, 2025, Trump raised the tariff on Chinese goods to 125% – bringing the total U.S. tariff on some Chinese imports to 145%. The move, in Trump’s telling, was prompted by Beijing’s…
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” has continued the franchise’s unbeatable winning streak. James Cameron’s latest “Avatar” film has grossed over $1 billion at the global box office, making the franchise the highest-grossing trilogy in history, and is one of only four films in 2025 to cross the worldwide billion-dollar mark. It will likely not break the records of the first or second film. But even so, you cannot argue that the series is anything short of a colossal success. One of the things few people discuss about the “Avatar” films is…
If U.S. President Donald Trump invades Greenland, it will spell the end of NATO, Denmark’s leader warned. Trump, who last week ratcheted up threats to take over the self-ruling Danish territory in the Arctic, should be taken “seriously when he says that he wants Greenland,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in an interview with broadcaster TV2. “But I will also make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been established since the…
The strangest space odyssey has finally come to an end. Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have come home. Their planned eight-day mission to the International Space Station became a nine-month sojourn on board the orbiting laboratory. The story involves technological glitches and accusations of political malfeasance. The space odyssey of Williams and Wilmore began on June 5, 2023, when they lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in a Boeing CST-100 Starliner atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V. Starliner was envisioned to become the second crewed spacecraft alongside the SpaceX Crew…