Nuclear blinders

Nuclear blinders

"Stunning" was how Siegfried Hecker, former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, described North Korea's new uranium-enrichment...

• Shellshocked by N. Korea

Haiti doesn't deserve a pass

Haiti is scheduled to hold elections on Nov. 28, and nothing — neither the cholera outbreak that has killed more than 1,000 people nor...

• Step up, India

This pope plays it right

In the spring of 2005, Pope John Paul II died. My father, who passed away that summer, watched the funeral and the coronation of the current...

• What Pope Benedict XVI said is that in certain circumstances, using a condom would be less bad than not using one

Touching the 'third rail'

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairs of President Obama's deficit commission, have signaled for months that they are not friends...

• Sniping over Social Security

Make college cost more

Recent decisions by the California State University Board of Trustees and the University of California regents to increase student fees have...

• A path to college

Criminal profiling vs. racial profiling

I was accused of racial profiling on the first traffic stop I made as a rookie LAPD officer in 1998. I had spotted a reckless driver...

• Shades of the 'old' LAPD: The department can't ignore racial profiling, even it's by only a few officers

Like father, like son?

There are instructive parallels between the circumstances in which Gov.-elect Jerry Brown finds himself and those that confronted his...

• Tim Rutten: Awaiting Brown's leadership

The long road to south Sudan's secession vote

In about two months, Africa may have a new country, the first since the end of the colonial era. On Jan. 9, the people of southern Sudan...

• Step up, India

Bernanke bashers

If he didn't know it already, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is learning that no good deed goes unpunished. Bernanke's measured...

• You can't fault the Fed

The home loan modification mess

Last year, Noel Sandoval, an accountant in San Mateo, Calif., who is disabled from epilepsy, asked Bank of America to ease the terms of...

• It's time to tax the rich

'Tea party' trouble on foreign policy

The "tea party" agenda in the midterm election focused largely on domestic issues. But the Republican gains in Congress that the movement...

• Nuclear treaty meltdown

Step up, India

If we want to help pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the cause of freedom in Myanmar (also known as Burma), we must hope that...

• Will India step up?

Listen to the Terminator

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a free-speech case in which, paradoxically, representatives of the rock 'em, sock...

• Editorial: Violence vs. free speech in video games

It's time to tax the rich

The final two years of the George H.W. Bush presidency brought a creeping recession, with an unemployment rate that increased from 5.6% in...

• Experts weigh in: Can the economy be saved?

Will abortion be an issue again?

As Democrats continue to sift through the electoral ashes of the midterm meltdown, a number of longtime activists have begun to insist...

• Opinion L.A. Blog: Hell isn't just other people

Training better teachers

It seems everyone is down on bad teachers these days. But the truth is that simply removing the bad apples won't fix our education problems....

• Editorial: Jerry Brown should prioritze dropout database

Obama can't play center

Should Obama pull a Clinton? This has been a burning question inside the Beltway ever since the polls showed the Great Shellacking bearing...

• Jonah Goldberg: Jonah Goldberg: The bashing of American exceptionalism

China's rise in the Middle East

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was in China this month touting the "new cooperation paradigm" between Ankara and Beijing. Just...

• China needs to lengthen its short fuse

Palin and Reagan

"Sarah Palin's Alaska" didn't debut until Sunday night, but the former governor has been defending it for weeks. After Karl Rove wondered...

Mexican American ID puzzle

Is there one Mexico or two? That's what Mexican writer and television host Sergio Sarmiento asked me and two other Mexican American...

• Editorial: Studying the long life spans of Latinos in the U.S. might be good for the health of all Americans

Israeli actions jeopardize two-state solution

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a critical stage. For more than two decades, the two-state solution has been the basis of...

• Op-Ed: Where is Israel's peace plan?

Pinning down an Afghan timetable

President Obama has promised to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July 2011. But Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said...

Boxing with my wife

One of the first decisions that my wife and I faced after selling our longtime home in New York's Westchester County was what to do with all...

Will Obama face a primary challenge in 2012?

Republicans may think that their midterm triumph bodes ill for President Obama's reelection hopes, but such beliefs are not borne out by...

• How Obama lost his voice, and how he can get it back

China needs to lengthen its short fuse

China has generally handled its extraordinary global ascendance with finesse, assuring neighbors that it remains a developing country and is...

Let the majority rule

Triumphant after the passage of Proposition 25, which allows passage of the state budget by a simple majority, Democrats in the California...

Bush plays defense

Spare a moment of sympathy, if you can, for George W. Bush.

• Podcast: Doyle McManus predicts Nancy Pelosi will win, then retire

A law we don't need

Oklahomans have a plan to save the country. It doesn't address the reverberations of the financial crisis or outline a way to pay for social...

The fragile family effect

Poverty is on the rise, according to census data, and now affects 14.3% of the population, up from 13.2% in 2008. A stumbling economy...

Olbermann's partisan? We're shocked, shocked!

The most troubling thing about the Keith Olbermann affair is just how quaint and beside the point the NBC network rule he broke now appears.