Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories

Podcast: America's foreign policy challenges are evolving rapidly

Podcast: America's foreign policy challenges are evolving rapidly

The takeover of the Taliban in Afghanistan; a more aggressive China and Russia; and a newly-elected hardline president in Iran are all major challenges facing President Joe Biden and his administration. On this episode of Let's Find Common Ground, Ned Temko, who writes the weekly international affairs column "Patterns"for The Christian Science Monitor, and Scott Peterson, the Monitor's Middle East bureau chief, discuss the challenges and implications of America's foreign policy.

Listen here


Read More

Senate Pushes $72 Billion ICE Funding Boost as Abuse Allegations Mount
Federal agents guard outside of a federal building and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in downtown Los Angeles as demonstrations continue after a series of immigration raids began last Friday on June 13, 2025, in Los Angeles, California.
Getty Images, Spencer Platt

Senate Pushes $72 Billion ICE Funding Boost as Abuse Allegations Mount

Washington, D.C. — The Senate is preparing to begin a budget reconciliation process that could direct up to $72 billion in new funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a move that has prompted sharp criticism from civil rights groups who argue the agencies already operate with expanded enforcement powers and minimal oversight.

The proposal isn’t a standard spending bill. It’s a reconciliation package, which allows Republicans to advance it in the Senate with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes normally required to break a filibuster. That procedural choice makes it one of the most direct efforts yet to cement Trump’s immigration agenda without needing Democratic support.

Keep ReadingShow less
Preschool children playing with colorful shapes

Childcare providers warn that Trump administration rollbacks and rising costs are pushing America’s fragile child care system toward collapse, leaving families and workers struggling to survive.

Lourdes Balduque / Getty Images

America Keeps Turning Its Back on Childcare; Families are Paying the Price.

Earlier this month, the Trump Administration sent a clear message to American families: child care is a personal problem, not a public responsibility.

The president’s executive order repealed federally mandated provisions that helped stabilize the child care industry after the COVID-19 shutdown. Without these safety nets, more programs will close their doors. What little federal support childcare providers had was already inadequate. I know this firsthand because, after three decades in the child care field, I was forced to face a harsh reality and close my doors.

Keep ReadingShow less
Tensions were High as Representatives Debated Allegations Against the Southern Poverty Law Center

Members of the House Judiciary Committee during the hearing on the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Credit: Olivia Ardito

Tensions were High as Representatives Debated Allegations Against the Southern Poverty Law Center

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing last Wednesday examining claims that the Southern Poverty Law Center had funded the very hate groups the center aims to dismantle. Tensions were high as Republicans and Democrats fired back at each other. Noticeably absent was a representative from the center, a non-profit that since 1971 has fought for racial justice and against white supremacy.

The hearing came after the Texas Attorney General Ken Pax­ton announced last Monday that he was investigating the center. The U.S. Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center in April for allegedly funneling money to people associated with violent extremist groups. The group has flatly rejected the accusations. While Republicans backed these claims, Democrats viewed the allegations as part of the Trump-backed efforts to hinder “DEI” and other racial justice initiatives.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump Is Protecting Insurrectionists But Not Your Kids

An analysis of gun violence, political extremism, Islamophobia, and community resilience in America after the San Diego Islamic Center shooting.

GemaIbarra / Getty Images

Trump Is Protecting Insurrectionists But Not Your Kids

Last Monday, two teenage gunmen opened fire outside the Islamic Center of San Diego, murdering three Muslim men. Unfortunately, this is the type of horror Americans have been conditioned to expect. After years of political stagnation on gun safety and ongoing hateful acts of violence, our president has signaled once again to children, to the Muslim community, and to everyone else: he does not care if you get shot.

Gun violence has been on the rise in the United States for too long. Perhaps the most harrowing consequence is that gun violence is now the leading cause of death among children. Whether from school shootings, homicides, suicides, or accidents, the gun-death rate for children is nearly five in every 100,000. In fact, the number of domestic deaths due to gun violence is about as many as U.S. military deaths in every war since World War I combined. More children have been lost to gun violence since 2020 than troops lost since 9/11. Yet even with such a striking death toll—and one affecting children no less—happening on our own soil, Vice President J.D. Vance calls it a “fact of life.

Keep ReadingShow less