Last week, the White House unveiled new rules to more quickly reach asylum denials for people considered national security and public safety threats, something of a prelude for more expansive expected restrictions.

It probably escaped your attention, but the Internal Revenue Service recently piloted a program to help Americans cope with their notoriously complex tax system. Direct File was meant to help taxpayers in 12 states prepare and submit their returns electronically. Some 19 million people were eligible to use it. Thanks partly to a rollout late in the tax-preparation season, fewer than 1% of them actually did.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just got McCained.

In quietly halting a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel last week, President Joe Biden at last began exercising U.S. leverage to halt a full-scale invasion of Rafah, the final refuge in Gaza for about a million Palestinians displaced by Israeli destruction elsewhere in the besieged territory.

About a year and a half ago, I became one of Those People who track how many steps they walk each day. I know there’s nothing magical about the daily 10,000-step target, but it’s a fun little pastime, made more fun by the fact that I surpass 10,000 most days without really trying.

When you think of the Biden administration’s climate investments, you may imagine subsidies for Tesla drivers in affluent coastal cities. But those investments are helping Americans at all income levels, in both small towns and urban areas. One example: The Biden administration is bringing clean, resilient solar power to federally funded health centers across the nation.

President Joe Biden’s move Thursday to expand two national monuments in California is unquestionably good news for our climate and environment.

Ten years before I was born, at 4:40 on the morning of Nov. 10, 1971, my mother and another woman sat “yogi-style” on the floor of an Ann Arbor, Michigan, kitchen and lit themselves on fire. They were just blocks from the University of Michigan campus, where my mother had been a student. She had just turned 20. Police tracked the smell of burning hair to find the women sitting on the floor, facing each other, screaming.

For his 10th violation of Acting Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s gag order — this time for complaining about the supposed political affiliation of the jury — Donald Trump must pay another $1,000 fine. Yet in his order, Merchan put Trump “on notice that if appropriate and warranted, violations of [the court’s] lawful orders will be punishable by incarceration.”

Older adults add incredible value to America’s workforce. But increasingly seniors are returning to work to merely make ends meet. Low savings, longer lives and a rickety safety net are combining to present new challenges, especially here in Florida. It’s a reminder that society benefits both from ready employment and from protecting Americans’ golden years.

There will be a vote to remove Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson this week and it will fail thanks to Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It’s not that Jeffries doesn’t want to become speaker himself, but that will be decided by the American people six months from today, on Election Day, when all 435 seats are being contested.

What if the traditional wisdom on how to fix Social Security no longer holds?

There is no artificial intelligence without the fruits of human inquiry.

Acting Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan held Donald Trump in contempt for his violations of a gag order in his criminal hush money case. The penalty? A paltry $9,000. Nonetheless, the judge cautioned the former president that continued violations might result in “incarceratory punishment,” just as they might for any other defendant. We hope he’s not bluffing.

It is never OK to use physical violence against people with whom you disagree. This should be obvious, but the events that unfolded on the UCLA campus early Wednesday show the consequences when that message is lost.

Like the Gorgons in Greek mythology whose glances could turn people to stone, today’s sour candidates have calcified our presidential politics with their glowering contest. “Rancor,” said José Ortega y Gasset, “is an outpouring of a feeling of inferiority.” Both men have much about which to feel inferior. The electorate, however, is at least interesting.

As the magnitude of the bird flu outbreak in cattle becomes clearer, so does the need to quickly get a firmer grip on some basic facts. Namely, how far this H5N1 virus has spread, how it is spreading, and where this situation is likely to go next. The COVID-weary public also wants to know whether humans are at risk.

By the end of the decade, new cars and trucks in the United States will be required to have automatic emergency braking systems that can save hundreds of lives each year.