Mark your calendars: May 21 is National Eat More Fruits and Vegetables Day, which sounds like an order. People don’t like to be told what to do. However, the sentiment is well intentioned. It’s a day that wants what’s best for you.

President Joe Biden and Republican leaders in Congress made next to no progress in their debt-ceiling talks last Tuesday, and talks planned for Friday were postponed. They’ll try again this week. For the moment, both sides seem willing to hit the imminent deadline for resolving their dispute without giving way — hoping to blame the damage on the other side. Readiness to inflict needless harm on the country seems to be the one thing they agree about.

Florida, under Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican Legislature, is increasingly hard to recognize. It’s an intolerant and repressive place that bears scant resemblance to the Sunshine State of just a few years ago.

Con(gress)man George Santos spent much of the day yesterday in a federal building, but it wasn’t the Capitol where he casts votes and likes to make floor speeches. Instead Santos was out in the federal courthouse in Central Islip on Long Island being arraigned on 13 criminal counts by Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace and Corey Amundson, chief of the public integrity section in Main Justice in D.C.

Last Thursday, Brad Setser of the Council of Foreign Relations — esteemed by cognoscenti for his forensic analyses of balance of payments data — testified to a Senate committee about global tax avoidance by pharmaceutical companies. This issue may not have loomed large on many people’s radar screens, and with everything else going on, you may wonder why you should care. But there are at least two reasons you should.

Horses started dying at Churchill Downs 10 days before the Kentucky Derby, and the death toll didn’t cease until hours before the famous race began last Saturday. By the time the Derby began, seven horses would be dead.

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is a fun superhero comedy-action Marvel movie — but it has an unexpectedly compelling message. As the film reveals Rocket Raccoon’s backstory, moviegoers learn that our beloved hero (voiced by Bradley Cooper) was the subject of cruel laboratory experiments run by the High Evolutionary, an evil villain void of compassion. Fellow Guardian Nebula says that what happened to Rocket was “worse than anything Thanos ever did.” Sadly, this type of plot doesn’t come out of Knowhere. In the real world, millions of animals are enduring it right now. Here are a few points from the hit movie that blend fantasy with reality:

As King Charles walked through Westminster Abbey clad in an ermine-trimmed robe last weekend, it was hard to imagine him as the monarchy’s great modernizer. Despite the many promises made to that effect ahead of the ceremony, they appeared all the more remote while a sapphire crown was being placed atop the new king’s head.

When is a chicken wing not a chicken wing? No, it’s not an existential question, but it’s a question that a Chicago man and his lawyers are asking a federal court to resolve in a somewhat absurd case against Buffalo Wild Wings.

Anyone familiar with America’s labor history knows there are good reasons for the strict child-labor laws in place across the U.S. Yet in Missouri and around the nation now, business groups, aided by Republican politicians, are working to loosen those laws and allow younger children to work more hours, or in previously prohibited settings, with less oversight. They can talk all they want about creating opportunity for young people, but the clear intent is to secure cheaper labor in a tight market. The potential for abuse isn’t something that has to be imagined; it’s right there in the not-so-distant past.

In the past few weeks, two young Black lawmakers and a young transgender lawmaker have been punished for “breaching decorum” in conservative-controlled statehouses.

The reminders seem endless that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ judicial objectivity is thoroughly compromised by money and favors from the political right. ProPublica reported Thursday morning that the same wealthy Republican donor who has treated Thomas and his right-wing-activist wife Ginni Thomas to luxury vacations also paid boarding-school tuition for a Thomas grandnephew. By Thursday evening, The Washington Post was reporting that a judicial activist directed almost $100,000 in fees to Ms. Thomas, urging in memos that the documentation for the fees make “no mention of Ginni, of course.” Of course.

Hollywood writers put down their pens this week to strike for the first time in 16 years. The Writers Guild of America and the film, television and streaming studios could not reach agreement over pay and working conditions amid an industry upheaval that’s remade how artists create and viewers consume entertainment.

Those well-steeped in our nation’s history long ago learned the inspiring story of how President George Washington delivered his stirring Gettysburg Address, a four-hour oration, in an effort to revive hope among Americans struggling during the Great Depression of the 1920s.

In 2009, when Mexico’s middle class continued its steady expansion in the wake of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), and wealthy neighborhoods bloomed in many cities, it was a popular trope in Washington, D.C., circles — far away from the culturally rich border region so many San Diegans, Tijuaneses and others know and love — that our southern neighbor was at risk of becoming a “failed state.” Since then, Mexico’s economy has become the 15th-largest in the world and is on track to be the seventh-largest in 2050 — ahead of such powerhouses as Japan and Germany. This growth isn’t just fueled by energy, manufacturing and tourism. A recent KPBS report detailed the boom of high-tech companies in Tijuana.

In last year’s elections, more than 4.6 million Americans found themselves unable to vote due to a felony conviction. No other country bars so many people from voting because of their history with the criminal legal system. America is an outlier.