Texas Federal Judge J. Campbell Barker, appointed by Donald Trump in 2019, has frozen a Biden administration policy that could have helped some half-million undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens get legal status. Hopefully, Barker’s stay will not be staying.

We’re living in an upside-down world, aren’t we?

In an election cycle that can only be described as stranger than fiction, things have just gotten impossibly weirder.

When the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the Biden-Harris administration’s latest student loan bailout scheme, it potentially saved American taxpayers nearly half a trillion dollars.

If you left the U.S. for a summer vacation, you may have encountered a strange and refreshing custom: not tipping. Or at least not tipping everyone in sight.

Something incredible happened four years ago. People suddenly realized that my grocery store co-workers and I are essential. It had a lasting effect on me, but some people clearly need a reminder — especially the leaders of the conglomerates that dominate the industry. These bosses have rewarded our essential frontline service during the pandemic by trying to replace us with machines.

The United States of America needs more housing — lots of it. The lack of supply in cities and suburbs in particular is the main force driving up the cost of living for millions, and keeping young people on the outside looking in, their faces pressed against the double-pane glass.

Millions of American workers are surviving, or supplementing their income, in the gig economy. But this means forgoing the benefits attached to full-time employment.

The good news is that business interests are getting support during an election year. The bad news is that the business is crypto. Less than two years after the industry’s highest-profile political donor was exposed as a criminal, the lure of campaign donations from the digital-money crowd is once again proving irresistible.

When I was a white supremacist who had infiltrated the Canadian military reserves, an officer who had spent two tours of Northern Ireland embedded in a British unit told me that the Irish Republican Army had only 75 active personnel who pulled triggers and planted bombs. Behind those combatants were 3,500 people who offered them safe houses and storage for their ammunition. Bolstering them was a much broader community of people who endorsed their efforts.

Before there were immigrant “monsters” to occupy Donald Trump’s hate, there was the Central Park Five. Most people know the case: Five Black kids accused of brutally raping a woman in New York City in the spring of 1989, leaving her brain-damaged, naked and gagged.

Lawyers can own law firms. Bankers can own banks. But thanks to the Affordable Care Act, doctors are effectively banned from owning hospitals. At a time when the rapidly consolidating hospital market needs more competition, not less, keeping this poorly conceived provision on the books makes little sense. Congress should repeal it.

Remember the crinkle of the wrapper when opening a brand-new CD? What about the comforting smell of a bookstore and the satisfying weight of a new paperback in your hands?

Vice President Kamala Harris began to set out her economic agenda last week and will doubtless say more about it when she speaks at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday. Unsurprisingly, her program is shaping up to be Bidenomics 2.0 — which is mostly a good thing. An emphasis on the energy transition and wider economic opportunity is quite right. The question is whether her administration will aim to strengthen the first version or double down on its weaknesses.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz introduced himself to Americans on Wednesday night as a regular guy who knows their pain and frustration because he’s lived it. A former high school teacher and football coach, he knows what it’s like to raise a family on a tight budget.

The United States is founded on the principle of equal opportunity for all. Getting an education, finding a job and getting married are traditionally viewed as crucial steps for escaping poverty and ascending into the middle class, regardless of one’s economic starting point.

CHICAGO — Barack and Michelle Obama resurfaced, with a vengeance.

There are fake champions and there are real ones.