Columns

A young woman reacts as she looks at her damaged home after Russia's night missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 14, 2026. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

Elizabeth Shackelford: Trump’s abhorrent Russian diesel deal defies US laws and won’t lower gas prices

By Elizabeth Shackelford

October 16, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

Donald Trump has illegally undone sanctions efforts against Russia. For all of this, Americans won’t...

Saturday Night Live Host Shane Gillis during the monologue on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. (Will Heath/NBC/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: Shane Gillis ‘SNL’ opener misses the mark — and the moment

By Heidi Stevens

October 16, 2026 at 4:00 a.m.

The most disappointing thing about Shane Gillis’ shopworn, hackneyed, tone-deaf, retrograde, unfunny “Saturday Night Live”...

Former Indiana U,S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, who was co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, in his office at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington on Nov. 24, 2006. (Pete Souza/baiduhai)

John T. Shaw: We need Congress to ponder the long term with a new future-focused group

By John T. Shaw

October 14, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

Half a century ago, many lawmakers viewed their responsibilities differently and created a forum to...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson leaves the stage after speaking during the National Review Institute's Ideas Summit on March 29, 2019, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington.

Column: Relax, Tucker Carlson, reports of ‘replacement’ are greatly exaggerated

By Clarence Page

April 13, 2021 at 3:55 p.m.

In an apparent bid to pick up where the late Rush Limbaugh and the deplatformed...

Jennifer Camacho, of Chesterton, holds up Pride flags during a protest and march outside Duneland School Corporation headquarters in Chesterton, Indiana, on April 12, 2021.

Column: Some parents complained about Pride and Black Lives Matter flags, so a Chesterton school removed them. Now students and parents are demanding their return.

By Heidi Stevens

April 13, 2021 at 12:12 p.m.

A Pride flag is a symbol. It doesn't love you. It doesn't listen to you....

A protester stands on the hood of a police car on April 11, 2021, in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.

Column: Daunte Wright was unarmed. Wouldn’t letting him go have been better than killing him?

By Rex W. Huppke

April 12, 2021 at 5:49 p.m.

"Oh, (expletive), I shot him." You'll hear those words if you watch the body camera...

In this image made from police video, an officer uses a spray agent on Caron Nazario on Dec. 20, 2020, in Windsor, Virginia. Nazario, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, is suing two Virginia police officers over a traffic stop during which he says the officers drew their guns and pointed them at him as he was dressed in uniform.

Column: In the traffic stop of a Black Army officer in Virginia, echoes of George Floyd

By Dahleen Glanton

April 12, 2021 at 6:59 a.m.

Months after police killed George Floyd on a busy street in Minneapolis, Army Lt. Caron...

Chicago police investigate the scene where evidence was found near the 1000 block of South Lake Shore Drive following a shooting in which a young boy was wounded in downtown Chicago, April 6, 2021.

Column: Eyes front. Drive like a chicken. Avoid road rage.

By Eric Zorn

April 11, 2021 at 7:00 a.m.

If you drive in the Chicago area and ever find yourself pulling up next to...

Maya Angelou in Wait Chapel at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on April 18, 2008.

Column: It’s National Poetry Month. Here are 9 good poems to help you make it through life.

By Mary Schmich

April 9, 2021 at 5:43 p.m.

Poetry is often referred to as an art, and it is one, but it's also...

A CTA Pink Line train travels through the West Loop on March 8, 2021.

Column: Mass transit has to change for the post-pandemic world

By Steve Chapman

April 9, 2021 at 5:39 p.m.

The Biden administration has grand dreams for mass transit. In its blue-sky vision, subways and...

J.D. Vance, author of "Hillbilly Elegy," speaks with lawmakers and members of a venture capital bus tour in Youngstown, Ohio, on Feb. 21, 2018.

Column: J.D. Vance seeks to build bridges, maybe even among Republicans

By Clarence Page

April 9, 2021 at 5:52 p.m.

As a high school student, bestselling "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance recalled, "People talked about...

England's royalty Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip stand with Lewis Douglas (R), former chairman of the Pilgrims Society, at a dinner honoring the Queen in New York City in 1957.

Column: Remembering the day Prince Philip looked me in the eye

By Chris Jones

April 9, 2021 at 2:30 p.m.

I met Prince Philip, who died Friday at the age of 99, one time. He...

President Joe Biden looks on after speaking during an event about gun violence prevention in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on April 8, 2021.

Column: It’s the guns that kill. And Biden is right: U.S. gun violence is ‘an international embarrassment.’

By Rex W. Huppke

April 9, 2021 at 5:00 a.m.

Thanks to clever, easily digestible rhetoric from the morally and financially bankrupt National Rifle Association,...

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