Perspectives

Here is one version of the left-right spectrum, as described in 1975 by a former Barry Goldwater speechwriter who had left the conservative movement to break bread with Black Panthers and Wobblies. The far right, Karl Hess wrote in Dear America, was the realm of "monarchy, absolute dictatorships, and other forms of absolutely authoritarian rule," be they fascist or Stalinist or anything else.

In 2000, in the last months of the Clinton administration, the Food and Drug Administration approved the mifepristone-based abortion pill commonly known as RU-486 or Mifeprex. From the beginning, the pill was given favored regulatory treatment, with accelerated approval under Subpart H, a program designed for emergency AIDS drugs. Utilizing this fast-track approval process required the FDA to characterize pregnancy, preposterously, as a “serious or life-threatening illness.”

The legality of abortion drug mifepristone is now in doubt after a conservative judge ruled Friday to block its federal approvals—which could have impacts beyond abortion, as mifepristone and other medications that can terminate a pregnancy can also be used for a range of other medical conditions, and those treatments may be affected by the court’s ruling and ongoing attacks on the drugs.

A federal judge in Texas has taken a shocking and irresponsible action: invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a medication used safely by hundreds of thousands of women each year to help terminate pregnancies as part of a two-pill regimen. For what appears to be the first time, a court has invalidated an agency drug approval — an approval that was based on extensive review of scientific evidence, earned the unanimous support of outside experts and retains, after two decades, the full backing of major professional medical organizations.

“Who walks into a dance hall and guns down 20 people?” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna asked, hours after 10 people were shot dead and at least 10 more were wounded Saturday night in Monterey Park.

Millions ask the same kind of question after what has become a sickeningly frequent occurrence in America. The slaughter amid Lunar New Year festivities was the fifth mass murder shooting in the U.S. in 2023, which is barely three weeks old. Who did this? 

Lunar New Year should be a time of celebration for Asians around the world. This year it was turned into a tragedy after America’s latest mass shooting took place Saturday night in Monterey Park, a strongly Asian American community in Los Angeles County, California. A gunman shot dozens of people in a ballroom on the eve of the New Year after a day of festivals in the city, killing 11 and injuring others, before later dying by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A deadly gun rampage at northern California mushroom farms likely stemmed from a workplace grievance, authorities said on Tuesday, as new details emerged about the latest of two back-to-back mass shootings that claimed 18 lives in total.

In apparently unrelated acts of mass murder, 7 people were killed on Monday in an attack on farm workers, many of them immigrants, in the seaside town of Half Moon Bay near San Francisco while 11 people were shot to death on Saturday night at a Los Angeles-area dance hall frequented mostly by older patrons of Asian descent.

Gun control groups can never be bothered to wait for details when a high-profile shooting happens. In responding to the Monterey Park shooting in California , it appears they have once again jumped the gun.

Amazon is laying off more than 18,000 workers. Salesforce is shedding 8,000, and Twitter has let go thousands more.

While we should never minimize the difficulties of people facing an unexpected layoff, these announcements by major tech companies are not a large-scale tragedy for the American economy. What would be very bad news is if we saw a marked slowing of the economy, leading to far more layoffs by large and small businesses in a wide variety of sectors.

Spotify announced Monday it’s cutting 6% of its global workforce as the music streaming company contends with a gloomy economic environment that has seen consumers and advertisers alike limit their spending.

Spotify has a total workforce of around 9,800 people, which means the cuts impact about 600 employees. According to its LinkedIn profile, the company employs 5,400 people in the U.S. and 1,900 in Sweden.

Shares of Spotify climbed more than 3% Monday on news of the cost-cutting measures.