On Saturday, the capitals of four democracies were strengthened when the U.S. House finally passed long-stalled foreign-aid bills. The three overseas capitals — Kyiv, Jerusalem and Taipei — were boosted by the $95 billion invested in security for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

If you are homeless and have nowhere to go — neither a temporary shelter bed nor a permanent home — can you be fined or, worse, jailed for sleeping on a sidewalk? Or is that cruel and unusual punishment?

Louisianan Mike Johnson became House speaker by accident, when eight renegade Republicans voted with the Democrats to eject the unfortunate Kevin McCarthy from the chair in October. After a number of more senior members failed to win enough support, the booby prize went to Johnson.

Students are taught in civics class that, under the American justice system, a defendant may be convicted of a crime only if a jury finds him or her guilty of the charged offense “beyond a reasonable doubt.” What’s rarely mentioned, however, is that federal law allows judges to ignore a not guilty verdict and sentence men and women to prison for illegal activity of which they were acquitted.

Google recently made headlines globally because its chatbot Gemini generated images of people of color instead of white people in historical settings that featured white people. Adobe Firefly’s image creation tool saw similar issues. This led some commentators to complain that AI had gone “woke.” Others suggested these issues resulted from faulty efforts to fight AI bias and better serve a global audience.

Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has proposed allocating $1 billion annually for 10 years to the National Institutes of Health for long COVID research. One potential stumbling block to this good idea is bipartisan criticism of the NIH’s sluggishness in producing useful results from the initial $1.15 billion allocated to long COVID.

With the death of singer-songwriter Eric Carmen last month and Earth Day coming up, I got to thinking about Carmen’s song “All By Myself” and how deeper forms of activism are both essential to making change and a powerful antidote to our growing epidemic of loneliness.

The 49 Senate Republicans spent Wednesday afternoon furiously sputtering that they weren’t allowed to debate if Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, duly and formally impeached by the House, should be tried in the upper chamber.

The phrase, “Don’t waste a crisis,” has almost become a cliche, and we use it in reference to many things, especially economic crises. Indeed, when we experience a crisis, we should always learn what we can from it in the hopes of not experiencing it again. Experiencing a medical crisis often leads us to pay greater attention to our health. An economic crisis may lead us to make better decisions about spending and saving.

Asna Tabassum has a GPA of at least 3.98, with a major in the challenging field of biomedical engineering, and a record sterling enough to be picked as USC’s valedictorian from about 100 qualified candidates. For that accomplishment, this is her “reward”: having the traditional valedictory speech canceled at the May 10 commencement over concerns about maintaining “security and safety.”

Joe Biden famously ran a basement campaign during his successful 2020 presidential bid. But he emerged to participate in two debates with his opponent, Donald Trump. Will he agree to share the stage this fall? He’d better.

A bill recently passed by the West Virginia House of Delegates is one of the latest attempts to censor educational materials. If the measure becomes law, it would make librarians and other educators criminally liable for showing obscene materials to children who are not accompanied by an adult. Librarians and teachers could then face felony penalties, up to $25,000 in fines, and even up to five years in jail.

Californians have had weekend after weekend of cool, stormy weather and the Sierra Nevada has been blessed with a healthy snowpack. But the reality is that even the last few months have been more than 2 degrees hotter than average.

It’s easy to state a compelling case against the idea that Israel should strike Iran after Iran’s weekend drone and missile attack. Iran’s assault failed, spectacularly. Its vaunted long-range arsenal proved ineffective (at least in that strike), and the attack itself rallied Israel’s allies to its aid. American, British and even Jordanian forces intervened to protect Israel.

Joe Biden started the week off on a high note, well, high for him.