Guest Essays

I saw Biden three weeks ago at my fund-raiser for him. It’s devastating to say it, but he is not the same man he was, and he won’t win this fall.

For many young Iranians, as long as an octogenarian cleric and his allies rule over their country, the country can’t be free.

It isn’t too late to start a constructive conversation about aging and leadership.

In the case of the former president, it is far more dangerous to underestimate than to overestimate his capacity to wreak havoc.

Programmed to find the fastest route without consideration of literally anything else, driving apps endanger and infuriate us on a remarkably regular basis.

The U.S. national security adviser argues that America’s allies in NATO are pulling their weight and paying their fair share of the costs of a common defense.

A fiction writer challenges an A.I. chatbot to a duel.

He is gravitating toward the extreme fringes of the conservative legal world.

Through a stunning act of collective responsibility, the far right has been stopped.

It’s essential that NATO members agree on how they see the war in Ukraine.

The party needs a new presidential nominee and can’t rig things for any one candidate.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett has found her voice.

After we survived one round of economic Russian roulette, Donald Trump is asking us to take another spin, only this time with many more bullets in the chamber.

There’s a better way to think about gender identity in all of us.

An illness led Stephen Smith to study why America has so few elevators. What he learned explains why housing costs are so high.

It takes too many studies for the government to do the right thing.

The hyper-focus on one theory for treatment has slowed progress.

Climbing is a sport in which the sexes are reaching parity. And that has led to pushback.

Naming species has been a victim of a broad shift in our scientific priorities. But we need it more than ever.

Pop culture is serving up dark visions full of labyrinthine bunkers, endless loops and characters who feel hopelessly mired. Welcome to the stucktopia.

A revolution is about to swallow U.S. politics, and it’s based on the simplest and most radical theory of power.

Rec league sports are a cure for much of what ails us. Really.

It is a little early to celebrate this election as a triumph for the center.

The president is a classic aging case playing out for the country to watch.

Most of the court’s decisions were principled and sound — most, but unfortunately not all.

I managed to find my way in life despite being expelled from high school. Could young people in the same situation today do the same?

Young Latino voters are progressives. But Mr. Biden needs to give them a reason to vote for him.

NATO’s intervention against Serbia’s campaign against Kosovo set the tiny country up for independence.

The Democratic Party seems to be playing the wait-and-see game, hoping polls give it permission to pull the emergency brake.

If casting a ballot is merely expressive, then the same is true of not casting one.

50 stars, 13 stripes, 1,000 meanings.

The site of the battle is hallowed ground, but it is littered with Confederate propaganda.

On the other side of honesty is the possibility of change.

It’s always hard to walk away from power.

The court dismisses an abortion case it now says it should never have accepted, opening a window on internal tensions.

Looking at polls beyond the straight horse-race numbers between Biden and Trump offers a glimpse of hope for Democrats.

Russia and China have seized on last week’s painful presidential debate to push their narrative that America is in terminal decline.

Keir Starmer is set to carry a deeply authoritarian impulse into government.

Reflecting on the parallels between campaigns that got caught up in existential threats to the nation.

It is increasingly clear that this court sees itself as something other than a participant in our democratic system.

Big Tech is increasingly safe from government regulation.

The stakes have never been higher.

An evidentiary hearing in federal court could lay out previously undisclosed information.

Instead of delivering a judgment many months ago and allowing the trial to proceed, the justices gave Trump the gift of delay piled upon delay.

An open convention wouldn’t be a disaster for the Democrats. It might even help them win.

It would be so easy to find a new and less harmful way to celebrate the founding of a nation.

Some kids are unable to get the care they need because of a shortage of pediatricians, and the problem could get worse.

Money-strapped millennials, inflation and the tough economics of the restaurant business have birthed a wait-in-line dining culture.

The intolerance in the L.G.B.T.Q. community for nuanced views of the war in Gaza is not what the rainbow flag stands for.

It’s time to use warning labels to steer people away from food that’s bad for them.

There is widespread agreement, even in museums, that questionable pieces in collections should be returned. But returned to whom?

The president had a bad night, but the fundamentals of this race have not changed.

An alternative photographic history of the Pride march shows that real belonging starts in the crowd, where people find refuge and community.

The court swept aside a precedent that endangers countless regulations — and transfers power from the executive branch to Congress and the courts.

Everyone in our system, including judges and members of Congress, will be nudged to do their proper constitutional work.

Schools ground migrant children and their families when everything else — the language, the city, the culture, the people — is brand-new.

The international community must insist on reversing the restriction of Afghan women’s and girls’ rights and on women’s meaningful participation in decision making.

The celebrated show is both a product of our unhealthy obsession with toxic restaurant culture and a potential remedy for it.

To win on Thursday, Biden will have to override his instincts and defy the constraints and conventions of presidential debates.

It’s impossible to see the court’s decision upholding a law disarming domestic abusers as anything but an exercise in institutional self-preservation.

Both parties are changing shape. What should they do about it?

Two political experts weigh in on what it might take to succeed.

We believe the prime minister is driving Israel downhill at an alarming speed, to the extent that we may eventually lose the country we love.

Our kids’ lingo is not only better than any we used; it’s a useful window into the way they think.

Universities that cataloged election lies and disinformation are being targeted with the same tactics they sought to uncover.

Thursday’s debate is time to preach to the choir.

Going head-to-head with the former president is like juggling nonsense, blather and bluster.

I’ve studied voter reaction and opinions about every presidential debate since 1992. This is what to do and not to do.

Saying goodbye to Rascal, the little rescue dog gone too soon.

The modest campaign created an opening for today’s anti-L.G.B.T.Q. backlash.

We live in an age when people can live longer and healthier even with significant health conditions. What does this mean for future presidents?

The island’s power crisis illustrates the consequences of putting essential services in the hands of a private entity.

A pop diva inspires and unites fans in ways that few other cultural figures can. Which is why we should all be rooting for Celine Dion.

He has the lowest level of corporate support in the history of the Republican Party.

It is looking more and more like a project to universalize the un-universalizable.

What are we to do with this privileged pop star?

Imagining what comes next in the Republican effort to spread the Christian word.

Olympic hopefuls are a group of exceptional people held together by athletic tape and hope, who leap without sight of where they will land.

Laws aren’t keeping pace with the risks climate change poses to workers laboring under sweltering conditions.

Rubio would offer Latinos the chance to vote for one of their own to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.