Author: Reporter

On a winter’s day in 1984, a briefcase stuffed with classified government documents showed up in a building in Pittsburgh, borne by someone who most certainly was not supposed to have them. That someone was 13-year-old Kristin Preble. She took the papers to school as a show-and-tell project for her eighth grade class. Her dad had found them in his Cleveland hotel room several years earlier and taken them home as a souvenir. As a different sort of show and tell unfolds in Washington over the mishandling of state secrets by the Trump and now Biden administrations, the schoolgirl...

A low credit score can hurt your ability to take out a loan, secure a good interest rate, or increase the spending limit on your credit card. Some reasons for a low score are out of your control, such as unexpected medical debt or a lack of credit history. Credit rating agencies are working to improve access to credit by giving people more time to pay medical bills before the debt appears in reports, and by removing other debt completely. They are also making it easier to count rent, utility payments, and other recurring bills — a boon for...

President Joe Biden said on February 27 that “history matters, and Black history matters” during a White House reception marking Black History Month, a forceful declaration that comes after the state of Florida blocked a new advanced course on African American studies from being taught in its high schools. “It’s important to say from the White House for the entire country to hear: History matters. History matters and Black history matters,” Biden said, to murmurs of agreement from the roughly 400 people inside the East Room of the White House. “I can’t just choose to learn what we want...

The opening Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election season will take place in Milwaukee this August, the Republican National Committee decided on February 23. The rough time and location were the only details finalized as a small group of RNC members met behind closed doors in Washington this week to begin the complicated task of coordinating logistics for what is likely to be a crowded and messy primary season. In the coming weeks, the group plans to finalize a broader set of criteria for participation, including the requirement that each candidate on stage must pledge to support the...

For Russia, it has been a year of bold charges and bombardments, humiliating retreats and grinding sieges. Ukraine has countered with fierce resistance, surprising counteroffensives and unexpected hit-and-run strikes. On the anniversary of Russia’s invasion that has killed tens of thousands and reduced cities to ruins, both sides are preparing for a potentially even more disastrous phase that lies ahead. Russia recently intensified its push to capture all of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas. Kyiv and its Western allies also say Moscow could try to launch a wider, more ambitious attack elsewhere along the more than 1,000-kilometer...