Editor’s note: The Federal Reserve’s policy-setting committee raised its target interest rate a quarter-point to a range of 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent, only the second such move in eight years. In the widely anticipated decision, the Fed signaled it anticipates raising rates another 0.75 percentage point in 2017 – likely in...

No one was really surprised that the Fed raised its target interest rate by one-quarter of a percentage point today. Yet somepeople are really upset about it and worried this will slow down a fragile economic recovery.

I would disagree with that view for several reasons.

My biggest reason is that a quarter-point is not a very big change. I...

Today, Dec. 14, we mark the fourth anniversary of the unfathomable loss of children and teachers at Sandy Hook. Our nation’s mourning is amplified by the surge in mass shootings nationwide. Last month, my city of Des Moines, Iowa mourn...

President-elect Trump has called global warming “bullshit” and a “Chinese hoax.” He has promised to withdraw from the...

The Second World War left the United Kingdom in ruins and in debt, yet just three years later in 1948 every household received a leaflet telling them that they were entitled to free health care. This marked the birth of the National Health Service, funded from general taxation and available to all according to their clinical needs, regardless of...

Before his death on Nov. 25 at the age of 90, Fidel Castro had made no secret about his reservations about the normalization of relations with the United States and had insisted that the ideals of the Cuban Revolution would never be abandoned.

So following his death it is natural to wonder if the economic reforms initiated by his brother,...

College students spend a tremendous amount of time with their friends. One estimate suggests that the average college student spends only 15 hours a week in class but 86 hours a week with his or her friends.

But how much do we understand about the role friendships play and how they influence students...

Truth seems to be an increasingly flexible concept in politics. At least that’s the impression the Oxford English Dictionary gave recently, as it declared “post-truth” the 2016 Word of the Year. What happens when decisions are based on misleading...

Can President-elect Donald Trump adopt policies that respond to the realities of today’s Middle East, despite his lack of regional knowledge, absence of deep engagement in global issues and use of inflammatory language toward Muslims?

It’s still too early to answer this question definitively, but Trump’s pick of oil executive Rex...

The white working class surprised many pundits and social scientists by supporting Donald Trump, leading some to describe the election results as a “whitelash.”

The fact that the president-elect successfully mobilized this population was far from inevitable. After all, a fair number of Trump supporters once voted for Obama. A good many...