The Preamble

In 2014, I was sitting on my therapist’s couch, nervous, my sweaty thighs sticking to the leather. My therapist, Lisa, was wearing studded jeans and a leather top. If I hadn’t liked her so much I’d have envied her. “Do you think I’m a good person?” I asked. It had been 94 days since my last drink, and as the haze was lifting I was finally starting to see my past more clearly. Which was a good thing, minus the fact that I was now haunted by all the mistakes I had made before I got sober.

These are today’s top stories, delivered straight to your inbox. Catch up here on all the news. Aid to Israel Yesterday almost half the Democrats in the US House voted to end military aid to Israel. The amendment, attached to a funding bill for the State Department, would have eliminated $3.3 billion in annual aid and barred any spending in the bill from going to the country.

When I was growing up, recycling was probably the closest thing I had to a religion. Not in a spiritual sense, but in a daily-and-weekly-practice sort of sense. Way before it was cool, my father sorted paper into all kinds of different textures and levels of recyclability (my first word might as well have been “corrugated”).

These are today’s top stories, delivered straight to your inbox. Catch up here on all the news. Blanche Confirmation Hearing Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told senators at his confirmation hearing today that he and his team are “restoring trust” in the Justice Department.

For half a century, American foreign policy operated under an informal rule: politics was supposed to stop at the water’s edge. Democrats and Republicans fought bitterly over taxes, abortion, immigration, and guns, but support for a handful of allies and security commitments was expected to rise above partisan warfare. Few issues symbolized that bipartisan consensus more than Israel.

These are today’s top stories, delivered straight to your inbox. Catch up here on all the news. ICE to Pause Traffic-Stop Arrests ICE has told its officers to stop attempting arrests during most traffic stops, according to multiple media reports, after its agents fatally shot two immigrants in the span of a week. The Trump administration has not confirmed the directive.

I have watched American education from nearly every seat in the house. The daughter of a public school teacher, I became a public school teacher myself. Later I advanced to teach in university classrooms and served as a PTA officer at my children’s school. From each of those vantage points, I have watched a profession I love evolve into something almost unrecognizable. I am concerned about the current attacks on the US Department of Education and legal protections for diverse learners.

These are today’s top stories, delivered straight to your inbox. Catch up here on all the news.

On February 5, Joe Gebbia stood inside the White House and demonstrated a federal website that appeared easy to use. For millions of Americans, that alone qualified as a minor miracle. Gebbia, the Airbnb co-founder serving as the nation’s first chief design officer, typed a drug name into TrumpRx.gov. The search bar filled it in. A clean page displayed the medication and the available discount. “It’s that simple,” he said during the rollout.

A few years ago I had an employee going through a hard time, at work and in her life. I wanted her to know I had her back, so I told her she could message me anytime she needed, day or night. “I don’t sleep much anyway,” I said proudly. Then I watched her expression slowly change to what I can only describe as disgust mixed with sadness. I immediately felt the heat rise in my face. I had expected gratitude. Instead she saw what I couldn’t: a person with no boundaries, who couldn’t stop. She was right.