It’s three o’clock in the morning and a piercing tone from your phone jolts you awake. Your heart pounds and your hands shake as the urgent message sinks in: A disaster is heading straight for your area, and it will hit within an hour. What should you do? Where should you go? Will your whole family — including your animal companions — make it through the emergency safely?

After more than 30 years of circular conversations and legislative wrangling, immigration advocates finally came close to a mass legalization program, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough Sunday ruled that the measures could not be included in the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill, which requires only the approval of a bare majority to pass.

Picture a 19-year-old gymnast, sitting on her bedroom floor, recounting in detail how her team doctor sexually abused her. She’s on the phone with two FBI agents, telling them about the time the doctor molested her in a hotel room in Tokyo. She begins to cry.

The battle over Democrats’ ambitious spending plan is heating up in Congress, but one piece of the outcome is already clear: The $3.5 trillion price tag is being whittled down.

While political pundits are focusing on the massive amount of money that is going to be spent on the 2022 midterm elections, money in itself won’t determine the fate of the election and, ultimately, control of both the House and Senate.

A new Treasury Department report finds that the United States is losing $163 billion per year because of tax evasion by the top 1% of earners. The story is mind-numbingly familiar: phenomenally rich people finding new and creative ways to boost their wealth even more by cheating the rest of the responsible, taxpaying public.

California’s 13 largest wildfires have occurred since the Cedar fire burned 2,820 structures and killed 15 people in San Diego County in October 2003. With the Dixie and Caldor fires front of mind now, it’s maddening to hear lip service from lawmakers and bureaucrats, and see how little has been done to take basic steps to reduce wildfire risks.

A bill passed last week by the California Legislature would ban manufacturers from putting the triangular chasing-arrows symbol, signifying that their plastic products and packaging are recyclable, on items that are not anywhere near recyclable. Although this first-in-the-nation measure didn’t receive much outside attention, the bill deserves to be imposed nationwide in order to halt the widespread and destructive use of the recyclable symbol — along with the overuse of plastics in packaging.

A new Treasury Department report finds that the United States is losing $163 billion per year because of tax evasion by the top 1% of earners. The story is mind-numbingly familiar: phenomenally rich people finding new and creative ways to boost their wealth even more by cheating the rest of the responsible, taxpaying public.

One-point-five trillion dollars is a lot of money. But by reportedly saying that’s the most he is willing to have the federal government spend on a package of social, climate and infrastructure programs, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is forcing his fellow Democrats to make choices they avoid in their $3.5 trillion plan. Some of the most difficult for them involve health care.