The proposal was the most audacious Robert Franklin had seen during his four decades in education: The Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City wanted to create the nation’s first religious, taxpayer-funded public charter school. Franklin, who chaired a state board responsible for approving new charter schools, saw the idea as patently illegal and an obvious assault on the separation of church and state. Oklahoma would be directly sponsoring — and paying for — a school that...

"We will save our beef," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared when he signed the nation's first ban on cultivated meat last May, portraying the law as part of his administration's "focus on investing in our local farmers and ranchers." Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson concurred that the governor was "standing up for Florida's farmers and consumers," saying "we must protect our incredible farmers" from "a disgraceful attempt to undermine our proud...

Our Disruptor-in-Chief has grabbed the bloated federal corpus in his teeth and given it a good hard shake for 100 days. Many Americans have welcomed this forceful reassessment. I count myself among them. My service as chief domestic policy adviser in the George W. Bush administration left me appalled at how truculently the federal blob resists reform. Bureaucratic inertia and managerial arrogance make even the most sensible improvements exhaustingly difficult. In my new book My West...

President Trump, intent on enacting an expansive agenda, has moved at a dizzying pace in the first 100 days of his term, issuing a barrage of executive actions and seeking to expand the scope of his presidential power. Underlying those efforts is a nonstop distortion of basic facts as Mr. Trump has sought to reconfigure the global economy, reshape the federal government and restrict immigration. To justify his executive actions and policies, Mr. Trump has relied on false,...

For the first 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency, billionaire and close ally Elon Musk has been central to the president's strategy and the public presentation of his administration. As head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has led the charge on cuts to federal spending, and as the owner of X, formerly Twitter, has made himself a top advocate for the administration's policies through his prolific social media activity. However, Musk's first...

President Donald Trump is no stranger to taking on the so-called fake news directly on social media. But senior officials in his second administration are increasingly adopting their boss’s robust real-time fact-checking tactics. When Politico reported last week that the White House was considering lifting sanctions on Russian energy assets as part of its talks to end the war in Ukraine, top Trump administration officials sprang into action on X....

We all love a good love story. The grand gestures, the unbridled spontaneity, and those "against all odds” moments that give relationships a dose of movie magic are everything. But, sometimes, the things we’ve been taught to swoon over—whether that be due to pop culture or more overarching societal trends—are actually pretty toxic when you stop to think about them. Recently, someone asked folks to share their own examples of behaviors that are “weirdly romanticized” but are actually major red flags once you look past the glossy surface, and honestly, it’s eye-opening. Here are some of the most surprising (and perhaps unsettling) examples they shared. One major category belonged to those tropes we see in many, many television shows, movies, and even songs…1. "Having someone who is completely obsessed with you." media1.giphy.com 2. "Enemies to lovers. It's cute in theory, but how can you be with someone when you know all the disgusting things they've said about you before your relationship?"3. "I used to love the 'asshole-to-everyone-except-you' trope until he started being an asshole to my friends. Some tropes are meant to stay fictional."4. "The 'I'm just a girl' trend and other TikTok trends that are used to deflect any accountability or responsibility as an adult human being." media4.giphy.com 5. "The idea of someone cheating on their spouse to pursue you. How is that romantic? Please be serious."6. "Pressuring someone to hurry up and put a ring on it."Two people brought differing, yet equally important views on work/love life balance. 7. "Sacrificing your professional or personal life to pursue someone."8. "Honestly, I think we conflate hard work with unhealthy boundaries between the self and career, and we romanticize working overtime, long shifts, and doing excessive tasks as a display of personal growth. We've manipulated ourselves into feeling that giving our time to pursue our work is noble. I'm saying this as a student in medicine, where hours are absolutely wild. I know I'll work my hardest, but I won't sacrifice my sense of self and my time to eke out my own passions and life just to get ahead in my career track. At least, I hope I don't lose sight of myself in the pursuit of following my dreams. It can be really hard not to notice that that's where you're headed until you've already sacrificed so much."How folks handle—or don’t handle—conflict also was a major red flag.9. "Not being confrontational. Needless confrontation is bad, but sometimes, you do need to confront someone."10. "Fighting all the time. No, it doesn't mean that your relationship is 'passionate.' It means that you're probably incompatible and shouldn't be together." media.giphy.com Finally, this category belongs to things that many people think often carry a hidden warning, even if they seem workable, even harmless, at first. 11. "I knew a girl whose boyfriend went everywhere with her. He wouldn't let her go anywhere if he weren't there, and she thought it was cute how 'possessive' he was over her. It thoroughly icked me out when she told me. Like, that is not healthy at all."12. "Being a 'free spirit.' Like, there's a gray area, but there's a time and place to be inhibited and misbehave. Not following rules in public settings because you're 'free' gets old really fast." 13. "Being the charismatic 'heavy drinker' in friend groups. Goes for men and women."14. "When people say things like, 'He's just broken,' as if it's something romantic. Having pain doesn't justify cruelty, and loving someone shouldn't mean bleeding just to make them feel whole."15. "People who brag about not being interested in reading or learning. Here in the US, there is a huge anti-curiosity or anti-intellect movement, and people will literally brag about being ignorant."16. "Being over controlling. My coworker thinks it's adorable when they say stuff like, 'My husband would kill me if I got a tattoo there!' Gross. Sorry that your husband is so fragile."17. "People who constantly post about their partner. It's not romantic, it's performative. Real love doesn't need a PR campaign."18. "'Traditional values.'" media3.giphy.com Lastly, perhaps the oldest red flag in the book…19. "The idea that playing games or being 'hard to get' in a cruel way will make their crush or interest want them more."Note the one gesture that no one mentioned as un-romantic: flowers. Just sayin'.

Ever have a moment in your life when someone told you something wise that you’ve never heard before, and it felt like time stopped? You feel so grateful to have the wisdom, but at the same time, sad because you wish you had heard it earlier and avoided some of life's unnecessary trials and tribulations.One of the primary reasons we remember some things people tell us and forget others is emotion. When we experience an emotional reaction to information, the brain perceives it as valuable and stores it in long-term memory. That’s probably why it’s easy to remember the lyrics to the songs we love. The words are combined with an emotional change created by the melody in which they are sung and the accompanying music. A Reddit user asked people on the AskReddit subforum to share the phrases they “heard only once but it stayed with you forever,” and it inspired a wonderful conversation where people shared the timeless wisdom that they will never forget. Many of the phrases revolved around healthy ways to deal with relationships, making sense of inner dialogues, and how to change, even when it feels impossible. A man after hearing great advice. via Canva/PhotosHere are 15 of the most inspiring quotes that people “heard only once,” but they have stayed with them forever.1. "You can't un-ring a bell.""My high school history teacher told us - speak carefully to others, you can't un-drive the nail, the hole will always remain. Someone may forgive you, but the damage is done, the hole will remain.""The axe forgets, but the tree remembers."2. “You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.”"I cannot tell you how many times over the last few years I have had to stop and physically tell myself, that it's not my job to make sure anyone understands anything. Helped me put down my phone a number of times and just breath.""The best thing to learn early in life is to walk away. Some ppl actually think they won the argument because I walked away. I feel like I won because I walked away."3. "Sometimes, a man on the right track gets hit by a train on the wrong one.""It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life." - Jean Luc Picard4. "Don’t confuse being needed with being valued.""Ouch to that. To add to the confusion: true friendships can arise from responding to a need, and there are people who are really nice to you when they need you. But once you hit a bump on the road and become useless, even if just for a while, reactions vary." A woman thinking about some sage advice.via Canva/Photos5. "Not everyone you lose is a loss.""This is good advice, especially for people going through a life change (e.g., growing up, moving, graduating, switching jobs, etc). A lot of people have drifted out of my life over the years, and a lot more made me sad at the time than were actually worth getting sad about. A few departures might've even been worthy of celebration, but it didn't feel that way in the moment.""As I grow older, I've realized a very important skill for my own mental health is being able to cherish and appreciate the person someone was, and even love them, while also appreciating some extra distance between our present selves."6. "Don't believe everything you think.""I needed this. Having some hang-xiety from this weekend on how I’m a total weirdo & I need to learn to stfu more. But I know the reality is I just opened up and made new friends.""Having worked with and known people with mental health struggles, I will say, 'A (depressed or mentally unwell) brain is a liar. It will tell you things that aren’t true. Keep a list of what is real and the facts that support it."7. "No matter how far down the wrong road you are... turn around.""The longer it takes you to get off the bus, the more expensive the return ticket will be.""When you realize you are in a hole, stop digging." A man after hearing great advice.via Canva/Photos8. "The way you talk to / scold your kids is the voice and tone they will learn to talk to themselves in.""Similarly, I've read, 'Your anger becomes their anxiety.' As a new mom who was raised by an angry father and struggles with anxiety, it is a perspective I'm glad I came upon early. It has redirected both how I speak to her and what I'll allow her to be exposed to.""God, I feel that. My parents were basically always angry and/or annoyed."9. "You are under no obligation to set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.""That one always makes me think of something my therapist said: 'You didn’t ask to be born. Your parents wanted a child and you have lived to fulfil their wants and needs for twenty years. You’re allowed to live for yourself now.'"10. “If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.”"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take in a different form."11. "Grief is just love with nowhere to go.""There have been a few similar phrases about grief that have stuck with me:'The culmination of love is grief, and yet we love despite the inevitable, we open our hearts to it. To grieve deeply is to have loved fully.And "But what is grief but love persevering.'Both tore me to pieces and have stuck with me as I've lost people close to me."12. "The time will pass either way.""I heard this phrase once in the context of someone who was talking about wanting to go to med school and become a doctor, but they were already in their 30s. They were saying something like, 'I really want to do it but its 7 years! If I start now, I won't become a doctor til I'm 42.' And the other person responded: 'And how old will you be in 7 years if you don't go to med school? The time will pass regardless.'"13. "Just because you lost me as a friend, doesn’t mean you gained me as an enemy. I still want to see you eat, just not at my table.""My old boss used to say, 'I wish you well and I wish you away.'"14. "In the absence of communication, the void is filled with negativity.""Lack of effective communication in a close personal relationship, a business/professional relationship, a political relationship, etc. can lead to negative assumptions about how they might feel about you, create perceptions of incompetence, or increase suspicions/distrust."15. "Don't let 'perfect' be the enemy of progress.""The version we were talking about at my work just today was 'Perfection is the enemy of getting shit done.'"

It pays to be a loser.