In June 2014, the organization known variously as “ISIS” (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), “ISIL” (… in Iraq and Levant), simply “the Islamic State,” or—from the Arabic—“Da’esh” burst dramatically onto the geopolitical scene by capturing Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, from the country’s large, U.S.-equipped national army. ISIS’s capture of Mosul, coming after […]

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  1956 Dwight Eisenhower paroled 923 foreign-born orphans. 1956 Eisenhower granted immigration parole to 31,915 Hungarians. 1959-1972 Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon paroled 621,403 Cubans. 1962-1965 Kennedy and Johnson paroled 15,000 Chinese refugees. 1975-1979 Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, in 10 separate actions, paroled 360,000 Indochinese from Vietnam, Cambodia, and […]

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  In July 2013, a jury in federal court in Austin ruled that PlastiPure and CertiChem—two small, private labs founded by a University of Texas professor—had made false and misleading statements about plastic bottles, and about Tritan, a trademarked resin used to make the bottles. Tennessee-based Eastman Chemical had spent tens of millions of dollars […]

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  For six years, TransCanada has negotiated federal and state laws, and contended with the opposition of environmental organizations and landowners, to build the Keystone XL: a 36-inch-diameter, 1,700-mile pipeline that, if completed, would transport 830,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Canadian tar-sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast. The U.S. State Department […]

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  Last March, thousands of women and other reproductive-rights supporters descended on the Texas Capitol in an attempt to block the Legislature’s passage of draconian anti-abortion laws. Despite intense opposition and a dramatic filibuster by state Senator Wendy Davis, which launched her unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2 in a special […]

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