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Hints From Heloise

Don’t pick at the produce please Dear Heloise: I frequently see fellow shoppers in the grocery store produce section who snatch and eat bits of items there — grapes, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, little peppers, and even a small apple one day. While individual instances are miniscule, this “grazing” over time can have a significant impact on inventory costs, which jacks up the prices that we all pay. Oh, by the way, it is also shoplifting ... theft ... stealing. Don’t do it. — Jim R., in Houston Jim, it’s also unsanitary. You never know how many unwashed hands ...

Lukas prize finalists spotlight Baldwin biography and a searing look at Ukraine’s war

NEW YORK (AP) — A biography of James Baldwin, a deep and personal probe into the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a revelatory history of the American West inspired by a 19th century photograph are among this year’s finalists for prizes established in honor of the late investigative journalist J. Anthony Lukas. The finalists in three categories were announced Thursday by the Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, which oversee the Lukas Prize Project. Danielle Leavitt’s “By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the ...

Balancing independence with newfound curiosity

Dear Annie: I need advice about a situation I never expected. I’m 37, single and mostly happy with my life. Then my new neighbor moved in. He’s charming and easy to talk to, and I realized I’m suddenly aware of every interaction, overthinking every glance or comment. He’s friendly and sociable, nothing overt, but I catch myself reading too much into casual gestures. I find myself planning my errands around seeing him, replaying conversations in my head, and feeling a strange mix of excitement and anxiety I haven’t felt in a long time. I’ve always been independent and ...

We have a spending problem, not a tax issue

Despite what progressives have been arguing lately, the United States does not have a tax problem. Federal revenues, even after last year’s extension of the Trump tax cuts, are running above their historical average as a share of GDP. What America has is a spending problem so large that the Congressional Budget Office’s latest 10-year outlook reads less like a fiscal forecast than a warning label. Between now and 2036, the CBO projects $94.6 trillion in federal spending against $70.2 trillion in revenue, a decadelong deficit of $24.4 trillion. Outlays reached 23.1% of GDP in 2025, ...

What will Trump say?

America is tired. Not tired of debate. Not tired of conviction. Americans can handle disagreement. What they are weary of is perpetual combat. They are weary of the temperature always being set at boiling. They are weary of economic anxiety, cultural distrust and political trench warfare that seems to reward outrage more than results. If President Donald Trump truly wants to secure not only victory but legacy, this is the moment for a different kind of speech. Not a rally speech. Not a grievance speech. Not a score-settling speech. A governing speech. He should begin with ...

Big Brother making you watch him

A poster depicting an enormous face gazed from the wall. The caption ran, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” So wrote George Orwell at the open of his dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Big Brother’s image was everywhere, on printed material and on telescreens blasting state propaganda in homes, workplaces, streets and shops. The fictional Oceania demanded devotion to Big Brother, backed by the reminder that the people were under constant surveillance. New York City has an updated version of Big Brother. Mayor Zohran Mamdani is all over street kiosk videos and, of ...