Michael Hiltzik

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, shown in 2017, was slapped down by a federal magistrate over loan forgiveness for students defrauded by for-profit colleges.

A federal court gives defrauded Corinthian College students a victory over Betsy DeVos

May 23, 2019 at 8:40 p.m.

A federal magistrate has blocked the U.S. Department of Education from paring back a loan relief program for defrauded students at the failed Corinthian Colleges chain, finding that the agency...

A mother comforts a sick child in a Chicago hospital room. Will a government healthcare program be there to help?

Just three months after Congress gave children’s healthcare a 10-year lifeline, Trump proposes cutting budget in half

May 23, 2019 at 8:40 p.m.

Those of us with long memories — defined in this turbocharged world as memories that date back more than 90 days — will recall that one of the biggest cliffhangers...

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI),seen here in 2016, pushed to cut back government anti-poverty programs based on the false idea that they don't work.

New evidence shows that our anti-poverty programs, especially Social Security, work well

May 23, 2019 at 8:40 p.m.

Few U.S. government efforts are consistently more vilified than anti-poverty programs. They're dismissed as ineffective and ridiculed as giveaways to undeserving recipients. A new paper puts the lie to these...

Snap Inc. again shows why it should not have become a public company

May 23, 2019 at 8:40 p.m.

The most important question not posed to Evan Spiegel, the co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc., by Wall Street analysts during the company's conference call Tuesday, after its first-quarter earnings...

Guns, like these on sale in a sporting goods store in March, are finally getting a once-over from scientists.

Kaiser Permanente will start filling the vacuum in gun research with a $2-million study program

May 23, 2019 at 8:39 p.m.

The vacuum in gun violence research in America is slowly being filled by independent organizations. The latest to accept the responsibility for studying one of our most pressing public health...

Touting Facebook’s ‘idealism,’ Zuckerberg displays the smooth evasions of a tobacco executive

August 22, 2019 at 8:29 a.m.

No one should be surprised that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg passed the test placed before him by the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees on Tuesday. It was an easy test,...

A Remington 700 hunting rifle and a Remington 1100 shotgun are displayed for sale at a North Carolina gun shop. Their manufacturer filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday.

Is the Sandy Hook massacre the real reason behind the gunmaker’s bankruptcy?

May 23, 2019 at 8:39 p.m.

Remington Outdoor Co., the owner of the century-old Remington gun company and other firearms manufacturers, made crystal clear that financial strains were behind its bankruptcy filing Monday. The company said...

Happier times: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes (right) chats with Maria Shriver of NBC during a Vanity Fair magazine event in 2015.

The SEC lowers the boom on Theranos — but there are more companies like Theranos out there

August 22, 2019 at 8:09 a.m.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday wrote what may be the final chapter in the book of Theranos. That’s the Silicon Valley darling that claimed to have developed a...

Not so much a drug company as a financial engineering company, Pfizer is bailing out of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's research.

Pfizer, pocketing a big tax cut from Trump, will end investment in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s research

August 19, 2019 at 8:51 a.m.

With every passing day, it becomes clearer who’s reaping the benefit of the huge tax cut handed over to American corporations by the Republican-dominated Congress in December. Spoiler alert: Not...

CFPB acting Director Mick Mulvaney seems to think his job includes taking potshots at Elizabeth Warren

May 23, 2019 at 8:39 p.m.

“I am the acting director of the CFPB,” Mick Mulvaney told a group of bankers Tuesday, “something that’s apparently keeping Elizabeth Warren up late at night, which doesn’t bother me...

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