Pope Francis has died, but the transformative impact of his papacy—marked by structural reforms that some view as a return to the Church's roots, and others as a further departure from them—will endure as his lasting legacy.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was a man of many firsts. When the white smoke arose from the Sistine Chapel more than a decade ago, he became the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first to be a member of the Jesuit Order.

 Three days after white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel in March 2013, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires greeted the international press inside a cavernous Vatican audience hall. As he rose from a richly upholstered armchair, a pair of well-worn black shoes peeked out from underneath his new papal robes.

The decision by Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, to reject the lavish red slippers of his office was widely interpreted as a small act of rebellion in the tradition-bound Vatican.

President Trump and Harvard University are at daggers drawn, and the battle promises to play out on the national stage for some time. Trump wants Harvard to change its ways, not only when it comes to the lax handling of disruptive demonstrations and antisemitic harassment, but also in the matter of the university’s pervasive leftist bias. Harvard, which seemed at least tentatively open to changes in its disciplinary practices, has drawn the line at the Trump administration’s insistence on monitoring and redressing its ideological imbalance.

President Donald Trump has adopted a significantly more pragmatic approach to negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme than was the case in his first term.

Donald Trump has been back in office for less than three months, and already the immigration landscape has shifted dramatically. According to a March report from the New York Post, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested more than 113,000 immigrants and deported over 100,000 since 20 January — nearly 1,430 per day. The message is simple: leave now, or face removal with jail time.

The left flank of the Democratic Party is back on its Resistance footing against President Donald Trump less than 100 days into his second term.

Sen. Cory Booker‘s (D-NJ) marathon anti-Trump speechmaking, the Democratic pilgrimages to a Salvadoran prison, and the return of large-scale anti-Trump demonstrations all illustrate the trend.

In a colorful commentary for the Los Angeles Times, Matt K. Lewis argued that callousness is a central feature of the second Trump administration, particularly its policies of deportation and bureaucratic cutbacks. “Once you normalize cruelty,” Lewis concluded in the piece, “the hammer eventually swings for everyone. Even the ones who thought they were swinging it.”

Sen. John Cornyn is readying plans to blanket Texas with advertising detailing Ken Paxton’s scandal-ridden tenure as state attorney general, a bid to revive his flagging reelection prospects that will test whether personal and legal improprieties still matter to Republican primary voters.

Educators, researchers and employees at the Department of Education say that the Trump administration’s slashing of federal bureaucracies and workforces has significantly weakened special education enforcement and killed programs meant to help students with disabilities.

Medicaid reform doesn’t mean abandoning the disadvantaged.

Medicaid costs taxpayers nearly $900 billion a year. That figure is on track to exceed $1 trillion by the end of this decade.

The entitlement is growing faster than the economy. That kind of growth is unsustainable -- and risks shredding the safety net for those who need it most.

Republicans are confronting that mathematical reality as they hunt for savings in a program that now provides health coverage to nearly 80 million people.