Over last weekend, the United States suffered the second- and third-largest bank failures in the country’s history. This wasn’t supposed to happen. A slew of protections were put in place after the financial crisis 15 years ago to prevent a repeat of big banks collapsing and nearly taking do…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine did not catch the West’s intelligence agencies unaware. But no one in Washington or Europe anticipated the scale at which they would need to provide Kyiv with arms and munitions. That’s an increasing challenge for NATO and other countries rightly determined to pr…

He seems to have abandoned “Jim Crow 2.0,” but that was the extent of the nuance in President Biden’s political remarks Sunday [March 5] in Selma, Ala. He was there to commemorate the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the 1965 brutality against a civil-rights march at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.…

Housing prices are falling after surging 40 percent during the pandemic. This should help buyers frozen out of the market by rising mortgage rates. So why is the Biden Administration seeking to support prices by increasing the government housing subsidy?

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker aptly condemned Republican attacks recently on schools, libraries and learning itself as an attack on American values. “It’s an ideological battle by the right wing, hiding behind a claim that they would protect our children,” the Democratic governor said during h…

The U.S. Supreme Court is the pinnacle of the American judicial system, so one might assume that justices on the highest court in the land would be held to the highest possible ethical standards. In fact, they are exempt from a code of conduct that applies to other federal judges, though Chi…

Vladimir Putin has thrown 97 percent of his army into Ukraine, U.K. officials said last week, and the Russian dictator is betting he can grind down the West’s will to resist. So it’s good news NATO members are rethinking their current defense commitments.

When President Biden gave the order Sunday for a fighter jet to shoot down an unidentified aerial object over Lake Huron, aides said he did so out of an abundance of caution and on the recommendation of military commanders, amid concern it was floating at altitudes that might jeopardize civi…

Editor’s note: The following is reprinted with permission from the Saline Courier.

Imagine if the Republican Party rigged its presidential nominating calendar to help Donald Trump slide past states where he’s politically weak. Would that go down easily with the GOP or the press corps? That’s essentially what Democrats are doing to help President Biden – to little protest o…

Last February, Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, abruptly decided to block a nomination for a federal judgeship, though Mr. Johnson actually recommended the nominee just eight months before.

Bravo to the Biden Administration, which on Thursday [Jan. 26] extended temporary safe haven status for another two years to Hong Kong citizens currently in the U.S. The decision will protect thousands of residents of the once autonomous city where dissent and support for democracy have been…

It will be up to the two special counsels to investigate and weigh the handling of secret documents by President Biden and former President Donald Trump. But the current questions should not obscure an enormous problem that has been festering for decades and threatens national security, demo…

As the Catholic Church contemplates its future direction, it would be a mistake to view (Pope Benedict XVI’s) death at the age of 95 as anything other than a significant moment. Though the notion of “two popes” worked better as the title of a film than as a true description of Vatican realit…

The Biden Administration’s rule by regulation is gaining speed, and the latest example is the Federal Trade Commission’s plan to ban non-compete employment agreements. In a flash, Lina Khan’s bureaucracy will rewrite labor contracts for 30 million workers.

The person who deserves a standing ovation after the House speaker chaos is clerk Cheryl Johnson. She has been the calm presence at the front of the House chamber, keeping order with a gavel, a poker face and a lot of dignity. Without a speaker in place, she was temporarily in charge.

Abraham Hamadeh, the Republican nominee for attorney general in Arizona, repeatedly promised to pursue criminal charges against “those who worked to rob President Trump in the rigged 2020 election.” The 31-year-old built his campaign around baseless allegations of election malfeasance and po…

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s highly choreographed visit to Washington was a significant international moment. Not long ago, Mr. Zelenskyy had been adamant that his place was always on the frontline with his people. This week, however, he made a lightning trip in person, via Poland, to Was…

The House of Representatives spent last Friday passing the $1.65 trillion omnibus spending blowout, and the bill is loaded with earmarks and pet priorities from health care to public lands that few Members have bothered to read. This is no way to run a government, and compounding the embarra…

In 2020, President Donald Trump and Melania Trump paid no federal income taxes by claiming millions in dubious deductions and carrying over losses from previous years.

The 23 targets in the Cop15 biodiversity agreement announced in Montreal recently are insufficient to prevent further irrecoverable losses, including among the many species threatened with extinction. The deal is not legally binding, leading to concerns about the prospects for implementation…

The House Jan. 6 committee decided Monday that the best way to cap its 18 months of work would be a political gesture. It thus referred President Trump to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution for his efforts to reverse the 2020 election, which culminated in the Capitol riot.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky recently pleaded with Congress for more money for COVID. How about asking the Teamsters to share some of their $36 billion pension bailout that President Biden announced earlier this month?

With Republicans poised to take over the House next year, a divided Congress looms. The result could be two years of partisan strife and gridlock. But between the GOP investigations and other legislative fireworks to come, there might be room to get a few things done – if lawmakers are willi…

Finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is the Holy Grail of medical research. The incurable malady is – along with other dementias – the leading cause of death in the U.K. Until now, no therapy had emerged that could even slow its lethal brain shrinkage, le…

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said that if he becomes the next speaker, members of the House of Representatives will take turns reciting the Constitution in its entirety on Jan. 3, the first day of the new session. It’s a stunt apparently calculated to promote GOP members as the true const…

A looming national rail strike was narrowly averted, after the Senate voted 80-15 to impose a bargaining agreement on intransigent unions. Brokered by the Biden administration, the deal includes an extra paid day off, along with a 24 percent pay raise through 2024. Eight of the 12 rail union…

Once again, the Supreme Court is finding its ethics under scrutiny. Last week, Justice Clarence Thomas declined to recuse himself in a case involving the plot to overturn Arizona’s 2020 presidential vote, despite his wife’s efforts to pressure state lawmakers to set aside Joe Biden’s victory…

The Cop process often seems to encapsulate the broader global reaction to climate breakdown. Leaders make grand but vague pledges of action; fossil fuel lobbyists (600 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, this year) schmooze and press governments into maintaining the status quo; and scientists, civil …

Don’t misunderstand what Donald Trump means when he says he’s running for president again, as he did last Tuesday evening.

Things aren’t going well for President Biden’s student loan cancellation. On Monday the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals enjoined the $400 billion write-off, its second legal defeat in days. This is what happens when the President subverts the law for election politics.

The Labor Department reported Friday that the economy created 261,000 new jobs in October, which beat Wall Street’s expectations. Upward revisions for September added to the evidence that the job market is holding up despite rising interest rates.

This year’s midterms are not shaping up to be normal elections. In an environment in which one party is gripped by skepticism and denialism about foundational democratic processes, new avenues are opening for voter intimidation and election interference – a stress test that could be a small …

No matter what happens in the upcoming midterm elections, Congress should act before the end of this year to safeguard the nation from any more Trump-style attempts to overthrow the will of the voters.

Is the COVID-19 pandemic over? President Biden’s answer is yes no yes no. The latest example of politically convenient pandemic schizophrenia came Thursday when the Department of Health and Human Services again extended the official public-health emergency, this time through January.

Oil prices rose Monday on news that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies may agree to cut production. The Saudis and Russia are underscoring the folly of President Biden’s limits on oil and gas production, and his non-emergency release of oil from the n…

A new Illinois law allows high schools to teach media literacy to students in all subjects. In case skeptics are tempted to portray this as some kind of underground conspiracy to indoctrinate kids, it’s exactly the opposite. There’s no agenda here other than to arm young people with better t…

We’re nearing the time of the year when drivers should exercise even more caution when they see a “deer crossing” sign.

Fights about free speech can feel rhetorical until they are not. Here’s what censorship looks like in practice: A student newspaper and journalism program in Nebraska shuttered for writing about pride month. The state of Oklahoma seeking to revoke the teaching certificate of an English teach…

Border Patrol agents are stopping unauthorized migrants coming from Mexico at record levels. Little wonder more than half of Americans now say an “invasion” is underway at the southern border, according to a recent NPR/Ipsos poll.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham said that if the Justice Department prosecutes former president Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, there will be “riots in the street.” A few minutes later, he said it again. There is no excuse for this irresponsible rhetoric, which not only invites v…

The Health and Human Services Department recently made news with a report touting that “National Uninsured Rate Reaches All-Time Low in Early 2022.” Sounds encouraging, but look beneath the covers and what you find is a quiet but enormous shift from private to government-subsidized coverage.

Donald Trump now has the Senate nominees he wanted to win Republican primaries. We’ll soon learn if they can win in November, or if candidates with little experience and a focus on Mr. Trump’s 2020 grievances will cost the party majority control for another two years.

The first images from NASA’s James Webb telescope offer wondrous glimpses into stars and planets billions of light years away: in what is truly a space opera, the telescope shows them being born and dying, and cosmic material being sucked into black holes.

A political dispute inside the National Association of Attorneys General is revealing some unsavory practices that deserve more public exposure. One question is whether Republican AGs are willing to walk away if the group won’t shape up.

Donald Trump’s whisperers are saying he may soon announce his plans to run for President in 2024, and Democrats are keeping their fingers crossed that he does. Since his surprising victory in 2016, Mr. Trump has been the main cause of Democratic electoral success.

‘Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” President Donald Trump tweeted in December of 2020. “Be there, will be wild!” His supporters listened.

In the 21st century, our phones might know we are pregnant before the people closest to us do – a reality that, with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, has become more dangerous than ever.

Fifteen Republicans in the Senate and 14 in the House joined with congressional Democrats last week to break more than 25 years of inaction on gun safety. That these Republicans, many of whom had ratings of A or A-plus from the National Rifle Association, defied the gun lobby with their supp…