Solve the drone mystery: What is causing all these UFO sightings?

If you’re seeing and hearing drones or other such flying things flashing in the sky, it’s absolutely certain that you are not imagining it and you are not alone. However, what remains troublingly uncertain is what is actually going on and it’s a question that government has done a lousy job answering.

How to make the drone panic so very much worse

In 1954, a few people in the town of Bellingham, Washington, reported seeing pits and dings on their windshields — perhaps the work of vandals. Roadblocks were quickly set up. This became front-page news in nearby Seattle, prompting people to rush to check their own windshields. Thousands then reported that they, too, had mysterious dings, in an ever-widening area from Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia.

A spineless Senate abandons a qualified judge

After more than a year of twisting in the wind, it is official: Adeel Mangi, President Joe Biden’s nominee to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will not become the nation’s first Muslim federal appellate judge. This was perhaps inevitable. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, cut a deal with Republicans last month to abandon four appeals court nominees who didn’t have the votes to win in exchange for not obstructing the confirmation of about a dozen circuit court justices.

The Penny case & mental health law — Too many sick people are left on the streets and subways without care

Daniel Penny has been acquitted of the subway killing of Jordan Neely, but the New York City criminal justice and mental-health-care establishment is guilty of creating the conditions whereby a deeply disturbed man known to be in the throes of psychological crisis wound up melting down on a subway car, hurling threats at passengers. Should Penny, a Marine trained in hand-to-hand combat, really have absolved of any penalties after placing Neely in an asphyxiating chokehold, and keeping him in it even after he was debilitated? From where we sit, it feels wrong to endorse his actions and its consequences.

I’m a longtime family caregiver. It makes me a better person

Thirty-one years ago, my husband, Bruce, and I took on the role of a lifetime. I became the legal guardian, and Bruce the caregiver, for my nephew Dan Bivins, who was 7 years old at the time and born with Down syndrome. That still stands as one of the luckiest days of my life.

Irwin: The importance of holding space

When people here learn that I have spent about half my life in Illinois, the usual reaction is “I bet you do not miss the winters!” To be sure, there is a lot about winter to dread: shoveling the driveway; scraping or chipping ice off the car; wearing bulky clothing; having the hair in one’s nose freeze; skidding on foot or in a car on the ice; etc. However, there is also something magical about winter and especially about the first real snowfall of the year. Blanketed by white, everything looks clean, and, as snowflakes flutter down silently, “the world seems new,” as the Christmas carol goes.