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.

Just days after a former Proud Boy from Miami was sentenced to a year in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to pardon people involved in the attack meant to overturn his 2020 defeat.

What is U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson waiting for? Months ago, the Louisiana Republican was handed broadly popular legislation to protect children from the harms of social media. But he vowed this week not to allow a vote in his chamber until Donald Trump is sworn in as president and a new Congress convenes. Stalling the protections is wrong and will unnecessarily prolong a dangerous digital environment for America’s youth.

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in private and public university admissions. Now a federal district court has upheld essentially the same practice as used by the U.S. Naval Academy. Although that might seem inconsistent, it isn’t. The Supreme Court specifically exempted the military academies from its ruling, and the district court, following precedent, deferred to Congress and the president in the context of military personnel decisions.

The cold-blooded killing of Brian Thompson allegedly at the hands of Luigi Mangione is being spun by way too many people as some sort of courageous blow against corporate greed by a handsome folk hero whose shirtless picture has gone viral online.

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to carry out mass deportations. Can it happen?

The CDC is advertising on TV the benefits of vaccines for folks over age 65, but those people have a choice, babies don’t and rely on parents and pediatricians and the government to protect them, which is a huge reason that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s unqualified nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, must not get the job.

Many people are wondering: how is it that, in 2024, voters in the United States elected a twice-impeached convicted felon with multiple indictments in other cases — who led an insurrection to overthrow the U.S. government on January 6, 2021 — to lead us again?

A federal appeals court Friday upheld a controversial law banning the U.S. operations of TikTok — the massively popular video-based social networking app owned by Chinese company ByteDance — unless it finds a U.S. buyer. That gives the company just six weeks to keep fighting before the ax falls. We have our issues with TikTok, but we won’t be cheering that outcome.

The key for independents to gain a voice in American politics over and above influencing a race between a Democrat and a Republican is to find a way to be a player in Washington without creating a war with either of the two major parties, which are basically at war with each other.

Democrats have long promoted a culture of cradle-to-grave government dependency under the guise of compassion. Now they fear that Donald Trump may have other ideas. Let’s hope so.

For all their moral superiority, it turns out Democrats are every bit as willing to sacrifice democracy to their personal interests as are Republicans.

It’s been a hard, hard 18 months. Mom got sick and died. The election was crazy. Job security diminished.

This year’s electoral rhetoric exposed the deep fissures in our body politic, leaving many feeling disillusioned and even fractured. In this moment of potential discord, people of faith have a profound opportunity to model a different path forward — one anchored in the timeless principles of civility, justice and a fierce commitment to our nation’s highest ideals.

The plans for the Department of Government Efficiency laid out by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are so riddled with legal problems that a law professor in exam season could save a lot of time by using their recent WSJ op-ed as the fact pattern: All you’d have to do would be to ask students to identify the constitutional flaws.