The “Harry Potter” books famously feature a sorting hat, a magical way of determining in which house Hogwarts students truly belong: Gryffindor? Slytherin?

Donald Trump and his allies have responded with a variety of objections to his federal indictment, brought in June 2023 by special counsel Jack Smith. The federal charges – the first against a former president – listed 37 counts of obstruction of justice and wrongful retention of classified documents after Trump left office in January 2021.

President Joe Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine has generated heated opposition from close U.S. allies, human-rights groups, and current and former politicians, who question the morality of deploying weapons banned by more than 100 countries. Greater use of cluster bombs may well increase the death toll for both combatants and civilians. Failing to supply Ukraine with the arms it needs to prevail would be worse.

Trump Derangement Syndrome continues to strike many on the left, leaving them unable to resist going to ridiculous lengths to bring down the former president. Consider the quixotic quest in Nevada by two so-called “civil rights” groups.

On Thursday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a drugmaker’s application for the first daily over-the-counter birth control pill for people seeking to prevent pregnancy.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg launched his latest social media platform, Threads, one day after a federal judge in Louisiana ruled the Biden administration likely colluded with Facebook and other such sites to censor unfavorable views during the pandemic.

When OceanGate, the deep-sea exploration enterprise, created a promotional video for its ill-fated US$250,000-per-head trip to see the wreck of the Titanic, it told prospective passengers to “Get ready for what Jules Verne could only imagine – a 12,500-foot journey to the bottom of the sea.” Those behind the video hoped viewers would recognize the allusion to the author of one of the most influential and widely read oceanic novels of all time, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”

Sweden has figured out a way to produce reliable energy without fossil fuels. It’s looking to build new nuclear power plants.

Refugees bring very little across borders, but they cling to their stories. These days they mostly want to talk about the weather.

In his July 4 ruling blocking the Biden administration from communicating with social media companies on issues of content, Louisiana Federal Judge Terry Doughty quickly showed himself to be a deeply unserious jurist, writing that the case “arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” He apparently slept through high school history classes on the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jim Crow and McCarthyism.

Was June National Espionage Act month or what? We marked the deaths of Moscow-run spy and former FBI agent Robert Hanssen and Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, and the 10-year anniversary of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s defection to Russia.

We commend Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. His recent choice to appear in a new ad for Bud Light could not have been an easy decision.

The “nation’s doctor” is on a campaign to combat what he calls an epidemic of loneliness and isolation taking its toll on roughly half the people in the United States. His call to action to “mend the social fabric of our nation” deserves broad support, from government, professionals and institutions — and from each of us.

The Supreme Court just acted to get rid of decades-long practices at colleges and universities that have been an illegal, unconstitutional, unprincipled means of discriminating against qualified applicants wanting entry as students. Some instead granted admission in accordance with skin color, which happened in this case to be black, the exact opposite of white preferences that have assaulted human decency for so, so long in this country.

The Biden administration announced on July 7, 2023, that it would send cluster bombs to Ukraine – a deeply controversial move given the munition is prohibited by more than 120 countries because of risks to civilian populations.

As President Joe Biden finds himself struggling with approval ratings that remain stubbornly resistant even to good economic news, Washington’s chattering classes have begun to resurrect a question that was prominent in 2020: Could former President Barack Obama be the magical healer Democrats need to reinvigorate disenchanted Democrats?

It’s not surprising but still deeply disappointing that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against the Biden administration’s plan to provide more than $400 billion in student loan forgiveness. Compounding the injustice is the fact that a divided Congress is unlikely to fill the vacuum left by the decision with remedial legislation. But advocates for debt relief should continue to press their case, not just at the Capitol but in next year’s elections.