In business, use of the "best practices" concept -- managing based on trial and error and by seeing what's worked well for others -- is the biggest bellwether for success. It's an approach that law enforcement latched onto more than most other aspects of government, exemplified decades ago by widespread adoption of the "broken windows" policing ...Read more

Women should be informed of all their options when they seek reproductive health care, including their ability to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

But a new proposal from President Donald Trump's administration would threaten this basic flow of information, while simultaneously cutting off money for clinics to provide vital preventive health ...Read more

In 1969, after having already been held hostage for four years, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy faced a lonely choice in a North Vietnamese prison camp: how to prevent his captors from using him in a propaganda piece. James Stockdale chose to smash his own face in with a stool rather than give "aid and comfort" to the enemy.

In ...Read more

In announcing a new effort to limit access to federal family planning dollars, the White House said its proposed rule would fulfill President Donald Trump's promise "to continue to improve women's health." That's laughable.

The proposal outlined Friday would deny federal Title X family planning funds to organizations that provide abortions -- ...Read more

A divided Supreme Court undercut American workers on Monday, ruling that employers can bar employees from bringing class-action lawsuits over wage and workplace disputes. The court held in Epic Systems Corp. vs. Lewis that the right to collective actions guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act does not bar employers from requiring ...Read more

It was wonderful to see the way Meghan Markle infused her African-American heritage into her wedding with Prince Harry.

The new Duchess of Sussex gave the world a taste of two distinctly different cultures -- that of a black girl raised by a single mother in Los Angeles and a royal whose family traditions in England go back a thousand years -- ...Read more

A half-century after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Kansas City is poised to belatedly but appropriately honor the civil rights activist.

Whether it was simply an oversight, the result of indifference or a sign of outright bigotry, the lack of a proper public marker here has gone unaddressed for far too long.

On Sunday, an ...Read more

Women reporting a rape are often encouraged to undergo a grueling and invasive examination to collect DNA and other physical evidence. The process can take several hours, and involves poking and prodding and swabbing and questioning as medical professionals take samples from the parts of the victim's body that the rapist touched during the ...Read more

With the Pennsylvania primaries behind us, voters should take a hard look at what congressional candidates on the ballot in November are going to do to fix our expensive health-care system. Its fate will be on the line in the general election.

The debate over the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, became a wake-up call for both ...Read more

The latest example of runaway drug pricing has pitted the industrial town of Rockford, Ill., against specialty drug manufacturer Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, which runs its U.S. business from Hazelwood. Rockford, with fewer than 150,000 residents, accuses Mallinckrodt of price gouging and another local company, Express Scripts, of failing to ...Read more

Here we are again, in the wake of yet another mass shooting, this one in deep red Texas at Santa Fe High School. Ten people, most of whom were students, were killed by another student.

Here we are again, in the wake of yet another mass shooting, debating gun control and the role of the Second Amendment in 21st century America in the only ...Read more

Amid all the confusion in the Missouri Legislature about the right-to-work issue, one key fact must not be forgotten: Right to work has less to do with workers' freedom not to pay union dues, or creating jobs, than it does with suppressing Democratic votes. That fact, borne out in recent academic research, provides context for several recent ...Read more

Elect a Congress dominated by Republicans, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Both houses will work together then to enact a broad GOP legislative agenda, so a Republican president can sign them into law. And voters will see how effectively a unified government in Washington can work, they said.

So voters bought that. Even at the state level, ...Read more

I was supposed to talk to Kim Hoxworth at 2:30 p.m., but the sound of the ringing phone triggered a seizure.

Kim is a friend of mine. She has a condition called PNES (psychogenic nonepileptic seizures), and for the past two years, she's had seizures every day. They're not like epileptic seizures; most of the time, Kim stays conscious. But she ...Read more

My wife and I are just fancy enough people that we tend to stay in hotels that provide free hot breakfast buffets. You know -- lobby waffles, chafing dishes with eggs and meat, juice machines, mini-muffins, dubious fruit.

Really fancy places have table-service breakfasts and unfancy places set out danish and coffee by the front desk, and ...Read more

A few months before his hospitalization with an aggressive tumor, Mr. B was the picture of health, enjoying semi-retirement after an accomplished career. He would have accepted any treatment if it could have provided meaningful time with his family. I would have done anything to help him.

Unfortunately, right-to-try legislation, which President...Read more

Until a few weeks ago, "Queen of the Hill" meant little to anyone. But today, this little-known House rule may be Congress' best shot at improving our border security and resolving issues with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

President Trump called on Congress to pass a permanent legislative solution for DACA enrollees, who ...Read more

A congressman set off a legislative bomb in California's water wars last week.

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) inserted a rider into an Interior Department appropriations bill that would exempt from all judicial review the intensely contested Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta twin tunnels project. Passage of the rider -- it's scheduled for a House ...Read more

Counting calories is now the law of the land. This month, a long-delayed regulation came into effect requiring all food chains with 20 or more locations to list calorie information on their menus. Nutritionists fought to include the rule in the Affordable Care Act as a means of fighting obesity. But it turns out the regulation is based on weak ...Read more