The notion of a Nobel Peace Prize for President Donald Trump is a peculiar one, but only the most petty, hyperpartisan soul could wish for him to fail at the meeting currently scheduled for Jun 12 in Singapore. A lot is at stake.

Events are moving quickly, but at this writing both the meeting itself and its chances for a successful outcome ...Read more

Eighty-five percent of adults in the U.S. who do not play a musical instrument wish they had learned to play one, according to a 2009 Gallup Poll; 69 percent would like to play one now. Nearly all believe musical skills can be learned at any age. Yet a 2012 National Endowment for the Arts survey found that just 12 percent of U.S. adults were ...Read more

It is popular in some circles these days to refer to Fox News as state-run TV. That's because of the channel's steadfast support of President Donald Trump and the special Twitter-buddy relationship he has with some hosts like the morning crew of "Fox & Friends" or the bellicose Sean Hannity, who holds down the 9 p.m. hour on the conservative ...Read more

The knee-jerk reaction in the White House and Israel to the recent violence in Gaza is to blame Hamas and be done with it. The radical Hamas organization that controls Gaza drove thousands of Palestinians toward the fence, so the argument goes, and it is wholly to blame for the 62 killed by Israeli snipers, the bulk of them Hamas members.

But ...Read more

BUZZZZ!!! BLARG-BLARGGG!!! The infernal racket started just after 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, shooting strange vibrations like a throbbing pain into the gluteus maximus of the boys and girls in their skintight pants, exploding from the purses of the wafer-thin "social x-rays" in their puffy dresses and the "lemon tarts" pouring tea on Park ...Read more

Speaking ill of the deceased is frowned upon, particularly in the California state capital, when the subject is a former governor who held forth in Sacramento for many years and who supposedly reminded people of good old days when politicians drank together and worked together. Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, sorry, I'm not in the Capitol clique. The ...Read more

Fact: I'm Team Meghan Markle. She's talented and speaks her mind. She's a brilliant actress, feminist and philanthropist.

And we have a lot in common. She's mixed like me, we're both divorced and have crazy families. I want to see her win in her marriage to Britain's Prince Harry.

But one thing Meghan is not: a beacon of hope for black women. ...Read more

Unemployment is at a record low. The U.S. economy has logged nine straight years of slow-but-steady growth. Yet somehow, 40 million Americans need help from the government just to put food on the table. Although that figure is down from its post-recession peak of 47.6 million in 2013, it's still far above where it was in 2007, when only 26 ...Read more

Connecticut will likely legalize sports betting now that the U.S. Supreme Court has opened that door by repealing the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. This state desperately needs the money it could reap from getting in on that action. And sports betting is everywhere, as anyone who has wagered on the Kentucky Derby or filled out ...Read more

It's shouting into the head winds of romantic swoonery, but Saturday's wedding will not create "Princess Meghan."

Quaint and odd they may be, but the rules of the royal road are both clear and strict, and neither tabloids nor TV will change them. In the House of Windsor, "princesses" are born, not made -- not even by marriage.

No members of ...Read more

President Donald Trump craved -- but didn't win -- an Emmy for his TV show. But we've all heard that he may be in line for a more coveted award: the Nobel Peace Prize.

Last week, that seemed like a possibility. This week, we're less certain.

For one thing, Trump's highly anticipated summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un may or may not ...Read more

This is the undocumented immigrant our nation should welcome: the Lawrence chemist whom immigration officials attempted to deport this year, much to the dismay of his family, neighbors and even strangers who came to know the story of Syed Jamal.

This immigrant's presence should be questioned: a man who was deported multiple times and who kept ...Read more

When did it become sexist for a man to ask a woman to do something she did not want to do, or for a man to refuse to do something a woman wanted him to do?

No, don't bother to answer; it was a rhetorical question. Clearly, it became sexist when Donald Trump was elected to office, because on that day the clouds rained locusts down upon the fair ...Read more

Thursday marked the one-year anniversary of the appointment of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. The milestone has emboldened White House critics of the probe to declare, as Vice President Mike Pence did on NBC News, that "it is time to wrap it up."

Never mind that the Mueller investigation is, comparatively, in its infancy. The Whitewater...Read more

Although he was a Depression-era son of the South, Tom Wolfe was a consummate New Yorker. He lived there his entire adult life, and could often be seen walking on the Upper East Side in ice cream suits, an occasional gilt-tipped walking cane glinting in the sun. He was the city's most recognizable flaneur.

Wolfe, who died this week at 88, was ...Read more

Pity the poor woman who marries into the British royal family.

In exchange for a life of material wealth and privilege, she must give up her own successful career, she must never express her political opinion in public, she must always look like she stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine, and she must live with the knowledge that the ...Read more

Good heavens, hide the china!

A clamorous clutch of dreadfully gauche Yanks has been making a mockery of the royal wedding, set to occur on Saturday in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

Can the aristocracy survive?

That's hard to tell, judging from the class-based ruckus churning around Meghan Markle, the American actress (Rachel Zane on Suits) ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Did you know that last fall at least 145.5 million Americans' Social Security numbers were stolen in a data breach at Equifax? Worse, this was just one in a series of recent breaches -- don't forget Anthem and the Office of Personnel Management, just to name others.

In this technological age, folks are at greater risk when it ...Read more

Republicans are expected to vote this week on a farm bill that once again takes aim at the infamous "welfare queen." The problem is that she does not exist.

Though no one has used the term outright in the current debate, this elusive scammer has been at the core of entitlement reform since Ronald Reagan conjured her up in 1976.

Conservatives ...Read more