Four or five years ago, having breakfast at the counter in a popular Annapolis, Md., eatery, I struck up a casual conversation with a stranger sitting next to me. I remember it as if it happened yesterday. This father, for all the right reasons, had pushed his son to get a college degree and counseled him to borrow money to do so. The son had ...Read more

Big-time college sports is knee-deep in money. Last year, the two schools in the national title football game, Clemson and Alabama, had more than $57 million in ticket revenue. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has a 10-year contract worth $93 million.

UCLA's sponsorship deal with Under Armour will earn the university $280 million over 15 years. The ...Read more

For nearly four months, millions of Hong Kong citizens from all walks of life have taken to the streets to protest Beijing's efforts to curb their freedoms.

Last week some of the youthful heroes of Hong Kong's democracy movement came to Washington to urge Congress to support their struggle. Their arguments were convincing, and not just because ...Read more

What's to be done about the Federal Election Commission?

Commissioner Matthew S. Petersen, who joined the FEC in 2008, recently resigned. His departure further depletes the commission, which is supposed to have six members but is now down to three, all of whom are on "holdover status" because their terms expired long ago.

The FEC requires four...Read more

There are a number of possible explanations for why the president of the United States is so reluctant to let the public see his tax returns and accounting records.

Because he's a quiet, humble man, maybe he doesn't want anyone to know just how massively successful and wealthy he really is. Or perhaps he's been giving away so much money to the ...Read more

Even with the benefit of investigative journalism, we still don't know for sure what "urgent concern" motivated someone in the intelligence community to complain about an action or actions by President Donald Trump.

But the fact that the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) issued a subpoena in search of information that...Read more

When Elizabeth Warren addressed some 20,000 whooping fans in Manhattan on Monday night, she united two categories of voters that have unaccountably been pitted against each other: women and workers.

Gesturing at the former Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which was visible from Washington Square Park, where Warren spoke, she reminded the audience ...Read more

A wealthy American business owner who pays $400,000 to kill a rare black rhinoceros in Namibia and imports the animal's skin, skull and horns as a trophy. A Canadian couple who post a picture of themselves online snuggling and kissing over the corpse of a lion they've just gunned down. Walter Palmer, of Cecil the lion infamy. Uncle Joe, sitting ...Read more

After the attacks on Saudi oil fields Saturday, President Donald Trump tweeted: "There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed."

Vice President Mike Pence ...Read more

President Donald Trump's latest attempt to stick his thumb in California's eye -- the revocation of the state's treasured authority to set its own auto emissions rules -- rests on very shaky legal ground, experts say.

At the very least, the move to revoke the state's Clean Air Act waiver will lead to an intense legal battle that could delay the...Read more

President Donald Trump says he's canceling California's ability to enact tough vehicle emissions standards for several reasons, but none of them fit what Congress had in mind when it granted the state the ability to keep adopting clean-air rules in 1967.

This is just the latest example of the Trump administration abusing the discretion Congress...Read more

There was a bombshell revelation in Miami federal court on Wednesday.

A chilling new scenario reveals there may be a more sinister motive after this month's arrest of an American Airlines mechanic, accused of sabotaging the navigational system on a Miami-to-Nassau flight about to take off in July.

The initial story after the arrest of Abdul-...Read more

FRUITPORT, Mich. -- Should the school your child attends be designed to thwart a mass shooter?

"Yes," people say in this west-central Michigan village, where the tallest structure -- a yellow water tower with a smiley face -- bespeaks small town innocence.

So a new and bigger version of the local high school is being equipped with features ...Read more

Chicago police Officer Paul Escamilla liked corny jokes. He had three children, coached his son's little league team and played golf. A former supervisor called him "the guy that everybody could work with." He earned more than 120 awards in 17 years of service, most recently in Rogers Park.

Earlier this week, Escamilla died by suicide in a ...Read more

California is often identified as one of the most liberal states in the union -- perhaps the most liberal. In the session just ended, its Legislature showed its willingness to live up to that standard.

Among the measures passed in Sacramento were bills to enforce worker employment rights at "gig economy" firms such as Uber and Lyft; to require ...Read more

Donald Trump's expertise -- or at least, his own estimation of that seemingly boundless realm -- grows ever more vast. He knows more about hurricanes than the National Weather Service, more about interest rates than the Federal Reserve and more about renewable energy "than any human being on Earth."

So no one should be surprised that the ...Read more

Gaffes, gaffes, everywhere gaffes. That's what we saw last week in a weird, confusing debate of Democratic presidential candidates: misinformation, proposals that were downright embarrassing, and no, it wasn't Joe Biden taking over. It was opponents proving they were just as gifted in this regard as the stumbling champion of the polls.

Consider...Read more

Elizabeth Warren, prominent antitrust academics and even a Facebook founder have all called for an antitrust suit to break up Facebook. Now state attorneys general have announced an investigation.

But breakup advocates should be careful what they wish for because the real problems Facebook creates -- addicting people like a drug, promoting fake...Read more