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

On May 14, during protests near the border fence with Gaza, Israeli military forces killed at least 60 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,000 others. No Israeli soldiers were injured or killed.

What is happening in Gaza is a humanitarian crisis. Israel and the United States are on the wrong side of history.

My parents and their extended ...Read more

May is National Bike Month, a good time to appreciate the innovations that put more sustainable transportation options on city streets.

We now have smartphone-enabled bike-sharing programs, along with "dockless" bikes and scooters that anyone can use. There is growing interest in these alternatives, especially among millennials.

But the pace ...Read more

This week marks the 16-month anniversary of Donald Trump becoming the 45th president of the United States, and nowhere has our unlikeliest commander-in-chief placed a greater stamp on America's place in the world than his dramatic -- and sometimes arbitrary and capricious, or so it seems -- shifts in foreign policy. None of these seismic changes...Read more

This time, the school shooter did not use an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to slaughter his classmates. That must be quite a relief to gun lovers.

This killer's weapons of choice were a shotgun and a .38-caliber handgun -- two of the most common firearms available. What more proof do we need, gun lovers will ask, that the problem isn't with guns ...Read more

The Missouri House has begun an unprecedented special session to decide whether to impeach a governor. No official matter could be more solemn. Lawmakers are treating the start of the process against Gov. Eric Greitens on Friday evening with the seriousness it deserves. Greitens, however, is doing his best to minimize this historic event and ...Read more

Missouri lawmakers, buckle in for a bumpy summer.

Impeaching and removing any officeholder is rightly difficult, and ousting Gov. Eric Greitens could drag on into the fall. Greitens has repeatedly said he will not go willingly. Because he's done nothing actionable, and because that's not what Navy SEALs do.

On Thursday, the New Yorker ...Read more

If Pope Francis ever visits Chicago -- it's been nearly 40 years since Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass in Grant Park -- his presence would be a major event that illuminates a small contradiction: Chicago, in one specific way, isn't the reigning pontiff's kind of town.

Chicago is a business center and global hub of the futures markets, but ...Read more

Keyless ignition is one of those welcome advances in auto design that are easy to appreciate. No more fumbling for the key, no more dropping it in a gutter, no more trying to slip it into the ignition in the dark. Just open the door, get in, and punch the button. The fob never has to leave your purse or pocket.

But the convenience carries a ...Read more

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