Only the most partisan person would begrudge prayers for the president of the United States, but a recent visit by President Trump to the mega McLean Bible Church in Virginia has rubbed some congregants the wrong way. The White House informed the church with only a few minutes notice that the president would be coming […]

A tiny French mountain village with a long name, L’Hospitalet-pres-l’Andorre, has lost half its population over three decades, according to the French newspaper Le Monde. Its name in English would be “The Hospital Near Andorra.” (Andorra is a small principality shoehorned between France and Spain.) The village can tick off the losses. First the customs […]

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” — John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech, Jan. 20, 1961 WASHINGTON — Watching the Democrats’ presidential campaigns, it’s hard not to be struck by the huge gap that has opened up between Kennedy’s […]

The most bracing pieces are sometimes the least defensible. So it is with Sohrab Ahmari’s fusillade in the religious journal First Things against my National Review colleague David French that has occasioned a cataract of conservative commentary. Ahmari’s piece is part of the “post-liberal” ferment among a coterie of mostly Catholic writers on the right. […]

It’s a story that will lacerate your heart. Indeed, you’ll watch “When They See Us,” director Ava DuVernay’s new Netflix miniseries, in appalled disbelief and open-mouthed horror. That may sound like a warning. It’s actually a recommendation. DuVernay tells the story of the so-called Central Park 5, four of them black, one Hispanic, who were […]

Observances of the 75th anniversary of D-Day have properly focused on the troops and the architect of Operation Overlord, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who freed Europe from Hitler and his Nazi hordes. One person — a woman — has not received the credit she deserves for her efforts with the French Resistance. Without her daring […]

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are pushing back on President Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on Mexico. But if Mexican officials think these Republicans are going to save them from Trump’s tariffs, it’s time for them to think again. So far, congressional Republicans have managed to remain bystanders in Trump’s trade wars. If anything, they thought […]

Here is a stat that should trouble all of us: Children who don’t read at third-grade level by the third grade are four times more likely not to graduate by age 19. And here is something any caring adult can do about it, one kid at a time: Volunteer to be a “reading friend” in […]

No one would ever mistake the Androscoggin Bank Colisee for the Great Mosque in Mecca. But for a few hours on the morning of June 4, the day Muslims around the world celebrated Eid al-Fitr (the Festival of Breaking the Fast), the Colisee was, literally, transformed into a mosque. The building where Muhammad Ali defeated […]

NEW YORK — Whatever the ultimate outcome of Donald Trump’s conflict with Mexico, one consequence is already clear. He has undermined one of the most impressive American foreign policy achievements of the past three decades. Mexico used to be a reflexively anti-American country, radical and resentful toward its powerful neighbor to the north. But starting […]