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Columns

Does Trump need a portrait of Polk?

Donald Trump has a painting of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office, but as he tries to browbeat Denmark into coughing up Greenland, maybe he should add a portrait of a Jackson acolyte — James K. Polk. If cold-eyed American expansionism is the theme, there are fewer better representatives than ...

ICE goes into Maine as court freezes Minnesota restrictions

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Maine became the latest target of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement crackdown, while a federal appeals court on Wednesday suspended a decision that prohibited federal officers from using tear gas or pepper spray against peaceful protesters in ...

Almanac for Jan. 22, 2026

Today is Thursday, Jan. 22, the 22nd day of 2026. There are 343 days left in the year. Today in history: In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade decision, declared a nationwide constitutional right to abortion. (The court would overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, in the decision Dobbs ...

An assault on the republic

In a scene in Robert Bolt's famous play "A Man for All Seasons," about the treason trial of St. Thomas More, More argues with the attorney general of Wales about the law. The attorney general says he'd cut down all the laws in England to get to the Devil. More reminds him that the laws were ...

DOJ subpoenas Walz, others in immigration investigation

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal prosecutors served grand jury subpoenas Tuesday to Minnesota officials as part of an investigation into whether they obstructed or impeded law enforcement during a sweeping immigration operation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, a person familiar with the matter ...

Almanac for Jan. 21, 2026

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 21, the 21st day of 2026. There are 344 days left in the year. Today in history: In 2020, the U.S. reported its first known case of the 2019 novel coronavirus circulating in China, saying a Washington state resident who had returned the previous week from the ...