The banks that are engaged in a Manhattan land grab seem to be in the business of taking our money but not in the business of giving it back.

It was only a matter of time before the erratic and unpredictable Newt Gingrich of the ’90s took center stage in the Republican presidential contest.

The public doesn’t mind misbehavior. It’s the other politicians who care.

Even one of the nation’s most prestigious universities won’t stand up to the N.C.A.A. when it comes to idiotic policies.

President Obama finally pushed back against the pro-fossil fuel, anti-regulatory crowd. Now he has to keep it up.

Storytelling was at the core of Lincoln's character, and humor an essential outlet for the president.

Now that the governor has controlled state spending, he's pushing tax reform and hoping to steal businesses and residents from neighboring blue states.

Wisconsin's Scott Walker is facing a recall after his labor and spending reforms. If he loses, public unions will flex their muscles nationwide.

Romney vs. Gingrich is a fight for the soul of the party Reagan once united.

The ACLU loses its nasty suit against former defense officials.

The U.S. economy is still barely larger than it was at the end of 2007.

The facts that Romney omits in his 1990s history lesson.

It would be just like its chief: Noisy, combative and prone to self-generated crises.A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that if Mitt Romney won the South Carolina primary, the Republican presidential race would be over and he would be the nominee. But Romney didn't win, and that means it's time to consider the unthinkable: What would life under President Gingrich be like?

The founder of the Internet Archive on his love of libraries, Web pages and pretty much all forms of information.Brewster Kahle has the gleeful air of a man who has just found something wonderful and wants to tell his friends all about it. And his friends are the 2 billion people, and counting, who are on the Internet every day.

Californians are so busy bickering about incremental change, they're ignoring the state's real problems.We are told that in California politics and government, 2012 is shaping up as a very big year. That there will be — says Gov. Jerry Brown as he channels the philosopher Thomas Hobbes — "a war of all against all." That parties and interest groups are headed to the ballot with initiatives to gore one another's oxen. That we are about to decide the big questions of taxes and budgets and schools and maybe pensions.

Just how much do we still care about the foibles of our politicians?Many years ago, when Sen. Ted Kennedy was challenging President Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination, I quit my job at a national magazine in protest of the owner's refusal to publish an article I had edited about the senator's extramarital activities. At that time, there was a general consensus among Washington journalists that one didn't do that sort of thing. ("That sort of thing" being reporting on politicians' extramarital affairs. Having the affairs was OK.)

Is the United States succeeding in Afghanistan? It depends on what you measure and whom you ask.How should we measure success in Afghanistan? It's a crucial question, but there isn't much agreement on an answer.

Most Americans, even 'values voters,' seem to have accepted that being a good spouse is not necessarily a requirement for being a good president.So it's official. No one really cares that Newt Gingrich is an egotistical, vainglorious scoundrel, at least where women are concerned. Sure, his ex-wife went on TV two days before the South Carolina primary and re-dished a bunch of dirt about their marriage, but based on Saturday's outcome, it seems GOP voters got over the whole family values thing a long time ago.

Ending the Grant Park land grab liberates the Children's Museum for a brilliant rebirth at Navy PierNearly five years ago, the influential Chicagoans and suburbanites who direct the Chicago Children's Museum disclosed plans to relocate their facility from Navy Pier to Grant Park. Many citizens saw this as an act of naked entitlement: They resolved to give children and adults of future centuries the same Grant Park open spaces that today's Chicagoans inherited and enjoy.

Obama proposes to spend more money we don't havePresident Barack Obama knows the federal government has a big spending problem, and he is not reluctant to point it out. "The American people deserve to have their leaders come together to make the tough choices necessary to live within our means, just as American families do every day in these tough economic times," the White House said in November.

Obama has the wrong remedy for dropoutsMany teenage kids regard school as the functional equivalent of prison — where they are forced to endure oppressive rules, bad food and unpleasant company. For them, Barack Obama has a message: There will be no parole.

you might not know about saltEvery winter, widespread chemical dumping leaves Chicago streets covered in sodium chloride. Here are 10 facts you don't have to take with a grain of salt:

Two years after a magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck Haiti killing hundreds of thousands, more than a half-million Haitians are still sleeping under tarps, often in camps without enough water or toilets. As another hurricane season approaches, many people are asking: What happened to the generous donations that Americans gave? Congress should make it easier to find out.

It looks as though a high-profile right-to-freeload law about to pass in the Indiana Legislature will be the focus of protests at the Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

A  New York Times story on Friday that essentially indicted and convicted a 22-year-old star football player on an alleged sexual assault charge by an anonymous accuser should have begun as follows: “We know absolutely nothing about this rumor except what six people told us anonymously about this guy who they say sexually assaulted this girl. We don’t know who she is or what she said, or really anything, but here’s HIS name and what ‘they’ say about him.” Read full article >>

DAVOS, Switzerland The organizers of the World Economic Forum were self-critical enough to organize panels this year on such dark topics as “Is Capitalism Failing?” and “Global Risks 2012: The Seeds of Dystopia.” And these were just the latest in a series of annual ruminations here on the troubles of the globalization movement the conference symbolizes. Read full article >>

The report by the D.C. Office of the Inspector General on the chief financial officer’s lottery contract award captures the amorality engulfing the District’s government. Note, I didn’t say “immorality,” which suggests a breach of moral standards. I chose “amorality,” which refers to the absence of a moral code. That applies to our government. Read full article >>

DAVOS, Switzerland It was 30 years ago that Tewfik Mishlawi confessed what might sound like a mundane ambition but which contained the sublime spark that has swept across the Middle East over the past year: He said that he wanted to create the first independent Arab news service. Read full article >>

Once upon a time, small ball was not Barack Obama’s game. Tuesday, it was the essence of his State of the Union address. The visionary of 2008 — purveyor of hope and change, healer of the earth, tamer of the rising seas — offered an hour of little things: tax-code tweaks to encourage this or that kind of behavior (manufacturing being the flavor of the day), little watchdog agencies to round up Wall Street miscreants and Chinese DVD pirates, even a presidential demand “that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.” Under penalty of what? Jail? The self-proclaimed transformer of America is now playing truant officer? Read full article >>

DUNGU, Congo Francoise, age 16, talks quietly, revealing a shy smile only after praise for her tight cornrows. While walking to school four years ago, she and some classmates were captured by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The girls were distributed to soldiers as “wives.” In the mornings, Francoise cooked. In the afternoons, she carried packs on the march. When she tried to escape, the soldiers melted a water container and poured the plastic on her shoulders. Once, when the fighters saw two infants along the path, they crushed them with a pestle. “I witnessed that,” she says. Read full article >>

On the campaign trail, Romney is recommending this alternative. A closer look at the schools' record suggests he needs to go back to school.

Raul Reyes: State lawmakers admit legal flaws, but want to retool it instead.

Chuck Raasch: A group called National Popular Vote wants to make sure the candidate who gets the most votes becomes president.

Opinion quiz: How much do you remember?

Readers on Twitter shared their thoughts about former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno.