With unanimous Democratic support and a dozen Republican votes, the Respect for Marriage Act passed the Senate and will soon land on President Joe Biden’s desk, virtuously affirming that the United States will protect same-sex unions. That this is happening just 26 years after the bill’s nasty twin, the Defense of Marriage Act, passed both houses by veto-proof majorities — and a Democratic president signed it into law — is a testament to the power of a movement to change minds.

Now that the Thanksgiving recess is over, the 117th Congress will reopen for business with just a few weeks before the 118th Congress will be sworn in.

As this session of Congress winds down, it’s important to note its many achievements. The current Congress passed a bipartisan infrastructure package, bipartisan anti-gun violence reform and a COVID-19 relief package, and made historic investments in climate change and health care while holding the former president accountable by exposing the truth behind the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The dismantling of CNN as the Democrats’ leading network could be on the way with layoffs and cutbacks putting the once-dominant media outlet in decline.

The student is a woman majoring in computer science at a private university in Afghanistan, but since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan last year, the main thing that she seems to be studying is the regime’s manipulation of Islam.

There comes a time when the social media-consuming public needs to step back and ask whether their continued use of a particular service might be doing more harm than good. Elon Musk’s Twitter might have reached such a turning point in the public’s eye, just as Donald Trump’s recent dinner with two well-known antisemites is causing longtime Trump supporters in the Republican Party to reach their breaking point.

Nine months into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, the damage done to the world’s 11th-largest economy is extensive. Leading Russian banks have been cut out of the global financial system, some $300 billion of central bank reserves are frozen, and hundreds of foreign companies have departed. Parts shortages have hobbled the auto industry and threaten commercial aviation. In the wake of Putin’s mobilization order, tens of thousands of young workers have fled the country. An OECD forecast released last week projects Russia’s economy will contract by 5.6% in 2023.

Presidential administrations never stay the same from beginning to end. Top personnel come and go for various reasons, and we seem to be seeing that now with the Joe Biden administration. Bloomberg News recently reported that the White House’s top economic adviser, Brian Deese, is expected to depart next year as director of the National Economic Council. There’s speculation that Cecilia Rouse, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, will leave next year as well.

As the Supreme Court faces a crisis of credibility, another blow has landed in the form of former anti-abortion evangelical leader the Rev. Rob Schenck’s allegations about the leak of a pivotal decision eight years ago.

In Colorado Springs on Saturday night, Richard Fierro, a U.S. Army vet who’d deployed three times to Iraq and once to Afghanistan, went to an LGBTQ nightclub with his wife to celebrate a friend’s birthday. There was dancing and a drag show.

It’s become a popular talking point to list all the risks of data collection, whether it be privacy and surveillance or the lack of transparency that can come with data ownership. But rather than stay bogged down in the potential risks, it’s time to consider how a lack of data collection about some individuals and communities can negatively affect their quality of life.

With the increasing digitization of everything from social interaction to shopping to maps and our real-time locations, there are growing calls to regulate technology companies and pass privacy laws mandating how data can be collected. But private data collection during our use of products and everyday services can be done in a way that doesn’t violate consumers’ rights. A willing exchange of goods and services is one of the core forces driving free markets, including today’s technology and demand for personal data.

When President Joe Biden screws up, he deserves to be called out just like any other American president. He had already generated considerable controversy with his hat-in-hand visit to Saudi Arabia during the summer to plead for more oil production to ease pressure on oil prices. The valid question at the time was whether Biden was doing it in a sincere effort to help American motorists or to deprive his Republican critics’ of a major point of attack heading into the fall election season.

President Joe Biden says the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains some $370 billion in climate spending, represents the most sweeping government investment in clean energy “ever, ever, ever.” To ensure that investment is worthwhile, he’ll need an equally unprecedented overhaul of federal rules and regulations. Congress should make such reforms a top priority.

Since the early 20th century, the U.S. military’s negligent use, storage and disposal of harmful chemical substances on its bases has exposed countless troops to severe health hazards. One example is Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, where toxic contamination went unnoticed for several decades until measures were taken in the mid-1980s. As a result, thousands of veterans and their family members developed life-threatening and debilitating diseases.

The worst — and best — of this country was reflected in Saturday’s deadly attack on a Colorado Springs nightclub.

She was a tall 30-something who walked into the polling place at 6:50 p.m. on Election Day. I was standing by the door the woman entered, fulfilling my role as a poll watcher at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Palos Heights, Illinois. She turned to me and asked with a deadpan face: “What are the odds that I can both register and vote in the next 10 minutes?”

Sunday was Joe Biden’s 80th birthday. Our first octogenarian president is two years older than Ronald Reagan was when his presidency ended in 1989.

NASA’s Artemis program is edging toward a return to the moon — this time to stay — with its successful launch this week of an uncrewed rocket. Some Americans looking at the Earth-bound problems all around us might reasonably ask: Why? The answer is not just about the scientific discovery that a permanent presence on the moon promises but also the much-needed sense of national purpose it could recapture.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on whether an Elon Musk-led Twitter is good for free speech, and much of that debate is happening on Twitter. On the surface, this fact goes a long way to prove the point.