Back in 2000, actor Charlton Heston helped rally the conservative base behind the embattled National Rifle Association with a convention speech asserting that then-Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore was planning to demonize NRA members as “gun-toting, knuckle-dragging, bloodthirsty maniacs.” Heston concocted a scenario in which a President Gore would dispatch fictitious agents to confiscate his guns. Holding up an antique flintlock rifle, Heston delivered his signature line: “I want to say those fighting words for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: From my cold, dead hands!”

COVID-19 case numbers, which had been steadily falling in the U.S. since the delta variant crested in September, have again plateaued. The decline from more than 200,000 daily cases has been welcome, but why have the numbers now stalled in the 70,000s? Perhaps it’s the colder weather driving people indoors, in closer contact with others, sometimes unmasked.

On Aug. 6, 2020, following numerous scandals at the National Rifle Association, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit seeking to shut down the group. In the suit, James accused Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s chief executive, and a number of senior officials, as well as the organization itself, of contributing to the loss of more than $64 million over three years. Detailed allegations of financial misconduct, self-dealing and lavish spending pepper the 169-page complaint.

In my travels around the U.S., I am often struck by America’s regional differences. I don’t mean people’s politics, cuisine or customs. I am referring to their personalities. Are some parts of the country more outgoing than others? More conscientious? More neurotic?

For the third time this year, Senate Democrats have failed to push through a voting-rights bill. In each case, they knew at the outset that the effort would fail. One thing they haven’t yet tried: advancing a measure with at least a chance of winning enough support from Republicans to overcome the filibuster.

On Friday, Democrats in the House of Representatives finally voted to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill that the Senate approved back in August. This gives President Joe Biden an important legislative achievement, something he badly needed. The measure is far from perfect, but it includes some necessary and valuable investments, and won support from both sides in Congress. It’s to be welcomed.

Hey, calm down! Ignore all those frantic experts who are urging consumers to tackle holiday shopping earlier than usual due to supply-chain issues and shipping delays.

Dear fellow parents: Please get your kids vaccinated. I’m doing so this week.

Children have been mostly spared from the pandemic’s ravages, but they’re not immune. Pediatric intensive care units filled up this summer with delta variant cases, and across the country, nearly 800 children have died from COVID-19. That’s a minuscule percentage of the total underage population, but every death is a tragedy for a family.

This fall, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to provide Israel with an additional $1 billion of military aid, above the $3.8 billion annually already committed. Yet the case for the aid is weak.

As we collectively hurtle into the era of climate change, international relations as we’ve known them for almost four centuries will change beyond recognition. This shift is probably inevitable, and possibly even necessary. But it will also cause new conflicts, and therefore war and suffering.

Just weeks into this year’s hockey season, Stan Bowman, general manager of the Chicago Blackhawks and the 2021 U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team, resigned in the wake of allegations that Hawks upper management failed to act on a player’s sexual assault claim until after the team’s 2010 Stanley Cup championship was secured.

For decades our approach to crime has been based on a fallacy. The notion is quite simple: Arresting and prosecuting people for minor, so-called “quality-of-life” offenses prevents major — and often violent — crimes, such as shootings and homicides.

Democrats have badly overplayed the hand they were dealt when voters in 2020 gave them control of the White House and both houses of Congress. Party members wrongly interpreted the trouncing of Donald Trump as a mandate to go big and bold with a progressive agenda. The election loss of Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia is a clear warning sign of what’s to come if Democrats don’t become better readers of the political tea leaves and start appealing more to the center instead of America’s hard-left fringe.

Unruly passengers objecting to masking rules and other restrictions aren’t the only ones disrupting flights — misbehaving airlines are also causing travel chaos.

Even as the Biden administration tries to close the book on U.S. misadventures in Afghanistan, it still has yet to open the books on embarrassing information that could expose how badly the 20-year stabilization effort was mismanaged.

Two and a half months since the fall of Kabul, the international community has yet to figure out how to stop Afghanistan’s new masters from imposing harsh restrictions on women’s freedoms. Yet one shift in the way negotiators handle their dealings with the Taliban would go a long way toward holding the regime accountable.

In honor of National Depression and Mental Health Screening Month, let’s support our health care workers.

The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse started Monday. What’s going on trial isn’t just the teenager accused of killing two men during a chaotic night in Kenosha, it’s also the idea of the self-appointed authority to take up arms — essentially, vigilantism.