Syndicated columns

Hunter Biden has gone from being an embarrassment to a real problem for his father.

The federal indictment issued this week against Donald Trump for his efforts to steal the 2020 presidential election has a literary quality to it. It reads like a movie script.

Last week, a 15-year-old Black girl named Janiya Duffie went missing in Georgia. She was last spotted on a street named Tranquility Loop in the town of Lovejoy on July 19. She was wearing blue shorts and a red jacket. She is 5-foot-7; she weighs about 140 pounds. If you know anything of her disappearance or whereabouts, the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office is waiting for your call.

This summer’s two biggest entertainment phenomena, the movie “Barbie” and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, have a lot in common. Both feature conventionally gorgeous blond women who alternately revel in mainstream femininity and chafe at its limitations, enacting an ambivalence shared by many of their fans. Both, beneath their slick, exuberant pop surfaces, tell female coming-of-age stories marked by existential crises and bitter confrontations with sexism. (The third song on Swift’s set list is “The Man,” whose refrain is, “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can/ wondering if I’d get there quicker/ if I was a man.”) And both have become juggernauts.

Sean V. O’Brien

As president, Donald Trump separated migrant families, forced asylum seekers back into Mexico and built hundreds of miles of border barriers. The border remained chaotic and the migrants kept coming, yet MAGA ideology continues to hold that the "crisis" can be solved with just the right mix of cruel deterrence, tough enforcement and -- of course -- more walls.

Last Friday morning, one of the more diverting headlines about Russia concerned one of its diplomats apparently squatting on a plot of land in Canberra, defying the Australian government in a dispute over a new embassy. Nonplussed, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese dismissed this minion of Moscow as "some bloke standing on a blade of grass." Ah, Russia.

In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court firmly rejected the so-called independent state legislature theory. This bizarre theory would have allowed renegade legislators to violate their state constitutions in setting rules for federal elections - allowing them to hijack elections for U.S. Congress and even the presidency.

In a case involving violent threats made by a stalker against a Colorado singer, the Supreme Court has opted to strengthen free speech rather than to protect potential victims. The upshot is that it will be harder to prosecute online stalkers who intimidate their victims into silence.

America is flipping out over drag queens, rainbow merch, abortion rights and book bans, all – allegedly – in the name of childhood.

The collapse of a section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia, smack dab in the middle of the densest region of the U.S., is an obvious disaster for the nation’s transportation network. But the demolition work, which began within hours, is already ahead of schedule, the repair work will be expedited, and a temporary roadway will get cars moving before the repair is fully complete. And all of it is being livestreamed, for anyone who wants to keep an eye on things.

Republican reaction to Hunter Biden’s plea deal on tax and gun charges demonstrates the paranoia that has gripped many in the party. GOP leaders seem convinced of what U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik called the “politicization and weaponization of Joe Biden’s Department of Justice.”

About two weeks ago, the Idaho Falls Public Library rescinded all library cards for children, as the Post Register reported. It was the first step in a new policy aimed at giving parents more control over what their children read. There are now two kinds of library cards for children: restricted cards, which allow them to check out books only from the children’s section, and unrestricted ...

“What did the buffalo say to his son when he dropped him off at school?”

Eleanor McDonough used to be a legislative aide in the Florida state House of Representatives. She was, she believes, the only openly transgender person working there. That was until the wave of oppressive, anti-LGBTQ – and specifically anti-trans – legislation being passed in Tallahassee became too much for her to bear.

The performative anger from prominent Republicans over Donald Trump’s federal felony indictment is full of sound and fury – signifying nothing. None of the arguments against prosecuting the former president makes a bit of sense.

This year there is a pall over Pride.