Author: Robert Kinney

CHICAGO — A tribute to one of America’s most consequential civil rights leaders took an unexpected turn Friday when former President Joe Biden told a room full of mourners that he is “a hell of a lot smarter than most of you.” The remark, delivered at Rev. Jesse Jackson’s memorial service, was not a provocation — but it was immediately impossible to ignore.  Biden’s pointed declaration grew directly out of a deeply personal story. Speaking about the ridicule he faced as a child because of his stutter, the former president drew a sharp distinction between how society treats different physical…

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is done watching from the sidelines. In a pointed post on his social media platform Wednesday, Trump declared that the fiercely contested Texas Republican Senate primary “cannot go on any longer” — and promised an endorsement is imminent. Once he picks a side, he said, the other candidate must go. “I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!” Trump wrote. The announcement electrified a race already crackling with tension between Sen. John Cornyn, a four-term Republican incumbent, and Texas…

A second Israeli airstrike targeting a gathering point for Iran’s senior clerical establishment in the holy city of Qom has dramatically deepened the regime’s crisis, leaving what remains of its leadership fractured, fearful, and racing against time to preserve any semblance of institutional continuity — even as those institutions themselves become military targets. The strike hit a building where members of Iran’s Assembly of Experts had reportedly convened — or were scheduled to convene — to begin deliberating one of the most consequential decisions in the Islamic Republic’s 45-year history: who should succeed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed days…