Elyria

Why Chief Justice Roberts is moving to the center of the court

There is a convention that U.S. Supreme Court history is described not in “eras” or “ages,” or even decades, but by chief justices. Chief Justice John Roberts has never understood that convention. When Justice Brett Kavanaugh replaced the retired Justice Anthony Kennedy this term, Chief Justice Roberts became the court’s new ideological center, or “swing vote” when justices are deadlocked.

Plan now to heal a post-Maduro Venezuela

Three months after Venezuela’s National Assembly swore in Juan Guaidó as the country’s interim president, more than 50 nations have recognized the legitimacy of his rule. One idea is for Mr. Guaidó and the National Assembly to prepare for the day when Mr. Maduro departs, which is difficult to predict.

Mueller report stokes political rift. Could it inspire some unity too?

Sunday’s release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s main conclusions, as summarized by Attorney General William Barr, could widen the gulf of suspicion and misunderstanding between the nation’s polarized political factions. Republicans are triumphant that the threat of a conspiracy indictment for President Donald Trump or his family members or associates has evaporated. Democrats are downcast that the special counsel investigation apparently isn’t going to push Mr. Trump out of office, or hobble him with serious legal accusations.

As ISIS fell, Syrian hospital inundated by wave of its children

Tucked away within the heart of a bustling souk in northeastern Syria lies a hospital treating dozens of babies, gravely ill survivors of the final siege against the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate. The majority are the children of foreign fighters and mothers who subscribed to a radically hard-line interpretation of Islam. “Often we don’t know who the father is in the first place,” explains Saad Ali, the director of Al-Hikma Hospital in Hassakeh city.