I’m pleased that the New England Patriots made it to the A.F.C. championship game again this year. On Sunday, they’ll play the Kansas City Chiefs at 6:40 p.m., and the winner will advance to the Super Bowl. I’ve been a Patriots fan my entire life, long before they were good enough to loathe. But I […]

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.) Good morning. We’ll be off on Monday for the American holiday of Martin Luther King Day. Now, back to the news. The U.S. made plans to expand missile defense, Britain waited for the next move from its prime minister, and President Trump hit back at […]

A hooligan in Kentucky tried to destroy a massive, nine-foot tall snowman using a truck, but failed horribly after not realizing good-old Frosty was built over a tree stump. Cody Lutz and his family decided to have some fun after a recent snowfall in Petersburg, making a very large snowman in their front yard. Lutz […]

For as long as I can remember, summer Sundays in our family were spent in the seaside town of Bundoran. We’d pile into the car in my home town of Omagh and set our sights for the rugged coastline of Co Donegal. Maybe it’s a feature of getting older, but the weather always seemed glorious. […]

Rarely, a moment arrives in a nation’s history when reality hits, and it realises that it is not the power it was, not the force it fancies itself to be, and that it cannot get what it wants because other, stronger nations, won’t allow it to. It is becoming more obvious that Brexit is just […]

Since the early days of the modern environmental movement, activists have embraced solar and wind power. A “small is beautiful” mantra guided a “soft path” to the renewables revolution. That vision inspired an open letter sent last week by hundreds of grass-roots environmental groups to Congress demanding a rapid transition to 100 percent renewable energy […]

To the Editor: Re “Speaker Asks Trump to Delay ‘State of the Union’” (front page, Jan. 17): I was somewhat disturbed by the news about Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s letter to President Trump regarding his appearance in front of Congress for the State of the Union address. Of course, if there really are security concerns for […]

To the Editor: Re “Hospitals Post Their Prices. Just Try to Decipher Them” (news article, Jan. 14): The recent federal requirement for hospitals to publish price information is an important first step in the journey toward greater price transparency. But because these prices aren’t actually what a patient would pay, the article rightly points out […]

A man in Iowa, who may or may not have a lot of time on his hands, won $1 on a scratch ticket and drove all the way down to lottery headquarters and insisted on being paid out with a massive novelty cheque. Tyler Heep hit the $1 jackpot earlier this month and instead of […]

Good morning. Britain’s prime minister stays at the helm, the U.S. State of the Union address is in doubt and the death toll rises in a terrorist attack in Kenya. Here’s the latest: Theresa May survives leadership challenge over Brexit Parliament voted 325 to 306 against a motion of no-confidence in Prime Minister Theresa May, […]