Some weekends, I get to tell you about interesting stuff like hiking on one of the best trails in the region.

Here’s the truth about President Trump’s border wall: He doesn’t really care whether it gets built. What he does care about is building an issue, a case for his re-election. To Trump, the value of the wall is almost entirely symbolic, not real.

There are two diametrically opposed lines of thinking about Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The first is that he is winding down his probe and is unlikely to allege that the Trump campaign and Russia conspired to fix the 2016 presidential election. The second is …

Last week Rep. Nancy Pelosi warned President Donald Trump that if he declared an “emergency” to build a wall, “think what a president with different values can present... Why don’t you declare (the epidemic of gun violence in America) an emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would... A Democr…

WASHINGTON — In his State of the Union address, President Trump, who is admittedly not given to eloquent or self-reflective musings, voiced an odd phrase that seemed both rather strange and rather perceptive.

It’s hard to be a native New Yorker and be stunned by much of anything that you see on the city’s streets. But the other day I was in for quite a surprise.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

After we reported early this month that Lindsay Independent School District board members had voted to call for a $19.9 million bond election, plenty of discussion ensued on the Register’s Facebook page.

We received another inch or so of rain last Sunday and Monday on top of the previous week’s rainfall, so fields and pastures are still wet. I know, sounds like a broken record. Early planted winter pasture is looking half decent with the rest of it trying to take off. The saturated soils, mo…

It was a good day for a hike.

It snowed on Amy Klobuchar as she announced her run for president. And while that might be a bad omen for some candidates, the icy weather accurately symbolizes her appeal.

Thanks to my friend Charles Draper’s recommendation, I have enjoyed reading a good book about Texas football. The book is by Dan Jenkins and is titled “I’ll Tell You One Thing.” His bias towards football played in the old Southwest Conference agreed with this old fan quite well. At a time wh…

WASHINGTON — Of all the headlines about the scandals concerning the alleged past sins of one after another high official in Virginia, one struck me most poignantly. It was this, from the front page of The Washington Times:

There must be a better way to keep kids interested in school than drugging them.

On Bleecker Street in Manhattan, you can find both a Planned Parenthood clinic and a boutique for pregnant women. According to Vogue, the store, Hatch, “is arguably the first of its kind, in that it was designed specifically for pregnant shoppers: Changing rooms have a size chart to help you…

WASHINGTON — Soon, in a federal court that few Americans know exists, there will come a ruling on a constitutional principle that today barely exists but that could, if the judicial branch will resuscitate it, begin to rectify the imbalance between the legislative and executive branches. It …

Before “Game of Thrones”-style infighting rocked Virginia Democrats, before the Michael Jackson moonwalk press conference, before a KKK and blackface photo surfaced from his Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook, Gov. Ralph Northam made some candid remarks about abortion on WTOP’s “Ask th…

February means it’s time to start collecting graftwood!

My husband says he’s got it made. Since I’m the editor of the local newspaper, he says, I know everything that’s going on in town. (Debatable, but I’ll take it!) He just asks me, “anything interesting happening this weekend, darling?” and I’ll usually have an answer.

As things stand now, a House and Senate conference committee is the only hope that Democrats and Republicans can reach agreement on border security and avoid another government shutdown. The negotiations — such as they are, for a committee that has met briefly only once in more than a week —…

Women finally achieved the right to vote when the 19th Amendment became law in 1920. Here’s a good way to celebrate its centennial: Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment — or ERA — that completes the job of banning all forms of gender-based discrimination, not just in the voting booth.

San Francisco is one of the richest cities it the world. It’s given us music, technology and elegant architecture.

WASHINGTON — When I traveled to a small town outside Paris that early winter morning to interview the Iranian Shiite leader, the mysterious Ayatollah Khomeini, a veil of historic disaster was already hanging over the Middle East. But who was this man? Very few outside Iran seemed to know.

It finally dried out enough for farmers to get back in the field and finish planting their wheat and oats that was intended to be planted in the fall. Wet fall and early winter conditions had hindered some farmers from completing what they started, so spring oats and wheat was the another al…

During long, gray, bleak winters — before the women’s and men’s college basketball tournaments and before baseball’s opening days — I confess to an embarrassing secret: I thoroughly enjoy watching TV- and movie-related awards shows on TV, not just the Oscars but also the Golden Globes, the S…

Not everything is about Donald Trump, the next presidential election or politics in general. Not everything has to do with right and left and Republicans and Democrats.

WASHINGTON — Surely the silliest aspirant for the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination is already known: “Beto,” aka Robert Francis, O’Rourke is a skateboarding man-child whose fascination with himself caused him to live-stream a recent dental appointment for — open-wide, please — teeth c…

Border security is getting much needed attention right now to ensure law enforcement has the tools they need to stop human and drug traffickers. But these problems don’t stop at the border and often victims of trafficking aren’t limited to those smuggled into this county. This month, we reco…

Back in the Midwest where my folks live, they’ve had an extraordinary cold snap this week. The “polar vortex,” they call it, and it got so cold there with the wind chill that you could throw boiling water into the air and it would freeze instantly.

Howard Schultz, the former head of Starbucks, and Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, could seriously disrupt the political landscape if they decide to run for president next year. And for anti-Trumpers, the choice is clear: Encourage Hogan to get in, and tell Schultz to get lost.

A House-Senate conference committee is beginning work on a package of border security policies that, it is hoped, can win the support of both Democrats and Republicans. The final product is certain to include several measures that already have full, bipartisan approval: more immigration judg…

Sunday is the Super Bowl.

WASHINGTON — If you want to hear the true story of impoverished, starving Venezuela — and what is behind the dramatic and hopeful events of the last week — come along with me.

In 1960, when John F. Kennedy was running for the White House against Richard Nixon, winning Democratic presidential tickets still depended on the backing of segregationist party colleagues in the Southern states.