U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., has been slapped with a $5,000 fine for deliberately bypassing a metal detector screening in the Capitol while on his way to cast a vote last month. A staff member for the congressman said he plans to appeal the fine.

Over the past month, campaigners have been celebrating moves to get the world’s biggest oil companies to address climate change. In the U.S., shareholders of Exxon Mobil Corp. overruled top management to appoint new board members dedicated to accelerating the firm’s transition away from fossil fuels.

In 2012, Pew Research asked 1,008 Americans to describe then-Vice President Joe Biden in one word. The responses ranged from “Good,” the most common answer, to “Goofy.” But almost five months into his tenure, the word that perhaps most accurately describes him as president is “Shortsighted.” Time after time, Biden has been caught short by consequences of his policies that should have been obvious.

Student loan borrowers hoping that President Joe Biden would forgive any significant portion of their debt are likely gnashing their teeth. The White House has left loan forgiveness out of its upcoming budget proposal, as the administration focuses on passing legislation it already has introduced.

In recent days the U.S. Justice Department has taken positions that have disappointed Democrats and others because they defend legal arguments that the Trump administration espoused.

The drowning deaths off the San Diego coast of eight Marines and a sailor who were just 18 to 23 years old in July reflected incomprehensible incompetence on the part of military leaders. It led to Lt. Col. Michael Regner, the commanding officer of the battalion landing team involved in the tragedy, being removed from command in October. A damning Marine Corps investigation of the tragedy released in March revealed those who died had received poor training on how to escape a sinking amphibious assault vehicle that was in “horrible condition” and should never have been used. That led to the firing of Col. Christopher Bronzi, the commanding officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Those responsible for the scourge of opioid addiction that has torn through communities in Washington and across the nation must be held accountable.

After a cyberattack crippled the world’s largest meat producer last week, JBS SA meat plants have begun to reopen across the globe. But the meat industry shouldn’t be returning to business as usual — and for the security of our food supply, the Biden administration needs to make sure that it doesn’t.

Over the weekend, largely at the urging of Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, finance ministers from the Group of 7 — the major advanced economies — agreed to set a minimum 15% tax rate on the profits of foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations. You may wonder what that’s about, or why you should care.

The announcement of a new drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease was greeted this week with celebration and skepticism. The Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the drug Aduhelm over the objections of an FDA advisory committee and expert panels that questioned the medicine’s effectiveness in trials.

The name, the For the People Act, has an elegant simplicity. The number, HR 1, does too. Democrats call it a first-aid kit for a republic where big money, gerrymandering and voter intimidation have the body politic on life support.

Abipartisan group of U.S. senators have introduced a bill to begin reforming the beleaguered United States Postal Service which is being financially crushed by retirement expenditures and falling demand.

Areport released Monday by House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney delivers a rude awakening to Fisher-Price and the federal government — which for nearly a decade looked the other way even as dozens of infants died in a product marketed for napping and overnight sleeping. Deepest shame on the company and its parent, Mattel, for putting profits over safety, and on the feds for taking years to snap out of their own deadly slumber.

Millions of people have celebrated former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Floyd as a validation of the Black Lives Matter movement. It is a major step along the way to police reform.

“We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday from Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the 100th anniversary of a targeted massacre of Black residents there by their white neighbors. Dozens of people were killed in the attacks, hundreds were hospitalized, and thousands were held hostage, some for days. More than 35 square blocks in the wealthy Black community were destroyed. Yet many Americans know little, if anything, about the events. They were never taught.

The nation that wins the global tech race will dominate the 21st century.