The one thing every passenger rightly expects from an airline flight is a pilot who has had enough rest and break time to do the best job possible guiding the aircraft.

Last year ended with a display of remarkable understatement.

For three days beginning March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court will set aside an extraordinary 51/2 hours for arguments on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s health care law. Court watchers point out that this is the most time devoted to a single case since the 1960s, and a signal of the importance the court assigns to the case.

With only two days to go until the Iowa caucuses and a little more than a week until the New Hampshire primary, political junkies in the other 48 states are supposed to be consumed with jealousy.

Seventy-three years ago, a Boy Scout from Rye, N.Y., got separated from his hiking group on Mount Katahdin.

At the end of World War II, returning servicemen avoided a glutted labor market by going to college in unprecedented numbers and acquired new skills. A few years later, the result was a cycle of sustained economic expansion and opportunity and the creation of a greatly expanded and durable middle class.

Mitt Romney is zero for two when it comes to transparency in campaigning.

Just as cold weather struck the Northeast, the White House and Congress put people in danger by cutting low-income heating assistance.

Next month the Supreme Court will consider a controversy over congressional redistricting in Texas that will highlight the importance of a crucial part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act: Section 5, which requires states and localities with a history of voting discrimination to “pre-clear” changes in their election practices with the Justice Department or a federal court. In 2009 the court declined to rule on the constitutionality of Section 5, but it could return to the issue. If the court is in any doubt about the continued need for it, members should read a recent speech by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

Just as cold weather struck the Northeast, the White House and Congress put people in danger by cutting low-income heating assistance.