Congress is picking apart the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, just in time for the 10th anniversary of the Great Recession, the type of economic conflagration the law was supposed to prevent.

WASHINGTON — In West Virginia, Republican Senate candidate Don Blankenship accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of creating jobs for “China people” and getting donations from his “China family” (McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, was born in Taiwan). In Georgia, Republican gubernatorial candidate Michael Williams drives around in a bus he promises to fill with “illegals” who will be deported to Mexico. On the rear is stamped: “Murderers, rapists, kidnappers, child molesters, and other criminals on board.” In Arizona, Republican Senate candidate (and former sheriff) Joe Arpaio is a proud “birther” with a history of profiling and abusing Hispanic migrants. Vice President Mike Pence recently called Arpaio “a great friend of this president, a tireless champion of strong borders and the rule of law.” In Wisconsin, Republican House candidate Paul Nehlen runs as a “pro-white Christian American candidate.”

Americans might differ over the finer points of the Founding Fathers’ plan to share war-making authority between the executive and legislative branches, but the basic principle has always been clear. Congress, and only Congress, has the power to declare war; the president and his military advisers are responsible for waging it.

One by one on Wednesday afternoon, district attorneys and cops walked to a microphone outside the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Crime Lab and congratulated themselves for finally catching the man they believe to be the East Area Rapist.

PAWLEY’S ISLAND, S.C. — When I moved to Washington several years ago, a D.C. veteran whispered a warning that she had learned from her father: New York is tough, but Washington is mean.

WASHINGTON — On a Saturday night in April, the rhetoric of our historical era reached a culminating, symbolic moment.

In a stunning diplomatic development, the leaders of North and South Korea met Friday at the demilitarized zone dividing their warring countries. They smiled, shook hands on both sides of the border and sat down for an engaging chat. Could this be the beginning of the end to the Cold War-era conflict that, on its worst days, raises the threat of nuclear war?

In July 1971, President Richard Nixon jolted the international status quo — and set diplomatic nerves worldwide fluttering — by announcing he would visit China. “Never in history, to our knowledge, have diplomatic relations progressed so fast from the Ping-Pong table to the Presidency,” this page breathlessly observed.