The 2011 ban on congressional earmarks was intended to reduce pork spending and restore government integrity, not stymie bipartisan compromise. Is there a way to bring back earmarks, as the president suggested, without the accompanying abuse that made them synonymous with corruption?

As a society, we depend on prosecutors to represent our collective interests and hold wrongdoers to account. But whose responsibility is it to step in when prosecutors themselves cross ethical lines?

Namibia's strict limits on abortion date back to apartheid rule. Like many African nations, the country must grapple with the dilemma of laws that have support today but are rooted in a repressive and racist history.

This Vietnamese immigrant to America fled war on a fishing boat, and then the sea helped him build a new life for himself and his family in Louisiana. There, he found that answering hostility with compassion paved a bridge for acceptance.

Modern music often serves to differentiate generations. But the genre-melding Los Seranos are using their music to make the poetry and plight of a long-lost generation of Spanish Jews relevant to generations today.

If coming clean is a step toward remorse, Myanmar’s military deserves praise for a rare moment of honesty. On Jan. 10, it admitted its forces murdered 10 Rohingya Muslims last September and buried them in a mass grave. This bit of truth could be aimed at containing international concerns over the ethnic cleansing campaign. Yet it might serve as an opening to uncover and end one of the world’s worst rights-abuse cases. The military has driven more than 650,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, and is accused of killing more than 6,000.  US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has warned “The world can’t just stand idly by.” Rights groups want to involve the International Criminal Court. Myanmar’s military has had to relinquish dictatorial powers, but grants little authority over the Rohingya issue to Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. But diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions are pinching. Easing generals from power must be done skillfully. One tactic is to encourage admission of wrongs, which could lead to a path of ending civil violence.