Curse that First Amendment! What were the Founding Fathers thinking?

As Ron DeSantis has declared and legislated, the safety of Florida — and, yeah, the safety of the nation — isn’t a matter of gun control (or police control) but speech control, especially in public-school classrooms and libraries, where the innocent minds of our children are developing.

Why does the Governor not spend for a qualified speech writer or an effective ad agency? Why is he so unfamiliar with either his home state or government policies in other states or the nation?

First, Ohio makes national news, not for DeWine’s “State of the State” redress but for its tacit endorsement of Nazi—not neo-Nazi—indoctrination—as home-schooling in North Sandusky. Neither the parents nor local and state education officials recognize that it is 2023 not 1939.

Of course, this is the state where a sitting Republican member of the state legislature asserted loudly and proudly that “both sides of the Holocaust” must be taught. After all, “only 300,000” Jews were murdered. Home educated herself with no college, Ms. Arthur, formerly a member of the State Board of Education, kept her seat. She was gently scolded but not formally reprimanded by Republican leadership. Of course, she is unable to articulate any “side of the Holocaust.”

Sports betting is legal in Ohio, as if anyone needed reminding. And at Hollywood Casino on the West Side, its “Sportsbook” – a 12,000 sq. ft. area strictly for sports betting – is opening February 11 with seven betting windows and 30 kiosks.

Sports betting is becoming Columbus’s newest addiction. Through phone apps, kiosks at both Crew and Blue Jackets games, and soon at Kroger. Adults can also make bets during the game – it’s called “live betting” or “in-game betting”. Also known as “micro betting” considering gamblers can bet on what team scores the next touchdown or what athlete scores the next goal.

Banning assault weapons saves lives. The 1994 federal assault weapons ban, which lasted until 2004, reduced the risk of a person in the U.S. dying from a mass shooting by 70%.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A former wartime British spy in Afghanistan and Pakistan for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as MI6, says he regrets disguising himself as a foreign correspondent but is proud of his espionage among mujahideen guerrillas during "the last act of the Great Game" in Central Asia.

After spying from early 1981 until the end of 1983 -- during British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's administration -- John Fullerton became a career foreign correspondent and editor for Britain's Reuters news agency for 20 years, based in Hong Kong, New Delhi, Beirut, Nicosia, Cairo, and London.

Mr. Fullerton's work as a spy among Afghan mujahideen guerrilla groups was to help "the U.K. discriminate between the effective and ineffective resistance leaders," he said in an interview.

"When I told SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) I planned to apply to Reuters, they made it abundantly clear they could have no further contact," said Mr. Fullerton, 74, now living in Glasgow, Scotland.

He retired from Reuters in 2003.