THE MEDIA giant that publishes USA Today, the Des Moines Register, the Detroit Free Press, and about 250 other newspapers has some advice: Stop making endorsements.

Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain, wants its publications to break with the practice of endorsing candidates in presidential and congressional elections. According to The Washington Post, a committee of editors convened by Gannett made the recommendation in April, updating a 2018 planning document that urged papers to "endorse less, if at all" and said it was "time to get out of presidential endorsements."

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PLAYING THE age card against an elderly opponent is a familiar maneuver in American politics.

Joe Biden knows all about that.

When he first ran for the US Senate from Delaware in 1972, he was a 29-year-old challenging an incumbent 33 years his senior. Republican Senator Cale Boggs had first won election to Congress in 1946, and Biden did his best to paint his opponent, politely but pointedly, as washed up.

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IN A rare outbreak of bipartisan cooperation on a contentious topic, a group of 20 senators — half Republicans, half Democrats — announced last weekend that they had reached an agreement on the outlines of what would be the first federal gun-control bill in more than 25 years.

Among its provisions, the legislation would increase federal funding for school security; require that background checks on gun buyers younger than 21 include a search of juvenile court and mental health records; expand the ban on gun purchases by anyone subject to a domestic-violence restraining order; and crack down on gun sellers who try to evade the requirement to register as firearms dealers.

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THE SUPREME leader of Iran had a message the other day for his 902,000 followers on Twitter.

"Zionists have always been a plague, even before establishing the fraudulent Zionist regime," wrote Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "Even then, Zionist capitalists were a plague for the whole world."

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LORIE SMITH is a graphic artist and Web designer in Colorado who wants to expand into the field of custom-made wedding websites. Under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, such a business would be considered a "public accommodation," which may not refuse to serve customers on the basis of sexual orientation. As Colorado officials interpret the law, if Smith offered her services for weddings between men and women, she could not lawfully refuse to do so for same-sex weddings.

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