Iran’s military retaliation, along with the political defiance of its new leaders, evokes a decades-old pattern of unrealized goals for American interventions in the region.

A familiar pattern emerges on Capitol Hill in the wake of a mass shooting. Lawmakers, aides, journalists and even congressional officials seem to follow a particular script every time. Late Tuesday ...

But often, the debate over public safety and the reach of the Second Amendment played out in statehouses with familiar results. In Colorado, a state rocked by the 1999 Columbine High School and 2012 ...

Most players don’t chase patterns because they believe in magic. They do it because familiar things feel safer under pressure. When outcomes start flying past quickly, the brain looks for something it ...