After 146 years, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is packing up its tent forever. Perhaps they know to go when the going is good -- after all, how could they ever compete with the new ...

PHOENIX — Thelma Keane, the wife of “Family Circus” cartoonist Bil Keane and the inspiration for the Mommy character in the long-running comic, has died of Alzheimer’s disease. She was 82.

Juliano, a cartoonist/artist and part-time custodian, said he also gets a lot of people from Massachusetts and Rhode Island, who come in to see New York City circus acts at a closer venue.

Family Circus, which Keane began drawing in 1960, depicts the good-humored life of two parents and their four children. It is now featured in about 1,500 newspapers.

The U.S. House of Representatives still has no speaker, as Republicans can’t agree on a replacement for the deposed Kevin McCarthy. The dysfunction looks like a clown show to editorial ...