An outbreak of a new coronavirus in China has killed nine people and sickened more than 400, and has spread to several other countries. The first case outside of Asia was announced on Tuesday, as federal health officials confirmed that a Washington State man who had recently traveled to China had been hospitalized. Here’s a […]
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Less than a month after the first few cases of a new respiratory illness were reported in Wuhan, China, travelers have carried the virus to at least four other countries, including the United States. More than 400 people have been infected, at least nine have died — and the world is bracing itself for what […]
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On Monday, the nation honored the towering legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But the progress he demanded remains unfinished, and nowhere more than in the deeply segregated neighborhoods many of us call home. Dr. King understood that where a person lives determines so many of their opportunities, including access to good […]
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Lenin is sometimes said to have predicted that capitalists would sell Russia the rope with which they would be hanged. Yet not even Lenin could have imagined Vladimir Putin’s success in getting some of the largest Western companies to subsidize his disinformation efforts by advertising on his government-run “news” websites. The top programmatic advertiser on […]
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After a Boeing 737 crashed near Amsterdam more than a decade ago, an expert study that sharply criticized the manufacturer was never published by the Dutch safety authorities, and its key findings were either excluded or played down in their accident report. On Tuesday, the Dutch Safety Board, which had commissioned the study, reversed course […]
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The Brookings Institution last week published a report from global economy expert Indermit Gill prophesying that the AI leader in 2030 will go on to rule the planet until at least 2100. The territories in the running include the US, China, and the European Union. Economists appear to have reached a general consensus that artificial intelligence […]
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Senate Republicans are threatening to give President Trump what even a foreign government knew was inappropriate: the dirtying of a political rival. What an irony it would be if Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial itself yielded the very result for which he is being impeached: the corruption of America’s election integrity by the baseless denigration of […]
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PARIS — France and the United States appeared to strike a temporary truce in a trans-Atlantic trade war, French officials said Tuesday, after President Emmanuel Macron agreed to suspend a tax on American technology giants in exchange for a postponement of threatened retaliatory tariffs on French goods by the Trump administration. The apparent détente emerged […]
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DAVOS, Switzerland — Before the Senate impeachment trial begins in earnest on Tuesday, President Trump was more than 4,000 miles away from Washington, in this glitzy Alpine village, planning to drive a competing narrative — one that has nothing to do with pressure on Ukraine, abuse of power or obstruction of Congress. In his first […]
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Even before catastrophic fires broke out in Australia in late fall, climate change was at the top of the list of priorities at the 50th anniversary of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week. But those fires — preceded by others in California — along with rising sea levels, flooding and supercharged storms, […]
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In the quick escalation of tensions and attacks between the United States and Iran this month, each side threw down a gauntlet. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo defined America’s goal as to “confront and contain.” Iran’s rulers said they won’t be satisfied until America leaves the Middle East. Confronting and containing Iran may sound wise. […]
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Communities across the United States are starting to ban facial recognition technologies. In May of last year, San Francisco banned facial recognition; the neighboring city of Oakland soon followed, as did Somerville and Brookline in Massachusetts (a statewide ban may follow). In December, San Diego suspended a facial recognition program in advance of a new […]
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When I was young I idolized the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the way most boys look up to athletes or pop stars. I had a poster of him. I had a T-shirt with his face on it. I recited his “I Have a Dream” speech. It seemed to me that he was a […]
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LISBON — It was the party to be seen at during the Cannes Film Festival, where being seen was the whole point. A Swiss jewelry company had rented out the opulent Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, drawing celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Campbell and Antonio Banderas. The theme: “Love on the Rocks.” Posing for photos at the […]
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Ten years have passed since my book, “The New Jim Crow,” was published. I wrote it to challenge our nation to reckon with the recurring cycles of racial reform, retrenchment and rebirth of caste-like systems that have defined our racial history since slavery. It has been an astonishing decade. Everything and nothing has changed. When […]
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Chinese leaders stretching back to Deng Xiaoping have often thought in terms of decades. A decade encompasses two of China’s famous five-year plans, and it’s a long-enough period to notice real changes in a country’s trajectory. As it happens, I spent time in China at both ends of the decade that just ended, first in […]
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