At a time when the Biden administration has its hands full trying to reverse Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and manage a US-China relationship stuck in the doldrums, America’s vast, lethal counterterrorism machine continues to be in high gear. The US intelligence community, in close partnership with America’s special operators, are tracking and hunting down terrorists in several countries -- Syria and Somalia, most especially -- with such regularity that it barely makes a dent in

Your doctor’s orders for staying healthy might include a daily routine of eating your broccoli, going to the gym and getting a good night’s sleep. Now, the US surgeon general would like to add another action item to the list: Reach out to a friend. In a new report, Vivek Murthy says that the US is experiencing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation that can be as harmful to our health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Murthy also offers practical fixes: public policies and spac

There was a time when everyone was talking about a group of fast-growing emerging economies with huge potential. But the BRICS -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- struggled to transform themselves from a promising asset class into a unified group of real-world diplomatic and financial players. Is this finally changing? The story of the BRICS begins with a November 2001 paper by Jim O’Neill, then the head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, called

There is a long list of descriptors used to identify Donald Trump: real estate magnate, reality TV star, former president, insurrectionist, criminally indicted payer of hush money. As of Tuesday, a new particularly incriminating label can be added: sexual assailant. Even so, the determination of a civil jury -- that Trump physically brutalized writer E. Jean Carroll -- seems unlikely to make much difference to his unshakable political base or, for now, change the fundamental dynamics of the 202

On the cusp of World War II, Syngman Rhee warned Americans about Imperial Japan’s expansionist ambitions. “To review the past is to preview the future,” wrote the future president of Korea in his 1941 book, “Japan Inside out: The Challenge of Today.” Months after the book’s release, Japanese planes bombed US naval ships at Pearl Harbor. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korea-US alliance and mutual defense treaty, hailed as a historic success. Yet, t

It's time to start worrying about the debt ceiling. The US federal government is careening toward its borrowing credit limit, beyond which the Treasury won't be able to pay all its bills. The consequences could be truly catastrophic -- a global financial crash -- or merely damaging: a jump in interest rates, a plummeting stock market and a more likely recession. Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said the "X Date," the day the money runs out, could arrive as soon a

The other day, I passed by a Books-A-Million store near my house in rural New England. Otherwise known as “BAM!,” this big store is a typical pop culture emporium that sells books, DVDs, movies and toys. Normally I would walk by without a second thought, but I saw something that intrigued me, a big poster hanging on the front window that said, “K-Pop Available Here.” The poster got me so curious that I decided to drop in to see what they had. Inside, I found another large

It has been ten years since an eight-story commercial building housing several textile factories on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed on April 24, 2013. The collapse of Rana Plaza claimed the lives of 1,134 people and severely injured 2,000 more, most of them women. It was the deadliest industrial disaster since the 1984 gas leak that killed more than 3,000 people in Bhopal, India, and the worst accident in the modern history of the textile industry. Thousands of workers were trapped

Since mind reading has only existed in the realms of fantasy and fiction, it seems fair to apply the phrase to a system that uses brain scan data to decipher stories that a person has read, heard, or even just imagined. It’s the latest in a series of spooky linguistic feats fueled by artificial intelligence, and it’s left people wondering what kinds of nefarious uses humanity will find for such advances. Even the lead researcher on the project, computational neuroscientist Alexander

Colin Allred, a former NFL player now in his third term in the US House, plans to give up a safe Texas seat to take on Ted Cruz for the US Senate in 2024. He is probably Democrats’ best hope to challenge the Republican incumbent. While his bid, announced Wednesday, is a long shot, Allred’s candidacy is proof that the torrent of money involved in political campaigns, and specifically the huge number of small-scale donations, has been a boon for American democracy. A lot of people hav