Moscow researchers say one of the country’s potential coronavirus vaccines has been proven safe in small-scale human trials and is ready for wider tests. It should be a modest win for a country that has sought for years to restore its Soviet-era reputation for cutting-edge science, and for President Vladimir Putin. Yet on Thursday, Britain, the US and Canada accused Russia of hacking international research centers that are trying to develop a vaccine. The Kremlin denies any involvement,

The blockbuster Supreme Court term that just ended was a (nearly) unmitigated disaster for movement conservatives. Chief Justice John Roberts declined to overturn precedent on abortion rights. Conservative activist Justice Neil Gorsuch showed he would join the court’s liberals when the statutory text tells him to. The natural question then is, what’s next? What are the implications for the future of the court? The short answer is that the court’s future direction is in flux l

When White House officials bullied Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman into retirement this month the damage surpassed the ruination of a patriotic officer's career. Vindman is the decorated Iraq war veteran and Ukraine expert on the National Security Council who drew President Donald Trump’s wrath for his honest testimony under oath at the impeachment hearings. He is also an immigrant, brought here by his parents as a child from the Soviet Union. At the hearings he spoke eloquently of his grati

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the presidential campaign in the US. In a normal election year July, the party out of power crowns its nominee, and the party in power does so a few weeks later. The conventions give the candidates a chance to introduce themselves and their choice for vice president. They hope to get a bounce from the convention that will help build momentum for the fall campaign. Because of the pandemic this year, the Democrats moved their convention to August and

Two decades ago, Poles could only look on in bewilderment. Americans were so divided over who should be president that the 2000 election hung on a dimpled chad and had to be decided by the Supreme Court. George W. Bush became the first winner to lose the national popular vote since 1888. American democracy had been tested but emerged whole. As ballots for Poland’s presidential election were being counted Sunday, the results looked tight enough to go to the courts too. It was the country&r

South Koreans bid farewell to two prominent people last week amidst noises about the mixture of respect and scorn shown in accordance with the people’s ideological divide. Half a million citizens petitioned the Presidential Office opposing Seoul City Hall sponsoring Park Won-soon’s funeral at the expense of taxpayers’ money. The main opposition United Future Party joined accusers of the mayor in condemning abuse of women in bureaucracy and what they called leftist hypocrisy. T

China is building tens of thousands of 5G base stations every week. Whether it wins technological dominance or not, domestic supply chains may be revived and allow the country to maintain -- and advance -- its position as the factory floor of the world, even as COVID-19 forces a rethink in how globalization is done. By the end of this year, China will have more than half a million of these towers on its way to a goal of 5 million, a fast climb from around 200,000 already in use, enabling faste

Recently, a BBC reporter, Laura Bicker, wrote via Twitter, “Prosecution in South Korea are asking for an 18-month sentence for a man who stole 18 eggs because he was hungry.” This was the same amount of prison time, the reporter observed, that the court sentenced for the operator of Welcome to Video, the world’s largest-known darknet child pornography site. She also reported that the Seoul High Court said no to the appeal from the US for his extradition to face charges in the

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. William Faulkner’s famous line comes from a harrowing tale about two women in Mississippi. One is a Black nursemaid, Nancy, who is to be hanged for the murder of a baby girl. The other is her white employer, Temple, the child’s mother, who ekes out the semblance of respectable married life. Neither can escape the vengeful reappearance of deeds done many years earlier. Since the killing of George Floyd, a black American man, under th

Let’s be clear: COVID-19 initially spread around the world as a result of well-heeled travelers returning home from cruises, foreign skiing holidays, and international conferences. But many wrongly prefer to blame migrants instead -- often with appalling consequences. For example, Yemeni militias this spring attacked thousands of Ethiopian migrants whom they claimed had brought the coronavirus. Saudi Arabia expelled African migrants en masse, and Chinese landlords evicted Africans from th

China recently blocked Indian websites and e-commerce platforms in retaliation for India’s move to ban 59 Chinese apps and prevent Chinese companies from participating in infrastructure projects. It is laughable, given that Facebook, Google and LinkedIn have been blocked in the mainland for years -- my friends there throw their hands up in exasperation as they have to only use local social media platforms -- and the country is now also blocking virtual private networks. The Cold War be

When China imposed a draconian new security law on Hong Kong last week, I grabbed my phone to call some young pro-democracy activists I’d met there in November. Then I put the phone down because I realized that the old Hong Kong, where free speech and rule of law were allowed despite it being part of China, was over. It was ended by a new security law imposed by Beijing that destroys the rights Hong Kongers were promised by international treaty. Those high school students, who passionat

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is deeply profound and almost prophetic even when we read just the first two lines: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both.” Let’s not dig deeper into the entire poem since it will take days, if not months, to talk about various literary interpretations and related ideas. Instead, I will focus on the difficulty in choosing between the two choices, and hopefully a workable solution that ca

With the US Congress set to tackle the next phase of economic relief this month, Thursday’s jobs report provided more evidence of how much permanent damage is being done to the labor market by the coronavirus pandemic. The number of workers being permanently laid off continues to grow even as millions of Americans who were furloughed have gone back to work. Expectations for how long it will take to get the labor market back to where it was at the beginning of the year are fluid, but some,

Plenty of people will tell you that the unrest spreading through the US is rooted in inequality -- in the dissatisfaction of the 99 percent. But what if it’s not that simple? What if there’s also an important battle going on within the 1 percent? For the sake of the nation’s survival, it’s worth considering. No doubt, people are angry. According to a recent Pew survey, 87 percent of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country. Pa