Imagine Thanksgiving 2014: Travel is a breeze. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. The glut of American oil has prompted an unprecedented decline in airfares.As an experienced traveler, you’re tucked away happily in a window seat toward the front of the plane. Your bag fits neatly in the overhead bin. With the skill of a great actor, you have mastered the “don’t say a word to me” vibe. When your seatmate arrives, you look forward, or down at a book, or maybe even at your smartphone. (More on that in

Being 50 minutes late for his first meeting with Pope Francis was nothing unusual for Russian President Vladimir Putin. That‘s just the way he is ― a character trait that provides some insight into his attitude toward power.When Putin arrived on time to an audience with Pope John Paul II in 2003, the punctuality was considered a newsworthy aberration: “The President Was Not Even a Second Late,” read the headline in the newspaper Izvestia. He had been 15 minutes late for a similar audience in 200

The Communist Party summit that recast Xi Jinping as a reformer extraordinaire has produced its first foreign-policy initiative: poking Japan in the eye. That seems to be the point of China’s declaration of a vast “air defense identification zone,” in which Beijing has essentially claimed the airspace around disputed islands administered by Japan. The provocation came just two weeks after the party called for a new national security council to coordinate military, domestic and intelligence opera

Here is a famous finding from social psychology. If you want to encourage people to get vaccinated against some disease, it helps to educate them about the benefits of vaccination. But you’ll have a much bigger impact if you give people a map, showing them exactly where to go to get a shot.Elementary though it is, this finding is important, because it demonstrates that when people don’t respond to a suggestion, it may be because they need some help in identifying the specific steps they are bein

Some of my best friends are very rich ― people with condos on Central Park West and tastefully refurbished palazzi in Italy. The puzzle: Why do so many of them vote Democratic or praise the high-taxing European welfare state?How rich? When one of them had an art lover on the phone, who was offering to pay $30 million for a famous painting, he refused. Frustrated, the would-be buyer groaned: “Look, man, I just more than doubled the going price for this piece, and you still won’t take it. Why not?

The Communist Party can’t wait to see the back of Gary Locke, the outgoing U.S. ambassador who ruffled many a feather during his two-plus years in Beijing. The 1.2 billion Chinese who aren’t party members should be begging him to stay.After Locke’s Nov. 20 resignation announcement, online commentators claimed Beijing’s toxic air was forcing the ambassador back to Seattle, where his family relocated earlier this year. Locke’s denial that he was fleeing to bluer skies couldn’t quell the rumors, wh

According to one of South Korea’s largest newspapers, JoongAng Ilbo, the Pyongyang regime executed 80 North Korean citizens in one day, for crimes including watching smuggled videos or owning a Bible.The report is shocking, and nearly impossible to verify. Some experts are skeptical, but a number of North Korea watchers tell me it is completely consistent with other information and quite credible.If true, the multiple executions by squads of machine gun-firing soldiers ― reportedly carried out b

Philippine Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla has put his job on the line with the promise to restore by Christmas Eve power supply in vast areas in Eastern Visayas ravaged by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” Restoring electricity to the region will be more than just symbolic. “Energizing” far-flung communities is a life-changing event for the people living there. With electricity comes progress. On the other hand, living literally in the dark is quite tragic. Darkness has come to be associated with crimin

Though Thailand’s economy has been expanding since 2006, it is worth noting that we would almost certainly be far more prosperous without our seemingly endless series of protests.According to World Bank data, Thailand’s gross domestic product of $366 billion is up 76.8 percent on our $207 GDP of 2006. It sounds impressive, until you compare it with our neighbors’ growth. Singapore showed a 97.8 percent GDP increase during the same period (from $139 billion to $275 billion), while Malaysia showed