With friends like these, it’s wise to look around for some new ones.　Donald Trump has called the EU a “foe” and advised British Prime Minister Theresa May to sue the rest of the bloc over Brexit. The US president has already levied tariffs on European steel, and is threatening to do the same on lots of other products, including cars. So it’s hardly a surprise that Europe’s leaders are turning eastward in search of new allies.　Last week, the EU signed a landmark trade deal with Japan, known as JE

Here are some things we know about Maria Butina. She is a 29-year-old white woman with an enthusiasm for guns who has attended multiple National Rifle Association events, socialized with NRA leaders and repeated NRA talking points.She attended Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s 2015 announcement seeking the Republican nomination for president, and later supported Republican Donald Trump for president. She attended the National Prayer Breakfast, a Republican gathering place, in Washington this year.　B

It’s possible that someone reading this column now, in July 2018, will be alive to see the resolution of a $1 billion bet between Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor of public health, and Steven Austad, chairman of biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.　Eighteen years ago, the two friends began their discussion on an issue that long has intrigued scientists and laymen alike: What is the limit of the human life span? Given that advances in medicine and nutrit

It’s hardly a surprise that Donald Trump broke with longstanding presidential practice and publicly criticized the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates.　Trump told CNBC on Thursday that he was “not thrilled” with signals from the Fed that it planned to raise interest rates. “I don’t like all of this work that we’re putting into the economy and then I see rates going up,” he said. The White House issued a statement saying the president “respects the independence of the Fed,” but he seemed t

Monsoon rains battered down on Manila this week as a tropical storm -- the ninth this year -- howled nearby. Schools, courts and the senate were shut for two days; roads were flooded; public transport was affected. 　It could have been worse.　That the Philippine capital is one big ocean wave away from disaster isn’t news to climate scientists or economists. After analyzing 393 cyclone-vulnerable coastal cities in 31 countries, World Bank economists have concluded that 40 percent of the burden of

In the US and other developed countries, there are three basic philosophies of macroeconomic stabilization. Each of them was present in some form during the Great Depression, and each survives to this day.　The first is Keynesianism, which centers on fiscal stimulus, mainly in the form of increased government spending. The second is monetarism, which holds that getting economies out of recession is the job of the central bank, which can lower interest rates, engage in quantitative easing or ease

No country’s culture is static. Many, even some scholars in the field, often make the mistake of referring to culture as if it were some monolithic constant that persists from one generation to the next. Nothing could be further from the truth. Take, for example, the culture of young Korean adults.Joseon-era Korean culture was characterized by Confucian ideals: most notably, the emphasis on family. Filial piety and the willingness to sacrifice for one’s family were considered great virtues. Even

Ann McFeatters

There’s no chance China will cut its trade surplus with the US in response to President Donald Trump’s tariff threats. For starters, Washington has made no specific demand to which Beijing can respond. But its efforts may have an unexpected side effect: a debt crisis in China.　The 25 percent additional tariffs on exports of machinery and electronics looked, at first blush, like a stealth tax on offshoring. The focus on categories like semiconductors and nuclear components, in which US-owned manu