Last year, Corporate America was all about press releases announcing lofty US hiring plans. The new fad is to threaten the reverse.　 On Friday, General Motors joined Harley-Davidson and bourbon maker Brown-Forman in calling out the negative impact to their businesses from President Donald Trump’s effort to use national security as an excuse to slap tariffs on goods imported from US allies. GM said tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts could lead it to employ fewer US workers and have less

US courts have long been reluctant to intervene in the admissions decisions of colleges and universities. In general, the law allows them to do whatever they want within this overarching framework:　- Racial discrimination is forbidden.　- An institution may not maintain a racial quota system, even if it is sincerely seeking to ensure the presence of adequate numbers of traditionally disadvantaged groups, including African-Americans.　- An institution may consider race as a “plus,” at least if it i

President Vladimir Putin worked hard to bring the 2018 FIFA World Cup to Russia, but now that the spectacle is underway, his influence has waned. He cannot control the referees or the performance of Russia’s national team, the Sbornaya, which is ranked 70th in the world -- the lowest-seeded team in the tournament. But he has far more control over how the tournament is covered, at least by Russian media.In the World Press Freedom Index, compiled each year by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Russi

Nowadays, Britain’s words and actions on the world stage are so at odds with its values that one must wonder what has happened to the country. Since the June 2016 Brexit referendum, British foreign policy seems to have all but collapsed -- and even to have disowned its past and its governing ideas. Worse, this has coincided with the emergence of US President Donald Trump’s erratic administration, which is pursuing goals that are completely detached from those of Britain -- and of Europe generall

If an alien landed in Rome today, he would think Matteo Salvini was running Italy. The leader of the right-wing League has seized the center stage of Italian politics, even though he is merely deputy prime minister, interior minister and head of the junior party in its governing coalition.　Five Star, the League’s senior partner in the new populist administration, is entirely to blame for this. The movement has been outmaneuvered comprehensively since Italy’s government was formed three weeks ago

As one Trump administration trade policy backfires, another looks set to.　On Monday, Harley-Davidson said it would shift some production out of the US in order to mitigate the impact of European Union tariffs targeting its motorcycles. Those penalties -- which Harley-Davidson estimates may cost it as much as $100 million annually -- were in response to US levies on steel and aluminum imported from the EU. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department is reportedly planning to aim a bazooka at a Chinese tak

Japan, many people believe, is a country of rigid, traditional gender norms, where men work and women are homemakers. But this stereotype is passe. Despite the continued prevalence of traditional gender roles in television shows, Japanese culture has undergone a sea change -- most women now have jobs.　Japan isn’t alone. In recent years, female labor force participation has been rising across almost all industrialized countries. There’s at least one big exception, though -- the US.　The decline of

The existence of a vibrant political culture and strong opposition to the political monopoly of the country’s long-term ruler were what separated Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey from Vladimir Putin’s Russia. After Erdogan’s victory in Sunday’s hotly contested presidential and parliamentary elections, however, these differences are likely to be eroded as Turkey sinks into an Islamic version of Putinism.　It wasn’t a particularly impressive victory: Erdogan won the presidential election with about 52

Since Jan. 1, when China stopped accepting the rich world’s recyclable plastic waste, it’s gotten a ton of criticism for worsening the already deep crisis of ocean plastic pollution. But China isn’t the only culprit here. This is a crisis made -- and growing worse -- throughout developing Asia.Just eight countries in the region are responsible for about 63 percent of total plastic waste flowing into the oceans. Little of that junk has been exported by rich economies. Instead, it’s almost solely