These are difficult times for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Not only must he contend with a new spate of reports that his fickle, mercurial boss in the Oval Office is thinking of dumping him, he is being accused -- credibly -- by former State Department officials and members of the US Congress of gutting the department and demoralizing the diplomatic corps.On Tuesday, Tillerson denied that there had been a “hollowing out” of the agency and accused critics of throwing around “false” numbers a

Back in 1967, my father had a near miss with the Ku Klux Klan. He was luckier than most of the people who lived in Mississippi during that hot summer, especially people of color. But as an Irish Catholic Yankee from Philadelphia who was down south registering black voters and representing indigent clients in jails right out of “In the Heat of the Night,” he wasn’t exactly the type of fellow that made those upstanding Klan members happy. I’m thinking that the Catholic part was especially annoying

With budget in deadlock, lawmakers find room to agree on increasing own benefits

Travel to the edge of any Chinese city and eventually you’ll find a parking lot full of idling trucks and suffocating diesel emissions. In bigger cities, such as Shanghai, these lots sprawl for tens of acres and can lead to paralyzing traffic jams when they overflow. Even as China embraces ride sharing and delivery drones, and builds vast networks of airports and high-speed rail, it still depends on long-haul trucks to carry 80 percent of its cargo.　It’s a dirty, low-tech and inefficient industr

Oskar Groening, a former Nazi, is going to jail in Germany at age 96. Tony Hovater, 29, a current Nazi sympathizer, has lost his job in the US after being profiled by the New York Times. It’s a shame the two will never meet or even talk via Skype.After the Hovater profile ran, its author, Richard Fausset, admitted the existence of a “hole at the heart” of the story. He couldn’t understand how the former heavy metal drummer’s radicalization occurred. Behind this incomprehension lurked another que

When President Donald Trump retweeted anti-Muslim videos from a far right British fringe group last week he went way beyond bigotry.The president chose to publicize the message of a neofascist group called Britain First that is so extreme even the British far-right disavows it. As if that weren’t enough, Trump dumped on Prime Minister Theresa May after she rebuked him.By his act Trump confirmed he will go to any lengths to whip up his uber-nationalist base, promoting groups that incite hatred of

If you’re one of the nearly 225 million Americans who owns a smartphone, you know that it is a window into your entire life -- your friends, your financial information, your pastimes and, most relevant to the Supreme Court this year, your comings and goings. On Wednesday, the court heard oral arguments in one of the most important privacy cases of the decade: United States vs. Carpenter. The justices are being asked to decide whether the 4th Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches pr

In their bid to reduce risk, China’s financial regulators are cracking down on a promising business: online micro-lending. Although the industry has some serious problems, killing it off would be a big mistake.　Last week, state media announced that broad changes were coming to the sector. Approvals of new lenders have been halted, and existing firms are likely to be severely curtailed.　To an extent, this crackdown reflects valid concerns. Outstanding loans offered on peer-to-peer platforms ballo

The record player and the Polaroid camera, both antiquated technology, are making a comeback within my younger generation. These modernly useless machines have been embraced by “hipsters” and have assumed their own spot in a sort of new counterculture.But what makes people willing to pay for such impractical things?I have the most experience with the record player, having asked for one a couple of years ago for my 16th birthday. At first, my parents didn’t understand why I would want this bulky