Whose fault?　Who cares?　Schumer Shutdown? Trump Shutdown? Honestly, it doesn’t matter. The brief US government shutdown that started at midnight on Friday and ended on Monday won’t even rate an asterisk in history books, while the weekend’s other big story — the second annual wave of women’s marches that swept hundreds of thousands of women and men into city streets coast to coast — merits a mention in any chapter on our “Me Too” era of empowerment.　Let’s be clear: The women’s marches were a sig

I recently returned from three weeks in southern Africa. Though we have always been a traveling family, we had a specific purpose for this trip: to spend time with our son serving in the Peace Corps in Namibia.　After traveling through Zambia and Namibia, we ended in Cape Town, South Africa. There, I was struck by a message on a tourist bus: “Go places. Prosper.” And at the airport, Mark Twain’s famous quote that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness” was displayed at the

After a disappointing French presidential election, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to get closer to what he wants in Italy. After the March election, it is almost certain to get both a pro-Russian government and a sizable pro-Russian opposition. They will likely make sure that the European Union won't expand sanctions against Russia -- but the sanctions are unlikely to be lifted.　The Kremlin’s policy, based largely on economic interest, is to drive a wedge between the US and the EU on

Despite media hysteria during the recently deceased government shutdown, the reality is that the United States has had such political paralysis on average every 30 months for nearly a half-century, lasting on average seven days.　Shutdowns, even these partial ones few people notice outside Washington, raise many questions: What exactly gets shut down? When isn’t the government shut down over a weekend? Why are these stalemates never solved for good? Will voters even remember this hiatus come Nove

Recently, President Donald Trump allegedly voiced his desire for “more people from places like Norway” to immigrate to the US.That’s just not going to happen.Last year, I advised 24 law students studying the law and culture of Norway. During spring break, we traveled to Tromso and Oslo, Norway, to interview lawyers, nongovernmental organizations and businesspeople about a variety of the country’s legal issues. Based on our visit, here’s why the president is wrongheaded in thinking that hordes of

There are dark sides of Korean society, some that can normally be seen only in underdeveloped countries. They include the high suicide rate and frequent traffic and industrial accidents. A short list of statistics shows you the gravity of the situation, which hardly befits a country whose economy is fourth-biggest in Asia and whose per capita gross domestic product is soon to reach $30,000.In 2016, Korea’s suicide rate stood at 25.6 per 100,000 people, with 13,092 people taking their own lives.