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Allowing the U.S. government to be held hostage by political extremists is unacceptable.

While this won’t surprise most people, it likely came as a shock to many QAnon followers. According to that movement’s expediently evolving lore, March 4 — the date on which U.S. presidents were inaugurated until the mid-1930s — was when Mr. Trump was to reclaim the presidency and resume his epic battle against Satan-worshiping, baby-eating Democrats and deep-state monsters.This drivel is absurd. It is also alarming. Violent extremists, obsessed with the symbolism of March 4, were for weeks nattering about a possible attack on Congress, according to law enforcement officials.On March 2, the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint intelligence bulletin to law enforcement agencies, warning that militia extremists might be plotting to overrun the Capitol complex and “remove Democratic lawmakers.” The details of the possible plot were hazy, but the threat unnerved enough people that House leaders canceled Thursday’s session. The voting schedule was condensed, and lawmakers left town early for the weekend.Although March 4 came and went without a bloody coup attempt — that is, without another bloody coup attempt — damage was still done. Lawmakers abandoned their workplace out of fear of politically motivated violence. This not only disrupted the people’s business. It also sent a dangerous signal that Congress can be intimidated — that the state of American government is fragile.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOf course the safety of lawmakers and other Capitol Hill workers must be a priority. But allowing the government to be held hostage by political extremists is unacceptable.The current security threat is not expected to dissipate any time soon. If anything, the intelligence community has cautioned that the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol may have emboldened extremists. Having sacked the Capitol, the lunatic fringe is now dreaming of a bigger, bloodier encore.

Representative Matt Gaetz, the Florida delegation’s mini-Trump, is in full froth. “Pelosi hired a bigot to hunt MAGA,” he charged last month. Last Tuesday, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the speaker, arguing that General Honoré’s criticism of the police and lawmakers was “disqualifying.” On Thursday, Tucker Carlson told viewers: “Honoré is an unhinged partisan extremist. He’s nuttier than anyone affiliated with QAnon.”

Desperate to save their economies from complete collapse, governments borrowed unprecedented amounts of money on the cheap to support workers and businesses during the pandemic. Now, with recovery in sight, a big risk looms: interest payments.

Spurred on by rock-bottom rates, governments issued $16.3 trillion in debt in 2020, and they're expected to borrow another $12.6 trillion this year, according to S&P Global Ratings. But fears are growing that an explosive economic comeback starting this summer could generate inflation, potentially forcing central banks to raise rates sooner than expected.

Should that happen, the cost of servicing mountains of sovereign debt will jump, eating up government funds that could otherwise be spent on essential services or rebuilding weakened economies.

For over a year now, my 2½-year-old daughter and I have been monitoring — avidly, anxiously — the movements of the 10 ambulances parked there. That’s the sort of entertainment we have now.

Since the beginning of the year, fewer and fewer ambulances stay put. Now, during the day, it’s common to see only one or two vehicles at the lot — and never for long. Just wait awhile and away they go, sirens blaring, to answer someone’s call.

Looking at that incessant parade of ambulances, I try not to sound desperate. I try to keep from my voice the knowledge that 543 people have died waiting for a hospital bed since the end of February in São Paulo alone, that across the country over 370,000 people have lost their lives — and that the worst may be yet to come.

What’s happening can only be called a venomous panic attack. Since the election, large swathes of the Trumpian right have decided America is facing a crisis like never before and they are the small army of warriors fighting with Alamo-level desperation to ensure the survival of the country as they conceive it

When asked in late January if politics is more about “enacting good public policy” or “ensuring the survival of the country as we know it,” 51 percent of Trump Republicans said survival; only 19 percent said policy.The level of Republican pessimism is off the chart

A February Economist-YouGov poll asked Americans which statement is closest to their view: “It’s a big, beautiful world, mostly full of good people, and we must find a way to embrace each other and not allow ourselves to become isolated” or “Our lives are threatened by terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants, and our priority should be to protect ourselves.”

The Biden administration is moving into a new phase of its campaign to vaccinate as many Americans as possible for the coronavirus, one where the government may not always be the best messenger to persuade people to get their shot.

The country is nearing the point where vaccine supply will outstrip demand. It was only this week that every state lifted restrictions on who could be vaccinated, and just under 50% of adults have yet to get their first shot.

"That's hugely problematic because I don't think they are," Jha said. "I think actually there are lots of people who are perfectly happy to get a vaccine but aren't desperate for it, aren't convinced they need it badly and we still make it too hard for many people

Developing countries racing for coronavirus vaccines now have another dependable option — and China’s reputation as a rising scientific superpower just got a big boost.

The World Health Organization on Friday declared a vaccine made by a Chinese company, Sinopharm, as a safe and reliable way to fight the virus. The declaration marks a significant step toward clearing up doubts about the vaccine, after little late-phase clinical trial data was disclosed by the Chinese government and the company.

“The addition of this vaccine has the potential to rapidly accelerate Covid-19 vaccine access for countries seeking to protect health workers and populations at risk,”

In a now-deleted tweet from May 22, 2020, Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, opined, “There is a difference between being politically black and being racially black.”

Growing out of the Critical Race Theory (CRT) movement, a culture of censorship has taken root in many of our institutions.

The implication of Hannah-Jones’s tweet and candidate Biden’s quip seems to be that you can have African ancestry, dark skin, textured hair, and perhaps even some “culturally black” traits regarding tastes in food, music, and ways of moving through the world. But unless you hold the “correct” political beliefs and values, you are not authentically black.

Growing out of the Critical Race Theory (CRT) movement, a culture of censorship has taken root in many of our institutions.

CRT makes two basic observations: First, that bias and prejudice exist not just in the hearts and minds of individuals, but also in society’s social structures and systems.

second, that bias embedded in systems is frequently invisible to the dominant class but perfectly perceptible to its victims

In the weeks since the President asked her to take charge of immigration from Central America, Vice President Kamala Harris and her staff have sought to make one thing clear: She does not manage the southern border.

Two White House officials familiar with the dynamic said Harris and her aides have emphasized internally that they want to focus on conditions in Central America that push migrants to the US southern border, as President Joe Biden tasked her to do. A record number of unaccompanied children crossed into the US this spring, and the throngs of desperate minors present a heart-rending problem as well as a political one.

After the announcement, Harris' aides appeared to "panic," according to one of the officials, out of concern that her assignment was being mischaracterized and could be politically damaging if she were linked to the border, which at the time was facing a growing number of arrivals.

In a bid to arrest a demographic crisis, China this week announced it will allow couples to have three children -- but some critics questioned why the government kept a limit on parents at all?

The answer might lie in Beijing's attitudes towards its ethnic minorities, particularly those in Xinjiang.

Experts said Beijing is reluctant to remove all quotas on the number of children per family for several reasons. But one major factor is that ending the policy would make it much more difficult to justify Beijing's attempts to limit the population in Xinjiang and other regions with large minority groups, which tend to have more children.

In this pivotal moment in American history, Democrats in the US House of Representatives and US Senate, working with the White House, have proposed several pieces of legislation which can strengthen working families, protect the planet and save American democracy from right-wing extremism.

We can create millions of good paying union jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, water systems and constructing the millions of units of affordable housing we desperately need. We can also end starvation wages in America by raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. At a time when real wages for American workers have been stagnant for decades, these actions will be a major step forward in improving the standard of living of a declining middle class.

Further, we can create millions more jobs by taking the global leadership in combating climate change -- the existential threat to our planet -- and transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels.

Lebanon is facing economic collapse. Since late 2019, the country's currency has lost over 90% of its value, and people's life savings are locked up in banks that have imposed discretionary capital controls. The financial meltdown has pushed half of Lebanon's population below the poverty line, according to the

Political turmoil has exacerbated the crisis. The government resigned after hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate -- neglected and mismanaged for years by Beirut port officials -- exploded, leaving more than 200 people dead and thousands more injured. The heart of the city still stands disfigured with countless buildings damaged and destroyed.

The latest political dispute is between Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and President Michel Aoun. Hariri has promised, once he finally has a government in place, to stop Lebanon's collapse and restart negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a desperately needed bailout.

When I wrote a couple of columns criticizing Israel as well as Hamas over the recent Gaza war, I had pushback from readers who asked: So what would you have Israel do?

“How should, in fact, Israel respond when Hamas launches thousands of rockets?” Ryan asked. On my Facebook page, Joel put it this way: “Mr. Kristof, what do you recommend that Israel do in response to rocket attacks? What would the American response be to repeated rocket attacks from Mexico or Canada on American cities?”

We probably would not turn the other cheek: When the Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa attacked a New Mexico town in 1916, the United States sent 6,000 troops into Mexico (albeit after getting Mexico’s permission). And in response to the 9/11 attacks, America invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Carter was one of many activists protesting in the wake of Floyd's murder in Minneapolis at the hands of police. And now a year later, Floyd's death is a big part of the reason why many activists are running for local office across the country.

Carter decided to run for mayor in Sandy Springs, Georgia, after he said he grew emotionally exhausted from attending what felt like unending protests for Black people killed during police encounters and other racists attacks.

Videos capturing the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man shot and killed while running in a Georgia neighborhood, and George Floyd gave him something to point out the inequalities Carter knew, but perhaps others hadn't seen.

Talk of labor shortages is everywhere. That is to say, many economic commentators and policymakers have been bemoaning the supposedly alarming reports of a lack of workers to fill the jobs vital to the ongoing economic recovery. But there is always a chorus of employers complaining they can’t find the workers they need. We have to look beyond anecdotal reports to fully understand the data.

As we sift through the latest jobs report, which showed the economy gained 559,000 jobs in May, three key findings rise to the surface.

This is also true today. Wage growth decelerated in May in most sectors. And in the vast majority of sectors, wages are growing solidly but not fast enough to raise concern about damaging labor shortages, given that job growth is also strong. Further, we still have 7.6 million fewer jobs than we did before Covid and there are large employment gaps in virtually all industries and demographic groups

I intended to duly fulfill my duty as a political columnist and write about the first 100 days of Joe Biden’s presidency

But as I talked to Senate Democrats about the past few months, I kept hearing a note of regret. Not about their agenda, or the bills they had passed or the nominations they had cleared. They were proud of all that. What saddened them was that their accomplishments, both past and prospective, depended on partisan strategies — party-line votes, the budget reconciliation process and, potentially, filibuster reform.

“The 2017 tax cut bill didn’t get a single Democratic vote in the House and Senate,” Senator Ron Wyden told me, disbelief in his voice. “You really have to work at it to not get a single Democratic vote for tax cuts. Everybody likes dessert!”

China is a major supplier of coronavirus vaccine, giving it enormous leverage in pandemic-ravaged nations. Brazil, recently hostile to the Chinese company Huawei, has suddenly changed its stance.

The Trump administration had been warning allies across the globe to shun Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, denouncing the company as a dangerous extension of China’s surveillance system.

With Covid-19 deaths rising to their highest levels yet, and a dangerous new virus variant stalking Brazil, the nation’s communications minister went to Beijing in February, met with Huawei executives at their headquarters and made a very unusual request of a telecommunication company.

Children pry at the dirt with sticks, trying to dig out parts of homes that have sunk below ground. Their parents, unable to feed them, scavenge the rubble for remnants of roofs to sell for scrap metal.

People have long left Honduras for the United States, fleeing gang violence, economic misery and the indifference of a government run by a president accused of ties to drug traffickers.

Then last fall, two hurricanes hit impoverished areas of Honduras in rapid succession, striking more than four million people across the nation — nearly half the population — and leveling entire neighborhoods.

Thanks to their ultralow fees and stellar long-term performance, these investment vehicles have soaked up more and more money since being developed by Vanguard’s Jack Bogle in the 1970s

as of 2016, investors worldwide were pulling more than $300 billion a year out of actively managed funds and pushing more than $500 billion a year into index funds. Some $11 trillion is now invested in index funds, up from $2 trillion a decade ago. And as of 2019, more money is invested in passive funds than in active funds in the United States.

Indexing has also gone small, very small. Although many financial institutions offer index funds to their clients, the Big Three control 80 or 90 percent of the market. The Harvard Law professor John Coates has argued that in the near future, just 12 management professionals—meaning a dozen people, not a dozen management committees or firms, mind you—will likely have “practical power over the majority of U.S. public companies.”

Two hours after the Capitol was breached, as supporters of Donald Trump pummelled police and vandalised the building, Vice-President Mike Pence tried to assert control. In an urgent phone call to the acting defense secretary, he issued a startling demand.“Clear the Capitol,” Pence said.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, were making a similarly desperate appeal, asking the army to deploy the national guard.“We need help,” Schumer said, more than an hour after the Senate chamber had been breached.At the Pentagon, officials were discussing reports that state capitals were facing violence in what had the makings of a national insurrection.“We must establish order,” said Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, in a call with Pentagon leaders. But order would not be restored for hours.

The Pentagon document was obtained by the Associated Press. It adds another layer of understanding about the fear and panic while the insurrection played out, lays bare the inaction by Trump, and shows how his refusal to call off his supporters contributed to a slowed response by the military and law enforcement.

With Trump not engaged, it fell to Pentagon officials, a handful of senior White House aides, the leaders of Congress and Pence, holed up in a secure bunker, to attempt to manage the chaos.