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In both cases, heavy federal spending (on the war in Vietnam and Great Society programs in the 1960s, on the response to Covid in 2020 and 2021) added to demand. And shocks to global energy and food prices in the 1970s made the inflation problem significantly worse, just as they are doing now.

In contrast, efforts by the current Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, and his colleagues to bring down inflation enjoy considerable support from both the White House and Congress, at least so far. As a result, the Fed today has the independence it needs to make policy decisions based solely on the economic data and in the longer-run interests of the economy, not on short-term political considerations.

a key difference from the ’60s and ’70s is that the Fed’s views on both the sources of inflation and its own responsibility to control the pace of price increases have changed markedly. Burns, who presided over most of the 1970s inflation, had a cost-push theory of inflation. He believed that inflation was caused primarily by large companies and trade unions, which used their market power to push up prices and wages even in a slow economy. He thought the Fed had little ability to counteract these forces, and as an alternative to raising interest rates, he helped persuade Nixon to set wage and price controls in 1971, which proved a spectacular failure.

ANANTNAG, Kashmir — As hundreds of Hindu families fled the Kashmir region in recent weeks amid a spike in targeted militant attacks, Sandeep Raina, a 38-year-old engineer, resigned himself to his worst fear: that he would have to abandon his home once again.

The return of minority Hindus to Kashmir, two decades after a huge exodus in the face of militant attacks and threats, has been held up by successive Indian governments as an illustration of how they are bringing normalcy to the restive Himalayan region.

The administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kashmiri Hindus say, has tried to prevent many Hindus from fleeing their residential colonies in recent weeks. The Hindu residents are demanding that the authorities lift the blockades and transfer their jobs and families to safer places outside the valley.

In December 2018, Pope commissioned me to report for the CJR on the troubled history of The Nation magazine and its apparent support for the policies of Vladimir Putin. 

My $6,000 commission to write for the prestigious ”watchdog” was flattering and exciting – but would also be a hard call. Watchdogs, appointed or self-proclaimed, can only claim entitlement when they hold themselves to the highest possible standards of reporting and conduct. It was not to be

For me, the project was vital but also a cause for personal sadness.  During the 1980s, I had been an editor of The Nation’s British sister magazine New Statesman and had served as chair of its publishing company. I knew, worked with and wrote for The Nation’s then-editor, the late Victor Navasky. He subsequently chaired the CJR. 

Another disturbing aspect of the center was its lack of regard for the rights of parents—and the extent to which doctors saw themselves as more informed decision-makers over the fate of these children.

when there was a dispute between the parents, it seemed the center always took the side of the affirming parent.

no matter how much suffering or pain a child had endured, or how little treatment and love they had received, our doctors viewed gender transition—even with all the expense and hardship it entailed—as the solution.

Kids are unwell. Worse than ever recorded, according to two new reports tracing depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in teens.

if we want to make any lasting difference, it is us, the adults, who need an intervention.

Rates of bullying were increasing in the state even in 2018, and researchers at Drake University found some forms of it significantly correlated with feeling sad or hopeless and attempting suicide.

North Koreans are experiencing widespread hunger and dying of starvation as the country suffers one of the worst food crises in decades as a result of its international isolation and natural disasters that have damaged crops, reducing yields.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered officials to resolve the food-supply problems with better farming equipment and scientific methods

the situation worsened in recent months as a result of its border restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic and floods and droughts last year that hurt its harvests. Last May, North Korea reported its second-worst drought since the country began measurements in 1981, affecting the capital city of Pyongyang and nearby provinces. Over the summer, towns along the border with China flooded after heavy rainfall.    

A year later, the war in Ukraine has become, to a large extent, the West’s own. True, no American or NATO soldiers are fighting and dying on Ukrainian soil. But the U.S., its European allies and Canada have now sent some $120 billion in weapons and other aid to Ukraine, with new, more advanced military supplies on the way. If this monumental effort fails to thwart President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions, the setback would not only undermine American credibility on the world stage but also raise difficult questions about the future of the Western alliance.

“In many ways, we’re all-in, and we’re all-in because the realization has dawned in Europe that showing weakness to President Putin, showing no response to his atrocities, only invites him to go further and further,” said Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, a Dutch politician and member of parliament. “We have also realized that it is not only the safety and security of Ukraine that is at stake but also our own.”

The Russian military’s mixture of unexpected ineptitude and shocking cruelty has pulled the U.S. and allies deeper and deeper into the conflict. With one self-imposed constraint falling after another, Western goals have gradually moved from preventing the obliteration of Ukraine to supporting its military victory over Russia.

In his battle speech, recorded on February 21st and released as he unleashed the first volleys of cruise missiles against his fellow Slavs, Russia’s president railed against “the empire of lies” that is the West. Crowing over his nuclear arsenal, he pointedly threatened to “crush” any country that stood in his way.

It was unclear in what strength they were moving. But Mr Putin seemingly covets all of Ukraine, just as American and British intelligence reports had claimed all along. In acting, he has set aside the everyday calculus of political risks and benefits. Instead he is driven by the dangerous, delusional idea that he has an appointment with history.

Even though Russia has set out to build a fortress economy, the country is still connected to the world and, as the initial 45% fall in Russia’s stockmarket suggests, it will suffer.

Former Attorney General William P. Barr writes in a new memoir that former President Donald J. Trump’s “self-indulgence and lack of self-control” cost him the 2020 election and says “the absurd lengths to which he took his ‘stolen election’ claim led to the rioting on Capitol Hill.”

In the book, “One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General,” Mr. Barr also urges his fellow Republicans to pick someone else as the party’s nominee for the 2024 election, calling the prospect of another presidential run by Mr. Trump “dismaying.”

“Donald Trump has shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed,”

The pilot of the China Eastern Airlines flight that crashed in southern China with 132 people aboard was an industry veteran with more than 6,000 hours of flying time.

His co-pilot was even more experienced, having flown since the early days of China’s post-Mao era, training on everything from Soviet-model biplanes to newer Boeing models.

How they piloted the Boeing 737 will be closely examined as investigators seek to explain what is probably China’s worst air disaster in more than a decade. Experts have said it is unlikely that anyone survived the crash.

President Biden met with European leaders in Brussels to reinforce solidarity against Russia’s invasion and proposed excluding Russia from the G20. Ukraine said it had destroyed a Russian naval ship.

BRUSSELS — President Biden and leaders of more than 30 nations convened Thursday to demonstrate united opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, announcing new economic sanctions, aid for refugees, deployment of additional forces to Eastern Europe and grim preparations in case Russia uses chemical

As heavy fighting continued in the suburban town of Irpin, a steady stream of tired civilians, mainly older people, were evacuated to relative safety in the capital of Kyiv on Thursday. A day earlier, Ukrainian firefighters battled a fire at a home struck during a Russian rocket attack in western Kyiv.

The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation."Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, have advanced closer to the city center in recent days despite the resistance. Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, continue in Kyiv, as well as major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol. Russia also bombed western cities for the first time last week, targeting Lviv and a military base near the Poland border.

The U.S. will be providing Ukraine with $100 million in "civilian security" assistance, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Saturday, hours after he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with their Ukrainian counterparts.The aid will provide equipment including armored vehicles, medical supplies, personal protective equipment and communications equipment, according to the Department of State.

"We’ll not cease the efforts to get humanitarian relief wherever it is needed in Ukraine and for the people who’ve made it out of Ukraine. Notwithstanding the brutality of Vladimir Putin, let there be no doubt that this war [has] already been a strategic failure for Russia," Biden said.

So, am I wrong to delight in this bird when so much woe stalks birds in general? The question seems pertinent when our mental bandwidth is packed with generalized gloom

There is the problem of climate, the problem of democracy, the problem of gun violence, the water problem, the social media problem, the free speech problem, the policing problem, the inequality problem, the debt problem, the border problem, the overdose problem, and the linked problem of inflation and bank collapses. Oh, yes: And the bird problem.

Nor might it be coincidence that the Wall Street Journal and the National Opinion Research Center — excellent sources when it comes to opinion surveys — report that the ground has begun crumbling beneath American morale.

Here are just a few of the longstanding problems plaguing American education: a generalized decline in literacy; the faltering international performance of American students; an inability to recruit enough qualified college graduates into the teaching profession; a lack of trained and able substitutes to fill teacher shortages; unequal access to educational resources; inadequate funding for schools; stagnant compensation for teachers; heavier workloads; declining prestige; and deteriorating faculty morale.

Nine-year-old students earlier this year revealed “the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics,”

In the latest comparison of fourth grade reading ability, the United States ranked below 15 countries, including Russia, Ireland, Poland and Bulgaria.

As those contrasts have faded, so have these distinct regional, rural identities. Everywhere it’s the same cloying pop country, the same aggressively oversized Ford F-150s, the same tumbledown Wal-Marts and Dollar Generals, the same eagle-heavy fashion, the same confused, aggrieved air of relentless material decline. Even the accents are more and more the same, trending toward a generalized Larry the Cable Guy twang.

America’s increasingly placeless, homogenous white rural culture isn’t a blend of all our various regional cultures. Rural Iowans and Minnesotans sound more like rural Missourians than the reverse.

Many large metropolitan areas grew faster over the past decade than the Bureau had previously projected, with eight of the nation's ten largest cities showing an increased growth rate compared to the 2000 to 2010 period. At the same time, most of rural America shrank in absolute as well as relative terms. A majority—52 percent—of the nation's counties actually reported a smaller raw population in 2020 than they had in 2010.

Valter Longo, a nutrition-obsessed Italian Ph.D. student, wrestled with a lifelong addiction to longevity.

“For studying aging, Italy is just incredible,

Italy has one of the world’s oldest populations, including multiple pockets of centenarians who tantalize researchers searching for the fountain of youth. “It’s nirvana.”

while we tend to focus on stories about everything that has gone wrong, in the long run, the bigger news always ends up being the impact of growth and innovation. But because we’re so pre-occupied with everything else, it tends to sneak up on us.

In the left’s view, market crashes and recessions reveal the real essence of the capitalist system. In reality, they are just temporary glitches and setbacks in a larger story of persistent innovation and growth.

new figures showing the widening gap in wealth between the US and Europe. Jim Pethokoukis describes it as a Doom Loop of Decline and attributes it partly to the impact of heavy European regulation.

“The word Fascism,” he writes, “has now no meaning except insofar as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’”

He adds other exhausted words, including democracy, freedom and patriotic — convenient terms for establishing righteousness, easily melting into self-righteousness.

The writer is George Orwell, in his celebrated 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language.” Orwell contended that language had become corrupt and debased in his time, but the survival of his examples into the present contradicts him, suggesting that not only the problem but the very examples may be timeless.

Over the past 15 years, China has come to dominate the global market for solar energy. Nearly every solar panel on the planet is made by a Chinese company. Even the equipment to manufacture solar panels is made almost entirely in China. The country’s solar panel exports, measured by how much power they can produce, jumped another 10 percent in May over last year.

But China’s solar panel domestic industry is in upheaval.

Wholesale prices plummeted by almost half last year and have fallen another 25 percent this year. Chinese manufacturers are competing for customers by cutting prices far below their costs, and still keep building more factories.

the Mediterranean rush is turning Europe’s recent economic history on its head. In the 2010s, Germany and other manufacturing-heavy economies helped drag the continent out of its debt crisis thanks to strong exports of cars and capital goods, especially to China.

Today, Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal contribute between a quarter and half of the bloc’s annual growth. 

While Germany’s economy is flatlining, Spain is Europe’s fastest-growing big economy. Nearly three-quarters of the country’s recent growth and one in four new jobs are linked to tourism