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one study showing a 64% increased risk of death for people infected with B.1.1.7 compared to those infected with the older

implement the public health measures that we talk about all the time

That makes it more important than ever to get people vaccinated quickly,

To get as many people vaccinated as quickly and as expeditiously as possib

But vaccines appear to protect well against B.1.1.7

That7;s because the vaccines cause a broad immune response so that even if it7;s a little weakened, it7;s still powerful enough to prevent serious disease and death.

"The vaccine remained effective against B.1.1.7 with a slight but significant decrease in neutralization that was more apparent in participants under 55 years of age.

"had no significant effect on neutralization by serum obtained from participants who had received the mRNA-1273 vaccine in the phase 1 trial,"

if more mutations were acquired by the virus

including the B.1.351 variant first seen in South Africa and the P.1 variant that is common now in Brazil.

may much more easily evade the immune response prompted by vaccines

, it nonetheless strongly protected people against severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths in clinical trials.

that makes it even more important to get as many people vaccinated as possible before those variants can spread.

Almost all of these accidental mutations are inconsequential: The virus still looks and functions just as its parent before it did. Over time, though, sets of mutations can layer on top of one another and accumulate, and the virus begins to function differently. Some of these differences confer an advantage of one sort or another—for example, increased transmissibility.

He has been at the forefront of identifying and tracking the variant, but says huge questions remain unanswered. “There’s still considerable uncertainty as to the long-term consequences” of B.1.1.7, Pybus told me. “We don’t even know whether this lineage truly originated in the U.K., with so many countries not doing this surveillance.”

More than 131,300 people are now hospitalized with Covid-19, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

On Tuesday, Arizona reported a record-high 5,082 hospitalized Covid-19 patients. The same day, it broke a second record: more than 1,180 Covid-19 patients in ICU beds.

More than a quarter of the population in 30 US counties comes from full-time enrollment at higher education institutes, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In 10 of those counties, at least 90% of staffed ICU beds are occupied, according to the NCES. Those counties include Oktibbeha County, home to Mississippi State University, where almost all ICU beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients.

In Williamsburg, Virginia -- home to William & Mary -- Covid-19 cases nearly tripled in one week.

While vaccinations continue to lag behind predictions, health experts are begging Americans to hunker down in their bubbles for these next few months as soaring hospitalizations lead to record daily deaths.

Mass vaccinations, warmer weather, a new presidential administration and a population building immunity could lead to a "dramatically better" summer, he said.

Two "remarkably effective" vaccines are already being administered, and two more vaccines -- from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca -- "are right around the corner," Offit said.

The incoming Biden administration "isn7;t into this cult of denialism"

If another 55% to 60% of the population can be vaccinated -- something Offit said can be done if the US gives 1 million to 1.5 million doses a day -- "then I really do think that by June, we can stop the spread of this virus."

"We are telling states they should open vaccinations to all people ... 65 and over and all people under age 65 with a comorbidity with some form of medical documentation," Azar said.

The Pfizer vaccine doses should be spaced 21 days apart, and the Moderna doses should be 28 days apart.More than 27.6 million vaccine doses have so far been distributed, according to CDC data, and more than 9.3 million people have received their first dose -- a far cry from where some experts hoped the country would be by now.

Fauci said, "When people are ready to get vaccinated, we7;re going to move right on to the next level, so that there are not vaccine doses that are sitting in a freezer or refrigerator where they could be getting into people7;s arm."

And starting in two weeks, vaccines will be distributed to states based on which jurisdictions are getting the most doses into arms and where the most older adults reside. "We will be allocating them based on the pace of administration as reported by states and by the size of the 65 and over population in each state," Azar said.

Only six states have administered more than 50% of the doses distributed to them, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Connecticut, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Nearly 2.3 million children tested positive for Covid-19 from the pandemic7;s start through January 7, a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children7;s Hospital Association shows

More than 171,000 of those cases were reported between December 31 and January 7, while over two weeks -- between December 24 through January 7 -- there was a 15% increase in child Covid-19 cases, the report said.

The findings mean children now represent 12.5% of all infections in the US.

"While commonly plotted as points on maps, earthquakes of this size are more appropriately described as slip over a larger fault area," the USGS said. It added that a 7.0 magnitude quake would normally have a fault area of 50 by 20 kilometers — about 31 by 12 miles.

Over the next several hours, militants rampaged through around two dozen Israeli towns—killing, looting, burning, kidnapping, and reportedly raping civilians. They managed to penetrate as far as Ofakim, 20 miles into Israel. They effectively controlled several main roads, on which they gunned down passing traffic. It took the IDF 6 hours to begin seriously engaging the militants. 18 hours after the incursion began, fighting was taking place in 22 spots. It took over 48 hours before the last of the major clashes with this first wave of the militants’ incursion was over and the militants neutralized.

In total, as of the morning of October 11th, over 1,200 Israelis are confirmed killed, almost 3,000 wounded (hundreds critically), and somewhere between 100 and 150 kidnapped, including whole families with toddlers and senior citizens.

For months, Netanyahu has been cautioned that his divisive “governance reforms” represented a reckless gamble with the country’s national security. He received numerous private (and then public) warnings from every major security chief that his policies were eroding IDF preparedness and provoking Israel’s enemies to test its readiness. Netanyahu ignored, dismissed, or ridiculed every one of these warnings. He and his acolytes have systematically castigated those who voiced concern as disloyal “agents of the deep state” or, worse, “leftist traitors.”

The events of October 7th represented a colossal intelligence failure. With or without substantial Iranian assistance, it is now clear that Hamas had been preparing the attack for over a year. Astonishingly, it apparently did so without major leaks. The few tell-tale signs of an impending attack that did surface appear to have been ignored.

Taken by surprise, and made to fight for their lives in understaffed outposts, the IDF was operationally incapable of adequately responding to the militants’ land maneuver. Unarmed civilians were left to fend for themselves for long hours, with horrific consequences.

What will make October 7th uniquely egregious in the eyes of many Israelis (perhaps most) is the fact that events of this sort were not only reasonably foreseeable but were repeatedly foreseen and repeatedly ignored by Israel’s current leadership.

at least 950 Palestinians have been killed in retaliatory IAF air strikes.

As long as Israel faces immediate danger, all hands will be on deck and party politics largely put aside.

As long as the emergency continues, therefore, Netanyahu won’t have to face the pressure of public protests against his program to weaken the Israeli judiciary.          

But in the longer term, it is difficult to see how Netanyahu, the great political survivor, will survive the events of October 7th. His reputation as “Mr. Security” is in tatters and it is impossible to see how it could possibly recover.

Analysts keen to convey the magnitude of October 7th to American audiences have already tagged it Israel’s Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Neither label adequately captures the day’s true significance.

A more accurate name might be something like “Israel’s civic Yom Kippur.” Why? Because the very existence of the State of Israel was supposed to guarantee that a day like this would never happen. In the Yom Kippur War of October 1973—when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise assault—Israel lost some 2,700 soldiers, but it managed to effectively protect its civilian population. No Israeli towns or villages were ever breached. The social contract was honored, albeit at a terrible price.

On October 7, 2023, it was primarily civilians who were killed, maimed, and kidnapped. This was the day when the IDF wasn’t there to defend the people it was created to protect. This was the day when—livestreamed on social media—distraught family members saw their loved ones carried away, like livestock, into Hamas captivity in Gaza. This was the day when—in a horrifying echo of the Holocaust—defenseless Jewish mothers, citizens of a sovereign Jewish State, tried to keep their babies from crying as armed men lurked outside, listening to ascertain whether anyone was alive inside the home, before setting it on fire.

many Israelis, already mistrustful of their elected representatives and worn out by internal divisions, may have finally lost faith in their national leaders or, worse, in the core institutions of their nation state. Where was the army when murderous gunmen broke into our homes deep inside Israel itself?

Fifty years ago, in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel appeared broken, internally torn, and internationally isolated. Yet, it proved itself remarkably resilient. Can Israel gather itself again from the terrible blow it sustained on October 7th? I have no doubt that it can.

Some European leaders are warning of a fresh migration crisis when sea waters warm again and more people choose to put their lives in the hands of smugglers.

Pope Francis is demanding that "every possible measure" be taken to protect young refugees as he marks the church7;s World Day of Migrants a day after the latest Mediterranean migrant shipwreck.

Italy7;s coast guard says only four people survived the sinking of a migrant ship off Libya7;s coast on Saturday. An estimated 100 people were aboard and only eight bodies have been recovered.

What all of this comes down to is that something very big happened in this election that was quite separate from Comey and Putin

If you believe in the integrity of our elections, American sovereignty and - yes, let7;s say it - the importance of the legitimacy of the Trump presidency, the Russian sabotage and influence campaign is hugely important. But if you can7;t distinguish between let7;s say the 1 or 2 percentage point shift caused by Russia and Comey, from the 5 or 6 or 7 percentage point shift that made that small shift so consequential, I really don7;t know how to help you. They7;re both extremely important, but for very different reasons.

My own sense is that this is mainly internecine score settling.

The truth is it shouldn7;t have been close enough for these outside interventions to have allowed Trump to win. But it was.

Was that because Clinton was a terrible candidate and Sanders should have been the nominee? Maybe. But I doubt it. At a minimum I don7;t think it is so clear as to be treated as a given

While I believe Democrats have many good economic policies, I don7;t believe they have an adequate and overarching theory of the problem of wage stagnation or ever-increasing economic insecurity (a interlocked series of economic and political problems) or a set of policies and a politics to address it. That doesn7;t mean they7;re ignoring it. That doesn7;t mean anyone else has a better set. But what Democrats have is not enough

Holding the presidency for eight years combined with a still accurate belief that their constituencies are growing while the other party7;s is shrinking has led to a deep deficit of political organizing in all fifty states. Democrats had this as recently as a decade ago. But it atrophied. As much as anything there is a revolt against the increasingly urban and non-white America symbolized by the 7;Obama coalition7;, one that combines racial backlash, economic decline and cultural marginalization. There is something there that goes far beyond anything that can be addressed by a more class based politics alone.

My point here isn7;t to offer that critique or to pose a solution. My aim here is simply to highlight that fact that multiple things produced the November 8th result. Some are enduring and will be there in 2018 and 2020. Some are contingent events that will likely never happen again or at least not in any predictable way. They all happened. They7;re all important. They get addressed, dealt with in different ways. But standing them up against each other, shouting one down in favor of the other has far more to do with the self-destructive score settling which the bitterness of defeat brings in its wake than anything that is productive of building a different, better future.

I don7;t have any unified theory of the problem. I also see no point in exaggerating the problems. But I can also see a list of 4 or 5 things that need working on right now. Getting to work on those seems more important than any grand unified theory.

Their firms do more business in some corners of the financial world than many banks, including lending to low-income homeowners and small businesses. They lobby members of Congress. And they have put large sums of money behind presidential candidates, at times pumping tens of millions of dollars into super PACs.

The hedge fund industry has now ballooned in size, to $2.9 trillion, from $539 billion in 2001. So, too, has the pay of the industry’s leaders.

When Institutional Investor first started ranking hedge fund pay 15 years ago, George Soros topped the Alpha list, earning $700 million. In 2015, Mr. Griffin, who started trading as a Harvard sophomore out of his dorm room, and James H. Simons, a former math professor, each took home $1.7 billion

his own personal wealth has grown exponentially, and is estimated by Forbes at $7.5 billion.

Mr. Griffin’s firm, Citadel, has grown from a hedge fund that managed family and pension fund money into a $25 billion firm

He recently made headlines when he paid $500 million for two pieces of art. In September, Mr. Griffin, 47, reportedly paid $200 million to buy several floors in a new luxury condo tower that is being built at 220 Central Park South, in Manhattan.

He was the biggest donor to the successful re-election campaign of Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago. More recently he has poured more than $3.1 million into the failed presidential campaigns of Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, as well as the Republican National Committee

Citadel’s flagship Kensington and Wellington hedge funds returned 14.3 percent over 2015

Mr. Simons, 78, has been a major political donor of the Democrats, donating $9.2 million in 2016, including $7 million to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton.

Among 2015’s top hedge fund earners are five men who actually lost money for some investors last year but still made handsome profits because their firms are so big

For many managers, collecting large pay, even when performance was not tops, has become a side effect of growing bigger. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “Once a hedge fund gets to be large enough to produce incredibly outsized remuneration, the hardest part of due diligence is determining whether the investment process is affected,

“Is the goal to continue to make money in a risky environment or is the goal to preserve assets on which you collect fees?”

Michael Platt, the founder of BlueCrest Capital Management, took home $260 million, according to Alpha. It was a difficult year for his firm, once one of the biggest hedge funds in Europe with $37 billion in investor money. He lost investors in his flagship fund 0.63 percent over the year and then told them he was throwing in the towel.

For Russia, energy supplies are as important to keeping a hold on Ukraine and the other former countries of the Soviet Union as is the Russian Army itself. Ukraine would freeze without Russian gas, and its flow has been a considerable source of wealth and corruption in both countries. But Russia is also obligated by contract to provide natural gas to Western Europe, and Moscow remains highly dependent on Ukrainian pipelines to get it there.

In addition, he said, the team is helping countries develop their own natural gas resources, including in partnership with American energy giants. Halliburton has started fracking for natural gas in Poland, while Shell last year signed a contract to explore for natural gas in Ukraine. Continue reading the main story 241 Comments In the event that the U.S. gas supply is threatened, as Europe7;s is by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, should the United States step up its domestic fracking efforts? Share your thoughts »

Within the Conservative Party, which fears that it will lose voters to the U.K. Independence Party, the demand provoked anger.

The revision took place after the European Commission, the executive arm of the bloc, reviewed the economic performance of all member states since 1995 and changed its statistics to take into account elements such as the underground economy.

Shares of Morgan Stanley (MS.N) slid 6.9 percent in their largest one-day drop since November 2012, while rival Goldman Sachs (GS.N) fell 4.6 percent. Both closed at their lowest since 2013.

Facebook Inc (FB.O), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and other technology stocks that had lent strength to the market last year extended their decline from Friday. Fund managers said last year7;s outsized gains among some Internet stocks made them the first choice to sell now.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI closed down 177.92 points, or 1.1 percent, at 16,027.05, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 26.61 points, or 1.42 percent, to end at 1,853.44 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 79.39 points, or 1.82 percent, to 4,283.75.

Falling oil prices along with concern over a worsening global growth outlook have caused a sharp selloff in stocks this year. Investors have been searching for a catalyst that might change the market7;s course.

Adding to recent woes for the tech sector, Cognizant (CTSH.O) dropped 7.7 percent to $54.05 after the IT services provider issued a weak sales forecast. Amazon fell 2.8 percent while Facebook dropped 4.2 percent

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 2,484 to 618; on the Nasdaq, 2,029 issues fell and 804 advanced. The S&P 500 posted 7 new 52-week highs and 97 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 4 new highs and 495 new lows.

It was the deadliest attack on the Shabab in the more than decade-long American campaign against the group, an affiliate of Al Qaeda, and a sharp deviation from previous American strikes, which have concentrated on the group’s leaders, not on its foot soldiers. Continue reading the main story #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap { max-width:180px; } .g-artboard { margin:0 auto; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180{ position:relative; overflow:hidden; width:180px; } .g-aiAbs{ position:absolute; } .g-aiImg{ display:block; width:100% !important; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 p{ font-family:nyt-franklin,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:13px; line-height:18px; margin:0; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle0 { font-size:11px; line-height:13px; font-weight:500; font-style:italic; color:#628cb2; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle1 { font-size:12px; line-height:14px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.00833333333333em; color:#000000; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle2 { font-size:12px; line-height:14px; font-weight:500; text-align:right; letter-spacing:0.00833333333333em; color:#000000; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle3 { font-size:12px; line-height:13px; font-weight:700; letter-spacing:0.00833333333333em; color:#000000; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle4 { font-size:11px; line-height:13px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.00833333333333em; color:#000000; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle5 { font-size:11px; line-height:13px; font-weight:500; font-style:italic; text-align:center; color:#628cb2; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle6 { font-size:9px; line-height:8px; font-weight:500; text-transform:uppercase; text-align:center; color:#000000; } Gulf of Aden ETHIOPIA SOMALIA Camp Raso Mogadishu KENYA Indian Ocean 300 miles MARCH 7, 2016 By The New York Times

It comes in response to new concerns that the group, which was responsible for one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on African soil when it struck a popular mall in Nairobi in 2013, is in the midst of a resurgence after losing much of the territory it once held and many of its fighters in the last several years.

The planned attack on American and African Union troops in Somalia, American officials say, may have been an attempt by the Shabab to carry out the same kind of high-impact act of terrorism as the one in Nairobi.

Pentagon officials would not say how they knew that the Shabab fighters killed on Saturday were training for an attack on United States and African Union forces, but the militant group is believed to be under heavy American surveillance.

The Shabab fighters were standing in formation at a facility the Pentagon called Camp Raso, 120 miles north of Mogadishu, when the American warplanes struck on Saturday, officials said, acting on information gleaned from intelligence sources in the area and from American spy planes

One intelligence agency assessed that the toll might have been higher had the strike happened earlier in the ceremony. Apparently, some fighters were filtering away from the event when the bombing began.

The strike was another escalation in what has become the latest battleground in the Obama administration’s war against terror: Africa.

The United States and its allies are focused on combating the spread of the Islamic State in Libya, and American officials estimate that with an influx of men from Iraq, Syria and Tunisia, the Islamic State’s forces in Libya have swelled to as many as 6,500 fighters, allowing the group to capture a 150-mile stretch of coastline over the past year.

The arrival of the Islamic State in Libya has sparked fears that the group’s reach could spread to other North African countries, and the United States is increasingly trying to prevent that

American forces are now helping to combat Al Qaeda in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso; Boko Haram in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad; and the Shabab in Somalia and Kenya, in what has become a multifront war against militant Islam in Africa.

The United States has a small number of trainers and advisers with African Union — primarily Kenyan — troops in Somalia. Defense officials said that the African Union’s military mission to Somalia was believed to have been the target of the planned attack.

Saturday’s strike was the most significant American attack on the Shabab since September 2014, when an American drone strike killed the leader of the group, Ahmed Abdi Godane, at the time one of the most wanted men in Africa. That strike was followed by one last March, when Adan Garar, a senior member of the group, was killed in a drone strike on his vehicle.

If the killings of Mr. Godane and Mr. Garar initially crippled the group, that no longer appears to be the case. In the past two months, Shabab militants have claimed responsibility for attacks that have killed more than 150 people, including Kenyan soldiers stationed at a remote desert outpost and beachcombers in Mogadishu.

In addition, the group has said it was responsible for a bomb on a Somali jetliner that tore a hole through the fuselage and for an attack last month on a popular hotel and a public garden in Mogadishu that killed 10 people and injured more than 25. On Monday, the Shabab claimed responsibility for a bomb planted in a laptop computer that went off at an airport security checkpoint in the town of Beletwein in central Somalia, wounding at least six people, including two police officers. The police said that one other bomb was defused.

At the same time, Shabab assassination teams have fanned out across Mogadishu and other major towns, stealthily eliminating government officials and others they consider apostates.

The Shabab have also retaken several towns after African Union forces pulled out. The African Union peacekeeping force, paid for mostly by Western governments, features troops from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Djibouti and other African nations.

The Shabab were once strong, then greatly weakened and now seem to be somewhere in between, while analysts say the group competes with the Islamic State for recruits and tries to show — in the deadliest way — that it is still relevant. Its dream is to turn Somalia into a pure Islamic state.

Satellite pictures show what US analysts say are deployments of surface to air missiles and facilities with military use, such as runways and radar.

The slowdown in spending comes as president Xi Jinping seeks to craft a more efficient and effective People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the world’s largest standing military.

Analysts say that for a fraction of the cost of an aircraft carrier – for decades the mainstay of Washington’s ability to project power around the world – the DF-21D missile threatens to alter the military balance in the Pacific.

Beijing defends its actions as being within its sovereign rights and denies Washington’s assertions that they threaten freedom of navigation.

The defence budget was determined by both China’s defence needs and the national economic situation, she added – the country saw its weakest growth in a quarter of a century last year.

An additional problem for the optimistic interpretation is this: The productivity slowdown is too big in scale, relative to the size of the tech sector, to be plausibly compensated for by tech progress.

Basically, under a conservative estimate, as outlined by Professor Syverson, the productivity slowdown has led to a cumulative loss of $2.7 trillion in gross domestic product since the end of 2004; that is how much more output would have been produced had the earlier rate of productivity growth been maintained. To make up for this difference, Professor Syverson estimates, consumer surplus (consumer benefits in excess of market price) would have to be five times as high as measured in the industries that produce and service information and communications technology. That seems implausibly large as a measurement gap

The tech economy just isn’t big enough to account for the productivity gap. That gap has caused measured G.D.P. to be about 15 percent lower than it would have been otherwise, yet digital technology industries were only about 7.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2004. Even if the free component of the Internet has become more important since 2004, it’s hard to imagine that it is so much better now that it accounts for such a big proportion of G.D.P.

America’s productivity crisis is real and it is continuing. While information technology remains the most likely source of future breakthroughs, Silicon Valley has not saved us just yet.

“I think what it represents is Republicans coalescing, saying it would be a disaster for Donald Trump to be our nominee and we’re going to stand behind the strongest conservative in the race,” Mr. Cruz told reporters in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, one of four states with Republican contests on Tuesday.

Mr. Trump’s losses underlined his continued vulnerability in states that hold time-intensive caucuses: He has lost five of seven such contests. He has performed far better in states holding primaries, which require less organization, and some of which also allow Democrats and independents to vote in Republican races.

The results suggested that a substantial number of Republicans were still uneasy about Mr. Trump: He finished above 40 percent in just one state. It was an indication that the growing campaign to deny Mr. Trump the nomination may not be a pointless exercise. The Stop Trump campaign was joined last week by Mitt Romney, who delivered a blistering attack on the Republican front-runner, portraying him as a threat to the party and the nation. And Mr. Trump reinforced questions about his candidacy at a debate on Thursday by making a barely veiled reference to his penis.

Whether he has incurred significant damage will be better known on Tuesday, if Mr. Kasich and Mr. Cruz can compete in Michigan and Mr. Cruz can threaten him in Mississippi.

Mr. Trump’s comments about building a wall along the border with Mexico and about illegal immigrants causing crime have drawn demonstrations almost everywhere he goes, and that was true in Wichita, too. Trump supporters in the caucus line engaged in shouting with several dozen protesters, many of them Hispanics, who make up 20 percent of the city’s population. Trucks with Mexican flags hanging out the windows and Latin music blaring from the speakers cruised slowly past the line.

Furthermore, Obama argues, because of our history, American military efforts are looked at with suspicion. Allies are unreliable. Ukraine is always going to be in Russia’s sphere of influence, so its efforts there will always trump ours. The Middle East is a morass and no longer that important to U.S. interests.

Do you think out loud in tandem with a community, or do you process internally? Throughout the Goldberg article, Obama is seen thinking deeply and subtly, but apart from the group around him. In catlike fashion, he is a man who knows his own mind and trusts his own judgment. His decision not to bomb Syria after it crossed the chemical weapons red line was made almost entirely alone.

More generally, Obama expresses disdain with the foreign policy community. He is critical of most of his fellow world leaders — impatient with most European ones, fed up with most Middle Eastern ones.

When seeking a description of a situation, does your mind leap for the clarifying single truth or do you step back to see the complex web of factors? Ronald Reagan typified the single clarifying truth habit of mind, both when he was describing an enemy (Evil Empire) and when he was calling for change (tear down this wal

, Obama leans to the other side of the spectrum. He is continually stepping back, starting with analyses of human nature, how people behave when social order breaks down, the roots and nature of tribalism.

Do you see international affairs as a passionate struggle or a conversation and negotiation? Continue reading the main story 343 Comments Obama shows a continual distrust of passion. He doesn’t see much value in macho bluffing or chest-thumping, or in lofty Churchillian rhetoric, or in bombings done in the name of “credibility.”

He may be critical, but he is not a hater. He doesn’t even let anger interfere with his appraisal of Vladimir Putin

it’s striking how many Americans have responded by going for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who are bad versions of the bounding in/we-can-change-everything doggy type.