Category: News

Afghanistan wasn’t just America’s 20-year war. It also belonged to US allies. “This has been above all a catastrophe for the Afghan people. It’s a failure of the Western world and it’s a game changer for international relations,” the European Union’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell told an Italian newspaper Monday, according to the Washington Post. …

Continue reading “NATO allies are preparing for a future without America’s “forever wars””

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. The Afghan president fled the country. Almost all of Afghanistan is now under Taliban control. It marks the end of an era: America’s longest war is now over, and America lost. It happened fast, stunning the world and leaving many in the country racing …

Continue reading “How the US created a disaster in Afghanistan”

The global supply chain is in hot water. The pandemic has made it notoriously difficult for shoppers to buy certain consumer goods, from home appliances and furniture to laptops and bicycles. And things aren’t getting better anytime soon, at least not this year. Shipments have been delayed, raw materials are in short supply, and businesses …

Continue reading “You can buy stuff online, but getting it is another story”

By removing all troops from Afghanistan shortly before the 9/11 attacks’ 20th anniversary, President Joe Biden sent a none-too-subtle message: He wanted America, and the world, to see that he was turning the page — that the war on terror era was well and truly over. In a speech last week justifying his decision, he …

Continue reading “The war on terror and the long death of liberal interventionism”

In December 2018, I visited a large dyeing facility inside the Shaoxing Industrial Zone, south of the coastal city of Hangzhou, China. Twenty minutes out from the manufacturing hub, I began to smell it: the rotten-egg stench of dye effluent. The Zone, as it’s known, is 100 square kilometers, nearly double the size of Manhattan. …

Continue reading “How your favorite jeans might be fueling a human rights crisis”

September 7 was Brazil’s Independence Day, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro used the occasion to continue his assault on the country’s democratic institutions. Bolsonaro had called on his hardcore supporters to rally, as he battles Congress and the judiciary over their refusal to go along with his attempts to rewrite electoral rules ahead of the …

Continue reading “Brazil escaped a January 6-style insurrection — for now”

If you’re reading this article, you can remember what it was like to be alive in 2020 — all too well, most likely. And while you may not want to relive it, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy — a new book by renowned economic historian Adam Tooze about the year that was — …

Continue reading ““Neoliberalism has really ruptured”: Adam Tooze on the legacy of 2020”

Roughly a quarter of the more than 100,000 Afghans evacuated from Kabul in August have already arrived at American military bases for further processing, awaiting their opportunity to start a new life in the US. But amid a nationwide affordable housing crisis, finding them a place to call home is proving a major obstacle. There …

Continue reading “The affordable housing shortage is hurting Afghan refugees”

Covid-19 testing in the US improved dramatically over the first half of 2020, but things now appear to be breaking down once more as coronavirus cases rise and outstrip capacity — to the point that the mayor of a major American city can’t get testing quickly enough to potentially avoid spreading the virus. “We FINALLY …

Continue reading “Covid-19 testing in the US is abysmal. Again.”

Covid-19 is upending our lives and forcing us to make complex decisions with little information and conflicting guidance from authorities. Summer, typically the season of staying up late and popsicles in the park, offers no escape. Many of us are already turning to the fall, and the fate of schools. What will we do with …

Continue reading “I’m an epidemiologist and a dad. Here’s why I think schools should reopen.”