Hanging over the current disagreement is the debate over the Iraq war and, specifically, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s address to the United Nations in 2003. Mr. Powell’s presentation included fuzzy images and partial communications intercepts, and detailed what came to be understood as wildly wrong assessments about the Iraqi government’s illicit weapons. In…
A stainless steel rabbit by artist Jeff Koons fetched $91 million at Christie’s, establishing an auction record for a living artist. The winning bid came from art dealer Bob Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s father, who was in the sales room and said he made the purchase on behalf of a client. Estimated at…
Reuters/Rebecca Cook The Trump administration plans to delay auto tariffs by up to six months, multiple news outlets reported on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources. The reports sent auto stocks higher on Wednesday. President Donald Trump is expected to delay tariffs on auto imports, Bloomberg initially reported, citing US officials. Reuters and CNBC later reported the…
JEFF BEZOS wants humans to live in space. On May 9th the founder and boss of Amazon, who also runs Blue Origin, a private rocketry firm, unveiled plans for a lunar lander. “Blue Moon”, as it is called, is just one phase of a bold plan to establish large off-world settlements. It is a vision…
For now, the American economy remains strong, with rising wages and the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. But with less trade, American jobs up and down the value chain that are seemingly unrelated to importing and exporting goods could suffer, including research and development, retail and marketing products. Douglas Irwin, a trade historian at…
Esther Wojcicki has a nuanced view of the role technology should play in children’s lives. As you might expect from the mother of tech CEOs Susan Wojcicki (YouTube) and Anne Wojcicki (23andMe), she sees tech as a valuable tool for making vast amounts of information widely accessible. But, as befits her role as a long-time…
WhatsApp was hacked, and attackers installed sophisticated spyware on an unknown number of people's smartphones. The Facebook subsidiary, which has 1.5 billion users, said it discovered in early May that "an advanced cyber actor" infected an unknown number of devices with the malware. The Financial Times, which first reported on the issue on Monday, said…
IT IS BECOMING the party of mishaps, if not of mean-spiritedness. Ahead of an election on May 18th the ruling, right-of-centre Liberal Party has been obliged to disavow two of its parliamentary candidates for Islamophobia. Another stepped down after it emerged that he had called on the party to expel gay members. A fourth candidate…
“We’re going to take the highest year, the biggest purchase that China has ever made with our farmers, which is about $15 billion, and do something reciprocal to our farmers,” the president said. “Our farmers will be very happy. Our manufacturers will be very happy and our government is very happy because we’re taking in…
If the U.S. ever gets around to implementing aspects of the so-called Green New Deal, Europe has a few lessons to share. When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey, both Democrats, introduced their Green New Deal resolution earlier this year, it quickly sank in the Senate, largely due to Republican opposition. But its ideas…
