Opinions

By Joshua Goodman Sanctions on Russia are starting to wreak havoc on global trade, with potentially devastating consequences for energy and grain importers while also generating ripple effects across a world still struggling with pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of tankers and bulk carriers have been diverted away from the...

By David Leonhardt Nearly 60 million American adults — or about one of out every four — remain unvaccinated against Covid-19. They have made an irrational choice that exposes them to severe illness. But they have also made a choice with a long historical tradition. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President...

By Steve Rosenberg Let me begin with an admission. So many times, I’ve thought: “Putin would never do this.” Then he goes and does it. “He’d never annex Crimea, surely?” He did. “He’d never start a war in the Donbas.” He did. “He’d never launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.” He has. I’ve concluded that...

By Melissa Kirsch When the present moment is stressful or uncomfortable, when the future seems especially fuzzy or uncertain, nostalgia offers a balm. It’s why many of us turned to “Friends” reunions, “Sopranos” re-binges and childhood video games earlier in the pandemic. As Gen Xers and many millennials approach or move through middle age, the...

By Thomas Fazi and Toby Green Over the past two years, as the pandemic claimed the lives of millions of people and upturned the lives of everyone else, a silent revolution was taking place. Western capitalism suddenly found itself usurped; replaced by an even more oligarchic and authoritarian capitalist mode of power — what we...

By Malcom Kyeyune They call it “The Honkening”. Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, is currently being besieged by a novel kind of protest. Honkening is a fairly appropriate name for what’s going on. Thousands of truckers have driven to the capital, and barraged the city with the noise of truck horns creating a cacophony of sound....

By David Leonhardt The C.D.C. describes medium-rare hamburgers as “undercooked” and dangerous. The agency also directs Americans to avoid raw cookie dough and not to eat more than a teaspoon or so of salt every day. And the C.D.C. tells sexually active women of childbearing age not to drink alcohol unless they are on birth...

By R.E. Hawley I cannot start any document — a novel, a letter, an invoice — without first clicking on the drop-down menu labeled “Font” and considering my options. There are the obvious choices: Times New Roman, reliable if bland; Arial, crisp and austere; Proxima Nova, clean and versatile. But what about those occasions that...

By John Naughton Facebook was much in the news last week, although you may not realize that because it has been renamed Meta in the hope the bad vibes associated with its maiden name would gradually fade from public memory. (Google tried the same stunt with Alphabet and that hasn’t worked either.) For a change,...