With ExxonMobil set to begin oil production in Guyana next year, this tiny South American country will soon become unthinkably rich. But neighboring Venezuela shows how an oil boom can go bust.
CNN has just announced it has hired a former Trump administration official to help direct political coverage. A storm of criticism ensued. But political hacks have long found a home in journalism.
Iraq beat the Islamic State. Now, its Shia government is jailing and even executing all suspected terrorists – most of them Sunni Muslims. The clampdown may inflame a centuries-old sectarian divide.
The majority of US state legislatures are controlled by Republicans because legislative districts are drawn to favor them. Voters are catching on, but change will be slow.
Cuban exiles in the US may soon be able to sue companies that use property seized from them in the Cuban revolution. If Trump moves to allow that, it could slow economic development in Cuba.
Will the public ever see a report from Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia? Maybe not. There are big legal hurdles to making it public.
Virginia’s stark political contradictions, reflecting centuries of racism and a new liberal majority, were on display when a blackface image was found recently on the governor’s old yearbook page.
Jeff Bachman, American University School of International Service
The US has supported a Saudi-led military coalition that has inflicted profound and deadly damage on Yemen. A Senate vote could end what a human rights scholar says is US complicity in genocide.
The public was shocked by the blackface image on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook page. But if blackface is now taboo, there was a time when it played a big role in American culture.
Despite impassioned pleas for gun control legislation after 2018’s mass shooting at a Florida high school, Congress has failed to pass meaningful reform. Why doesn’t policy follow public opinion?
Relying only on sanctions against North Korea may not be a productive way to get the country to give up its nuclear arms. Offering relief and aid may be more effective.
As Congress and President Trump struggle to devise a coherent immigration policy along the US southern border, there are lessons from ancient history that could prove instructive.
The government shutdown provided a short-term version of what some activists have long wanted: A government small enough so that you could ‘drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.’
Brazil’s scorpion infestation, which is terrorizing residents of São Paulo and other major cities, is a classic ‘wicked problem.’ That means officials must think outside-the-box to fix it.
Mexico’s new president has reduced his own salary and demanded that all federal workers
– including lawmakers and judges – take a massive pay cut, too. That may be illegal.
Journalism’s crisis – loss of readers, revenue and respect – has led many to conclude that if the news business is to survive, it has to do a better job of connecting with its audience. How can it be done?
A. Naomi Paik, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Alleged ‘enemy combatants’ held at Guantánamo Bay who went on hunger strikes to protest their indefinite detention were force-fed by the US military. Today, ICE is force-feeding immigrant detainees.