Puerto Rico is sinking in $73 billion of debt. Mired in a long-running depression, the U.S. territory has already cut essential services to bare bones. Puerto Rico can’t fully pay its bondholders without setting off total economic collapse. One of two things can happen, short of doing nothing and setting off a humanitarian crisis. One […]

An Iraqi army counteroffensive has retaken the city of Ramadi and dealt the Islamic State group a major defeat. The victory is hard-earned. It also has a back story. In May of this year, when Islamic State fighters seized Ramadi, its Iraqi defenders fled. Cellphone video recorded caught their flight, and the Islamic State put […]

After a certain age, favorite holiday memories tend to meld into tales too good to be true. This is human nature. We want to believe we’re better than the evidence suggests. This is a good habit of our species, especially at the end of this year, in which we’ve seen so much of the worst […]

Among Republicans, it has become politically correct to be politically incorrect. Actually that’s the most politically correct thing that you can possibly be. As soon as you announce that you’re politically incorrect, you’re guaranteed smiles and laughter, and probably thunderous applause. Proudly proclaiming your bravery, you’re pandering to the crowd. A math-filled new paper, by […]

This year has been awash with financial and business intrigue and excitement. Here, then, are my awards for the most fascinating stories of 2015, with the added bonus that the qualifying events have implications that will reverberate into 2016 and beyond. Villian of the year: Volkswagen The news that Volkswagen, that exemplar of straitlaced German […]

As an American Muslim, I am consistently and aggressively asked — by media figures, religious leaders, politicians and Internet trolls — to condemn terrorism to prove my patriotism. I emphatically refuse. Make no mistake: The terror imposed by those who sympathize with Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State militant group), al-Qaida, Boko Haram, […]

Twenty years ago, one of us was director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, supporting research to build an evidence base to advance the science of gun-violence prevention. The other of us was a Republican representative from Arkansas determined to dismantle that effort because conservatives had […]

Taking stock is a tradition observed by Jews at Yom Kippur and others who examine their lives at the end of a year and vow to improve in the new year. One group needs to take stock perhaps more than any other: the mainstream media. They continue to lose readers and viewers, but close their […]