President Donald Trump has never had a strict foreign policy doctrine, but coming into office, the influential figures around him could be classified into three broad camps. There were the so-called “primacists,” who supported a traditional muscular and assertive US rule in the world; the “restrainers,” who wanted to dial back US commitments abroad and […]

TORONTO — At a conference bookended by speeches from former President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the leading lights of the global center-left gathered to consider their fate.  The Global Progress Action Summit was billed as a “progressive version of CPAC,” the right-wing conference that has become a premier gathering for populist […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary is out of a job.  What happened? Makary, who led the federal agency in charge of regulating drugs, […]

Almost as soon as the hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius became international news, public health experts rushed to assuage the public: This is not Covid-19. Don’t worry — this is a virus that requires “close contact” to spread. The risk of a pandemic is quite low. But if this apparent certainty from […]

Peter Thiel and Alex Karp’s Palantir Technologies is one of the most powerful and mysterious tech companies in Silicon Valley. Its namesake is also one of the most powerful and mysterious magical objects in the lore of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy series The Lord of the Rings. The palantiri of The Lord of the Rings […]