After over three decades of living in the United States, one thing that I have learned is never to assume that I understand American domestic politics. Every time I think I grasp where it is going, I am eventually dumbfounded.

So I tread on eggshells when venturing onto that terrain. And given my own lack of predictive powers, I view anyone who...

The world is currently transfixed by the spectacle of American elections.

From New York, London and Paris to Beijing, Moscow, and Sydney there is endless heated debate in the news media and across dinner tables about the factors fueling the remarkable success of Donald Trump, speculation about a brokered convention shattering the old GOP, and the...

Blondes are often stereotyped as dumb.

The dumb female blonde is a staple of Hollywood movies, such as Reese Witherspoon in “Legally Blonde.” Amazon currently sells many joke books that poke fun at blondes’ perceived lack of intelligence.

While they are derided for...

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s protectionist prescriptions have led to renewed speculation about whether trade wars are on the horizon.

In other words, if, under a Trump presidency, the United States were to raise its tariffs against some of its biggest trading partners – China, Japan, Mexico – would those...

Imagine going through your day without ready access to clean water for drinking, cooking, washing or bathing. Around the world, 663 million people face that challenge every day. They get their water from sources that are considered unsafe because they are vulnerable to contamination, such as rivers, streams, ponds and unprotected wells. And the...

When SeaWorld announced it would stop breeding orcas and begin to phase out “theatrical performances” using the animals, the news appeared to mark a significant change in ideas about animals and captivity.

Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United...

Wine grapes are one of the most valuable horticultural crops in the world, a globally important industry with commercial vineyards on six continents and all 50 U.S. states. Like many crops, these...

On March 22, 2014, a hillside above Oso, Washington collapsed, unleashing a torrent of mud and debris that buried the community of Steelhead Haven. Forty-three people lost their lives, making it one of the single deadliest landslide disasters in U.S. history.

Over the past two...

Few sights are as instantly recognizable, and few sites speak more fully to American nationalism. Standing on the South Rim in 1903, President Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed it “one of the great sights every American should see.”

It&rsq...

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, which documented widespread academic underachievement at every level, concluding:

For the first time in the history of our country, the...