Michael Sauvage has a tale of two landlords. In his story lies an urgent question as the coronavirus ravages local economies:

Where should the burden lie?

Sauvage runs a few teriyaki diners around Seattle, called BB's Teriyaki Grill. Like most in the restaurant business, he's being bled dry by the government's shutdown of in-store dining.

"...Read more

For the past 30 years, international politics have been shaped by two fundamental realities: America's unrivaled power and the forces of globalization. While already waning for some time, both realities are threatened with death blows from the COVID-19 pandemic.

America emerged from the Cold War in 1990 as the sole remaining superpower. Its ...Read more

The Supreme Court's intervention in the Wisconsin election this week -- last-minute, avoidable and slapdash -- was disquieting, not least as a sign of the court's potential role in the upcoming presidential election.

The unsigned opinion on behalf of the five-justice conservative majority evoked future dangers, but it also harked back to the ...Read more

Rarely has accurate information been more vital than at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet a global disinformation war is being waged at full force.

China and Russia push conspiracy theories worldwide about the origin of the virus. Autocrats from Cambodia to Saudi Arabia to Turkey censor reporting on the virus.

Meantime, President Donald ...Read more

As our nation continues struggling to address the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing a shocking trend in deaths among African Americans.

According to reporting from ProPublica on April 3, African Americans accounted for just 15% of Americans in the 2010 census but represent 35% of COVID-19 diagnoses and 40% of COVID-19 deaths. This dataset is ...Read more

If you'd spent the last five years trapped in a cave somewhere, you'd probably bet that Queens-accented kid from a place called Jamaica Estates would be better at relating to the sorrows and stresses of the everyday citizen than a real-life queen who grew up on actual country estates or in Buckingham Palace, always at a remove from the commoners...Read more

Any other year churches would be filled for Easter services Sunday.

Women would come wearing statement hats, some too big to see around from the pew behind them. Little girls would don frilly dresses and boys crisp suits, looking like miniature deacons. It would be a day when even bedside Baptists would show up for their triannual dose of the ...Read more

For months, the White House has been sending an implicit but unmistakable message to state governors: When it comes to handling the coronavirus pandemic, you're pretty much on your own. "We're not a shipping clerk," President Donald Trump grumbled to reporters last month as an explanation of why he has ignored pleas from states for help ...Read more

In some places, the need for a collective response to the coronavirus crisis is bringing out the best of humanity, as people and mutual aid groups work to help and protect others.

Unfortunately, some people are already using this crisis to push through devastating changes that will enrich polluters and harm public health.

Take the $2 trillion ...Read more

The number is 150,000. That's roughly how many Americans -- mostly middle-aged, working-class white men and women -- succumb to "deaths of despair" in the United States each year. The causes are suicide, alcohol and drugs tracing back to lack of jobs, low wages and the dissolution of family and church. The number could turn out to be greater ...Read more

There will be no President Bernie Sanders.

The democratic socialist was the last roadblock to a showdown in November between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Americans are anxiously waiting for the moment to cast their votes and have their voices heard.

In dropping out of the race on Wednesday, Sanders said he realized that he could not win the ...Read more

Sen. Bernie Sanders' decision to end his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was probably inevitable, given the string of victories former Vice President Joe Biden racked up after many of the other Democratic candidates rallied behind him. But Sanders deserves credit for announcing his decision now instead of dragging out the ...Read more

We must not only save our nation's residents from the pandemic, we must also save our democracy from it.

The Wisconsin primary debacle on Tuesday highlights just how far the Republican Party is willing to go to disenfranchise voters in the middle of a health emergency – and that the highly partisan U.S. Supreme Court majority is willing to ...Read more

I started my career as a foreign correspondent in the 1990s, reporting and living for months on end in Sarajevo, a relatively modern European city subjected to an almost medieval siege as it was encircled, isolated and bombarded.

The siege of Sarajevo lasted for three years. By the time it was over, 14,000 people were dead -- about 2% of the ...Read more

In October we dropped our daughter off for a two-week meditation retreat in the mountains near San Diego. As we walked from the parking lot to the women's quarters, we noticed something bizarre: utter silence. The Buddhist nuns who ran the center moved alone, quietly, along neat footpaths. When one heard me talking, she tilted her head up and ...Read more

Even as Congress was debating its third coronavirus rescue plan -- the $2-trillion CARES Act eventually signed by President Donald Trump on March 27 -- it was assumed that a follow-up measure would be necessary to forestall an extended economic downturn.

The moment to assemble that measure is now upon us, with the House reconvening Thursday in ...Read more

Sports stories about Major League Baseball thinking outside the batter's box had us so perturbed at first that we wanted to boo.

Extend the 2020 baseball season into December? What, with ball girls and batboys in little elf costumes?

Start sooner but move all games to Arizona with no hometown advantage? Imagine games played in that hellish ...Read more

With millions of students at home as the result of coronavirus district closures, and families finding themselves thrown into "unexpected homeschooling," Americans rightly expect that teachers, administrators and principals at all types of schools would be embracing an "all hands on deck" approach to this challenging situation.

But while ...Read more