There are plenty of crazies in Russian politics who make bizarre claims about their country’s victim status (“the evil West made us do it”) and issue blood-curdling but implausible threats about using nuclear weapons. But the really dangerous ones are quite sane. Read More
Midway through the school day in France, children enjoy a three-course lunch: salad or vegetable appetizer, warm main course, cheese and dessert. A mandatory school meal program in Japan – widely considered the gold standard – delivers wholesome, varied lunches, cooked on site and served by students as young as first grade to their peers. In India, the world's largest school nutrition program feeds a hot meal to 120 million children daily, and is a key strategy to improve literacy, reduce malnutrition, and keep kids in school. Read More
Canada is home to the longest-running science series on television. The Nature of Things debuted in November 1960, just a month before the world's longest-running soap opera, Coronation Street. Our craving for drama has grown, with the proliferation of reality TV and Nicholas Sparks adaptations; meanwhile our appetite for science – and expertise in general – has markedly declined. Read More
The crisis in Senegal, the one country in West Africa that has never had a military coup, has passed. Few people outside Africa were paying close attention to it, but I’m sure you will be pleased to know democracy has survived. Read More
There are three incipient famines in the world today, and politics is at the root of all of them. That’s not unusual, actually: famines are almost always political events. Read More
I'm not a church-goer, but I identify as Lent-curious. During the years, I've watched people make some disciplined sacrifices, abstaining from temporal temptations such as sweets, alcohol or complaining. Lent seems like a better version of a New Year's resolution, one that comes with a 40-day trial and concludes with a deeper spirituality, and a bacchanal of sugary treats. Read More
Nobody planned it, hardly anybody realized it was happening, and suddenly there it was. During less than two years, the entire senior leadership of Great Britain has become non-white. Read More
It may seem that the violence and chaos that have gripped Haiti are finally being addressed. The unelected acting president nobody wanted, Ariel Henry, has resigned. An international police force may soon arrive in the Caribbean island to restore order. There is even talk of a free election. But nothing is fixed, and the violence isn’t over. Read More
There has been a ten-year war within the geological community over what to call the epoch in which we live right now, and an international panel of two dozen senior geologists finally has delivered its verdict. We are not living in a new geological epoch after all. The Anthropocene (the Human era) is now, in George Orwell’s terms, "oldspeak." Read More
Every March, when my grandmother was alive, our family gathered to watch the Academy Awards. Those who couldn’t make it would still send their ballots, vying for bragging rights. The in-memoriam segment was particularly poignant; my Baba would rhyme off actors from the Golden Age before their names came up on the screen. Read More