In the past, Saudi Arabia depended upon its enormous oil wealth and the United States for its security. It used the former to buy friends and pay off enemies and potential enemies. It used the latter to guarantee its survival. With a few exceptions, Saudi...

Hollywood’s latest disaster flick, “Geostorm,” is premised on the idea that humans have figured out how to control the Earth’s climate. A powerful satellite-based technology allows users to fine-tune the weather, overcoming the ravages of climate change....

Something is stealing teens’ sleep.

In a newly released analysis of two large national surveys, my co-authors and I found that the number of U.S. teens who reported sleeping less than seven hours a night jumped 22 percent between 2012 and 2015. Sleep experts agree that teens need at least nine hours of sleep a night. But by 2015,...

As odd as it sounds, China’s economic policy is being held hostage by its heavily skewed sex ratio.

China’s excess of young, unmarriageable males poses an acute dilemma for President Xi Jinping and other leaders as they set the...

Two months after Hurricane Harvey submerged much of metropolitan Houston, recovery is under way across the city. Residents and volunteers are gutting and restoring flooded homes. Government agencies and nonprofit...

A Maryland grand jury has indictedSean Urbanski for allegedly murdering an African-American student in May.

Urbanski, a white former University of Maryland student who belonged to the racist Alt-Reich: Nation Facebook group,...

In recent weeks, the dispute over Catalonia’s quest for independence from Spain has captivated the attention of many parts of the world.

There is concern about further outbreaks of violence if the...

The morning after Hurricane Maria blasted through Puerto Rico, I emailed my aunt to ask if she was safe. That was Sept. 21. I heard back from her on Oct. 10. She was fine, she assured me, but “Puerto Rico is destroyed.” After that, my tia and I again lost...

Almost all parties agree that the health care system in the U.S., which is responsible for about 17 percent of our GDP, is badly broken. Soaring costs, low quality,...

In a trial of a new drug to cure cancer, 44 percent of 50 patients achieved remission after treatment. Without the drug, only 32 percent of previous patients did the same. The new treatment sounds promising, but is it better than the standard?

That...