You might think 2026 is the worst year of fires given the huge clouds of smoke that blanketed the Midwest and Northeast earlier this month. But last year was actually worse in terms of the number of acres burned. Whether it will be the worst year on record or not, we need to come to […]

In 1984, while completing my undergraduate degree, I took electives titled “China Today”, “Russian Literature,” and “International Terrorism.” I lay no claim to deep expertise in any of them, but at the time, the terrorism course proved the most compelling. It was a full classroom with bright, sometimes sleepy faces — an atmosphere abruptly interrupted […]

On a Thursday afternoon, as Jews across the world sat on low stools and read the Book of Lamentations to mark Tisha B’Av — the fast day that mourns the destruction of the First and Second Temples and the long catalog of catastrophes that have befallen the Jewish people ever since — a man stabbed […]