Opinion

  In another year or another administration, the absence of a cabinet official at a press conference would merit no comment. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s decision not to attend Friday’s release of the department’s annual human rights report, however, is a small but telling sign of a more profound and dangerous shift: President Donald Trump’s apathy for the values …

  Russia might be Achilles heel of Trump foreign policy. During his campaign, and after taking oath of office for president of United States, Trump was accused of having something to do with Russia. Trump always lambasted the report of Russian interventions in US presidential elections. The Republican billionaire disparaged those who accused Putin directing Russian hacking. The intelligence report …

  Rise of the machines! Attack of the clones! This is a common outcry from the financial industry and investors alike in reaction to the rapid rise of ‘passive’ index funds and exchange-traded funds, which now have about $5 trillion in assets in the United States. Investors have an understandable tendency to see passive investing as a bunch of robotic …

  This must be “copy your competitor” week for corporations. McDonald’s Corp., at its annual investor day, unveiled plans to roll out mobile ordering and delivery to all its US locations. In a bid to win over lapsed customers, it’s embracing the same digital tools Starbucks Corp. and Domino’s Pizza Inc. have used to grow sales. Recently I warned Target …

  On March 29, Samsung Electronics Co. will unveil its new Galaxy S8 phone. When you release a new product, you want to show off its cool new features. But Samsung’s launch stands to be overshadowed by not one but two reputational fires the company is fighting simultaneously. And “fire” isn’t just a metaphor: One of the company’s problems is …

  Although America’s political system seems unable to stimulate robust, sustained economic growth, it at least is stimulating consumption of a small but important segment of literature. Dystopian novels are selling briskly — Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here (1935), George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949), Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and …

  When a cloud-storage malfunction at Amazon Inc. temporarily knocked out services including Netflix, Slack, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website, “smart” thermostats and my email server, it demonstrated how much we’ve all come to depend on one company’s infrastructure. It also shows how the centralization of data has made the internet — at least the part that most of …

  “I have ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to serve American victims,” President Donald Trump said in his address to Congress Tuesday night. He was referring to a very specific kind of victim — those harmed by undocumented immigrants. And his comments show that, current conventional wisdom notwithstanding, President Trump is not so different from …

  British Prime Minster Theresa May is facing political fights not only in Brussels over Brexit, at home, she’s bracing for Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to call a second referendum on independence. In 2014, Scotland rejected independence from UK by 55-to-45 votes. But the recent survey shows that margin is narrowing. Only 51 percent of Scots favour to stay …

  Being the fastest-growing large economy in the world is India’s destiny, and even the most poorly conceived economic policy imaginable can’t stop destiny. At least, that is, if you believe the government’s statisticians, who said on Tuesday that India’s GDP grew at 7% in the very quarter that the government withdrew high-value currency notes from circulation. Is India becoming …