Opinion

  The candidates in this Sunday’s French presidential election, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, are alike in one way: Both stand outside the mainstream parties, promising an end to politics as usual. That’s something France’s voters appear to want. Beyond that, however, the differences are stark, and you could sum them up like this: Macron is a safe choice, ...

  US President Donald Trump met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for the first time in the White House on Wednesday. Trump is confident he could broker a Middle East peace deal as he told Abbas that the agreement between Israel and Palestine is “maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years.” “Throughout my life I have ...

  On Valentine’s Day, economist Kevin Grier quipped: “Roses are red. Pin one on your suit. America has eaten all the low-hanging fruit.” That pithy assertion is one of the most frightening propositions in the world today. There might be a way for a modern society to function without economic growth. But we don’t want to have to be the ...

  Given its rich history, Italy is rightly attached to its relics. Unfortunately, this affection for the past does not stop at the Colosseum: It applies to failing companies too. Take Alitalia, Italy’s loss-making flag carrier, which has survived for years thanks to a string of public and private rescues. On Tuesday, the airline went into administration, prompting the government ...

  When Tesla Inc. chief executive officer Elon Musk was asked if his burgeoning collection of startup companies might lead him to step away from the electric automaker, he said he’d stick around as long as he could “positively contribute” to its success. “The most valuable thing I could contribute is product design and technology,” he told analysts on the ...

  It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about Donald Trump’s inability to do either. This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence. In February, acknowledging Black History Month, Trump said that ...

  There are two conflicting visions of where artificial intelligence will take humankind. Some people worry that when robots become capable of programming themselves, they’ll realize that humans are useless and do away with us. Others think that on the day when robots become sentient — that is, the moment of the singularity — humans will be one with the ...

  This summer, Bill Winters completes two years at Standard Chartered Plc, the emerging-markets lender whose share price is still 32 percent below where it was when the former JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive took over as CEO. While the bank’s drop in first-quarter impairment costs is making investors optimistic about asset quality, further upside will depend on Winters becoming ...

  Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be moving ahead for plan to establish safe zones in Syria backed by peacekeepers with a high degree conviction. And to achieve this, there is marked change in the interaction between major powers supporting rivals in the Syrian conflict. Putin secured the US backing for the proposal to create safe zones in Syria ...

When President Xi Jinping announced in 2015 that China would pump $46 billion worth of investments into Pakistan, the recipients of his largesse seemed less surprised than one might have expected. The military and political elites of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan have long extracted aid from outside powers in return for keeping a lid on things at home. As ...