Politics

Brazilians head to the polls Sunday for a presidential runoff between incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in what’s become the country’s most significant election since the return of democracy almost four decades ago. Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. and will close at 5 p.m. local time, with the governorships for states including Sao ...

Michael R. Bloomberg The crisis in US K-12 public education continues to deepen, and decisions by many colleges and universities to abandon SAT and ACT scores are making it worse. Instead of demanding more accountability from high schools, colleges are expecting less. In the latest dismal signs for students, scores on the ACT college entrance exam have fallen to the ...

President Joe Biden said China’s leader had expressed worries about the US strengthening its domestic production of semiconductor chips as his administration moves to reduce reliance on Asian suppliers and restrict Chinese access to chipmaking technology. “I’ve heard from Xi Jinping that he’s a little concerned about that,” Biden said Thursday in Syracuse, New York, as he delivered a speech ...

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan started a protest march to the nation’s capital Islamabad in the latest attempt to press the government to call for early elections, while hitting back at the military’s spy chief. Khan launched the protest that he calls a march for “real freedom” standing on top of a makeshift caravan in a convoy of vehicles ...

President Vladimir Putin lashed out at the US and Europe over his war in Ukraine, heaped praise on Saudi Arabia and reiterated support for China’s claim to Taiwan as he sought to cast Russia as a champion of conservative values against Western liberalism. He accused the US and its allies of seeking global domination by pouring weapons into Ukraine to ...

Allison Schrager To President Joe Biden’s credit, his policies didn’t cause many of the economic problems we face today. But they did make them worse. Even more troubling, his policies might reduce growth in the future and make the economy less equal and resilient. The president normally doesn’t have much impact on the current economy; he doesn’t set energy or ...

Northern Ireland is set for a second election this year after the biggest unionist party again prevented the region’s government from forming, amid a row over post-Brexit trade rules that has major implications for the UK. The Democratic Unionist Party stopped the election of an Assembly Speaker and prevented the election of an Executive for a fourth time Thursday, after ...

Chinese President Xi Jinping said his nation is willing to work with the US to find ways to cooperate, comments that come before a potential meeting with President Joe Biden at a Group of 20 summit next month. Better communication between the two nations would bolster global peace and development, Xi said in a letter to the National Committee on ...

Citing burgeoning threats from Russia and China, the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy rejects limits on using nuclear weapons long championed by arms control advocates and, in the past, by President Joe Biden. “By the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries,” the Defense ...

Brazil’s presidential race is still tightening according to a new opinion poll that takes into account voters most likely to show up on election day. The Quaest poll published Wednesday followed a trend seen in other surveys this week that showed President Jair Bolsonaro’s overall momentum fading, but it also gauged the possible impact of abstention rates on Sunday’s runoff ...