After weeks of belligerent rhetoric, North Korea took a pause. But where is the mercurial Kim Jong Un headed next? US officials are debating whether he may want direct talks with Washington about a formal treaty to replace the 1953 armistice agreement that ended the Korean War. The US has been pursuing a dual path, threatening military conflict (semi-believably because …

Last Tuesday Donald Trump said that some of the people marching with neo-Nazis were “very fine people.” By Thursday, Trump shifted to talking more about monuments to the Confederacy—and so did many Democrats. And that drove a whole lot of people nuts, including several Republican anti-Trumpers who I think were quite sincere about it. Why, they wanted to know, were …

Britain’s labor market is powering ahead, and inflation exceeds the Bank of England’s target. Is it hot in here? Don’t expect Governor Mark Carney to cool things off. Here’s a major economy where price increases have not only picked up, but at 2.6 percent easily top the 2 percent target. Unlike in the US, the euro zone and Japan, a …