Bloomberg A week marked by surprises, from a US missile strike in Syria to a jobs report that was the weakest in almost a year, did little to rattle US equities sitting near record levels. Against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions and uncertainty over the Donald Trump administration’s approach to financial regulation, volatility remained muted in the stock ...

  Even for a president who advertised his coldblooded pragmatism, the moral dimensions of leadership find a way of penetrating the Oval Office. In the case of President Trump, the emotional distance seems to have been shattered by simple, indelible images of suffering children in Idlib, Syria. “When you kill innocent children, innocent babies — babies! — little babies … ...

  Over the past year, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has emerged as the ideological patron of a certain brand of conservatism worldwide. Politicians from France’s Marine Le Pen, to Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, to Donald Trump appear drawn to Putin’s vision of a world marked by weaker transnational power blocs, fewer meddlesome liberals and a harder line against radical Islam. ...