How did Donald Trump win the Republican nomination despite clear evidence that he had misrepresented or falsified key issues throughout the campaign? Social scientists have some intriguing explanations for why people persist in misjudgments despite strong contrary evidence. Trump is a vivid and, to his critics, a frightening present-day illustration of this perception problem. But it has been studied …

  The tangle of Syria is getting deeper. What started as a bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters mutated into a multifaceted proxy war that triggered Europe’s worst migrant crisis since World War II and facilitated the rise of IS and its global campaign of terror. It has grown into an international proxy conflict. There are regional powers Iran and Saudi …

  The improvement in the US labour market is certainly good news. It could soon become a headache, however, if it persists alongside disappointing economic growth. The economy added 255,000 jobs in July, after adding 292,000 in June. Employment growth was weaker earlier in the year, and two solid months don’t make a trend — but even so, the labor …