As scientific terms go, ‘climate change’ is failing. Good terms are specific, descriptive and help people to understand complex concepts. Climate change is ambiguous, referring perhaps to the most pressing human-generated environmental problem of the century, or to other kinds of changes that happen through natural forces and have been going on since long before humans arose. Last week I ...

Banks have become too safe. That is a chief justification cited by lawmakers to roll back the Dodd-Frank banking regulations and loosen other financial rules. The Senate passed a bill in March, and Speaker Paul Ryan said earlier this week that he had a deal to push the measure through the House. But at least one layer of protection that ...

Germany’s new government is composed of the same two parties as its previous one, but many in Germany and outside expected one major change: more government spending. Olaf Scholz, the new finance minister, comes from the Social Democratic Party, which heavily campaigned on a promise of more investment and growth in Germany. And yet Scholz’s first budget suggests those hopes ...