Portside

At a time when we desperately need scientific leadership, what we’ve got is a rogues’ gallery of frauds and flatterers who see the pandemic as a career move.

The reconversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque is a power move by Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that betrays domestic, regional and even global ambitions. Erdogan's decree strikes another major blow against a secular Turkish state.

Discredited, divided, and with an election looming, Bolivian President Jeanine Añez’ coup government is peddling conspiracy theories about enemies in the media, government and civil society, all designed to widen the net of adversaries to persecute.

White supremacy is really what brings us all together… When we talk about anti-Semitism, when we talk about anti-Blackness, anti-immigrant, it’s all of us together fighting against the same people.

Germany, which is weathering the corona pandemic better than most countries, will soon face giant economic problems, with disaster threatening many citizens. Hard confrontations may well be in the offing, in the domestic and foreign spheres.

"Better to be offended against, than to give offense to others,"

Until we have effective and safe medications, a proven vaccine and better testing, our best shot at getting control would be to again close many businesses and activities.

Access to medicine is an ethical problem, not a scientific one. And any COVID-19 vaccine is likely to have a high price tag and be unequally distributed according to countries’ purchasing power.

The Border Patrol says it has authority to “conduct arrests” in Portland.

It is time to rethink what we value as a society and to fundamentally transform our national priorities. Cutting the military budget by 10 percent and investing that money in human needs is a modest way to begin that process.