A spending plan approved by Israel’s Parliament hands Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a big political victory and devotes a significant chunk to military spending, signaling that Israel expects to stay on a war footing for the longer term. The $206 billion budget was approved on Tuesday with broad enough support — 66 votes to 52 … Read more
François Bayrou, France’s fourth prime minister in a year, knew he had trouble ahead. In his inaugural speech in December, he acknowledged “all kinds of difficulties”: a debt mountain, political strife and, alarmingly, “the splintering of society itself.” So far, he’s at least succeeded in holding a government together. Tasked with reducing a deficit currently … Read more
Soon after taking over, they created a crisis by shutting down huge segments of federal government spending, though they restarted at least some payments after a judge slapped them with a court order. Late Friday, Elon Musk seized control of the Treasury Department’s payment system, which disburses trillions of dollars and houses sensitive data about … Read more
A few years ago, when I was part of a crew fighting a series of large wildfires in California’s wilderness, my bosses told me, “This isn’t normal.” Climate change was making the wildfires bigger, faster and harder to stop. It seemed like only a matter of time before the conditions grew dangerous enough to threaten … Read more