Early in 2010, the year we moved to Hong Kong, our three boys were 11, eight, and six. When we sat them down to tell them we’d be moving there for a few years, we tried to sell it as a challenging adventure. Their responses were mixed. Jake was anxious. Alex, our baby, was excited. But Matthew, our middle son, was inconsolable. He was having none of it.

“What about my friends!” he cried.

We tried to reassure him.

“You’ll be back … you’ll have your family … you’ll make new friends.”

Matthew looked at us with anguish and said, “And then I’ll have to leave them, too.”

Hundreds of millions of desert locusts are swarming in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia—some of the biggest numbers seen in more than 25 years. Unusually wet weather in the area toward the end of 2019 has contributed to the massive outbreak, driving an explosion of locusts that are destroying crops and threatening food security across the region. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is requesting international assistance to combat the swarms, and warning of the potential for massive growth if they are left unchecked.

When a new disease emerges, health organizations turn to a seemingly simple number to gauge whether the outbreak will spread. It’s called the basic reproduction number—R0, pronounced R-nought—and though useful for decision makers, it’s a nightmare for public communication. In brief, R0 is the average number of people who will catch the disease from a single infected person, in a population that’s never seen the disease before. If R0 is 3, then on average every case will create three new cases. But even though it seems incredibly straightforward, it’s hard to calculate and tricky to interpret.

R0 is important because if it’s greater than 1, the infection will probably keep spreading, and if it’s less than 1, the outbreak will likely peter out. So it offers vital information to organizations and nations as they consider how to respond to an outbreak—such as the one the world is currently experiencing.

One evening last week, I found myself dining in the House of Lords just as the “European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill”—the law that will finalize Brexit—was wending its way through the final stages of the British legislative process. When I arrived, the debate was paused; at suppertime, formally speaking, the Lords “Adjourn During Pleasure.”

The dining room was full, which is not always the case in the evenings. But that didn’t necessarily mean the formal proceedings attracted great interest. At some point, the screens scattered around the room showed that debate had resumed. At another point, they showed that it had ended for the evening (“House Up”). As far as I could tell, barely anyone got out of his seat.  

What happened to us? The question haunts us in the Arab and Muslim world. We repeat it like a mantra. You will hear it from Iran to Syria, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, and in my own country, Lebanon. For us, the past is a different country, one not mired in the horrors of sectarian killings. It is a more vibrant place, without the crushing intolerance of religious zealots and seemingly endless, amorphous wars.

Though the past had coups and wars too, they were contained in time and space, and the future still held much promise. What happened to us? The question may not occur to those too young to remember a different world, whose parents did not tell them of a youth spent reciting poetry in Peshawar, debating Marxism in the bars of Beirut, or riding bicycles on the banks of the Tigris in Baghdad. The question may surprise those in the West who assume that the extremism and bloodletting of today have always been the norm.

WILDWOOD, NEW JERSEY—President Donald Trump casually referred to his reelection campaign as “probably the greatest movement in history” last night. He told the several thousand rally-goers inside the Wildwoods Convention Center—and the scores more partying outside and watching a simulcast—that this country “has tremendous potential if we don’t blow it.” At one point Trump warned that Democrats want to “close your factories” and “get rid of your cows.” He conceded that there aren’t many cows in this particular beach town.

Why did the president descend on the Jersey shore in the dead of winter?

The waterslides of Morey’s Piers loomed over the boardwalk, bone dry. It was too early in the season for 18 holes of mini-golf. No enticing aromas wafted out of the Fudge Factory (though someone did hand out free samples outside the Fudge Kitchen). Why Jersey, at all? Democrats have won the state in the last seven consecutive presidential contests. But Trump, the former Atlantic City casino boss, owed a guy a favor.

On a sweltering July day, I follow Annise Dobson down an overgrown path into the heart of Seton Falls Park. It’s a splotch of unruly forest, surrounded by the clamoring streets and cramped rowhouses of the Bronx. Broken glass, food wrappers, and condoms litter the ground. But Dobson, bounding ahead in khaki hiking pants with her blond ponytail swinging, appears unfazed. As I quickly learn, neither trash nor oppressive humidity nor ecological catastrophe can dampen her ample enthusiasm.

At the bottom of the hill, Dobson veers off the trail and stops in a shady clearing. This seems like a promising spot. She kicks away the dead oak leaves and tosses a square frame made of PVC pipe onto the damp earth. Then she unscrews a milk jug. It holds a pale yellow slurry of mustard powder and water that’s completely benign—unless you’re a worm.

When Harvey Weinstein arrives at the Superior Court of New York each day, frail, aged, sometimes hobbling on a walker, he settles into a courtroom crowded with spectators and freighted with a legacy of distrust. On the prosecutor’s side sit two women alleging that the Hollywood producer sexually assaulted them; four others who would buttress their claims that he is a sexual predator; and, in spirit if not in fact, dozens of other accusers and legions of people who see in Weinstein the original villain of the #MeToo movement. Across the aisle, supporting Weinstein and his attorneys, are the skeptics of this and other rape prosecutions, those who cite the false allegations against the lacrosse players at Duke and the fraternity brothers at the University of Virginia. And permeating every moment of the proceedings, every motion and witness testimony, every cross-examination and jury instruction, is the disturbing history of rape prosecution in America.

The outbreak of a new strain of coronavirus, first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan, in Hubei province, has led to massive efforts to quarantine major cities and halt the spread. The current death toll has reached 82 in China, with another 2,900 confirmed cases. The city is rapidly building two hospitals in a matter of days, set up to accommodate more than 2,000 coronavirus patients. Several photographers continue to report from Wuhan, where streets appear nearly deserted after a traffic ban was put in place.

Posts kept coming from Black Matters US, from its accounts stationed at seemingly every corner of the internet in 2016. Twitter. Instagram. YouTube. Facebook. Tumblr. Google+. A news site. Google Ads. PayPal for donations. A podcast offering “strong Black voices.”

Black Matters US posted a steady diet of images, of sayings, of articles, of videos that made black people feel good about being black and feel angry about being black in America. As trust built, posts also whispered, “Our Votes Don’t Matter” and “Don’t Vote for Hillary Clinton” and “A Vote for Jill Stein Is Not a Wasted Vote.”

These whispers came from Russian operatives, screaming into history the true mission of Black Matters US accounts—to troll black people into not voting for Clinton in the 2016 election. Clinton already had a “problem with young black Americans,” especially those reeling from her video calling them “super-predators” in 1996. But her problem exploded into a crisis as Russian trolls relentlessly bonded her to racism and police brutality, the two most important problems facing the country, according to young black Americans in 2016. Russian operatives portrayed her as the devilish ward of the hell Donald Trump said black people were living and dying in. Weeks before the vote, a Black Matters US account posted doctored pictures of Clinton captioned “Satan’s daughter” and “The root of all evil.”