Criticising agreement, former president says Pacific archipelago is 'not for gringo use.' By Tom Embury-Dennis.

Not only is chickenpox a serious disease, but it can cause problems later in life. By Beth Mole.

In 1976, a professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley published an essay outlining the fundamental laws of a force he perceived as humanity’s greatest existential threat: Stupidity. Stupid people, Carlo M. Cipolla explained, share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves, thereby lowering society’s total well-being. There are no defenses against stupidity, argued the Italian-born professor, who died in 2000.

We’ve heard for decades that socialism has a body count. But how does it compare to capitalism? Mike Davis discusses Stalin, Mao, and the staggering holocausts of capitalism’s nineteenth-century heyday.

Climate change 'skeptics' have pre-existing biases, they’ve been supported by decades of misinformation, and it’s easier to continue to deny. But there’s hope. By Michael Barnard.

The Bombast of Boris Johnson. By Patrick Cockburn.

How is it possible that science, the products of which permeate our everyday lives, making them in many ways more comfortable, elicits such negative attitudes among a substantial part of the population? By Bastiaan T Rutjens.

Please, let's not forget what a dangerous nut John Bolton is. By Damon Linker.

John Bolton named National Security Adviser. Replacing McMaster with Bolton puts the U.S. on a path to war. By Fred Kaplan.

The EPA is granting specific private-sector wishes as it moves to roll back, alter or delay rules. By Rachel Leven.

“I think, therefore I’m entitled to my opinion”: an ethic that allows stupid ideas to gain equal footing with better ones. It also balkanizes the media. By Maximillian Alvarez. (Aug. 2, 2017)

It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief - a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week. By Greg Miller, Philip Rucker.