The original Great Game was played out in the 19^th Century, between Britain and Russia in Afghanistan, an ever-shifting military, economic, and geopolitical competition, which often took the form of proxy wars, with the great powers backing local forces, to fight one another. Today, the region is host to an even larger and more complex Great Game, with implications for the fate of the modern world, as it is being played out between several of the world’s largest, nuclear-capable, armies: the United States, India, Russia, China, and Pakistan.

Over the past decades, the Chinese economy has been growing, at breakneck speed, largely fueled by tremendous export volumes, massive debt, and over-reliance on the real-estate sector. Now, manufacturing is suffering under ongoing coronavirus lockdowns, energy shortages, and supply-chain disruptions. The debt bubble seems about to burst, and the real-estate industry will be the first casualty, with ripples eventually being felt throughout China and the rest of the world.

To what extent, then, can she claim the language and specially to use it within the deep cultural context in which the word negrita lives? I don’t know that there’s a specific barometer here or even if there should be one. Likewise, Christina Aguilera has not actively distanced herself from her Latine roots, but that didn’t stop the criticism when she released a best-selling Spanish album even though she infamously doesn’t speak the language.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ying-Wen, a popular, pro-independence leader who has been elected to her second term, has thanked the U.S. and other Western countries for their support. She gave a speech on National Day, saying, “We will not bow to China.” Taiwan is firmly committed to remaining independent, but is careful not to declare independence.

Slavin didn’t see student wellbeing as part of his job until, in 2008, he started reading about stress, depression and burnout among medical students. He was shocked by the high rates that he read about, but didn’t think they could apply to his students. “It was unimaginable to me,” he says. He thought that as a teacher all he needed to do was be kind and compassionate; his students seemed happy, and their satisfaction with their education was high according to the standardized national questionnaire.

What I envisioned in my future retirement years was moving south to an efficiency apartment in Miami Beach, where I figured there’d be lots of other old single guys like me enjoying the sunshine and beach. I didn’t consider myself much of a catch because I was cynical about love, and especially since I dressed so poorly in sweatshirts and ragged jeans--but ironically, what I wore did lead to romance. I credit my 20-year-old winter overcoat for that.

These stories began back when I was in my 20s. I was truly lucky to have many friends who were smart, creative, considerate, skilled, collaborative, not needlessly difficult, and a pleasure to be around. I knew that, in the working world, they would be huge assets and great team members at any organization they worked for: Yet, so many of them seemed to have managers that were making their work lives miserable. 

In his major post-storm speech, Mayor Michael Bloomberg noted that in 2050, one-quarter of the city’s land and 800,000 residents would be within the one-hundred-year flood zone. But instead of talking about the devastation as an opportunity to reshape the city’s shoreline to better reflect future sea levels and more frequent storm surges, he doubled down. “As New Yorkers, we cannot and will not abandon our waterfront. It’s one of our greatest assets. We must protect it, not retreat from it,” he said.

The progressivity of the U.S. tax system has dramatically declined over the past seven decades. The upshot is that for most income levels, the U.S. tax system now resembles a flat tax that becomes regressive at the very top end, meaning the super-rich pay proportionately less. Today, virtually all income groups pay roughly 28 percent of their income in taxes--– except for the 400 richest Americans.

There was the good-looking freelance writer who lived in Georgetown who swept me off my feet, and with whom I enjoyed a whirlwind, and mainly physical, romance. And the nice but eccentric librarian whom I knew briefly, who on our first date invited me to watch an obscure film, which he later said was “a test” to see if I would pass. There was the Stanford graduate student who turned out to be untrustworthy, crass, and lacked emotional integrity.