‘The Idol’ and Our Backlash Times

Ricardo M. Urbina, a trailblazing Latino lawyer who scored victories for civil liberties as an empathetic federal judge and for civil rights as a record-breaking track star — helping to fuel an epochal protest at the 1968 Olympics — died on Monday in Washington. He was 78. His death, in…

For nearly 79 years, Anne Walker Collingwood knew little about her father, an American soldier who died about three months after she was born while fighting near Hücheln, Germany, during World War II. Her father, Second Lt. Gene F. Walker, was the commander of a tank that was hit by…

In political banners, campaign slogans and everyday conversations, South Koreans used two words to convey the high stakes of this week’s parliamentary election: “Judgment Day.” It was an opportunity to issue a verdict on the first two years of President Yoon Suk Yeol, a leader who has made strides on…

A remarkably early, record-breaking heat wave hit the southern part of West Africa in mid-February. Climate change made this extreme heat 10 times as likely, according to a new analysis by an international team of scientists. It also pushed the heat index about four degrees Celsius higher than it would…

The U.S. economy continued to grow early this year, but at a sharply slower rate as strong consumer spending was offset by higher prices and pockets of weakness in other sectors. Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, increased at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the first three months of…