Robert Towne, Screenwriter of ‘Chinatown’ and More, Dies at 89

More than 30 years ago, the economists Rudiger Dornbusch (one of my mentors) and Sebastian Edwards wrote a classic paper on what they called “macroeconomic populism.” Their motivating examples were inflationary outbreaks under left-wing regimes in Latin America, but it seemed clear that the key issue wasn’t left-wing governance per…

The police and prosecutors in Peru carried out a surprise raid at the home of President Dina Boluarte and the presidential palace early Saturday as part of an “unlawful enrichment” investigation into news reports that she had been seen wearing Rolex watches since taking office. The raid, which came as…

President Biden was interrupted while speaking with reporters in downtown Wilmington, Del., on Sunday when a sedan slammed into a Secret Service vehicle protecting the president’s motorcade, as he was leaving his re-election campaign offices. Mr. Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, were not injured, according to the White…

The salesroom at Christie’s was packed on Tuesday evening, as spectators rubbernecked to see if buyers would compete for multimillion-dollar artworks at an auction house still hobbled by a cyberattack. But the audience’s chatter about hackers soon dissipated, as the auctioneer Georgina Hilton entered the spotlight. Could she succeed despite…

This was the pope who asked, “Who am I to judge?” in response to a question about gay priests in 2013. He announced last year that he would allow priests to bless same-sex couples, defying conservative critics in the Roman Catholic Church. And he apologized only weeks ago, in a…

A federal judge said this week that the Justice Department and a group of states could not move forward with some claims in antitrust complaints against Google, narrowing the scope of the most significant federal monopoly trial against a tech giant in decades. In the decision, which was unsealed on…