There has always been something irresistible about advice in mathematical form. When, in the Book of Genesis, Joseph was plucked from prison to interpret the dreams of the Pharaoh, he offered some Biblical budgeting: To survive the seven years of famine that will come after seven years of abundance, the Egyptians must save exactly a fifth of their harvest. Sun Tzu’s military counsel in The Art of War” depends on ratios: “It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous,…

During the waning days of the Trump administration, 22 Republican Representatives, led by Doug Lamborn of Colorado, sent a letter to the president urging him to erase Palestine refugees and their rights as a matter of U.S. policy. “The issue of the so-called Palestinian ‘right of return’ of 5.3 million refugees to Israel as part of any ‘peace deal’ is an unrealistic demand, and we do not believe it accurately reflects the number of actual Palestinian refugees,” these members of Congress argued.1 This attempt by members of Congress to minimize the dimension of the Palestine refugee issue and negate refugee…

Calls for information dominance and decision superiority, especially across U.S. homeland-defense and strategic-warning systems, have taken on renewed urgency as the security environment grows more complex and competitive. In April 2021, General Glen VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), stated to the House Armed Services Committee, “I believe our future success in USNORTHCOM, our fellow U.S. combatant commands, and NORAD requires all-domain awareness, information dominance, and decision superiority. Our competitors have invested heavily in weapons systems that can be launched against distant targets with little to no warning, as well as stealthy delivery…

China is expanding its control over the use of genetic data from people in the country, including for scientific research. Researchers say this approach is making it harder for scientists there to collaborate with international peers. A set of draft guidelines, released by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) in March, are the latest in a series of government orders on managing genetic resources — including biological samples, such as organs, tissues and blood, that yield DNA, and the data gleaned from sequencing them. The guidelines provide detailed instructions on how to interpret and implement existing regulations. This includes…

The April employment reports released Friday perfectly encapsulated the economic moment: everyone has a job and no one is happy about it because of inflation. Job growth remains surprisingly strong. Nonfarm payrolls grew by 428,000 jobs, beating the forecast for 380,000. The forecast figure would have been impressive in any economy and the beat even more so. Adding 428,000 workers to payrolls when unemployment is already down to 3.6 percent is truly amazing. Adding workers gets harder when there are fewer workers on the sidelines. The unemployment rate held steady at 3.6 percent and the number of people counted as unemployed…