Events

When I first heard this morning that visa-free travel to Europe would end for US citizens in 2021, I was dismayed. I remember how time-consuming it was to get a visa before the visa-waiver program started in the late 1980s. And I figured that the US would retaliate, requiring visas from Europeans, which would essentially destroy tourism between the two regions. The reality isn't really anything like that. In fact, it merely brings the EU in line with what the US has required of visa-free travelers for...

Just a few things I'm reading that you also might want to read: Responding to yesterday's post about the Democratic Party's flirtation with anti-Semitism, reader DH sends an article from today's Guardian explaining why the left is doing this worldwide. Atlas Obscura describes the middle-ages privacy measure called letterlocking. Illinois officially had its coldest temperature ever when Mt Carroll hit -39°C on January 31st. The Tribune digs into why the Jane Byrne Interchange remodeling will got almost a...

Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has made comments throughout her career that sound pretty clearly anti-Semitic. Three of my favorite columnists find this, and the party's response, alarming. First, Bret Stephens, a Democrat: Like many self-described progressives, Omar does not like Israel. That’s a shame, not least because Israel is the only country in its region that embraces the sorts of values the Democratic Party claims to champion. When was the last time there was a gay-pride parade in Ramallah, a...

The Times is reporting that Michael Cohen has sued the Trump Organization for $1.9m in unpaid legal fees: The lawsuit, filed in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, said that the Trump Organization had agreed to pay Mr. Cohen attorney’s fees or related costs connected to his work with the Trump Organization but had failed to live up to that promise. Mr. Cohen is also seeking reimbursment for an additional $1.9 million he was ordered to pay in fines, forfeitures and restitution after he pleaded guilty to...

The EU could vote this month to end Daylight Saving Time in 2021, but it turns out popular support for the measure may have been...überwiegend Deutsch: Time is up for European Union-mandated daylight savings time. The European Commission and European Parliament have agreed on that. All the relevant committees in Parliament are for the change, according to Germany's conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) MEP Peter Liese, who has devoted a lot of time to the issue. Now that the lead committee on transport...

Wherever a landmass had several kilometers of ice on top, it deformed. Glaciers covered much of North America only 10,000 years ago. Since they retreated (incidentally forming the Great Lakes and creating just about all the topography in Northern Illinois), the Earth's crust has popped back like a waterbed. Not quickly, however. But in the last century, Chicago has dropped about 10 cm while areas of Canada have popped up about the same amount: In the northern United States and Canada, areas that once...

Paul Krugman points out how President Trump's alternating bluster and surrender over trade has left us "less trusted, less respected, and weaker than we were before:" On U.S. unreliability, consider the way the current administration has treated Canada, probably the friendliest neighbor and firmest ally any nation has ever had. Despite generations of good relations and a free-trade agreement, Trump imposed large tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel, invoking national security as a justification. This...