President Donald Trump arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, for a two-day summit with China’s leader, Xi Jinping. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD U.S.-China summits can change the world. President Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to Beijing gave the United States an advantage over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. President Jiang Zemin’s 1997 tour of the United States eased China’s entry into the gl

President Donald Trump, center, arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, for a two-day summit with China’s leader, Xi Jinping. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times) By BRET STEPHENS As President Donald Trump visits Beijing this week, he should have the satisfaction of knowing that time, in the long run, is on America’s side. Unfortunately, that’s also the problem. That’s the opposite of a conventional wisdom that holds that

In one possible timeline, the advent of artificial intelligence is widely understood as a win for atheism; in another potential future, the mystery of consciousness ends up seeming more profound in the shadow of machine intelligence, Ross Douthat writes. (Hannah Whitaker/The New York Times) By ROSS DOUTHAT The implications of artificial intelligence for religion have earned slightly less attention, thus far, than its implications for the job market or the U.S.-China arms race

Maria, 9, right, a malnourished child, in Renk, South Sudan, on March 5, 2025. (Malin Fezehai/The New York Times) By NICHOLAS KRISTOF A year after some of the world’s richest men cut aid for the world’s poorest children, they’re trying to roll out a new public relations narrative: Aid continues! We’re saving lives from AIDS! Anyway, aid never really worked, so we’re focused on trade! Building opportunities for American companies while saving babies! As Jeremy Lewin, the actin

A probe is lowered into the Potomac River near the area impacted by a raw sewage spill in Maryland, March 3, 2026. The preventable spill serves as an extreme example of “how well-meaning permitting laws have stymied vital projects in the United States,” the Times Editorial Board writes. (Michael Noble Jr./The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Eight years ago, local officials in Washington learned a section of a sewage line next to the Potomac River had become corroded an

President Donald Trump attends a transfer of remains service at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on March 7, 2026. (Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times). By THE EDITORIAL BOARD On paper, the war in Iran should not be much of a contest. The United States spends around $1 trillion a year on its military, more than 100 times as much as Iran. That money buys a vastly larger Air Force and Navy, as well as advanced weapons technologies that Iranian generals can only dream about. In

Ukrainian soldiers train in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Ukraine, April 7, 2026. President Trump’s “policy toward Ukraine looks like everything his Iran policy is not: an effective rebalancing for a multipolar world, in which a major rival has been contained and weakened with a reduced American commitment ...,” Times columnist Ross Douthat writes. (Brendan Hoffman/The New York Times) By ROSS DOUTHAT One of the many ironies of Donald Trump’s war against Iran is that only a ye

President Donald Trump walks King Charles III to his vehicle after a visit to the White House in Washington, April 28, 2026. Anyone familiar with the causes Charles championed as Prince of Wales could infer his ideological differences with Trump. (Anna Rose Layden/The New York Times) By MAUREEN DOWD The last time Charles came here for a state visit, nobody seemed to notice. I saw him up close during his trip in the autumn of 1985, from his stop at JCPenney in a suburban mall

Artificial Intelligence will drastically increase the power of small states and groups in conflict with the great powers. (Evan Hume/The New York Times) By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN President Donald Trump often falls back on poker metaphors. He told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine that he had “no cards” when it came to standing up to Russia. Trump told Iran’s leaders that they had “no cards” when it came to standing up to him. Would somebody please tell me when it’s poker

Stairs outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, April 9, 2026. “The Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday on the Voting Rights Act is a mind-boggling piece of judicial overreach,” writes The New York Times’ Editorial Board. (Damon Winter/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The Supreme Court’s decision last Wednesday on the Voting Rights Act is a mind-boggling piece of judicial overreach. Six conservative justices voted to weaken the act, in that way substituting t