How to deal with rogue nations? Recent US experiments with "regime change" in Iraq and Afghanistan appeared to delist the policy as an option. But in the latest iteration of the Trump administration, a freshened "troop-less" version is getting a look.

Here’s another piece about leverage. While the West’s sanctions against Russia have been in place for four years now, it’s easy to lose sight of just how effective they are. In fact, Russia has largely handled them. But the latest round of US sanctions and a set of new Russian “counter-sanctions” could make the sanctions war much more costly.

Temporary visas are a small part of the politically fraught issue of immigration. But recent restrictions and a tight job market are putting fresh focus on the role foreign workers play in the US economy – and on issues such as fairness and openness. 

The fact of retreating ice at Earth’s poles triggers hot debate over root causes. It fuels discussions about environmental adaptation. It has nations jostling for geopolitical advantage. Our writer visited a scruffy port town in Norway’s far north to see how local pragmatism – the simple need to find a new place in a new Arctic landscape – fits in.

Faith and technology don’t always seem like a natural pairing. One evokes long-standing tradition; the other, high-speed change. But the combination is increasingly common – and it highlights how religions constantly shape the world around them, and vice versa.

During the last outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa four years ago, panic spread faster and farther than the disease itself. Public fears even hindered efforts to end the epidemic, which claimed 11,000-plus lives. With a new outbreak this month in Congo, health officials are now applying a key lesson: Guard against mass hysteria.

This time, the World Health Organization and other groups are reacting with greater speed to the crisis but also with greater caution in how they influence public thinking. For one, they are showing more confidence in battling the virus. “[W]e now have better tools than ever before to combat Ebola,” tweeted WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday.

Yet just as important is avoiding certain actions that play to people’s fears. These include moving entire families to isolation centers, placing whole villages in quarantine with the use of soldiers, or banning certain social practices that may spread the disease (thus forcing people to simply hide such practices).

Another key lesson: Prepare crisis-response teams well enough in advance so they don’t flee in panic and worsen the worries of local people.

In general, health officials have learned how to be more sensitive in working with virus-hit communities, helping them better understand what can be done. The 2014-16 outbreaks in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea also showed the need to deal with the social stigma encountered by those who survived the disease. Mental health services were overrun in those countries during the outbreak.

Many survivors need help in dealing with isolation from family, friends, and employers. Such relief can reduce a part of the anxiety over the virus. Or as Florence Nightingale, famed nurse of the 19th century, advised: “How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.”

One study of the 2014-16 crisis concluded that fear and chaos went “largely unchecked by high level political leadership.” By early accounts, the latest crisis in Congo may not have a similar problem.

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