TALKING TO STRANGERSWhat We Should Know About the People We Don’t KnowBy Malcolm Gladwell Perhaps one shouldn’t always feel bad about getting someone utterly wrong. Sometimes one is bested by a master. In November 2004, I went to interview Bernard Madoff for The Economist and was won over. I told …

Ninth Congressional district Democratic candidate Dan McCready. Jeff Siner | The Charlotte Observer | AP A U.S. House special election in North Carolina on Tuesday has the potential to serve as an early referendum on the 2020 elections as Democrats seek to upend a stronghold Republicans have held for decades. …

There’s a saying often attributed to the novelist John Gardner that there are really only two stories: A Person Goes on a Journey or A Stranger Comes to Town. Which is, of course, the same story, just turned inside out. It’s the story of movement; of migration, its trauma or …

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange. Eduardo Munoz | Reuters The stock market is itching to make new highs, and it may soon, as long as progress continues to appear to be made on the trade war front. Technical market analysts, who watch stock charts, …

When I was a kid growing up on Long Island in the late ’70s, certain smarty-pants types were happy to share their knowledge of Asia. If you told them you were Chinese you might get the tried-and-true “Ching-chong!” If you were Japanese, maybe you’d get an “aah-so!” But when I …

If you signed up for the Equifax settlement to get $125 as a result of their massive data breach, you now have until Oct. 15 to verify your claim. Just remember you may get far less than that. The credit-reporting company’s $700 million settlement, announced in late July, gave consumers …

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., holds her weekly news conference in the Capitol on Thursday, July 11, 2019. Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call Group | Getty Images House Democrats will control the fate of one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities as they return to Washington this week. …

An employee prepares a burrito bowl at a Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, Feb. 2, 2019. Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty Images Chipotle is well positioned  to grow, as the restaurant industry adapts to using more apps and digital transactions, according to Wedbush.  The firm upgraded …

We’ve been here before, and not too long ago. The S&P 500 index finished Friday at 2978 after nudging about 1% above the top of the whippy August trading range. On July 31, the index closed at 2980; four weeks before that, at 2973. The S&P 500 is just 1.5% …

Facebook is under a fresh wave of scrutiny. New York State Attorney Letitia James launched a joint investigation into potential antitrust violations on Friday, joining Florida, Iowa, and Colorado among others in putting the heat on Facebook. The latest probe comes on top of an investigation by the Federal Trade …