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In the midst of this democratic decay, the United States, led by the Biden administration, is attempting to take action, hosting a Summit for Democracy on Dec. 9 and 10. The summit will virtually bring together governments from around the world to tackle issues like combatting authoritarianism, fighting corruption and promoting human rights. Given the reality of domestic political challenges, the Biden administration should avoid any veneer of promoting democracy....

It’s a historic mission: China’s lawyers are leading a campaign to create an independent legal system. For thousands of years China was ruled by personalities. What laws existed were never as important as the whim of the emperor or local officials. In imperial days, citizens suspected of crimes were summarily executed, their heads displayed on the city gates as warnings to others. Mao Zedong built on that tradition. During the Cultural Revolution he outlawed the Parliament with just a few words....

That second voice, while facile with words, relies more on tone to be the tonic, the palliative. I think the woman who lives there has Alzheimer’s, but I’m not sure. I only know the lit window and the trail of voices. Anyone whose family has been invaded by disease knows that there is an architecture to illness. It becomes a dependable structure for the lives that dwell there. Someone is always awake at my parents’ house....

MY FIVE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov. So funny, so extreme, so dangerous that its very outrageousness makes its classic love story viable. “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert. Out of gimlet-eyed scorn arose a novel of bourgeois life that is a controlled work of art. “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy. Anna and Vronsky are so real you can smell them! “In Search of Lost Time” by Marcel Proust....

An Important Book that you admit you haven’t read: Einstein’s papers on the theory of relativity. I have it around and I keep trying, but it’s hard to understand it. I want to, though. title: “A Life In Books Walter Mosley” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-17” author: “Marion Baldwin” 2 “On the Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin. A close second. Displays a deep understanding of the fluidity of all life....

1 “The River.” Jean Renoir’s beautiful adaptation of Rumer Godden’s autobiographical novel about a season in the life of an English girl raised in Bengal. Perfect for the hospital bedroom. 2 “Saint Jack.” Peter Bogdanovich’s elegiac film of Paul Theroux’s novel. Set in Singapore, with Ben Gazzara. Might save this for the very end. 3 “Husbands.” One of the best of John Cassavetes’s movies. Not very hopeful. 4 “The Last Detail....

In pursuit of similarly upbeat subjects-loneliness, longing-Keaton began photographing empty hotel lobbies 15 years ago. She made a book of the images and realized it was like making a film. She directed TV and a documentary, “Heaven,” before landing “Heroes.” Has Keaton, 49, learned anything from two actor/director ex-boyfriends? She credits Woody Allen for her “disarmingly simple” directing style. But she hadn’t seen Warren Beatty for two years when he popped by her editing room recently-so she threw him out....

However, if you have too much “bad” cholesterol, called low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or too little “good” cholesterol," called high-density lipoprotein (HDL), it can contribute to serious health problems like heart disease. Even if you are on medications to control your cholesterol, you may find that other drugs you take can reduce their effectiveness. In some cases, your doctor may need to adjust the dosage of one or both drugs to get your cholesterol back under control....

To find relief, your doctor must first pinpoint the underlying cause of a locked knee. This could be something physically preventing the knee from moving or something that is causing so much pain that the knee cannot bend or extend normally. This article explains the two major causes of a locked knee, how they are diagnosed, and what can be done to treat them. Causes Orthopedists, doctors who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of the musculoskeletal system, refer to the inability to bend or straighten the knee as either a true locked knee or a pseudo-locked knee....

And now, their rocky relationship is in the spotlight once again after Marquise jabbed at his father on Instagram. In his post, he offered his father $6,700 to buy back 24 hours of one-on-one time with his father. Marquise, 25, posted the image online after receiving backlash for an Instagram Live video, where he stated $6,700 was not enough money to “maintain his lifestyle.” 50 Cent has been paying over $80,000 in child support to Marquise’s mother, Shaniqua Tompkins, details TMZ....

Counting contracts that started with the 2019 season, 13 different players currently have deals that are at least 10 years in length. This offseason alone, Carlos Correa (13 years), Trea Turner (13 years) and Xander Bogaerts (11 years) have joined the club, and Aaron Judge (nine years) just missed out, though his total compensation ($360 million) and average annual value ($40 million) put him in a different exclusive tier. MORE: Red Sox top list of most disappointing offseasons so far...

We’re still moving in the wrong direction. U.S. manufacturers can’t fill almost a million open factory jobs. The National Association of Manufacturers forecasts a shortage of 2.1 million factory workers by 2030. Meanwhile, hourly factory wages have fallen to just 78 percent of non-manufacturing wages today, from 83 percent 10 years ago. Manufacturing productivity also declined during the past decade at an average annual rate of -0.1 percent. A lack of skilled labor hinders manufacturing investment, and a lack of investment erodes interest in skills training....

Technically, nothing changed in America’s policy toward Hong Kong last week. But Lee’s visit to Washington, which included a half-hour chat with President Bill Clinton at the White House, may be remembered as the moment that the United States threw itself squarely–and very publicly–behind Hong Kong democracy. Lee and Clinton agreed that China’s takeover of Hong Kong is an international issue. Beijing, of course, views Hong Kong as a domestic matter–and wants the world to butt out....

The first thing to do is understand the NIH study. Researchers tested a combination of estrogen and progestin, a synthetic form of progesterone, and found the risks outweighed the benefits long-term. The trial did not examine the short-term benefits of HRT, chief among them: damping down hot flashes, the most common menopausal complaint among American women. Nor did it find similar problems to date in an ongoing trial of estrogen alone, which is given only to women with hysterectomies, who no longer need progesterone’s protective effect on the uterine lining....

With the comedic talents of Craig Robinson, Sarah Cooper, W. Kamau Bell, Sarah Silverman, and Lewis Black, Bell and Mansbach humorously educate people about what effects calling the police on a Black person who’s doing nothing wrong can do. The comedians tell off the Karen (and “Kieran”) and educate them by both airdropping books like The New Jim Crow on the woman and putting things into perspective for the man....

And so does she; since Fuller took over five months ago, a celebrity can’t push a stroller on a sidewalk or parallel park without being immortalized in a fuzzy photo on the pages of Us. Poring over a table of several hundred paparazzi photographs, Fuller is in her element, scoffing at P. Diddy for wearing a suit on the beach, admiring Ben Affleck test-driving a Bentley. Fuller’s obsessive attention to the lifestyles of the extremely famous–from their hookups and heartbreaks right down to their hair plugs and panty lines–has breathed new life into the money-losing weekly....

The contents of this two-CD concert album, just released on Blue Note, lay undiscovered until they were recently discovered by the composer’s widow. What a find. The band on this date is the same seminal group that in Paris a month later, minus trumpet player Johnny Coles (sidelined with a stomach ulcer), would record the indelible “Great Concert of Charles Mingus.” The personnel on the Cornell date included Coles; Eric Dolphy on alto sax, flute and bass clarinet; Clifford Jordan on tenor sax; Jaki Byard on piano; Dannie Richmond on drums and Mingus on bass....

“Maybe this is some kind of mistake,” jokes Arie, who knows that she and her debut, “Acoustic Soul,” were unlikely candidates, even for less lofty categories such as best new artist and record of the year. Though Arie is one of the freshest talents to rise out of 2001, she is not a fave among brooding critics nor a record-label creation aimed at gum-snapping kids. She is a nonconformist who somehow slipped into the mainstream wearing clothes designed by her mother and singing such lyrics as: “Sometimes I shave my legs and sometimes I don’t/Sometimes I comb my hair, sometimes I won’t/Keep your silicon, I prefer my own/What God gave me is just fine....