Adam Minter

In December, China announced that it planned to inoculate 50 million people against Covid-19 by Feb. 11. Although it was an ambitious goal, it wasn’t outlandish for a country that seemed to have done better than most in bringing the pandemic under control. Yet vaccination turns out to be the one…

Should young, healthy Olympic athletes receive priority for Covid-19 vaccines? The Indian government thinks so. With its blessing, athletes are set to leap over hundreds of millions of more vulnerable people to receive doses before this summer’s Olympic Games. In Lithuania, Hungry and Serbia,…

Has the pandemic dimmed the houselights for good at American movie theaters? Stay-at-home orders, capacity limits and simple fear of the virus have kept cinema crowds away for nearly a year. So, too, have studio decisions to delay the release of anticipated blockbusters. Last year, the North…

On Thursday, a team of World Health Organization experts will arrive in China to investigate the origins of Covid-19. The mission, which has been planned and negotiated for nearly a year, almost didn’t happen. As recently as last week, China was still refusing to authorize it. Although the…

Last month, 16 “artificial rain enhancement rockets” were launched off the back of a pickup truck 300 miles south of Beijing. The operation, ordered up by the Juye County Meteorological Bureau in response to a local drought, was reportedly a success. Over the next 24 hours, the county received more…

Just how high a price are the citizens of Japan willing to pay for the privilege of hosting the Olympics? That question is getting a partial answer this month as a series of baseball games are being hosted — with government approval — in crowded stadiums. Various measures to protect spectators…

Upgrading to an iPhone 12? Apple Inc. is happy to take your old phone off your hands. “If it’s in good shape, we’ll help it go to a new owner,” the company promises on the website promoting its trade-in program. “If not, we’ll send it to our recycling partner, so we can save more precious materials…

Affluent, food-loving Singaporeans aren’t averse to spending $500 on a meal. But generally, they expect that it’ll come with a bit of ambience. Thanks to the pandemic, that bar has been lowered. On Monday, Singapore Airlines Ltd. sold out seats to eat lunch on a grounded jet at the airport. Tickets…

The Chinese Communist Party likes to depict itself as the competent steward of a dynamic emerging superpower. Last week, millions of social-media users expressed their doubts. The source of their frustration was the elimination of top Chinese swimmers — including an Olympic medal winner — from the…

China was completely unprepared when the virus now known as SARS emerged in the late autumn of 2002. Among other deficiencies, the government had almost no medical or administrative infrastructure in place to identify, monitor and respond to an epidemic, much less to notify the rest of the world of…