| Behind North Korea's dash to the nuclear finish line, a cold war push Posted: 10 Aug 2017 01:43 PM PDT ![Behind North Korea's dash to the nuclear finish line, a cold war push]( "Behind North Korea's dash to the nuclear finish line, a cold war push") Tensions arcing across the Pacific Ocean between North Korea and the United States have scaled fresh heights in recent days, with President Trump threatening "fire and fury like the world has never seen," and Pyongyang responding by declaring its intent to prepare a missile assault on the waters around Guam. Precipitating the verbal showdown was North Korea's latest apparent breakthrough in its nuclear weapons program, which was just the most recent in a string of rapid advances that appear to have taken experts and analysts by surprise. According to media reports Tuesday, the Defense Intelligence Agency has assessed that Pyongyang is now capable of sufficiently miniaturizing nuclear warheads so they can be affixed to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
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| Why Poland's crisis may come down to a president and a puppet master Posted: 10 Aug 2017 12:21 PM PDT ![Why Poland's crisis may come down to a president and a puppet master]( "Why Poland's crisis may come down to a president and a puppet master") "The Chairman's Ear," a popular online satirical video series in Poland about the country's ruling party, leaves little doubt over who wields the power in Polish political life. Episode after episode, he eagerly waits to get into the chairman's office to speak with the true kingmaker in Polish politics. The chairman is an obvious stand-in for the leader of the ruling, ultraconservative Law & Justice (PiS) party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
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| Famed horse fest spotlights Tibetan culture, with politics in the wings Posted: 10 Aug 2017 11:46 AM PDT ![Famed horse fest spotlights Tibetan culture, with politics in the wings]( "Famed horse fest spotlights Tibetan culture, with politics in the wings") The opening ceremony of the annual Tibetan horse festival here officially begins by lighting a bundle of mulberry branches at the north end of the stadium, which sits in a treeless valley ringed by rolling hills. As the fire begins to smolder, 20 People's Liberation Army soldiers march onto the field in tight formation.
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| Coming home again: What brings people back to a dying town? Posted: 10 Aug 2017 11:04 AM PDT ![Coming home again: What brings people back to a dying town?]( "Coming home again: What brings people back to a dying town?") The settling quiet of Main Street in small-town America – so few cars now, shops closed, not so many people – is like a seashell held to the ear: It sounds different to each one who listens. To a stranger coming to this central Indiana town, it is the silence of empty storefronts, of the stoplight blinking at the main crossroad with no traffic in sight, of a far-off lawn mower snarl echoing down empty avenues. To Sandy Ploss, it is a quiet that rings with the history of circuses that once filled this town with performers and trainers and riggers at their winter quarters – a history she helps preserve with the kids of Peru, who put on an annual Amateur Circus.
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