Oklahoma City

Parties over? Republicans, Democrats, and the Howard Schultz challenge

The self-described centrist and possible candidate for president has made criticism of the Republican and Democratic Parties the central theme of his as-yet unofficial campaign. “Both parties today on the far left and the far right are more interested in partisan politics, revenge politics,” said Mr. Schultz in a CNN town hall broadcast on Feb. 12.

When Putin goes, will Putinism persist? Russians debate.

Since the collapse of the USSR, a state in which ideology regulated everything from foreign affairs to personal life, some Russians have searched hard for a new “Russian idea” to animate national existence and impart a sense of belonging and purpose.

Helping minority youths dream beyond sports

On Tuesday Manny Machado, a baseball player from the Dominican Republic, signed a $300 million contract to play for the San Diego Padres. In the National Basketball Association, players – most of whom are African-American – brag when they succeed in earning a “max contract,” the highest salary allowed. Recommended: The Monitor's View Is progress on race still possible?

Not your typical door-to-door sales: the family-planning ladies of Nigeria

Three times a week, Aishatu Abdullahi slips on a flowy blue hijab, slings a bulging backpack of supplies over her shoulder, and sets out to sell her wares, door-to-door, to the women in her neighborhood. In another time, in a different place, she might have been an Avon Lady, unzipping her bag to reveal tiny samples of lotions and lipsticks to neighborhood homemakers. Mrs. Abdullahi is part of a team of door-to-door contraceptive saleswomen hired by the family-planning charity Marie Stopes International to bring birth control to women here who can’t – or won’t – get it elsewhere.