Kamala Harris, in Southeast Asia and in Uniform

Any solo international trip of the first female vice president of the United States and the country’s first female vice president of color would, in normal circumstances, invite first-degree scrutiny. Not just of her speeches and joint news conferences, but of her ceremonial appearances. Emphasis on the last word.

After all, as a pioneer and one of the rare women helping to lead a country on the world stage (at a time when one of the most famous, Angela Merkel of Germany, is about to step down), every statement and choice she makes carries with it the symbolism of the

‘A thing of shame’: Rome’s pizza machine

(CNN) — It’s known for its ancient ruins, the seat of Catholicism and some of the world’s best pizza.

Yes, in Rome, the art of pizza is up there with the art of constructing buildings that will last for 2,000 years, and guiding one of the world’s major religions.

Compared to the original Neapolitan style, Roman pizza is thinner, flakier and crunchier, since it’s baked for a little longer. The pizzerias of Trastevere, the boho neighborhood across the River Tiber from central Rome, are lauded as some of the best places in the world to try the dish.

Now there’s

Live Updates: Security Threats at Kabul Airport Prompt Multiple Warnings

U.S. Embassy warned Americans to stay away from the Kabul airport and told anyone outside the perimeter to “leave immediately,” citing unnamed security threats.

The British and Australian governments issued similar warnings, with Australian officials describing “an ongoing and very high threat of terrorist attack.”

The warnings came as the last of the estimated 1,500 Americans and countless other foreigners still in Afghanistan try to make it to the airport to leave before the U.S. withdrawal on Aug. 31. Thousands of Afghan nationals are camped outside the perimeter of the airport in desperate attempts to escape on the last flights …

The Uniform Cool of Charlie Watts

“Style is the answer to everything,” Charles Bukowski, of all people, once said in a lecture that’s still afloat in the ether of YouTube. Swigging Schlitz from a bottle, the pockmarked laureate of the underground discoursed on one of the few traits that, as is well known, one may possess though never acquire.

Bullfighters have style and so do boxers, Bukowski said. He had seen more men with style inside of prison than outside its walls, he also somewhat questionably asserted. “To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it,” he then added