In an interesting experiment that’s certain to ruffle some feathers among left-leaning reformers, the ruling Conservative Party is set to announce a program of incentives to help improve the efficiency of UK’s private prisons: Owners of private prisons who fail to stop prisoners re-offending will be fined, under new plans to be announced by David […]

The third debate could be The One for President Obama. A strong, confident performance could give him his most successful night since the debates began and leave him poised for a strong finish in a close race.  But it comes at a difficult time; President Obama would have had a much easier time winning a […]

On Friday, we remarked on the outrageous story that online education startup Coursera was being banned in Minnesota on the grounds that it hadn’t registered with the state government. We weren’t the only ones beating that drum. In response to the massive Internet backlash, Minnesota has clarified that the law does not apply to free online ed like […]

Regular Via Meadia readers are well versed in the ups and downs of the public pension crisis unfolding across the country. Having promised future retirees generous plans, state pension funds are proving to be woefully underfunded, having made overoptimistic assumptions of future growth before the financial crisis hit.Most people immediately jump to discussing what kinds of […]

A set of new anti-Semitic Turkish textbooks is raising the alarm that some among the ruling Islamists are taking the country in a dangerous new direction. The Financial Times has the story: A book on Albert Einstein describes the physicist as “filthy and slovenly”. Immediately after saying that he ate soap, it adds: “The sad part […]

In the old days, gunboats used to arrive at debtor countries from creditor countries seeking repayment. These days, the creditors are seizing the gunboats from debtors. The New York Times reports: The Libertad, a three-mast tall ship with 330 navy cadets and crew aboard, was seized at Tema, an industrial port east of Ghana’s capital, Accra, […]

The donors to Syria’s rebels are divided. The result is chaos on the ground, which looks to extend well into the period after Assad eventually falls: Despite a recent push to unify the disparate armed opposition groups under a single command, rebels are struggling to form stable alliances even at a local level, a problem […]

In a scandal that rocked Wall Street, prominent businessman Rajat Gupta was convicted in June on charges related to insider trading. Over a period of years, Gupta leaked information to Raj Rajaratnum, who illegally used it to make investments. Before his crimes were discovered, Gupta had served as the head of McKinsey, the famous consulting […]

With Monday’s debate on foreign policy just around the corner, Foreign Policy’s Rosa Brooks takes a look at Obama’s record and doesn’t much like what she sees. Particularly in the Middle East, many of Obama’s most ballyhooed policies have failed to get off the ground at all: Despite some successes large and small, Obama’s foreign policy has […]

The flirtation between Russia and Israel we noted in June just got deeper this week when Russia helped postpone UNESCO voting on several resolutions against Israel.Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, and a few others had separately pushed for UNESCO to condemn some of Israel’s recent actions, including archaeologic digs in UNESCO-protected Old Jerusalem and the neglect education […]