American onshoring keeps rolling along, and the latest good news is the boost homegrown manufacturing is getting from big data. Improvements in data collection and analysis have made forward-looking firms more agile and able to react quickly to fluctuations in market demand or supply. So far, the U.S. seems best qualified to take advantage of […]

Western consumers have gotten used to seeing “made in China” printed on many of their daily purchases, but there are many items the Chinese themselves would prefer not to bear that label—baby food, for one: A surge in sales of one of Australia’s most popular brands of infant formula has led to an unusual sight […]

California is already one of the most dysfunctional states in the Union; now it is set to become one of the oldest and most childless as well. According to the WSJ, the state’s population numbers are in steep decline: In 1970, six years after the end of the baby boom, children made up more than one-third […]

On December 29, 2012, the New York Times carried an article by Samuel Freedman, who is on the faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and who regularly writes in the religion column of the Times. The article is entitled “In a Crisis, Humanists seem Absent”. It dealt with the strong religious […]

Many wondered how the Iraqi government would survive after the last U.S. troops left the country. Thus far, the signs are mixed: Parliamentary institutions are working, sort of, but a lot of the political wrangling is taking place on the streets in the form of violence among militias rather than arguments among political factions.On the […]

China’s latest salvo in its conflict with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea has struck a nerve. Japan, which has still not officially acknowledged that a territorial dispute even exists, summoned China’s ambassador before the Japanese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday after Chinese ships sashayed into Japanese-controlled waters for 13 hours. The New […]

“Pakistan’s continuing support of Operation Enduring Freedom has been critical to our success so far in toppling the Taliban and routing out the Al Qaeda network. Yet President Musharraf has made an even broader commitment. He has declared that Pakistan will be an enemy of terrorism and extremism wherever it exists, including inside his own […]

The last time a 3-D, digital, touch-controlled globe was being used, Admiral Akbar was briefing the Rebel Alliance on the impending Battle of Endor. Those of us on Earth, however, were still using flat paper maps or hollow plastic orbs.How times have changed. The NY Times reports that widespread use of digital globes is on the […]

Banks just can’t catch a break. Just days after they’ve agreed to pay out huge settlements for their pre-recession abuses, they’ve become the most recent victim of Iranian cyber attacks: The attackers hit one American bank after the next. As in so many previous attacks, dozens of online banking sites slowed, hiccupped or ground to […]

South Africans are striking again, although this time it’s farmers, not miners, who are on strike in one of the country’s top wine regions. The New York Times reports: South African police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at hundreds of striking farm workers who blocked a highway in the grape-growing Western Cape on Wednesday, the […]