After a year of steady advances, the MOOC train hit some obstacles this summer. The problems started in California, where San Jose State’s pioneering for-credit MOOC partnership with Udacity was put on hold after more than half of the students who took the first set of courses failed their final exams. Among traditional universities, San Jose […]

A new study released Thursday confirms that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline—oil infrastructure that would bring oil from Canada’s tar sands to refineries along America’s Gulf Coast—will not have an impact on carbon emissions. The study, conducted by the energy consulting group IHS CERA, echoes the findings of a draft State Department report released in March.Environmental groups […]

There’s a must-read today from energy visionary Daniel Yergin in the Wall Street Journal. He analyzes the implications of the end of the commodity “supercycle”—the rising commodity prices, caused by surging demand in places like China, that have brought rapid GDP growth to several key players in the global economy. Some history: The supercycle began a decade […]

It’s been less than a month since Detroit officially filed for bankruptcy, but the effects are already being felt outside the Motor City. Wall Street is growing warier of municipal debt in the state, and so nearby cities and counties are finding it considerably more difficult to borrow money. Three Michigan municipalities have already decided to postpone […]

Diplomats stationed at the US consulate in Lahore have been moved to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, because of a specific terrorist threat, American officials said Friday. It appears that this threat is separate from the one that caused the US to close down 19 other embassies and consulates this week. The US also advised Americans not […]

What’s this you say, New Yorker? Libya’s not working out too well? The smoke had not yet cleared when the victory was being touted as a shining example of what Western powers could do on a modern battleground without ever putting “boots on the ground.” With no further need for war and with Western powers fussing […]

The UK is sitting on a bounty of shale, but the country is finding it exceedingly difficult to imitate America’s success with the resource. NIMBY-ism and misguided green concerns are stalling exploratory well drilling, but the Spectator reports that Brussels is also holding the country’s shale ambitions back: Various environmental non-governmental organisations are trying to use the European Union to stop fracking. In a […]

Hot on the heels of jihadists around the world snickering at the hasty mass closing of US embassies around the Middle East, Ezra Klein of the Washington Post points out that the right wing Chinese Global Times is clucking at the spectacle of President Obama backing out of a summit with Putin over the Snowden affair: Russia has […]

The Times of Israel reports that Amos Yadlin, chief of the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate from 2006 to 2010, indicated in an interview on Wednesday that people in the Obama administration may be softening their stance on an Israeli strike against Iran: “In 2012 the [Americans’] red light was as red as it can get, the brightest red,” Yadlin said in […]

The Philippines is plowing ahead with a military upgrade and increased cooperation with the US navy, the AP reports. In a letter to Philippine Congressional leaders, the defense and foreign affairs ministers wrote that American troops and ships will soon be allowed more access to Philippine territory to help the Philippines maintain a “minimum credible defense” […]