An EU recovery is still a distant proposition. The latest evidence: New car sales in June were down 5.6 percent from last year, and new car registrations are down 6.2 percent from 2012. The FT reports: June’s sales total was the lowest since 1996, but was marginally better than a 5.9 per cent slide in May to […]

Students looking for options beyond the two- or four-year college path should consider certificate programs, which community colleges are offering in higher numbers and in many specialties. The WSJ reports: [C]ertificate programs not only cost less on average than a year at college but they also bring higher salaries than those received by job candidates […]

As Muslims around the world began celebrating the holy month of Ramadan last week, Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province are being prevented from congregating in mosques or homes, and students and employees at schools are being told not to fast. The FT explains: According to Human Rights Watch, Beijing is using the month of […]

The Tar Heel State will soon undergo the kind of conservative tax reform that Republican leaders have been hankering after for quite some time. The FT reports on the details of the bill: One person who has been closely following the North Carolina debate says a deal will include probably a lowering of the state […]

A major way Obamacare sought to control health care costs was through encouraging Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). In theory, ACOs lower costs by allowing doctors to pocket a percentage of the savings they create when they find ways to deliver care more efficiently. Unfortunately, the theory behind ACOs hadn’t yet been tested when Obamacare passed. As […]

Glenn Reynolds has penned an op-ed for USA Today that takes a close look at the Justice Department’s new guidelines on how to deal with journalists and leaks of sensitive information. He comes away with a bad feeling that the Obama administration is waging a war on the First Amendment: Does this policy [The DoJ’s […]

Ultra-wealthy Southern California residents have just won a victory in the battle to impose their social preferences on the poor. The neo-puritan landowners of Newport Beach, worried about their “asthma and allergies,” have convinced air-quality regulators to make it impossibly hard for the public to use the beach fire-pits that have lined California’s coast for half […]

Fracking was dealt a blow last Friday when a series of papers was released in the journal Science linking fracking with earthquakes. A team of researchers, led by Columbia University seismologist Nicholas van der Elst, found a correlation between the injection of fluids underground—a key step in the extraction of shale oil and gas (as well as the extraction […]

Having tidily dispatched his nemesis Julia Gillard in a labor party leadership struggle last month, Kevin Rudd is setting his sights on winning the next Australian elections scheduled for September 14. Step one: slash a politically toxic carbon tax, and make up for the lost revenue by cutting several green programs. NY Times: “The government has […]

Shortly after Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto took office last year, he organized a coalition with the leaders of the country’s three largest political parties called the Pact for Mexico. The purpose of the pact was to pave the way for desperately needed but politically difficult reforms.The alliance has made big strides so far this year, […]