We predicted that once the election was over the mainstream media would shift to a tougher stance on President Obama’s foreign policy. Evidence confirming our prediction just keeps rolling in.The New York Times has suddenly noticed some troubling flaws in The One’s approach to the Middle East. The Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief and White House correspondent can’t help […]

The first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem. The EU voted this morning to try and fix its broken carbon market. The bloc’s emissions trading system (ETS) issues permits allowing manufacturers to emit carbon dioxide. If they emit more than their permits allow, they have to buy more permits from firms that […]

The leader of a Chechen separatist group urged his followers to use “maximum force” to attack the 2014 Winter Olympics in a new video posted online today. He also rescinded a 2012 pledge not to attack targets in Russia.Russia plans “to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many, many […]

Oregon is considering a plan to allow students to attend state schools without taking out loans or even paying any tuition upfront. The catch? Under a plan called, “Pay It Forward, Pay It Back,” once the students graduate, they would pay 3 percent of their salaries into a special fund for 24 years. The WSJ […]

A quick follow-up to yesterday’s story about the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister’s nasty remarks about the Jewish diaspora being behind the Gezi protests: Hurriyet Daily News reported the story first and then faced stiff push-back from the Deputy PM’s office.Well Hurriyet now has a video backing up its initial reporting. (h/t FT‘s Daniel Domby)Over to you, Mr. Erdogan?

China is attempting to hijack India’s port development project in Chabahar, Iran. It’s a sign that the two largest economies in Asia are gearing up for a global battle over commercial harbors. India announced in May that it would fund a $100 million upgrade of the Iranian port, but yesterday the Indian Express reported that […]

Over at The Atlantic David A. Graham has put together an excellent guide to the policy debates that are making North Carolina one of the most interesting and important political experiments taking place in America today. The state, which only four years after voting for Barack Obama elected a GOP Governor and Republican-controlled legislature last fall, is […]

Shale gas isn’t just good for America, it’s good for North America. A new report from the Boston Consulting Group suggests that cheap American shale gas is going to power a Mexican manufacturing boom (h/t Matt Yglesias): Within five years, higher manufacturing exports due to a widening cost advantage over China and other major economies could add $20 […]

One of China’s biggest manufacturers of wind turbines is shutting down its subsidiaries in Italy, Canada, the US, and Belgium. Sinovel has gone through two CEOs, layoffs, court battles over alleged theft of a US company’s software, and internal restructuring—all in the past year.Sinovel is hoping to turn its fortunes around by shuttering these four […]

Boys are being penalized in schools simply for exhibiting traits characteristic of their gender. So writes teacher Jessica Lahey in The Atlantic, who claims that her colleagues are failing to understand and engage boys in the classroom: Something is rotten in the state of boys’ education, and I can’t help but suspect that the pattern […]