Two popular start-up companies that save people money and make their lives easier, Airbnb and Uber, are headed for the chopping block in two of America’s biggest cities.Airbnb is a popular website that cuts down on hotel costs by matching travelers with people offering to rent out space in their home or apartment; it now […]

Miami’s Mt. Sinai Medical Center has just promised to publicly release the rates at which insurance companies reimburse the hospital for treatments. In any other industry, it would be routine for a vendor to disclose prices to customers. But the regular rules don’t apply in health care, where hospitals typically keep the prices they charge for their services […]

 With the IRS and AP scandals picking up steam, Benghazigate seems to have become a little neglected of late, getting sustained attention only outside the MSM in the right-wing blogosphere. A good bit of reporting by Eli Lake of the Daily Beast on the interagency fight between the State Department and CIA shows, however, that this scandal still […]

Iran is brazenly sending troops to fight the rebels in Syria, and Congress is fed up with White House policy on Syria.The Washington Post reports that trained Iranian fighters are now on the ground in Syria to protect the resurgent Assad regime, with the aid of Iran-backed fighters from Hezbollah. Fractured and increasingly weak, the rebels […]

One of Europe’s most tolerant, immigrant-friendly countries is facing three nights of Paris-style riots from angry immigrants. The riots, which started when police gunned down an elderly man wielding a machete, have ignited a debate over how well the country is doing when it comes to integrating immigrants into Swedish society. The FT reports: Experts say that […]

A new Gallup poll shows that 72 percent of Americans think morals as a whole are getting worse in the country; 44 percent said the state of American morals is “poor,” which is six points higher than two years ago.We should take numbers like these with a grain of salt; morality isn’t exactly easy to […]

Three Chinese nationals have been accused of accepting bribes from China to disclose private research in magnetic resonance imaging that was being funded by the National Institutes of Health. Details from the New York Times: The defendants, all Chinese citizens, included Yudong Zhu, 44, of Scarsdale, N.Y., an associate professor in the school’s radiology department who was […]

As the latest round of scandals swirls around the White House, there is the usual empty chatter from various spokesmen about the President’s intention to “pivot toward the economy” (again!) and to prioritize unemployment.If only that would happen; America’s jobs problem is big enough and crucial enough that it should be the President’s priority every […]

Hypocrisy is the name of the game in New York’s State Assembly, and the New York Times has finally taken notice. State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the state’s major political power broker, has emerged unscathed from last week’s slew of accusations that he whitewashed sexual harassment allegations against prominent Democratic Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez. Even after a […]

College students may see their debt rise sharply overnight, as the interest rate for Stafford Loans is set to double to 6.8 percent on July 1st. Fortunately, students have some friends in high places: The Obama administration, House Republicans, and various senators have each proposed plans that would forestall the rate jump. (Inside Higher Ed has a […]