In an effort to forestall an upcoming election defeat, an Australian government minister called for an internal election to oust Prime Minister Julia Gillard from power. The coup failed, but the party is still grappling with the political fallout.Kevin Rudd, a former Labor PM thrown out in a 2010 party coup, was widely regarded as […]

Scotland may gain independence from the UK in just over a year. Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister and head of the Scottish National Party (SNP), finally set a date for a referendum: September 18, 2014. The announcement comes after two years of campaigning and negotiating by the SNP leader. The LA Times reported on Salmond’s speech: […]

Facing a $1 billion budget deficit and years of declining enrollment in its public education system, Chicago has announced plans to close 11 percent of its schools, or 54 in all. It’s one of the largest school closures to take place in a major American city.These changes have been a long time in coming. Enrollment in […]

Last year’s fight over Michigan’s right to work law was the biggest battle the state’s unions faced in generations, and the unions lost. But now they have figured out a way to stall for more time. One week before the law goes into effect, public sector unions are signing long-term contracts with their employers that […]

Could friendlier relations between China and Japan be on their way?China’s new President appears to be looking to repair relations with Japan, and the military is in on the softer approach. As we noted last Sunday, Xi Jinping recently appointed new diplomats to top positions in the country’s foreign ministry, and the stars of like-minded generals in […]

Forget compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)—LEDs are the new smart choice for lighting. Americans probably won’t want to hear this, after finger-wagging greens and Congress hectored us into changing from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents, but CFLs have big problems.Most notably, the bulb contains a small amount of vaporized mercury, which is damaging to […]

Hipsters are not the great saviors of American cities. The theory that the “creative class” would flock to and revive urban centers has finally been disproven, argues Joel Kotkin in the Daily Beast. Even Richard Florida, one of the biggest proponents of this theory, has admitted defeat, Kotkin says: Florida himself, in his role as […]

Earlier this month, Anne-Marie Slaughter toured the country, visiting companies and educational institutions to provide “a week’s snapshot from the front-lines of the work-family debate.”What she found is encouraging. Not only are women pushing harder for flexibility and equality in the workplace, but employers are also coming to see such policies as more than a […]

The Venezuelan government is making a frenzied effort to combat shortages of food and medicine. The FT reports that on Monday the country will begin auctioning off dollars to certain business in hopes of spurring them to import the basic goods it desperately needs. But critics claim that the new system won’t really do much to solve the problem: […]

A massive “blob” is stifling progress in public education. So writes John Stossel, who is challenging the notion that teacher’s unions are the sole obstacle to meaningful education reform. The other menace is the local politicians, PTA bureaucrats, and school boards who pool their influence to block any reforms that might upset the status quo. From RCP: […]