Google rolled out a new service this week that will help connect experts—like doctors, teachers, chefs, yogis, or even bicycle technicians—to users looking for answers. The program is called Helpouts, and its purpose is to facilitate “real help from real people in real time.” The WSJ reports: Helpouts, which will be powered by Google’s video-chat product Hangouts and […]

Office space has historically reflected the health of the American economy, but new construction hasn’t recovered to pre-2008 levels. That has Joel Kotkin wondering: have we hit “peak office” in America? Kotkin writes for Forbes: [T]he trend in real estate remains to convert office spaces to other uses, particularly residential. Large-scale office construction is happening in just […]

AI editor Adam Garfinkle has weighed in at Tablet with a must-read article on the slow but steady unraveling of the “triangle linking American Jewry with the governments of Israel and the United States.” For the last seventy-odd years, Garfinkle argues, the US, Israel, and American Jews found themselves in a mutually beneficial relationship. But […]

From time to time on the blog we plan to highlight a new feature: short summaries of the books VM staff writers are reading and thinking about. This week Peter Blair (@PeterBlairAI), who covers health care and religion, talks about Affordable Excellence and Mother Country.  Affordable Excellence: The Singapore Health Care Story, published in April of this year […]

Two pieces this week offered a fascinating look into the future of American jobs. The Times profiled Jon Steinsson and Emi Nakamura, two up-and-coming economists who have taken “hiring help” to the extreme. In an effort to maximize the time they spend on tasks essential to their career, Steinsson and Nakamura, a couple, outsource many duties, chores, and activities […]

Even from prison Bo Xilai still wields influence. The former Communist Party leader was jailed for corruption and bribery two months ago, but his former supporters, boldly defying the Communist Party, have set up a new party and named Bo “chairman for life.”Members of the new party call it the Zhi Xian Party: “the constitution is […]

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was back on the Hill this week to testify about the Affordable Care Act exchanges, and her words were not reassuring to those who hoped the website would soon be functional. According to the WSJ, Sebelius said “contractors need to fix a couple of hundred problems and ‘we’re not where we […]

It’s been a dramatic week in the long-running nuclear talks between Iran and the six major powers (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany). With Secretary of State John Kerry and other foreign ministers flocking to Geneva, there is a possibility that at least a partial and temporary agreement between Iran […]

A major meeting of the Commonwealth of Nations—mostly former British colonies—will take place later this month in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, but one important member state won’t be represented: India. The decision by New Delhi on wether or not Manmohan Singh should attend has exposed internal divisions within India and highlighted a wider […]

Anti-semitism is reaching terrifyingly high levels in Europe. According to a new survey by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency, almost half of the Jews in some European countries have considered emigration due to anti-semitism. The BBC has more: The survey of 5,847 Jewish people said 66% of those who responded considered anti-Semitism to be a problem.Three […]