Red plastic cups on college campuses may evoke images of wild frat parties. But at Virginia Tech they are being put to much better use: to help revolutionize the teaching of mathematics. Gone are professors and chalkboards. In their place is a giant computer lab—known as the Math Emporium—which is open 24 hours a day […]

North Korea may have humiliated itself with its last missile test, but it still leads the world in the production of over-the-top political vituperation. Analysts have been looking for Pyongyang to overcompensate for the missile flop, so a statement issued by the North Korean military lashing out at its southern neighbor does not come as […]

The close relationship between America and Israel is one of the strongest and most famous in the world. Yet, like any relationship, it is not without its sore points, of which perhaps one of the most sensitive is the case of Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli spy convicted of passing thousands of classified U.S. documents along […]

European immigrants landed in the Big Apple before settling in the heartland, and later Irish, Italians, Chinese and Puerto Ricans founded businesses and communities that have shaped the city into what it is today. Yet in recent years, New York has become less welcoming to its more entrepreneurial immigrants. Today’s New York Times discusses the […]

Via Meadia has long considered fears that America would be overrun by waves of immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America to be overblown. As with previous waves, immigration from Mexico will peak and then begin to fall.Now a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center finds that over the past five years, immigration from […]

The decline of manufacturing jobs due to automation and the growth of outsourcing may paint a dire picture of the future American workforce, but as we’ve noted before, innovation offers the potential for substantial upside as well. The Economist points to some of that promise: Ask a factory today to make you a single hammer […]

To many on the American Left, Sweden sets a gold standard for public policy. That its strong economic performance is coupled with liberal social programs, government-run healthcare and a “welfare-driven economic model” is often touted as evidence that blue policies can still be successful in the modern era.Yet news from the country’s third-largest city, Malmö, […]

Europe’s financial woes are well documented, but the malaise of the grand European political project has received far less attention. Decades of painstaking diplomacy aimed at uniting the continent into a single political entity have stalled and may even be reversing. At least that’s the view from Beijing.With Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao due to meet […]

Earlier this month Iran met with representatives from six major powers in Istanbul to discuss its nuclear program. The meeting in itself represented progress, as it was the first time Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jaleeli, had met with the group in more than a year. And although little was advanced in the form of concrete resolutions, […]

Kofi Annan’s mediation in Syria has largely failed. The Assad regime continues to flout a tenuous ceasefire, drawing more intense international condemnation. The New York Times is reporting that the rhetoric is heating up: International pressure for a harsher line on Syria escalated Thursday, with the president of France calling the Syrian leader a liar, the American secretary of state moving a […]