It’s no secret that Ukraine isn’t happy with its current relationship with Russia. Kiev has grown adept at playing Moscow against Brussels, but at the heart of the matter is dissatisfaction over natural gas contracts: Ukraine pays more than the average European customer for Russian gas, and it is locked in to long-term, take-or-pay contracts […]

The big questions in Affordable Care Act news this week are “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” Did the administration know back in 2010 that millions of Americans would probably lose their pre-existing insurance as the ACA went into effect.NBC kickstarted the debate with a story about ACA regulations from […]

Which colleges give students the best value for their money? Lots of magazines publish lists that advise students about good deals, but there’s not a lot of agreement about how to measure academic value. Every publication has its own yardstick, often with very little in common between them. The NYT: Some of these analyses approach value […]

Boko Haram, once merely a local terror concern, appears to be on the cusp of becoming yet another international jihadist cause celebre, drawing foreign fighters in its quest to convert Nigeria into an Islamist state. The Washington Post: Extremists from three neighboring countries are fighting in Nigeria’s northeastern Islamic uprising, according to an alleged captured […]

Have you ever dreamed of biking from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico but been frustrated by the lack of dedicated bike lanes for the cross-country trip? Neither have we, but an architectural design firm has a $400 million plan to meet this desire you never knew you had, while boosting the appeal of a […]

Tariq Rahman wrote an insightful piece in the Express Tribune on Monday about the current dilemmas surrounding the language of instruction in Pakistan’s schools. Here’s an excerpt: My concern was injustice, inequality and the continuation of privilege for the elite. More precisely, I was appalled by educational practices from the dim past in the subcontinent. […]

Pemex, the state-owned oil company on which the Mexican government relies for a third of its budget, is having a bad year, even by its sluggish standards. It lost $3 billion dollars in the third quarter after the value of its foreign sales dropped nearly 10 percent. Costs rose a whopping 13 percent, underscoring the […]

Studies on the costs of commuting have been making their way into academic journals with increasing regularity, and the mainstream media is starting to take notice. The average American commutes 25.4 minutes each way to work, suffering strains on mental and physical health, relationships, civic engagement, wallet, and carbon footprint. The New York Times reports on the toll: Millions […]

The WSJ has begun a series that everyone should start following: documenting the fiscal health of America’s 250 biggest cities. The first installment came out today, and it isn’t pretty. A deadly combination of static revenue and big (and growing) liabilities is keeping many American cities from achieving the kind of recovery seen in other […]

China publicly unveiled its first generation of nuclear submarines, built several decades ago, for the first time this weekend. The subs will “gallop to the depths of the ocean, serving as mysterious forces igniting the sound of thunder in the deep sea,” the official Xinhua news agency said in a dramatic article, and be an “assassin’s […]