California’s bullet train boondoggle was sucker punched yesterday, as a Sacramento Superior Court judge blocked $68 billion in bond funding. The same case saw a separate ruling allowing the state to spend $3.4 billion in federal cash for the project, while a second case (same judge) rejected the rail authority’s request to issue $8 billion […]

Moody’s has issued a negative outlook for the higher-ed sector for the second year in a row, noting that many colleges are skating on thin ice as enrollment and tuition revenue decline and their customers become increasingly price-conscious. The WSJ reports: “Affordability remains a key issue as the weak economic environment continues to affect families’ ability to pay for higher education […]

[UPDATE: The US has just flown two B-52 bombers near the Senkaku islands, in defiance of the Chinese air defense zone. “We have continued to follow our normal procedures, which include not filing flight plans, not radioing ahead and not registering our frequencies,” said a Pentagon spokesman. There has been no response yet from Beijing.]The […]

As is often the case in Thailand, politics are complicated and press reports tend to be garbled. But that doesn’t mean this is not an important story to watch.

The NSA domestic wiretapping program has been under intense scrutiny since Edward Snowden unveiled it last spring, but to many the most troubling aspect has been the lack of strong judicial oversight of the program. Unlike most government programs, responsibility for overseeing the wiretapping project has been left up to the secretive FISA courts, which […]

The army is having difficulty finding a firm footing in the post-Muslim Brotherhood Egypt. Having lifted a nation-wide state of emergency more than a week ago, a rising tide of political assassinations, bombings, and general discontent has Egypt’s rulers flailing about and resorting to some of the same tactics that earned President Hosni Mubarak the […]

A lot has happened since I last wrote, on November 13, about the P5+1-Iran nuclear negotiations. The main development, of course, is that there is now a signed “interim” agreement and, as was not the case on November 12, there is a text to be perused. It’s not entirely obvious how or why we got […]

Things may be looking less bad for healthcare.gov, but for nervous Democrats and party consultants the improvement may be too little, too late. Politico reports that many rank-and-file Democrats are getting ready to put as much distance between themselves and the ACA as they can: Democrats, anxious to separate themselves from Obama before the 2014 midterm election, are gearing up […]

Samantha Power, call your office. Brutal militiamen are slitting children’s throats and throwing people to ravenous crocodiles in the Central African Republic. People are being raped and beaten to death, and towns burned and ransacked, by the rebels and thugs who took over the government in Bangui in March. The Guardian has the grisly details […]

More Americans are doubting not only President Obama’s integrity, but also his basic competence. The Hill reports: According to a CNN/ORC international poll released Monday, 40 percent said they believe Obama can manage the federal government effectively. That’s a 12-percentage-point-drop since June, and the worst score he received among nine personal characteristics measured in the poll.…The poll […]