SEPTEMBER 11: A member of the European Parliament, Belgian socialist Saïd El Khadraoui attends a debate on a negotiated political solution for Syria following the use of chemical weapons in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Photo courtesy of Frederick Florin, AFP, and Getty Images.

One of the consequences of the White House’s Syria debacle is President Obama’s weakening hold on his own party. Assad is not the only person who is less afraid of the American President this week than last. We don’t seem to be hearing much about immigration reform or the Democrats’ other legislative priorities. And Larry […]

The fracking boom took off as a result of a perfect storm of favorable conditions—conditions that not only explain America’s unparalleled success, but suggest that this party is nowhere near over. The Financial Times reports: The International Energy Agency, the rich countries’ oil watchdog, predicts that before the end of the decade the US could be the […]

Is there an opportunity for Obama to turn things around with the Russian Option for Syria currently on the table? Our colleague Adam Garfinkle thinks that it’s there—if the administration is clever enough to exploit it. If the Russians are not serious and/or the Syrians are not willing to proceed, we retain the military option. […]

All health care systems involve tradeoffs of some sort, and a recent video series from Canada’s health system highlights the tradeoffs a more nationalized system has to make. Canada has what’s called a National Health Insurance system, one of four main models that characterize health care globally. This type of model is know for creating […]

Students of the Philadelphia public school system returned to the classroom this week, even with lingering disagreements between the teachers union and the Pennsylvania Department of Education. After a summer of consolidation and layoffs, things are still in a state of flux.The state of Pennsylvania has overseen the Philadelphia school district since 2001.  Enrollment has dropped 23% […]

Quantifying happiness is a tricky business, but that doesn’t stop people from trying. The Wall Street Journal reports on a new poll that asked people across demographic groups to rate how happy they are, on a scale of one to ten. According to the poll’s results, the three happiest groups are the wealthy, Hispanics, and retirees: […]

The chief scientific advisor to Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change released a report Monday that shows fracking will not increase the country’s emissions. The report was released to help Cameron’s administration make the case for taking advantage of the UK’s 1,300+ trillion cubic feet of shale gas. Vehement green protests are stalling exploratory well […]

Americans awoke to the possibility this morning that the US has found a ‘solution’ to the Syria situation. The Times is reporting that the US and Russia have reached an agreement to remove or destroy Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014 (the official state department framework document on this agreement is here).If this deal goes through, […]

One of the thorniest problems in health care is that new medical technologies often raise costs. Other industries have been able to dramatically lower costs by adopting new technologies, but health care gets more expensive every year as hospitals adopt new treatments and surgical tools.Economist Jonathan Skinner thinks this “costly paradox of health-care technology” traces […]