The news from the White House today brings the United States significantly closer to yet another Middle Eastern war. Concluding that “forces loyal” to the brutal Syrian dictator Assad had used chemical weapons against rebels, President Obama is stepping up the “scope and scale” of aid to the forces seeking to drive Assad from power. […]

Today’s Supreme Court ruling that naturally occurring human genes are not patentable may be the most important of the year so far. The unanimous decision reversed a lower court’s judgment that a company could hold patents on individual genes, effectively preventing anyone else from doing any research or testing on these genes without the patent […]

California Governor Jerry Brown’s decision not to spend the state’s surplus on new programs is looking smarter by the day, as the state’s pensions crisis is even uglier than official numbers have indicated. Both Moody’s and the Government Accounting Standards Board have spent the past few months making changes to the way local governments report […]

The Greek government’s decision to close the state broadcaster created a political crisis today as thousands of disgruntled employees and sympathetic union members went on strike, causing public transportation to completely shut down and flights to be canceled in Athens and other cities. At least two smaller political parties threatened to leave the coalition government […]

Yesterday Angela Merkel warned that green energy policies are weakening Germany’s competitive advantage in the global economy. Germany, like the rest of Europe, is paying a lot more for electricity today than it did seven years ago. The country has made large investments in solar and wind power, more expensive energy sources than oil and […]

Vocational and for-profit schools may soon pay a greater penalty for their graduates’ failure to find a job. The U.S. Department of Education is reviving efforts to pass “gainful employment” regulations, which would require schools to meet certain criteria or else lose their eligibility for federal student aid. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports: The announcement […]

Workers aged 60-74 now command better wages on average than workers 25-59, according to a new Brookings Institution study: Using one standard benchmark of individual worker productivity—hourly wages—workers between 60 and 74 now earn more than an average worker who is between 25 and 59. The hourly pay premium for older men was about 22 percent […]

Last month Politico reported that Congressmen were looking to exempt themselves and their staff from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join under Obamacare. They feared that premiums would be too high for an average Hill staffer on a shoestring salary. Now there’s a new twist in the story: a group Senators, Representatives, and congressional aides are […]

Scientists may have found a way to power electronic devices with just a fraction of the energy they currently use, and it’s all thanks to graphene, a much-hyped material with some remarkable properties.Graphene has been hailed as a “miracle material,” but its structure is fairly simple. It’s just a sheet of carbon molecules, connected in a […]

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has had four years to figure out how to prevent another international embarrassment like the Green Revolution. With the presidential election one day away, a carefully vetted ballot contains no outspoken reformists. Candidates have been instructed to be reticent and vague in televised debates. Campaign leaflets and posters are […]