Mmmmm, braised rat. No, it’s not a delicacy in China, though Chinese consumers may have been eating it unknowingly. The Chinese Ministry of Public Security announced late this week that a gang of rogue meat traders has been arrested for buying rat, mink and fox meat, dousing it in gelatin, red pigment and nitrates, and passing […]

A Kickstarter success story making the rounds of the Internet this week caused us to perk up our ears here at Via Meadia. A Brooklyn-based company called Wool & Prince has developed a dress shirt that doesn’t require ironing and can be worn for extended periods of time without it starting to stink. Fascinating: With the […]

Governor Cuomo is mining New York’s state budget to fund a nearly $140 million ad campaign to attract business to the Empire state. The ad campaign—entitled “New York State Open for Business”—has been funded by siphoning tens of millions of dollars from the state’s Power Authority and Energy Research and Development Authority, and another $40 […]

Niall Ferguson, one of Harvard’s best known professors, seems to be suffering from a case of foot-in-mouth disease. At a conference earlier this week, the following happened: Speaking at the Tenth Annual Altegris Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., in front of a group of more than 500 financial advisors and investors, Ferguson responded to a question […]

The Syrian civil war exploded over the weekend, with mass murder and sectarian cleansing along the coast, Israeli airstrikes in Damascus, and confusion, frustration and paralysis in Washington to the point where the New York Times described President Obama as trapped “in a geopolitical box, his credibility at stake with frustratingly few good options.”Foreign policy, it […]

The annual World Jewish Congress is usually held in Jerusalem, but this year organizers chose to hold it in Budapest in order to protest rising European anti-semitism. In response the country’s far-right populist Jobbik party, the third largest party in the Hungarian parliament, organized a rally. The Beeb has the goods: Jobbik said the rally was a […]

India will hold elections tomorrow for the Legislative Assembly in Karnataka state, and Rahul Gandhi’s Congress Party is seen as likely to prevail over the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This could be a boon for young Gandhi as he looks ahead to the general elections next year. Voters in Karnataka are reportedly viewing this regional […]

How much do top college administrators care about their students? The results of a recent Gallup survey of college presidents are pretty revealing. While most college presidents acknowledge that tuition cost and academic preparedness are some of the biggest hindrances to student success, few want to try MOOCs—the method many hope might alleviate both problems.Only eight […]

You no longer need to visit a gun show to get a gun quickly and easily—soon, you’ll be able to 3D printed a full gun right in your own living room. Defense Distributed, the upstart organization behind the plastic high-capacity magazines created in response to Democratic gun control proposals, has designed a plastic gun that […]

While policymakers and DC wonks were debating top-down reforms to our health care system, a health care revolution was quietly taking place. Daily Finance reports on how Apple technology, while not originally designed with health care applications in mind, has already begun to transform the industry: Use of Apple’s products goes beyond serving as a reference […]