Americans are moving to where the money is, says Michael Barone. Cities and states with high taxes and unwieldy regulations are losing ground to those that have taken the opposite approach. The result is staggering demographic and economic growth in places like Austin, Dallas, and Raleigh, while New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Los Angeles continue […]

The Department of Homeland Security is developing a new weapon in its war against foreign hackers: high school students. To attract young candidates to the field, various groups collaborating with DHS are holding competitions for talented youngsters with a penchant for online mischief. The NYT reports: With military exercises like NetWars, the competition had more the […]

California’s bankrupt cities can’t seem to stay out of court. Late last year, Calpers, the state pension fund, sued San Bernardino over its attempt to postpone its pension payments so it could keep basic services running. Now it’s Stockton that is being sued, this time by its Wall Street creditors, who are complaining that the […]

Following the US-brokered reconciliation between Israel and Turkey last week, officials on both sides have cooperation in sight, though improvements in relations will probably progress by baby steps. The FT reports on the early rewards of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s apology to the Turks: [A] Turkish official said the instability in Syria was not the primary […]

Newly-elected South Korean President Park Geun-hye is considering a “green détente” with Pyongyang. North Korea has the world’s third-highest deforestation rate, in large part because during the 1990s it clear-cut its forests to make way for farmland. But clear-cut land leads to heavy erosion, and much of North Korea’s topsoil has washed off, making it even […]

Over the last couple of months, we’ve been working to improve our coverage and provide a more interesting and more useful experience for readers. We’ve brought on staff and with the extra capacity we are trying to cover more subjects in more depth.  We want to keep Via Meadia a personal blog with a personal […]

First pigs, now ducks. Why can’t China keep dead animals out of its rivers? About 1,000 dead ducks were discovered in a river in southwest China, just two weeks after thousands of dead pigs showed up in a different river.The pigs floated along a river that bisects Shanghai and provides around 22 percent of its […]

The Syrian opposition is an incoherent mess. News today from Ha’aretz is that the Free Syrian Army has rejected the political leadership’s choice of Ghassan Hitto as provisional Prime Minister. Details: The Free Syrian Army leaders, fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, do not believe that Hitto, a U.S. citizen who spent most of his life in […]

You might hate your commute, but it probably gives your children the biggest cause for complaint: A recent meta-study identified traffic pollution as a potential contributor to 14 percent of childhood asthma cases, “putting it on par with second hand smoke.” Discovery News reports: The researchers reached their conclusions by applying data from existing epidemiological research, […]

File this under “news to make law students cry:” a program called App Academy promises to teach its students programming in just nine weeks. Even better, it won’t charge you tuition until you’ve secured a job. Wired reports: App Academy in San Francisco (and now New York) offers a 9-week, 90-hours-a-week boot camp to turn programming novices into […]