The special feature in this week’s Economist focuses on something we highlighted here on the blog yesterday: the Nordic countries, long darlings of blue model partisans in the United States, have been aggressively experimenting and innovating their way to something that looks strikingly post-blue.Yet they’ve managed to pull it off without destroying the prospects for their […]

The Chinese are feeling their oats. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that a Chinese management company is taking over control of a strategic deep sea port in Pakistan’s south-west. The fate of Gwadar, once billed as Pakistan’s answer to the bustling port city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has been a focus of […]

It’s a tale of two cities. These two remarkable pictures, sent in by a brave, hopefully still healthy VM reader, were taken just three days apart. The first was taken Tuesday morning, when Beijing’s Air Quality Index hit 517, exceeding the EPA’s upper limit of 500. Beijing’s air has been a toxic soup for the past […]

Mexico is fast becoming a North American success story, though you wouldn’t know it from the coverage the country gets from most news outlets. That coverage tends to light on things like the massive and still-unexplained explosion that occurred Thursday afternoon at the headquarters of Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company. At least 32 people lost their lives […]

This week Patty Andrews, the last of the famous Andrews sisters singers, died at age 94 in Los Angeles. The three sisters—Maxene, Patty, and LaVerne—were in vogue during the 1940s and ’50s, and they are still remembered for catchy songs like “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.” The BBC has more: The Andrews Sisters […]

Obamacare has just used a definitional trick to make health insurance unattainable for millions of Americans. The new healthcare law will provide tax credits to individuals who can’t afford insurance, but on Wednesday the IRS released a  definition of “affordable” that will leave many families in the lurch. The NYT has the story: In 2012, according […]

American colleges may be going broke faster than we thought. According to a recent New York Times report, investment returns on university endowments fell by 0.3 percent last year. This could be the beginning of a major funding crisis at many universities. “The long-term goal of most endowments is to exist in perpetuity and grow with […]

Despite stiff resistance from the U.S., Pakistan has decided to build a controversial pipeline to Iran to import natural gas, according to a Pakistani diplomat interviewed by the Financial Times: “A decision has been made that we can’t delay this project for any longer. This is Pakistan’s essential lifeline. We are going ahead with this […]

Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez has stripped both Cardinal Roger Mahony and his top aide Thomas Curry of their public and administrative responsibilities. The WSJ reports on this long-overdue act of leadership from a senior Catholic official: Cardinal Mahony was a well-known figure in Los Angeles who had led the diocese as archbishop from 1985 until his retirement in […]

We’ve heard over and over again that America is headed for a demographic disaster, with millions of baby boomers about to retire before the younger generation is ready to pay for the generous retirement services they have been promised.This is still a serious problem, but it may not come as quickly as many fear. Sixty-two percent […]