AI‘s Editor Adam Garfinkle continues to do the thankless job of holding the media accountable for lazy reporting on Mali. If you missed his earlier essay on the subject, drop everything and go read that now. It’s great stuff on an exceedingly complex and important conflict.You’re back? Good. Now read part two, which among other […]

Are the millennials ditching home ownership? In December, the home construction industry reached its post-recession peak, but this time it’s apartments, and not houses, that are driving the recovery. The WSJ reports: The increase was led by a surge in apartment construction, with starts up 116% for buildings with five or more units. Developers of such buildings, […]

If you’ve participated in a scientific study recently in which you anonymously submitted your DNA, your privacy may be at risk. A new study in Science found that by matching Y-chromosomes from anonymous databases of genetic information and comparing it with similar information on public genealogy websites, researchers were able to positively identify 50 participants of supposedly anonymous studies. The WSJ reports: Using […]

One sign that talks with Iran have passed their expiration date is that it’s not news anymore when they fail. Nobody seemed to notice, but Tehran once again rebuffed UN inspectors trying to investigate the country’s nuclear program: “We had two days of intensive discussions. Differences remain so we could not finalize the structured approach […]

After the Soviet Union collapsed, merry western observers expected democracy to burst out across newly liberated Russia. Twenty disappointing years later, this optimism has all but disappeared, and few now expect a democratic transition is in the offing.We received a crude reminder of this on Thursday when Sergei Filin, the artistic director of Moscow’s famous Bolshoi Theater’s […]

There’s more shale oil in California’s Monterey formation than in the rest of the country combined. More than 15 billion barrels of oil are locked in shale deposits underground, and the new drilling techniques that have kicked off America’s energy revolution elsewhere in America should make this bounty available for the first time.This is encouraging news […]

Louisiana has worked hard to earn its reputation as one of the most corrupt states in the nation. On Friday, former mayor Ray Nagin, who ran the city during the Katrina disaster, was indicted on 21 charges of bribery, money laundering, and other corruption offenses, adding his name to the long list of Louisiana politicians […]

The oil rich desert kingdoms of Arabia are turning to the sun for fresh water. Arid Arab states currently use oil (which they have plenty of) to desalinate water (which they have practically none of). This is expensive, so the oil states are looking to use solar energy instead of oil. The Financial Times has […]

The era of big government might already be over, at least as far as employment in the Washington, DC area is concerned. In 2012 the health care industry replaced the federal government and its contractors as the primary driver of job growth in DC: Major contracting firms Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Computer Sciences Corp. […]

A comedian convicted of manslaughter, a technocrat, a populist sleazeball, a leftist—these are the leading characters in a fascinating Italian election season just a month before the vote.It’s a closer race than you would expect. Seventy-six-year-old Silvio “Bunga Bunga” Berlusconi, ousted by the technocrat “Mediocre Mario” Monti as prime minister in 2011, is defying accusations of mafia […]