A Native American tribe is suing a host of beer brewing companies, including Anheuser-Busch, SAB Miller, and MillerCoors. Why? The BBC reports: The Oglala Sioux Tribe are asking for $500m (£316m) for healthcare, social services and child rehabilitation.Tribal elders say the lawsuit is a last resort after efforts to curb abuse through protests and policy […]

In a staggered series of local votes, Uttar Pradesh is going to the polls. Early reports from the Times of India suggest perhaps 120 million people participated in the first phase of the regional elections here in India’s most populous state, the highest participation rate in UP since India’s independence.UP’s regional elections will reverberate across […]

Between the high cost of private high schools and the spotty track records of a lot of public schools, many parents during the past few years have been turning to homeschooling as a cheaper alternative for educating their children. From our perspective at Via Meadia, more educational options are always a good thing, and for […]

The White House made an unforced error this week, picking a fight with the Catholic Church that it could not win. Now it is in full damage control mode, looking for some kind of face saving compromise as it backs away from demands that would have forced Catholic schools and hospitals, among others, to offer […]

Europe seems to have made up its mind about one piece of its financial crisis: the leading EU countries now believe that the euro and the European economy will both survive a disorderly Greek default that drives the country out of the euro.Greece’s threat to the euro area has always been financial.  Its economy is […]

Green complaints about fracking reached a fever pitch over the past year, but Pennsylvania apparently wasn’t listening to them. The Wall Street Journal reports that the state legislature passed a bill on Wednesday that will make state laws more favorable to fracking, culminating a debate that has been raging ever since massive quantities of shale […]

New York City is banning Sunday school, figuratively speaking. From the NYT: Because of a recent federal court ruling that upheld a city policy of not allowing religious services in public schools, dozens of congregations throughout New York have been told that they must move; next Sunday will be the last time they will be […]

Egypt’s decision to press ahead with criminal trials for 43 people, including 19 Americans, has set relations with Washington teetering on the edge of the cliff. Senators John McCain, Kelly Ayotte and Joe Lieberman suggested Egypt risks a “disastrous…rupture in relations.”During the French Revolution, crazed paranoid suspicions of foreign and aristocratic plots swept the distracted […]

The European debt crisis may be grabbing the headlines, but something much darker is happening in Europe’s core. In an excellent piece in The American Interest, Charles Gati detailed the return of authoritarian politics to Hungary, where Viktor Orban’s government has pushed through controversial programs that restrict freedom of the press, limit the power of […]

Asked about his favorite joke, David Cameron once famously replied: “Nick Clegg.” That’s made both men a little uncomfortable since the hung parliament after the last British election forced Cameron to offer Clegg the post of Deputy Prime Minister in a coalition government, but life goes on.The PM may have a new punch line this […]