General Motor's new hybrid car will soon sell for $33,500, after a government credit. The machine will be a test of the public's willingness to go hybrid and its confidence in a revamped GM.

"The Massachusetts Legislature has approved a new law intended to bypass the Electoral College system," says The Boston Globe. The state's electoral votes would follow the national popular vote.

"The communist government of North Korea, currently bouncing through the headlines once more, was supposed to have gone out of business at least a generation ago."

"Digital freedom campaigners have welcomed a US ruling that loosens Apple's tight control over what users of its iPhone can do with the device." The Independent on digital copyrights.

"People are turned on by photographs of people who resemble their close genetic counterparts," say researchers. The recent findings shed light onto who we are attracted to and why.

“We never know the source of the leak,” Julian Assange assured a London audience today at the Frontline Club. The uniquely charismatic WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief went on: “We could make a […]

“There was a time when building the future was inspirational,” Brian Fies writes in his new graphic novel, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? “Ambitious. Romantic. Even enobling. I […]

The U.S. education system is based on the meritocratic principle that no matter what the circumstances of a child’s birth, each should have a baseline level of education and the […]

Let’s face it: The planet is heating up, Earth’s population is expanding at an exponential rate, and the the natural resources vital to our survival are running out faster than […]

When, after thirty years of authoritarian rule, a young dissident and perennial thorn in the side of the Establishment, Mohammed Nasheed won the first free and fair election in the Maldives in […]

Whether or not there is a creativity crisis may be up for debate, but one thing is clear: Our current education system is failing to create an environment that truly fosters creativity . . . Now, a new application out of MIT Media Lab is aiming to address some of these issues.

In June 2009 the House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey bill to reduce carbon emissions through a series of cap-and-trade regulations.  The news this week that the Senate version of […]

In 2008, journalist Jere Van Dyk crossed the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan. An expert on the history and culture of the region, Van Dyk had lived with the Mujahideen […]

It is no wonder that the Government of the Maldives has been talking about buying up a tract of land elsewhere in South Asia to evacuate its people to if global sea levels […]

It’s possible the U.S. will succeed in the long run in Afghanistan. But first it must prove that it is not the Soviet Union—and that it does not want to […]

The U.S. should be wary of its “ally” Pakistan, says Van Dyk.

Van Dyk’s captors insisted that bin Laden is no longer in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and, for various reasons, he believes them.

Jere Van Dyk, who was imprisoned by the Taliban for 45 days, explains the historical and cultural facts that are crucial for understanding the war-torn country—and why our goals there […]

Using connections he’d made living with the Mujahideen in the 1980s, Van Dyk set out to discover the relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but ambition and deadlines pushed […]

Several times during his 45 days in captivity, Van Dyk was sure his life was about to end. Exercise, studying, and prayer helped him keep his wits.