Current Affairs

Things are tough all over:

The recession has directly hit more than half of the nation's working adults, pushing them into unemployment, pay cuts, reduced hours at work or part-time jobs, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Indiana officials who wanted to encourage high school students to apply for college came up with what they thought was a good incentive: a week called College Go! during which application fees would be waived. But there were some unintended consequences from what is now called a "well-intentioned but misguided" effort:

With "the death of newspapers" so much a part of the discussion lately, it's a pleasure to note the apparently succesful launch of one:

I did an earleir post about the anniversary of the Supreme Court's notorious Kelo decision and the backlash of eminent domain reforms in its aftermath. New York is one of the states in which officials haven't seen the light yet:

If you own a piece of property in New York State, you won't like today's ruling by the state's high court.

As a proponent of vigorous debate among known combatants, I applaud this Supreme Court decision:

Nothing controversial here, no siree:

When kindergarten through fifth grade students return to class at Veterans Memorial Elementary School in Provincetown, Mass., this fall, they'll be able to ask the school nurse for condoms.

It gets harder to criticize our enemies when our allies are such jerks:

Judicial officials say a Saudi court has convicted four women and 11 men for mingling at a party and sentenced them to flogging and prison terms.

The men, who are between 30 and 40 years old, and three of the women, who are under the age of 30, were sentenced to an unspecified number of lashes and one or two year prison terms each.

The latest from Chicago, the city that disarms its law-abiding citizens:

Eight people were killed in at least 44 others were shot across the city Friday night into early Monday, including a baby girl who suffered a graze wound to the neck when gunfire erupted at a Near West Side barbecue.

The brick-and-mortar sector isn't crumbling as quickly as we might think:

So what percentage of retail business in the United States would you say is done online? In my world, where people seem to be using their iPads to buy new Kindles, the answer feels like 90 percent, and certainly no lower than 60 percent. Maybe you run with a more old-school crowd, but the figure must be at least 20 percent, right?

Complicated trade issues made simple in Seymour, Ind., home of the last remaining American factory making the basic ironing board. Facing devastating competition from China, the company improved efficiency, automated what it could and got to the point where it could produce the basic unit for $7. But China could do them for $5. So the company sought and received tariffs that kept the Chinese boards off the market. But the basic question: Is this really good policy?