It’s the second most abundant substance in the universe. It dissolves more materials than any other solvent. It stores incredible amounts of energy. Life as we know it would not be possible without it. And although it covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, many parts of the world are in dire...

Japan, by far the second-biggest economy in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) behind the US, played a key role in finalizing the trade pact in Atlanta over the weekend.

The accord represents Act II of the strengthening relationship between Japan and the US...

A recent report showed unexpectedly slow job growth over the summer, raising the odds of a stall in the already sluggish US economic recovery.

While this in itself is disappointing, the even greater disappointment is the failure to do anything about it,...

Although football and fall are in the air, it’s worth the time to reflect back to President Obama’s two trips he took just before Labor Day to New Orleans and Alaska. The locations are thousands of miles apart and the...

Arne Duncan is leaving the US Department of Education in December. Reactions to his legacy have been mixed. Some see him as a heroic reformer, and others a well-intentioned but overreaching bureaucrat. He has been called the third...

When I was a newspaper science editor, I approached Nobel Prize season with mixed glee and anxiety. Glee, because I knew that, without even an argument, I would get space in the paper for stories about research too arcane to make it into print the other 51 weeks of the...

A hospital bombed in the midst of intense fighting. Patients and staff killed and wounded, the facility destroyed. An unspeakable tragedy – and unfortunately one seen before in recent and current conflicts.

The US airstrike that hit the Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz,...

A disciplinary board at Hinds Community College in Raymond, Mississippi, has ruled that a student arrested earlier this month for failing to show his student ID to campus police officers when asked to do so will not face punishment from the school.

Officers...

When the Supreme Court invalidated same-sex marriage bans in June, the Justices acknowledged they had the kids in mind.

In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy cited the infringement of the interests of children being raised by same-sex couples as one reason for the Court’s ruling.

Who are these...

“I love deadlines,” English author Douglas Adams once wrote. “I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

We’ve all had the experience of wanting to get a project done but putting it off for later. Sometimes we wait because we just don’t care enough about the project,...