Embryonic-stem-cell research has provoked more controversy—political, religious, and ethical—than almost any other area of scientific inquiry. This week the field suffered a legal blow with U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth’s ruling, which blocks the Obama administration’s 2009 regulations expanding embryonic-stem-cell research. More ›

While celebrations occurred in Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, Florida, Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio after the 10 were named winners of round two of the administration’s national education-reform competition, controversy was mounting over some of the more surprising winners and losers. More ›

Human-rights groups and opposition parties have condemned the execution of four of President Teodoro Obiang's rivals, found guilty of plotting a coup and killed just an hour later. They allege that the deaths were essentially "political assassinations." More ›

Admittedly, it's a slow news day. Congress is in recess, Obama is on the Vineyard, so reporters such as yours truly find themselves in Cleveland to witness one of those shopworn campaign ploys in action as Rep. John Boehner calls for pink slips for Obama's economic advisers Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. But calling for someone's head is always worth a graph or two in a wire story. More ›

Photographer Seamus Murphy returned to Afghanistan in the spring of 2010 and revisited locations he had photographed over the previous decade and a half. The result is a record of how much—and how little—things have changed in the conflict-torn nation. More ›

A 30-year-old man from Boston has been serving an eight-year hard-labor sentence in a North Korean prison camp since April of this year. A State Department team failed to secure his release. Now, reports the journal Foreign Policy, former president Jimmy Carter will visit. More ›

With a weak housing market and volatile stock prices, people will have to save money to feel flush again. But with the economy in the dumps and unemployment high, is it possible to save money? More ›

Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday soon, political and fiscal forces will conspire to make tax hikes very hard for Republicans to resist. More ›