Three federal judges have now ruled that state bans on same-sex marriage violate the Constitution’s “equal protection” clause. President Barack Obama seems to disagree.He has repeatedly stated that, while he personally supports same-sex marriage, the issue should be left to the states. In other words, the nation’s first black president holds a states-rights position on what has shaped up to be the civil-rights issue of this generation.Most states ban same-sex marriage. And if they are left to wo

College endowments totaled $448.6 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013, an increase of 11.7 percent compared with a year earlier, according to recently released data.As we know, this wealth is concentrated among a privileged few. Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities all have almost $2 million in endowment funds for every student.We’ve heard the argument that what these institutions do with their privately raised money is their business and that they provide a lot of financial aid o

Any suspicion that the political right, after suffering a defeat on the debt ceiling and facing threats from business donors, is losing its clout can be dismissed by the fight over the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.The treaty has been ratified by 141 countries. It is backed by the White House, former President George H.W. Bush, the major U.S. disability and veterans advocacy groups, and American businesses.Senate Republicans, however, already defeated the t

What’s worse than a snowless, subtropical Winter Olympics like the one that wrapped up in palm-tree-lined Sochi, Russia, this weekend? How about an opening ceremony on an arid, smog-choked plain and skiing events in the mountains of the most polluted province in all of China?That’s what Beijing and Zhangjiakou, a nearby mountain town, have proposed to the International Olympic Committee as an ideal site for the 2022 Winter Games. While athletes have been competing on Sochi’s slopes, the Chinese

It’s one thing to know that third-generation strongman Kim Jong-un maintains an iron grip on North Korea’s 25 million people. It’s another thing to read the horrifying particulars of how his regime wields its control ― through starvation, torture, rape, summary executions and the disappearance of tens of thousands of citizens into an extralegal prison labor-camp system.The details are contained in a report compiled by an international team of investigators led by respected Australian jurist Mich

With the Olympics in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped to rivet the world’s attention on the New and Improved Russia, a rising-again world power to be reckoned with, a country on the road to global glory.And why not? Things have been going Putin’s way. His brinkmanship forestalled a U.S. strike on Russia’s man in Damascus, President Bashar Assad. National Security Agency leaker in chief Edward Snowden is safely ensconced in Moscow, thumbing his nose at Washington. And long-downtrodde

NEW DELHI ― India’s 15th Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament) passed into history ignominiously this month, following the least productive five years of any Indian parliament in six decades of functioning democracy. With entire sessions lost to opposition disruptions, and with frequent adjournments depriving legislators of time for deliberation, the MPs elected in May 2009 passed fewer bills and spent fewer hours in debate than any of their predecessors.As if that were not bad enough, the f

PARIS ― Here we go again. Yet another country full of voters who foolishly bought into the socialist pipe dream of endless nanny-state freebies is noticing the check coming due. Facing hyperinflation and shortages of necessities like toilet paper, Venezuelans are spilling into the streets, pleading for Captain America to rescue them from their own chronically poor voting choices. Sorry, amigos, but it’s not America’s problem.Venezuelan voters aren’t victims; they’re accomplices to their own pred

China’s thought police have a new target in their sights: economists.The Communist Party’s assault on cyberspace and the international media is well known. But now, it’s turning on foreign researchers who dare challenge the official narrative that China can grow 7 percent forever and can’t crash. That’s the gist of a new effort detailed by the South China Morning Post, one that aims to discredit and blacklist overseas researchers. Expect the world’s biggest banks to start self-censoring themselv

Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines last fall, reminded us how much suffering and damage nature can cause, and how important it is to invest in resilience and be ready to respond.As climate change and booming urbanization leave more and more people exposed to hazard, governments worldwide want to make sure their roads, buildings and public services can withstand natural disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes.Here are seven lessons, culled from years o