The Heartland Institute

Lawsuits filed by inmates in Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail – most of them frivolous – have cost the city more than $111 million over the past five years. Suits have been filed for slips in a shower, a bed that’s too short, water that’s too hot served in the dining room. The payments come because the city ...

When is a compromise not a compromise? When only one side thinks it’s a compromise. The Obama administration said Friday that it will not provide broad exceptions to the contraception mandate in its signature healthcare law. The Health and Human Services Department rejected calls to let any employer opt out of the mandate ...

MADISON, Wisconsin—School choice in Wisconsin has come a long way since the late 1980s when Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson and Milwaukee led the national school voucher revolution. What began as a few private religious schools serving a few hundred public school children in inner-city Milwaukee has swelled to scores of schools ...

An investigation of Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ( CSIRO), and a review of their document titled "The Science of Tackling Climate Change." Through the use of methodically solid data and sound analysis, this report finds CSIRO comments, behavior, and publications ...

Review of Last Call at the Oasis , edited by Karl Weber (Public Affairs, 2012), 272 pages, ISBN- 978-1586489786 Last Call at the Oasis is the book version of the fear-mongering movie of the same name. It is an amazingly bad presentation of groundless assertions of water scarcities occasionally interrupted by a few good chapters ...

Global warming forecasts and models produced by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fail several fundamental principles of forecasting, University of Pennsylvania professor Scott Armstrong reports today in the Washington Times . Armstrong reports the asserted global warming crisis is similar to past environmental ...

Professional sports teams have received billions of taxpayers dollars in deals most independent economists say do little or nothing to improve local economies. Pushback against these deals has been growing and is a factor in the Chicago Cubs announcing they plan to renovate Wrigley Field with their own money, says Neil deMause ...

Florida’s public school teachers, state and county workers, and some municipal employees must send 3 percent of their pay to the state’s pension plan, according to a 4-3 ruling of the Florida Supreme Court. The court’s January ruling upheld a law that had been championed by Gov. Rick Scott (R). The 4-3 decision reversed a ...

Cliff Ollier of the Geographical Sciences University of Western Australia, examines what truth if any are behind threats of dangerous climate change due to anthropogenic global warming. ...

The 2009 Cash for Clunkers program did more harm than good for the environment, concludes a new analysis published by E Magazine . In addition to harming the environment, Cash for Clunkers drove up automobile prices for American consumers. White House Touts Success With the enthusiastic support of the Obama administration, Congress ...

Girls get higher grades because they are less trouble in class, a new study has found. University of Georgia and Columbia University researchers found girls’ classroom behavior influences how their teachers—consciously or unconsciously—assess their performance Christopher Cornwell, David Mustard, and Jessica Van Parys combed through ...

It is currently in fashion to say, with great contrarian flair, that federal spending growth is the slowest since the Eisenhower Administration. Or, as someone famous recently put it, “We don’t have a spending problem.” This assertion is, to put it mildly, debatable. Spending jumped 18% in just one year during the Panic of ...

Oregon legislators are expected to consider a bill during the 2013 session to require drivers with a vehicle getting 55 or more miles to the gallon to pay a per-mile tax, starting in 2015. As a bill that would raise taxes, the legislation would require a three-fifths majority in in both the House and Senate to pass. Declining ...

James Taylor interviews Marc Morano, publisher of the website Climatedepot.com, about his "debate" with Bill Nye, the Science Guy. ...

Experimental wind turbines installed at taxpayer expense on the Michael V. DiSalle Government Center in Toledo failed less than two years after installation and are now sitting unused. Renewable energy advocates had promised the rooftop wind turbines would save taxpayers thousands of dollars each year in reduced electricity costs ...

Friday's news roundup: 1. Ohio Gov. John Kasich proposes a new voucher program for low- and middle-income families. 2. Parents and teachers speak out against the Common Core. 3. Wisconsin, Washington, and Virginia lawmakers want to publicly grade schools A-F (video with WI Gov. Scott Walker). 4. What do parents and teachers ...

Global temperatures are warming much more slowly than claimed by British and U.S. government agencies that produce temperature data reports, according to data compiled by the Japanese Meteorological Agency. According to meteorologist Anthony Watts, Japan is reporting that global temperatures during the past decade are approximately ...

If you go to a baseball game, you assume the risk of getting struck by a baseball – but you don’t assume the risk of getting hit with a hot dog. That’s what a court ruled recently in a case against the Kansas City Royals for negligence. The plaintiff was struck in the eye with a hot dog when the Royals’ mascot, Sluggerrr ...

Heartland's Jim Lakely speaks with Ember Reichgott Junge, a former Democratic Minnesota state senator and a member of the National Charter Schools Hall of Fame. They follow up her appearance at a Heartland Author Series luncheon to discuss the 20-year history of the charter school movement, the principle of offering choice ...

Scientific models of climate change are incomplete and unconvincing. Has the earth been warming over the last century? Yes. By most indications, the earth has been warming and the atmosphere is about 0.8 degrees Celsius warmer than it was 100 years ago. Has the earth been warming over the last decade? There is contradictory ...