The Heartland Institute

A Chinese man sued his wife for divorce, alleging she tricked him into marrying her by disguising her ugliness with plastic surgery. He won the divorce. A Chinese court also awarded him £75,000 (about $119,000) in damages for the “false premises.” “I married my wife out of love,” he said. “but as soon as we had our first ...

Economists are apt to point out there is no such thing as a free lunch: Someone has to pick up the tab. Surprisingly, one common justification for government-provided deposit insurance maintains that it is a free lunch, that no one has to pay for it. Contrary to theoretical arguments, deposit insurance is not free in practice ...

Friday's ed news: 1. View an interactive map of graduation rates by state and ethnicity. 2. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell suggests increasing teacher pay 2 percent in exchange for lengthening the time it takes a teacher to get tenure. 3. A legislative audit predicts the Common Core will cost Kansans $34 to $63 million over the ...

The New York Times recently held a symposium to air different thoughts about national education standards and tests, called the Common Core. One author who participated joins the School Reform News podcast to expound on his essa y . Middle school math teacher Vern Williams has sat on the National Mathematics Advisory ...

With the bursting of the housing bubble having played such a big part in the economic downturn, could housing play an equally big part in an economic recovery? Stuart Vener, president of Wilshire Holding Group, which helps financially stressed homeowners, thinks it’s possible but has big fears it won’t happen because of government ...

The national news media missed a number of huge education stories in 2012, according to an empirical news analysis by the Hoover Institution’s education taskforce. The five biggest news stories the media failed to cover thoroughly, the study found, were teacher pension deficits, Common Core education standards, international student ...

The Wisconsin legislation that led to statewide protests and Gov. Scott Walker’s recall and reelection has displayed a quieter, brighter side: It allowed teachers to exercise their freedom of association by choosing whether to join a union, another professional organization, or none of the above. And teachers have indicated they ...

One need not look far to see the federal government and state governments are moving further apart on their approaches to energy policy. More states are looking at ways to encourage the development of affordable domestic energy sources such as natural gas and away from picking winners and losers through arbitrary renewable ...

Oklahoma legislators will soon consider an education reform that has garnered significant national attention: the Parent Trigger. The legislation, first passed in California, has been considered in approximately 20 other states, and legislators in four states (including Oklahoma) have stated intentions to propose it in early 2013 ...

An increasingly common way for corporations to settle criminal and civil matters with prosecutors and regulators is to hire an independent monitor to oversee a reform movement. But research by David Hess, assistant professor of business law and business ethics at Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, indicates ...

The United Nations is doubling down on ignorance and bias for its upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, according to investigative journalist Donna Laframboise. Laframboise created a sensation in global warming circles last year when she documented rampant IPCC misbehavior in her book, The Delinquent ...

A Norwegian man imprisoned for the massacre of 77 people last year has hired a lawyer to complain his prison conditions are “inhumane.” His complaints? He isn’t given enough butter for his bread, isn’t allowed moisturizer, and his cell is poorly decorated, cold, and lacks a view. He also complains he is forced to shave and ...

“The debt we create is basically money we owe to ourselves, and the burden it imposes does not involve a real transfer of resources,” Paul Krugman wrote recently in “Debt Is (Mostly) Money We Owe to Ourselves.” “That’s not to say that high debt can’t cause problems — it certainly can. But these are problems of distribution ...

The United Nations is doubling down on ignorance and bias for its upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, according to investigative journalist Donna Laframboise. Laframboise created a sensation in global warming circles last year when she documented rampant IPCC misbehavior in her book, “ The Delinquent ...

Authors of a widely reported article on the health impacts of a local ban on smoking in restaurants claim their research shows significant health benefits, but the data examined in the article show no health benefits at all. Conflicts of Interest Richard D. Hurt, M.D., and colleagues published an article in Archives of Internal ...

The idea that an expensive 19 th Century technology will help meet the transportation and economic development needs of 21 st Century urban areas makes sense only in a fantasy world where cost is no object and transport consumers are so hypnotized by shiny steel wheels on steel rails that they ignore the huge inherent disadvantages ...

Executive Summary This study examines the potential impacts that hydraulic fracturing of shale gas would have on Illinois economy in terms of direct, indirect, and induced jobs; earnings; and total economic activity. Illinois is home to the New Albany shale gas formation which covers a substantial portion of the southern part ...

Cyber-terrorism, hackers, identity theft, and viruses threaten to disrupt digital networks. Given the increased reliance of many industrialized nations on computers to manage their economies and basic infrastructure, digital attacks represent a severe threat. Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins proposed the Cybersecurity Act in ...

A new report from the General Accountability Office suggests federal and state officials are mishandling a prominent prevention program under President Obama’s health care law, with taxpayers forced to pay for billions of dollars in health promotion programs which may do little or nothing to improve the health of citizens or ...

Election results from all three of Portland, Oregon's largest suburban counties indicate a reaction against what has been called "Portland Creep”—the expansion of the expansive light rail system without voter approval, and the imposition of restrictive densification measures by Metro, the regional land-use agency. Portlanders in ...