The Heartland Institute

Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein almost emulated Tim Tebow as a homeschool graduate who won the Heisman Trophy for college football excellence. Klein placed third in this season’s Heisman voting. If state Sen. Tom Garrett gets his way, Virginia may cultivate more Tebows and Kleins. Garret has revived a bill to let homeschool ...

So this is what Congress and President Obama meant by “balance” in addressing the “fiscal cliff”: $42 of tax increases for every dollar of spending cuts. It also apparently meant doling out billions of tax dollars to industries including movies, rum manufacturing, auto racing, and alternative energy. 2013 began with Congress ...

In 2011, roughly two-thirds of the nation’s college seniors graduated with college debt averaging more than $26,000, according to the Project on Student Debt. While much national attention has focused on higher tax spending to address the problem, a new book highlights young entrepreneurs who, through their businesses, graduate ...

Clive Hambler, a lecturer in biological and human sciences at Oxford university, writes that wind turbines can do a lot of damage. These wind farms can have significant effect on populations of rare birds and bats to the point that it drives some to the point of extinction. Interestingly, environmentalists don’t want to know ...

In the latest confirmation of what is perhaps the most stunning energy-related development in decades, the Paris-based International Energy Agency predicts the United States will become the world’s top oil producer by 2020. IEA says the same advances in hydraulic fracturing technology that recently unleashed the shale gas revolution ...

Global warming will benefit most Arctic and sub-Arctic species, a team of scientists report in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One . The scientists found global warming will allow most Arctic and sub-Arctic species to expand their ranges, and no species are expected to go extinct. The study delivers a sharp blow to global warming ...

A new report written by one of the nation’s leading authorities on groundwater hydrology and nuclear energy says uranium mining in Virginia can take place safely and with minimal environmental impact. At issue is a plan to lift a moratorium on uranium mining that has been in place in Virginia since 1982. The Coles Hill uranium ...

The election results have been certified, the fiscal cliff has been averted, and the world didn’t end. Now state lawmakers are heading back to their state capitols to begin their 2013 legislative sessions. States are expected to face many important issues this year, including Medicaid expansion and balancing their budgets ...

Colorado is currently considering whether to expand Medicaid under President Obama’s health care law, which radically restructures federal subsidy programs for medical care. The state has decided to create an ObamaCare state-run health insurance exchange, and many individuals currently covered by Medicaid will be better off with ...

Friday's ed news: 1. How the fiscal cliff deal affects education spending. 2. Virginia's governor wants to grade schools A-F, host Teach for America, and give struggling students iPads and more tutoring. 3. People learn and accomplish less when working in groups . 4. Another Texas district uses GPS trackers on students --but with ...

Troubled by the questionable use of tobacco-tax revenue on grants to fund advocacy for local smoking bans, Colorado lawmakers have decided to ask the Joint Budget Committee to make state health department officials—who disburse tobacco tax money—report those grants as budgetary line items for better tracking and oversight. A legislative ...

A Wisconsin man who can’t pay almost $100,000 in overdue child support and interest for the nine children he fathered has been sentenced to probation and ordered not to have any more kids until he can support all of them. The man fathered the children with six women and pled guilty to charges of bail jumping, a felony ...

The fiscal cliff deal did virtually nothing to solve the government's fiscal problems. Bill Wilson of Americans for Limited Government says there will soon be a debt ceiling debate, and enough lawmakers are frightened by the size of the government's borrowing that our voices added to the debate might swing some votes toward ...

Michigan voters sent a strong message to the U.S. renewable energy industry, rejecting a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have forced consumers to purchase 25 percent of their electricity from so-called renewable sources by the year 2025. Proposition 3, also known as 25x25, would have required consumers to purchase ...

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon has allowed a lawsuit seeking an injunction by R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard Tobacco to proceed against the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee. It alleges a conflict of interest on the scientific panel responsible for regulating tobacco products. FDA officials asked Judge Leon to ...

Voters elected Teresa Rogers, a parent who helped pull a Parent Trigger in Adelanto, California, to the district’s school board. That school board had opposed parents’ efforts to convert a failing school under its purview into a charter school. It took a lawsuit, but parents won. “We need to change the culture of the schools ...

Were they unusual during the 20th century? No, not during the past two millennia, as this study suggests that modern warming cannot be distinguished from warming induced by “natural processes,” which ultimately suggests there is no compelling reason to attribute modern warming to anthropogenic CO2 emissions... Read More Cyanobacteria ...

Adults who speak English poorly lose $3,000 per year in wages, which totals $37.7 billion annual loss in U.S. earnings, concludes a new report from the Lexington Institute. Institute president and report coauthor Don Soifer joins the podcast to talk English language learners and their growing impact on public schools and ...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo missed a Nov. 29 deadline to finalize long-awaited hydraulic fracturing regulations. The missed deadline left state residents uncertain whether and when they would join the current shale gas revolution that is creating jobs and wealth in nearby states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio. Panel Studies Health ...

A bill to create a state health insurance exchange in Michigan in compliance with President Obama’s health care law was rejected by the state House of Representatives Health Policy Committee. With the committee’s 5-9 vote on Nov. 30, Michigan now looks likely to form a “partnership” exchange managed primarily by the U.S. Department ...