In The News

First impressions matter, global researchers agree. With a constant onslaught of data, reports and opinions online and off, headlines must be thorough, enticing and accurate, suggests Maria Konnikova in an essay for the New Yorker. Busy readers, especially those active on social media, often only have time for headlines. “By now, everyone knows that a headline determines how many people will read...

Early reports suggest that Americans are spending less on Christmas. Typically, the United States spends the most on the holiday, $703 per capita in 2013, and it’s rare when other countries spend more, as Luxembourg did that same year. But such spending does not mean other countries are less enthusiastic about Christmas, notes Nathan Siegel for Oxy: “shoppers in a few countries will spend...

Ongoing use of force in the Middle East is weakening the United States. Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein argues the country’s problems are structural and briefly outlines the history of US conflicts throughout the latter part of the 20th century. The unnecessary US invasion of Iraq in 2003 accelerated the country’s decline: “This was seen by the interventionists as a mode of restoring waning U.S...