Not the Editor's Letter

"State of Minds" scours the University of California for important research and then does something special: It makes it interesting.

There are international development programs that actually do help the world's poorest people. Dean Karlan can show you the proof.

Before the ideological war over entitlement reform begins, Congress should look to the ways technology can reduce the cost of government. All trillion of them.

Generation S and the coming humanization of the digital revolution.

John Dougherty, a journalist who helped make John McCain one of the Keating Five, is running a long-shot campaign to replace McCain as U.S. senator. Along the way, both will have to deal with the immigration monster under every Arizona bed.

Using artificial intelligence and the graphics techniques behind "Avatar," a USC institute creates “virtual humans” and interactive immersions that train American soldiers to win hearts and minds in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The blandly titled Journalist's Resource sits on the Web, ready — with a little help from Harvard's Kennedy School — to throw substantive story ideas onto reporters' desks.

An extraordinary, nonpartisan experiment in redistricting on the left coast.

Federal plans for a green economic revolution need more discipline — and a long-term partnership with the venture capitalists who know startup winners from losers.

The Obama administration has a mortgage refinancing program that needs some tuning.

If the politicians in a sharp-elbowed place like Houston can work across party lines, why can't yours?

The Obama administration talks a lot about making policy based on evidence rather than politics. A basic question remains unanswered: Which evidence?

Can journalism schools oversee the public-interest news organizations of the future? Yes, with caveats.

Waiting for the Byrd to squawk, or how to tell if Congress and the White House are serious about fixing the economy.

In the nick of time, the digital revolution comes to democracy's rescue. And, perhaps, journalism's.

If we're going to rescue Wall Street, let's bail out the industrial Midwest, too.

At the end of the fossil fuel era, America's premier journalism schools have staked out their place in the Digital Age. It's called News21, and it provides what may be the best multimedia coverage of the election season.

A call on the professorial classes to help check abuses of governmental power. And to start confronting the Alberto Gonzaleses of the world — before they wreak havoc.

Why both political parties should support a truth commission on the human rights abuses of the war on terror

A new British book, "Flat Earth News," provides a well-researched answer to the age-old question: Why are the news media so dumb?

Noted journalist James Fallows helps us explain our new magazine and Web site.