The traditional, thin plastic bag, though increasingly demonized and taxed, has better environmental performance and is likely to be considerably safer for human health than alternatives.

Gagging Grenell was a bad play for the Romney team because it guaranteed the issue wouldn't go away. The only way to dispel concerns about the man's fitness for the job was to let him do his job. Muzzling him until he resigned was the worst possible way to handle it because all it did was feed crocodiles like Fischer.

Tolerance in higher education has become too much to tolerate.

As attention turns to the International AIDS Conference,the World Health Organizationmust regain the world's confidence and not foist unproven drug therapies on the world's poor.

The author discusses recent congressional embarrassments and strange decisions.

Community colleges are subsidized through direct state and local government appropriations and through student grant programs. Every student who drops out represents an investment loss by the taxpayers in that student's uncompleted education.

Judging by the financial market's renewed unease about Italy and Spain over the past week it would seem that all that the European Central Bank's €1 trillion liquidity injection in the European banking system bought was around four months of relative market calm.

Tom Friedman wishes America could be more like China. Specifically, he wishes we could adopt their authoritarian style in pursuit of the so-called green revolution and clean energy.