The National Bureau of Economic Research has spoken: the U.S. has been in a recession for a year. Polls tell us that a lot of Americans think the economists are late to the party on this one.

The announcement of the new Obama foreign policy team has been greeted with much talk of a new direction in U.S. foreign policy, a "rebalancing" to emphasize traditional diplomacy over the military in world affairs.

Barack Obama's on board for the economic stimulus package but he's also in favor of reducing the federal budget deficit – just not right away.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, meeting with a U.N. Security Council delegation today, called for a timeline on the war in Afghanistan. Karzai did not offer a specific time frame, but said, "If there is no deadline, we have the right to find another solution for peace and security, which is negotiations." Meanwhile, talk of a possible U.S.

Between the long shadow cast by the economy and the excitement of the historic election of Barack Obama as the new president of the United States, there's one subject which has barely made it into the headlines. Among the ballot initiatives that were decided in the fifty states were three referenda which would have banned or restricted abortion. These measures, in South Dakota, Colorado, and California, were all defeated.

An analysis in the Los Angeles Times today posits what could prove to be a tipping point for the health care crisis: the current economic slump.

The process – not the rhetoric – of change.

If change is to come, we cannot return to business as usual. We have seen so many elections that promised hope and more responsive government. And time and again, we have returned from our polling places to our homes and just waited for change to come. This time, something must be different.

Is a diploma by any other name a diploma? I suppose it depends on who you ask. Graduation rates in the country are just under 70 percent, meaning that fewer than seven in ten freshmen who enter the system graduate from high school four years later.

A report in the Washington Post today highlights sharp contrasts in President-elect Barack Obama's overall strategy for the wars in Afghanistan and Iran from the current administration's, both militarily and diplomatically. A major difference is the Obama team's clear priority of shifting focus by deploying more troops to the war in Afghanistan, which has recently seen the most U.S. casualties since the conflict began.

Advisers involved in ongoing talks with president-elect Barack Obama regarding the prison at Guantanamo Bay said that a proposal is in the works to ship many prisoners to U.S. soil to face a criminal trial. Obama has been candid about his intention to shut down the controversial prison but had not previously been specific about how he would handle the enormous legal complications of relocating, prosecuting and detaining the hundreds of prisoners currently held there.