Op-Ed

The revolutions that succeeded in toppling aging dictators Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt created great expectations that will be difficult to fulfill.

The U.S. government is broke — a concept the American people understand, but is lost on many of our representatives.

Lugar: A formal war declaration is not an anachronism — it’s a constitutional requirement for good reason.

The Housing and Urban Development and Education secretaries outline a program to revitalize neighborhoods and improve schools.

NPR's interim CEO says eliminating federal funding would seriously damage public broadcasting and harm millions "who rely on us."

It must be spring, because Republicans are frolicking through their annual ritual of trying to abolish funding for public broadcasting — led this time by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.), playing the role of Oscar the Grouch. 

Tea Party Patriots co-founders say NPR is among an elite that views "the rest of us as the 'uneducated' masses."

One of the core complaints of the protesters in Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East is the lack of jobs. Youth unemployment in the Arab countries ranges from 15 to 40 percent. Unemployment is a specter that haunts young graduates at every level, causing them to postpone marriage and family while they endure a long and uncertain  period of “wait-hood.”  

The new Irish Prime Minster Enda Kenny is in Washington for St. Patrick’s Day.

The U.S. military has responded rapidly to the aid of the stricken Japanese coastline north of Tokyo. With nearly two thousand people confirmed dead and more than 15,000 unaccounted for, the human dimension of this tragedy is appalling. Nearly 450,000 are homeless and are staying in emergency shelters. U.S. forces are helping to supply needed food, water, blankets and the like. The speed of the U.S. response is due to two interlinked factors: our long-standing security and political relationship with Japan, and the forward basing of tens of thousands of U.S. troops on Japanese soil. Without decades of close U.S.-Japan relations, the type of response that has seen 10 U.S. Navy ships and dozens of aircraft and helicopters aid in relief efforts would be far more difficult to organize.