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The New York Times

With the Index of Leading Economic Indicators, a Social Report Card

Marc L. Miringoff, the director of the Fordham University Institute for Innovation in Social Policy and a longtime champion of social reform, had been hoping to fly below the radar of national politics by producing a report called ”The Social Health of the States.” But when the results of the research came back, the map…

Scholars Are Quietly Offering New Theories of the Koran

To Muslims the Koran is the very word of God, who spoke through the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad: ”This book is not to be doubted,” the Koran declares unequivocally at its beginning. Scholars and writers in Islamic countries who have ignored that warning have sometimes found themselves the target of death threats and violence, sending…

What Is America’s Place In the World Now?

Here’s a test: What lessons should America’s policymakers take from the complex whirl of events that followed Sept. 11? A) The need to fight terrorism requires working with other nations. B) The quick victory in Afghanistan shows that only go-it-alone action gets results. C) Potential threats in the world’s troubled regions call for the United…

Grounded by an Income Gap

For 30 years the gap between the richest Americans and everyone else has been growing so much that the level of inequality is higher than in any other industrialized nation. What no one can quite figure out, though, is why, or even whether anything should be done about it. ”Why there has been increasing inequality…