Search results for

As the peace conference on Syria begins in the Swiss city of Montreaux, Robert Siegel talks to Lord David Owen, the former British foreign secretary. They discuss Owen's experience with a similarly fraught peace process, when he sought to broker a peace plan between the Serbians and Bosnians in the 1990s.

It can be lonely being a Democrat in the Deep South. In the reliably Republican region, even recruiting viable Democratic candidates can be a challenge. But strategists are looking to nearby states to learn how the party might start to make inroads in such red territory.

In the closely watched Senate race in Virginia, Democrat and former Governor Tim Kaine holds an edge over Republican and former Governor George Allen. Kaine is a former Democratic National Committee chairman and Allen is a former senator who wants his seat back.

As an acoustic engineer, Trevor Cox has spent most of his career getting rid of bizarre, unwanted sounds. But in The Sound Book, Cox turns up the volume on those sonic oddities. The book explores weird echoes and unexpected noises from around the globe — including "whisper galleries" and a chirping pyramid.

When state legislators impose mandates on schools, educators get nervous. Sometimes, lawmakers want kids to learn legitimate skills; other times, they try to micromanage lessons down to the historical event.

Seeger had been a mentor and an influence on younger musicians for decades. He will be remembered for his music and his social activism.

The opposition group Syrian National Coalition took considerable heat from inside Syria when it decided to meet with government representatives at the Geneva peace talks. But after several days, coalition members say they're pleased to find their star is rising among Syrians. The talks have also been a kind of trial by fire for the coalition, which says its ability to make its case is improving daily. Syrians also seem fascinated to see government officials caught in face-to-face confrontations with the opposition.

One question on the minds of voters is what kind of relationship the administration of the next four years will have with Congress after the stalemate of the last two. National Review senior editor and Bloomberg columnist Ramesh Ponnuru talks to Steve Inskeep about what he thinks will happen if President Obama is re-elected or if Mitt Romney wins.

At a "quinoa summit" this week, farmers from around the world are trading tips on how to turn this ancient Andean grain into a large-scale crop. Some Andean farmers who currently grow quinoa are asking, "What happens to us?"

Patrick Flanery's taut new novel, Fallen Land, delves into the housing crisis, creeping corporate surveillance and a "crisis of neighborliness" in American life. The backdrop: a half-built and crumbling subdivision outside of an unnamed American city.