On September 11, pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., will lead a ceremonial burning of Qurans at his church. Amid protests in Kabul, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has now said that the book burning will endanger troops.

A majority of U.S. women may be ill prepared for retirement, lacking the financial know-how needed for a secure future.

One byproduct of the recession has been a change in the investing habits of 18- to 34-year-olds, according to a new study by Merrill Lynch. Can you blame a generation whose financial coming-of-age was bookended by the dotcom bubble and the subprime-mortgage meltdown?

If Republicans take control of Congress, their chairman of the House oversight committee will be ready to attack the Obama administration, and he is unusually skilled at finding just which stories to pushthe ones that will drive a news cycle, or six.

Despite the Mexican governments high-profile capture last week of American-born kingpin Edgar Valdez La Barbie Villarreal, the countrys drug war continues to spiral out of control. A telling sign: ordinary Mexicans, who until now have largely been removed from the carnage, are turning to private security firms for help.

Controversial Internet evangelist Bill Keller launched his "9/11 Christian Center" on Sunday in response to what he calls the Park51 "victory mosque" near Ground Zero. He assailed Imam Feisal Rauf, Glenn Beck, Gandhiand he condemned me to hell. But is it all just a publicity stunt?

What state education proposals really show is that few subjects inspire more intellectual dishonesty and political puffery than school reform.

It may have been a relief to many when the World Cups vuvuzelas finally stopped blaring, but now the Rainbow Nations winter of good feeling is emphatically over. A recent government workers strike grew so massive that the Army was called out to keep hospitals open.

In the aftermath of the BP oil spill, lawmakers have, understandably, focused on sweeping reforms of offshore-drilling protocols. But no matter how worried we are about the rigs, we cant ignore our inland oil issues.

Decades after such figures appeared elsewhere in Europe, Germany finally has produced its own high-profile star of the anti-immigrant right. But only for about a week. Thilo Sarrazin, a former Social Democratic politician, set off the fiercest storm of public outrage in recent memory with his new book, "Germany Abolishes Itself," in which he lays bare the failures of German education, migration, and welfare policies.

If President Obama has any sense, he'll do more than go to Ohio on Wednesday and give a speech about the economy. His expected proposalto make permanent the research and development tax credit for businessis overdue, expensive ($100 billion over 10 years) and about as politically exciting as a vacation to Moldavia with your accountant.

New businesses are often tiny, of course, at least at first. But the distinction between them and small, mature firms is hardly semantic, says economist John Haltiwanger, who coauthored the study. His research suggests that the policy focus should skew young, nurturing the next big firmswhich actually employ the most peoplerather than tending an old crop of small ones.

Marine Le Pen is moving her fathers rabble-rousing, far-right party away from the fringe, and redefining French politics in the process.

September 11 was a shock to the American psyche and the American system. As a result, we overreacted.

In an effort to be safe at home, flood-prone Iowa has an unlikely salve when it comes to deploying their National Guard troops overseas.