Last month, thousands of mathematicians attended the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Boston — the largest annual gathering of its kind. In addition to presentations on phylogenetic algebraic geometry and trace formulas, the conference featured an art exhibition, with 80 artists presenting ....

Video: Mathematical Art

Ron Paul won the Republican Party's straw poll in September in California with a whopping 44.9 percent, but since then it's been a bit downhill for the Libertarian. His supporters couldn't love him any harder if they tried, but he's going to need more of them in order to win.

Democrats on the the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also known as the Super Committee, gave their first proposal to the committee Republicans on Wednesday. The committee is charged with reducing the nation's debt by cutting $1.2 trillion.

Congressional officials, speaking to the Associated Press said the proposed ...

Republican presidential contender and (sometime frontrunner), Herman Cain is out with a new ad that features his campaign chief of staff, Mark Block raving about the campaign while taking a drag on a cigarette. The bizzare ad has gone viral, and has even spawned a few parodies - notably one in which Cain "Chief of Staff, Jay Smooth' is charged with "keep Herman Cain in the news for another three, four months" so he can get a gig on cable TV.

Herman Cain has been getting a lot of attention lately, not least for his "9-9-9" tax plan. (Not "6-6-6", as Bachmann has devilishly suggested.) He explains the plan on his website with short, sharp bullet points, but most of the fine print is still a mystery.

Political campaigners might get a break around the New Year, after all. In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, New Hampshire's Secretary of State Bill Gardner threatened to hold the state’s key early primary in December.

Construction of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island has been going on for just several months — but the designs for the structure are nearly 40 years old. 

The Democrats have been been on the offensive since the 2010 midterm when they sustained huge losses to Republicans, ceding 63 seats and the House majority. To return from minority status and retake the House, the Dems need a big surge, something the Democratic Congressional Campaign calls the "Drive to 25."

New York is a city of specialists from foodies to academics, laborers to shopkeepers. Every Wednesday, Niche Market will take a peek inside a different specialty store and showcase the city's purists who have made an art out of selling one commodity.

Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann (R-MN) talked up her home-field advantage as she officially announced her run for presidency this morning in Iowa. Bachmann lived in Iowa (a state she's hoping to win) until she was twelve and then moved to Minnesota where she became the state's first Republican woman elected to Congress in 2006. She told the crowd in Waterloo, her birthplace: “I often say that everything I need to know I learned in Iowa" and “It’s these Iowa roots and my faith in God that guide me today.”

The Supreme Court's term ends in mere weeks and there are still a few hot potatoes on their plates, from privacy issues to freedom of speech to limiting the size of classes in a class action lawsuit. These are cases that have a potential for big impact, depending on how the judges come down.

We put our heads together with legal analyst and It's a Free Country blogger Jami Floyd to break down a few of these remaining cases and explain what impact they may have.

Today’s fight over immigration is contentious and has the power to derail the agendas of politicians who wade into the issue. Yet federal legislation has been minimal and usually results in short-term solutions, so much so that many states have resorted to creating their own immigration-control laws.

In the past thirty years, the U.S. has gone through a rapid expansion of globalization, and cycles of economic recession and booms, which has resulted in a huge upswing in immigrants, mainly from Latin America, coming to the U.S. to find work. But the story isn't a new one.