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We've all heard time and time again that the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in science and math. And president after president has instituted their own version of education reform, although none seems to have improved this plight.

But it doesn't stop us from trying.

Yet another set of guidelines, geared specifically toward science, was announced on Tuesday....

The Knicks and the Nets. The Mets and the Giants. The Cosmos and the Unos? Who knows. 

"Soccer is the global sport, New York is America's global city and we want to be a global team," said Seamus O'Brien, chief executive officer for the revitalized New York Cosmos, in a Monday meeting with Newsday’s editorial board.

O'Brien is taking a tour to promote the team and discuss...

What if you never had to make a decision ever again? What if all your choices were made by picking up your phone?

Now there’s an app for that.

Seesaw, a new smartphone application, allows users to post questions and let their friends and followers decide. The design resembles Instagram, encouraging users to post photos along with each post. After a query goes out, people tap the screen...

In firing scandal-tarred lawyer Joseph Savino, Clarkstown leaders acted swiftly in dealing with a potentially explosive situation.

But let's not break out the good government awards just yet.

Savino is the Bronx Republican Party boss whose White Plains-based law firm was hired by Clarkstown last year to handle tax-challenge cases even though he apparently had little expertise in that...

Mike Rice is now the former head coach of Rutgers’ men’s basketball team. He was fired Wednesday morning after a tape aired on ESPN that showed him pelting balls at  players, shoving and kicking them and grabbing them by their jerseys.

Rutgers Athletic Director Tim Pernetti saw the tape in November and told WFAN radio that he showed it to Robert Barchi, the school’s president. Pernetti...

Ah, yes, it’s that time of year again. No, not spring. College admissions season.

Across the nation, high school seniors are shrieking with joy or disappointment as they get word from the colleges they applied to this winter.

The disappointment of one high school senior, Suzy Lee Weiss, was heard nationwide after the Wall Street Journal published “To (All) the Colleges That Reject me,”...

Crazed or calculating? That's what the world needs to know about North Korea's young Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

The answer has been impossible to fathom so far. But the cloistered nation has nuclear weapons and long-range missiles and Kim's reckless saber-rattling has been incessant since he succeeded his father Kim Jong Il on Dec. 28, 2011. So hopefully the answer is calculating. 

Kim...

The news that there are more than a few politicians in New York with a price tag is not surprising. What's shocking is that the felony charges filed yesterday against one of the state's top-ranking Albany Democrats, Sen. Malcolm Smith of Queens, is the distinct possibility that  federal prosecutors might finally have a way to penetrate this culture of corruption.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara...

Our society regards those in certain jobs as heroes, like firefighters, police officers, soldiers and teachers. The respect comes from our judgment that their work directly benefits serves the greater good of society.

So when teachers — heroes — cheat and lie, it cuts deep. We have come to expect, sometimes relish in, bad behavior from politicians and celebrities. But teachers? Not teachers.

Last...

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino’s name is among those being tossed around for a potential gubernatorial run in 2014 but don’t expect to see his name on the top of any GOP ticket.

He’s not looking to relocate to the executive mansion in Albany. Not next year, anyway, since the governor is even considered by many Republicans to be unbeatable.

The first term Republican is among...