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Students across the country found out what they received on their Advanced Placement tests on Friday. I’m one of them, and like so many of my contemporaries, I was eager to see all my hard work boiled down into one number grade. Everyone’s hoping to get that great feeling that comes from earning a 4 or 5 on an exam.

But is taking an AP class really worth all the time and effort?

Other...

As the barges arrive and work trestles are built on the Hudson River, it's clear the $3.9-billion replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge means jobs.

But just how many remains to be seen. Will it be as many as 45,000, as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said, or just enough to scrape together a softball team? Maybe we should split the difference?

A recent four-page state report concluded that the...

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...

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,”...

As the American public passionately debates how to curb lethal gun violence here at home, the world’s nations are negotiating a treaty aimed at achieving the same result globally.

If approved, the Arms Trade Treaty which was debated Thursday at the United Nations would establish the first international standards for cross border sales of conventional weapons, a $70 billion a year trade in...

The assault weapons ban is the flash point in the congressional debate over gun violence, but the wrangling over background checks is the battle to watch. Requiring the checks for all gun sales is the true heart of reform.

The howls of protest have been loud and long since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the bill that will come to the Senate floor next month will not include a ban on...

President Barack Obama’s speech before a young Israeli audience in Jerusalem Thursday was in part a throwback to his “yes we can” days as a candidate. It worked then. Maybe it will again.

His call for a two-state solution with Palestinians had the feel of a political rally. And the response was enthusiastic.

His words won't change the hard political realities that have repeatedly thwarted...

An FBI tactical dog named Ape took a bullet to the chest yesterday, possibly saving the lives of State Police and FBI officers.

Ape, a 2-year-old Czech German shepherd who was on only his second mission, was sent first through the doorway of an abandoned bar, Glory Days, where suspect Kurt R. Myers had holed up. Myers was wanted in the seemingly random shootings this week that killed four...

President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans have been dating lately, but they haven’t decided whether to hook-up and consummate a budget deal. They should.

Reacting to criticism that he’s too aloof, Obama went to Capital Hill today to see Senate Republicans. He stopped by Wednesday to visit with House Republicans. And last week he took a few GOP Senators out to dinner at a posh hotel...

It’s pretty cheeky to offer reading suggestions to a new pope, especially a Jesuit one. Pretty much by definition, Jesuits read deeply and well.

Still, on the off chance that, in his busy pre-papal life, Pope Francis never got around to reading this book on the papacy by Archbishop Emeritus John R. Quinn of San Francisco, I think it would be a useful addition to his reading list.

OK,...