President Barack Obama on Wednesday said the entire world drew strength from the March on Washington 50 years ago, but that continued economic inequality and stagnant wages show that only part of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dreams have been fulfilled. s…

Much has been said about what the 'China Dream' really means to many Chinese -- whether it is national strength, cultural renewal or more modest personal goals. For many of those living in the vast countryside, the dream is a life in one a city and s…

Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up? Maybe a fireman? A baker? A ballerina? You probably have some sort of idea what you ultimately want to do with your life. BUT are you actually doing it? Are you working towards it? Or have you g…

You've probably heard the baleful reports. The number of college students majoring in the humanities is plummeting, according to a big study released last month by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The news has provoked a flood of high-minded…

China has tried your form of government and found it wanting. That was the message delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping during an expansive address at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, this week that capped off his first visit to Western…

Mistrust between U.S. and Malaysian air-accident investigators has hampered a multinational probe into the jetliner that went missing three weeks ago, people familiar with the investigation said, with no clear leads emerging about who or what was res…

Entrepreneur and author ShaoLan Hsueh thinks that English-speakers can start learning to read Chinese in less than 10 minutes. The language, she says, has more than 20,000 written characters, which most students in China learn by rote memorization. M…

When her husband died of cancer 10 years ago, Becky Aikman says she experienced grief and adapted to her loss -- but not in the way some people seemed to expect. proactive:有前瞻性的,主动地 About a year after his death, when Ms. Aikman felt it was time to st…

AS AUTO MAKERS ADD far-out features to the latest cars at warp speed--everything from futuristic heads-up displays to simple perks like hands-free calling--the appeal of the newest showroom tech can be hard to resist. But a car, unlike a smartphone,…

Daifailluh al-Bugami was just a year old when his parents noticed that his lips turned blue as he slept at night. It was his weight, doctors said, putting pressure on his delicate airways. delicate:精致的,微妙的,易碎的 Now Daifailluh is 3, and at 61 pounds he…

'What's celebrity sex, Dad?' It was my 7-year-old son, who had been looking over my shoulder at my computer screen. He mispronounced 'celebrity' but spoke the word 'sex' as if he had been using it all his life. 'Celebrity six,' I said, abruptly closi…

China's high-tech companies have made their mark on the nation's economy. Now, with growing cash and investment at their disposal, they are beginning to have an impact on its skylines. Many of China's technology giants got their starts in cheap, half…

BEIJING—Chinese government officials destroyed more than six tons of ivory that had been illegally smuggled into the country, signaling that Beijing is willing to play a greater role in protecting dwindling elephant populations. smuggle:走私       dwin…

In a year that featured one of history's biggest corporate buyouts, a stock-market surge reminiscent of the dot-com bubble and an American energy boom that kept on booming, there was plenty to write about in the business world. buyout:收购,买断 reminisce…

"I used to think I was this made man," says entrepreneur Glenn Kelman. "That's what they tell you after you take a company public." In 1996 Mr. Kelman co-founded Plumtree, a business-software firm that went public in 2002. After that,…

Nelson Mandela, who rose from militant antiapartheid activist to become the unifying president of a democratic South Africa and a global symbol of racial reconciliation, died at his Johannesburg home following a lengthy stay at a Pretoria hospital, t…

When marriage therapist Sharon Gilchrest O'Neill met with new clients recently, she asked them why they were seeking therapy. The couple told her they'd spent years arguing over finances and recently had their worst-ever blowup. The husband complaine…

SHANGHAI—Trading volume in China's bond market has plummeted in recent months, in another reminder of how the country's shifting interest-rate environment has taken a toll on a once fast-expanding financial sector. bond market:债券市场          plummet:骤…

Early one morning last week I queued outside Sri Gopi Iyengar Coffee and Tiffin Center, a coffee bar just outside the monumental Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. My long wait under a scorching sun was rewarded with a small glass…

The trophy case in the tiny conference room outside Isaac Larian’s corner office spans an entire wall. It overflows with the dolls that have made him a fortune, from his first hit, the miniskirt-clad Bratz toys, to the latest, the Lalaloopsy dolls wi…

Big data. It's the latest IT buzzword, and it isn't hard to see why. The ability to parse more information, faster and deeper, is allowing companies, governments, researchers and others to understand the world in a way they could only dream about bef…

I'm not a hugger. When I see a registered personal-space invader coming my way at a party, the music from 'Jaws' plays in my head. And there are lots of people like me -- reasonably comfortable in social situations, no particular phobias, just a bit…

Bo Xilai may be in jail, but a struggle is now underway within the Communist Party over the policies he championed in Chongqing, which he advertised as a model for a new China. In the mega-city that Mr. Bo built as Party Secretary along the banks of…

Jason Swett still cringes when he remembers the party in Atlanta 10 years ago, where, drink in hand, he tried 'to impress the local Southern belles,' he says, by talking -- nonstop. cringe: 畏缩,奉承 belle:美女 He told the six or so people he'd just met th…

In Dapu, a rain-drenched rural outpost in the heart of China's grain basket, a farmer grows crops that she wouldn't dare to eat. A state-backed chemicals factory next to her farm dumps wastewater directly into the local irrigation pond, she says, and…

Getting up the nerve to order in a coffee shop used to be difficult for 16-year-old Georgiann Steely. Speaking in front of classmates was unthinkable. The high-school sophomore overcame a crippling case of social anxiety as a patient in the Child and…

A Chinese agricultural official's unsupported claims about the carcinogenic risks of consuming genetically modified soybeans have rekindled a fervent debate about the use of genetically modified crops in a country with ever-expanding food needs. carc…

Americans have long taken pride on their willingness to bet it all on a dream. But that risk-taking spirit appears to be fading. Three long-running trends suggest the U.S. economy has turned soft on risk: Companies add jobs more slowly, even in good…

The fate described by Dostoyevsky is a nightmare we all hope to escape. But we're surrounded by naysayers who deride that hope as unrealistic. 'You hate your job?'they ask. 'Everyone hates their job!' No. Not everyone hates their job. If you have the…

When the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new record this past March, Brent Kessel awoke at 3:30 a.m. But the financial adviser, who co-founded a firm that manages more than $800 million, wasn't up early because he was giddy about the market. He wa…