More than 1,000 teams have been in Knoxville the last four days participating in the world's largest creative thinking and problem solving competition. Kids from 42 states and 16 countries finished the Global Finals 2014 Saturday night, hosted by Destination Imagination. The teams were given challenges and had to find ways to solve them using skills like science, math, technology, and writing, theater arts, writing, and project management.

Americans studying in Latin America have stopped looking so intently at Mexico, which has dropped from first to fourth for U.S. students going abroad in the region in 10 years. Only about 4,000 U.S. students study in Mexico, with crime and drug violence being the main deterrent.

Right now, all over the world, former Fulbright scholars like me (Norway, 2012) are raising the alarm, trying to persuade Congress to stand by one of its best creations, passed by unanimous bipartisan consent of the Senate and signed into law by President Truman in 1946.  Yet the Fulbright budget, which falls under the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), seems to be on the chopping block.

It's such a great, simple idea: Young Brazilians want to learn English. Elderly Americans living in retirement homes just want someone to talk to. Why not connect them?  FCB Brazil did just that with its "Speaking Exchange" project for CNA language schools.

The U.S. and Philippine militaries have launched a large, 10-day, annual military exercise amid increasing tensions in the disputed South China Sea.

by Nicholas J. Cull