This month marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Warsaw Pact. Newly declassified papers from former Communist states shed fresh light on the inner workings of the Soviet Union’s Cold War alliance with its eastern European satellites and its plans for war. U.S. News spoke with Malcolm Byrne, coauthor of A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact 1955-1991, about the finds.
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Brent Madoo still remembers the question that got him into college. He was in a workshop with eight other New York City students. Adults were there, too, watching the group and their interactions. “Should schools use race as a factor in admissions?” one of them asked. Madoo had 30 seconds to answer. He said yes–it was worth any potential harm to encourage diversity. “When everyone in the workshop started yelling at me, I thought I had blown the entire thing and failed the test.” Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Hurley is a high school coach who has built his legend by making the most out of the least. From a tiny Roman Catholic school in bleakest New Jersey, his teams have been remarkable: 24 state championships, two national championship rankings, more than 840 victories, five first-round NBA picks–and they’ve all gone on to college. Not bad for a school that doesn’t have a gym. Journalist Adrian Wojnarowski’s new book, The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season With Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball’s Most Improbable Dynasty, chronicles the school’s impressive 2003-04 team, which hard-to-please Hurley dubbed the most academically, athletically, and socially underachieving in the school’s history. Read the rest of this entry »