With a nationwide mortgage crisis and overall general malaise afflicting the U.S. economy, Americans may be forgiven for ignoring economic events beyond our own borders.

It was risk that got us into the mortgage crisis.

The University of Virginia may have the right to ban all signs from inside its athletics facilities.

By the time you read this, we should know if Hanna will prove a damaging invader or a meek visitor.

“Weed fought the law and Weed won!”

School is back in session. Do you know where your child is?

In 2005 and 1993, our own Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression gave its satiric Muzzle Awards to both the Democratic and the Republican national conventions.

More jobs suggests a healthier tax base. Certainly the state would receive more revenue in income taxes, but job growth also indicates that healthy businesses are generating other revenues, such as sales taxes, that come back to the locality.

Consumers around the world hungry for grain.

Who says there’s no good news?

Shame on Mark Warner.

Three against one.

Have you heard about the Connecticut kid who was so good, he was banned from the pitching mound in his Youth Baseball League?

Hardly known for daring, some college presidents are ostensibly so on the subject of the minimum drinking age.

You expect a search warrant to be necessary for authorities to search your home, including your computer.

The good news: Virginia has a moderate tax burden.

OK, now picture this:

It’s been 15 years since Charlottesville last added individual properties to its list of historic buildings that should be saved.

This newspaper backs the University of Virginia’s efforts to combat plagiarism.

It continually astounds us that so many school districts still believe they can treat religious organizations differently from other groups.

Common sense has claimed a victory.

Victimization of children is on the rise, possibly fueled by a number of causes but certainly by the ubiquity of the Internet and the way it can be used to facilitate crimes.

A fabulous cache of letters in a family attic. An artist’s masterwork at a yard sale. A brand new species in a national park.

Last year: NASA hit major turbulence when it refused to release data from an aborted survey of airline pilots about safety problems

Federal agencies may be cumbersome, inefficient, bloated — all the stereotypical problems.

Engineers had already warned that bridges, and highway infrastructure in general, were crumbling with decay.

For all the criticism leveled at it, the Virginia Department of Transportation has given the commonwealth one of the better road systems in the country.

It’s not your grandma’s jump rope.

Too many people are still ignoring the limit — even when warned to slow down by big, flashing electronic signs.

Change has to start somewhere.