Two people were injured Sunday as a personal dispute erupted into gunfire in the Tripoli district of el-Mina, state-run National News …

By Thanassis Cambanis

Thanassis Cambanis, a fellow at The Century Foundation, is the author of the forthcoming “Once Upon a Revolution: An Egyptian Story.” He is an Ideas columnist and blogs at thanassiscambanis.com
An architect’s plan to revive a cosmopolitan dream of the Middle East

BEIRUT — As a symbol of a lost era in a region full of them, Beirut stands apart. For generations it thrived as a center of culture, commerce, and education, until the 16-year Lebanese civil war fragmented the city’s diverse population and shelled its vitality into rubble.

The war ended in 1991, and today Beirut is mostly peaceful. Some of its glamour and wealth have started to return. Dazzlingly dressed Lebanese fill gallery openings; boutique wineries do a brisk business. Glass towers have sprung up around the new marina.

But in many ways, Beirut is still a failed city. Hobbled by ubiquitous corruption, rampant criminality, and the legacy of sectarian militias, Beirut still doesn’t have any of the basic amenities of urban life, like traffic police, a planning board, even a functioning sewer, water, or electrical system. It is no longer a business capital; the money on display here was mostly made somewhere else. The war-shattered UNESCO building squats in the heart of the city like a crash-landed spaceship. To the west, two shell-pocked skyscrapers mark the horizon, both them uninhabited since the civil war broke out in 1975.

Most obviously, Beirut needs to attract investment and solve its infrastructure problems. But to truly revitalize the region, it will need to do more than that: It will need to recapture the cultural energy that long marked Beirut as the intellectual capital of the Arab world. A small city that welcomed big thinkers, it was historically home to writers, philosophers, political dissidents, artists, and other creative types from around the region. That, more than any of the trappings of wealth and celebrity, made it a beacon.

By: Jonathan Wai and Jenna Goudreau
In order to determine a school's overall smarts, Jonathan Wai, a Duke University Talent Identification Program researcher, analyzed the average standardized test scores that schools report to US News. (Those that did not report scores are not included.) If you're looking for exclusivity, academic excellence, and exposure to the brainiest students in the US, you may want to check out the universities below

 Here are the smartest private colleges in America:

he UN General Assembly has passed a resolution asking Israel to pay Lebanon more than $850m (£544m) for a major oil spill during Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah.

The UN has asked Israel to compensate Lebanon before but this is the first time a figure has been given.

The assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour by 170 votes to six, but its resolutions are not legally binding.

Israel's UN mission said the resolution was biased.

The slick was created when Israeli jets bombed a power station, releasing about 15,000 tonnes of oil into the eastern Mediterranean sea.

At its peak, it stretched for 120km (75 miles) along the shore.

The resolution calls the incident an "environmental disaster'' which caused extensive pollution.