While the lights went out across Manhattan tonight, and the city that calls itself the capital of the world was cut off from the mainland as flood waters thundered through its streets, many people around the world watched the spectacle and were reminded just how fragile the busy world we humans build around us really […]

The NYT has a long and interesting piece on the rise of part-time work in retail: While there have always been part-time workers, especially at restaurants and retailers, employers today rely on them far more than before as they seek to cut costs and align staffing to customer traffic. This trend has frustrated millions of […]

The taxi industry hasn’t changed much since the invention of the automobile, but that’s not for lack of interest in new ideas. As anyone can tell you who has tried to take a cab to glamorous Queens, there is plenty of room for improvement. Fortunately the past few years have seen the emergence a number […]

Scientists at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center have made an important breakthrough: they’ve figured out how to use carbon nanotubes as a replacement for silicon in making the tiny transistors that are the building blocks of modern microchips. The New York Times Bits Blog explains why this matters: The I.B.M. advance is significant, scientists said, because the […]

AP: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday sought Algeria’s assistance for any future military intervention in Mali, pressing North Africa’s most stable nation to provide intelligence — if not boots on the ground — to help rout the al-Qaida-linked militants across its southern border.Clinton, on the first stop of a five-day trip overseas, […]

One of the biggest advantages of America’s energy revolution also seems the most counterintuitive: It’s good for the environment. But fracking and other drilling techniques put cheap, clean natural gas on the market, allowing America to transition away from dirtier fuels like coal. As a result, American carbon dioxide production hit a 20-year low earlier […]

Last week, we reported that the Methodist Church was facing a heated debate over the tenure rules for senior pastors. Faced with a declining membership base, the church was forced to choose between keeping senior pastors on staff as promised or ousting underperforming pastors in favor of fresh young blood, a classic blue model dilemma that has […]

Nigeria is the most important country in sub-Saharan Africa if only because one fourth of the total population of the region lives there. Boko Haram, the fanatical group whose name means “Western knowledge is unclean,” wants to plunge Nigeria into a vast sectarian war.This weekend bombers believed to be linked to the group took another […]

Wen Jiabao’s family attacked the New York Times story that alleged family members of the outgoing premier have amassed almost $3 billion in assets during his time in power, and Chinese censors vigilantly kept all mention of the controversy out of the local press and off the Chinese Internet. The FT analyzes the situation: It […]

Bad euro decisions threaten the break-up of Spain: In protests large and small, hundreds of thousands of Catalans are embracing a stark proposition: Only by breaking ties with Spain and becoming an independent country can Catalonia free itself from economic malaise.Catalans go to the polls Nov. 25 for a regional parliamentary election, and polls show […]