In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the German government made the much-heralded decision to close all the country’s nuclear reactors as part of its Energiewende, or “energy revolution.” The “revolution” also included government mandates and massive subsidies for renewable energy.While Germans gleefully embraced the “Nuclear Power? No Thanks!” movement and global greens pointed […]

Houston has officially topped New York City as the greatest exporter of goods in the US—exports totaling $110.3 billion. The reasons for the shift should be familiar to anyone who’s been following the economic miracle in Texas. The FT reports: “The largest component of Houston’s exports, accounting for a third of the total at $37bn, is petroleum […]

Need cash for college? Female students are increasingly turning to a built-in revenue source: selling their eggs. USA Today reports: While payment for donated eggs can be high, ranging anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000, depending on the selected method and clinic, the process is lengthy — sometimes taking up to six months to complete. Donors […]

Meet Egypt’s new bosses: same as the old bosses: After a year of turmoil, the feloul are back in power. Tamer el-Ghobashy reports for the WSJ: Beyond the partisan rancor that has engulfed Egypt since the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, a class of Egyptians is emerging to support the deposed leader despite disaffection with his […]

New Orleans firefighters are in deep trouble. Following an internal audit, the New Orleans Firefighters’ Pension and Relief Fund found that its investment income fell by an astonishing 83 percent last year, from $9.7 million in 2011 to only $1.6 million in 2012. As is often the case, the culprit appears to be a number of […]

Foreign students continue to fuel the growth of graduate programs across America. A new report from the National Foundation for American Policy claims that international students actually make up the majority of enrollments in U.S. graduate programs in many STEM fields. InsideHigherEd reports: [Foreign students account] for 70.3 percent of all full-time graduate students in […]

Israel plans to restructure its military with an eye on new threats and fading risks from neighbors like Syria and Egypt, the WSJ reports: Israel’s military plans to downsize its conventional firepower such as tanks and artillery to focus on countering threats from guerrilla warfare and to boost its technological prowess, in a recognition that […]

At a news conference after the Egyptian army’s not-quite-a-coup a few days ago, an Egyptian journalist stood up and demanded that reporters from Al Jazeera be excluded. The Al Jazeera team eventually left the meeting amid shouts of “out, out!”Al Jazeera was celebrated during the early days of the Egyptian revolution in 2011, when thousands […]

In the “if you like your insurance plan you can keep it” watch, Wegmans grocery chain has eliminated health insurance coverage for its part-time employees. The company has been praised for “voluntarily offer[ing] health insurance to employees who worked 20 hours per week or more.” But no more. Buffalo News reports that the company has discontinued […]

The Voluntary Institutional Metrics Project, a coalition of 18 institutions of higher learning funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, brings together mostly community colleges and other non-traditional schools in pursuit of the goal of evaluating their performance across five main areas. On Wednesday, the group released a set of performance metrics that include: […]