Has coal found an unlikely friend in Europe’s green policies? According to an analysis in the FT, the people who want to lead the world in clean energy may make their continent a sinkhole for the dirtiest energy resource around. The rationale for investment in renewable energy has always relied on the assumption that fossil […]

Steve Jobs did a lot of things during his life, but solving America’s obesity epidemic wasn’t one of them. In a dubious attempt to combat obesity, insurance companies are turning to app technology that they hope will help doctors motivate at risk patients: In December 2012, Aetna unveiled Passage, a fitness app it developed with […]

On January 7, 2013, the New York Times carried a story about the race to fill the Congressional seat in Chicago vacated by the resignation (apparently for both health and legal reasons) of Jesse Jackson, Jr. The district is still strongly African-American, though less so than it used to be because of recent remapping. The […]

Yesterday Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy reported that the State Department concluded Butcher Assad used chemical weapons against his own people back on December 23. Al Jazeera reported the incident at the time, but it was hardly noticed, and little action or interest was shown by the international community. Now, however, it appears that the State […]

If a robot steals your job, there’s no need to worry. Just buy a robot of your own and pimp it out. So argues Noah Smith in an astute Atlantic article on the promises and challenges of our technological future (h/t Tyler Cowen). Smith points out that innovations in robotic technology will make our economy more productive and […]

The French are known for eating small portions, but in Mali they may have bitten off more than they can chew: France ordered new airstrikes overnight against Islamist fighters in central Mali, as the government in Paris pledged on Tuesday to commit more troops to a potentially protracted campaign against extremists pressing south from a jihadist state […]

In Asia’s Game of Thrones the winds of change are pushing Japan away from China to Southeast Asia.When Shinzo Abe was first inaugurated as Prime Minister of Japan back in 2006, he quickly packed his bags and took off for Beijing. As Japan’s largest trading partner and a growing market for Japanese exports, China was […]

California’s cities have been going bankrupt left and right over the past few years. But what is it actually like to live in a bankrupt city? A new New York Times profile of post-bankruptcy San Bernardino paints the picture, and it isn’t a pretty one: plummeting home prices, dead animals left to rot in the streets, and, […]

Newsflash: pampering your kids isn’t good for them. A national study revealed that students whose college tuition was paid for by their parents performed worse academically than their less fortunate peers.The New York Times reports: Dr. [Laura] Hamilton suggested that students who get a blank check from their parents may not take their education as seriously as […]

As often happens, my colleague Walter Russell Mead, with his team of intrepid assistants ever at the ready, has beaten me into print—or electrons, as the case may be—over what is going on in Mali. He takes his cue from the extraordinary story in yesterday’s New York Times. Pardon me for repeating any of Walter’s […]