California Governor Jerry Brown is entering an election year with one of his biggest pet projects in serious trouble. In November, two court decisions made it considerably more difficult for the state to raise money for the high-speed rail project and tied up the construction in environmental red tape. On its own, this may not pose a serious long-term threat to the program, but public opinion is turning against it as well. If this becomes a hot issue again, it could be one of the few major weakness in Brown’s potential reelection campaign.

Silicon Valley has grown up. Is a “peasants’ revolt against the sovereigns of cyberspace” in the offing?

Turkey’s political crisis took a dark turn this week. Photos of Prime Minister Erdoğan’s son meeting a suspected al-Qaeda financier in an Istanbul hotel were leaked to the press. If these reports hold any water, Erdoğan could be in serious trouble.

China’s efforts to reduce its horrific pollution are creating a new problem: fraud. To clear its smoggy skies, China put in place incentives for power plants to reduce air pollution, but many plants cheated that system by claiming to have cut down on their emissions without actually doing anything. Now the Chinese government is having to crack down on these swindling power producers.

For the fourth year in a row, the rate at which health care costs are growing has slowed down. But this time it’s extra-special because for the first time new data also finds that health care costs shrunk as a percentage of the economy in 2012. ACA supporters have jumped on these trends as the latest piece of evidence that the law is working well (e.g. this op-ed at the WSJ).

Yesterday we reported that Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr had frozen the pensions of city employees while replacing their defined-benefit plans with a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan. But only hours after the decision was made known to the public, Orr abruptly reversed course, planning to delay the freeze until bankruptcy negotiations with the city’s retirement funds play themselves out.

Puerto Rico now has another problem on top of its ravaged finances and poor credit rating: citizens are fleeing the island in droves. Since the year 2000, Puerto Rico has lost nearly 300,000 people to the mainland—a large number of an island with a population of 3.6 million—and the exodus is only speeding up, with an average of 54,000 leaving the island over the past few years. And with the unemployment rate hovering near 15 percent, nearly double that of the mainland, the trend shows few signs of reversing.

On Sunday, 60 Minutes ran a segment highlighting recent struggles in the field of renewable technologies. The piece was, as one might glean upon reading its title, highly critical of the industry’s failures, and of our government’s role in funding some of these high-profile flops. If we’ve learned anything from flops like Fisker and Solyndra, it’s this: rather than directly funding companies looking to peddle cleantech, we should be funneling taxpayer money towards the research and development of the technologies that undergird the industry.

Europe is becoming a coal sink, and, ironically, much of the blame for its increasing reliance on the dirty energy source can be attributed to its green policies. Now, in a move emblematic of the complex interconnectivity of the global energy market, Europe’s green policies and the American shale boom are spurring a new growth of Europe’s dirtiest variety of coal.

Look out, China: your two biggest rivals in Asia are growing closer together. The Japanese defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, on a multi-day trip to India, met with his counterpart in Delhi today to discuss strengthening their countries’ collaboration in several key areas of defense. During the coming year, Japan and India will hold their fourth Defence Policy Dialogue, third “2 plus 2” Dialogue, and third joint naval exercise. Japan will play host to the Indian defense minister, and the two ministers have said they hope for deeper cooperation between their air forces.