India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an octogenarian economist, announced he would be stepping down from his position after elections next year. It was the first news conference the notoriously aloof and mellow Singh has given in three years, and he used it to fire biting comments at an opposition rival who is widely seen as the man who will replace him.

The first generations of MOOCs have serious problems and critics are right to be concerned. But it’s far too early to count them out.

The US ended 2013 with a months-long spree of good news for the manufacturing sector. Total factory output hit a two-year high in November, a hot streak which continued in December where output grew nearly as fast. Manufacturing employment was going strong as well, hitting a high it hasn’t seen since 2011. We may never return to the mass employment in manufacturing of the type we saw in the mid-20th century, but America’s manufacturing sector looks well positioned to keep growing in the decades to come.

WaPo reports that Washington DC has launched a new program to help the elderly residents of nursing homes move back into their own homes. The program is part of a larger national trend toward de-institutionalizing eldercare. One way to help that process along while also shoring up financial support for struggling families would be to pay informal caregivers some kind of wage or tax credit for looking after elderly family members who need constant or daily attention. Given just how severe the caregiver shortage will be, and growing economic insecurity among the working-age population, incentivizing at-home care in this way could help kill two birds with one stone.

The Turkish military issued a demand yesterday that puts a new wrinkle in a scandal that has gripped the nation over the past few weeks. The military’s general staff accused judicial prosecutors and police of manipulating and falsifying evidence in two high-profile trials, which resulted in convictions on charges of treason and espionage for hundreds of officers, including former chiefs of the air force and navy. The accusations came on the heels of a surprising statement made by one of Prime Minister Erdogan’s advisors, who spoke of a “plot” against the military. Now, opposition parties and the military are calling for an investigation.

Hundreds of al Qaeda-linked fighters battled state security agents for control of two large cities west of Baghdad on Friday in the third straight day of intense violence. Yesterday, radical Sunni militants dressed in black and waving the al Qaeda flag rampaged through Falluja and Ramadi, freeing prisoners from jail, setting fire to police stations, blowing up government buildings, and exhorting their fellow Iraqis to join the fight over mosque loudspeakers. Government troops fought them street by street. On Friday, after a brief lull, fighting erupted again.

Manufacturing output in the Eurozone was way up last month. Even troubled economies like Spain and Italy posted big gains, while Greece’s contraction slowed down. But there was one big loser: France, whose manufacturing sector contracted, hitting a low it hasn’t reached in months, raising concerns that it is losing ground to it’s neighbor across the Rhine. This is bad news for President Hollande, whose popularity is already scraping the bottom. Has the stage been set for a Sarkozy comeback?

The UK is the clear world leader in the very young field of offshore wind energy, but the Economist isn’t impressed. The green energy source’s startlingly high costs make Britain’s accomplishment dubious at best.

A groundbreaking new study shows that Medicaid users go to the emergency room more when they get added to the program. Whatever else it does, covering people with insurance doesn’t seem to save money.There’s not an easy way to solve this problem, but surely a big part of the solution needs to involve both better price signals in the system and a shift away from inefficient and costly service delivery practices.

The world’s largest and most expensive single oil project has been a disaster so far. Plagued by delays and cost overruns, Kazakhstan’s Kashagan oil field has been a headache for its consortium of investors, and a lack of clear leadership is compounding these technical problems. If and when the oil starts flowing, a whole slew of questions—predicated on where that oil is piped—arises.