Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang just signed a deal to build an East African railway. The network could eventually connect South Sudan to Kenya’s coast, and offer the landlocked country another way to export its crude.

Energy efficiency can help the planet and save us money at the same time, but a bill to push through such measures failed in the Senate yesterday.

China’s toxic smog may grab all the headlines, but the country is wrangling with another insidious enemy: soil pollution. Nearly 20 percent of the country’s arable land is polluted, threatening the country’s food supply.

Protestors in the scenic tourist city of Yuhang clashed with police over the weekend, demonstrating against the construction of a new waste incinerator plant. This probably isn’t what China’s leadership had in mind when it declared a “war on pollution.”

Last November, the EPA did an utterly sensible thing: It walked back on mandates for refiners to blend ever-increasing amounts of ethanol in to our nation’s fuel mix. Now, Reuters has a fascinating post-mortem on the thinking behind that decision.

Good evening, TAI readers! We’d like to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms out there, and remind you all to do the same (if you haven’t already done so, of course). As you gear up for the week ahead, take the time to look back at what you may have missed on the site over the past week.

Watch for yourself (but fair warning: the language is more explicit than what you’d hear from Jon Stewart):

67 percent of employers now allow their employees to work from home occasionally, up from just 50 percent in 2008. Telework is picking up steam, and that’s good news for employers, employees, and the planet.

Genetically modified farm animals may be a key part of feeding future generations in what looks to be a hotter and more hostile world.

Gazprom is cracking the whip in Kiev, requiring its delinquent customer to prepay its June gas bill by next Friday. This isn’t just a problem for Ukraine, though: Some 15 percent of Europe’s gas supply could be affected, if Ukraine can’t come up with the funds.