The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would increase production in Canada’s oil sands by 36 percent, according to a new report released jointly by four prominent green groups on Thursday. The pipeline, which would bring oil extracted from Alberta’s tar sands down to American refineries along the Gulf coast, is currently in limbo, awaiting White House approval.President Obama […]

India’s currency slide was halted today, but hit a new record low on Tuesday. At 67 rupees to the dollar (compared to the record low of 68.8), it’s not a dramatic shift, but is still a good sign. Reuters has the details: The Indian rupee rebounded on Thursday from a record low as the central […]

Another day, another Russia-Eastern Europe stand-off involving an antagonistic Putin flexing his energy muscle. This time, it’s Belarus taking the hit: its supply of Russian oil will be cut by roughly 25 percent.So what happened? Belarus arrested the CEO of the Russian potash firm Uralkali on Monday after the company pulled out of a “trade […]

In January, Congress told the Obama administration to cut more than $500 million per year in federal funding for “excessive” dialysis drug payments. Now over a hundred of the congressmen who voted for the original reductions have reversed themselves, signing a letter to the Medicare administrator asking for the cuts to be reconsidered. The Times reports: The […]

Welcome to North Korea, where you can be executed by machine gun for violating pornography laws. That at least is the official reason why the former girlfriend of Kim Jung-Un, North Korea’s young leader, and 11 of her colleagues in the Unhasu Orchestra were executed this month, according to South Korean media.Hyon Song-wol, a singer in […]

Pundits across the spectrum continue to hawk accountable care organizations (ACOs) as the solution to our health care cost woes. Today it’s Jenny Gold, arguing at Wonkblog that ACOs could be the cost-control “unicorn” we’ve been looking for all this time. Gold is pivoting off a new study that found “spillover effects” from a Massachusetts ACO: not only […]

San Bernardino just received the judicial go-ahead to declare bankruptcy more than a year after its initial bankruptcy filing. The ruling, delivered by a federal bankruptcy court on Wednesday, concludes a long legal battle between the city and Calpers, which was fighting to keep the city out of bankruptcy in order to keep its funds […]

A lot has changed in the US energy mix over the past ten years. The shale boom gave America a new source of oil and halved the price of natural gas. This new flood of cheap gas has undercut other energy sources, hitting Old King Coal especially hard: the US is burning less of its […]

President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines said today that he would not visit China for a trade fair next week after being told by Beijing that he should visit at a more convenient time. China then told the Associated Press it had never invited him in the first place.The snub, whether the result of a […]

Fresh off the heels of a top advisor to Putin declaring Ukraine’s potential deal with the EU “suicidal,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov is firing back, telling Moscow to start coming to terms with a more Western-looking Ukraine. “Ukraine will create a free trade zone with the EU – this also has to be inevitably […]