Americans entering the workforce are less educated than those exiting it, according to a new report by the Council on Foreign Relations. Quartz:  For 55- to 64-year-olds, the US has the highest percentage of high-school graduates and the third-highest percentage of college graduates; in people aged 25 to 34, the country is 10th and 13th […]

There are a lot of reasons to embrace teleworking: a better work-life balance, cutting out a polluting and unhealthy commute, saving money on office real estate and gas, and even boosting productivity. Given the advantages, we’d like to see more businesses adopt telework policies for their workers (looking at you, Yahoo!) and more government policies enable […]

China has just launched its first cap-and-trade experiment in Shenzhen, one of seven cities singled out for pollution cuts by 2014. The policy starts today in Shenzhen, and will then be rolled out in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing and the provinces of Hubei and Guangdong. If the program is successful in these areas, China plans […]

At the end of September 2011, after Burma’s President announced that construction on a huge dam on the Irrawaddy River would be suspended indefinitely, the head of the Chinese company in charge of the project told a newspaper reporter that he was “totally astonished” by the news. Canceling construction on the dam was the most eyebrow-raising event […]

Blue power is in big trouble in Detroit, where the threat of bankruptcy has both public sector unions and municipal bondholders at the barrel of a gun. Mary Williams Walsh’s report in the NYT today makes it clear that unless unions can find a way to make other creditors take all the pain, they’re going […]

More than a hundred thousand protesters gathered in big cities across Brazil yesterday after the government raised bus fares across the country. As in Turkey, the protests spread rapidly and soon turned violent, tapping into a broader discontent around the country. Part of the state legislature in Rio de Janeiro was set on fire. NYT: While […]

After two months of delays, India is expected to release a much-anticipated national policy on shale gas policy any day now. It’s about time; as the Diplomat reports, there is a lot to be gained from the extraction of the resource: As the third-largest energy consumer in the world, according to a 2011 Enerdata report, and a natural gas net […]

Jefferson County, Alabama, is trying to put its terrible fiscal woes behind it after coming to a deal to exit the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history earlier this month. The county’s crushing debt load can mostly be traced back to a number of dodgy deals struck with J.P. Morgan to finance improvements to […]

One billion euros in aid that the EU gave to Egypt over the past six years has gone to waste, the EU’s spending watchdog reported today in a scathing assessment. Sixty percent of that aid—€600 million—is unaccounted for.“They do not fulfill the conditions at all—and nevertheless, the money is given,” one of auditors official who conducted […]

Relax in your room, and then head outside to play some volleyball on your private court.  Call your neighbors over to join you in a game of billiards, or practice your golf swing in the rec room. End your night with a DJ spinning beats in your backyard. No, this isn’t a resort; it’s off-campus […]