Brick-and-mortar stores are struggling to compete with online retailers. The death of the Mall is giving way to a more personalized, more convenient way of shopping, but the Earth—not the consumer—may be the biggest winner in all of this.

Anyone who hasn’t been scared off a PhD program yet by reports of thousands of grads competing for scarce tenure-track positions and the growing specter of grad school debt should take a look at this New York Times profile of a recent grad looking to make it as a professor in New York. Like many of his peers, James Hoff has spent the past year and a half since he graduated piecing together adjunct lecturer gigs at various schools while applying for highly competitive full-time jobs. These gigs are unstable, low-paying and offer no benefits, leaving him in a precarious situation.

China is secretly at work on its second (and first homemade) aircraft carrier in the coastal city of Dalian, according to reports. Construction is expected to be completed in six years, and officials say China will eventually have at least four such carriers. Alongside the new aircraft carrier in Dalian are two advanced missile destroyers, also under construction. The new ships will help bolster the power and reach of the Chinese navy as it seeks to take control of nearby seas and project power farther abroad.

In Washington State, a group of legislators is taking steps toward a defined-benefit pension plan for public workers. A bill proposed today by a Republican State Senator would offer public-sector workers a $10,000 signing bonus if they switch from their defined-benefit plans to a defined-contribution plan. The bill is modeled after a similar measure going into effect at Boeing, and although it is modest in scope—limited to only 2,000 workers—it could be a sign of bigger things to come.

ITT Educational Services, one of the largest for-profit schools in the country, has gotten itself into hot water with the SEC and CPFB for its student lending practices, and the investigation could be a sign of big trouble ahead for the for-profit market. Like all for-profit higher-ed companies, ITT needs to make sure that no more than 90 percent of its income comes from federal loans in order to remain eligible for those loans. Unfortunately, the increasing student debt burden and declining wages have pushed up defaults, scaring off private lenders and making it more difficult for the school to meet this 90 percent threshold.

Germany’s turn towards green energy—its energiewende—cost consumers nearly $30 billion last year without actually making the country any greener. The Economist explains how a green energy policy has produced a browner energy landscape.

For all of its bluster and expensive green energy policies, Europe is lagging behind the United States when it comes to going green. Thanks to the shale boom, America is outpacing supposedly green-minded Europe on reducing emissions.

When Ahn Jung-geun killed Hirobumi Ito in 1909, he immediately became a lasting icon in the history of Korean resistance to Japan, and he is celebrated as a hero to this day. Ito was a four-time prime minister of Japan and was serving as the first resident-governor of Japan’s colony in Korea when he was killed. Ahn shot him dead at Harbin train station in northeast China, and it is Harbin that is the focus of a fiery diplomatic fight over Ahn’s legacy.

Somewhere, somehow, someone wasn’t keeping their eye on the ball. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general announced that Iran was now invited to the Geneva peace conference on Syria, leaving the U.S. with a bit of a mess on its hands.

If Russian intelligence was in contact with NSA leaker Edward Snowden and helped him before this martyr for freedom took up residence in the civil liberties paradise of Putin’s Russia, we’ve got problems.