Russia just inked a major energy deal with the Assad regime that will allow it to explore offshore oil and gas fields in Syria. Obama’s “Smart Diplomacy” strategy in the Middle East is paying dividends—just not for the US.

Solar energy is threatening to overload grids in Hawaii. That has one utility telling its solar-minded customers to slow down.

Here’s another indication that law schools are in deep trouble: Law libraries are going the way of the dodo. A working paper by law professor James G. Miles claims that as law schools shrink, revenue-losing departments such as legal libraries are likely to be among the first things to go. Although he notes that the importance these libraries has long been boosted by some odd incentives in the US News and World Report rankings, the cutbacks are reaching a point where retaining them will no longer be justifiable.

France and Saudi Arabia have common interests in Lebanon and Syria, and France sees the rift between the US and its traditional Arab ally as a heaven-sent opportunity to muscle in on the lucrative arms trade and other big ticket exports to the oil rich Gulf.

California’s ‘comeback’ is still looking like so much lipstick on a pig: while the coast enjoys job growth and rising home prices and Sacramento totes billions in surplus cash, the inland districts are bearing the brunt of the costs and sinking deeper into decay.

“Anything can happen,” Thailand’s powerful army chief said demurely at a news conference in Bangkok when reporters asked him if a coup was possible. He went on to say that “we are trying to do the right thing, in a peaceful way,” but that “the door was neither open nor closed.”

It’s been an up-and-down week for public pensions. In San Jose, a judge struck down a significant piece of the city’s pension reform plan, setting the stage for a big ballot fight next year. In Puerto Rico, on the other hand, the Senate finally passed a measure to put the Teachers Pesion Fund on solid footing.

Chicago’s public schools are breaking new ground by adding computer science to the core curriculum from kindergarten through senior year. The program, announced early this week, is a partnership with Code.org, the group behind the “Hour of Code,” which will be providing free teacher training and curriculum resources to Chicago’s teachers. Hopefully other cities will take the hint.

Christmas sales were up this year by a healthy 3.5 percent, but the real news behind these numbers is online commerce, which went up an even healthier 16.5 percent year-over-year. And this is just the beginning: we are likely to see continued migration of more and more activities online.

Hospices are gaming Medicare, taking on patients who aren’t actually dying. Ah, the joys of top-down systems.