A large, dusty pile of petroleum coke—a byproduct of oil-sands refining—is sitting on the banks of the Detroit River, and nearby residents are starting to suffer from it. The Detroit Free Press reports that pet coke dust, which is considered “low-toxicity,” is escaping into the air and making its way into people’s homes: “If it’s […]

Germany’s Energiewende, or “energy revolution,” has been heralded by greens as a shining example of the kind of true commitment to renewable energy that our planet requires, but in practice it’s been a flop. As the country phased out its nuclear reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, it heavily subsidized wind and solar farms, passing […]

Here’s a depressing thought: maybe our default condition as humans is to be unhappy. Unemployment understandably breeds despondency, but the only thing we like less than working is lying sick in bed, according to a new study. Bill-paying, house-cleaning, queueing, and even dealing with the tedium of personal paperwork were all preferable to doing one’s […]

China is flexing its muscles in the Pacific, setting off new alarm bells in Tokyo. Following a week-long series of exercises with the Russian navy in the Sea of Japan, several Chinese warships took the provocative step of sailing through the La Pérouse Strait, the narrow body of water that separates Japan from Russia’s Sakhalin […]

The US shale boom has largely happened in North Dakota’s Bakken formation and southeast Texas’s Eagle Ford formation. But there’s another formation—previously the site of extensive conventional drilling—that could shift this revolution into a higher gear. Situated in northwest Texas and southeast New Mexico, the Permian basin has produced roughly 29 billion barrels of oil […]

This week’s essay looked at Egypt’s deep state dilemma. The recent coup-that-wasn’t-a-coup will likely end up giving the army what it wanted all along: “managed democracy” with an authoritarian bent. The deep state, which worked behind the scenes to undermine Morsi’s regime, will also be looking to mold this new era in its own image […]

Misplaced government subsidies and Obamacare combining to create a massive crisis in medical education. An excellent piece in Washington Monthly looks at the perverse incentives dominating medical residency programs that push people away from primary care and toward specialization: Specifically, the programs turn out too many specialists who go on to practice in places where […]

Driverless cars are poised to transform the way we live, but in the meantime, chicken-fed regulators are doing their best to choke state innovation. Google co-founder Sergey Brin explains in the WSJ that legal uncertainty, not technology, is now the main obstacle to the driverless car revolution: If it weren’t for fear among innovators of […]

Jordan has already been hammered by the Syrian civil war. Refugees are pouring into the country. Spies, arms dealers, terrorists and shady characters of every kind are trying to move money, goods and information through the fragile Kingdom. Trade relations with an important neighbor have been crushed by Syria’s economic collapse. Other countries including the […]

Elon Musk, maker of electric cars and launcher of civilian spaceships, has a plan for a new transportation system that could make California’s massive high-speed rail undertaking a failure at launch. It’s called the Hyperloop, and it plans to whisk passengers in car-sized capsules through enclosed tubes at great speed, shortening the LA to San […]