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You can think of Mr. Obama’s argument as falling into two categories (even if he didn’t say so): the reasons that overall economic growth may accelerate, and the reasons that middle- and low-income workers may benefit more from that growth than they have lately.

On the growth side of the ledger, both energy and education have been problems.

And the number of high-school and college graduates is rising. The financial crisis deserves some perverse credit, because it sent people fleeing back to school, much as the Great Depression did

How Putin Forged a Pipeline Deal That Derailed

The pipeline, known as South Stream, was Mr. Putin’s most important European project, a tool of economic and geopolitical power critical to twin goals: keeping Europe hooked on Russian gas, and further entrenching Russian influence in fragile former Soviet satellite states as part of a broader effort to undermine European unity.

The bill that Parliament took up on April 4 was arcane. But it swept aside a host of European regulations — rules that Mr. Putin did not want to abide by — for a pipeline that would deliver gas throughout southern Europe. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage In Diplomatic Defeat, Putin Diverts Pipeline to TurkeyDEC. 1, 2014

Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

The Americans might have invented the world’s best methods for teaching math to children, but it was difficult to find anyone actually using them.

In fact, efforts to introduce a better way of teaching math stretch back to the 1800s. The story is the same every time: a big, excited push, followed by mass confusion and then a return to conventional practices.

A Multibillion-Dollar Question for Airbus and Its A330

While the A330 continues to generate around 40 percent of Airbus’s civilian aircraft profits, new orders for the plane have slowed significantly in recent years.

But with the wait times to receive new planes now stretching to more than six years, airlines have been slower to reach for their checkbooks.

Italy Falls Back Into Recession, Raising Concern for Eurozone Economy

Some economists argue that the region is already well into a so-called lost decade.

Analysts surmised that the strained relations with Russia as well as turmoil in the Middle East had undercut demand for Italian exports, in particular fashion and other luxury goods.

The problem with TTIP

The TPP is a deep international integration arrangement between the US and 11 other Pacific states, which would cover 40% of world GDP and over 30% of world trade. It seeks to address as series of issues that 21st century commerce, but arguably its most obvious feature is that it excludes China – the world’s largest international trader and before long the world’s largest economy. There are, of course, the ritual genuflections towards ‘open regionalism’ – China can join if only it will agree to the necessary policy requirements – but this is about as much use as saying the Chief Rabbi can dine with you while insisting that the menu contains pork.

By signing TTIP Europe would be tying itself to a static rather than a dynamic part of the world economy and substantially reinforcing the US’s exclusionary policies.

Mr. Balter calls Apple a financial “Rock of Gibraltar"— it is sitting on $150.6 billion of cash

Chief among them is a reliance on small creative teams whose membership remains intact to this day

And Mr. Ive pointed to another enduring value: a complete focus on the product.

Solar and Wind Energy Start to Win on Price vs. Conventional Fuels

In Texas, Austin Energy signed a deal this spring for 20 years of output from a solar farm at less than 5 cents a kilowatt-hour.

Without subsidies, the firm’s analysis shows, solar costs about 7.2 cents a kilowatt-hour at the low end, with wind at 3.7 cents.

Air France-KLM to Cut Investments by $680 Million

Malaria in Widening Area Resists Drug, Study Finds

Germany’s Insistence on Austerity Meets With Revolt in the Eurozone

Ms. Merkel and her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, are far more likely to stick to balancing Germany’s federal budget, “a very strange objective to announce in current circumstances,” Mr. Fratzscher, who is president of the German Institute of the Economy in Berlin, said in an interview.

While they may agree to increase spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure in Germany, he added, the German leaders are not likely to back similar policies for France and Italy, which in Berlin’s view cannot afford it.

The other driving schools have sued them, saying their innovations break the rules.

partly because getting a driver’s license here is so difficult and expensive that it has inspired books on the subject,

their struggle highlights how the myriad rules governing driving schools — and 36 other highly regulated professions — stifle competition and inflate prices in France.

Europe’s Farmers Feel the Weight of Russian Ban

For Fromi Rungis, Russia accounted for 10 percent of its foreign sales.

As such examples suggest, political identity has shifted to something less civil and more primordial.

When sectarian or ethnic minorities have ruled countries – for example, the Sunnis of Iraq – they typically have a strong interest in downplaying sectarianism or ethnicity. They often become the chief proponents of a broader, civic concept of national belonging, in theory embracing all peoples. In Iraq, that concept was Ba’athism. And while it was more identified with the Sunni minority than with the Shia majority, it endured for decades as a vehicle for national unity, albeit a cruel and cynical one.

Sectarianism thus came to frame Iraqi politics, making it impossible to organize non-sectarian parties on the basis of, say, shared socioeconomic interests. In Iraqi politics today (leaving aside the Kurds), seldom does a Sunni Arab vote for a Shia Arab, or a Shia for a Sunni. There is competition among Shia parties and among Sunni parties; but few voters cross the sectarian line –

The cost of shipping a 40-foot container from Shanghai to the United States has risen to $8,000, compared with $3,000 early in the decade, according to a recent study of transportation costs. Big container ships, the pack mules of the 21st-century economy, have shaved their top speed by nearly 20 percent to save on fuel costs, substantially slowing shipping times.

Jeffrey E. Garten, the author of “World View: Global Strategies for the New Economy” and a former dean of the Yale School of Management, said that companies “cannot take a risk that the just-in-time system won’t function, because the whole global trading system is based on that notion.” As a result, he said, “they are going to have to have redundancies in the supply chain, like more warehousing and multiple sources of supply and even production.”

In a more regionalized trading world, economists say, China would probably end up buying more of the iron ore it needs from Australia and less from Brazil, and farming out an even greater proportion of its manufacturing work to places like Vietnam and Thailand.

The Myth of Industrial Rebound

“We’re focusing on the trade impact,” said Mr. Lin, a professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at Peking University’s School of Physics. “Trade changes the location of production and thus affects emissions.”

“Dust, ozone and carbon can accumulate in valleys and basins in California and other Western states,” the statement said.Black carbon is a particular problem because rain does not wash it out of the atmosphere, so it persists across long distances, the statement said. Black carbon is linked to asthma, cancer, emphysema, and heart and lung disease.

The study’s scientists also looked at the impact of China’s export industries on its own air quality. They estimated that in 2006, China’s exporting of goods to the United States was responsible for 7.4 percent of production-based Chinese emissions for sulfur dioxide, 5.7 percent for nitrogen oxides, 3.6 percent for black carbon and 4.6 percent for carbon monoxide.

Homeowners in Poland Borrowed in Swiss Francs, and Now Pay Dearly

Europe's Young Entrepreneurs

Mr. D’Aloisio was still a 17-year-old British student in 2013 when he sold his news-reading app, Summly, to Yahoo for what some reports said was as much as $30 million.

Jan Koum, the Ukrainian-born American who was a co-founder of WhatsApp, a mobile messaging application.The company was acquired by Facebook a few months later. “I turned down his offer, but since his company then got sold for $19 billion and every employee held some options, it’s a bit painful to think about that decision,” Mr. Cuende said.

Falling Oil Prices, a Boon to Airlines, Pose a Challenge for Airbus and Boeing