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Amid continued debate over whether or not Sochi is prepared to host the 2014 Olympics, which begins Thursday, reporters from around the world are starting to check into local hotels - to their apparent grief. Some journalists arriving in Sochi are describing appalling conditions in the housing there, where only six of nine media hotels are ready for guests. Hotels are still under construction. Water, if it's running, isn't drinkable. One German photographer told the AP over the weekend that his hotel still had stray dogs and construction workers wandering in and out of rooms.

"Current students who take the free online college courses can earn certificates of completion, but not college credit. However, if MOOCs are determined to be close enough to traditional college courses as to become eligible for academic credit, they could make higher education more affordable and accessible, Ms. Lewin writes."

The first two-dimensional bar codes, or QR codes, as they're known, were installed Friday at Arpoador, a massive boulder that rises at the end of Ipanema beach. The image was built into the sidewalk with the same black and white stones that decorate sidewalks around town with mosaics of waves, fish and abstract images.

"State disinvestment in public higher education compels public universities to behave like private universities by focusing on attracting paying customers," concluded Ozan Jaquette, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies college pricing, in a study of flagship state institutions he co-authored last year.