Editor Leaves Bloomberg, Citing China Coverage … Ben Richardson, an editor at large in Asia at Bloomberg News, announced his resignation on Monday, citing the company's handling of an investigative report in China late last year. He is the third reporter or editor to leave the organization since several news organizations reported last November that Bloomberg had declined to publish an i...Read More

Noah epic awash in flood of controversy for green agenda and taking liberties with Bible … Hollywood studio adds "artistic licence" warning for "the least biblical biblical film ever made" starring Russell Crowe as Noah … It is truly a Hollywood epic of biblical proportions, the original disaster story of the man chosen by God to undertake the greatest rescue in his...Read More

Colorado approves retroactive reversal of marijuana convictions … The Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled that residents there convicted of marijuana possession before recreational weed was legalized may be eligible to have those decisions overturned. As of January 1, 2014, adults from Colorado are legally allowed to buy up to one ounce of marijuana under the state Constitution's recentl...Read More

Schumer: Senate has votes for media shield law … A supporter of a bill to protect reporters and the news media from having to reveal confidential sources said Friday the measure has the backing of the Obama administration and the support of enough senators to move ahead this year. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, spoke optimistically about prospects for the m...Read More

One Reason It May Be Harder to Find Flight 370: We Messed Up the Currents … Scientists say man-made climate change has fundamentally altered the currents of the vast, deep oceans where investigators are currently scouring for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, setting a complex stage for the ongoing search for MH370. If the Boeing 777 did plunge into the ocean somewhere in the vicinity o...Read More

Executive orders: Part of the framers' grand plan … President Barack Obama … is now using executive orders and other unilateral exercises of executive power to advance his agenda rather than wait on Republicans in Congress. The GOP has grown increasingly outraged by the president's actions. House Republicans last week passed the "Enforce the Law Act," part of a contin...Read More

Exclusive: Uruguay may import marijuana from Canada … While it waits for weed to grow, the South American country could turn to Canadian pot producers to kickstart its newly legalized marijuana industry, top lawmakers – including the first lady – tell GlobalPost. … Growing weed takes a while. Cultivating fields of it, figuring out how to keep the fields safe from poachers,...Read More

Budget 2014: Britain's false recovery is a credit mirage, unlike real recovery in the US … UK has a current account deficit running at more than 5pc of GDP, the worst in a quarter of a century and by far the worst of the G7 … David Bloom, from HSBC, says sterling is all of a sudden the "least ugly" currency in a world where even the Japanese and the Swiss are holding down...Read More

Feds launch contest to tout wood skyscrapers as 'global warming' mitigation tool … 'Programs are both part of the Obama administration's Climate Action Plan' … The Agriculture Department announced the launch today of a prize competition for high-rise wood architecture and a training program to support the use of wood in buildings. – Climate DepotDominant Socia...Read More

The truth is out: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it … The central bank can print as much money as it wishes. Back in the 1930s, Henry Ford is supposed to have remarked that it was a good thing that most Americans didn't know how banking really works, because if they did, "there'd be a revolution before tomorrow morning". Last week, something remarkable h...Read More

Changing Americans' Minds on Climate Change … The American Association for the Advancement of Science is trying to awaken more Americans to the dangers of climate change, with a report today that focuses on a clear and accessible explanation of the evidence. It's a commendable and necessary effort, but what if the problem goes deeper than language? The available polling data suggests...Read More

'It could be structured by cows and we'd rate it' … A popular narrative of the ratings agencies' role in the financial crisis goes something like: banks paid ratings agencies a lot of money to rate mortgage-backed securities, so the ratings agencies gave a lot of those securities undeserved AAA ratings, so a lot of investors were deceived into thinking those securities were s...Read More

Looming property default in China raises fears of broader crisis … Nomura said the number of ghost towns has spread beyond the well-known disaster stories of Ordos and Wenzhou to at least eight other sites … China faces the biggest property default on record as credit curbs threaten to break the housing boom, leaving a string of "ghost towns" across the country. The Chinese n...Read More

George Soros Predicts Ukraine Could Ruin The EU … The billionaire financier says in its tepid response to Russia's Crimea land grab, the EU flubbed a key chance to breathe new life into the stale union. George Soros, one of the world's leading investors, has warned that the European Union is in danger of falling apart if it fails to confront Vladimir Putin's naked aggression in U...Read More

Gold is king, but there may be a better way to store wealth … A great investing mistake is to try to predict the future. Really, an investment decision is more about the price you pay and whether you can afford to be wrong … Bitcoin needs to move past its current use as a payments processing tool to a realistic medium-term store of value. Its chief competitor is clearly gold. – S...Read More

John Kerry: Russia has until Monday to reverse course in Ukraine … Secretary of State John Kerry warned of serious repercussions for Russia on Monday if last-ditch talks over the weekend to resolve the crisis in Ukraine failed to persuade Moscow to soften its stance. Kerry will travel to London for a Friday meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ahead of a Sunday referendum vote...Read More

Holder backs plan to ease sentences for low-level drug dealers – Justice department says plan would lower dealer's average sentence by 11 months and reduce size of US prison population …The Obama administration on Thursday threw its weight behind a proposal designed to help reduce the massive US prison population … Attorney general Eric Holder on Thursday endorsed a proposal...Read More

Bank of England Sharpens Its Claws … There are lots of theories to explain the bubble and bust that wrecked so many people's lives over the past 10 years, but none is pithier than the common attitude of "I'll be gone, you'll be gone" among mid-level finance employees who actually make the big decisions about where to take risk. That's why the Bank of England should...Read More

The political classes have brought UKIP on themselves … In a seminal referendum in California in 1978, the public endorsed Proposition 13, limiting property taxes. It was described as a "primal scream by the People against Big Government". The British public are now delivering a primal scream of their own. Politicians, beware: only 23 per cent of people are satisfied with the way t...Read More

AIS files class-action suit against gold-fix banks … A U.S. investment-management firm has filed a lawsuit against the five banks that set the London benchmark gold price, alleging that the banks conspired to manipulate the price of gold for their own gain. – MarketWatchDominant Social Theme: Why would these people file a class-action lawsuit? They're bottom feeders. Gold is not ma...Read More