Search results for

The economy adds a decent number of jobs every month but there are big questions about the quality of some of those jobs. Many people getting hired these days do not have anything resembling a regular schedule and work fragmented and unpredictable hours.

Crowdfunding is a simple way for anyone to ask for money online from friends, family and even strangers. One woman raised $10,000 to help her neighbors affected by Hurricane Sandy. She's been hand-delivering checks to owners of damaged businesses and people who just need the extra lift.

Tales of Machiavellian office politics are all the rage in China, where "bureaucracy lit" is flying off bookstore shelves. The books are read as both entertainment and as how-to guides for aspiring civil servants. Pioneers of the genre offer a path to success in China's corridors of power.

Europe spent much of this year trying to hold its common currency pact together. Greece, Spain, Italy and other countries flirted with disaster as interest rates spiked, forcing the debtor nations to accept austerity programs. The turmoil was bad enough to push much of the eurozone into recession.

Japan has embarked on a massive effort to stimulate its economy. Both the government and the central bank are collaborating to end a long period of stagnation and deflation. But the effects are also being felt outside Japan.

The measures include a ban on guns in schools and criminal background checks for private gun sales. They follow a shooting at a crowded shopping mall in a Portland suburb just days before the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

In New York, the city is expected to begin demolishing some of the houses damaged by Superstorm Sandy. Inspectors have fanned out across the affected boroughs to determine which houses are safe to return to and which aren't. Some of the most-damaged neighborhoods are on the east side of Staten Island — next to New York Bay.

Africa is in the middle of what Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times calls an epic elephant slaughter. He says poachers are killing more elephants now than at any time in the last two decades. He talks to Steve Inskeep about what's behind the resurgence in poaching and where the ivory is going.

It first showed up in the 1950s and '60s — think low-slung sofas, egg-shaped chairs and the set of Mad Men. Today, midcentury modern furniture is "blazing hot," as one dealer puts it. One explanation is that people often like what their grandparents liked.

Renee Montagne talks to former Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, who stepped down in April, about the current energy boom and how he would like to change energy policy.