Category: Economics

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The aftermath of the Lac-Megantic crude railcar explosion in 2013. (Credit: Axel Drainvile via Flickr)

BOOM: North America’s Explosive Oil-by-Rail Problem

U.S. regulators knew they had to act fast. A train hauling 2 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota had exploded in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people. Now they had to assure Americans a similar disaster wouldn’t happen south of the border, where the U.S. oil boom is sending

Nurse

Americans Are Working So Hard, It’s Actually Killing People

Jessica Wheeler works the night shift as an oncology nurse at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in northeastern Pennsylvania—but her patients are usually wide awake. “When they have a new cancer diagnosis or they’re going to have a biopsy in the morning, they don’t sleep,”

When you eat a bowl of clam chowder in the U.S., you’re probably padding profits for British investors.

Corporate Fishing

What’s it take to buy a share of the ocean in America? For Lion Capital, the British private equity firm, the price is somewhere south of $980 million. That’s the sum the London-based firm paid three years ago when it bought Bumble Bee Foods, the

China’s Rise Creates Clouds of U.S. Pollution

MOUNT BACHELOR, Oregon – At more than 9,000 feet along the crest of Oregon’s Cascade mountain range, the top of this snow-covered peak normally enjoys some of America’s cleanest air. So when sensitive scientific instruments picked up ozone – the chief component of smog –

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For Financial Literacy, A Surprising Political War

When Kelly Cook and her husband tackled the daunting task of buying their dream home in Lebanon, Ohio, they got help from an unexpected source. Struggling to come up with a down payment, the couple discovered a program intended for moderate income homebuyers caught in

Chinese Demand Stokes U.S. Coal Battle

TRINIDAD, Colorado – When the New Elk mine reopened amid windblown prairies last winter, it attracted little attention. But the mine – a long shaft boring through some of the world’s most valuable coal – strikes at the heart of a growing debate about the future of American coal.

China’s Rising Consumer Class Sparks Climate Change Fears

TUOJIA VILLAGE, China – When you think about China’s growing greenhouse gas emissions, you probably don’t think of people like Zhang Chao or his father Zhang Dejun. Zhang Chao, a 35-year-old middle school teacher living in small city in southwestern

Investigative Report: Promises and Poverty

Starbucks calls its coffee worker-friendly,but in Ethiopia, a day’s pay is a dollar Text and photos by (APF Fellow) Tom Knudson – Bee Staff Writer APF fellow Tom Knudson’s article on Starbucks was published jointly by the Sacramento Bee and the Alicia Patterson Foundation.To access

Sweeping out the Plains

Text and photos by Jack Coffman and George Anthan In 1890, the federal Census Bureau announced that the nation’s frontier was closed. It’s opening up again. The great wave of population, which swept homesteaders onto the Northern Great Plains with the promise of free land

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“The Monkey’s Head”

Does a New Mexico museum have looted and smuggled artifacts in its collection? It’s among the best collections of pre-Columbian art anywhere. In a gallery at the Palace of the Governors museum in Santa Fe, N.M., dimly lit and hushed but for a viewer’s occasional

Stopping the Pillage

In Peru, villagers mobilize against the looters who ransack ancient sites A lean man in his 50s with skin burnished from a lifetime working in sugar cane fields, Gregorio Becerra remembers the days when his father used to bring home ancient ceramic pots to their

Oil workers putting a tap.

A Letter from Baku: The Story Behind the Oil

The first oil rush has attracted gangsters, spies and multinationals to frontier city Baku, Azerbaijan. At any hour in Baku you’re likely to run into Turkish “gangsters,” Chechen revolutionaries, Russian spies and oil men of every stripe, looking to make money any way they can.

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Polish Entrepreneurs after the 1989 Roundtable

Research chemist Malgorzata Dudek had worked for two decades at the technical university in Gliwice and in 1983 decided she wanted to apply that knowledge in a startup business. That proved too daunting. Her own knowledge was not the problem. She knew the state-owned chemical

Women Entrepreneurs in Poland

An unexpectedly large number of new businesses in Poland today are owned by women. Many are doing quite well, in manufacturing as well as in the service sector, helping propel Poland on its fast-track path toward a competitive market economy. Today, women are estimated to

The Noble oil fields in Baku Azerbaijan.

Oil Discovery Rocks the Caspian Sea

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN–The discovery of oil forever has changed the lands surrounding the Caspian Sea. APF photographer Stanley Greene spent time with workers, showing the rigs that are quickly extracting oil from this new field. The communities surrounding the new oil fields are finding their environment

In Baku, Azerbaijan, the oil industry is the ball and chain of the city’s environment.

Letter from Baku, Azerbaijan

On the farthest eastern reaches of Europe lies the Caspian Sea, a milky green land-locked sea that hides many treasures. In Baku, Azerbaijan, the oil industry is the ball and chain of the city’s environment. Traveling in the Caucasus is quite dangerous, especially by train.

A Dutch member of the International Police Task Force in Bosnia talks to Muslim villagers at a NATO barricade erected to keep villagers out of the zone-of-separation and from the Serb territory, where their prewar homes are located.

The City of Brcko: The Key to Bosnia’s Future

The billboard signs along the roadways of northeastern Bosnia say it all. Superimposed on a map of the country is the outline of a key with “Brcko” on it. The old river city, historically a crossroads between Europe and the East, holds the key to