Meet "Sledgehammer Shannon," the lawyer who is Uber’s worst nightmare

In early 2012, on a visit to San Francisco, Shannon Liss-Riordan went to a restaurant with some friends. Over dinner, one of her companions began to describe a new car-hailing app that had taken Silicon Valley by storm. "Have you seen this?" he asked, tapping Uber on his phone. "It's changed my life." Liss-Riordan glanced at the little black cars snaking around on his screen. "He looked up at me and he knew what I was thinking," she remembers.
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5 New Year's Resolutions for Gardeners

Consider putting gardening at the top of your list New Year's resolutions.
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Obamacare Insurers Sweeten Plans With Free Doctor Visits

Health insurers in several big cities will take some pain out of doctor visits in 2016. The plans will offer free visits to primary care doctors in their networks.
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Anne Frank foundation fights plans to publish diary online on 1 January

Seventy years after Anne’s death, an academic and a French MP say the diary is public domain, despite objections from foundation set up by Otto Frank.
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By 2050, There Could Be as Many as 25 Million Poor Elderly Americans

As the Boomers age, there are going to be a lot more people living in poverty.
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The problem with science journalism: we’ve forgotten that reality matters most

It’s the job of science journalists to look beyond data – we have to look at the people doing the science and whether they have conflicts of interest
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These giant robots will mine the ocean floor for gold, silver, and copper

They could collect more than $1.5 billion worth of metals.
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Poor people in the Deep South are on their own

In the Deep South’s cities, simply applying for a job exposes a particularly pervasive and isolating form of poverty. By Chico Harlan.
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Climate economics: The high road

Michael Grubb is both swept away and frustrated by Nicholas Stern's argument for tackling climate change.
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Fleeting Wonders: 400 Glow-in-the-Dark Reindeer

If you're on the lookout for magical reindeer this year, don't bother gazing skyward... By Cara Giaimo.
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A Strange Tale of Fruitcakes and the Collin Street Bakery

Sandy Jenkins was a shy, daydreaming accountant at the Collin Street Bakery, the world’s most famous fruitcake company. He was tired of feeling invisible, So he started stealing—and got a little carried away. By Katy Vine.
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The case for an entirely new calendar

Why the 12-month calendar is sorely out of date. There is precedent for the shift. Ogle points out that the world didn't agree on common time until the 20th century.
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High Caliber Television

The planned launch of Gun TV, a home-shopping channel devoted exclusively to selling firearms to impulsive shut-ins, is an idea so purely American that one can only marvel that it’s taken this long to come to life. By Chris Lehmann. (Dec. 17)
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The Destruction of Workers’ Compensation

Over the past 25 years, the giant meatpacking company Tyson Foods has taken a lead in pushing for changes in workers’ comp in state after state—often to the detriment of workers. By Michael Grabell. (Dec. 15)
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Spotify Hit With $150 Million Class Action Over Unpaid Royalties

Vocal artist rights advocate David Lowery brings a massive action against the largest streaming service. Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker frontman David Lowery, retaining the law firm of Michelman & Robinson, LLP, has filed a class action lawsuit seeking at least $150 million in damages against Spotify, alleging it knowingly, willingly, and unlawfully reproduces and distributes copyrighted compositions without obtaining mechanical licenses.
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Louis Vuitton gains +10 charisma by enlisting Final Fantasy’s Lightning

The overlap between Final Fantasy XIII fans and people who splash out on Louis Vuitton handbags might be a slim one, but modern marketing is all about exploiting those profitable niches.
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How Hollywood Caught the UK's Most Prolific Movie Pirates

Last week the UK's most prolific movie pirates were handed sentences totaling 17 years. With claims in court that the men went to great lengths to hide their identities, just how easy was it to catch them? Papers detailing the investigation obtained by TorrentFreak reveal that tracking the men down was a relatively simple affair.
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Saudi riyal in danger as oil war escalates

“If anything happens to the riyal exchange peg, the consequences will be dramatic," warns the country's exchange rate guru. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.
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2015 was the year big tech companies all started to look the same

This year, in lieu of the traditional Best Of Lists, we thought it would be fun to throw our editors into a draft together and just have a conversation. For our kick-off chat, Lauren Goode and Dieter Bohn discuss how tech's biggest companies have essentially been copying each other's strategies. Google is making hardware, Apple is launching products faster than we can keep up, Microsoft is going all in on mobile. If this is the year everybody wants to be everybody else...
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U.S. Companies Led the World in 2015 Debt Defaults, S&P Says

More U.S. companies have defaulted on their debt this year than issuers from any other country or region, S&P analysts led by Diane Vazza wrote in a Dec. 24 report.
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Whole Foods Will Pay $500,000 to End New York Pricing Investigation

Whole Foods Market Inc. agreed to pay $500,000 to settle an investigation that it overcharged customers for prepackaged food in New York City, resolving a spat that had hurt efforts to shed its “Whole Paycheck” image. The company said that there was no evidence of “systematic or intentional misconduct” but agreed to pay the fine to “put this issue behind us,” according to a statement on its website.
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The wealthiest American families have built a private tax system for the rich. Here’s how it works.

The very richest are able to quietly shape tax policy that will allow them to shield millions, if not billions, of their income.
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Backlog of unapproved generic drugs helps boost drug prices

With anger soaring over high drug prices, 4,300 cheaper generic drugs are awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration. 
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Could ‘resurrection plants’ be the future of food?

They are among the hardiest living things on Earth – could they transform the food on our plates? One scientist in South Africa believes so.
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Stupid Patent of the Month: Microsoft’s Design Patent on a Slider

For the first time ever, this month’s Stupid Patent of the Month is being awarded to a design patent. Microsoft recently sued Corel for, among other things, infringing its patent on a slider, D554,140, claiming that Corel Home Office has infringed Microsoft’s design. The design patent, as detailed by Microsoft in its complaint, is titled “User Interface for a Portion of a Display Screen” and entitles Microsoft to own this:
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Can a French Friar End the 21st-Century Slave Trade?

It’s 2015, and more than 20 million people are still held in some form of slavery all over the world. Traveling deep into the Amazon, William Langewiesche discovers why an unspeakable degradation is proving so hard to combat—and finds a man of God who has dedicated his life to the fight.
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First Book mixes market forces and philanthropy to help poor children

First Book is a nonprofit organization that provides free books to poor children nationwide. The group is also branching out to fill other needs of the growing ranks of low-income children, including winter coats.
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Disruptors Pour In To India's Tea Market

Change has finally arrived in an industry that has altered little in India for almost 200 years, since the British brought Chinese tea plants to the country to gain influence over global trade. The sweet and milky tea concoction called chai is getting an image makeover at home as disruptors seek to tap the huge potential of the export market.
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The Argument for Universal Basic Income - Evonomics

What stands in its way?
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Walls Not Included

How Four Roommates Got Duped Into Camping In A $6K A Month Williamsburg Death-Trap. By Nathan Tempey.
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Class of 2016

Our top pick of those artists and writers whose works will in 2016 be entering the public domain in many countries around the world.
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P&O cruise ship Pacific Eden a 'floating disaster', say furious passengers

After 60 of the 1,500 people on board were struck down with gastroenteritis angry passengers described the ship as ‘worse than a one-star hotel’
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How Corporations Become Evil

One day in 1979, James Burke, the chief executive of Johnson & Johnson, summoned more than 20 of his key people into a room, jabbed his finger at an internal document, and proposed destroying it. The document was hardly incriminating. Entitled “Our Credo,” its plainspoken list of principles—including a higher duty to “mothers, and all others who use our products”—had been a fixture on company walls since 1943.
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2,000-Year-Old Public Laundry in Pompeii, Restored and Opened to the Public for the First Time

In Pompeii, the well-preserved Roman city inundated by hot volcanic gas and then covered with ash in 79 AD, experts have renovated and opened to public viewing several buildings.
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Stop Idolizing Penny Pinchers

When the media praises the heroically frugal, there’s an ugly subtext: that our financial woes are exclusively our faults. By Helaine Olen. (Dec. 16)
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Why Asia Craves America’s Pig DNA

“You don’t just buy animals. You buy genetic progress.” By Andrew Martin.
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Why medicine costs so much in America

America's unique pharmaceutical pricing system, explained. By Julia Belluz. (Dec. 18)
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The Fight To Preserve Traditional Pastureland

Herders from five continents recently came together in India to discuss climate change, political borders and other problems facing pastoralists and their pastureland.
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How the internet misled you in 2015

It was another busy year for journalists debunking fake or misleading images on social media.
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Why Free Markets Make Fools of Us

George Akerlof and Robert Shiller believe that once we understand human psychology, we will be a lot less enthusiastic about free markets and a lot more worried about the harmful effects of competition. In their view, companies exploit human weaknesses not necessarily because they are malicious or venal, but because the market makes them do it. By Cass R. Sunstein. (Oct. 22)
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In the age of Amazon, used bookstores are making an unlikely comeback

As the pendulum swings back to print, used bookstores are thriving, with new ones opening around the nation.
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Hashtag backlash: marketing campaigns that turned into social media disasters

Guardian Australia looks back at some advertising efforts of 2015 that met with stinging criticism online, including Woolworths’ ill-fated Anzac Day campaign
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Boardwalk Vampire

Governed for decades by racketeers and corrupt politicians, Atlantic City blew its chances at revival. By Steven Malanga. (Autumn)
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The Mochileros

High stakes in the high Andes - the young backpackers risking their lives in cocaine valley. By Linda Pressly.(Nov. 24)
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9 of 10 Largest US Occupations Pay Miserly Wages

Of the 10 largest occupations in the United States, only one — registered nurse — makes more than the national average when it comes to all U.S. jobs. Nurses make $69,790 annually while the average U.S. worker makes $47,230, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Home insurers rush to exclude drones as Christmas sees popularity soar

Canny underwriters have forseen the risk of drones falling into the hands of 'amateurs, fools and children'
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Cash losing its currency? – Sweden prepares to bid farewell to physical money

How long will Swedes continue queuing at cash machines to get their Kroner? The answer is, maybe not that long at all.
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Get ready to pay more for cable, again

Your cable bill is going up. Again. Time Warner, Comcast, Dish and AT&T are upping the price for their services. Cost of fresh programming, sports is blamed
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Fruit Walls: Urban Farming in the 1600s

From the 16th to the 20th century, urban farmers grew Mediterranean fruits and vegetables as far north as England and the Netherlands, using only renewable energy. These crops were grown surrounded by massive "fruit walls", which stored the heat from the sun and released it at night, creating a microclimate that could increase the temperature by more than 10°C (18°F). It was only at the very end of the nineteenth century that the greenhouse turned into an artificially heated building.
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Bogus title transfer clouds Petco ownership

With many wondering whether the Chargers are leaving Qualcomm Stadium for Los Angeles, San Diego’s other major sports venue — Petco Park — has become the subject of a bizarre ownership controversy sparked by a mentally ill man who filed a simple document. Derris Devon McQuaig took legal title to the downtown ballpark away from the city and the Padres two years ago by walking into the San Diego County Recorder’s Officer and submitting...
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