Governor Snyder's plan to pay Foxconn billions to "create jobs" is encountering resistance because of possible pollution from the factories.

However, other objections come from the same narrow-minded "more jobs in this state" thinking that makes schemes like this seem legitimate in the first place. We have to put an end to the practice of paying companies to locate here instead of there.

The UK is considering making it illegal to reidentify anonymous data.

I agree that this should not apply to researchers, but if it is limited to commercial activity and public relations or campaign activity, it would be ethical.

Would it be enforceable? If the penalties are sufficiently strong, organizations aiming for profit or other success would hesitate to violate the law.

The law needs to address the scenario where the reidentification is done in some other country but the usage is targeted at people in the UK. Usually some organization that operates in the UK will be paying for the service. If that organization can be identified and punished, that might make the law enforceable enough.

Elephants that have been brutalized in captivity by humans sometimes turn to self-harming, as some humans and parrots do in painful circumstances.

Chains of "academies" — semi-privatized schools — in the UK are training teachers to read from a script instead of thinking about their students. The author says this resembles sales training rather than education.

It can't be long before they replace the teachers with something like the Eliza program, or prerecorded videos.

2016 set records for the heat in the Arctic winter and shrinkage of ice around the world.

Also a record for the height of sea level — but that was automatic, since it rises every year. Sea level is now 3.25 inches above the 1993 level. This increase is enough to push some storms and high tides over the edge of the sea wall.