February 7, 2015

As the world’s manufacturing superpower, China is home to thousands of factories producing millions of items each day. Keeping track of all that industrial output is far from easy, though. With little oversight to monitor them, some Chinese factories make knock-off or simply poor quality products, and then sell them to retailers as if they were up to standard.

While pirated items are mainly a headache for the company that gets ripped off, products made cheaply or without regard for Continue reading

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January 23, 2015

Jeff Oberholtzer, a plumber from Texas City, TX, thought he had seen the last of his old pickup truck when he sold it in October 2013. Unfortunately for him, the Ford F-250 he offloaded popped up more than a year later in a place he never would have expected. In mid-December 2014, a terrorist Twitter account from Syria posted a picture of two extremists firing a homemade anti-aircraft gun from the bed of a truck. While the picture normally would Continue reading

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January 19, 2015

At the beginning of 2015 a new California law went into effect requiring chicken farmers to provide more living space for their hens. As of January 1, every egg sold in the state must have been laid by a bird with at least 116 square inches of room in its coop, an increase of 73 percent from the industry standard. Although the legislation is mandatory only for egg producers in California, chicken farmers across the country are quickly adapting to Continue reading

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January 5, 2015

Movie theaters have worried about being phased out by home entertainment even before the VCR started dominating living rooms in the 1980s. While Hollywood has largely continued to thrive over the decades despite these fears, today the rise of streaming video presents movie theaters with their greatest challenge yet. The industry is especially afraid of losing touch with young moviegoers who are growing up with on-demand services like Netflix and Spotify. The cracks may already be showing: attendance of movie Continue reading

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