Category: Finance

Picture this: You’re looking to buy a place to live, and you have two options. Option A is a beautiful home in California near good schools and job opportunities. But it goes for nearly a million dollars – the median California home sells for US$906,500 – and you’d be paying a mortgage that’s risen 82% […]

In early 2022, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Social Policy, Kostiantyn Koshelenko, was focused on a multi-year project to modernize how his country delivered government support to citizens. The planned Unified Information System of the Social Sphere (UISSS) would consolidate 15 separate databases into one platform, laying groundwork to create a more harmonized user experience. Then […]

On the Bonthe Sherbro River estuary of Sierra Leone, the air is filled with the scent of saltwater, fish, and woodsmoke. For the people who live here, daily life revolves around the rhythms of the estuary, and many have built their livelihoods around the resources of the sea and land. However, intensive harvesting of mangrove […]

Imagine going from having a book club with your co-workers to seeing them only on a Signal chat where every member has to be vetted – and the main conversation topic is when you might lose your job. That’s what it was like for workers at one federal agency earlier this year. “I’d never seen […]

Dublin, December 3, 2025 – Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon TD has confirmed the release of €9.5 million in payments under the 2025 Protein Aid Scheme, a key support initiative for Ireland’s tillage sector. Boost for Sustainable Farming The scheme incentivises the cultivation of nitrogen‑fixing crops such as beans, peas, lupins, […]

Even before this year’s Spotify Wrapped drops, I have a hunch what mine will reveal. I’m guessing I’ll be among Spotify’s top 1% of listeners for an obscure 2004 track titled “Rusty Chevrolet” by the Irish band Shanneyganock. I heard it first thanks to my son, whose friend had been singing it on the swings […]

When you hear the phrase “family business,” you might think of the backstabbing Roys of “Succession” or the dysfunctional Duttons of “Yellowstone.” But while TV’s family companies are entertaining, their real-life counterparts may be even more compelling. Around the world, family businesses produce about two-thirds of all economic output and employ more than half of […]

House lawmakers released damning correspondence between economist Larry Summers and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Nov. 12, 2025. The exchanges, which were among more than 20,000 newly released public documents, documented how Summers – a former U.S. Treasury secretary and Harvard University president – repeatedly sought Epstein’s advice while pursuing an intimate […]

New York’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, campaigned on a promise to raise the city’s income tax on its richest residents from 3.9% to 5.9%. Combined with the state income tax, which is 10.9% for the top bracket, the increase would cement the city’s position as having the highest taxes on top earners in the country. It […]

The EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems 2025 report and the FAO State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition in the World report, both recently released, have delivered a clear warning – the world’s food systems are failing both people and the planet.   Both reports hammer home the need for greater financing […]