Struggling Chicago's Many $100K-Plus Employees
OpenTheBooks
Chicago's manifest fiscal woes aren't stopping 10,600 government employees from bringing home six-figure incomes and higher, according to 2016 payroll data obtained through an open records request. This includes 1,000 city employees who pocketed at least $40,000 each in overtime. Under Mayor Rahm Emanuel's leadership, Chicago now has more six-figure public employees than the entire state government of Illinois. OpenTheBooks offers an interactive map search by ZIP code for the big payday winners. The Cutting Edge of Tech Is Where People Can't Read
Wall Street Journal
The internet's global expansion is entering a new phase, and it looks decidedly unlike the last one. Instead of typing searches and emails on pricey devices, newcomers in poorer, illiterate parts of the world are avoiding text, using voice activation and communicating with images via a low-end smartphones and cheap data plans. The tech industry calls these consumers "the next billion." And the future is beginning to look a lot like India. Afghanistan: Exit U.S., Enter Iran
New York Times
Tehran's accelerating campaign to exert influence over Afghanistan threatens to undo 16 years and half a trillion dollars' worth of American efforts to forge a stable democratic government. In an intensifying covert intervention only now coming to light, Iran is aiding its onetime enemies, the Taliban, to ensure a loyal proxy and keep the country destabilized, without tipping it over. But the effort risks backfiring: "People here hate the Iranian flag. They would burn it." Home Sales Are Where the Cyber-Scams Are
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It's a new type of scam exploiting real-estate proceedings, and it's turning up across the country: The FBI says a group of fraudsters with roots in West Africa used a suburban Pittsburgh auto shop as a base and fake emails to fool a settlement company into wiring them the proceeds of the sale of a Maryland couple's home. The take: $411,548 -- definitely not the realtor's standard 6 percent. New G.M.O. Frontier: 'Jurassic Park' in Conservation
Yale Environment 360
For conservationists championing biodiversity, invasive species are a constant challenge. But what if scientists could edit the genes of an invasive species so it only produced male offspring and died out? It sounds like "Jurassic Park," but new genetics technology is close to making that scenario possible. This is the next frontier in the G.M.O. debate. | 
