PODCAST: PhD’s dance, Medicare gets a checkup
Vikram Pandit is stepping down as CEO of Citigroup. He’ll be replaced by Michael Corbat, who runs some of the banks overseas divisions. Though, investors are hanging tight at Citigroup — shares are up just a bit.
Later this week China puts out its GDP growth for the latest quarter. It now looks like growth in China will be even slower than officials expected, something that’s developing into a bit of a theme lately with China.
For Cubans, the world is about to get a lot bigger. For decades, travel for business or pleasure has been extremely difficult for Cubans, but today the government says it is lifting its onerous exit permit process, starting in the new year.
As the U.S. military starts to withdraw forces from Afghanistan, it is ending a program aimed at building up the country’s infrastructure through what are called provincial reconstruction teams.
In 2010, Congress and President Obama made some big changes to the repayment rules for student loans. The idea, at least as proposed by the president, was to lighten the load for people emerging into a uncertain job market where incomes have been stagnant. Those changes are being phased in now, and today the nonpartisan New America Foundation is out with a report that suggests those changes might not benefit the people who need them most.
So what are the odds, you think, Medicare will show up at tonight’s presidential debate? It’s been in heavy rotation on the campaign trail. That made us wonder what it’d be like if Medicare itself went in for a check-up.
And finally, congratulations to Peter Liddicoat, a scientist at the University of Sydney and winner of this year’s “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest. Every year the journal Science invites people convey their arcane dissertation topics through interpretive dance. Liddicoat’s five minute performance involved a costumes cast of 28, all dramatizing the title of his thesis, “Evolution of nanostructural architecture in 7000 series aluminium alloys during strengthening by age-hardening and severe plastic deformation.” It’s really better as a dance.
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