National / International News

It's called the "Last Great Race on Earth" and spans nearly 1,000 miles. Along the trail, veterinarians will be there at checkpoints to make sure the dogs competing are healthy enough to make it through the final dash.

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Following November's losses, there's wide agreement among Republicans that the party has to change. A former George W. Bush speechwriter says one model to study is how the Democrats bounced back after a similar political exile in the late 1980s.

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A terrific second-half try from Tom Biggs sets up victory for Bath in their local derby with Gloucester.

A former senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is under fire for expressing doubts about jailing viewers of child pornography.

The White House-Woodward spat is part of a longer story about the professional life of one of America's most famous journalists.

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The Sheffield stadium where Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis trains is to be closed.

More than 2 feet of snow hit the high plains this week, snarling travel and all but shutting down some cities. Despite those hassles, for farmers and ranchers, the snow brings some urgently needed moisture to their drought-stricken fields and pastures.

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A 36-year-old man is arrested in connection with four indecent assaults over a period of a month on young women in Glasgow.

It's a brave new energy world, with two major opponents: natural gas and coal. As prices fluctuate and renewables, such as wind and solar, fight for a share of energy generation, there's heated competition for access to your wall socket.

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Is Carwyn Jones out-foxing Plaid's USP, asks Betsan Powys

Until recently, our brains' way of connecting food with love and a sense of well-being was purely a good thing. But in a world where it's possible to feast every day, it can be a problem.

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A British survivor of the Egypt hot-air balloon tragedy has returned to the UK after being discharged from hospital.

The Colombian city of Medellin is voted as the world's most innovative for its modern transport system, environmental policies and cultural offerings.

You hear it all the time. A college degree is pretty much a must these days in the workforce. But employers often complain that today’s college graduates aren’t cutting it. Marketplace teamed up with The Chronicle of Higher Education to find out what exactly employers are looking for from today's grads.

In our survey of about 700 employers around the country, nearly a third said colleges are doing a “fair” to “poor” job of producing “successful employees.” Despite persistently high unemployment, more than half of the employers said they had trouble finding qualified candidates for job openings.

So what gives? We decided to put one of these dissatisfied employers in a room with a soon-to-be college graduate, in a sort of mock job interview.

Our jobseeker is Mourya Abbareddy. He’s a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond – a computer science and economics double major with a B average. He shows up in a jacket and tie.

David Boyes – no tie – runs a technology consulting firm called Sine Nomine Associates. That’s Latin for “without a name.” The company of about 20 full time employees is based in Ashburn, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. It does everything from data-center design to strategic planning for businesses like IBM and Cisco.

“They’ll ask us how do we take this from an idea to something that they can actually build or do,” Boyes says. He typically hires recent college grads as entry-level analysts. They do a lot of the research to bring those ideas to life.

Boyes – one of the employers in our survey, and Abbareddy – our willing victim – take a seat at the conference table and the grilling begins.

“Is there some way where you’ve been asked to work in a team,” Boyes asks. “To take an abstract idea and make it concrete, and if so, how?”

Abbareddy has a ready example, describing a class assignment to design a computer game with a team of students.

So far, so good. Abbareddy seems to be avoiding one pitfall in the job hunt: not being prepared. Two-thirds of employers in our survey with The Chronicle said grads need work on their interviewing skills.

Boyes gets more specific. “How did you kind of develop the idea for the game?” he asks.

“We had requirements on what we had to have in the game, and then from there we just threw around ideas,” Abbareddy says.

That’s not what Boyes wanted to hear. He was hoping for something a little more...thought out.

“We find that a lot of people, and not just new college grads, people that are coming from a career, aren’t getting that skill set,” Boyes says. “How you put an idea forward, and how do you support it, how do you build it, how do you put the facts behind it? All of those things are really critical.

Boyes sounds like a lot of the employers who responded to our survey. More than half of them said they have trouble finding qualified people for job openings. They said recent grads too often don’t know how to communicate effectively. And they have trouble adapting, problem solving and making decisions – things employers say they should have learned in college.

That’s why everyone Boyes hires goes through a year-long training program. “The company puts probably about a quarter of a million dollars into every single new hire,” Boyes says. “But that’s the kind of value that we get out of it.”

The training covers basics – like how to write an effective business document – and throws in some philosophy and history

“We ask people to read Cato the Elder,” Boyes says. “We ask people to read Seutonius.”

Jobseekers, take note: you better brush up on your on your early Roman history.

“We do that because we ask them to look at the process – the abstract process – of organizing ideas,” Boyes says.

Sounds a lot like an argument for liberal arts education, at a time when more students are being told to study science and technology as a path to a career. Maguire Associates, the firm that conducted the survey, says the findings suggest colleges should break down the “false dichotomy of liberal arts and career development,” saying they’re “intrinsically linked.”

Or, as Boyes puts it: “We don’t need mono-focused people. We need well-rounded people.” And that’s from a tech employer.

For his part, Abbareddy says he’s had a well-rounded education at Virginia Commonwealth. Granted there was no Seutonious in the mix, but he took rhetoric along with courses on data structures and algorithm analysis.

And he did something else that employers really go crazy for. “I did an internship,” Abbareddy says. 

And that brings us to one of the most surprising things we learned from our survey. In industries across the board, employers viewed an internship as the single most important credential for recent grads – more than where you went to school or what you majored in. Even your grades.

“I learned a lot more from that internship than I did in school,” Abbareddy says. “It’s a different kind of learning.”

After a few more questions, things start looking up for Abbareddy. And what began as a mock interview looks like it could turn into a real job.

“You’ve made a pretty good case, in terms of somebody we’d be interested in talking to more,” Boyes tells him.

Outside, I ask Abbareddy how he thinks it went. Is Boyes is asking too much of someone fresh out of school? Did his university let him down? What he says surprises me.

“I think it’s more up to the student than the university,” Abbareddy says. “The school can’t teach you everything.”

Back inside, David Boyes says he wasn’t just being polite. He might take a chance on a job candidate like Abbareddy.

“We would have to make those investments in him,” he says. “Is he worth it? We’d have to see. But on the other hand I think he has a chance, and certainly if he sends me a resume, I would probably look at it.”

Abbareddy says he will. He graduates in the fall.

See how qualified you are….. try our simulator above and read more.

You hear it all the time. A college degree is pretty much a must these days in the workforce. But employers often complain that today’s college graduates aren’t cutting it. Marketplace teamed up with The Chronicle of Higher Education to find out what exactly employers are looking for from today's grads.

In our survey of about 700 employers around the country, nearly a third said colleges are doing a “fair” to “poor” job of producing “successful employees.” Despite persistently high unemployment, more than half of the employers said they had trouble finding qualified candidates for job openings.

So what gives? We decided to put one of these dissatisfied employers in a room with a soon-to-be college graduate, in a sort of mock job interview.

Our jobseeker is Mourya Abbareddy. He’s a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond – a computer science and economics double major with a B average. He shows up in a jacket and tie.

David Boyes – no tie – runs a technology consulting firm called Sine Nomine Associates. That’s Latin for “without a name.” The company of about 20 full time employees is based in Ashburn, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. It does everything from data-center design to strategic planning for businesses like IBM and Cisco.

“They’ll ask us how do we take this from an idea to something that they can actually build or do,” Boyes says. He typically hires recent college grads as entry-level analysts. They do a lot of the research to bring those ideas to life.

Boyes – one of the employers in our survey, and Abbareddy – our willing victim – take a seat at the conference table and the grilling begins.

“Is there some way where you’ve been asked to work in a team,” Boyes asks. “To take an abstract idea and make it concrete, and if so, how?”

Abbareddy has a ready example, describing a class assignment to design a computer game with a team of students.

So far, so good. Abbareddy seems to be avoiding one pitfall in the job hunt: not being prepared. Two-thirds of employers in our survey with The Chronicle said grads need work on their interviewing skills.

Boyes gets more specific. “How did you kind of develop the idea for the game?” he asks.

“We had requirements on what we had to have in the game, and then from there we just threw around ideas,” Abbareddy says.

That’s not what Boyes wanted to hear. He was hoping for something a little more...thought out.

“We find that a lot of people, and not just new college grads, people that are coming from a career, aren’t getting that skill set,” Boyes says. “How you put an idea forward, and how do you support it, how do you build it, how do you put the facts behind it? All of those things are really critical.

Boyes sounds like a lot of the employers who responded to our survey. More than half of them said they have trouble finding qualified people for job openings. They said recent grads too often don’t know how to communicate effectively. And they have trouble adapting, problem solving and making decisions – things employers say they should have learned in college.

That’s why everyone Boyes hires goes through a year-long training program. “The company puts probably about a quarter of a million dollars into every single new hire,” Boyes says. “But that’s the kind of value that we get out of it.”

The training covers basics – like how to write an effective business document – and throws in some philosophy and history

“We ask people to read Cato the Elder,” Boyes says. “We ask people to read Seutonius.”

Jobseekers, take note: you better brush up on your on your early Roman history.

“We do that because we ask them to look at the process – the abstract process – of organizing ideas,” Boyes says.

Sounds a lot like an argument for liberal arts education, at a time when more students are being told to study science and technology as a path to a career. Maguire Associates, the firm that conducted the survey, says the findings suggest colleges should break down the “false dichotomy of liberal arts and career development,” saying they’re “intrinsically linked.”

Or, as Boyes puts it: “We don’t need mono-focused people. We need well-rounded people.” And that’s from a tech employer.

For his part, Abbareddy says he’s had a well-rounded education at Virginia Commonwealth. Granted there was no Seutonious in the mix, but he took rhetoric along with courses on data structures and algorithm analysis.

And he did something else that employers really go crazy for. “I did an internship,” Abbareddy says. 

And that brings us to one of the most surprising things we learned from our survey. In industries across the board, employers viewed an internship as the single most important credential for recent grads – more than where you went to school or what you majored in. Even your grades.

“I learned a lot more from that internship than I did in school,” Abbareddy says. “It’s a different kind of learning.”

After a few more questions, things start looking up for Abbareddy. And what began as a mock interview looks like it could turn into a real job.

“You’ve made a pretty good case, in terms of somebody we’d be interested in talking to more,” Boyes tells him.

Outside, I ask Abbareddy how he thinks it went. Is Boyes is asking too much of someone fresh out of school? Did his university let him down? What he says surprises me.

“I think it’s more up to the student than the university,” Abbareddy says. “The school can’t teach you everything.”

Back inside, David Boyes says he wasn’t just being polite. He might take a chance on a job candidate like Abbareddy.

“We would have to make those investments in him,” he says. “Is he worth it? We’d have to see. But on the other hand I think he has a chance, and certainly if he sends me a resume, I would probably look at it.”

Abbareddy says he will. He graduates in the fall.

See how qualified you are….. try our simulator above and read more.

Experts say that Rodman's head-to-head with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might reveal something of value.

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Sequester -- maybe the only good thing you can say is that it's a heck of a Scrabble word. Our political leaders couldn't cut a budget deal, so the poison pill of spending cuts they deliberately designed to be too bitter to swallow is now stuck in our national throat. President Obama warned of dire consequences. But we'll leave the politics of this mess to others. What Marketplace Money wants to know, as usual, is how this will affect ordinary people. We're not thinking about aircraft carriers and corporate profits, although those are important. We're thinking about retirement funds and credit card rates. And what will all this economic uncertainty do to our lives? Bottom line: How much doom and gloom do we need to be ready for? Here to advise us on how much Sequester Prozac we're going to need is economist and author Julianne Malveaux.

When we go to work on Monday, will we find that the sky has fallen?

"No, the sky doesn't fall on Monday. The sky probably falls on March 27 when we go again to see whether we'll close government. In the meantime, I think we've already seen the effect of sequester on consumers. Spending at Walmart went down. Now Walmart is where you can get the cheapest stuff. So it suggests that even working class people are being very careful about what they're spending and we know that spending is what drives the market.

Will this affect retirement plans? Interest rates? Ability to get a loan? How will this affect ordinary consumers?

"If you work for the federal government, you're going to have less money in your pocket. If you work for somebody who supports the federal government -- say the restaurant around the corner from the Treasury Department, you're going to see fewer customers coming in. People are going to be cutting back. One of the stories that I found very interesting is I was in the airport last week and the line was a little bit longer than usual. I sort of grumbled a little bit and the woman who was checking me in said, 'If we have the sequester, you're going to have to wait even longer.' Now again, that's not going to happen in March, it'll happen in April. So we're going into the busy summer season for travel and you can expect people to stand in lines a bit longer. Now I can't say how much longer, but they're already talking about some smaller airports being closed. Now some people say that these are scare tactics. Now I'm not sure, if you're asking for cuts across the board, that TSA won't be cut," says Malveaux.

The U.S. boasts the largest economy in the world. Should we be concerned that lawmakers can't balance America's budget?

"One of the other issues of sequester in taking roughly 6 percent out of our budget is that it will cause recession. That's unquestionable. Austerity has not worked in Europe and it's not going to work in the United States. Our economy is sitting on this precipice of recovery and going back down to recession. So if we have recession, we have world recession. Now for you personally, we should always maintain the best personal finances that we can. Using your credit card to pay for your lunch, unless you can pay it back at the end of the month, is a really bad idea. You don't want to spend 20 percent interest on lunch. That's one of the things that people need to think about: How much do I owe? Do I have a plan to pay it back? That's the same thing that the International Monetary Fund has asked the United States to do. They're not saying that we have to sequester, they're saying to come up with a plan. What we have is a monthly emergency. I think the American people are getting tired of an emergency of the month," says Malveaux.

Malveaux says as of this moment the sky hasn't fallen, but it might fall in April and certainly if lawmakers can't agree on a budget, we'll see government close down.

To hear stories of how Linda Harlow and Erika Townes -- two women affected by sequester cuts -- are planning their survival strategies, click on the audio player above.

An experiment that used rats to create a "brain-to-brain interface" shows that instructions can be transferred between animals via cortical implants, according to scientists. The research could help create "novel types of social interaction and for biological computing devices," says Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University.

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The draft report found that the pipeline would not have a huge impact on climate and that the oil from the Canadian tar sands will find its way to the U.S. with or without the pipeline.

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Republicans resist Obama's Jedi mind meld, says Mark Mardell