On the development of South Korea’s New Songdo and Cisco’s plans to build smart cities which will “offer cities as a service, bundling urban necessities – water, power, traffic, telephony – into a single, Internet-enabled utility, taking a little extra off the top of every resident’s bill.” The demand for such cities is enormous:

China doesn't need cool, green, smart cities. It needs cities, period -- 500 New Songdos at the very least. One hundred of those will each house a million or more transplanted peasants. In fact, while humanity has been building cities for 9,000 years, that was apparently just a warm-up for the next 40. As of now, we're officially an urban species. More than half of us -- 3.3 billion people -- live in a city. Our numbers are projected to nearly double by 2050, adding roughly a New Songdo a day; the United Nations predicts the vast majority will flood smaller cities in Africa and Asia.

The world’s population is rapidly getting older. How China and other countries stocked with young workers are taking advantage.

One expert warns that policies advanced by the think tank could lead to military conflict with China.

On the meeting of shaggy-haired American ping pong ace Glenn Cowan and Chinese master Zhuang Zedong (who died this week), and how their fleeting friendship thawed relations between the twon nations during the U.S. team’s historic 1971 tour of China.

A year ago, he was one of the Premier League’s highest-paid players. Now, after angering China and refusing a pay cut, he has simply vanished.

The author boards the Costa Atlantica for several days of line dancing, burlesque and buffets as part of the cruise industry’s new foray into China.

When David Sneddon disappeared hiking around western China, officials chalked it up to a drowning. A decade later, it appears he had been kidnapped and taken to North Korea.

A former ambassador to China and potential 2012 GOP candidate on the power of optimism:

Remember others. The greatest exercise for the human heart isn't jogging or aerobics or weight lifting – it's reaching down and lifting another up. Find a cause larger than yourself, then speak out and take action. Never let it be said that you were too timid or too weak to stand by your cause. Learn what it feels like to give 100 percent to others. It’ll change your life.

A year living in a shack in Oakland.

A man in a small town in India builds local power by owning the only computer in his village.

The AIDS crisis as it unfolded in America is an object lesson in the danger, the potential violence, inherent in organized prejudice.

On the rescue in July of two children from a burning apartment in southern France.

Rolf Kaestel stole $264 in 1981. He’s still in jail.

Ending a pregnancy in the most “pro-life” state in America.

In 1998, at age 45, Ken Bradshaw surfed the tallest wave in recorded history.

How one girl saved a football season in a small, rural town in Texas.

In 2009, 300 people perished in an earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy. Next week, six Italian scientists and one government official will stand trial for manslaughter.

On Lucille Miller, who in San Bernadino in 1964 was convicted of burning her husband to death in his Volkswagen.

Truancy is punishable by fines, probation, and in some cases throwing parents in prison. Does any of that really keep kids in school?