The bottom line

Foreign interest in graduate schools

Applications from Chinese students to U.S. graduate schools declined 5 percent for the upcoming academic year, while applications from Brazilians and Indians jumped by at least 20 percent. International applications to graduate programs in life sciences fell 7 percent, although some business programs are seeing greater interest from abroad.

The Wall Street Journal

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

CEOs show concern over North Korea

Companies’ references to North Korea in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission jumped 29 percent during the first quarter of 2013 and rose 10 percent compared with the same quarter last year, suggesting that Pyongyang’s threats to unleash a “sea of fire” on South Korea and nuclear weapons on the U.S. “keeps executives up at night.”

Qz.com

Discounts in lawyers' fees

The number of lawyers commanding fees of more than $1,150 an hour has doubled since this time last year, but they’re having to offer deep discounts to draw clients. Many firms now collect less than 85 cents for every dollar’s worth of standard billing time, a “historic low.” In 2007 they were averaging 92 cents to the dollar.

The Wall Street Journal

Full planes, unhappy customers

U.S. airlines’ recent push to fill their planes has not made for happy customers. Customer complaints increased by 20 percent last year, with nearly one third of the complaints related to schedule changes, delays, and cancellations.

Businessweek.com

Federal research dollars plummet

Federal funding of research and development last year amounted to $140.6 billion, down 18 percent from 2009, when federal research dollars totaled $172.5 billion.

The New York Times