The American economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last three decades. That's the conclusion of a new study out from the Brookings Institution, which looks at the rates of new business creation and destruction since 1978.

Not only that, but during the most recent three years of the study -- 2009, 2010 and 2011 -- businesses were collapsing faster than they were being formed, a first. Overall, new businesses creation (measured as the share of all businesses less than one year old) declined by about half from 1978 to 2011.
The authors don't mince words about the stakes here: If the decline persists, "it implies a continuation of slow growth for the indefinite future." This lack of economic dynamism, particularly the steep drop since 2006, may be one reason why our current recovery has felt like much less than a recovery. As Matt O'Brien noted on Wonkblog last week, annual job growth rates have stubbornly refused to budge above 2 percent for the duration of the recovery.

The fruitless search for the missing Malaysian Airlines jet might have to start all over again from scratch if no clues to its fate are found in coming days, it was claimed today.

The international team searching the Indian Ocean for the Boeing 777 are now considering the seemingly impossible scenario of the aircraft having 'landed' somewhere, instead of crashing in the southern Indian Ocean.

'We may have to regroup soon to look into this possibility if no positive results come back in the next few days,' sources within the International Investigation Team were quoted as telling the New Straits Times today.

While the sources have not suggested which country the aircraft might have landed - or crashed - in, the possibility that an entirely new search in a different area is in line with suggestions by the Mail weeks ago that alleged sightings of a low-flying aircraft could have located it in a different place than the ocean.

'The thought of it landing somewhere else is not impossible, as we have not found a single debris that could be linked to MH370,' sources were quoted as telling the paper.

'However, the possibility of a specific country hiding the plane when more than 20 nations are searching for it, seems absurd,' said the sources.

But they admitted that it was difficult to determine if the plane had really ended in the Indian Ocean, despite calculations seeming to point to that direction.

The only bright spot was the release of the OSCE hostages

The last separatist barricade at Kramatorsk was an impressive affair; four giant fuel tankers behind a wall of tyres and stone. The armoured personnel carriers of the government forces, lined up ahead, opened fire without warning; a salvo from a main gun streaking down the street.

The wall disintegrated and burst into flames, the tankers were sliced open as if with a can opener, the severed parts of each one left lying across the road. One round overshot and hit a car, leaving it a smoking heap, another went whizzing by a petrol station. The number of casualties, considering the scale of the damage, was relatively low. There were two dead, the driver of the car and an elderly man still clutching his plastic bag of shopping; around half a dozen were injured, two seriously.

There was an interlude of near silence as people who had thrown themselves to the ground and to the grass verge on the side of the road slowly picked themselves up, glad to be alive, and began to help bloodied figures into cars to be taken to hospital. Those who had thought that the horrific events in Odessa, with more than 40 dead, many of them trapped in a burning building, would lead to a lull in the strife in eastern Ukraine - a pause for reflection - found themselves mistaken.

In Odessa on Friday four people were killed, at least three shot dead, in running battles between Kiev supporters and pro-Russian activists. The clashes ended with separatists holed up in the trade union building. Regional police chief Petro Lutsiuk said more than 130 people had been detained and could face charges ranging from participating in riots to premeditated murder.

The forces of the Kiev administration continued their "anti-terrorist operation" yesterday, with mixed successes but deepening enmity among the many residents who believed themselves to be targeted. Vasyl Krutov, head of a Kiev government's "anti-terrorist centre" behind the operation in the east, told a news conference: "What we are facing... is not just some kind of short-lived uprising, it is in fact a war."

A U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent arrested in Pakistan for trying to board a civilian flight with bullets and a knife in his luggage is being investigated on possible criminal charges, Pakistani authorities said on Thursday.

Joel Cox, confirmed by the U.S. State Department as an FBI agent, was arrested on Sunday at the airport in the southern city of Karachi after trying to board a flight with the knife and 15 9 mm bullets in his luggage, police said.

The case has revived memories of Raymond Davis, an American Central Intelligence Agency contractor who was arrested in January 2011 after shooting dead two men he believed were about to rob him in the eastern city of Lahore.

Many Pakistanis were angry that Davis was released after compensation was paid to the families of the dead and they then pardoned him, a practice allowed under Pakistani law.

Police said Cox had been charged with weapons offences but could still be given bail.

"He's on judicial remand. Questions are obviously being asked, what is he doing with bullets and a knife?" said foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam.

Two uniformed Portland police officers showed up at the home of a 9-year-old girl last May, questioned her on the front porch about a fight at a youth club six days earlier, then handcuffed her as she stood in a blue-and-white bathing suit.

They drove her to police headquarters in downtown Portland, where she had her fingerprints and mugshot taken.

Turkey's President has called on Muslim countries around the world to liberalize trade among themselves and reduce customs barriers as soon as possible.

In his opening statement to the 30th meeting of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Wednesday, Abdullah Gül said that Islamic countries had yet to capitalize on such potential.

He said: "We need to liberalize trade among member countries and mitigate barriers for customs as soon as possible. The OIC Trade Preferential System is a crucial step towards this objective.

"Even though preparations for the implementation have been finalized to a considerable extent, I regret to say that this important agreement has not been operationalized," he said in Ankara on the opening day of the OIC's Follow-up Committee for Economic and Trade Cooperation (COMCEC).

He pointed out that the number of Preferential Trade Agreements in operation around the world had increased from 70 in 1990 to 258 in 2013.

"I would like to call upon all member countries to accelerate the ratification process of the Trade Preferential System agreements and make necessary arrangements when it comes to the implementation stage", Gül added.

"Now come on Wall Street don't be slow, why man this war is a-go-go. There's plenty good money to be made, supplying the army with the tools of the trade. Now come on generals let's move fast, your big chance is here at last. Time you got out and get those Reds, because the only good commie is one that's dead. You know that peace can only be won, when you blow 'em all to kingdom come." Vietnam Song, Country Joe and the Fish, 1969

"Corruption is strangling the land. The police force is watching the people, and the people just can't understand. We don't know how to mind our own business, 'cause the whole world's got to be just like us. Now we are fighting a war over there, no matter who's the winner we can't pay the cost. 'Cause there's a monster on the loose, it has got our heads into the noose. And it just sits there watching. America, where are you now, don't you care about your sons and daughters. Don't you know we need you now, we can't fight alone against the Monster." Monster by Steppenwolf, 1969

First, Reduce the Masses Ability to Reproduce

A nation that refuses to take care of all of its mothers and all of its young children has no future.

"The United States was among just eight countries that experienced an increase in maternal death rates since 2003 - joining countries including Afghanistan and El Salvador....'There's no reason that a country with the resources and the medical expertise that the US has should see maternal deaths going up," said Dr. Christopher Murray, Director of Institutes for Health Metrics and Evaluation and a co-founder of the Global Burden of Disease. "The next step would be to examine local-level differences in maternal deaths to look for patterns and the drivers behind those patterns," reports Jennifer Abel writing in Consumer Affairs. Actually there is a very good reason why the maternal deaths are rising in the USA. Most American leaders really don't care who in America lives or dies-or why--and neither does the bulk of the American population. The elected representatives are merely a reflection of the callous, hollow nature of a long warring republic.

Jacqueline Tyler, 42, of Rancho Cugamonga, said she was only 13 when a missionary at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Palm Desert repeatedly sexually abused her from July to November of 1985. She gave birth to a son on June 30, 1986.

"He tried to convince me to get an abortion," said Tyler. "I think that's what he wanted me to do. Get rid of the proof. Get rid of the child."

The former Palm Desert resident filed a lawsuit Friday with the Riverside County Superior Court in Palm Springs. It claims the Mormon Church, its members and the 24-year-old missionary tried to cover up the child sex abuse.

"This family came forward and was told, 'Be quiet. Go away.'" said Attorney Michael Kinslow.

Everyday your child goes off to government public school his or her life and well-being is in danger. Nowhere in the world is this truer than in the United States.

But the risks aren't just limited to just the danger of being unable to read and write. I mean literal physical danger. Here are twenty examples why:

#1. Andrea Hernandez, a senior at her high school, refused to wear the RFID necklace her school demands students wear. The school offered to let her wear a badge (like the Star of David Jews wore in Nazi Germany?) with no chip in it so it just looks like she's being tracked like an animal, and she refused that, too. The judge declared Andrea property of the school, and said she must wear the chip. Her and her family argued against it on religious grounds.

#2. Christopher Carter of the University of Incarnate World campus police "emptied his gun" into one student who had been "disrespectful" by making a "sarcastic comment." Student was unarmed and non-combative. "I didn't hear him say anything like, 'Get down on your hands and knees,' you know?" one witness explained, "I didn't hear him say anything. He just started shooting. He emptied the gun on him... Boom, boom, boom. Six shots - five or six." It is reported that the victims' last words were, "Oh, you're gonna shoot me?"

#3. At one public school in Texas, a 12-year-old girl was arrested for spraying herself with perfume.

#4. Police were called when a little girl kissed a little boy during Physical Education.

Entrepreneurism in America has been on the decline for at least 30 years, a new report suggests, and for the first time in three decades the number of business "deaths" in the United States exceeds that of "births."

The report, published on Monday this week by economists from the Brookings Institute, examines business dynamism in America - or how the process by which firms are continually born, fail, expand and contract - during the years 1978 through 2012.

"Research has firmly established that this dynamic process is vital to productivity and sustained economic growth," Ian Hathaway and Robert E. Litan wrote for the think-tank, adding, "Entrepreneurs play a critical role in this process, and in net job creation."

"But recent research shows that dynamism is slowing down," they continued. "Business churning and new firm formations have been on a persistent decline during the last few decades, and the pace of net job creation has been subdued."

Indeed, the economists' research indicates that for the first time since the US Census Bureau began examining firm entry and exit rates in the US during the late 1970s, more companies are failing then being formed.

What's more, though, is that this trend is nothing new, relatively speaking, and is evidenced across the board: according to Hathaway and Litan, business dynamism in America has been on the decline for decades, and is noticeable from coast-to-coast and in all 50 states.