What is Amazon.com Inc., exactly? If you answered “an online book retailer,” then you haven’t been paying attention for like, oh, the past decade or so. What seems like a straight-forward question is actually a much more complex and surprising inquiry than you might have guessed. I began thinking about this earlier this year, when we looked at whether …

  Bloomberg China has targets for just about everything, from ethanol production to reaching Mars. Now the top economic planning body wants to get more tourists to hit the road, and has even announced targets for skydiving, water skiing and mountain climbing, as authorities push for more consumer spending to aid the economic transition away from old industrial drivers. The …

  Bloomberg An Indian green court ordered the country’s aviation safety regulator to ensure planes don’t dump human waste during flights, ruling on a plea by a New Delhi resident who claimed his neighborhood had to endure excreta that fell from the skies. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the safety regulator, should conduct surprise checks on aircraft when they …