Murdoch's Wall Street Journal sings the praises of solar plus storage projects. When will The Australian follow suit?

Big Batteries Are Taking a Bite Out of the Power Market - Wall Street Journal

Batteries charged by renewable energy are nibbling at power plants that generate extra surges of electricity during peak hours. ... Numerous big batteries are under construction or consideration in the U.S., especially in the Southwest, where some companies see a shiny future for “solar plus storage” projects.

Capital Offense:  How Sexual Harassment Shapes Politics in Washington - New Republic

Eight essays from women in policy, public affairs, and media

The Joyce affair: Media say they didn’t know about it until this week. No, really! - Independent Australia

The mainstream media claim they didn't report on Barnaby's affair when it mattered because they didn't know for sure. Jennifer Wilson calls them out.

Barnaby Joyce and the hybrid space of new media - Meanjin

In the hybrid space of social media, where journalists and their audiences rub shoulders and can argue the toss about news values—about what counts and what doesn’t—the decision about what to publish and how to cover it no longer belongs exclusively to journalists and editors. This is not just a good thing, it is an essential precondition for the proper functioning of a free press.

‘Sinking’ Pacific nation is getting bigger, showing islands are geologically dynamic: stud - Japan Times

The Pacific nation of Tuvalu — long seen as a prime candidate to disappear as climate change forces up sea levels — is actually growing in size, new research shows.
A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu’s nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery.
It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu’s total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average.

Lebanon: About to Blow? - New York Review of Books

Lebanon is a tiny country, with a population of around six million; it could fit neatly between Philadelphia and Danbury, Connecticut. It has survived many crises over the past several decades: a brutal civil war from 1975 to 1990 that left 100,000 dead, a string of political assassinations since 2004 whose perpetrators have gone unpunished, and occupations by Israel and Syria. But Lebanon’s resilience is fraying. Its infrastructure is badly damaged and unemployment is high. It is also struggling to accommodate a large refugee population—500,000 Palestinians, many descended from those who fled the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and nearly 1.5 million Syrians, a majority of them Sunni Muslims.

Three Questions About the Outlook - Reserve Bank of Australia

... some of the questions we grapple with as we consider the outlook for the domestic economy. ...
How much spare capacity is there?
How much (and how quickly) will wage growth and inflation pick up as spare capacity declines?
How resilient will consumption growth be if income growth stays weak?

Xenophon may not govern in his own right - but he can still be Premier - InDaily

Symbols, rather than policies, may be the currency of the March election, with the major parties' attacks on Nick Xenophon failing thus far to make a dent. The electorate appears in the mood for change, writes Tom Richardson - but it could be a change not just of government, but of how we're governed.