Kevin E. Schmidt/Quad-City Times, via Zuma

Can baseball continue to define an America that’s fending off decline rather than rocketing to the top? Yes, look beyond the major leagues to the lowest level of the minor leagues. First-time author Lucas Mann recounts the season he spent with the single-A Clinton LumberKings.

A Major League Baseball stadium, when populated with well-matched teams on the field and a capacity crowd in the stands, can be the height of America expressing itself. There's the tradition, the rivalry, the bloated paychecks, the sheer human achievement of the physically ideal players enjoying the fulfillment of their boyhood dreams. But depart this big-league scene and travel down through the minor-league farm system, down through AAA ball, past AA, wave to the “World’s Biggest Truck Stop” on I-80 and arrive finally at the stadium of the single-A Clinton LumberKings in rural Iowa, and the metaphors change drastically from ones of public triumph to private travail.

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Landfills are generally useless, smelly eyesores. But many towns are finding new, profitable uses for the piles of junk that dot America’s landscape.

Many states and cities have long been turning trash into treasure by burning garbage to create heat and electricity, or by harvesting the methane gas that is released as junk decomposes. But in a new twist on this theme, several cities and municipalities are transforming capped landfills—the ultimate waste of space—into solar-power plants.“When you get done with a landfill, that property’s primary function can no longer be used anymore. It’s a great pyramid of waste,” said Mark Roberts, vice president of HDR, an engineering company that constructs solar-voltaic landfills.

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Unlike the ‘Real Housewives,’ prisoners aren’t really exercising free will when they sign up to exploited on TV. Mansfield Frazier on how the genre just hit an ugly, new low.

When Andy Warhol said everyone would one day have 15 minutes of fame, he was probably not picturing pampered and vacuous housewives or Honey Boo-Boo and her proudly inbred clan. But at least those people are free agents who made a conscious choice to display their shortcomings in public.There is another, much uglier class of reality “stars,” however, and although some of them are surely happy for the attention, it would be hard, if not impossible, to describe any of them as making an entirely free choice.

Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters, via Landov; Paul Hanna/Reuters, via Landov; Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty

From America’s manufacturing prince to adulterated generic drugs, The Daily Beast brings you the best in business and finance journalism from the week of May 18, 2013.

“Manufacturing’s Mouthpiece” Mina Kimes, Bloomberg BusinessweekAmerican manufacturers produce more and employ fewer, and one of them—Caterpillar—is going gangbusters.“How the Case For Austerity Has Crumbled” Paul Krugman, The New York Review of BooksAmerica’s most influential economist argues that the intellectual foundations for the global move toward austerity were built on sand well before the most infamous Excel error in history.“Aiming for the Top, Again” Randall Smith, The New York TimesFred Eckert had it all: a New Jersey mansion, 18 vintage cars, a 1,500-bottle wine collection, and a partnership at Goldman Sachs.

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Apple joins Samsung, Blackberry on approval list.

Nothing says ‘boss’ like being chosen as the phone network for a pack of spies. The defense agency announced Friday that they have approved Apple products for use on their networks, meaning that iPhones and iPads, along with other gadgets, can be used by its employees. Apple joins Samsung and Blackberry on the list of smartphone manufacturers secure enough to meet the Pentagon's high standards. Needless to say, it’s great news for Apple. Instragram just got real, people.

Read it at Washington Post

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We like to think that the United States is unique among nations in the way it attracts and integrates immigrant. But in our increasingly globalized and prosperous world, the data suggests America is just average.

American exceptionalism has become a theme of our immigration debate. From both sides, we hear that America is a uniquely desirable place that, for good or ill, draws an outsized share of the world’s immigrants.That may have been true a century ago, when Ellis Island welcomed the world’s huddled masses. But it’s not true today. Large-scale immigration is a worldwide phenomenon tied to contemporary globalization. Porous borders and rising education levels have allowed tens of millions of people in developing societies to become more mobile, and new communications and transportation technologies give everyone access to information about other countries and ways to get there.

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Renting an apartment in New York often resembles an obstacle course. A new company is aiming to simplify the search by putting the process online.

New Yorkers take a strange pride in the difficulties of living in their city. But one hardship most would gladly ditch is the hunt for a rental apartment.“It’s a nightmare,” says Ori Allon, an engineer and technology entrepreneur. “I found my apartment through a broker. I paid 16 percent and it took weeks.” That’s why Allon and former Goldman Sachs executive Robert Reffkin created Urban Compass, which plans to be “a 100 percent online solution” to renting and living in the city, says Reffkin.

Everett

A hotel-room safe full of jewelry, stolen right under Hollywood’s nose. Was it the Pink Panthers, Colombians, an inside job? Dana Kennedy on the Riviera mystery.

Clutching umbrellas and shivering, Hollywood heavyweights like Nicole Kidman, Harvey Weinstein, Colin Firth, Rooney Mara, Sofia Coppola, and Emma Watson braved the rain and unseasonable cold Thursday night at A-list parties ranging from a rooftop soiree sponsored by Bulgari to a beachside bash held by Calvin Klein at the far end of the Croisette.While a black-leather-clad Kidman worried about her pin-straight hair frizzing up in the rain at Klein’s Women in Film party, neither she nor anyone else at the swanky event on the Plage d’Ecrin had an inkling that one of the biggest jewelry heists in Cannes history was about to unfold a little more than a mile away.

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The controversial military tool is cleared for use domestically in 2015. Miranda Green reports from the House committee charged with what setting the rules on new eyes in the sky.

Congress started it all this year when it voted to allow drones to fly in the U.S. as soon as 2015. Now it’s fighting against its self-imposed deadline to pass legislation that limits the scope of the new technology.At a hearing Friday, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations discussed what measures should be included in a federal bill that would protect Fourth Amendment rights without limiting the potential benefits of drones.

Volvo

New plug-in hybrid diesel bus could slash fuel consumption up to 80 percent.

When it comes to the electrification of motorized transport, cars like the Tesla Model S, Nissan Leaf, and Chevrolet Volt have received the most attention. But the same technologies are also being put to use in much larger vehicles.Volvo is testing a new plug-in electric hybrid diesel bus in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company says the vehicles can cut fuel consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions by 75 to 80 percent compared with conventional buses.