Taxes sounded worse than environmental catastrophe in the politics of 2010, but ironically one of the more persuasive arguments that climate change is real—persuasive especially to anti-tax conservatives—is how changing, unpredictable and severe weather is increasingly exacting a tax on all aspects of life in America. Gary Yohe, professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University, explores the hidden costs of climate change.

The Senate is back in session today and the House returns tomorrow. Though it’s a new year, much of what’s on the agenda is last year’s business. At the top of the list is a vote to extend unemployment insurance for the 1.3 million jobless workers who lost those benefits just after Christmas. Todd Zwillich, Takeaway Washington Correspondent, provides a look ahead. 

Over the next five years, the Pentagon is looking to increase the use of robotic weapons—is this a good thing for national security, and can the U.S. even count on its global drone edge for that long? Clint Watts, a Senior Fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute and at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, makes the case for why drones don’t deserve the bad reputation they get.

Al-Qaeda is remaking the map of the Middle East, or at least they want to. Anbar province has long been a center of Sunni Muslim insurgents, and is now becoming a base for Al-Qaeda's wider ambitions to inflame sectarian tensions. Patrick Cockburn, Middle East Correspondent for The Independent, weighs in on what's ahead for Iraq.

A hundred years ago, the Ford Motor Company instituted an eight-hour workday, but in today's world of globalization, smartphones and increasing competition, working only eight hours seems like a dream come true.

While the world saw a host of dramatic changes in 2013—an elected government replaced by the military in Egypt, a new pope in Rome, a resurgent Bashar al-Assad in Syria—2014 will likely see greater shifts in politics and the international economy. Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group, a global political risk research and consulting firm, examines the top risks facing the U.S and the world in 2014.