Included in this week’s edition, the VW Beetle ceases final production, children detained in migrant camps face high risk of mental health problems, and the US Women’s Soccer Team win the Women’s World Cup.

These are the newsworthy stories from this past week.

Business and Economics

• For all the talk of American cities undergoing a renaissance, economic success has been concentrated in a few standout metropolises while the rest struggle.
  
  The newest and best-paying jobs are clustered in cities like San Francisco, New York and Seattle. A widening chasm separates them and struggling post-industrial ones like Cleveland, Detroit and Newark. Distressed areas are fading as their populations age and young workers head to coastal cities.
  
  From Axios

• The U.S. is overflowing with natural gas. But the infrastructure needed to move the fuel around the country hasn’t kept up with production and not everyone can get it.
  
  U.S. gas production rose to a record of more than 37 trillion cubic feet last year, up 44% from a decade earlier. But pipelines aren’t in the right places, and when they are, they’re usually old and often too small.
  
  The uneven distribution of the shale boom’s bounty means that consumers can end up paying more or even become starved for fuel, while companies that can’t get it to market lose out on profits.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is preparing for liftoff as a publicly traded company. It will merge with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings, which will own up to 49% of the combined company. As part of that deal, Virgin Galactic later this year would become the first publicly listed human-spaceflight company.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• As Disney, AT&T’s WarnerMedia and Apple prepare to enter a crowded streaming market dominated by Netflix, HBO and Hulu, they are seeking to stand out with eye-catching shows that cost as much as $15 million an episode to accommodate massive casts, exotic filming locations and copious special effects.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• The iconic VW Beetle ceased production in Mexico on Wednesday.
  
  Germany’s VW “Bug” was an example of globalization, sold and recognized all over the world; an emblem of the 1960s counterculture in the U.S.; and a landmark in design, as recognizable as a Coke bottle.
  
  From AP

• Coffee growers from more than two dozen countries are meeting in Brazil this week to discuss OPEC-style cooperation to raise prices, which have fallen to the lowest level in more than a decade.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• African leaders launched a continental free-trade zone that, if successful, would create a $3.4 trillion economic bloc.
  
  From Reuters

• One by one, developing countries are refusing to import trash, making it increasingly difficult for wealthy nations to export tons of unwanted refuse.
  
  From Bloomberg

Society

• A skull bone unearthed in Greece decades ago may be the earliest known evidence of modern humans outside Africa.
  
  The cranium dates to more than 210,000 years ago, older than any other fossil of Homo sapiens known in Eurasia, according to researchers’ analysis in the journal Nature.
  
  The new finding suggests that our direct ancestors tried repeatedly to move into Europe and Asia, where other early human species had already settled, before establishing themselves there.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• Construction of a giant $1.4 billion telescope on Hawaii’s tallest mountain will start again next week after lengthy court battles and passionate protests from those who say the work will desecrate land sacred to some Native Hawaiians.
  
  From AP

• With a 2-0 victory over the Netherlands, the American women proved that they could shoulder more pressure than anyone at the tournament, hold off the best world soccer had to offer and keep their cool. No one embodied that more than forward Megan Rapinoe, the team captain who uses her platform to fight the U.S. Soccer Federation and the game’s world governing body for equal compensation.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• Setting the federal minimum wage at $15 an hour would cost 1.3 million Americans their jobs but deliver a raise for 17 million others, the Congressional Budget Office says.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• Studies have shown that facial recognition software can return more false matches for African-Americans than for white people.
  
  From The New York Times

• Children detained in squalid migrant camps face high risk of serious mental health problems, some of which could be irreparable.
  
  The effects include detachment, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which put them at higher risk for committing suicide, according to interviews with pediatricians, child psychiatrists and medical ethicists.
  
  From Axios

Government and Politics

• The border crisis that’s shocking so many Americans is being driven by factors that include Central American droughts, violence, poverty, the booming U.S. economy, and new technology that help migrants organize.
  
  From Axios

• Nationwide raids to arrest thousands of members of undocumented families have been scheduled to begin Sunday.
  
  Officials say ICE agents were targeting at least 2,000 immigrants who have been ordered deported — some as a result of their failure to appear in court — but who remain in the country illegally. The operation is expected to take place in at least 10 major cities.
  
  From The New York Times

• Democrats in Iowa and Nevada will be able to vote over the phone instead of showing up at traditional caucus meetings next February, according to state-party plans.
  
  From AP

---

Like us on Facebook: The Motley Experience
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @MotleyXperience