Surprisingly strong exports reported by China on Friday bolstered the view that the global economy is improving, just as Chinese leaders were set to hold an important policy meeting to flesh out their economic agenda for the coming years.

Farmers, waste management companies and the energy industries have long experimented with converting methane, a byproduct of decomposing organic matter, into transportation fuel. Those efforts have met with mixed success, and a renewable natural gas fuel has not been widely available in the United States. But now, one leading supplier of natural gas transport fuel is taking a big step toward changing that.

President Obama publicly deplores growing economic inequality in the United States. At the same time, he is pushing for a new Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement on top of the trade agreements he won in 2011. Evidently, he sees no inconsistency here, but a growing body of economic research points to the adverse effects of lowered tariff barriers on manufacturing workers and their communities. Whether or not the losers are beginning to outnumber the winners, free trade is increasing the economic distance between the two.

Typically bound by short-term leases, displaying products made by others, and run by first-time entrepreneurs with limited capital, shopping mall carts and kiosks have long been considered an unsophisticated small-business underclass. More recently, however, these small-footprint retailers have come to be seen as possessing surprising potential.