What seems like progress from the top-down may reveal the problem with Boy Scouts from the inside-out: its first official coming out party is still a microcosm of discord on gay acceptance, especially in Christian America, no matter what polls say today or the Supreme Court declares in a few weeks. Here's a survey of the reaction so far.
He's in the ground at an undisclosed location, police confirmed Thursday. But considering the existing threats, Tsarnaev's burial plot was destined to become a destination for angry American protesters, so it's probably best that nobody ever finds out — and it's likely that nobody ever will.
This week, an emotional young traffic officer named Ri-Kyong Sim was honored at a military ceremony with the North Korean equivalent of the Medal of Valor — for what, nobody on the outside is exactly sure, but the best guess is that she may have inadvertently saved Kim Jong-un's life.
Today in viral videos: John Krasinski proves there is life beyond The Office, a Thai pile driver, and all the grammar mistakes you've ever made.
Here's a disturbing sign of how truly puzzling the up-and-down weather has been in Wisconsin this year: On Tuesday, when Madison residents enjoyed temperatures that hit 78 degrees, a number of calls filtered into the 911 system with reports of dead people in the grass. Also known as, you know, sunbathers.
During an emotional day on the witness stand that otherwise went pretty much as expected, Gregory Hicks got more or less forced into a corner. He suggested that the late ambassador would have told him about the Innocence of Muslims video and a protest, even though it was one of the last phone calls of his life. But maybe that's what happens when you keep travelling down the same rabbit hole in Congress.
A Houston woman discovered a giant African land snail in her garden—a slimy horror of a creature that is as disgusting as it is deadly.
On Tuesday, President Obama met with President Park Geun-hye of South Korea at the White House, which the Yonhap News agency and every pretty much every news outlet on Earth reported. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Yonhap — South Korea's worldwide leader in news — had any photos. So, you know, why not fake a handshake between two world leaders?
The latest round of Capitol Hill hearings picking apart the U.S. response to the attack on its diplomatic mission in Benghazi last September has arrived. There will be big things, apparently. There will be surprises. There will definitely be whistleblowers. And there might be a lot more to come after that. But first, here's an in-depth look at the day ahead.
In 2004, Sylvia Browne told the mother of one of the women kidnapped in Cleveland that her daughter was dead. Louwana Miller believed the talk-show psyhcic, and now she'll never know that her daughter, Amanda Berry, was found alive Monday night: Berry's mother died two years after Browne foretold the future incorrectly... again.
In meetings with the South Korean president Tuesday, President Obama surely asked about Kenneth Bae, the 44-year-old American sentenced to 15 years in a North Korean gulag. Here's a question worth asking: Now that it appears Bae was using his China-based tour agency as an undercover pipeline to sneak Christian followers into atheist North Korea, is it going to be even harder to get him out? Because Dennis Rodman's basketball diplomacy really isn't helping.
The way the nation met 33-year-old MBTA Transit Police officer Richard Donohue was violent, fast, and scary: He was exchanging fire with the Tsarnaev brothers, the story went, and he took a gun shot to his right thigh from the Boston bombing suspects, which almost killed him. Now comes a more complete picture.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been dead for two and a half weeks, but his family is still having problems figuring out what to do with his body, and not just because this is Boston and Boston is strong: A complex web of potential protests, social media-fueled burial outsourcing, and legal technicalities are making sure the late marathon bombing suspect begins his final rest in anything but peace.
Today in viral videos: evidence from the streets of London that the Dame can do no wrong, a dog that will never give up, and the seven-month-old water skier who reminds us that the world is in good hands.
The league's roster of outspoken gay rights supporters has been depleted, and just when the NFL appears to need them most: Football is preparing for its own Jason Collins moment, a week after the first major American team sport athlete came out. But were these less prominent voices released because of their loud voices on the NFL's big gay issues, or because they weren't good enough? And will the real Pro Bowlers please stand up?
Federal authorities have apparently determined that the biggest threat posed by 19-year-old Robel Phillipos now is telling dumb lies about visiting an alleged terrorist's dorm room, not fleeing a side investigation into how his pals threw out a backpack full of explosives.
North Korean state-run media now insists the country has no plans to use Kenneth Bae, the American citizen sentenced to 15 years in a labor camp, "as a political bargaining chip" — and that the foreign ministry "has no plan to invite anyone of the U.S.," even though that kind of a deal might be in Pyongyang's best interests. Here's why the DPRK might actually be worth believing this time around.
At least one of three State Department witnesses at a Congressional hearing on Wednesday will testify that Hillary Clinton willfully ignored the advice of his counterterror group within the department, and that he has been threatened about saying as much in public, and that al-Qaeda was involved all along.
Today in viral videos: a joke about chips to use this weekend, a fix for Walking Dead withdrawal, and the only Iron Man 3 primer you need.
Robel Phillipos was the third name we heard on May 1, when the FBI announced that they had arrested three more suspects connected to the Boston bombings last month. Phillipos's past and character isn't as much of a mystery to us as fellow suspects Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, but the question still remains, how did this former daycare worker turn into a suspect?
The new People's Daily building is massive, imposing, and, uh, currently shaped like a colossal penis. So the country's censors are working overtime to stop Chinese people on social media from laughing at the expense of the very state-run newspaper in charge of controlling the country's message.
Today in viral videos: a PBS movie we wish was really happening (but isn't), Zach Galifianakis wants to remind you about Saturday, and a dog that plays hard to get.
After an 11-year study, the CDC has come to a startling conclusion: more people now die in this country by their own hand than from car accidents. And an even more shocking discovery behind the jump — and perhaps a key to the way we think about suicide next — is how many of America's Baby Boomers are taking their own lives.
Kenneth Bae, a 44-year-old American citizen, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in a North Korean gulag this week for "hostile acts" against the country and Kim Jong-Un's regime. Considering the DPRK's penchant for hyperbole and habit of punishing Americans, the truth about Bae's situation remains murky. Here's what we know so far.
If you weigh more than 260 lbs. you technically (the Department of Transportation won't "strictly" enforce this) aren't allowed to use one of New York City's nifty new shared bikes. Cue the outrage, cries of discrimination and, of course, a shameless New York Post picture of a very large man on a tiny bike.
The latest in a slow trickle of information from Saudi Arabia brings the mortality rate to 16 deaths among 24 known infections — and not unlike China with its bird flu outbreak, the Saudi government isn't exactly being straightforward about how many people are sick with SARS cousin NCoV. If humans are dying, why don't we know more about how and why?
It appears we've already been introduced to two of the three new suspects in the Boston bombing investigation: Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, young Kazakh men now coming under the public microscope. As the federal charges against all three continue to unfold, here's a running biography of the men who may have helped their accused terrorist classmate — not roommate — after the bombing, based on combined news reports, social media, and beyond.
The ad features a song including the lyric "ching ching, chop suey," plus other references that offended Asian viewers as well as dated depictions of the Middle East. Perhaps the strangest part of the scandal is that each of those references offended different markets in the rollout in a different way, leading to bifurcated self-censorship by one of the largest car companies on Earth.
Three friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are accused of obstructing justice after the fact by destroying evidence from his apartment. Here's how a sudden development in the case unfolded Wednesday.
As of Wednesday morning, at midnight, same-sex couples in Colorado were finally allowed to get a civil union — and, more importantly, to get that union recognized by the state. These are just some of the hundreds of happy couples from Denver and beyond.
Zimmerman and his attorneys appeared in court to waive his right to seek an immunity hearing under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law — and keep the rest of their strategy close to the vest. His fate in the killing of Trayvon Martin will now be put in the hands of a jury beginning June 10, when one of the most emotional trials in recent American history will begin.
Very bad news: A woman in San Jose tried to poison customers at a Starbucks by swapping in juice bottles filled with nail polish remover and rubbing alcohol. Somewhat good news: She's not on a tainted OJ rampage, and nobody would really drink a "toxic" smelling bottle of juice at a Starbucks, would they?
In the days since his apparent suicide, the myths (that men are abused as often as men) and realities (that men are abuse victims) have returned around the so-called Men's Rights Movement, leaving advocates on both sides as conflicted as Silverman himself. We've attempted to sort them out.
It wasn't easy dethroning Mitch McConnell as America's least favorite Senator, but Flake has done that in just three short months, a new poll out Monday reveals — and his fall from rising-star grace is not quite the head-scratcher you might think.
While the pictures of the injured look weirdly similar to the scene out of Boston two weeks ago — foil blankets, blood, and bandages in a major city — officials in the Czech capital are saying the blast was actually a natural gas explosion.
The horror of the H7N9 strain of bird flu isn't just that it's deadly — it's killed at least 23 people, it's definitely chicken-to-human, it has a chance of "going human-to-human," and it might be on the move. Another grim reality is that China might not be telling everyone just how bad the disease has become, even as it becomes clear we don't know how to stop it.
Nobody knows exactly what investigators were looking for when they raided Steubenville High School in Ohio this week. But as the grand jury kicks off next week looking for charges, all signs point to something big. And guess which Big Red football coach decided to speak out again?
The father's heavily publicized trip to the United States in search of "justice and the truth" has been postponed abruptly, and the mother has apparently left her home — on the same day reports surfaced that she was placed on a terrorism watch list, too.
She had a bright idea: write a letter saying what a great guy Lauer is, get it signed by the Today show's entire staff, then print it as an ad in USA Today. Then Lauer told her not to take out the ad, but he didn't exactly tell Gifford to stay away from the press ... which is why we're hearing about the whole (possibly diabolical) plan today.
When asked to explain why Dartmouth had to cancel a full day of class this week after threats based on rape, race, and sexual orientation, the university's interim president accidentally likened the state of the Ivy League school to the Boston bombers' weapon of choice. Thing is, apologizing for her ill-timed euphemism might be the least of Carol Folt's problems.
Getting all three of these countries on the same side, as U.N. diplomats have learned of late, is like herding cats. Enter Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who's questioning whether the Japanese occupation of those nations was an "invasion" — you know, per se.
After a police scanner blip led journalists on social media to connect their 22-year-old son to the Boston Marathon bombings, a terrible month for a Pennsylvania family just reached the ultimate level of awful.
The big celebrity-politician is almost upon us (only two more days!), and in the celebrity Hunger Games waged by news organizations far and wide (or at least around the Beltway), one news organization has landed the Katniss Everdeen of nerd prom.
It's already illegal to sell pornography in India. But the country's Supreme Court is contemplating an all-out ban on the stuff, and police in the city of Patna are preparing to crack down on cyber cafés and so-called "CD parlors" — all because they believe it could help curb India's rape epidemic.
The investigation presses on. A city and a nation mourn. And, slowly, Boston is getting back to normal. But in the hospitals, where there was more good news on Wednesday, there remains one 27-year-old victim of last week's marathon bombings who stands out, and maybe even represents the road to recovery: Jeff Bauman, who transformed from cheering boyfriend to iconic amputee. And Jeff Bauman, a city and a nation will be happy to hear and see, is very well indeed.
Gonorrhea, one of the the smartest of all the bacterial STDs, is on the rise. And now, doctors who devote their careers to studying The Clap are warning that the disease could be completely untreatable sooner than the U.S. elects a new president.
U.S. investigators are going to Russia and back to press the parents of the Boston bombing suspects, seeking private answers after their absurdist public standoff — and countering interviews full of conspiracies and coverups with questions about an extremist trail gone cold but not yet frozen.
Margie Carranza and her 71-year-old mother had more than 100 rounds pumped into their blue pickup — despite the fact that it was a completely different model and color than the ex-cop on the loose. That's why they're getting four times the still controversial reward total.
Have a story we missed? A link we have to click? A sharp opinion about the news? Instead of waiting for us to post it, tell us on the Open Wire.
Submit your news and ideas | See all reader postsThe Atlantic Wire is your authoritative guide to the news and ideas that matter most right now. Our team tracks newsmakers and opinions across the entire media spectrum: newspapers, web sites, television, radio and magazines.
But we do more than just collect information. By synthesizing, analyzing and summarizing what’s out there, and adding new information when we can, we are a news engine that gives you a quick and valuable account of the issues of the day.
Have a hot tip? A story we missed? Tell us on the Open Wire
How to send us editorial or technical feedback
Get Five Best Columns in your inbox each morning (preview)
