Is It So Bad That the BBC Followed Students into North Korea?
An undercover BBC journalist surreptitiously entered North Korea with group of students attending the London School of Economics. Was he right to do so?
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It's an awkward moment to be a professor at New York University — especially if your employer subsidizes luxury housing for you and your spouse.
An undercover BBC journalist surreptitiously entered North Korea with group of students attending the London School of Economics. Was he right to do so?
Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel on the hunger strike at Gitmo, Jason Farago on New York's housing market, James O'Keefe on taping politicians, Jillian Keenan on abuse in polygamist communities, and Heather Mac Donald on stop-and-frisk.
Cohen explained to multiple outlets that calling the singer-activist Cyndi Lauper "hot" on Twitter and then deleting the tweet, was part of an elaborate ploy to prank the political media, thereby drawing attention to their taste for scandal.
Seth Mandel on the trial of Kermit Gosnell, Alex Seitz-Wald on Mitch McConnell, Kevin Roose on abandoing Bitcoin, Matt Latimer on Thatcher's compromises, Om Malik on Mark Zuckerberg's immigration reform.
The World Meteorological Organization announced the retirement after deciding that the name was, well, "inappropriate."
Kirsten Powers on media coverage of an abortion trial, Fareed Zakaria on the lessons of Thatcherism, Drew Magary on Mike Rice's abuses, Charles M. Blow on Rand Paul's Howard visit, and Tom Doran on Michelle Malkin's Twitter aggregator.
Like any other discovery involving ancient dinosaurs, Wednesday's announcement presents a very important question: What does this have to do with re-making Jurassic Park, and more than just in 3-D? The authors of a new study published in Nature aren't too optimistic.
The 24-hour New Jersey landmark is mostly known for serving comfort food beneath a giant sign imploring customers to "EAT HEAVY." But not today.
Nothing about the federal tax system is especially pleasant: it requires a lot of forms, expends precious mental energy, and of course involves parting ways with your money. But according to a new poll commissioned by The Washington Post, 53 percent of Democrats gave a favorable opinion of the federal tax system; 66 percent of Republicans didn't.
Kelefa Sanneh on Brad Paisley's accidental racism, John McWhorter on the use of "illegal immigrant," Alex Pareene on Mitch McConnell's cunning, Farhad Manjoo on the Bitcoin hype cycle, and Thomas Friedman on the legacy of the Arab Spring.
The New York Times national security correspondent and author of The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, is a fan of Homeland — despite covering the C.I.A., and despite the liberties the show takes.
Powerball, the ubiquitous lottery game, finally arrived in California on Monday, and began to spread its enticing message of easy, instant fortune to residents of the Golden State.
After President Obama got emotional in Connecticut but refused to name the most powerful arm of "the gun lobby" that is bending back the administration's legislative push, Biden spared no words in describing the political tactics of the National Rifle Association.
This is not how you'd expect Snapchat, the self-destructing image-sharing app, to get college kids into trouble: many underage students at the University of Virginia dumped their beer and spirits because of a social media hoax on Monday afternoon.
Glenn Greenwald on the mourning of Margaret Thatcher, Bret Stephens on the other kind of marriage, Judith Miller on Jana Winter's jail prospects, David Plotz on his abusive high school basketball coach, and Jeffrey Goldberg on the legacy of the Iraq War.
As summer approaches, you're probably beginning to wonder: do I really have to slather on sunscreen in order to protect myself from skin cancer? Well, if you trust empirical research — or listen to the Center for Disease Control — the answer is yes.
In the wake of several scandals, a bunch of Harvardians are calling for a formal honor code that, once implemented and signed by students, would somehow discourage students from cheating, plagiarizing, or otherwise tarnishing the good name of Harvard. Here's why that might, but probably won't, work.
Ross Douthat on the consolidation of the elite, Margaret Talbot on Congress's inaction on gun violence, Joel Kotkin on the next American cities, Katherine Stewart on the GOP's position within the culture wars, and Cass R. Sunstein on the virtues of paternalism.
Ben Carson, the Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon and newly minted conservative celebrity who inspired a hundred op-eds, has apologized for comparing gay couples seeking legal recognition of their relationships to NAMBLA and those who practice bestiality.
The faculty of Yale University has decided to postpone voting on a controversial modification to the school's grading system — essentially, instituting a grading curve — thus averting a major outcry from Yale's undergraduate body. But still, nearly two-thirds of their grades are getting A's and A-minuses, total. What now?
Michael Phillips on the late Roger Ebert, Michael Lind on Obama's Social Security offer, Aaron Ross Powell on the beneficience of government, Matthew Zeitlin on the promise of Bitcoin, and Irin Carmon on Obama's comments on Kamala Harris.
More than five months after two states voted to legalize marijuana — and as a host of other states consider the same — a majority of Americans now say pot should be legal to consume.
Just when you thought New York politics couldn't get any more drenched into dirty money, Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was charged on Thursday morning with several counts of corruption and conspiracy.
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Ben Carson's sudden fame, Amy Davidson on David Brooks's philosophy of freedom, Jeremy Kessler on the national character of gay marriage, Lionel Tiger on the abusive Rutgers basketball coach, and James Kirchick on being a provocative art exhibit.
Lululemon, the upscale yoga clothing retailer, is letting their chief product officer go after a high-profile mishap in mid-March involving the company's yoga pants, thousands of which were pulled from stores after the company discovered a manufacturing error that had rendered the pants's fabric too transparent.
Is the Glazed Donut Breakfast Sandwich unhealthy? Or rather, just how unhealthy is it? According to a spokeswoman for Dunkin Donuts, the item weighs in at ... 360 calories. Which, considering its ingredients, is actually surprising!
Any reader of George Eliot is familiar with Britain's class system, by which Britons sort themselves, either ironically or seriously, into rigidly-defined castes, based on things like education, type of employment, and wealth. In order to sort out the confusion inherent to such a system, the BBC wrote an interactive calculator to determine which class you belong to.
Ben Howe on the quality of conservative entertainment, Donna Brazile on Susan Patton's advice for women, Marin Cogan on Rubio's immigration plan, Michael Wolff on Christopher Hitchens's legacy, and John Podhoretz on academia's attraction to danger.
When the obscure airline Samoa Air announced on Tuesday that it would begin charging passengers by how much they weighed, you had to wonder: Would such a practice ever catch on at, say, American Airlines? Could it? Think not of the emotions. Think of the logistics.
The titanically popular HBO series is so well-loved by the cable-less community that 1 million cord-cutters used BitTorrent to download and distribute the premiere. And that's just BitTorrent.
Catherine Rampell in The New York Times on paid paternity leave, Francesca Mari on Jill Lepore's American history, Farhad Manjoo on technological cynicism, Alison Gash on gay adoption, and Megan McArdle on college admissions.
The 2012 Republican National Convention will go down in the history for Clint Eastwood's dialogue with an empty chair — and, according to a lawsuit filed by the American Action Network against one of its vendors, for all the female pop stars it tried and failed to get to play the party's quadrennial party for itself. Here's the full list (for the RNC and Lolla).
A heated op-ed from a Judd advisor on Monday suggests a report by Howard Fineman — on Judd's apparent comparison between challenging Sen. Mitch McConnell and enduring sexual assault at a private dinner — is fabricated. Here's what Fineman has to say about a kind of would-be Todd Akin-style moment that never was, and what it says about the state of 2014.
Ian Crouch on Kevin Ware's injury, Paul Krugman on California's absent crisis, Michael Brendan Dougherty on the golden era of baseball, Kurt Schlichter on losing the gay marriage battle, and Mary McConnell on homeschooling.
Discovered: An autism myth based on a myth, debunked; a link between frackin and an earthquake; the key to more effective math classes; desert "fairy circles" explained.
The Human Rights Campaign's social media blitz was so effective that Facebook engineers decided to map the portions of the United States, county by county, where users were most likely to change their avatar.
After Ben Carson delivered widely condemned comments regarding gay people on Fox News, students at the Johns Hopkins medical school have successfully booted the neurosurgeon-turned-conservative-pundit from their graduation ceremony.
Though the N.C.A.A. remains immensely popular, its older brother has recently lost ground to the 20-year-old MLS. Yes. soccer. The inevitable New York Times trend piece almost writes itself.
Camille Standen on China's population control, Claire Vaye Watkins on Ivy League recruitment, Patrick J. Buchanan on American morality, Paul Ford on the hilarity of Bitcoin, and Jonathan Chait on the GOP's need for immigration reform.
Discovered: Get used to Bieber and Kardashian; a human/Neanderthal love child; DNA tests could predict cancer risks; the intuition of rats.
No, it's not your imagination: Almost half of the country is getting pounded with snow — even though we're a week into Spring.
Depsite rumors to the contrary, President Obama isn't giving up on gun violence. In an event at the White House on Thursday morning, the President averred that he continued to toil under the memory of the mass shooting in Newtown.
After giving his streak of one bad joke about his employers per night a bit of a rest following a week of hatred in the papers and on-air, Leno took to the opening monologue of last night's Tonight Show to ridicule NBC over the issue behind this whole debacle: ratings.
Daniel Gross on the consequences of tax hikes, Jeffrey Toobin on the fight for gay marriage, Bob Garfield on the golden age of journalism, Jonathan Mahler on Florida Gulf Coast University, and Avik Roy on the right to health care.
Discovered: We may come from microscopic worms after all; men and women tell stories differently; having fewer children tied to living longer; we feel in 3D.
Buried in the news of a major Supreme Court case and effectively burying the hatchet on a contentious Senate bid before it even began, the actress-turned-philanthropist announced on Twitter that she has decided not to challenge Mitch McConnell in 2014.
During today's oral arguments before the Supreme Court, concerning the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg remarked that present rules concerning same-sex marriage create a tiered system, which she compared to the grades of milk one can purchase
A representative for Grey Group denies trying to fool Reddit with a heart-warming story on behalf of Olive Garden. Chief communications officer Owen Dougherty told The Atlantic Wire. "It would be against our social code of conduct."
Kate Losse on Sheryl Sandberg's Facebook feminism, Maureen Dowd on the legacy of the Supreme Court, James C. Capretta on explaining conservative economic policy, Matthew Yglesias on NIMBY-ism, and Jack Shafer on boy genius Nick D'Aloisio.
Discovered: Bull sharks can have two heads; women don't want to run for political office; Africa used to have penguins; gangs don't use the Internet.
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