The battle for the hottest mapping startup on the plane is finally over, and Google — the undisputed king of 21-century maps — has officially prevailed, purchasing the company for a reported $1.03 billion, apparently because the Tel Aviv-based Waze didn't want to relocate all the way to the belly of the Googleplex.
Your perception of Chicago's murder problem isn't quite correct. While the city has seen a rash of shootings, many deadly, the murder rate is actually at a low for the year, on-pace with the 1960s. But it is also at a low point — and moving in several new directions — compared to another era of high crime in Chicago: Prohibition.
Far from your average record-release event, this was an "instantaneous" gathering of West's invite-only inner circle. (Which, really, was still plenty of people.) Here's everything we learned, gleaned from the few reports to trickle out late last night and throughout the morning.
Ai Weiwei on the NSA's behavior, Alex Pareene on Edward Snowden's personality, Michelle Cottle on Michelle Obama's second term, Chris Hughes on how we control technology, S.E. Cupp on young lung transplant recipients.
Designer Roberto Cavalli's Facebook page posted a sketch of a dress for Beyoncé's tour featuring a hyperreal but totally unrealistic illustration of the singer, that morphs her into a stick-thin, seemingly boneless Barbie. It's, well, creepy.
Princeton University's entire 500-acre campus, in central New Jersey, is currently being evacuated after the university received multiple bomb threats targeting an array of campus buildings.
After years of complaints about Apple's cheesy, outdated, and decidedly "skeuomorphic" iPhone software look, the company and its geek design god Jony Ive have unveiled iOS 7 and, well, nobody in the design-geek set really likes it.
Today in celebrity gossip: Prince Harry has been seen with a new model companion, he's also a hero to the gays, and there's a love triangle scandal a'brewin' down in Alabama.
Government IT contractor Booz Allen has updated its official statement on employee Edward Snowden to let everyone know — in case it wasn't obvious enough — that he doesn't work there anymore.
Quick, name an American who's currently on the International Space Station. (No cheating.) Tough, right? Part of that is due to astronauts not getting much fanfare these days unless they literally put on a song-and-dance routine. But that isn't the case in China however, where the astronauts aboard the just-launched Shenzou-10 spacecraft are the nation's biggest celebrities.
Well, the embargo broke on Man of Steel reviews late last night, and the response to Zack Snyder's hotly anticipated reboot of the Superman franchise is decidedly... mixed. This version is heavy on the action and heavy on the seriousness, which some critics say drags it down. Other have declared it a triumph. But like it or not, there will be a sequel.
Conservative opponents to immigration reform are starting to get creative in thinking up ways to stop the bill working its way through the Senate. There are reasons for opponents to be very nervous: In an interview with ABC, House Speaker John Boehner would not rule out passing an immigration bill without the support of a majority of Republicans.
Now that we know all the specs about Microsoft and Sony's new video-game-and-lots-of-other-stuff consoles, it's time to settle this war before it gets any uglier: Which system is better when they're put side-by-side in an early test of living-room supremacy? Let's break it down.
It's a minor diplomatic tit-for-tat, but that one almost seems perfectly calculated to provide a convenient excuse for no talks at all.
When Rep. Peter King referred to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as "a defector," he seemed to be channeling the political lexicon of 1983, not 2013 — much less 1984. Or maybe he was being prescient. Reports this morning indicate that Russia would consider a request by Snowden to seek asylum in that country. Here's how that would work.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any more gross, a report from city officials due out today insists that the hot mess is just beginning — and that Alabama-level summers are on the way to the Big Apple. Yes, this has to do with climate change.
John Oliver officially started his summer gig subbing in as host for Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last night, and right up front, on Night No. 1, he wanted everybody involved to admit that it was "weird." And then he admitted that he could do without the huge frickin' NSA news.
Now that Edward Snowden is on the lam, location unknown, the curious have tracked down the NSA whistleblower's family, friends, and (possible) girlfriend to learn more.
The Obama administration gave up their fight to keep age limits on sales of over-the-counter emergency contraception pill Plan B on Monday
The Senate passed a farm bill today that would, among other things, cut food stamp and nutrition assistance programs by nearly $4 billion over 10 years.
No matter whether you're trusting the conspiracy theorists, the recappers, or Matthew Weiner this season, Mad Men's big gay subplot probably won't get resolved that simply in the last two episodes. So what do you believe? And what does this mean about next season? Let's just say this gets more meta than ever.
Sesame Street — home of Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Elmo — rarely incites controversy. But then the website of the popular children's education show uploaded a curious feature called "Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration."
Today in show business news: HBO has a big ratings hit, Oprah re-ups with LaToya Jackson, and there's a new man in charge of American Idol. Also: Hobbit.
Booker has a massive lead in the race to replace the late Frank Lautenberg, which helps explain why Republicans are so made at Chris Christie.
On the third month of the year 2013, the world rejoiced: The New York Jets had released Tim Tebow, and finally — rejoice! — tabloid Tebow-mania was over. But, lo and behold, the evil genius of Bill Belichick just made everyone care about the Christian quarterback from Florida once more.
The Primetime Emmy Awards (hosted by Neil Patrick Harris) aren't until September, and there's more than a month to go until nominations are announced. But the voting begins tonight.
A bit of good news for the 265 sitting members of Congress who voted to extend the PATRIOT Act: 56 percent of Americans thinks doing just that is just fine. As a majority also did seven years ago.
Perhaps more than any segment of the technology industry, gamer culture has had its fair share of sexism problems, so it's not that surprising that a Microsoft presenter slipped an apparent rape reference into a Monday presentation at the biggest video-game conference of the year.
The trial of George Zimmerman has begun, and immediately inspired one of the most baffling comments ever uttered by a talking head about Martin's late-night confrontation with Zimmerman, even for a story already so loaded with race, death, lawyers, Florida, and inevitably Nancy Grace.
If you watched closely at Tim Cook's keynote today, amidst all the other new goodies to come out of the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, there was an easter egg of sorts: Apple has slipped in a new FaceTime Audio feature to its beefed-up iOS 7, and it brings iPhone owners one step closer to — well, to not really ever needing a phone plan.
It wasn't even 24 hours since Edward Snowden revealed himself as the NSA surveillance leaker — but that was plenty of time for everyone to decide whether he's a good guy or a contemptible monster.
Today in viral videos: A Shia is (sort of) redeemed, the awesomeness of burning liquid oxygen, and the day Tiago Splitter's basketball career died.
The workout clothing giant's instantly notorious see-through bottoms have been replaced on shelves, but that apparently wasn't enough to save CEO Christine Day from the rare national athletic-gear controversy and her "bend over" test comments amidst it.
A once-controversial provision of the Affordable Care Act that adds a ten percent tax to indoor tanning sessions will soon become permanent. Good news for Obamacare, which will garner an estimate $2.7 billion in revenue every ten years from the move. Bad news for people who don't want to pay slightly more for a tanning session.
The world of The Challenge is a weirdly self-contained ecosystem, the cast members seeming very much aware of their particular and practiced role in the franchise while also stumbling around obliviously.
Last week saw revelations that the FBI and the National Security Agency have been collecting Americans' phone records en masse and that the agencies have access to data from nine tech companies.But secrecy around the programs has meant even basic questions are still unanswered. Here's what we still don't know:
Voters have ill-defined ideas about what it means to be a female politician
Tonight is the first night of Jon Stewart's movie-making hiatus, which means it will be John Oliver's first shot at The Daily Show's anchor desk. And he's lucked out: He couldn't have picked a better news cycle for his brand of humor that is at its best when calling out American hypocrisy in his made-for-BBC accent.
There's a rule, known as Betteridge's law of headlines, which states that any headline written as a question can be answered, "no." It holds true in this case. Or it probably will, if past polling is any indicator.
Forget the guilt of having built the technology that allows the government to spy on its citizens' private lives more than ever before — the biggest concern out of Silicon Valley about the NSA mess is that all this bad press could be bad news for the bottom line, so the entrepreneurs are all ganging up on Washington.
This morning, like they will for the rest of this month's Monday mornings, Supreme Court watchers waited for decisions in the big Prop. 8, DOMA, and affirmative action cases only to get an inconclusive ruling about raisins. But never fear, we're here with a guide on when those bigger decisions are expected and why you should start circling the week of June 24 for those potentially historic gay rights decisions.
@HillaryClinton is finally here. The verified handle for the former Secretary of State sent its first tweet on Monday afternoon, dropping references to the instantly viral Texts from Hillary meme. And her profile is so great it's hard to believe she pretty much skipped Twitter during the 2008 campaign. Now, what's this about 2016?
Arranging a designated driver seems pretty easy, but in practice, according to new research published on Monday in The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, a large percentage of designated drivers swill booze anyway.
Edward Snowden is the most sought-after leaker of national security secrets on Earth right now, but it appears that nobody has any idea where he actually is. The 29-year-old former defense contractor has gone AWOL, and the chase is on, for sleuths both real and amateur.
According to a memo by the State Department's Inspector General, several members of the Diplomatic Security Service, which is in charge of protecting American diplomats overseas, were told to back off or stop investigating several criminal investigations involving department employees, including at least one ambassador, to ensure that no charges were ever brought.
Most members of Congress are not outraged by the NSA's programs to collect all your phone calls and emails. They're outraged that someone would expose them. Now that the leaker has gone public — Edward Snowden is still holed up somewhere in Hong Kong, with "way, way more" secrets — the campaign to discredit him as a nutcase has begun.
Today in celebrity news: Justin Bieber's guards are armed, Kristin from Laguna Beach is married, and Bradley Cooper has a new lady.
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)
