Author of "The Sixth Extinction," Elizabeth Kolbert , talks to Ezra Klein about the next mass extinction. What follows is a transcript of their conversation. Elizabeth Kolbert : A mass extinction is defined as a moment in time — geologically speaking, a short moment in time — when the diversity of…

Matthew Zaklad used $2 bills to shop at the Union Square Greenmarket. Credit... Joshua Bright for The New York Times Move over, Bitcoin. There is another uncommon tender angling for a spotlight, or in this case, a comeback: the $2 bill. Heather McCabe is on a one-woman mission to revitalize the…

A man looks over the Affordable Care Act signup page on the healthcare.gov website. Photograph: MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS It's 2 April. The Obamacare deadline was yesterday. Over seven million people have enrolled, right? We're done. Right? Right? Well, not quite. What do you mean – not quite? What else is…

A group of 3,000 ordinary citizens, armed with nothing more than an Internet connection, is often making better forecasts of global events than CIA analysts. Here, a man crosses the CIA logo at its headquarters in Langley, Va. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images The morning I met Elaine Rich, she was sitting…

Clapper said: 'These queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures and consistent with the statute and the fourth amendment.' Photo: Shawn Thew/EPA US intelligence chiefs have confirmed that the National Security Agency has used a "back door" in surveillance law to perform warrantless…

Whenever Chris Hondros returned to New York City after a long assignment, it was like a roving professor holding office hours. One meeting at Caffe Reggio in Greenwich Village would morph into drinks or dinner with out-of-towners visiting Brooklyn. Friends came and went, but the discussion was…

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This week, the Associated Press exposed a secret program run by the U.S. Agency for International Development to create “ a Twitter-like Cuban communications network ” run through “secret shell companies” in order to create the false appearance of being a privately owned operation. Unbeknownst to…

It’s not hard to find a reason to recommend Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow . Kahneman’s book helps understand not only human behavior and decision making, but also journalism and how news stories are reported. His work describes the ways people interpret information incorrectly or…

Tilda Swinton, photographed by Norman Jean Roy. Styling by Alicia Lombardini; Hair by Elsa using Oribe Hair Care for Shuly NY; Makeup by Fulvia Farolfi for Chanel. Lace fabric by Solstiss. Photo: Norman Jean Roy It was well before eight on a Thursday in March, and onstage at Joe’s Pub, ­cocktail in…

Timothy Noah: Novelist Mona Simpson on the anxious childhood Steve Jobs escaped (i.e., her own) by getting adopted. http://t.co/NjH0LDrJoC

Credit Illustration by Tom Bachtell The chemist F. Sherwood Rowland is one of the few people in history about whom it can accurately be said: he helped save the world. In 1972, Rowland, a chemist at the University of California-Irvine, attended a talk on the compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons.…

LARB Business and Finance Section Editor Timothy Spangler interviewed Andrew Ross about his new book, Creditocracy and the Case for Debt Refusal , out now from O/R Books. ¤ Timothy Spangler: Do you have a credit card? Andrew Ross: Yes, I have two. Do you have a mortgage? Yes, I have two. [ Laughs ]…

Johansson has two new films: “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Under the Skin,” which is like nothing that Johansson buffs, or pretty much anyone else, have seen before. Photograph by Pari Dukovic These are exciting times for Scarlett Johansson. In the past year, she has played the…

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo spoke at a rally in support of charter schools on the steps outside the State Capitol in Albany last month. Credit... Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times It was a frigid February day in Albany, and leaders of New York City’s charter school movement were anxious. They had…

John Abrahams, an American-born cabby, in Times Square. Today, only 8 percent of city taxi and for-hire drivers were born in the United States. Credit... Bryan Thomas for The New York Times The cabbies huddled beside space heaters in the break room of a garage in Long Island City, Queens, playing a…

"Abe" and "Brian," the founders of a Brooklyn-based marijuana delivery service, pose alongside their bikes on a recent afternoon in Williamsburg. (Photo: Wendy George) T wo drug dealers are sitting in my living room, drinking a pot of French-pressed coffee I brewed for our interview. With long hair,…

World Russia Resumes Oil Supplies to Belarus Amid Talks on Strengthening Economic Ties

Antwain Steward is in jail on murder charges, based largely on lyrics in one of his rap songs. Credit... Khue Bui for The New York Times NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The case had gone cold. Four years after the 2007 murders of Christopher Horton, 16, and Brian Dean, 20, detectives here had little to go on.…

The Billfold: Diversity Hiring and the Concept of 'Fit' - http://t.co/OcJYLEelYU

An internal investigation found that Gov. Chris Christie played no role in closing lanes to the George Washington Bridge in September. Credit... Richard Perry/The New York Times The Port Authority official who directed the shutdown of lanes to the George Washington Bridge said that he informed Gov.…

A Department of Justice investigation will rule that an FBI agent was justified in using deadly force last May when he shot and killed Ibragim Todashev, a Chechen man connected to the brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing , according to law enforcement officials. The officials…

Last April, Dong Nguyen, a quiet 28-year-old who lived with his parents in Hanoi, Vietnam, and had a day job programming location devices for taxis, spent a holiday weekend making a mobile game. He wanted it to be simple but challenging, in the spirit of the Nintendo games he grew up playing. The…

The New York Times: News Analysis: If Not a Cold War, a Return to a Chilly Rivalry http://t.co/A5DMdlasGK

This post is the inaugural edition of an effort to point out some of the more regrettable examples of anonymous quotations in The Times. I’ve written about this from time to time, as have my predecessors, to little or no avail. Let’s call it AnonyWatch. (I also considered The UnidentiFiles, the…

Thin but muscular, Stuart Scott uses mixed martial arts and high-intensity cross-training workouts to restore the energy that chemotherapy saps from him. Credit... Jessica Hill for The New York Times WEST HARTFORD, Conn. — Inside the mixed martial arts studio, Stuart Scott lifted the black T-shirt…

The New York Times: Questions Over Absence of Cellphone Calls From Missing Passengers http://t.co/XwCpyGwcmd

Chris Schroeder: THIS is the future of news. @mims: Five Thirty Eight a master class in why journalists are so often wrong. http://t.co/3hLZ4TBM4G

We throw thousands of men in the hole for the books they read, the company they keep, the beliefs they hold. Here’s why Mother Jones Mar 10, 2014 · 35 min read IT’S BEEN SEVEN MONTHS since I’ve been inside a prison cell. Now I’m back, sort of. The experience is eerily like my dreams, where I am a…

Gene Demby: Via @nprmusic: How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You: The Beyhive http://t.co/d7mrTWsOxi

Photo by Marius Bugge Photo: Marius Bugge Stats superstar Nate Silver hates the term “data-driven.” He also hates the work of just about every popular columnist at all of the major newspapers, including his former employer, the New York Times . But he loves burritos. On March 17, Silver will deliver…

Jim Roberts: Why Paris is shrouded in dangerous air pollution. @afreedma explains: http://t.co/RlPGxMTvYJ http://t.co/qTzEun8pJZ