Instapaper

France's hard line in Iran nuclear talks showed new assertiveness in Mideast

online.wsj.com

PARIS—At the nuclear talks last weekend in Geneva, France's foreign minister warned publicly that world powers risked being sucked into a "fool's game" by Iran. That resistance helped upend a landmark deal that would have offered Iran some relief from punishing international sanctions in return for…

Nov 14, 2013

JPMorgan's Fruitful Ties to a Member of China's Elite

dealbook.nytimes.com

Photo Wen Ruchun Credit To promote its standing in China, JPMorgan Chase turned to a seemingly obscure consulting firm run by a 32-year-old executive named Lily Chang. Ms. Chang’s firm, which received a $75,000-a-month contract from JPMorgan, appeared to have only two employees. And on the surface,…

Nov 14, 2013

Wall Street’s favorite Democrat wants your pension

salon.com

Less than a year ago, the Wall Street Journal alerted its national readership to what was happening in the tiny state of Rhode Island. In a story headlined "Small State Gets Big Pension Push," the paper noted that the state's "rollback of public-employee retirement benefits has turned (it) into a…

Nov 14, 2013

Last-minute rethink stalled deal on nuclear Iran

theguardian.com

Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, arrives at the InterContinental in Geneva. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images A meeting in a Geneva hotel room between the US secretary of state and his French counterpart led to an 11th-hour toughening of the west's position on Iran's nuclear…

Nov 14, 2013

Adam Driver, an Unlikely Face on TV or in Fashion

nytimes.com

Adam Driver, Unconventional Looks and a Brooding Manner 10 Photos View Slide Show › Ramsay de Give for The New York Times “I’m like a sight gag,” said Adam Driver, who plays the ugly-handsome, so-awful-to-Hannah-he’s-catnip bad boyfriend from HBO’s “Girls.” “I have this really big face,” added Mr.…

Nov 14, 2013

How Big Banks Killed a Plan to Speed Up Money Transfers

americanbanker.com

reprint Related Nacha Calls for More Vigilance from Banks on Fraud U.S. Isolating Itself from Global Payments System The Future of ACH Payments At Nacha Show, Wal-Mart Demands a Place at the Table for Nonbanks Expect a Slow Start for Faster ACH Transactions (2010) ClearXchange's New CEO Seeks to…

Nov 14, 2013

Hillary's Nightmare? A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies With Elizabeth Warren

newrepublic.com

Subscribe We’re three years from the next presidential election, and Hillary Clinton is, once again, the inevitable Democratic nominee. Congressional Republicans have spent months investigating her like she already resides in the White House. The New York Times has its own dedicated Clinton…

Nov 13, 2013

Elizabeth Warren challenges Obama to break up 'too-big-to-fail' Wall St banks

theguardian.com

Warren said: 'We have got to get back to running this country for American families, not for its largest financial institutions.' Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP Senator Elizabeth Warren cemented her growing reputation as a darling of the political left on Tuesday with a wide-ranging speech…

Nov 13, 2013

Richard Cohen's 10 worst moments, counted down

motherjones.com

goodaletv/YouTube Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has come under fire again for making a bizarre claim in a column. His latest gaffe is bad—but is it the worst thing he’s ever written? Let’s count down Cohen’s 10 worst moments from decades of column writing to see which one takes the crown.…

Nov 13, 2013

How Would the U.S. Media Cover Mike Bloomberg if He Were in Another Country?

slate.com

Savior or strongman? Ben Gabbe/Getty Images This is the second installment of a continuing series in which American events are d escribed using the tropes and tone normally employed by the American media to describe events in other countries. NEW YORK, United States—In just a few weeks, the 12-year…

Nov 13, 2013

How Would We Report on the Government Shutdown if It Were Happening in Another Country?

slate.com

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 30: The sun sets on an uneasy capital. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images This is the first installment of “If It Happened There,” a regular feature in which American events are described using the tropes and tone normally employed by the American media to describe events…

Nov 13, 2013

How Can the New York Times Endorse an Agreement the Public Can't Read?

eff.org

The New York Times' editorial board has made a disappointing endorsement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), even as the actual text of the agreement remains secret. That raises two distressing possibilities: either in an act of extraordinary subservience, the Times has endorsed an agreement…

Nov 13, 2013

In Afghanistan, interpreters who helped U.S. in war denied visas; U.S. says they face no threat

washingtonpost.com

KABUL — A growing number of Afghan interpreters who worked alongside American troops are being denied U.S. visas allotted by Congress because the State Department says there is no serious threat against their lives. But the interpreters, many of whom served in Taliban havens for years, say U.S.…

Nov 12, 2013

U.S. Postal Service to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays

latimes.com

Giant online retailer Amazon.com Inc. is turning up the heat on rivals this holiday season and beyond under a new deal with the U.S. Postal Service for delivering packages on Sundays. Starting this week, the postal service will bring Amazon packages on Sundays to shoppers’ doors in the Los Angeles…

Nov 12, 2013

Wall Street slumlords’ outrageous new scheme: How they could wreck the economy again

salon.com

You’d think that investors would run away from a new Wall Street innovation as fast as Congress runs away from a good idea. But instead, they’re flocking to the latest product peddled by large banking interests, even though they look almost exactly like the mortgage-backed securities that were a…

Nov 11, 2013

Is It Too Late to Prepare for Climate Change?

newyorker.com

On Monday, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report on the impacts of global warming, for which it says the world is ill prepared. Elizabeth Kolbert wrote about a leaked draft of the report in this piece, originally published on November 5, 2013. Late last week,…

Nov 11, 2013

Intelligence Community Inspector General rebuffs Hill on surveillance probe

politico.com

The inspector general who oversees the sprawling U.S. intelligence community said he lacks the resources to conduct a review of NSA's surveillance authorities, rebuffing a request from a bipartisan group of senators seeking answers about the the agency's work. Led by Judiciary Committee Chairman…

Nov 10, 2013

How the Internet Has Changed the R.S.V.P.

nytimes.com

Circa Now Credit... Matt Huynh With ease come presumption and murk. Take, for instance, the modern R.S.V.P. The Internet has allowed a host or event producer to painlessly publicize his or her event to sultans and skateboarders in minutes, the digital invitation beaming on their computer screens and…

Nov 10, 2013

Cut in Food Stamps Forces Hard Choices on Poor

nytimes.com

After Congress cut monthly benefits for food stamp recipients, families in the Bronx must make hard choices with reduced food budgets. Credit... Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times CHARLESTON, S.C. — For many, a $10 or $20 cut in the monthly food budget would be absorbed with little notice. But…

Nov 10, 2013

C.I.A. Is Said to Pay AT&T for Call Data

nytimes.com

WASHINGTON — The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company’s vast database of phone records, which includes Americans’ international calls, according to government officials. The cooperation is conducted under…

Nov 9, 2013

That Goddamned Blue Bird and Me: How Twitter Hijacked My Mind

nymag.com

Photo: LEON NEAL/AFP Images/Getty I joined Twitter, with very bad grace, on March 5, 2010. I was a few months away from publishing my first book, and my agent, editor, publicist, and assorted other media-savvy types sat me down and informed me that if I cared even an iota about its commercial fate,…

Nov 9, 2013

How Twitter has changed politics — and political journalism

washingtonpost.com

Twitter is now a publicly traded stock . But long before any Tom, Dick or Harry ( or Ron ) could buy stock in Twitter, the micro-blogging service was in the process of fundamentally reshaping the way in which politics is practiced and covered. The changes, which are still in process, are profound --…

Nov 9, 2013

Little surprise here: women expected to do more at home – and at work

theguardian.com

A new Columbia Business School study highlights the expectation of favors from female workers. Photograph: UK Stock Images Ltd /Alamy No matter what profession a woman works in, she's actually in the service profession. That's the upshot of an illuminating (and to many, enraging) new Columbia…

Nov 1, 2013

The 20 Year Influence of Brandy - Saint Heron

saintheron.com

“I wanna be down.” A declaration, never a question, and it belonged to the mononymous R&B sensation that is Brandy. In September of 1994, these words formed the year’s boldest assertion from a musical artist, and gave name to one of the most refreshing entries into the R&B canon, pretty much ever.…

Nov 1, 2013

The Prophet: Meet Dave Ramsey, America's Personal Finance Guru

psmag.com

Dave Ramsey. (PHOTO: JACKSON LAIZURE/GETTY IMAGES) For a long time Tannie and Kenneth Ackley had more bills than they could keep track of. There was a debt to Sears and another to Home Depot. There were medical bills, including a couple thousand dollars’ worth from Kenneth’s surgery to fix a heart…

Nov 1, 2013

Comcast is donating heavily to defeat the mayor who is bringing gigabit fiber to Seattle

washingtonpost.com

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn ( photo by Jen Nance/office of the mayor) One of Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn's big policy initiatives has been expanding the quality and quantity of high-speed Internet access throughout the city. A public-private partnership plans to offer higher speeds at lower prices than…

Nov 1, 2013

Ousted General in Egypt Is Back, as Islamists’ Foe

nytimes.com

CAIRO — A year after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, the man responsible for rooting out government corruption, Gen. Mohamed Farid el-Tohamy, faced a very public barrage of allegations that he had deliberately covered up years of cronyism and self-dealing. President Mohamed Morsi promptly…

Oct 31, 2013

The Real Reason Saudi Arabia Doesn’t Want Friendlier U.S.-Iran Relations

theatlantic.com

Saudi Arabia dealt a high-profile snub to the international community and the United States on Friday when it turned down a rotating seat on the United Nations Security Council. The unprecedented move was a culmination of months of public derision directed toward the U.S. for its halfhearted…

Oct 31, 2013

The Preposterous Removal of Judge Scheindlin from the Stop-and-Frisk Case

newyorker.com

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit just chastised Shira Scheindlin , the trial judge in the case challenging the constitutionality of the N.Y.P.D.’s stop-and-frisk policy, for speaking out about the issue while the trial was going on. In a ruling today, the appeals court said…

Oct 31, 2013

N.S.A. Said to Tap Google and Yahoo Abroad

nytimes.com

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency and its British counterpart have apparently tapped the fiber-optic cables connecting Google’s and Yahoo’s overseas servers and are copying vast amounts of email and other information, according to accounts of documents leaked by the former agency contractor…

Oct 31, 2013

The Boy With the Least Toys by Cord Jefferson | Scratch Magazine

scratchmag.net

Sign In & Read The novelist discusses money, power, and cliche. And Twitter. The novelist discusses money, power, and cliche. And Twitter. Read for free Outgrowing my materialism Outgrowing my materialism Read for free Web editors of The Atlantic, Slate, and The Toast talk shop. Web editors of The…

Oct 31, 2013