At 25, Stephen Glass was the most sought-after young reporter in the nation’s capital, producing knockout articles for magazines ranging from The New Republic to Rolling Stone. Trouble was, he made things up—sources, quotes, whole stories—in a breathtaking web of deception that emerged as the most…

A power play is underway in the foreclosure arena, according to the New York Times . On the one side is Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, who is conducting his own investigation into the era of securitizations – the practice of chopping up assets like mortgages and converting them…

“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.” -Francois Gautier Last week, I wrote a post about making difficult decisions , which incorporated 30 ideas from the Tiny Buddha Facebook community . The experience of writing it and reading the comments reminded me how certainty…

Retail electricity prices have risen much more in states that adopted competitive pricing than in those that have retained traditional rates set by the government, new studies based on years of price reports show. The findings, by advocates for both sides in the market-versus-regulation debate,…

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Jesse Roe, a ninth-grade math teacher at a charter school here called Summit, has a peephole into the brains of each of his 38 students. He can see that a girl sitting against the wall is zipping through geometry exercises; that a boy with long curls over his eyes is stuck on a…

BEGONE Dr. William P. Taylor, in 1987 in Sudan, examined a cow for rinderpest. The United Nations is announcing this week that the disease has been wiped off the face of the earth. F. Paladini On Tuesday in a ceremony in Rome, the United Nations is officially declaring that for only the second time…

Robert B. Reich is the former secretary of labor, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.” THE 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases, according to the…

'Though academic libraries have been frantically cutting subscriptions to make ends meet, journals now consume 65% of their budgets.' Photograph: Peter M Fisher/Corbis W ho are the most ruthless capitalists in the western world? Whose monopolistic practices make Walmart look like a corner shop and…

The decline in organized labor’s power and membership has played a larger role in fostering increased wage inequality in the United States than is generally thought, according to a study published in the American Sociological Review this month. The study, “ Unions, Norms and the Rise in U.S. Wage…

The Alucia and a Remus 6000, an unmanned reconnaissance submarine, at the last-known position of Flight 447. The sub can navigate rugged terrain miles beneath the ocean's surface and bring back thousands of photographs of underwater wrecks. Sylvain Pascaud Late on the morning of April 3, the…

To evaluate the nothing-to-hide argument, we should begin by looking at how its adherents understand privacy. Nearly every law or policy involving privacy depends upon a particular understanding of what privacy is. The way problems are conceived has a tremendous impact on the legal and policy…

If Colbert was giving voice to a September 11 mind-set that still secretly plagued the network’s image—Al Jazeera as a Trojan horse for extremism—Mohyeldin seemed to anticipate the question, assuming the measured voice of reason to Colbert’s contretemps. “Unfortunately Americans are being deprived…

Young people in Birmingham during riots in the city centre. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images I no longer live in London. I've been transplanted to Los Angeles by a combination of love and money; such good fortune and opportunity, in both cases, you might think disqualify me from commenting…

The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, visiting a London hospital, says the NHS needs competition and choice to become more efficient. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA The NHS is one of the most cost-effective health systems in the developed world, according to a study (pdf) published in the Journal of the…

Lady Susan Greenfield's suggestion that the rise in autism may be linked to increased internet use has sparked controversy. Photograph: Marco Secchi/Getty Images Controversy has erupted over comments made by the leading neuroscientist Lady Susan Greenfield suggesting links between the increase in…

Three tables showing rates of lung cancer among drinkers and non-drinkers, then adjusted for smokers and non-smokers F ox News was excited: " Unplanned children develop more slowly, study finds. " The Telegraph was equally shrill in its headline (" IVF children have bigger vocabulary than unplanned…

Tottenham riots, London Photograph: Rex Features F or me, it started when I saw a man walking through an estate in Tottenham , north London, carrying a flatscreen TV. It was 10.30pm last Saturday, and I was checking out reports of fires and clashes with police. Riot police had formed a cordon around…

Oliver, left, and Ravi Greene, who are regular visitors to the New York Transit Museum. Ángel Franco/The New York Times Ravi Greene can tell you how to get anywhere in New York City by transit — like the beach, on the 6 train. “The 6 goes elevated from Whitlock Avenue to Pelham Bay Park,” he…

American anti-Islam bloggers aren’t to blame for the Norway Massacre. But their response to the attacks is nonetheless revealing, in that they are now demanding the kind of nuanced analysis of the Norway shootings that they’ve always failed to offer when implicating jihadism or all Muslims for…

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Religion Running Scared Posted by on July 23, 2011 in Thoughts | 20 comments Religion is running scared from advances in science, particularly brain science such as neurology. Why? Because the brain is the final frontier in uncovering the reasons for belief in superstitions, religion and a higher…

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and, as you consider the career and future presidential prospects of an incredible American phenomenon named Michele Bachmann, do one more thing. Don't laugh. It may be the hardest thing you ever do, for Michele Bachmann is almost certainly the funniest thing…

Just when you thought that serotonin was passé, and you’d tossed all your half-used bottles of S.S.R.I.-type antidepressants because the ones that didn’t give you nausea or smother your libido left you wondering whether you were in the placebo arm of a clinical trial, here comes a raft of new…

Photo Illustration by Hubert Blanz G eoffrey West doesn’t eat lunch. His doctor says he has a mild allergy to food; meals make him sleepy and nauseated. When West is working — when he’s staring at some scribbled equations on scratch paper or gazing out his office window at the high desert in New…

Senator Mitch McConnell has a clever plan to resolve the federal debt impasse. Congressional Republicans would invite President Obama to raise the debt ceiling on his own, and then they would excoriate him for doing so. Hm. Just a bit contradictory? Meanwhile, the impasse arose because Congressional…

Her killer did a bad job. It was amateur work: There were bloody fingerprints and footprints all over the apartment, and the killer even defecated in the toilet and forgot to flush. But that wasn't the worst of it. Whoever murdered Meredith Kercher didn't know how to use a knife. Related 'Amanda…