Automattic

It’s not just erratic gas prices and a bad economy that’s hurting automakers. It may be that Americans are changing.

Having racked up some 17,000 miles, the plug-in Prius hybrids are averaging just 51 mpg. That’s raising uncomfortable questions about the value and effectiveness of plug-in technology, even as President Obama pledges to have 1 million of them on the road by 2015.

Granta.com’s New Voices series showcases original fiction from emerging writers. The latest story in this series is ‘Dragon Island’ by Laura Fellowes.

Jessica Simpson is at the crossroads of Obscurity and Re-invention. What brought the 28-year-old pop star, now also the controversial girlfriend of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, to this moment?

This was our third interview about the economy, the first two occurring during last year’s campaign. And while the setting was decidedly more formal this time — the Oval Office — the interview felt as conversational as those earlier ones. We sat at the far end of the office from his desk and spoke for […]

When underdogs break the rules.

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River last January, was justly celebrated for his skill and courage. Less has been revealed about other players in the drama: those enigmatic geese, the engines they struck, a pioneering French engineer, and an unsung hero—the Airbus A320 itself.

Kids today are just as safe as they were in the ’70s, says “Free-Range Kids” author Lenore Skenazy, and what’s really distressing is an alarmist culture that refuses to let them grow up.