Editor’s Pick

On June 13th, a fifty-four-year-old former government employee named Thomas Drake is scheduled to appear in a courtroom in Baltimore, where he will face some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. A former senior executive at the National Security Agency, the government’s electronic-espionage service, he is accused, in essence, […]

I’ll never forget the moment I heard about Luca Spaghetti’s memoir. It was a late afternoon in early spring. The sunlight pouring into my cubicle, I remember, was the color of artisanal ginger ale. I was about to take the last bite of a carrot-cake doughnut I’d been savoring — a decadent life-gift to myself […]

“Federal Standard 595—Colors Used in Government Procurement” has its roots in World War I, when in 1918 Bulletin No. 90 of the General HQ of the American Expeditionary Force established a color identified as “olive drab” as the official shade for tactical vehicles, though what exactly those words indicated was a subject of some confusion. […]

Turned on by “Taking On Tyson,” earlier this spring I immersed myself in the variegated programming of Animal Planet. As buds popped outside the window and vernally intoxicated squirrels chased their tails, I watched “Animal Cops: Miami, Infested!,” “Fatal Attractions” (exotic pets attacking their owners), and “Yellowstone: Battle for Life.” I watched and watched. Love […]

Once in Venezuela, other teams were put up in nice hotels, but the Iranian team, at the insistence of its country’s officials, was forced to stay in military barracks. Abedi was in a room with his brother’s best friend, Asgari. Quietly in the showers or in private moments between matches, Abedi began sharing his intentions […]

It’s a secret because homelessness is the one condition they find shameful. An inner-city hustler’s entire life is devoted to either rising above his station or projecting the illusion of same. So when the drug abuse or prison term or unemployability send him into the street, he needs a hiding place. Homeless shelters are a […]

On May 7th, Robert Krulwich gave the commencement speech to Berkeley Journalism School’s Class of 2011. That’s Robert Krulwich, who hosts the singular radio show Radiolab, one of the most accomplished pieces of science broadcasting in any nation. Robert Krulwich, who won a Peabody Award for broadcast excellence a few months ago. Robert Krulwich, whose […]

“There are compromises on not being in China, and there are compromises on being in China. It’s not clear to me which one is bigger,” she says. Three people familiar with these internal deliberations say that Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg fundamentally disagree on the issue. Zuckerberg believes that Facebook can be an agent of change […]

The lone memento of Luke Hill’s unhappy existence hangs like a specter in his former bedroom, piercing blue eyes haunting from a 12-year-old portrait. It’s Luke at age 4, in a blue silk kimono, a glossy studio snapshot from when the family lived in Japan, during Dad’s service in the U.S. Marine Corps. This is […]

On Father’s Day three years ago, biologist Jonathan Eisen decided he’d like to republish all his father’s papers. His father, Howard Eisen, a biologist and a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, had published 40-some-odd papers by the time that he died by suicide at age 45. That had been in Febuary 1987, while […]