Part 1 of a series ( See more recent reports ) Worcester Police Sgt. Kevin Pageau, right, and Detective John Doherty, left, interrogate Nga Truong, 16, following the 2008 death of her baby boy. (WBUR
On Wednesday , WBUR detailed the 2008 interrogation of a teenager by Worcester police that led to her arrest on the charge of murdering her baby. The interrogation raises troubling questions about the
Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011 How the U.S. Postal Service Fell Apart Inside a grad student's apartment at the University of Pennsylvania sits a slightly faded blue-and-white wooden sign from a post office in Malone, Wash., that no longer exists. If this were any other college student's place, the sign…
Is Obama Toast? Handicapping the 2012 Election Americans are usually forgiving when they vote a man into the White House and he wants a second term. Of the last eight elected presidents, all but two —
Epileptic is a tour-de-force of comics storytelling funded in the iconic forms of traditional cartooning, which it uses to construct a rich polysemy unparalleled in the history of the medium. Working on several levels, from the prosaically physical to the symbolic and the spiritual, it is perhaps…
What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral. By Barry Ritholtz, I have a fairly simple approach to investing: Start with data and objective evidence to determine the dominant elements dri
Op-Ed Contributor A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked li
DEBT AND DUMB SIMON JOHNSON JAMES KWAK POLITICS As a young artillery captain in the Revolutionary War, Alexander Hamilton learned a crucial lesson: Good credit, based on the power to tax, is essential
With their team in peril and their manager losing his authority, three Red Sox pitchers last month were uniquely positioned to prevent the greatest September collapse in major league history. All the
It seems like every time a major software revision comes along, it’s described as the “biggest ever.” In the case of iOS 5, though, that might not be hyperbole—there’s hardly a part of Apple’s mobile
On the afternoon of July 18, in remarks from the Rose Garden amid the bruising showdown with congressional Republicans over the debt ceiling, President Obama made what the White House billed as a simp
(Sneak peak at our upcoming November issue.) As a fan of Lawrence Lessig's pioneering work on copyright and digital culture, I was saddened when, a few years back, he shifted his focus to congressional corruption and campaign finance. Efforts to take the money out of politicsas opposed to playing…
Editorial The Myth of Voter Fraud It has been a record year for new legislation designed to make it harder for Democrats to vote — 19 laws and two executive actions in 14 states dominated by Republica
It has long been the conventional wisdom on both sides of the death penalty debate that if a state or the federal government were ever shown to have executed an innocent person, we'd see a dramatic dr
Job creation has finally returned as a front and center priority in Washington. The prescription for spurring job creation, however, depends on the diagnosis of the underlying problem. Policymakers ar
So Romer, a preternaturally cheerful economist whose expertise on the Great Depression made her an obvious choice to head the Council of Economic Advisers, gathered her tables and her charts and, on a
( A PDF of this article can be purchased through SAGE for your tablet or mobile device. ) By Neal Stephenson My lifespan encompasses the era when the United States of America was capable of launching
With the 2012 presidential election before us, the country is again caught up in debating national security issues, our ongoing wars and the threat of terrorism. There is one related subject, however,
The rental car turned onto the sidewalk behind the registrar’s office and rolled slowly down the brick path between a dining hall and the English department, a few steps from my office. “Beyond Time,” an upbeat German dance song, played on the car’s stereo. The driver, Mohammed Taheri-Azar, had just…
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed byour Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple c
Subscribe My Account Lapham’s Quarterly About Magazine Current Issue All Issues Preamble Essays Voices in Time Contributors Charts & Graphs Conversations Miscellany Maps Quotes Blogs Roundtable Insigh
One of the greatest ironies of the 9/11 Era: while politicians, generals and journalists lined up to denounce al-Qaida as a brutal band of fanatics, one commander thought its organizational structure
F ifty years ago next month, I stood before the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters for my inaugural public address as President Kennedy’s chairman of the Federal Communicati
U.S. News Scammer Drove Network of Rural Hospitals Into the Ground Kaiser Health News opinion Politics To Beat Trump, Fight for Rural and Small-Town Voters Michael Tomasky Politics Non-Partisan, but Not Neutral Dems Wanna Turn Trump’s Twitter Addiction Into a 2020 Issue Sam Stein Disgraced Pundit…
Dick Cheney This week Dick Cheney invites us all to join him again in a game he likes to play against the rest of us called Tedious Torture Standoff. He continues to assert—this time in his memoir, th
This is an overview of my year of traveling with an iPad. I’ve taken it overseas, used it on road trips, navigated with it on city streets and used it on the beach as well as in the mountains. I’ve pr
Mail to Print page Submit a letter: Email us letters@nybooks.com Reviewed: In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy Simon and Schuster, 424 pp., $26.00 I'm Feeling Lu
And 10 Things Learned From The Criterion Collection's Release Of The Classic Film Noir Last week, the Criterion Collection released , " The Killing ," Stanley Kubrick 's ambitious 1956 classic film noir. While it was technically his third feature-length effort (" Fear and Desire " he disavowed as an…
Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to ki
T hough some may disagree (and I’m sure some will, because some always do), there doesn’t seem to be much debate over what have been the four best television shows of the past 10 years. It seems like
To the Limit In about a month, if nothing is done, the federal government will hit its legal debt limit. There will be dire consequences if this limit isn’t raised. At best, we’ll suffer an economic s
The first time I remember hearing the question “is it real?” was when I went as a young boy to see a traveling show put on by “professional wrestlers” one summer evening in the gym of the Forks River
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 m
HowardLikedThis