August 18, 2015
- "President Obama declared a bank holiday, to the chagrin of President-Elect Trump."
- Footage shows the prime suspect in the Bangkok bombings that killed 20 on Monday.
- The IRS breach of more than 300,000 taxpayers' records fits the pattern of being worse than initially believed.
- States move to defund Planned Parenthood, some in violation of federal law.
- The code behind Stephen Hawking's speech program is now open source.
- National Labor Relations Board rejects Northwestern football players application to unionize.
- Five years of research supports what we already knew: Torture doesn't work.
- Inmate councils, a fixture of California state prisons, find their way into LA County jail.
- The surreal Texas retrial of Ed Graf, whose 1986 murder conviction was based on bad science.
- "If I had been born in a country with fossil-fuel reserves, would I have a different opinion about what's good for the world?"
- Chinese internet censors debunk rumors about Tianjin explosions—or that's what they want you to think.
- More in conspiracies: Here are our favorite shadowy plots.
- Wax figures never die, they're just reborn as Biblical characters in Ohio.
- A New Jersey media company is asking people how much money they'd pay for an extra year of life.
- In "Sabbath," Oliver Sacks finds inner peace before a final day of rest.
- My letter from Oliver Sacks.