By maligning McCain, the Trump White House reached a new low for political debasement this week.

Worth remembering with all this talk of torture: Christopher Hitchens got waterboarded so you’d know what it’s like.

Liuba Grechen Shirley is the first female candidate to get federal permission to use campaign funds for babysitting.

Not many men take their wife's last name, but those that do tend to be less educated, a study finds.

A canny adult might take a stand against Internet negativity in order to troll her husband; such a gesture seems beyond the First Lady’s powers. It is easier to imagine her as the shy, pretty child on the playground, waiting around for someone to make the big bully stop. Melania Trump’s “Be Best” campaign is eerily childlike.

Make a joke on Twitter about bounties and you, too, may get to explain to the feds your ideological opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

More than 15 assassination attempts were made on election officials and candidates in the past month in Iraq.

Seven people were killed in Australia’s worst mass shooting since 1996.

A seldom aspect of New York policing: Plainclothes police are involved in nearly a third of fatal shootings.

Headline of the week: "I Went to a Flat Earth Convention to Meet Flat Earthers Like My Mom."

Despite appearances, the rate at which scientists in America win Nobels has been declining since 1972.

Smartphones and smart speakers that use digital assistants like Alexa or Siri are set to outnumber people by 2021.

From Nicole Boyce, “Does Alexa Know I’m Gay?”

Where to find pirate radio stations these days? YouTube, of course.

Uber's CEO feels “reasonably confident” that demo flights of its flying taxi service will start in two years.

Under existential threat, rental car companies want car-sharing subjected to the same regulations they face.

Someone tell George Costanza: Starbucks says its bathrooms are now open to everybody, whether you buy a coffee or not.

Apple’s design guru Jony Ive talks watches with a watch nerd.

A photoessay by Carolina Arantes about the genetically-modified cattle behind Brazil's thriving beef industry.

“I consider photography to be free of restrictions." Lovely disorienting photographs by China's Yishu Wang.

Some really nice color in these 1930s-era illustrations of interior design.

How “mom hair”—cropped hair that’s considered unfeminine—came to be seen as unsexy.

Oddly soothing: An interactive lathe.