A longtime North Korean diplomat calls Mike Pence “stupid,” and says any comparisons to Libya are “ignorant.”

At the same time, North Korea dismantles its main nuclear-weapons test site.

Another American consular employee falls ill after a mysterious sonic attack, this time in China.

Trump tells CBS's Lesley Stahl he attacks the press relentlessly so no one believes them when he's up for critique.

Trump is: ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency, and wielding a vocabulary of 77 words that is better called Jerkish than English. A good reminder that Philip Roth didn’t just write novels.

“Philip Roth might not have imagined Portnoy’s Complaint speaking to a transgender man in a women’s shelter, but it did.”

Psst, Tournament of Books people: We just announced the books we’ll be reading for this year’s Rooster Summer Reading Challenge.

A quick summary of the political norms President Trump has violated in the past week.

The House passes a version of “right-to-try” legislation—either a win for sick patients, or an attack on safeguards.

A harrowing dispatch from Nigeria, where the supply of Tramadol is causing an opioid epidemic like and unlike ours.

Japanese train stations are world-class manipulators: stocked full of ingenious nudges you barely notice.

The NFL announces a new policy: from now on, teams will be fined if athletes kneel during the national anthem.

Paul Ryan promised Harley Davidson workers that corporate tax cuts would protect their jobs. Now they’re fired.

It looks like Elon Musk violated labor regulations with a tweet about unionization and stock options.

Two writers are currently employed at LaGuardia Airport to write a story for you while you fly, then text it to you when you land.

The latest gig economy job? "Bird hunters," people who hunt to recharge the scooters currently littering big cities.

“Would you put a picture of your child on a billboard next to a highway alongside your family name? Of course not. But people do it online all the time. And it’s not a problem. Until it is.” Interview with a former New York skip tracer who now “disappears” people—in real life and online.

Americans now prioritize paying off the balance on their latest smartphone over the loan on their car.

How a movie car designer imagines an autonomous supercar of the future.

Photographs from “In Search of Frankenstein” juxtapose snow-covered mountains with “a network of eerie subterranean bunkers.”

Wikipedia is actually a massive multiplayer online role-playing game. Wait, what?

As shown by the response to the latest Childish Gambino album: the internet killed the criticism star.

Manipulate nature's soundscapes by adding and removing their components—e.g., insects, people.

See how Earth looked at various stages in its evolution, from 600 million to 20 million years ago.

For the recent Met gala, the New York Times Styles section had 18 staffers in an on-site "war room."

The open floor plan may represent “the most distinctly American home design possible”—i.e., a prison without walls.

Here’s an advanced tic-tac-toe puzzle for your afternoon tea.