Paris, Exposed
The layout of the French capital is famous for its density and opaqueness. Under attack, suddenly transparency is the norm.
news
A collection of 66 issues
The Messenger
From “Truth Trucks” to viral videos, Operation Rescue head Troy Newman’s word is his sword.
Love in the Time of Catholicism
The Pope spoiled his trip to America by meeting with a Kentucky clerk. But his unheard praise of a different radical provides a silver lining.
City to Rapper: Drop Dead
This summer’s ongoing war between Chief Keef and Rahm Emanuel is as much about urban history as holograms.
White Guys (Friendship Never Ends)
An alphabetical update to important stories that have fallen off the front page, from the existence of Atlantis to the Spice Girls’ decline.
Hit Job
An unusual DEA raid on one of LA’s most reputable medical marijuana dispensaries reveals the bewildering conflict between state and federal drug laws.
Crazy in Love With Kansas
Brief updates on important stories that have tumbled off the front page—“Carry That Weight,” Brownbackonomics, the ice bucket challenge, homophobia in Russia, and more.
The World According to Brian Williams
A look back at the dethroned NBC Nightly News anchor’s storied history, in his own words.
Work Is Pretty Scarce Around Here
Just before and right after President Obama’s State of the Union address, an editor telephones complete strangers around the country, to find out what’s really going on.
Admirable Restraint
Understatement can help us cope with disaster. But in the case of Paul McCartney, a little doesn’t always go a long way.
Turnip for Hugh
Brief updates to news stories that have slipped off the front page. This week: Smoking lounges at Reynolds American, Hugh Hefner’s hibernation, and the financial disasters that are Olympic Games.
The Law of the Instrument
More than 200 letters to the editor, op-eds, and editorials from newspapers across the US reveal a country divided on who should be allowed to vote.
Sarah, You Can Drive My Car
Updates to news stories that have slipped off the front page. This week: male birth control, Sarah Palin, hydraulic fracking, the Beatles, and more.
Lean Into a Croissant Doughnut
Brief updates to news stories that have slipped off the front page. This week: schoolgirls in Nigeria, Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, Josh Hartnett’s career, and more.
The Absolute Minimum
Highlights from a reading of 200-plus letters to the editor, from newspapers in all 50 states, to determine what Crazy America thinks about raising—or lowering—the minimum wage.
The Cause of All the Commotion
This Saturday, the 2013 hurricane season will end—and with it, possibly, New York City’s final hurricane-less year.
Feeding the Beast
What should readers demand from their reporters? Find the shadows. Examine the complex problems. And captivate us. Journalists from Slate, Deadspin, ProPublica, NPR, and more on what readers should expect.
Explaining the Inexplicable
Readers of science reporting often find their heads spinning. Some of the science reporters do, too. A look at how the best of them make inexpertise an asset.
Lots of Oil Fields Around Here
A special Fourth of July edition of our series where an editor randomly calls people in small towns around America to see what’s happening.
The Pyongyang Papers
North Korea’s intentions are unknown for the moment. But its memos are, at the very least, straightforward. The TMN staff uncovers a worldwide exclusive: internal documentation of the DPRK’s plans for the remaining calendar year.
Odd People Here
The United States is a huge country, much too big for the nightly news. Our series continues where one of our editors randomly calls people in small towns around America to find out what’s really going on.
Smog of War
More than a decade after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan—now our longest war—most Americans still know next to nothing about the people who live there, and the liberties denied them. Lessons from a rapid education.
The Perfect Forecast
Predicting the weather is an incredibly complicated task. Stopping it altogether is even more difficult—but that doesn't mean scientists aren't trying. Obsession, cloud seeding, and very powerful storms.
Here You Know Pretty Much Everybody
Our series continues with more random phone calls around small-town USA to find out what’s really going on. This time our editor only makes his calls at night, to see what happens when America goes dark.
The Pleading of President Forty-Four
The White House has been lauded for its grassroots internet campaigns to raise money. But what happens when a man takes the president's messages too personally?
People Here Drink a Lot
Our country is colossal, much too big for the nightly news. Our series continues where a TMN editor randomly calls people in towns around America to find out what’s really going on.
The Type We Do Here Is for Self-Defense
Continuing our series of randomly calling people around the U.S. to find out what's going on in their towns, this time we focus on the Olympics—how do folks who come from the same communities as America's Olympians feel about their star athletes?
Deplorable, Lousy, Godawful, and Required
People complain that politics are worse than ever. It happens to be true. But history contains as many examples of the contentious, weird, and wacky as the present—and those absurdities are actually vital to our democracy.
A Coalition of Dunces
Last week, the Pulitzer Prize board refused to give its prestigious award to any novel published in 2011. Something is clearly broken. We roused our commentators from the Tournament of Books, Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner, for their remarks.
Thomas Mallon Redux
The rise and fall of Richard Nixon has been the subject of many histories, but perhaps none so insightful as Thomas Mallon's latest novel Watergate. A conversation about crime, ambition, booze, and Christopher Hitchens.
Here People Keep Christmas Lights Up All Year Round
The United States is much too big for the nightly news to cover thoroughly. Continuing our series of randomly telephoning people around the country—from Santa Claus, Ind., to Brilliant, Ala.—to find out what’s really going on.
Boots March on Bolotnaya Square
This winter, a burgeoning protest movement laid its cornerstone in a former swamp and up grew hope. Our correspondent talks to protesters, editors, commentators, and Kremlin-watchers in anticipation of this weekend's election and what comes next.
How to Officially Forget
More than two decades later, a return visit to Tiananmen Square finds it scrubbed clean—just as it was immediately following the Incident. Except now there is thick smog, and ghosts. In contemporary Beijing, the past is like Kentucky Fried Chicken: unavoidable.
People Here Actually Show Their Livestock
The United States is an enormous country, much too big for the nightly news. We asked one of our editors to randomly call people in towns around America and find out what's really going on.
Misperception
Overly dramatic portrayals of drowning in movies and TV spread deadly disinformation. This and other tropes show that if you believe everything you see, it could kill you.
Tourist Turbulence
Summer approaches, travel increases--and some people will kill you for photographing butterflies. Here's recent news on sightseeing, from Bangkok to Lars von Trier.
Gaming Confidence
MIKE Deri Smith summarizes recent news, studies, and gaffes concerning overconfidence, from competitive running to the N.F.L. draft, even socialist firemen.
Water Fight!
Around the world, water stirs up unexpected conflicts. Here's a dip into the latest headlines, and finds that beyond the haves and the have-nots are the want-mores and the take-yours.
The Corruptibles
Sitting at our new surveys desk, Mike Deri Smith rounds up the recent trends in global corruption, from Berlusconi to Jersey Shore, to New Yorkers paying rent to the Shah of Iran.
Cleaning Up
In May, things got messy. Really messy. Garbage everywhere, and cities and states struggled to figure out a place to stow the trash.
More Than Meets the Eye
There is a distinct possibility that, within our lifetimes, robots will be everywhere--taking out the trash, day-tripping to Mars, winning the Nobel prize. During the past month, news about robots was frequently amazing and sometimes terrifying.
Campaign Relief
In March, politicians around the world were campaigning and citizens were wincing. And just like here at home, impropriety was as prevalent as democracy.
Here's the Beef
In February, the largest beef recall in history capped weeks of speculation about sick cows, then prompted many to wonder where all that meat went off to.
The Superbug
In 2007 news headlines pointed many directions, but rarely long enough at the plague that's creeping up our doorstep. Here's the year of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus asureus--aka, the superbug.
Shop Till You Drop
The weeks prior to Black Friday were spent preparing for it: learning which gifts could drop your kid into a coma, and which you'd need to beat a fellow shopper senseless to buy.
Behind the Mask
This October, while you were shopping for fake blood and a glue-on mustache to complete your zombie Tom Selleck costume, others were dressing up and making the news.
Playing With Fire
In August, fires large and small swept through homes around the world. And whether dousing flames, solving domestic disputes, or posing shirtless, firefighters were there.
Smoke Signals
Looking through a month of news can reveal a lot about what's going on in the world. And in July 2007, everybody was smoking or quitting smoking.
Signs of the Beast
Yesterday's news is today's birdcage liner--no longer. Nicole Pasulka begins our new regular feature, reviewing the past month's headlines. For June 2007: four weeks of staggering animal attacks.
Everyone’s Wild About Tami
After months of near-silence, bird flu is back on the West’s front pages. But where is government preparedness, now that the drug of choice in the virus war turns out to have spawned resistant strains?
Violence in the Zócalo
Following the death of an American journalist, the rest of the world is taking notice of the declining situation in Oaxaca. Our writer interviews his sister Anna, who watched the peace unravel first-hand this summer.
Night Noise
The West Nile virus attacked Boise this summer, and now planes spray the city with a supposedly harmless pesticide. But when facts are muddy and even the anchormen don't know what's safe, is it wise to let your sons play outside?
No Man Is an Island
Considering what may lie ahead otherwise, no amount of money is too great to devote to the fight against avian flu. But while everybody’s spending against each other’s contingency plans, we’re all left risking something too precious to lose.
An Ounce of Prevention
We don’t yet know whether the avian flu will become a pandemic. So why are we preparing for a plague instead of fighting the virus where it currently rages—in the animal kingdom? Conflicting reports and strategies still march on, but time may be running out.
Insects Will Not Take Over The World (They Already Own It)
As winter approaches, the insects go underground. What we will miss? Moths that can smell sex a mile away. Butterflies with tongues on their feet. Centipedes able to kill birds. Our man in Idaho reports from the pastoral.
Life Goes On?
The Gulf Coast is in ruins, but that won't stop the political machine from running--in fact, it means it's only getting revved up. Our writer watches the waves of disaster that just won't stop.
A Week Away
In 2001 Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner lampooned the new president in their book, My First Presidentiary. Now, with the real possibility of four more Bush years, they discuss the issues facing today’s voters. This week: the possible effects of such last-minute topics as lesbians, pejoratives, and c
The Vermonster
Once the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, Howard Dean has lost a lot of ground to Clark and his free candy bars. Can the campaign recover? Our reporter hitches a ride on the Dean bus and reports on the new political strategy.
Troubling New Events
Maybe it’s something to do with the harmonies, maybe it’s the way it just makes you feel good. You might not want to admit it, but your toes are definitely tapping.
Walking the Rx Red Carpet
Where do you get the scoop on the drug industry’s hot new products? Why, at the Rx spring show, that’s where! Our writer makes nice with the celebrated followers of pharmaceuticals.
An Interview With the Dolphin
Many were surprised when the U.S. Navy announced it was using dolphins for mine-sweeping in the war with Iraq. Even more were stunned when one of the dolphins went AWOL. Submerged reporter PAUL FORD gets the interview.
Accidental Strength
Princeton graduate Ung Lee wins prestige, cash, and a number of prizes for his fiction thesis. The hitch is, one of the stories was stolen. The author whose work was robbed responds.
Operation Fish From Hell
The U.S. has many problems right now, but its deadliest threat can grow to three feet long: the Chinese Snakehead. Our reporter goes deep undercover to get the government’s reaction to a meat-eating snake.
Pirates and the Navy
Once the scourge of the seven seas, now fuel for ARGHHH... jokes and the parrot industry, pirates seem better suited for Disney World than the Atlantic. However, the Navy was attacked last month by a band of unwashed scurvyites.
Oprah Cancels Book Club
The fate of literature has always been uncertain. In recent times the path seemed secure, guarded by Updike and Barnes & Noble totes. Then, disaster struck. Publishers crashed their Mercedes, agents sold their leather blazers. Inside the tragedy from within Oprah’s private chambers.
President Bush Merges Agencies
Shadow governments, merging powers, churches and children: It’s no secret that power breeds concealment. Yet behind the veils of rhetoric, simple men and women are simply doing business, PowerPoint and all.