The Latest

An illustrated interpretation of “Gone, Gone Again,” by the British poet Edward Thomas.

Two marshals in Marksville, Louisiana, were arrested after a body-camera video showed them shooting at a car they were chasing, killing the six-year-old boy sitting inside. A student at the University of California, Merced, was killed by university police after he stabbed four people on campus with a hunting knife. A hacking organization published the membership databases of several Ku Klux Klan websites. A Danish man appeared in a South African court this week on charges that he mutilated the genitals of his wife and at least six other women and kept their dried clitorises on a hook and in his freezer. Read more...

"The pundits overestimate Americans’ supposedly anti-aristocratic tendencies, and underestimate Jeb’s profound determination to win."

The battle over Pablo Neruda’s corpse.

“We spent 36 million dollars on a building that was totally built, never used, and has been turned over the Afghans. As far as we know, it’s empty.”

On the move with Ahmad Chalabi, the man who would be king

For more than two decades, Willie Bosket spent twenty-three hours a day alone in a nine-by-six-foot cage.

From headlines that appeared between 1992 and 2014 in the New York Times.

A state-run Chinese newspaper wrote that the country was “not afraid to start a war” with the United States after the White House deployed a guided-missile destroyer near Pacific islands claimed by China. Kogalymavia Flight 9268 broke apart over the Sinai Peninsula en route from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to St. Petersburg, killing all 217 passengers and seven crew members. A 243-foot military surveillance blimp became unmoored in Aberdeen, Maryland, dragged a 6,700-foot tether across Pennsylvania that cut off power to tens of thousands of local residents, and crashed near Moreland Township, where the state police shot it about 100 times. Read more...

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich surveys his competition; Lewis H. Lapham analyzes the 2016 election so far.

A visit to the mansion of Frederic Edwin Church

A Swedish summer camp slated to be turned into an asylum center for migrants burned down, and it was reported that asylum seekers were entering Norway via its border with Russia by riding children's bicycles. A 27-year-old survivor of a 2011 terrorist attack in Norway was elected the deputy mayor of Oslo, and the attacker, Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people, was granted the right to sue the government for human rights violations. A hunter in Norway killed two moose with one shot before realizing they were in a zoo. "I had my mouth open," said the zoo's owner. Read more...

“The amazing thing about these people is that they are living as they believe they ought to. Imagine being able to say that!”

The authors of the Drone Papers were delivering a simple message: send more money.

Fifteen women withdrew from the Miss Iraq beauty pageant after at least two contestants received death threats. A Chinese airline vowed to take action after discovering a staff hazing ritual in which female flight attendants are forced into the overhead luggage bins by their male colleagues. Playboy announced that it would no longer publish fully nude photographs, and a naked woman destroyed a Subway restaurant in Alaska. The Australian fast-food chain Chicken Treat let a hen named Betty run its Twitter account. “0 j5cq0 OOOP 43 0 / g 2,” she tweeted. Read more...

A U.S. intelligence-community employee leaks secret drone-strike documents; Daniel Swift discusses the history of bombing

Life in a town marked by tragedy

“Now is the time that tries the souls of Chicago Cubs fans everywhere.”

Lewis H. Lapham discusses the presidential election, Barry C. Lynn reports on China’s leverage over the U.S. economy, Sallie Tisdale searches for the perfect brassiere, and more

The president of FIFA’s Thai federation was suspended for 90 days for violating the organization’s ethics code, the mayor of Rome resigned after it was revealed that he charged more than $22,700 for personal outings and dinners to his official credit card, and John Ashe, a former president of the U.N. General Assembly, was charged with tax fraud for failing to declare to the IRS a $1.3 million bribe, which he used to lease a BMW, build a personal basketball court, purchase Rolexes, and pay off the mortgage on his house. “Everyone is expected to report all of their income,” said an IRS special agent, “including bribes.” Read more...

In Texas, death walks an assembly line

Battle fatigue in Kashmir

A landslide in Guatemala buried 125 homes and killed more than 130 people, a candidate for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat named Augustus Sol Invictus admitted to killing a goat and drinking its blood in the Mojave Desert, and Utah representative Jason Chaffetz was chastised by a colleague for repeatedly interrupting Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, during a congressional hearing in which he called for the organization to be stripped of its federal funding. “Your compensation in 2009 was $353,000,” he told Richards. “Congratulations.” Read more... 

Why we won’t get prison reform

“By committing to the great emotional extremes demanded by Greek tragedy,” says Brian Doerries, author of Theater of War, “the actors are in effect saying to the audience: 'If you want to match our emotional intensity, that would be fine.'”

Christopher Cox named editor of Harper's Magazine

An explosion of unknown origin occurred aboard a speedboat on which the president of the Maldives was riding, and British prime minister David Cameron denied that he put his genitals in the mouth of a dead pig. Martin Shkreli, head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, agreed to lower the cost of Daraprim, a drug that treats toxoplasmosis, after he was criticized for raising the price 5000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 a pill. “We’re doing something very good,” said Shkreli. Read more...

Thailand's king is in declining health; Ian Buruma examines why the country so often finds itself under military rule

In Toronto, fire-suppressing foam was accidentally released at the Pearson International Airport, covering an area equivalent to between two and three football fields. A woman was arrested on a flight to Chicago after she kissed and punched a flight attendant, a flight from Tel Aviv to Toronto was diverted when a seven-year-old bulldog in the cargo hold became too cold, and Mishka, an asthmatic sea otter in Seattle, was given an inhaler after she experienced trouble breathing because of nearby wildfire smoke. "We try," said a biologist working with her, "to make it as fun as possible.” Read More...

"As far as substance, there was none -- just the usual Clinton caution and excruciatingly scripted bromides designed to offend as few people as possible."