Russia warned that the United States was reverting to Cold War rhetoric after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denounced Russia as an “active proliferator” of dangerous technology. “They are part of…
President Bill Clinton, on his last day in office, made a deal with independent counsel Robert Ray to avoid indictment for lying under oath, which concluded the $60 million Whitewater…
Bethlehem was empty this Christmas, devoid of lights or trees or public celebrations, having been sealed off by the Israeli army.Jerusalem’sChristian churches endorsed Palestinian demands for sovereignty in East Jerusalem;…
An international team of scientists announced that they had finished the first complete genetic sequence of a plant; Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale-cress, is related to cauliflowers and brussels sprouts and…
Peru’s dictator Alberto Fujimori stopped in Japan on his way to an economic summit, decided he liked it there, and quit his job, via fax; Peruvians were generally pleased with…
The Mexican government was upset about a Mexican citizen on death row whom Texas failed to notify of his right under the Vienna Convention to contact his government’s embassy; the…
By Lydia Davis, in the Fall 1999 issue of Bomb. “The Old Dictionary” appears in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, published in 2010 by Picador. I have an old dictionary, about…
A Concorde airplane crashed in Paris; two amateur Hungarian photographers snapped a picture of the doomed plane with flames shooting from its engines, which were manufactured by Rolls Royce, just…
From “Guilt Trips,” a pamphlet of “positive parenting tips” created and distributed by MCI Telecommunications to parents who travel on business. More than 10,000 people have ordered the pamphlet since…