Interrupting Violence With The Message ‘Don’t Shoot’

In 1985, David M. Kennedy visited Nickerson Gardens, a public housing complex in south-central Los Angeles. It was the beginning of the crack epidemic, and Nickerson Gardens was located in what was then one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America. “It was like watching time-lapse photography of the end of the world,” he says. [...]

‘Tinker, Tailor’: The Greatest Spy Story Ever Told

When I was 12, I was hooked on James Bond, both Ian Fleming’s elegantly pulpy novels and the cartoonish movies they spawned. One day, my friend’s older brother, who went to Harvard, tossed a paperback onto my lap and said, “Here’s the real thing, kid.” The book was The Spy Who Came in from the [...]

Bank Of America Dropping Plan For $5 Monthly Debit-Card Fee

Bank of America just confirmed that it is dropping a plan to charge many of its debit-card customers $5 a month if they use them to make purchases. “We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” David Darnell, co-chief operating [...]

‘Trade You Snickers For Smarties’: The Economics of Halloween Candy

Budgets may be tight, but that didn’t stop Americans from throwing down more money for Halloween candy this year than ever before. As the National Confectioner’s Association’s Susan Whiteside tells The Salt, Americans spent an average of $7.36 per person, or $2.3 billion total, on Halloween candy in 2011. There’s an astounding array of choice [...]

The Case For A ‘Check In’ Instead Of A Checkup

People who visit their primary care doctors for routine care often find themselves poked, prodded and advised in all kinds of unnecessary and unhelpful ways. Add it all up, and the cost of the dubious tests and medical interventions runs to about $6.8 billion a year. The annual checkup, an American medical tradition, is a [...]

Cain Sex-Harassment Accuser Confirms Politico Report’s Accuracy

A woman who filed a sexual-harassment complaint against front-running GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain more than a decade ago has confirmed for NPR the accuracy of a published report asserting that Cain was the target of two such complaints by female subordinates when he headed the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s. Cain on [...]

A Second Season? The Horror! The (Potential) (But Avoidable) Horror!

Halloween is over, but the freak in the rubber suit lives on. Yesterday, FX announced that it ordered a second season of American Horror Story, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s creepy series about a family living in a haunted house. That’s great news, so long as the creators keep their promises. A few months ago, [...]

Artist Ai Weiwei Gets $2.4 Million Tax Bill

Artist Ai Weiwei, who earlier this year was jailed by Chinese authorities for nearly three months, said today that the government there has sent him a $2.4 million tax bill. “His supporters,” the BBC says, say the bill and accusations that he owes back taxes “are part of a plot to silence Mr. Ai, who [...]

Herman Cain Now Recalls ‘Settlement’ With Accuser

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain was consistent Monday in saying he has “never sexually harassed anyone.” But some parts of his response to a Politico report about past allegations had shifted by day’s end. After saying earlier in the day that he was “unaware of any sort of settlement” being reached with any woman who [...]

Hundreds Of Millions Missing From MF Global, ‘New York Times’ Reports

Not only has MF Global had to file for bankruptcy protection, now there’s this news about the securities firm run by former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D): The New York Times reports that: “Federal regulators have discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money has gone missing from MF Global in recent [...]