The case for hope, continued.

The new book by “class traitor” Robert Monks shows a system at its breaking point—and names the twenty-four Americans who can fix it.

How installment lenders put borrowers in a world of hurt.

The problem is that the IRS has interpreted our tax laws to allow big corporations and wealthy individuals unlimited political influence.

How can you prove to the Syrian secret police that you’re not an Algerian spy?

America’s new pay-as-you-go democracy.

The problem with Obama’s second term.

The Guggenheim’s current exhibition, No Country, challenges conceptions of modern Asian art.

Camille Gage interviews the poet, activist, and director of Split This Rock.

Federal law is supposed to protect service members from predatory lending, but many military personnel are trapped in high-interest debt.

Meditations on Jay G, Jay-Z, the art of plagiarism, and America’s love affair with money, guns, and decadence

Contractors have raked in $385 billion to build and maintain military bases overseas. How much of the total is fraud?

Lethality beyond the pale.

Life in East Germany on display in a strange Berlin museum.

In 1966, only 20 percent of mothers with young children worked outside the home. By the late 1990s, 60 percent did.

When a chemical stick revealed that our little family was about to change, we were overjoyed. But not insured.

At an evening with the AAWW, the celebrated novelist shares thoughts on influence and identity, and offers advice to young writers

To a Beltway expert such as Robert Kaiser, that a dysfunctional and hyperpartisan Congress passed such a sweeping bill constitutes a small miracle.

Seven years, untold dollars to silence one man.

Increasingly states are quashing the power of local governments—and thwarting innovation.

Keith Meatto talks with poet Gina Myers about leaving New York, darkness in poetry, and the difference between growing up and settling down.

A look at the administration’s latest approach to drugs, and what they’ve done so far.

Imperial gigantism and the decline of planet Earth.

Governor Sam Brownback rejects Washington’s argument that his state’s gun laws are blatantly unconstitutional.

FOIA battle bares Bloomberg’s argument for secrecy.

When Republicans can’t repeal laws they don’t like, they hollow them out, deny funds to fully implement them, and reduce funds to enforce them.

Flash Fiction: If he feels pushed, he will turn into a bull, a storm.

How states are making it a felony to enforce federal gun laws.

Two dozen doctors named in Novartis kickback case.

Fracking ourselves to death in Pennsylvania.

The Fed, Apple, and Trickle-Down Economics.

Ecological ruin stems from what happens to—not what is caused by—the commons.

A getaway with Hensarling, whose committee oversees Wall Street and its regulators, is an invaluable opportunity for industry lobbyists.

You’ve never liked spring, as if its optimism, that sense of opportunity, is something you can never match.

From walking libraries and a god named “Word” to what Sherlock Holmes never said.

Temp agencies and ‘raiteros’ in immigrant Chicago.

Flash Fiction: Dossier No. X recovered from Interrogation Cell B of Sala-XX

Where would the money go?

Government should fuel growth by spending more—at least in the short run.

Guernica‘s staff recommends collections of stories, essays, poems, and more.

How Americans became exposed to biohazards in the greatest uncontrolled experiment ever launched.

Hezbollah’s recent activity casts doubt on its relationship with Europe.

It’s dumb journalism, stupid.

And Where Were the Regulators?

The author of Small Porcelain Head on how poetry can help us mourn.

Can we just get a grip? Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a naturalized American citizen.

A new book from Jeremy Scahill, America’s blowback reporter.

Colson Whitehead on labels in literature, wearing genre drag, and getting lost in New York.

Six ways colleges game their numbers.

‘Offshore leaks’ blows the lid off secrecy for sale.

An artist catalogs usage of a versatile Egyptian swear.

Flash Fiction: The gun empties. He returns.

Though agents found blatant fraud in a Houston lab, the FDA refused to question drug safety.

Our National Forests cover 191 million acres in forty states.

Rick Warren exports American-style evangelism—and the gospel of adoption—to Rwanda.

How resource scarcity and climate change could produce a global explosion.

The author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine talks to Matthew McAlister about the publishing industry, narrative forms, and the nature of child stardom in the digital age.

Violence on the home front.

A rundown on what’s going on at Gitmo.

The director of Which Way is the Front Line From Here? talks with Leah Carroll about his friend Tim Hetherington, the strange allure of war, and what it takes to document combat.

In a second case of flawed drug research, FDA response was slow and secretive.

Public water systems, public education, public libraries, and public roads are modern innovations.

A profile of photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier, whose exhibition A Haunted Capital is at the Brooklyn Museum through August.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, a columnist for Pakistan’s largest English newspaper reflects on why violent attacks leave a more lasting impression if they happen on American soil.

On almost getting PTSD in Iraq.

Flash Fiction: Her husband wants to know what she had in common with the Turkish sailor.

Wages keep dropping and government debt keeps growing. Simply arguing “more” won’t cut it.

To keep the IRS from competing with TurboTax.

Prison officials claim they need race-based methods to fight gang violence.

How to turn a world lacking in enemies into the most threatening place in the universe.

Just doing what’s popular would make us healthier, wealthier, wiser, and less indebted.

Concerns about the breaches are causing delays to long-awaited hearings.

Should New York compel judges to report problem prosecutors?

Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, of Rhode Island, is calling for the Justice Department to do what the IRS won’t.

As part of our celebration of National Poetry Month, a conversation on Lynn Melnick’s collection If I Should Say I Have Hope.

Georges Simenon might be the best French-language novelist you’ve never heard of.

How the 40-Year “Long Recession” led to the Great Recession.

Will the GOP team up with Wal-Mart’s data specialist?

“We Went Back: Photographs from Europe, 1933 – 1956″: Chim at the International Center of Photography

The former Pennsylvania governor is a paid consultant of the natural gas industry.