Watch Apple Store Events Every week, Apple Retail Stores around the world host events featuring fascinating people, from filmmakers and artists to musicians and business leaders. To enjoy past events and keep up with the latest, subscribe to our podcasts at the iTunes Store.Subscribe now Continue reading →

25 May 2012 Last updated at 09:56 ET Vatican detains suspect in unauthorised leaks probe Pope Benedict has faced a spate of embarrassing leaks from within the Vatican The Vatican has said it has detained a person it suspects of leaking a series of confidential documents and letters to the media. The leaks have described alleged corruption, mismanagement, and internal conflicts among top Holy See officials. The Vatican said the person was being questioned by Vatican magistrates, but gave no further details about their identity. The "Vatileaks" scandal, as it is known, has enraged the Holy See. Last month, Pope Benedict XVI set up a special commission of cardinals to investigate the leaks. "The inquiry carried out by Vatican police... allowed them to identify someone ... Continue reading →

Gosh! When did I end up in bed with Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber? Could it be because I did specialize in blowing things up while serving my country for four years as an airborne combat engineer? I also watched human beings blown up. I had friends and Navy SEALs I was in battle with blown up. My own intestines exploded on the first of my four combat embeds, three in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Took seven operations to fix the plumbing. I later suffered other permanent injuries. Yet now I find myself linked not only with the Unabomber, but also Charles Manson and Fidel Castro. Or so says the Chicago-based think tank the Heartland Institute, for which I’ve done work. Heartland erected billboards depicting ... Continue reading →

When the Washington Post revealed recently Mitt Romney's past as a cruel boarding-school tyrant, conservatives cried foul. Where were the stories about Barack Obama's days as the entitled son of a governor? What was the media hiding? Finally, David Maraniss, in his upcoming Obama biography, Barack Obama: The Story, has found the dark truth of Obama's past. It turns out that Obama was a bully as well — someone who threw his weight around and terrorized even those closest to him. Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted "Intercepted!," and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind. Did they not mind because they had all smoked ... Continue reading →

I established a Facebook account in 2008. My motivation was ignoble: I wanted to distribute my journalism more widely. I have acquired since then just over four thousand “friends”—in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the Middle East, and of course, closer to home. I have discovered the appeal of Facebook’s community—for example, the extraordinary emotional support that swells in virtual space when people come together online around a friend’s illness or life celebrations. Through its bedrock appeals to friendship, community, public identity, and activism—and its commercial exploitation of these values—Facebook is an unprecedented synthesis of corporate and public spaces. The corporation’s social contract with users is ambitious, yet neither its governance system nor its young ruler seem trustworthy. Then came this month’s initial public offering of stock—a ... Continue reading →

Tower climber Jay Guilford poses atop a cell tower. He was one of 11 climbers to die while working on AT&T jobs during a wave of cell service expansion from 2006 to 2008. Photo courtesy of Bridget Pierce. Jay Guilford was a tiny but vital cog in the carrier’s plans. On a clear evening in May, Guilford was dangling, 150 feet in the air, from a cell tower in southwest Indiana. He had been sent aloft to take pictures of AT&T antennas soon to be replaced by 3G equipment. Work complete, Guilford sped his descent by rappelling on a rope. Safety standards required him to step down the metal pole, peg by peg, using a special line that would catch automatically if he fell. But ... Continue reading →

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO The Associated Press When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney decried President Barack Obama as beholden to the nation's teachers' unions and unable to stand up for reform, he glossed over four years of a relationship that has been anything but cozy. In this photo taken May 24, 2012, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at a school in Philadelphia. When Romney decried Barack Obama as beholden to the nation’s teachers’ unions and unable to stand up for reform, he glossed over four years of a relationship that has been anything but cozy. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Election 2012: Across the nation Obama has promoted initiatives that encourage districts to tie teacher evaluations to student performance and to expand the number ... Continue reading →

By Rosa GolijanAfter being a member of an Internet community for about six years, a man faked his own death. The only explanation either he or his — potentially also fake — accomplice offered once caught was that the whole thing was a "bad experiment or joke or whatever carried too far".The Internet community in question is MetaFilter. It's essentially a community weblog, meaning that anyone can contribute links or comments — as long as he or she is a member of the community. MetaFilter — frequently shortened to MeFi — membership requires a one-time sign-up fee of $5.A man who went by the username "holdkris99," had paid his sign-up fee about six years ago and had been an active and beloved member of MetaFilter ... Continue reading →

May 24, 2012, 1:25 pmBlacks and Marriage Equality: An Update By FRANK BRUNIThere has been a great deal of attention over recent years to black Americans’ attitudes about homosexuality and to their feelings about same-sex marriage in particular. This was a big part of the coverage of Proposition 8’s fate in California, and it has been an equally big part of the story of Maryland’s movement toward marriage equality.I wrote a column on the topic last fall.In light of that, I thought I should provide this update, suggestive of a significant shift among black Americans.Public Policy Polling just today released these results from Maryland, whose governor has signed marriage-equality legislation, but whose voters could overturn that in a referendum later this year:A new Public Policy ... Continue reading →