Time editor-at-large Fareed Zakaria issued a statement this afternoon confessing to lifting parts from a New Yorker article by historian Jill Lepore for his own column on gun control.

"Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore's essay in the April 23 issue of The New Yorker," Zakaria said in the statement. "They are right."

The CNN host continued: "I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers."

Time responded to the scandal by suspending Zakaria's column for a month "pending further review."

Zakaria has faced accusations of plagiarism in the past.

In 2009, Jeffrey Goldberg claimed he "borrowed" from him without attribution. And earlier this year, The Boston Globe noted that two of Zakaria's commencement speeches were "essentially identical."

UPDATE: CNN issued a statement saying it too was suspending Zakaria while it reviewed a blog post — now removed —"which included similar unattributed excerpts."

[photo via AP]