Not long ago, Barack Obama opined, for some reason, that law school should be two years rather than three. Law schools disagree! Law professors disagree! Who does agree? Actual law school graduates.

Alarming news for music lovers: the New York City Opera, which has performed in the city for generations, will have to cancel the rest of its season and all of next year's season if it doesn't raise $20 million soon. A tragedy, for the arts. Still, no one should give the opera $20 million.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad sat down with Charlie Rose for an extended interview on Sunday morning, his first with an American network since Barbara Walters was beyond charmed with the “mild-mannered” dude in December 2011.

Remember Martin Luther King, Jr., the oppressed Southern black man, the freedom fighter, the peacenik, who called for radical progressive civil rights and economic justice legislation, and who was smeared as a Communist? Today, pundits would like to remind you that he was, of course, a "conservative."

Remember when Juan Williams was a respected NPR journalist? It seems so long ago. He said something dumb, got fired, got bitter, got picked up by Fox News, and now makes a living as a sort of reformed liberal talking clown, paid to confirm the right wing's prejudices. Today: Juan Williams doesn't like that rapping music, either!

We're getting close to the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, which is, hell, as good a time as any to reflect on how racist we still are. Are we really, though? We are!

Thanks to some misguided moral philosophy and some excellent lobbying work, it is now almost impossible to discharge your student loans in bankruptcy. They haunt you forever, like the souls of those you've killed. As our national student loan debt balloons further into crisis territory, it become ever clearer that we need to change that rule.

When Hurricane "Superstorm" Sandy hit New York, a large part of Manhattan— the wealthiest place east of the Taj Mahal— was without power for weeks. At least it wasn't unfashionable. According to a new report, blackouts are becoming the new normal.

There is good news and bad news here in post-racial America, the land in which nobody sees color, until it's time to shoot. The good news is that young people— who are The Future— are really embracing integration. The bad news? As usual, old white people.

Ever since the beginning of the "War on Terror" and its associated actual wars, suicides among members of the U.S. military have been rising. Suicide is now the leading cause of death for soldiers; among veterans, it's just as bad. But a new study says that military deployments are not the cause.

This weekend, The New York Times Co. sold the Boston Globe to John W. Henry, the owner of the Boston Red Sox. Henry paid $70 million. (Or negative $40 million, by more realistic calculations.) Oddly, several other bidders made higher bids than Henry. Why did the NYT Co. leave that money on the table?

When the violence, strife, and cold-blooded realpolitik world of international relations starts to get you down, take heart in this truth: no matter where you go— from Kansas City to Kabul— college kids will be angry, shouty, and dumb.

One of these days— maybe sooner, maybe later, but definitely one of these days—Amazon will become the new king of retail consumerism in America. We know what it's like working for Wal-Mart and Target. But what is life like for the faceless workers that make Amazon go?

Paul Browne, the NYPD's longtime spokesman, is retiring. It is a well-established and irrefutable fact that Paul Browne is a liar. The New York Times knows this. They'll even write about it. They just can't come right out and say it.

It used to be that every red-blooded young boy watched Top Gun and dreamed of growing up to be a fighter pilot, though hopefully not one killed during an emergency ejection. Today, the Air Force cannot get enough fighter pilots to fill its fancy planes.

In the past week we've run quite a few true stories from Wal-Mart workers— stories that have scared the hell out of Wal-Mart itself, with good reason. We haven't requested more stories, but our mailbox is still overflowing. Here are more tales of life in retail purgatory.

The FBI has been reviewing thousands of criminal convictions in order to determine whether they may have been secured using faulty science. Now, 27 death penalty convictions are reportedly being questioned.

Mitch Daniels! Remember him? Used to be governor of Indiana, mused about running for President, big favorite of the Republican establishment. He's now the president of Purdue University. Turns out he also tried his best to ban some books!

If the school bell has finally sounded for the final time and the kids are gleefully preparing for several long, hot months of family road trips and spilled frozen dairy dessert substances, it can only mean one thing: time to start your back-to-school shopping now. Now. There is no respite in this world of gloom.

The highly paid money managers of Wall Street often point out that they're not just making money for themselves; they're helping to enrich the retirement funds of millions of state workers, just like you. False! A new study points out that the more Wall Street makes, the less your pension fund makes.