Новости за 02.12.2015

Five months is a long time in the life of a revolution. On my return to Cuba for 10 days over New Year’s, I could see that great changes had taken place since last summer. The impressive positive achievements of the Castro regime had been intensified, but so had those aspects of it which must be disquieting to any visiting American. Because my stay was so short, I saw less this time than in July and August. I can, therefore, give only a tentative, personal report; and since our government has now banned further travel to the island... Читать дальше...

Since the cost of going to college is an important concern for a large segment of voters, the 2016 presidential candidates are all advocating policies aimed at making a college education more affordable.

You might not expect fossil fuel companies to pay for a conference designed to shrink their industry. But in Paris, that’s precisely what’s happening.

The collective bargaining agreement between the City of Chicago and Lodge No. 7 of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) is not an exciting document. Many of its 158 densely worded pages are devoted to topics like insurance subrogation and access to the mailboxes at department headquarters. In 2014, the City Council voted unanimously, 49-0, to approve the current agreement, which runs through June 30, 2017. Until recently, the next set of negotiations promised to play out the same way the last one did... Читать дальше...

In the literary world, men get taken more seriously—as authors, even as characters. This is admittedly not among the world’s two greatest problems, but it’s irritating all the same. And it’s tough to address in a way that doesn’t devolve into either demands for not just author diversity but empowering messages, or, conversely, insistence not just that art can defy politics but that there’s something courageous and artistically innovative about a man channeling a variant of women-are-like-so into fiction. Читать дальше...

When the video of four cops beating Rodney King nearly to death swept the country in 1991, it marked the first time many Americans had seen police brutality up close. It was also one of the first instances of sousveillance, a term coined in 1998 by Canadian academic Steve Mann that refers to private citizens monitoring or recording the activities of authority figures. The King footage was broadcast repeatedly on newsreels: It was everywhere you looked. After the officers involved were cleared of all charges, Los Angeles burned. Читать дальше...

After the conservative movement defeated immigration reform in Congress two years ago, transforming the issue from one of great promise for Marco Rubio to an enduring liability, the Florida senator realized he had a problem with the right. 

Rank-and-file Democrats have had a fairly bad run politically since the 2008 elections. They lost the House of Representatives in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. They’ve lost more than 900 state legislative seats, 30 state legislative chambers, and eleven governorships. Republicans enjoy their largest majority in the House since 1930, and the largest percentage of state legislatures ever.

Tom Dulat / Getty Images

What is the fastest possible marathon time? This debate began in 1991, perhaps improbably, with the publication of a paper in The Journal of Applied Physiology by anesthesiologist Mike Joyner, who estimated the fastest possible time to be exactly 1:57:58. For a group of biologists and psychologists, trainers and scouts, shoe company marketers, and the world’s best runners, the fantasy of a marathon run in under two hours suddenly seemed attainable. The world record has been slowly approaching 120 minutes; since 1960... Читать дальше...

Despite being just a short hop across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament, Vauxhall used to be London’s least fashionable borough, an area known only for its outdoor urinals and irredeemably depressed bus station. But this atmosphere is now changing. Damien Hirst, ex-enfant terrible of the art world and once agitator-in-chief of the Young British Artists (YBAs), has chosen Vauxhall as the venue for his first and very own art gallery. Suddenly the whole place is interesting, plausible, a destination. Читать дальше...