Новости за 22.12.2015

Choosing the best of anything is a precarious adventure, but after taking a survey of everything the New Republic published in 2015, it’s especially difficult to define the best amid so many different kinds of journalism and criticism: breaking news, thoughtful essays, rapid-response commentary, deeply reported investigations, cultural reviews, podcasts, poetry, photo essays, and data projects. The following list is hardly comprehensive of our best, but it does capture what we think will be some of the most timeless work from our past year. Читать дальше...

Has anyone had a worse year than Sepp Blatter? Ever since U.S. prosecutors kicked off a long-overdue investigation into corruption at FIFA in May, the noose has tightened around football’s most powerful man. But, just as it looked like he might end 2015 unscathed, this week Blatter was banned from the sport for eight years.

For fans of Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the constant criticisms we face is that the boyish 41-year-old, five-time Oscar-nominee doesn’t have the gravitas or heft necessary to play dark, complicated adult characters. Detractors can’t get past his movie-star looks, permanently seeing him as the youthful scamp Jack Dawson from Titanic. What these critics don’t grasp is that this boyishness has always been part of DiCaprio’s appeal: In films ranging from the domestic tragedy of Revolutionary Road, to the thinking-man’s action of Inception... Читать дальше...

In July, British tabloid the Daily Mail came out with a screaming headline: “EXCLUSIVE: Video shows Hillary Clinton boarding private jet just hours after launching global-warming push.” Clinton’s strategy to slash carbon dioxide emissions, the Mail gleefully reported, didn’t preclude her from traveling on an aircraft that burns hundreds of gallons of jet fuel every hour.

Throughout U.S. history, even amid wars and recessions, American voters have never elected a president without government or military experience. Most previous presidents have been elected officials: governors, senators, congressmen, vice presidents. Some were generals. Others were cabinet members and a few were judges.

In November 2013, two days before Thanksgiving, something exploded in the adjoining backyards of two homes in rural Flippin, Arkansas and an eight-year-old girl named Debra Rackley was rushed to the Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock by helicopter. Her two shoes lay strewn across the grass where they were blown off her feet, a police officer noted in his report. Debra’s mother, Dana, says she was working at the assisted living home nearby. Her father, Robert, was also working at the Butterball... Читать дальше...

It’s the latest craze in a country known for its eccentric tastes and quirky obsessions. The Japanese have gone gaga for…moss?