TIME Magazine

For Pakistanis, the Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto was the J.F.K. murder and 9/11 rolled into one, plunging the nation into days of mourning and setting off riots across the country. It was a stunning victory for Pakistan's militants, who have increasingly turned their firepower against the state, conducting more than 50 suicide attacks in 2007 alone.

The government quickly fingered Baitullah Mehsud as the mastermind of the Bhutto assassination; he had previously threatened to kill her. The details of… more

I imagine he said it as if he were confessing a deep, dark secret. And, of course (wink, wink), he had no idea his little confession would make the rounds. But when Sergio Bendixen, Hillary Clinton's pollster and resident Latino expert, told the New Yorker after her win in New Hampshire that "the Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates," he started… more

Will Google Go Mobile? (TIME Magazine)

...The speed of innovation depends on whether a newcomer like Google or Qualcomm, both of which are registered bidders, has the money and the will to acquire enough licenses to break into the wireless game and force the telecom companies to break old habits. Sure Google has the cash, but do they really want to get in the labor-intensive business of broadband networks? Already, startup Frontline Wireless, a venture supported by a group… more

"I don't think anyone will deny that girls are academically superior as a group. Girls are more academically powerful. They make the grades, they run the student activities, they are the valedictorians..."

Is it bad that more boys are in special education, or should we be pleased that they are getting extra help from specially trained teachers? And haven't boys always tended to be more restless than girls under the discipline of high school and more likely to wind up… more

Making the most of our retirement-age population has become a hot issue in Washington, where for the past 75 years federal policy has been designed around easing folks who are past 50 out of the workforce rather than enticing them to stay in it. If you're reaching that age now, however, you're headed for a whole new reality.Everyone knows the fiscal pickle we're in: baby boomers are about to retire and tap Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.… more

Arnold Schwarzenegger may have signed the world's toughest anti-global-warming law, but it is Democrat Terry Tamminen, his environmental adviser, who is emerging as the state's real Terminator, winning industry support and the endorsement of a Republican Governor for a mandate to reduce the state's emissions 80% by 2050. But thwarting climate change isn't a solo effort. Tamminen left his official post to build a national response to global warming one state at a time. "I am trying to… more

"Morality is more properly felt than judged of; though this feeling or sentiment is commonly so soft and gentle, that we are apt to confound it with an idea."-- David Hume, Scottish philosopher

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When it came to moral "reasoning," David Hume emphasized the quotation marks. We like to think our views on right and wrong are rational, he said, but ultimately they are grounded in emotion.

Philosophers have argued over this claim for a quarter of a millennium without… more

In 1992 the first President Bush's budget was at the printer when congressional Republicans revolted. Bush, they were told, planned to fund expanded health coverage by leaping on one of American politics' "third rails": the fact that the value of employer-provided health benefits is not included in employees' taxable income. Making a portion of these benefits taxable, Bush the Elder reckoned, was a smart way to pay for health care for folks who had none. But G.O.P. leaders were apoplectic.… more

Victoria Walker knows a thing or two about staying flexible. This Nashville grandmother is raising seven grandchildren, ages six to fifteen. Even with osteoporosis and two injured shoulders, Mrs. Walker still manages to turn herself inside out to keep her family together. "I didn't want them to go to strangers and lose each other forever," she says. "They didn't ask for this."

For the last five years, Mrs. Walker has struggled to keep her grandchildren out of foster care, relying on… more

There is no single cause for breast cancer, but one major factor is estrogen. That's a shocking thought. The same hormone that softens our skin, thickens our hair and fills out our hips and breasts also feeds disfiguring tumors. Rates of breast cancer are highest in developed nations, in part, scientists believe, because with better nutrition we reach menses earlier and menopause later, allowing estrogen to course through our bodies for that much longer.

If there is a bright side to… more