Longform's Picks of the Week - By Rachel Wilkinson

The best stories from around the world.

The Moscow Rules Still Rule - By Milton Bearden

The Cold War may be over, but spycraft hasn’t changed much since the good old days.

Is the Government Spying on Reporters More Often Than We Think?

The Justice Department's seizure of call logs related to phone lines used by dozens of Associated Press reporters has provoked a flurry of bipartisan criticism, most of which has cast the decision as a disturbing departure from the norm. AP head[…]

The World in Photos This Week - An FP Slide Show

Obama stays dry; British royalty comes to America; and Barbie comes to Berlin. 

Obama can’t escape the second-term curse

Re-elections probably make administrations careless and overconfident, and those deep in government can feel emboldened to do silly things, says Jurek Martin

Mile-high bid to step up to a better class

Auctions seem a fine way of assessing a market in terms of willingness to pay but there always seems to be a higher bidder

The name’s Bond. I’m a programmer

The world of cyber espionage is moving out of the shadows and into uncharted territory

Obama's Plumbers - By James Traub

This time, a secretive president has gone too far.

Scientist who beat Nasa to the ozone hole

Joe Farman, who has died aged 82, was a physicist, environmental hero and the man who found the hole in the world’s ozone layer in Antarctica

Dangerous talk of Frogs and the Boche

‘National characteristics’ usually say less about the nations observed than about the observer’s geopolitical and economic inferiority

WATCH: Snuggly Bear from DOJ Says, "Don't Worry About the AP Scandal" [Fiore Cartoon]

Mark Fiore is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association[…]

A Few Good Saudi Men - By Marc Lynch

Saudi Arabia hounded this lawyer out of the country because he stood up for human rights. Now, he explains how the kingdom is launching a new crackdown on dissent.

The ducks are coming home to roost

The issue of farm labour cuts to the heart of much bigger ideological divides in America

In the Hills of Alawistan - By Alia Malek

In Syria’s beautiful northwest, all is peaceful. But death is never far away.

Give Them Our Huddled Masses - By Aaditya Mattoo and Arvind Subramanian

Why America should swap its retirees, patients, and students for skilled immigrant labor.

Actually, Tea Party Groups Gave the IRS Lots of Good Reasons to Be Interested

Virtually everyone in Washington agrees on at least one thing about the IRS scandal: The tax agency's trolling for tea party groups and giving extra scrutiny to their applications for nonprofit status was an egregious violation. Exactly how and why[…]

Morning Brief: Obama rules out unilateral action in Syria as Russia ships advanced missiles to Assad

Obama rules out unilateral action in Syria as Russia ships advanced missiles to Assad Top news: U.S. President Barack Obama again ruled out unilateral U.S. military action in Syria at a press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan[…]

Benghazi: What Did the CIA Know, and When Did It Know It?

More MoJo content about the September 2012 attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the resulting scandal Benghazi: What Did the CIA Know, and When Did It Know It? Benghazi Isn't Watergate. But the White House Didn't Tell[…]

Breaking the Kill Chain - By Adm. Jonathan Greenert and Gen. Mark Welsh

How to keep America in the game when our enemies are trying to shut us out.

The Unstoppable Force vs. the Immovable Object - by Noah Feldman

Could the United States really go to war with China?

Study: Conservative Anti-Immigration Paper by Controversial Scholar Had Basic Errors

The Heritage Foundation report on the costs of immigration reform co-authored by controversial scholar Jason Richwine has been widely debunked, and Richwine himself has resigned from Heritage in the wake of revelations about his history of arguing that blacks and[…]

Britain is hurtling to the exit from Europe

The UK prime minister’s strategy to deal with pressure for a departure is being torn to shreds by sceptics who have learnt from past mistakes

Britons want more work – let’s help them

There is very substantial spare capacity in the economy – a great many people would like to work for more hours each week

KAL's cartoon

Saws Cut Off 4,000 Fingers a Year. This Gadget Could Fix That.

A longer version of this story appears at FairWarning. Gerald Wheeler caught the hot dog demonstration at the International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta in 2002. A man took an Oscar Meyer wiener and pushed it into the blade of a[…]

5 Things You Need to Know in the Inspector General's IRS Tea Party Scandal Report

On Tuesday evening, the Treasury Department released a long-awaited investigative report on why IRS staffers gave special scrutiny to the applications of thousands of right-leaning groups seeking tax-exempt nonprofit status. Treasury's inspector general for tax administration conducted the probe from June[…]

The Church Undivided

Benedict’s Quest to Bring Christians Back Together April 3, 2013 Victor Gaetan Summary:  Pope Benedict XVI made reaching out to other faiths and promoting Christian unity hallmarks of his tenure. Pope Francis will continue this work, not only because he[…]