Harvard University is welcoming the Reserve Officer Training Corps program back to campus after a four-decade banishment caused by dissent over the Vietnam War and disagreement on military policy toward gays...

In a fierce day-long battle, rebel forces in this strategic oil town successfully repelled an attack on Wednesday by government loyalists backed by artillery and war planes, witnesses in the town said. At least six were confirmed dead and 16 wounded in the fighting, the witnesses said, and the death toll was expected to rise...

On May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H. Koch was being celebrated for his generosity as a member of the board of trustees; he had recently donated $2.5 million toward the company’s upcoming season, and had given many millions before that. Koch received an award while flanked by two of the gala’s co-chairs, Blaine Trump, in a peach-colored gown, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, in emerald green. Kennedy’s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had been a patron of the ballet and, coincidentally, the previous owner of a Fifth Avenue apartment that Koch had bought, in 1995, and then sold, eleven years later, for thirty-two million dollars, having found it too small...

As drilling for natural gas started to climb sharply about 10 years ago, energy companies faced mounting criticism over an extraction process that involves pumping millions of gallons of water into the ground for each well and can leave significant amounts of hazardous contaminants in the water that comes back to the surface. So, in a move hailed by industry as a major turning point, drilling companies started reusing and recycling the wastewater...

The Libyan rebels challenging Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi demonstrated their increasing military coordination and firepower on Sunday, as defecting officers in the east took steps to establish a unified command while their followers in this rebel-held city, just outside his stronghold in the capital, displayed an array of tanks, Kalashnikovs and anti-aircraft guns...

Review of The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy and the Way Out of Afghanistan, by Bing West

In the nine years since the first American troops landed in Afghanistan, a new kind of religion has sprung up, one that promises success for the Americans even as the war they have been fighting has veered dangerously close to defeat. Follow the religion’s tenets, give yourself over to it and the new faith will reward you with riches and fruits....

At Ashley Madison's website for "dating," the infidelity economy is alive, well, and profitable...

Iran is expanding its covert global search for the uranium it needs for its nuclear activities and a key focus is Zimbabwe, says a new intelligence report acquired by The Associated Press...

Moammar Gaddafi blamed the revolt in his country on Osama Bin Laden, in what came across as a desperate plea to citizens Thursday to abandon their 10-day-old rebellion. The revolt seemed to be closing in on the capital, with most of the eastern part of the country controlled by protestors and signs that demonstrations also were spreading in the west. In a rambling phone call to Libyan state television, Gaddafi, 68, said young protesters were under the influence of hallucinogenic pills given to them "in their coffee with milk, like Nescafe."...

There’s a feeling of inevitability in writing about McDonald’s latest offering, their “bowl full of wholesome” — also known as oatmeal. The leading fast-food multinational, with sales over $16.5 billion a year (just under the GDP of Afghanistan), represents a great deal of what is wrong with American food today. From a marketing perspective, they can do almost nothing wrong; from a nutritional perspective, they can do almost nothing right, as the oatmeal fiasco demonstrates...