China Now Has the World’s Largest Economy, Not That It Wanted the Title

The time has come to ponder the implications of China overtaking the U.S. as the largest economy in the world earlier than previously projected; U.K. scientists have made a finding that could help us better treat obesity; meanwhile, perhaps what is most telling about the torture report is not what we can read, but what we can’t. These discoveries and more below.

The Chinese Century Without fanfare—indeed, with some misgivings about its new status—China has just overtaken the United States as the world’s largest economy. This is, and should be, a wake-up call—but not the kind most Americans might imagine.

With Nearly 1 Billion Licensed Works, Creative Commons Takes Stock In its first-ever “State of the Commons” report, Creative Commons — the nonprofit that aims to facilitate the free sharing and licensing of creative work — revealed that there are at least 882 million Creative Commons–licensed works currently available online, and that sometime next year that figure is expected to pass one billion.

Fox News Host on Torture Report: ‘America Is Awesome’ Fox News host Andrea Tantaros had a somewhat unique reaction to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture programs, which included for example forcing hummus into a detainee’s rectum and threatening to rape a detainee’s mother.

What’s Not in the Senate Torture Report Some of the most revealing information from the Senate Intelligence Committee report released on Tuesday is what’s not there.

How the CIA Lied to Congress on Torture, According to Congress In 2007, then CIA director Michael Hayden testified on U.S. interrogation techniques. The Senate’s new report fact checks his claims.

Britain’s Christmas Gift to Putin Cameron commits a shocking diplomatic mistake and loses yet another European ally.

Frack the EU! Washington’s Frozen War Against Russia For over a year, the United States has played out a scenario designed to reassert U.S. control over Europe by blocking E.U. trade with Russia, bankrupt Russia, and get rid of Vladimir Putin and replace him with an American puppet, like the late drunk, Boris Yeltsin.

Israel’s Midsized Parties Create Unstable Coalition The 1992 elections were the last time an Israeli party crossed the threshold of 40 Knesset seats.

Scientists Find Brain Mechanism Behind Glucose Greed British scientists have found a brain mechanism they think may drive our desire for glucose-rich food and say the discovery could one day lead to better treatments for obesity.

What Bad, Shameful, Dirty Behavior is U.S. Judge Richard Posner Hiding? Demand to Know Richard Posner has been a federal appellate judge for 34 years, having been nominated by President Reagan in 1981.

The New Pentagon Chief, Ashton Carter, and the Beauty of DC Bipartisanship At a White House ceremony, President Obama recently introduced his nominee to head the Pentagon, Ashton Carter.

An interview with TNR’s Guy Vidra Guy Vidra says he doesn’t want to change The New Republic.

Who Are East Jerusalem’s ‘Permanent Residents’? They were born and bred in the capital, but they aren’t Israeli citizens and their status is anything but permanent. In some cases, it may even be revoked.

60 Billion Reasons the War on Iraq was a Rotten Idea A video outlining some of the many reasons the U.S. should not have intervened in Iraq.

What the Eric Garner Grand Jury Didn’t See In a statement on Wednesday night, Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to tell New Yorkers that the official response to the death of Eric Garner had involved everything that they would want—sympathetic calls, public mourning, a retraining of the whole police force, “so many reforms this year”—everything, that is, except criminal accountability for the officer who had held Garner in a chokehold in the moments before he died.

North Korea’s Non-Denial Denial About Hacking Sony While many computer security experts now believe that last week’s landmark cyberattack on Sony Pictures was carried out by a disgruntled insider, North Korean propagandists want to let the world believe that the rogue state’s proxies may have had something to do with it.

Does an Innocent Man Have the Right to Be Exonerated? In the 1980s, Larry Youngblood was wrongfully imprisoned for raping a 10-year-old boy. The way the Supreme Court handled his case had lasting consequences.