Rupert Murdoch Is Already Destroying National Geographic

Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch is already meddling in his recent acquisition; Republican front-runner Ben Carson is fielding allegations that he lied about trying to stab a classmate when he was a child; and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still dealing with the effects of his absurd statements regarding the Holocaust. These discoveries and more below.

Rupert Murdoch Takes Over National Geographic, Then Lays Off Award-Winning Staff Murdoch’s got plans for National Geographic.

A Matter of Taste: Inside the Edible Sex Toy Industry Eating and sex have a lot in common: they’re both necessary human activities that we’ve managed to find pleasure in.

Exxon, Keystone, and the Turn Against Fossil Fuels The fossil-fuel industry—which, for two centuries, underwrote our civilization and then became its greatest threat—has started to take serious hits.

The View from the Doctors Without Borders Hospital The first part of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, to be hit when an American AC-130 fired bombs at it, just after 2 A.M. on October 3rd, appears to have been the intensive-care unit.

Why the New Vatican Leaks Scandal Is Different It has been an unusually turbulent week in Rome. The Vatican’s gendarmes arrested two members of Pope Francis’s economic-reform committee—Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, a powerful monsignor, and Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, whose background is in public relations—for allegedly leaking documents to two Italian journalists.

Ben Carson Defends Himself Against Allegations That He Never Attempted to Murder a Child Republican front-runner Ben Carson (god, that feels weird to type) is in hot water over allegations that he never actually tried to stab someone, despite his claims to the contrary in his best-selling memoir.

Capitalism and Time In his review [of] Vanessa Ogle’s new book, “The Global Transformation of Time: 1870-1950,” Michael Schulson establishes the basis for exploring interesting parallels between the uneven standardization of time and the development of global capitalism.

Ben Carson Among the Pyramids There are theories, out there, that the pyramids of Egypt are really giant batteries, or even electric generators.

President Upholds Reprimand for Professor Who Didn’t Assign Department Chair’s Book California State University at Fullerton’s president has upheld the math department’s reprimand of a professor for not assigning a textbook written by the department chair.

LA Passing Up Tens of Millions For Infrastructure and Affordable Housing Los Angeles has got a lot of expensive infrastructure issues that need attention and money, like the dangerous sidewalks and lumpy roads and aging water pipes.

Leaked Emails From Pro-Clinton Group Reveal Censorship of Staff on Israel, AIPAC Pandering, Warped Militarism Leaked internal emails from the powerful Democratic think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) shed light on several public controversies involving the organization, particularly in regard to its positioning on Israel.

Has Israel Upset the Centuries-old Status Quo at One of the Holiest Sites in Islam and Judaism? The Holy Esplanade — known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount — stands at the center of the current protest and violence in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.

Queen of Chaos: Misadventures of Hillary Clinton Diana Johnstone has written an extremely valuable book on Hillary Clinton, which not only examines in detail Mrs. Clinton’s political history and record, but places them in their evolving political context, which enlightens readers on the domestic and international political environment within which she works and into which she adapts and serves.

Climate Blindness The poor frog has of course been slandered. A frog will die in boiling water, but jump out of a slowly warming pot. The homo not-so-sapiens is another story.

Did Vampire Microbes Help Kickstart Evolution? Punctures in 750-million-year-old eukaryote fossils suggest predation drove self-defense evolution.

A Complete History of Census Race Boxes A new data viz shows all the racial and ethnic labels from 1790 to 2010.

Israel’s Top Generals Split With Benjamin Netanyahu on Roots of Terror Wave Benjamin Netanyahu probably thinks he got the last laugh after the international uproar he touched off with his “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews” speech on October 20. But he just might have opened up a whole new can of worms.

Good Guy With a Gun Takes Out a Theater Shooter: Himself The self-inflicted shootings are really racking up the numbers toward the end of the year.