Alan Greenblatt

Chicago had cows, St. Louis has cakes and now London has benches that look like opened books.

The National Literacy Trust, along with public art promoter Wild in Art, has commissioned and placed 50 benches around town that are painted to look like pages ...

Boko Haram, the extremist group that kidnapped hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls last April, has released a new video mocking international calls for the girls' release.

The video was seen as a snub of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist who gained prominence after being shot in 2012 by the Pakistani Taliban ...

The Church of England voted Monday to ordain women as bishops.

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the church's spiritual leader, said before the vote that the public would find it "almost incomprehensible" if the church's General Synod did not approve the change.

A similar proposal was narrowly defeated ...

Nadine Gordimer, a Nobel Prize-winning author famed for her portrayals of South Africa under apartheid, died Sunday, her family said in a statement. She was 90.

Gordimer was considered a modern literary genius, an important chronicler of the injustices of racial segregation along with other white writers such ...

In a push for greater prominence in the American market, Swiss chocolate company Lindt & Sprungli has reached a deal to acquire Russell Stover, the company whose products include the time-tested Whitman's Sampler box of chocolates, a product featured in the 1994 film Forrest Gump.

The deal would make the ...

It sits in an imposing building just across Lafayette Square from the White House. Yet the Export-Import Bank, which has been offering credit to foreign purchasers of U.S. goods for 80 years, could start shutting down operations within a matter of weeks.

"There's about a 50-50 chance," says Dan Ikenson, ...

What do you think of when you hear the name Duke? That question is at the heart of a legal dispute between Duke University and the estate of John Wayne.

Fans of the late film star will recall that he went by the nickname "Duke," which his biographers ...

It's turning into the largest influx of asylum seekers on U.S. soil since the 1980 Mariel boatlift out of Cuba.

Since October, more than 52,000 children — most from Central America and many of them unaccompanied by adults — have been taken into custody. That's nearly double last year's total ...

It might be the oldest tree in Britain. A yew tree that sprawls over a churchyard in Wales is more than 5,000 years old, according to experts. While it's not exceptionally tall, the tree has a wide canopy. And it dates back to the era of Egypt's pharaohs.

From ...

About a quarter of the police officers in Memphis have called in sick in an apparent protest over benefit cuts.

As of Tuesday morning, 552 officers were out sick, out of a total force of 2,218, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The "blue flu" numbers have been increasing ...

Congress has yet another problem it can't solve.

For years, the main federal transportation program has been spending more money than it takes in. This year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the Transportation Department will disburse $45 billion while collecting only $33 billion for its Highway Trust Fund.

As a ...

It wasn't the worst possible outcome for public sector unions. But that could still happen.

The Supreme Court stopped short in its Harris v. Quinn decision this week of eliminating unions' ability to collect compulsory dues from government workers who aren't union members but receive the same benefits. ...

President Obama's first term was marked by the regular and dramatic use of military force: he ramped up troop levels in Afghanistan, increased drone strikes in several countries, bombed Libya and ordered the raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden.

In his second term, he has used force much ...

No one really thinks 12-year-old Chloe Stirling presents a menace to public health.

The Illinois girl has a knack for baking cupcakes and has done pretty well selling them. So well, in fact, that her local newspaper published a story about her earlier this year. That drew the ...

Not all the soldiers who stormed the beach at Normandy are in France today.

Some of them are at a French bistro in Columbus, Ohio, for an event to pay tribute to them and to honor the restaurant’s owner, who was named a knight by the French National Order of ...

No political idea is being as heavily test-marketed these days as the minimum wage.

The Seattle City Council voted Monday to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour — more than double the federal rate of $7.25 and almost 50 percent more than the $10.10 per hour figure favored ...

Dozens of Haitian migrants were abandoned on barren islands off Puerto Rico in three separate incidents in recent days, the latest indication of the growing smuggling problem in the Caribbean.

A total of 42 Haitians, along with five Cubans, were left on the uninhabited islands of Mona and Mantila. Smugglers ...

A study published Monday suggests Americans are less afraid of hurricanes with female names.

This is a real study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — not The Onion.

Researchers at the University of Illinois and Arizona State looked at deaths caused by hurricanes between ...

Former Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Patrick Cannon is expected to plead guilty to a corruption charge in federal court on Tuesday.

Cannon, who was elected to the post last November, resigned in March hours after being arrested.

He was originally charged on three counts of accepting bribes from undercover officers over ...

New federal regulations that aim to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants will have a large economic upside, largely through health savings, says Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

"We are talking by 2030 having $90 billion in benefits," McCarthy told NPR's Robert Siegel in an interview ...