T.J. Raphael

Yesterday, The Guardian released a report showing the extent to which Microsoft worked with the NSA to make data from Outlook, Hotmail and Skype accessible. They highlight the complic...

How important is appearance when it comes to the ability to serve? When Major Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi, an American Sikh, was told by the Army that he would be required to give up the be...

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began at sundown on Monday night. And with it, millions of Muslims around the world began abstaining from food and drink during daylight hours, in the...

This month, inmates in prisons around California are participating in a hunger strike. The strikers are demanding better conditions overall in the prison system. They are also revisit...

For nearly five centuries, doctors classified nostalgia as a disease, even a form a psychosis. Recent research has shed new light on nostalgia, John Tierney, science columnist for Tak...

Are American retailers that operate in Bangladesh doing enough to improve safety conditions at Bangladeshi factories? U.S. Senator Robert Menendez has been calling for better labor co...

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have offered large financial aid packages in a move to stabilize the uncertain interim government there in Egypt—and it sends a strong signal of influence in th...

The legality of waterboarding, the role of state-sponsored surveillance and the importance of whistle-blowers—those were just a few of the major questions thrown at James Comey before...

Since its inception, American Prairie Reserve has raised $60 million from well-known, ultra-rich donors in an effort to create a national park in Montana that would be about the size ...

What if a city's concrete roadways doubled as an air freshener? That's the dream of a group of Dutch scientists who have developed a product they describe as "air-purifying pavement."...

A leaked Pakistani government report reveals what Pakistan did and did not know about Osama Bin Laden, and provides details of Bin Laden's life on the run. Akbar Ahmed is the chair of...

Last month, the Senate passed a sweeping, bipartisan overhaul of the nation’s immigration system and passed it on to the House of Representatives. Today House Republicans will hold a ...

Does swearing betray a lack of education and class on the part of its speaker? Anya Saffir, Shakespeare director and faculty of the Atlantic Acting School, doesn’t think so.

Have we gotten a tad too lax about swearing these days? Do we swear more than we should? Or, is there something else bigger going on? Columbia University linguist John McWhorter expla...

The American South holds 37 percent of the U.S. population, but over half of all new HIV diagnoses occur there. A new documentary called "deepsouth" sheds light on the people living i...

Ever since the name "Trayvon Martin" entered the public consciousness in March 2012 there has been one prevailing theme in the media and around the water cooler: Race. Though it isn't...

Frustrated with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the Obama Administration is considering a faster timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan with the option of withdrawing all troops by ...

Texas Governor Rick Perry has set the stage for a major political shuffle for the Lone Star State with his announcement yesterday that he will not to seek re-election next year. How d...

Connected to the question of what policy steps America should take next in Egypt is the question of what—if anything—the United States could have done differently to forestall the cur...

In recent days the tables have turned in Egypt. Thousands of Morsi supporters have taken to the streets, both in Egypt and here in the United States, with hundreds in Egypt facing inj...