Hsi-Chang Lin

As one of his final acts in office, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson says he will pardon the man known as "Billy the Kid," delivering one of America’s best known criminals the pardon he had anticipated for much of his life. The move comes a mere 130 years after the gunslinger’s death. We speak with author/historian Mark Lee Gardener, and discuss why Richardson might want to make such a public pardon to a historical criminal, and ask why the prospect of a pardon is causing such a stir.

A partnership between Google, the U.N., Harvard University and a group led by actor George Clooney has developed a high tech plan to try and prevent large-scale violence in Sudan. Many observers fear reprisals from North Sudan if Southern Sudan votes to form an independent state, as is expected in two weeks. The group will use geosynchronous mapping satellites and multimedia information gathered from the ground to deliver a constantly updated image of Sudan to the world. Their hope is that atrocities will be less likely to occur if the whole world is watching.

The West African country of Ivory Coast has been on the brink of civil war since incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo lost November’s democratically held elections to Alassane Ouattara, by 8 percent of the vote. With the backing of the nation’s army and much of its population, Gbagbo has refused the UN's ultimatum for a “last chance” to peacefully step down.

Russia’s closely watched trial of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky revealed a lot more than just the business dealings of one of the country’s most powerful and prosperous men. For many Russians, the court's ruling exposed a crack in the political unity that keeps Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev comfortably in power. Is Russia's rule of law suffering manipulation by executive power?  

On Christmas Day, the Chinese central bank raised interest rates 0.25 percent, or 25 basis points, to 5.81 percent. It's the second such hike in just over two months, and comes in response to inflation and rising food prices in China. In response, the price of U.S. crude oil dropped slightly, amidst concerns the high Chinese demand for oil will slow; world markets dipped due to fears that increased interest rates could soften demand for other commodities. How should we understand the Chinese government’s decision? Was this a difficult move toward domestic fiscal responsibility, or a sneak attack on international markets?

A Swiss magistrate has recommended that three members of a family in Switzerland be tried for violating their country’s laws regarding the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons. Magistrate Andreas Muller told The New York Times that a six-year investigation by Swiss authorities showed Friedrich Tinner and his sons, Marco and Urs, were working with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the so-called “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb. The Tinner family had also, according to American officials, worked secretly with the C.I.A. on nuclear issues since 2000. If the Tinners are found guilty, they face up to ten years in prison. But what does their relationship reveal about a black market of nuclear proliferation at work in a country so friendly to the U.S.? 

Christmas is one of the busiest days of the year for the movie industry. If you're still undecided about which movie to see, resident movie buffs Rafer Guzman and Kristen Meinzer size up "True Grit," "Little Fockers" and "The King's Speech."

According to a new study by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, the teen birthrate fell to an all-time low in 2009. Last year, there were 39.1 births per thousand girls between the ages of 15 and 19.  Early data from the first six months of 2010 show that the downward trend continues. 

Where many journalists and policy makers see stark data in the new census numbers, some see the potential for art. Sound artist Ben Rubin and UCLA statistics professor Mark Hansen are best known for creating digital poetry out of the printed word for their installation at The New York Times building. The pair culled text and images from the Times archive — stretching back almost one hundred and sixty five years — and replicated them onto 560 small screens that welcome visitors to The New York Times lobby. 

For the first time in over four hundred years, a lunar eclipse lands on the winter solstice. On the morning after this auspicious coincidence, we catch up with some professional star gazers to get a sense of the event’s astronomic and historical significance. We speak with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium and host of NOVA's "Science Now," along with Cameron Hummel, a PhD Student at Columbia University’s Department of Astronomy. 

On December 22nd, 2008, a Tennessee Valley coal-fired power plant ruptured, sending nearly one billion gallons of coal ash into a nearby river, where it turned to sludge. That hazardous sludge was shipped to a landfill site outside Uniontown, Alabama — an area whose demographic is too poor for the kind of political clout that would block the move. The question is: do communities like Uniontown ever really get a say in where hazardous waste goes?  

Long before the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, officials in Congress were concerned about the "cozy" relationship between federal regulators and the oil industry and the failure of regulators to spend funds on safety measures, according to documents recently acquired by The New York Times. The documents were acquired through the Freedom of Information Act, and include emails between Congressional officials and the Minerals Management Service. Was the M.M.S. "stonewalling" all along? And how will Gulf residents take the news?

For fifteen years CNN’s Larry King Live was a staple of nighttime cable television. It was the most watched program on the network and its host held court to musicians, movie starts, heads of state and newsmakers of the day. Maybe that’s what prompted Lady Gaga to ask him whether or not his name was really "King Larry?" But last night, Larry King wrapped his final episode in an interview with a star-studded show where even current and former presidents found time to make an appearance. Will he be missed, and can he be replaced?

Over the past two years, we’ve been told to expect a silver lining to the housing crisis.  At a first glance, the release of tomorrow’s foreclosure numbers should add to that optimism, as analysts expect the number of new foreclosures to drop dramatically.  But does that mean we’ve truly passed the worst moments of the housing crisis?

A research paper published by the Social Psychology Quarterly drew some interesting conclusions about the way that members of our increasingly diverse society are experiencing and experimenting with structures of identity. Titled “Passing as Black: Racial Identity Work Among Biracial Americans,” the paper argues that with less stigma attached to any one race, people of mixed heritage are, more frequently than before, declaring themselves biracial one day, or all one race the next. But what does this fluidity mean to the idea of race in our country at all? And How does one rationally and honestly navigate the conundrums of identity?

Long-time actress Leslie Caron has been nominated for two Academy Awards and has danced on stage with the likes of Gene Kelly, Fred Astair and Mikhail Baryshnikov. In her new memoir, "Thank Heaven," she retells the stories of her many acting roles and of her dramatic life living in New York and Paris. Caron, who turns 80 years old next year, was born in Paris and known then as the "little French girl."

What if, ten years ago this Sunday, the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore had gone another way? If the court had found the methods of recounting ballots to be fair; and instead of George W. Bush, then Vice-President Al Gore won Florida's recount, and thus the 2000 presidential election? How different would our world look today? Would it look different at all? 

The real world is catching up with the cyber-punk books of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson — books populated by information terrorists, online hackers and a “cyberspace” every bit as real as our own world. Yesterday, thousands of supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange staged an online campaign to try and overwhelm the websites of companies including Amazon, PayPal and MasterCard.com, going so far as to swamp the credit card company’s website intermittently throughout the morning. Who are the players directing this online stampede, what are their methods and their motivations? 

The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has sparked an online furor. By utilizing "distributed denial of service" attacks to attempt to overwhelm companies' web servers, the activist group "Anonymous" has targeted organizations that they feel worked against WikiLeaks’ efforts in the days leading up to Assange's arrest on Monday. Anonymous has vowed to continue its online efforts, which have so far been directed at Amazon, PayPal, Visa...and even took the MasterCard website offline for much of yesterday morning. How serious are these attacks, and what are the methods of the people behind them?

In the run up to the arrest of Julian Assange, large companies, including Amazon, Visa and Paypal, refused to continue doing business with WikiLeaks, saying the site and its staff had violated various terms of service. Being dropped has meant WikiLeaks has had to change its online domain name, source its documents from a different web hosting company, and, accept donations via methods other than credit cards. Was this tightening of the noose business as usual or an unethical over-use of corporate power?