The United Nations and France continued their crackdown in Ivory Coast today, with a UN helicopter firing on Laurent Gbagbo’s forces and Nicolas Sarkozy giving his troops the OK to take out the entrenched strongman’s heavy weapons, reports the AP . The UN said it acted to stop Gbagbo troops from…
Continue reading …It’s true: Wearing designer fashion will very likely improve your life. But not because the clothes are so attractive, oh no: It’s the label that matters. A new study shows that designer logos bring benefits including more cooperation, job recommendations, and even money from others. In one experiment, when presented…
Continue reading …Lloyd Blankfein’s salary nearly doubled in 2010 to a total of around $19 million—and the Catholic church isn’t happy about it. Four orders of nuns that invest with Goldman Sachs have all signed on to a proposal demanding the bank review its compensation policy, the Guardian reports. The nuns…
Continue reading …As rebel fighters suffered battlefield defeats last week, the movement’s ad-hoc leadership council called a meeting of its three top commanders and discovered something disheartening: They can’t stand each other. “They behaved like children,” committee head Fathi Baja tells the New York Times . What’s more, the three commanders—former Interior…
Continue reading …How to win a King-of-No-Tact award, in three easy steps! Step one: Dish out meaty bonuses to your company’s top execs. Step two: Base said bonuses, in part, on the fact that 2010 was your “best year” ever in terms of safety—the pesky Gulf oil spill and 11 dead…
Continue reading …Not a good couple of weeks for Madonna: After a scandal late last month involving her Raising Malawi charity, another one of the Material Girl’s nonprofits is under fire. The FBI is looking into “irregularities and suspicious activity” involving Success for Kids, an educational charity, the Daily reports. The organization…
Continue reading …A Libyan woman who accused Gadhafi loyalists of rape spoke to CNN today after going missing last week . After authorities hauled Iman al-Obeidi away from reporters, she says she was aggressively questioned for 72 hours, with interrogators tossing food at her and dumping water on her face. “They did not…
Continue reading …President Obama “prevented an atrocity” in Libya, but no one’s giving him credit. Why? “Because he prevented an atrocity,” writes Michael Grunwald in Time . It’s called the “counterfactual problem:” “It’s hard to get credit for avoiding a disaster when it’s impossible to prove the disaster would have happened without you….
Continue reading …The Nazi war effort wasn’t limited to the battlefield: Hitler’s Germany also attempted an unorthodox campaign against the US that involved poison sausages, trick cigarettes, and swimsuit-clad saboteurs. Newly declassified British documents show that two teams of four Germans were dropped off on the shores of Long Island and Florida,…
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