Blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, seen in this image from a YouTube video, escaped last week after 19 months under house arrest. Searches for his name are banned on China's Twitter-like services.
Credit Andy Wong / AP
Bo Xilai attended a March plenary session of the National People's Congress in Beijing shortly before he tumbled from power.
China is clamping down on social media as it grapples with a crisis over the escape of a high-profile dissident, apparently to U.S. protection. The case presents new difficulties for a Chinese leadership already struggling to deal with the scandalous downfall of a powerful politician, and it complicates U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Beijing this week.
Yet China's use of social media in dealing with these two recent crises has been a study in contrasts.
The International Labor Organization issued a report Monday warning that austerity measures imposed in many countries are hurting the job market, as well as failing to effectively reduce deficits. The major European economies received the brunt of the report's criticism. The report predicts a 3 percent rise in the global unemployment rate for 2012.
Originally published on Mon April 30, 2012 5:26 am
Tuesday marks one year from the day President Obama announced to the nation that Osama bin Laden had been killed. To underline the significance of the anniversary, the administration sent its counter-terrorism expert out on the airwaves Sunday. It also launched a controversial campaign ad about the raid against the al-Qaida leader.
Originally published on Mon April 30, 2012 6:01 am
Each day a quarter of a billion dollars in goods crosses the aging Ambassador Bridge that links Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. An additional bridge is desperately needed but a long way off from being built.
Originally published on Mon April 30, 2012 6:03 am
Saudi Arabia is considering Egypt's request to restore diplomatic ties after the kingdom recalled its ambassador over the weekend. Relations between the two Arab countries are at their lowest point in three decades.
Teams in the NBA playoff have begun their quest to be the champion. The headline story of the weekend: Chicago superstar Derrick Rose is out with a torn knee ligament.
Judge Thurgood Marshall (left) in discussion with President Lyndon Baines Johnson, following Marshall's appointment as a member of the Supreme Court, the first African-American to hold the post.
Credit National Archives / Getty Images
Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office as president of the United States after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Nov. 22, 1963.
Credit Steve Inskeep/NPR
Robert Caro is the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes in biography, a National Book Award and two National Book Critics Circle awards, among other honors. He stands in front of the outline of his next book.
Robert Caro writes obsessively about power. Fittingly, it's Lyndon Johnson — catapulted suddenly into the presidency "in the crack of a gunshot" — who consumes him.
The Passage of Power, the fourth volume of Caro's massive biography of Lyndon Johnson, is released this week. Caro has dedicated decades to meticulously researching Johnson's life, and the previous books in the series have been almost universally hailed as a significant achievement in American letters.
A fad that has been sweeping through middle-class India might look familiar to some Americans — it's a craze for fancy gym equipment. But when commentator Sandip Roy visited India's first Mr. Universe (who is known as the "Pocket Hercules") he found that the body builder has little patience for the new trend.
