Captain America, Insurgents on Twitter, and the Iraqis We Left Behind
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
.Now that The New York Times pay wall is live, you only get 20 free clicks a month. For those worried about hitting their limit, we're taking a look through the paper each morning to find the stories that can make your clicks count.
Top Stories: The Occupy Frankfurt encampment (on the lawn of the European Central Bank) has gone out of its way to avoid police confrontation, and so has been mostly left alone. Sports channels are the biggest drivers in the cost of cable TV, making up about $100 a year of most people's cable bills, even if they never watch them.
Opinion: After the withdrawal from Iraq, the U.S. has an obligation to protect Iraqis who supported us during our time there and are often seen as traitors.
World: Somalia's Islamic insurgents just opened a Twitter account and are using it to brag about attacks and taunt enemies, even though most of Somalia doesn't have the Internet. Oscar Wilde's tomb in Paris has been sealed off behind a glass wall, because too many people covered the stones in lipstick when kissing it.
U.S.: Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been accused by the Justice Department of “a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos,” which could lead to a civil rights lawsuit if he doesn't make changes.
Science: The NIH has suspended all new grants that would support research on chimpanzees, and will provide new guidelines requiring that future research only be done when it is vital to human health and there is no other way to accomplish it. Canadian officials are looking into the possibility of a deadly virus in the wild salmon population and debating whether the government is trying to cover it up.
Business: Retailers are planning their "Super Saturday" sales tomorrow, betting that waiting until the last Saturday before Christmas — which is December 24 — will be too late for shoppers. Coke and Pepsi are racing to be the first soda company to have a plastic bottle made entirely from plants, but the technology is still years away.
Books: A review of Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig's idea for a new campaign finance system that he thinks would lessen the problem of money in politics.
Obituaries: In addition to Hitchens, Joe Simon, who created Captain America, and Edie Stevenson, the ad copywriter to came up with the "Mikey Likes It!" ad for Life cereal.