The horror of the photographs of the abuse at Abu Ghraib wasn’t as much the nudity or the stress positions inflicted on the Iraqi prisoners; rather, it was the smiling faces of the American soldiers who were calling the shots and clicking the shutters. Yet the photos themselves tell only a small part of the story. Philip Gourevitch, a New Yorker staff writer, and Errol Morris, a filmmaker, have synthesized those images and the larger issues of prisoner treatment in their new book Standard Operating Procedure, a companion book to a film with the same name. Gourevitch says that the events are still widely misconstrued as the work of rogue soldiers, rather than the culmination of policies encouraged through the chain of command. He spoke with U.S. News about the new book. Read the rest of this entry »

It was 1933, Franklin Roosevelt had taken office, and the country and the world were in the midst of tremendous upheaval. The Nazi Party seized power in Germany, Mahatma Gandhi began a hunger strike in India, and Japan left the League of Nations. At home, 1 in 4 Americans was unemployed, industrial production fell 50 percent, and the Dust Bowl began blanketing the American West, forcing thousands from their homes. FDR started putting the nation back to work with New Deal programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Civil Works Administration. Read the rest of this entry »

The outlook for the country’s electrical grid this summer is generally positive, though weaker points in the country’s infrastructure do exist in places like Southern California and drought-affected areas of the Southeast. Those two spots are getting extra attention from grid watchers, according to an annual assessment announced today by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the power industry’s self-regulatory body. Read the rest of this entry »

BAGHDAD–Ali Saladin is silent as he holds open his right eyelid between his right thumb and index finger. His brown pupil dilates as he stares straight ahead at the American soldiers who are pointing a digital eye scanner at him. The soldiers then take his fingers and begin scanning them as well. “What is this for, can you tell me again?” asks Saladin, who only minutes ago admitted the five soldiers into his Baghdad home. Read the rest of this entry »