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AP Photo; Reuters Stop Talking Down to Iran
Reza Aslan is author of the international bestseller No god but God and How to Win a Cosmic War (published in paperback as Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized World). Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Defense Secretary Gates is right: the U.S. lacks a strategy for keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Reza Aslan on why cracking down on Israel and India is the only way to reach Ahmadinejad.
Landov The Race Dividing Women
Dana Goldstein is an associate editor and writer at The Daily Beast. Her work on politics, women's issues, and education has appeared in The American Prospect, Slate, BusinessWeek, The New Republic, and The Nation.
A little-known Wall Streeter challenging a New York House incumbent is roiling national women's groups. Dana Goldstein on the two well-funded candidates vying for the feminist mantle.
Chris Jackson / Getty Images Rise of the Fembots
Rebecca Dana is a senior correspondent for The Daily Beast. A former editor and reporter for The Wall Street Journal, she has also written for The New York Times, The New York Observer, Rolling Stone, and Slate, among other publications.
What do Shawn Southwick, Heidi Montag, and Kate Hudson have in common? They’re fembots—walking, talking Barbie dolls that are dominating tabloid headlines this spring. Rebecca Dana on the newest category of celebrity.
Shocking New Knox Twist
Barbie Latza Nadeau, author of the Beast Book Angel Face, about Amanda Knox, has reported from Italy for Newsweek Magazine since 1997. She also writes for CNN Traveller, Budget Travel Magazine and Frommer's.
Elena Kagan's Achilles' Heel
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. His new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, will be published by HarperCollins in June. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Steven Seagal Under Siege
John Connolly is a former New York City detective turned journalist. He is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine, and is currently finishing a book called The Sin Eater on disgraced and imprisoned Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano.
What Does Ron Burkle Want With Miramax?
Peter Lauria is senior correspondent covering business, media, and entertainment for The Daily Beast. He previously covered music, movies, television, cable, radio, and corporate media as a business reporter for The New York Post. His work has also appeared in Avenue, Blender, Black Men, and Media Magazine, and he’s appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg, BBC Radio, and Reuters TV.
Harvey Weinstein seems poised to get his movie studio back, using controversial billionaire Ron Burkle's money, leading observers on both sides to ask one question: why?
Paranoia on Patriot's Day
John Avlon's new book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America is available now by Beast Books both on the Web and in paperback. He is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
Second Amendment advocates mingled with the lunatic fringe, celebrating the American revolution and Tim McVeigh. John Avlon reports from the front lines of gun rights rallies.
Damages' Bloody Finale
Jace Lacob is the writer/editor of Televisionary, a website devoted to television news, criticism, and interviews. Jace resides in Los Angeles. He is a contributor to several entertainment Web sites and can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
In an exclusive day-after interview, the creators of FX's legal drama spoke with The Daily Beast's Jace Lacob about Monday's finale and the show’s future. Spoilers abound!
Ghouls of Wall Street
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
Every time we lift up a rock on Wall Street something unappealing scampers out. Will Goldman's reputation survive?
The Best Stoner Novels
Sam Munson's first novel, The November Criminals, will be published in April by Doubleday.
In honor of the hallowed holiday of 4/20, Sam Munson, author of November Criminals, picks out the best novels, from Invisible Man to Wonder Boys, featuring marijuana and its users.
America's Most Stoned Cities
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
As pot smokers celebrate the holiday of all things marijuana, The Daily Beast crunches the numbers to determine the most stoned cities. PLUS: VIEW OUR GALLERY of celebrities who toke.
Sarah Silverman on Getting Old and Having Kids
Rebecca Dana is a senior correspondent for The Daily Beast. A former editor and reporter for The Wall Street Journal, she has also written for The New York Times, The New York Observer, Rolling Stone, and Slate, among other publications.
With her new memoir, The Bedwetter, America’s favorite potty-mouthed comedienne is primed for a comeback—if she doesn’t age too quickly. Rebecca Dana gets beyond the jokes.
Inside Paulson's Deal with Goldman
Gregory Zuckerman is the author of The Greatest Trade Ever and senior writer at the Wall Street Journal, where he has been a reporter for twelve years.
Just how did the deal roiling Goldman go down? Gregory Zuckerman on the tale of how hedge-fund maverick John Paulson gambled on the housing market—and why it turned toxic.
The Queering of Ryan Seacrest
Thaddeus Russell is the author of the forthcoming A Renegade History of the United States (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2010). He teaches history and cultural studies at Occidental College and has taught at Columbia University, Barnard College, Eugene Lang College, and the New School for Social Research.
The American Idol host—whose recent erratic behavior on the air has prompted chatter—has for years alternated between gay-baiting and homophobic comments. Thaddeus Russell on the Seacrest persona.
Memo to America: Stop Murdering My People
Malalai Joya, now 31, was the youngest member of the Afghan Parliament, elected in 2005. In 2007 she was suspended from Parliament because of her consistent criticism of the warlords and other human rights abusers in the Karzai regime. Joya has survived five assassination attempts to date, and has written her life story in the book A Woman Among Warlords (with Derrick O’Keefe, Scribner, 2009). She writes from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Amid increasing civilian deaths and resurgent warlordism, Afghan women's leader Malalai Joya writes that Hamid Karzai and the U.S. are losing credibility in Afghanistan day by day.
Gibbs: I Love the Press
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs tells Lloyd Grove that he loves, really loves the White House press corps. He also talks about losing weight, keeping a White House diary, and whether he'll ever run for office.
The Terrorist We Keep Killing
Bruce Riedel is a Senior Fellow in the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. At the president’s request he chaired the strategic review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009. His book, The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future, came out in paperback this month with a new postscript.
Reports that Abu Ayub al Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was finally killed may or may not be true. Bruce Riedel on how the U.S. helped the rise of the group—and how hard it’s been to stop.
The Irrefutable Moral Case Against Goldman
Tunku Varadarajan is a national affairs correspondent and writer at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a professor at NYU’s Stern Business School. He is a former assistant managing editor at The Wall Street Journal. (Follow him on Twitter here.)
The SEC’s complaint raises more than just legal questions about Goldman Sachs, says Tunku Varadarajan. And the moral case against the bank is open and shut—which means we all have a stake in overhauling Wall Street.
Polanski Begs Obama for Mercy
Eric Pape has reported on Europe and the Mediterranean region for Newsweek Magazine since 2003. He is co-author of the graphic novel Shake Girl, which was inspired by one of his articles. He has written for the Los Angeles Times magazine, Spin, Reader's Digest, Vibe, Courrier International, Salon, and Los Angeles from five continents. He is based in Paris. Follow him at twitter.com/ericpape
Why did French President Nicolas Sarkozy hand-deliver a letter last week to President Obama from fugitive director Roman Polanski asking for leniency? Eric Pape on Polanski’s private plea for clemency.
Russia's New Push for Power
Judith Miller is an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative reporter for the New York Times. She is now an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to its magazine, City Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
Douglas E. Schoen is a political strategist and author of THE POLITICAL FIX: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grass Roots to the White House.
Despite the signs of goodwill between Obama and Medvedev at last week’s nuclear summit, the coup in Kyrgyzstan was further proof of Russia’s dominance in the region at the expense of U.S. interests.
Elena Kagan's Achilles' Heel
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. His new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, will be published by HarperCollins in June. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Obama’s potential Supreme Court pick banned military recruiting at Harvard Law. Peter Beinart on how that stance has damaged liberals—and why conservatives are right to bash her for it.
Maha Gaber Abouelenein is the principal of communications firm Organizational Consultants. She focuses on US politics and bridging understanding with Arab cultures, media, and government. She is an active member in the World Economic Forum and the co-Chair of the Corporate Governance Committee of the US Chamber of Commerce.
Richard Abowitz has chronicled the rise and continuing fall of Las Vegas for over a decade. He is the author of hundreds of articles for Las Vegas Weekly. Abowitz is perhaps best known for writing the Movable Buffet blog and continuing print column for Los Angeles Times. In addition to covering Vegas, Abowitz has been writing about music and culture for Rolling Stone since 1996. In December 2009, Abowitz launched GoldPlatedDoor.com to be an honest broker reporting on all things Vegas.
Dan Abrams is CEO of Abrams Research, an attorney, and chief legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
Sasha Abramsky is the author of Breadline USA. His latest book, a profile of President Barack Obama titled Inside Obama’s Brain, was published by Penguin’s Portfolio imprint in December.
Bruce Ackerman is Sterling professor of law and political science at Yale, and the author of 15 books on political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy. His works include Social Justice in the Liberal State, the multivolume constitutional history, We the People, The Failure of the Founding Fathers and Before the Next Attack.
Ruthie Ackerman is a senior fellow at the World Policy Insitute and the founder of Ceasefire Liberia, a hyperlocal blog project that focuses on Liberia and the diaspora.
Edward Adams (1933-2004) was a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist best known for his war coverage. He mostly worked for The Associated Press, Time and Parade. His photographs of human rights defenders from 36 countries were published in a book with Kerry Kennedy, Speak Truth to Power.
Mark Adams is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in many of America’s leading magazines, including GQ, Outside, the New York Times Magazine, Fortune and National Geographic Adventure, where he is a contributing editor. Adams wrote New York magazine’s popular column “It Happened Last Week” and once ran 26 miles alone through the streets of Manhattan for an assignment. Originally from Oak Park, Illinois, he now lives near New York City with his wife and their three sons.
Lynsey Addario is a photojournalist based in New Delhi, India, where she photographs for The New York Times and National Geographic, among other publications. Her Web site is lynseyaddario.com.
Aravind Adiga is the bestselling author of The White Tiger, which won the 2008 Man Booker Prize.
Jerry Adler is a contributing editor at Newsweek, where he writes about medicine, science, and ideas. He is the author of High Rise: How 1,000 Men and Women Worked Around the Clock for Five Years and Lost $200 Million Building a Skyscraper.
Michael Adler, a longtime reporter for Agence France-Presse, is currently a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and is writing a book on Iran’s nuclear diplomacy, which he has covered for most of this decade.
Dr. Arthur Agatston is a leading preventive cardiologist and creator and author of The South Beach Diet. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, Sari.
Prashant Agrawal is CEO of Indipepal.com, India's only social portal. He previously worked at Skadden Arps, McKinsey, and a hedge fund, and is a contributing editor to GQ India and the magazine’s business columnist.
Liaquat Ahamed is the author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, a book about the causes of the Great Depression. After working as an economist at the World Bank, he spent 25 years as a professional investment manager in London and New York.
Lee Aitken is an editor and writer who has worked at Time Inc., the New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler, and the International Tribune, among others. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her daughter.
Well known Indian journalist M.J. Akbar is the editor of Covert, a fortnightly magazine of current affairs, a blogger and the author of many books, most recently Blood Brothers.
Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan is a board member of the United Nations Foundation.
Maysoon Al-Damluji is an Iraqi Member of Parliament and lives in Baghdad, Iraq. A liberal Iraqi politician and women's rights campaigner, she was Iraq's Deputy Minister of Culture from June 2004 until March 2006 and is the president of the Iraqi Independent Women's Group (IIWG) and comes from a long line of Iraq politicians.
Anne Marie Albano, Ph.D., ABPP, is an associate professor of clinical psychology in psychiatry at Columbia University and the director of the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Columbus Circle in Manhattan.
Mike Albo is a writer and performer who lives and loves in Brooklyn. His second novel, (written with Virginia Heffernan) is the cult humor classic The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life. You can find him at mikealbo.com.
Madeleine K. Albright is a principal of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm, and chairwoman and principal of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. In 1997, she was named the first woman secretary of State. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the US permanent representative to the UN. Her latest book is Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership.
Linda Alcorace is a writer and Adjunct Professor of English at Santa Monica College. Her work has also appeared in The Los Angeles Times and The Copley Press.
Edward Alden is the Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His expertise includes US immigration and visa policies, US trade policy, and the impact of homeland-security policies on US economic competitiveness. He is the author of The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11, and is currently directing CFR’s independent task force on US immigration policy.
Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. is a freelance writer and editor. Formerly Paris editor of The Paris Review, a senior editor at Harper’s magazine, and a reporter for the Boston Globe, he is a frequent contributor to The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Nation, and Vogue, among other publications.
Matthew Alexander is a pseudonym for a 14 year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. As the leader of an elite interrogations team in Iraq, he conducted more than 300 interrogations and supervised more than 1,000. He served in three wars and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal in 2006. He is the author of How to Break A Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq.
Paul Alexander is the author of Machiavelli’s Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove and Man of the People: The Life of John McCain, among others. A member of The Authors Guild and PEN American Center, Paul has been a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992. She served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006 and is currently a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Her autobiography, Infidel, was a 2007 New York Times bestseller.
Lorraine Ali is a Los Angeles-based culture writer who's covered everything from gay divorce to Christian rock to the Arab American experience. She's a Newsweek Contributing Editor and has written for the New York Times, GQ, Rolling Stone and Esquire. Ali is currently working on a book about her Iraqi family that's due out next year.
