The Plight of the Middle East’s Christians

From Review

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  Use Stress to Your Advantage

  To perform under pressure, research finds that welcoming anxiety is more helpful than calming down.

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  Brains, Schools and a Vicious Cycle of Poverty

  Research spotlights the grim effect of poverty on education, Alison Gopnik writes.

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  The British Still Have Americans Beat in Architecture

  Visiting Britain, Joe Queenan finds that with all their cathedrals, stately houses and picturesque ruins, the British are far ahead of America in architecture.

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  The Many Meanings of May Day

  How a celebration of spring became an outlet for social protest and labor activism.

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  Monitoring Tiny Vibrations to Avert Big Problems

  A technique uses high-speed video cameras and computers to check on structures’ vibrations with an eye to keeping buildings, bridges and pipelines safe.

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  From Stage to TV to Screen, the Rise of ‘Tentpoles’

  The entertainment term “tentpole” has persisted over a century, describing theater, TV and film productions.

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  Hip-Hop in the Arab World and North Africa

  A Paris exhibition shows how hip-hop spread to France, the Middle East and North Africa—and provided a beat for the Arab Spring.

  • Hip-Hop, From the Bronx to the Arab Street

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  A Poet Celebrates the Brooklyn Bridge

  Hart Crane’s ‘The Bridge’ captures a vision of America in a single iconic image.

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  Tom Robbins on the Beatles and ‘Hey Jude’

  Tom Robbins, author of “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” and “Tibetan Peach Pie,” on how the Beatles song “Hey Jude” influenced his life and work.

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  Sebastião Salgado’s Photos of Coffee Plantations

  In his new exhibit at the Venice Biennale, “Scent of a Dream,” Sebastião Salgado documents coffee plantations and their workers around the world.

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  Author Rosecrans Baldwin on Tequila’s Accommodating Cousin

  The Mexican spirit sotol works well in so many situations. So why, wonders author Rosecrans Baldwin, do we not see more of it stateside?

• 

  Regulation Run Amok—And How to Fight Back

  The Saturday Essay: Too many government regulations today are pointless and prevent us from doing our jobs as well as we could, writes Charles Murray. His modest proposal: Ignore them.

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  Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s Lessons Learned

  Five years after his firing, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan on modern warfare, Islamic State and applying military lessons to the business world.

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  David Cameron Takes It All

  David Cameron’s calm temperament and self-confidence helped the Conservatives win the U.K. elections—but also left millions unsure of his core beliefs.

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  What Is Your Dog Telling You?

  They may not use words, but dogs say a lot more than we realize with their body language.

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  Russia Hedges Over Stalin’s Legacy

  Seventy years after victory over Nazism, Putin and others aren’t sure whether to praise the Soviet tyrant for his wartime leadership or condemn him for his repression.

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  How Our Brains Judge Crime Cases

  Different parts of the brain judge violent situations, depending on whether they were intentional or unintentional, Robert M. Sapolsky says.

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  A Week in the Life of Elif Shafak

  The novelist’s days are filled with news from Turkey, a train ride to France and children eager to get a dog.

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  Is the Game Hive the Next Chess?

  The game Hive, in which players control bugs of different types, has unique tactics, but it echoes some concepts from chess.

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  Museums, It’s Time to Sell Those Duds on the Walls

  Purists may squawk, but museums are loaded with crummy paintings, says Joe Queenan—so why not sell them off?

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  For Mother’s Day, Give a Gift She’ll Use Every Day

  Dan Ariely answers readers’ questions on meaningful presents, engagement jitters and rude pet owners.

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  Behind the Charge of ‘Depraved-Heart Murder’ in Baltimore

  The charge of “depraved-heart murder” in the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore stems from English common law and its archaic phrases.

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  Al Hirschfeld: Seeing Stars

  An exhibit at the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library surveys Al Hirschfeld’s drawings of actors, musicians and more.

  • The Art of Al Hirschfeld

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  What Islamic State Has in Its Crosshairs

  The lion hunt reliefs from the palace of King Ashurbanipal depict a brutal (if beautiful) massacre—not a heroic drama: lions released from cages, the action taking place in an arena.

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  George Mitchell, Former Senate Chief, on Rachmaninoff

  George Mitchell, the peace envoy and former Senate majority leader, on how a Rachmaninoff symphony helped him relax after hard Capitol Hill days.

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  ‘War of the Encyclopaedists’ Debuts May 19

  “War of the Encyclopaedists,” a new novel about love and war in Iraq, and debuts May 19.

  • Read a Chapter
• 

  Lane Smith Takes On Middle-School Bullies

  Lane Smith, co-writer of “The Stinky Cheese Man,” publishes his first novel, “Return to Augie Hobble.”

  • The Illustrated World of Lane Smith
  • Read an Excerpt

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  A Book That Reminds You How Unimportant You Really Are

  George Grossmith’s sad little comic masterpiece, ‘The Diary of a Nobody,’ reminds readers of a harsh truth: Most of us, no matter how well we may think of ourselves, are unimportant to the rest of the world.

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  Ancient DNA Tells a New Human Story

  Armed with old bones and new DNA sequencing technology, scientists are getting a much better understanding of the prehistory of the human species, writes Matt Ridley.

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  After Urban Riots, a Long Road to Revival

  In troubled American cities, such as Baltimore, neighborhoods devastated by unrest seldom come back.

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  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the World of African Literature

  The best-selling author on the diversity of African writers and her life in Nigeria and the U.S.

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  Life Lessons from a Youth Baseball Coach

  Forget the competitive dads. To teach children about baseball—and life—a coach looks to their moms for help.

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  The Mystery of Loyalty, in Life and on ‘The Americans’

  Alison Gopnik considers attachments and loyalty—in real life and in the behavior of the Soviet spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings in ‘The Americans.’

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  Dear Spammers: Tell Me How Great I Am

  Joe Queenan is tired of email spam that makes him feel bad. His advice: Send him something that will cheer him up.

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  Even Poets Get Spring Fever

  A brief history of pastoral poetry and prose, from Virgil to Wordsworth, Thoreau and Yeats.

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  The Rise and Fall of the Term ‘Third World’

  Report says the phrase ‘Third World’ had its start at a 1955 conference, but the words grew out of the work of French social scientists.

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  Researchers Develop ‘Smart’ Invisible Ink to Foil Counterfeiters

  A difficult-to-duplicate invisible ink could make counterfeiting of bank notes very difficult, scientists at Northwestern University say.

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