Outside the Beltway

Today’s oral argument before the Supreme Court on the issue of police searches of cell phones and smartphones left much up in the air.

The Justice Department thinks police should be able to search the smart phones of anyone arrested for anything.

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century is making quite a splash.

Contrary to popular belief, eyewitness testimony is often quite unreliable.

The anti-vaccination movement has earned a dubious achievement, the return of a disease that was effectively eradicated 15 years ago.

Yesterday the Supreme Court greatly expanded the circumstances under which police can rely on anonymous tips.

More bad news when it comes to scientific literacy.

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear argument in a case that will likely be this era’s version of the Betamax case.

Wisconsin recently became the third state to criminalize revenge porn. Why is it still legal in the other 47?

Interactions between consumers and businesses online are starting to have an impact on the legal system.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, the Washington Post and the Guardian are Pulitzer Prize winners.

Electronic payments are convenient but sometimes there’s nothing better than money in your pocket.

Bill Clinton seems far more understanding of Edward Snowden than the current President

Massively faster wireless internet service should be available in early 2015.

After many ballyhooed glitches, 7 million Americans have signed up for ObamaCare. Now what?

A high school kid has figured out that changing fonts could save the taxpayer millions in printing costs.

An oldie but goodie from PhD comics is making the rounds.

Getting nuclear weapons out of Ukraine in 1994 was a good idea, not a mistake.

Stanford astrophysicist Andrei Linde gets a nice surprise.

From Massachusetts, a ruling that might make little sense to the lay person but which seems to be right on the law.

A rich guy wants to break up California.

A rather impressive recovery from a career that was mostly dead in 2007.

What if the jobless recovery is but the beginning of a trend?

Lack of understanding or basic dishonesty?

“It’s complicated” has long been an option to describe one’s romantic status on Facebook. Now, it applies to one’s sex as well.

Snow days are no longer automatic vacation days for federal workers.

Can you still buy batteries there, though?

The House GOP leadership’s principles are a good start, but it’s unclear if they can make it past the anti “amnesty” crowd that seems to dominate the GOP.

Ezra Klein has put out a teaser of the project that he left WaPo to pursue.

Apple is pledging to fix a bug in iOs 7 that I have never experienced and never heard of.

Most peer-reviewed research is crap.

Seven years ago, Steve Jobs showed us that we could literally hold the world in the palm of our hand.