The Daily Beast’s recent article, boldly titled “Media Balks at Band-Aid Shield Law,”  concludes that the proposed media shield law—that nearly passed Congress in 2009, and was reintroduced again this month—is merely the White House’s attempt at damage control after the Associated Press subpoena scandal. The article further asserts that the media has roundly rejected the proposal as weak.

That conclusion is exactly wrong. In fact, the media overwhelmingly supports a shield law effort.  The article reaches its conclusion without quoting a single news organization. Had the Daily Beast reached out to the news organizations that regularly receive and fight subpoenas, it would have learned of the widespread support to pass the first ever federal statute that protects the confidentiality of journalists’ sources. More than 50 media organizations have joined a coalition to support a shield law in the past week, including most newspaper publishers, television networks, and the associations for the newspaper, broadcasting and magazine publishing industries. The Society for Professional Journalists, quoted in the article as opposing the effort, has in fact supported the shield law effort since it began in 2004.

Ever since Marissa Mayer’s new job as CEO of Yahoo and her pregnancy were announced nearly simultaneously last July, every one of her personal and executive decisions has been picked over by a million rubberneckers. First, there was the statement: “My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I’ll work throughout it,” which spawned a thousand frothing blog posts for her and against her. Then she followed through on that promise and took only two weeks off and it sparked another spasm of praise and fury. After that, news broke that she built a nursery next to her office at the same time as she was putting an end to Yahoo’s telecommuting policy, which led to widespread criticism of Mayer as anti-family and out of touch; then she announced that Yahoo was expanding maternity leave to 16 weeks and paternity leave to eight weeks, which inspired mostly cheers. Now people are complaining that her new acquisition strategy will destroy employee morale.

Every 17 years, a swarm of cicadas emerges from the ground and starts its cacophonous humming, and swarms of journalists rush to explain what on earth is going on with all these red-eyed insects everywhere.

It was no different 150 years ago, a search through The New York Times’s archives confirms—except that, back then, journalists also had to reassure readers that the bugs were not the wrath of God, they don’t bite babies, and they don’t prophecy war. Also, instead of comparing the sound to a buzzsaw or a subway train, it was “a wood-working shop with every lathe and chisel and saw and band roaring full tilt” and “a big knife laid against a coarse, flying grindstone, at first lightly and then pressed down hard.”  

“It has been a tough week for President Obama but Atlanta and Morehouse is ready to show our president much love,’’ said the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, which was where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once delivered his Sunday sermons.

On Sunday morning, Rev. Warnock will offer a prayer at the commencement at the all-black Morehouse College (from which he and Dr. King both graduated). Then will come the president, fresh on the heels of one of the worst weeks of his presidency, hounded by controversies about the IRS singling out Tea Partiers, long-standing questions over the 2012 Benghazi attacks, and revelations involving the Justice Department’s seizure of phone records from the Associate Press.

There's nothing sexy about a double mastectomy. A day after Angelina Jolie announced she'd had one, her doctor revealed a more detailed account about the actress's operations, including a painful "nipple delay" procedure. So far, it seems, Jolie is recovering well, and her nipples are intact. But it wasn't—and isn't going to be—easy.

We spoke with doctors about the brutal reality of these procedures, and the questions that linger even after a success is pronounced.

In the months after Adam Lanza killed 20 schoolchildren and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, politicians and civilians alike seemed able to agree only that the nation’s mental-health system was in need of thorough examination and reform.

An early major piece of that puzzle was released Thursday by the federal Centers for Disease Control, in the form of a comprehensive report about mental disorders in American children and adolescents, culled from years of data collection.

The congressional hearing on domestic drone use scheduled to happen today is the second in three months. Four states have already passed laws curtailing the use of drones by law enforcement, and 32 other states are actively considering it. The speed and intensity—and remarkable bipartisanship—of the response to domestic drones are the latest signs that the technology occupies a uniquely sensitive spot in the public imagination.

Just look at the public outrage over rumors that the Los Angeles Police Department was using a drone to search for Christopher Dorner. No one cared that they were using helicopters with heat-sensing technology, dogs, and surveillance cameras to give them a leg up, but the idea of a drone was appalling. Or look at the people who demanded that Amazon stop selling a toy drone, when the rest of the toy aisle looks like a plastic arsenal. Even New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, when telling people to get used to the idea of drone surveillance, acknowledges that they’re “scary.”

Will Smith’s son may be able to joke about legally emancipating himself from his famous parents, but for the majority of kids, there’s nothing funny about it.

Jaden Smith, who co-stars with his father in the upcoming film After Earth, made headlines this week for suggesting that he wanted to divorce his mom and dad so he could have his own home. He was quick to clarify later that he wasn’t actually considering making it official. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told Ellen DeGeneres.