Although 14 American states—and most Western nations—have substantially abolished the death penalty, the Supreme Court has thus far declined to rule on its constitutionality. Last fall the court agreed to review the conviction of William Maxwell, 30, an Arkansas Negro sentenced to death in 1962 for the rape of a white woman. But the case covered only the procedures by which capital punishment is imposed; it excluded the key puzzle of whether capital punishment violates the Eighth Amendment guarantee against "cruel and unusual ...

There are illegal immigrants on the loose in the Midwest. Originally hailing from Asia, they're about 3 ft. long and weigh up to 100 lb. , and are known to resist capture. Once they establish residency, they can eat you out of house and home. They're called Asian carp, and they emigrated to the lower reaches of the Mississippi River in the 1970s. Now they're knocking on the door of the Great Lakes, threatening to destroy ...

VESSELS MOORED IN HARBOR: NINE BATTLESHIPS; THREE CLASS-B CRUISERS; THREE SEAPLANE TENDERS; SEVENTEEN DESTROYERS. ENTERING HARBOR ARE FOUR CLASS-B CRUISERS; THREE DESTROYERS. ALL AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND HEAVY CRUISERS HAVE DEPARTED HARBOR. No INDICATION OF ANY CHANGES IN U.S. FLEET. "ENTERPRISE" AND "LEXINGTON" HAVE SAILED FROM PEARL HARBOR. In his office at the Japanese consulate in Honolulu on the night of Dec. 6, 1941, Vice Consul Morimura, 27, glanced at this message, buzzed for his code clerk, ordered the report sent ...

Just as wars -- two World Wars and, equally important, the cold war -- dominated the geopolitical map of the 20th century, economics will rule over the 21st. All the big questions confronting the world in the century ahead are basically economic. Is the U.S. in an irreversible decline as the world's premier power? Will Japan continue its competitive conquest of international markets? Can Europe manage to hold together the world's largest trade bloc in the face of strong centrifugal ...

One mystery of Yasser Arafat's life seemed unsolved at the time of his death: How much money did he have, and where is it? In the mid-1990s, Arafat controlled a financial empire worth at least $3 billion. By the time of his death, he was down to his last $1 billion, according to Israeli intelligence estimates. Palestinian leaders believe his widow Suha would like to make off with what is left of his cash, a suspicion deepened by her charges ...

It's important for the president of the United States to get as much information from as many sources as possible, but Obama may be overdoing it. His Twitter account — the third most popular, after Lady Gaga's and Justin Bieber's — has signed up for updates from 697,726 people, more than anyone else on the entire site. In addition to security briefings from the Director of National Intelligence and jobs reports from the Office of Management and Budget, the President ...

On Tuesday, when President Obama traveled to El Paso, Texas, to again make the case for immigration reform, he talked about the tragedy of a policy that denies children the chance to earn a college education because of the way that their parents entered the country. But in many ways, we've already failed our fastest growing ethnic group, Hispanics Americans, long before they reach college and regardless of whether they were born here or not. Hispanics now ...

Ever since the end of the cold War, the U.S. has been the dominant and unrivaled power in the Middle East. That situation is changing, not because another great power is entering the region but because the Arabs are becoming more independent, unlikely to ally themselves submissively to any outside patron. Egypt's decision to establish relations with Iran and Hamas is one part of this trend. Washington cannot change it, nor should it try. This is the ...

A great day for the United States of America? A reminder of what a great power can do when its back is against the wall? A historic move by a lame-duck administration many thought could no longer solve any problems? It will be some time before we know whether this week will go down in history as all, or even some, of those things. But as the largest bailout in government history unfolded in almost dizzying waves over recent days, a very different view prevailed ...

Fungus that grows on rot might not, at first, seem the perfect image of our culinary ideals. And yet, if there is one food that can most perfectly symbolize America's values in the way we eat and cook, it might well be mushrooms. All kinds of mushrooms: the otherworldly morels that have started to appear in the moist morning of the Great Lakes, yellowfoot chanterelles in the steep woods of the northern states, rugged Hen of the ...