The first thing I did when we learned Michael Jackson died was to put together a series of YouTube links from the Jackson 5 and solo Michael for my children. Michael Jackson…
My late father, a standup comic, had a line about breast feeding. “Studies show breast fed babies grow up to be more normal than bottle babies. I was a bottle baby. Now,…
Extreme parents don’t necessarily take a break over the summer. Neither does Michael Thompson. “You know you’re an extreme parent,” he tells me, “if you send your child to camp for a…
Everyone gets their first lesson in job creation when they’re a child, whether they realize it or not. Our Economics Correspondent Christine Romans got hers in Iowa, sitting around the kitchen table…
72 years ago, when John F. Kennedy was just 23, he was visiting Minnesota with his parents and was invited on to a local radio show. You’ll hear what he said about…
The next Sandy is coming. Not tomorrow. But sooner and more often than we’d hope, say the experts, at least in part because of climate change. So the question for us as…
Higgs humor has humbled me. I thought I’d nailed it, when I wrote what could be the first original Higgs Boson joke ever here. But since this week’s announcement that the Higgs…
Here’s the name of the technique prosecutors have come up with to end prostitution as we know it. They call it “manual blocking.” Manual blocking is what a coalition of U.S. Attorneys…
I didn’t want Dick Clark to die. I want the myth that he spawned to die. Very few people know what I’m about to report. Clark bears responsibility for the obsessive quest…
Sometimes an old message can provide a fresh perspective. A 1940s marketing film for DDT helped do just that for CNN producers as we began investigating the potential risks of toxic chemicals.…
From what I’ve read about college football, if you want to find a player with NFL potential – Kent State is generally not the first place on your list. There’s talent there.…
I’ve never heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta despair. Which is why it was so upsetting to hear him last night on AC360. Here’s what he told Anderson. “I feel a little hopeless,” said…
Here’s what I want for Father’s Day: I want my children to develop a passion for science. I’ve decided to grease the wheels. I’ve called the best for advice. His name…
Sometimes to get a fresh perspective it’s best to turn to somebody old. That’s what we’ve done for this story on one of the biggest controversies over how to teach children tennis.…
The Valley of Death is Arlen Specter’s turf. It’s hard to keep track of how many times he has crossed it. This is true regarding his health. And, given the twists and…
“Killing me would not be in your interest.” So said the President of one of the most important countries on earth today. The quote is from the President of Madagascar. It was…
As soon as I read today’s environmental headline, that nearly a third of America’s 800 bird species are in danger, I thought of the great sparrow massacre in China. On May 18,…
It wasn’t the Hudson River. It wasn’t a soft landing. It wasn’t a happy ending. When the Yemenia Airlines Airbus went down in the rough seas of the Indian Ocean, 152 people…
And so it ended. Just like that. A six-word email that came across our desks at 11:15am: “Madoff has been remanded to jail.” There comes a time in many crime stories when…
It was a little lie that was supposed to die young. That is Bernard Madoff’s version of how his investment company became the largest Ponzi scheme ever. “When I began the Ponzi…
I wonder what would have happened if Harry Markopolos went to lunch at Bernard Madoff’s Palm Beach Country Club in the fall of 2000, stood up in the dining room, and shouted…
If anyone should know better, if anyone should have his guard up, you’d think it would be Elie Wiesel. “I should have learned,” he said, “that a human being is capable of…
That icicle hanging beneath BJ Kirschhoffer’s nose is exactly what you think it is. Polar Bear researchers officially call them snotsicles. And it’s what you get when it’s about 50 below zero…
As Al Gore was presenting his plan for making America a country that eliminates oil and coal in favor of 100 percent renewable energy – a small study we were tipped off…
Now that President Obama has warned over and over that this economic crisis could turn into a “catastrophe” if Congress doesn’t act quickly on a stimulus package, I’m trying to get an…
Don’t say that word! You know … “that famous term that everybody’s using,” as the United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger put it yesterday. He wouldn’t bring himself to actually utter the…
Our CNN colleague, David Gergen, was giving a seminar on presidential speechwriting the day before the inauguration, and he said something that stuck: “One of Barack Obama’s biggest challenges,” he said, is…
One of the most memorable quotes from Barack Obama came from a casual behind-the-scenes moment during the campaign. Candidate Obama, in an unguarded moment, recounted a question from a debate moderator who…
Please look carefully at these two photos (on the following page) and ask yourself which you’d rather click on. Today’s Paris couture fashion show or New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The choice…
When a young mother named Marguerite Elisofon first contacted Dr. Stanley Greenspan, her baby daughter was interested in almost nothing. Samantha just stared into space. She was, said her mother, “in a…
Sen. Arlen Specter woke at 4 a.m. one day last week with an excruciating headache, a side effect of chemotherapy. Ninety minutes later, he was on the squash court, playing a partner…
Once you get Jim Huber’s voice in your head, you can never get it out. Who would want to? Jim Huber wrote lullabies that could open your eyes. His essays on sports…
It may be time to edit the script of the flight attendant whose brief finger wag is famous among Delta passengers. Her name is Katherine Lee. She looks like she was cast…
The Tiger Woods story has triggered a memory that led me to two old photos. One photo is real. One is doctored. The Book of Laughter & Forgetting Tiger I read about…
I just had lunch with a fat kid who took up running for laughs. He made the U.S. Olympic marathon team. Now, he’s a popular and influential running coach. And this week,…
I’m not going to mention any real names in this piece, even though I only got wind of one person’s first name. But I experienced something today in a CNN rest room…
Oh, did I have a close call this morning trying to stay germ free. I had just dropped off the kids at school and was driving to work when I sneezed. I…
This story is about how to know when to give up on a man, and when to stick with him. It’s about Chris Johnson. I didn’t know who Johnson was before this…
Forget the players. Forget the owners. Forget the fans. At least for the moment. Forget everyone, except the thousands of Americans who depend on the NBA to make a living. If the…
What’s the most important position in football? Who’s the guy who we need to watch most closely to determine which way the Super Bowl will swing? I’ve been asking that question of…
I was hoping to post a story this morning called: “What Selecting a Jury Teaches Us About Targeting the Ideal Audience.” But I decided to take Michael Jackson’s advice instead. The story…
Let me begin with my Facebook status update: I JUST PUT ON MY PANTS. THEY FIT WELL. There are two silent reactions my friends on Facebook might have. Which one do you…
The other day I went to Sports Authority to buy a few ping pong balls for my children. I left with two arms full of high-tech athletic wear. I practically tripped over…
It’s going to be hard to keep your eyes off the photo in this piece. But the story of a construction worker’s thumb impaled by an 8 inch serrated blade provides me…
You know what I like about the Internet trackers — the ones that follow my every move on the Web? They care about me. They don’t mind that I’m 50, that I’ve…
The last time I checked in with psychologist and school consultant Michael Thompson, “Tiger Mom” was making headlines for how she drove her children to succeed. Thompson gave us memorable vignettes from…
Just as I’m about to turn 50, the Obama Administration and its allies in the Senate are pushing what’s been dubbed Botax. A 5 percent tax on cosmetic procedures, like Botox injections…
Extreme parents don’t necessarily take a break over the summer. Neither does Michael Thompson. “You know you’re an extreme parent,” he tells me, “if you send your child to camp for a…
Two hundred and fifty thousand or so Americans are expected to run and complete a half marathon this month. And I plan to be one of them on Saturday. It’s my first…
As I was planning my father’s memorial service for today I called his good friend and fellow comedian Freddie Roman, to arrange for a room at New York’s traditional show business mecca…