U.S. News

U.S. News

The Story Behind "Discombobulated"

Feeling a little confused, concerned, off-kilter, out of sorts? Sounds like you're discombobulated. It's a fitting word for an unsettling feeling. It sounds formal, maybe even fancy. But it's actually the creation of some good

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Alien, Monopsony, and Lessons on Rising Inequality

This article first appeared in the Planet Money newsletter. You can sign up here . OK, hear me out. I'm about to get into a new book with a provocative argument about why income inequality has exploded in America and how to fight it. But at the center of this very serious economic book is

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Chimpanzee 'Civil War' and Lessons About Social Collapse

In the mid-1970s Jane Goodall, after more than a decade observing chimpanzees at Tanzania’s Gombe National Park, recorded something that overturned her earlier impressions: a once-unified community split into two factions that began systematically killing one another.

U.S. News

A Quarter of Private Colleges Are at Risk

CRAFTSBURY COMMON, Vt. — On Sterling College’s 130-acre farm, newborn lambs frolicked while students checked fencing and feed, a hands-on classroom for agricultural majors. The pastoral scene belied a stark reality: the remote, cellphone-dead campus is set to close at the end of the semester.