The sport that evokes more nostalgia among Americans than any other is baseball. So many people play the game as children (or play its close relative, softball) that it has become known as “the national pastime.” It is also a democratic game. Unlike football and basketball, baseball can be played well by people of average […]

Vampires have been popular figures in horror since Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897. The root of werewolf folklore can be traced all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Zombies, in their current form, however, have only shuffled their stiff-legged corpses onto the silver screen in the last few decades. Where did the zombie […]

BY Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY At its product announcement in New York City, Microsoft unveiled its new line of products including several new phones and the first ever Microsoft laptop. Ed Baig reports. Microsoft and Apple are ancient tech adversaries, dating back to when Bill Gates andSteve Jobs ran the companies. Now that we’re in […]

By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY NEW YORK — In 2009, Tony Award-winning singer/actress Lea Salonga met with actor and activist George Takei at his home in Los Angeles. Takei wanted Salonga to play a role in a new stage musical he was developing, inspired by his family’s time in Japanese-American internment camps duringWorld War II. “That […]

A study of blue whales suggests that these giant marine mammals are not the indiscriminate grazers we thought they were. By Will Dunham, Reuters The blue whale is the largest creature on Earth and perhaps the biggest that ever lived, so it is no surprise it has a huge appetite. But the strategies this behemoth […]

By Ben Woolsey and Emily Starbuck Gerson As far back as the late 1800s, consumers and merchants exchanged goods through the concept of credit, using credit coins and charge plates as currency.  It wasn’t until about half a century ago that plastic payments as we know them today became a way of life. Early beginnings In the early 1900s, […]

This interview with Peter Miller, the chief executive of Optinose, a pharmaceutical company, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. Were you in leadership roles or entrepreneurial when you were younger? A. I did have a real passion and an interest in business for some reason. Part of it was just finding ways to […]

by Tori Avey writing for PBS Second only to oil, coffee is the most valuable legally traded commodity in the world. We love it, we rely on it, and we drink it in massive quantities. It is estimated that 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed each day worldwide. New Yorkers are said to drink […]

By Christopher Klein written for History.com in 2013 1. Vatican City is the smallest country in the world. Encircled by a 2-mile border with Italy, Vatican City is an independent city-state that covers just over 100 acres, making it one-eighth the size of New York’s Central Park. Vatican City is governed as an absolute monarchy with […]

Yankees legend Yogi Berra passed away on Tuesday at the age of 90. An 18-time All-Star, Berra appeared in 14 World Series as a member of the Yankees and won 10 of them. Berra’s contributions to MLB history are incalculable, but his legacy might be even better remembered for what he contributed to American language. […]