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Iceland Is a Pretty Awesome Place to Live if You're a Woman; New York Still Up for Debate

​According to the World Economic Forum's latest Global Gender Gap report, which rates things like economic opportunities, education, health and survival, and political empowerment between men and women, the place you really want to live as a woman is...Iceland! Or maybe Norway or Finland.

Vatican Bank Gets Probed

Just one Google image result for "pope bling."​Here's a good plot for Dan Brown's next novel (you read it here, Brown!): Italian magistrates have frozen $30 million from the Vatican bank and are investigating top bank officials for alleged violations of European money laundering rules.

Morning Links: Obama Unveils Jobs Plan and Tax Breaks as Disapproval Rating Rises

​Welcome back; we hope your long weekends were swell! • President Obama has unveiled a $50 billion public-works plan to revive the economy, and is asking Congress to pass tax breaks that would let businesses write off 100 percent of their new capital investments through 2011. [WSJ, AP]

Re-Enact the Most Famous Gathering of the Juggalos Moment with Heavy.com's "Tila Tequila's Juggalo Jam"

When an Internet meme attacks a reality TV star in unscripted real life, YouTube goes wild, blogs pigpile for third-degree traffic, idle hands remix the live footage, eyewitnesses testify on the radio. And if the incident really has longtail potential and/or the reality star endures this topless, ... More >>

The Best Answer to "What Makes a New Yorker?" Ever, by Ira Glass

​Expatriate-of-Chicago and semi-new New Yorker Ira Glass, who's the famously bespectacled, nerd-chic host of NPR's This American Life, was interviewed for Daily Intel's long-running 21 Questions feature. It's a great interview -- who knew that the BroBo icon was a Chelsea resident? -- as Glass ... More >>

Morning Links: Gay Marriages on Hold in California; Tapes and Photos of 9/11 Plotter Emerge

​• An appeals court put same-sex marriages on hold in California yesterday, ruling that "Proposition 8 could remain in effect while it considers the case." Oral arguments will be held the week of December 6, which means that a decision will probably not be made until sometime next year. [WP, ... More >>

Jelly's Free Pool Parties Cost About $500,000 This Year, Aren't As Much Fun To Put On Anymore

The scene at Sunday's Cut Copy fete. Pic by Sam Horine.​"I kind of hate the Pool Parties now," notes Jelly NYC co-owner Sarah Hooper in the last (!) graf of this not terribly sunny NPR report on the promotion company's current mindset. "It's no longer the series we envisioned," she notes elsew ... More >>

"Squeezing" Is Not a Sex Move, and Other Things We Learned During the Summer of BP

via NYT​When we look back at these hazy days of summer 2010, we'll remember oil, for sure, and birds and models in oil (thank you, Italian Vogue), and a smattering of strange, mystical, rather sexual-sounding phrases, like "junk shot," "top kill," "tar balls," "bottom kill," "annulus," "bullhe ... More >>

Judge Blocks Controversial Portions of Arizona's Immigration Law

​Today federal judge Susan Bolton blocked the "most controversial" parts of Arizona's controversial immigration enforcement law -- including the part that would allow police to ask about the immigration status of individuals they stop for other reasons, and the part that would require immigran ... More >>

Ansel Adams Photo Negatives Found at a Garage Sale Are Worth $200 Million

via NPR, Ansel Adams Courtesy of Rick Norsigian​Construction worker and painter Rick Norsigian bartered for photo negatives at a Fresno, California, garage sale 10 years ago, purchasing 65 frames for $45 -- not much of a bargain for someone else's random landscape photos -- that is, until they ... More >>

10th Annual Film Critics' Poll: The Abridged Results

94 critics voted. The results are in.

Jennifer Gilson and Steve Rosenthal, Owners of the Living Room, Pick Best NYC's Best Dive Bar, Psycho Street Clown

This week is the Voice's Best of NYC issue, our annual opportunity to bestow arbitrary awards like Best Rock Club and Best '90s Musical Hero Holding Out Scruffily in Brooklyn. In turn, we asked a few of our favorite New Yorkers to name their favorite local things. ​ Jennifer Gilson and Stev ... More >>

Good News For Haddock-Lovers: Some Fisheries Rebounding, Others Floundering

Don't eat him!​ You might remember the interview published here with journalist Charles Clover about his new documentary, End of the Line. Part of that movie reports on a study by a group of scientists led by Boris Worm at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. Using world catch data, they ... More >>

Scott Hudson's Sweet Storm a Timber-Hearted Love Story

Batman's Muddled Political Metaphors

Christopher Nolan's blockbuster is selling tickets—and a jumbled message on the paranoia of our age and the politics of fear

Black Stars: Ghana's Hiplife Generation

Featuring Ghana's finest MCs, from Kwaku-T to Batman Samini

Director and Playwright Elyse Singer Discovers Two Unusual Inventors

Live: Laura Marling Lucinda Black Bear at Union Hall

Porn Goes Web 2.0?

Zivity.com tries to build a social-networking-style community with its popularity-driven sexy sweethearts

Vapid Transit

'The Incomplete' reveals an art generation amusing itself into obsolescence

Provincializm: Blitz, New Order, Dusty Grails of the '80s

Hack Attack

Lesbians and cab drivers rub shoulders for the sake of literature

A Double-Shot of 'Hate Us or Love Us'

Joe Frederick, First Amendment Idol

Will the Supreme Court hold high the banner 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus,' or crush free speech?

Cheers, Mate! The BBC Is the Future of Your Paper. Maybe.

Living With War

Pearl of the Antilles

The elephant in Guantanamo's living room gets 4,200 calories a day and a Koran

Justice Department's Black Site

The administration censors internal probe of lawbreaking by the Oval Office and the NSA

Extreme Makeovers

For adventurous theater companies, all the world's a stage—literally

A Three-Day, High-Sensory, Secular Take on Yuletide Joy

Secret Machines

'I wished on a dandelion for my husband to die': Snail mail admissions tasty escargot online

The Big Chill

EZT shuts down, courts lag behind, WMG gets desperate

Letter to the Editor

Bias Crimes

Bill Moyers leaves PBS in the middle of a rebalancing act

Crash of Civilizations

Jew vs. Jew vs. Mel

Have Jewish Critics of The Passion of the Christ Actually Fueled New Anti-Semitism?

God Bless the Child

Cabaret wunderkind waves jock-hipster kryptonite at all of NPR's left-leaning quirksters

Nation

He’s Always a Pop Star to Me

At 52, Billy Joel Writes His Opus 1

John Ashcroft v. the Constitution

Giving the FBI a ‘Blank Warrant’

Radio On

Collegiate Record Geeks Choose Their Frequency

Drug War on the Web

‘Narco News’ Ready for Libel Suit in New York

Credo in Unum Tonum

Why Was ‘Beyond Words’ Different From All Other New York Concerts?

Urban Organics

A Study in Synergy

Nike Money Buys a WNYC Talk Show

Vital Signs

New Media Savants Check the Pulse of Silicon Alley

Ask, Don't Tell

Giuliani's suppressed report on homeless youth

The Informer

Steele Appeal

City Never Sleeps

Is New Drug a Workaholic's Dream—or Nightmare?