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When dictionaries add trendy words like "twerk," they're prioritizing the fleeting language habits of the young, says Geoff Nunberg. And our fascination with novel words tends to eclipse subtle changes in the meanings of old ones — "which are often more consequential," he says.

Two years ago Pakistan's Punjab province was hit with one of the world's worst dengue outbreaks. This year the number of recorded cases has plummeted. Many leaders credit a mobile phone app that tracks mosquito populations and city workers' efforts to contain them.

Anya von Bremzen's new memoir is a delicious narrative of memory and cuisine in 20th century Soviet Union. She writes about her family's own history and contemplates the nation's "complicated, even tortured, relationship with food."

Over the last 20 years, the number of sheep in the U.S. has been cut in half. Today, the domestic sheep herd is one-tenth the size it was during World War II. Consumers are eating less lamb and wearing less wool these days. Those trends have left ranchers to wonder: When are we going to hit bottom?

Critics of the NSA's secret surveillance hoped the debate that followed Edward Snowden's leaks would prompt the NSA to rethink the operation. Instead, one of the most noticeable effects so far has been a diversion of resources away from intelligence missions toward assessing damage from the leaks.

If you demand democracy in China, you can quickly find yourself at odds with the government. So these days, reformers are trying to use the constitution to make the party accountable to the people. But that didn't keep a Shanghai professor from getting suspended.

The insurgents' every action is being watched closely. They insist they have changed and won't impose the same restrictions they did when they last ruled, but many remain skeptical.

In Nevada, tribal opposition to a proposed lithium mine is testing the White House's pledge to electrify America's transportation system and give more of a voice to indigenous people in federal lands.

Boxer and laborer Eric Tucker created hundreds of paintings of his home town — and kept them secret, stashed around his house. Now, almost two years after his death, he has a museum exhibition.

The eight short stories in Yoon Choi's extraordinary collection splinter out in unexpected ways, shifting focus from a single life to decades of complex family history.