Jersey Shore captures 8.45 million
The season premiere of MTV’s Jersey Shore was viewed by 8.45 million people, more than the average audiences of network news broadcasts on ABC and CBS, and only slightly behind the average audience for NBC’s nightly news show.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Oil-loving bacteria save the Gulf of Mexico
Bacteria quickly consumed most of the 200,000 tons of methane gas released during the BP oil spill last year in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new study by university scientists. Petroleum-eating microbes also consumed most of the millions of gallons of oil, and scientists have found little trace of the spill in Gulf waters.
Los Angeles Times
Richer than the world's 57 poorest countries
The world’s four richest citizens—Carlos Slim, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Mukesh Ambani—control more wealth than the world’s 57 poorest countries.
ForeignPolicy.com
Detroit to generate 23,000 jobs in 2011
For the first time in a decade, the auto industry in Detroit is creating new jobs. After eliminating 71,500 jobs in 2008 and 2009, the auto industry is expected to generate 23,000 jobs this year, according to the Center for Automotive Research.
Detroit Free Press
WikiLeaks: There's much, much more
WikiLeaks has placed online only 1 percent of the 251,287 secret diplomatic cables it obtained. Six newspapers have been given or have obtained the entire collection, but they have yet to publish cables not made public by WikiLeaks.
The New York Times
-
What to know before turning to AI for financial advicethe explainer It can help you crunch the numbers — but it might also pocket your data
-
Book reviews: 'The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction—and a Search for Relief' and 'Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run'Feature The search for a headache cure and revisiting Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album on its 50th anniversary
-
Keith McNally' 6 favorite books that have ambitious charactersFeature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
-
Smartphone collisions, and morefeature Fifty-three percent of all adult mobile-phone owners have been banged into because someone was peering at their smartphone.
-
Partisan commencement speeches?, and more
feature No Republican or conservative has been invited to make the commencement speech this year at any of the 50 top U.S. liberal arts colleges.
-
Food stamp benefits soar, and more
feature The government spent $74.6 billion on food stamp benefits last year, up from $30.4 billion in 2007.
-
Prime-time TV gets racier, and more
feature The networks’ new trick is to show fully naked characters with their breasts, buttocks, and/or genitals pixelated.
-
A warm start to the year, and more
feature The U.S. just experienced the warmest start to a year since records began, in 1895.
-
Potter films rake in billions, and more
feature The Harry Potter movie series has earned $6.37 billion at the box office over the past decade.
-
Wal-Mart's jump in midnight sales, and more
feature Wal-Mart says its stores see a jump in midnight sales on the first of each month, when cash-strapped shoppers receive their monthly government benefits.
-
Over 40 million Americans receive food stamps, and more
feature For the first time, the number of Americans receiving food stamps topped 40 million in March.