William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard, which, together with Fred Barnes and John Podhoretz, he founded in 1995. Kristol regularly appears on Fox News Sunday and on the Fox News Channel.

Sophia Jones is an editorial researcher at Foreign Policy.

The death of 50 percent of Somalia's camels poses a grave question: If camels can't survive, what can? Eastern Africa's drought is proving to be a death sentence for an animal that can normally survive weeks without water. In some areas, over 80 percent of livestock have perished, forcing families to abandon their homes and relocate in overcrowded refugee camps. Ahmed Mohammad, a Somali camel herdsman, told BBC:

John McWhorter is a contributing editor for The New Republic.

Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum may have a number of things to be embarrassed about. However, supporting an observation that there were more two-parent black families during slavery than there are today is not one of them.

Ari Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog.

There's so much fake drama in Washington that it gets hard to recognize big developments when they actually happen. By any measure, though, Republican leaders are offering a massive reversal to their debt threats.

Senator McConnell's proposal gives Obama everything on substance, in return for concessions on optics.

Science has backed up claims by people living near the Cane Run Power Station in Louisville who say the plant’s coal ash is contaminating their homes.  This could lead Metro Government to take action against Louisville Gas & Electric. Next to LG&E’s Cane Run Power Station there’s a coal ash landfill. It holds the fly ash that’s leftover after coal is burned. The residents of Cane Run Road say the ash routinely blows off the landfill and travels onto their property, coating siding and windows. Now, this new report commissioned by the power company is the latest study to lend credence to those concerns.

His tax situation still isn't quite clear, but it looks like New York Yankees fan Christian Lopez is going to make out OK.

As we reported Wednesday, some experts were saying that Lopez might face a tax bill of up to $14,000 because of the gifts he was given by the Yankees last week after he graciously returned the ball that shortstop Derek Jeter smacked into the stands for his 3,000 career hit in the major leagues.

The University of Louisville Board of Trustees has recommended a raise and bonus for President James Ramsey. For the past three years Ramsey has declined his bonus because the university was unable to provide staff with raises. This year, faculty and administrators will receive raises between zero and five percent based on merit.

Stories are popping up across the news universe about President Obama and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) having a heated/tense/barbed (choose your favorite word) exchange during Wednesday's budget talks at the White House — an exchange that ended with the president leaving the room.

The young black bear, which weighs about 130 lbs., apparently likes walking. The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis reports on evidence that it's a long-distance traveler. It may be the same bear spotted in Alabama and Mississippi.

An Austrian man has won a three-year battle to appear in his driver's license photo with a pasta strainer on his head. Niko Alm, a self-described atheist, argued he must wear the strainer for religious reasons. That religion is Pastafarianism.