While violence has declined noticeably in Baghdad, day-to-day life for Iraqis is grim, U.S. News Associate Editor Alex Kingsbury told Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last night. Kingsbury, who recently returned from his second reporting assignment in Iraq, described Baghdad neighborhoods where there is raw sewage in the streets and goats graze on garbage from toppled bins. Kingsbury's "Iraq Journal" series has reported on how American troops and Iraqi citizens cope with the difficulties in the country five years after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. more >>

Just back from a monthlong reporting assignment in Iraq, U.S. more >>

Funny guys Conan O'Brien and Stephen Colbert have been warring over the airwaves over who first discovered and "made" Mike Huckabee, the once obscure former Arkansas governor, into the popular Republican presidential candidate he is today. more >>

I appeared last night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote my book Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval that Inspired America's Founding Fathers. I do not watch this program regularly and had not known quite what to expect when this appearance was booked; my impression has been that Stewart is often very funny and, while generally liberal, is happy to skewer those on the left as well as those on the right. more >>