middle class

(Newser) - A radical attempt to curb Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation by cutting prices up to 50% has backfired on President Robert Mugabe's government, which is now teetering on the brink of collapse, the New York Times reports. Store shelves are empty; bread, sugar, and cornmeal, the staples of Zimbabwean's diet, are depleted.

(Newser) - The American middle class has become connoisseurs of everything—coffee, '80s Japanese garage-rock bands, environmentalist toilet paper, and now wine, writes Slate's Field Maloney. Fermented grape juice doubled its audience in the past decade, while consumption of lower-brow beer stagnated. And for the first time in history, Americans pollees prefer...