Lauren Ashburn

Boys, boys, boys. It's not enough that you sought out prostitutes -- albeit legal in the "tolerance zones" of Colombia -- but now investigators are checking to see if drugs are involved?

Trying not to sound like your mother here (or God forbid, your wife), but what were...

The Twitterverse lit up last week with talk of actress Ashley Judd's plastic surgery. Except it wasn't true. She was spotted with a puffy face on a talk show, which led to speculation and criticism and Ashley would have none of it.

Her rep fired back with a statement denying...

Goodbye, Oprah's couch; hello, Twitter. You want to say you're sorry in this day and age, tweet it. God forbid you pick up the phone and call someone.

It took lobbyist Hilary Rosen half a news cycle yesterday to apologize for sticking her foot in her mouth the night...

Imagine my surprise when a friend called Friday and said, "You were on Jon Stewart last night." Immediately after that I saw a tweet go by with a link to the Daily Show video clip and my @laurenashburn Twitter handle. Uh oh. My friend Andrea wrote on my Facebook page...

It seems my mom may have been right about internet privacy when it comes to social media sites. It's an oxymoron.

The new app "Girls Around Me" crossed a line by using information you provide to Facebook and Foursquare to tell men how to hunt down women...

I always thought that Etch-a-Sketch was a great toy back in the pre-iPod era, even if I did have trouble making those squiggly lines.

But as a metaphor for a presidential candidate, not so much.

In our Daily Download debut on CNN's Situation Room, Howard Kurtz and I

Have you seen the movie Jerry Maguire, where slick sports agent Tom Cruise stays up all night writing his "mission statement" about what is wrong with his company's corporate culture and then puts a copy of it in everyone's mailbox? In one scene, he stands in the middle of the...

Call me old-fashioned, but I am waxing nostalgic for one of my first loves: Encyclopaedia Britannica. After publishing 244 years worth of page-turning picturesque presentations, its print run is over.

Brittanica is joining other roadkill on the Internet superhighway crushed by the torrent of free information. It simply couldn't...

I was struck at Thursday night's premiere of Game Change at Washington's Newseum -- usually home to policy conferences and studies of the history of news -- that Julianne Moore, in her Tom Ford velvet green dress cut down to her navel, has come to epitomize glamorous women in politics.

Watching the YouTube clip of Rush Limbaugh calling Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut," "a prostitute" and "round-heeled" for her congressional testimony urging her school to amend its health insurance to cover contraception was like reliving a bad dream.

I was instantly transported to my eighth-grade...

Mitt Romney is many things. An entrepreneur, family man, a multi-millionaire, a politician. He is also a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In other words, a Mormon.

Horrors! Those people?

If you thought we went down this "attack Mormons" road four...

As New Jersey Republican freshman Governor Chris Christie flirts with a run for the White House, he is dangling new hope for Republicans soured on the current lot of candidates. Christie's two-fisted, barrel-chested, tell-it-like-it-is ways are garnering him waves of media attention and pleas for him to jump into the...

The winds are howling outside my home office and the rain is pelting my window while I sit trying to catch up on work left over from the week. Hurricane Irene isn't scheduled to make her grand entrance in the nation's capital for 12 hours, but my patience is already...

I am 44 today. Yes, the fireworks are really just for me, and the nation is only celebrating my birthday. At least that's what mom always told me.

Birthdays always put me in a reflective mood and this one is no different. I live in one of the richest...

Locals knew something big was brewing last night. Taxis carrying journalists and politicians streamed down Pennsylvania Avenue racing to the White House. These first responders -- some in-the-know and some not -- gathered for a rare, late-night presidential speech. Waves of giddy excitement filled the air as President Obama announced...

Since the dawn of civilization thousands of years ago, the broader Middle East has been a crucible of conflict. Foreign armies have waded in, often with good intentions, to bring peace and impose order. Almost without exception they have failed. Yet once again the Western world seems to believe that...

In the middle of Cairo's Tahir Square, 36 year-old single mother Amal Sharaf brings her daughter to her tiny office where she and about ten others work tirelessly to overthrow Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "I think we can do it," Sharaf meekly tells NBC's Richard Engel.

Armed with six...

The cardinal rule of journalism is simple. Get it right or don't report it. Especially when it comes to matters of life and death.

This weekend during live coverage of the Tucson shootings the media -- in its rush to beat the competition -- got it wrong over and over...

The scrappy "O 'bomber" as he was known, has been shooting hoops for decades. He's known around town as a quick, self-confident, left-handed jumper who talks a little smack when he scores. Called a "rat-baller" in high school, he's sought basketball as refuge from the trials of life.

So what...

'Morning in America' is considered one of the most effective, game-changing political video campaign ads ever made. Unveiled at the Republican convention in 1984, its message was simple: Electing incumbent President Ronald Reagan equals rebirth, a new start to a bleak world. The pictures painted a happy, productive America...