The Best All-Time Beards

Yes, the beard is gone...at least, mostly gone

(NEWSER) - Our long national nightmare is over: Brad Pitt finally took care of that thing growing on his face. Some called it a beard, but after two years of it growing progressively more scraggly , most were begging for its demise. To see the shot of a slightly more well-groomed Pitt recently snapped by photographers, click here . More»

We get it: You don't want to be considered just for your looks

(NEWSER) - Sexiest man alive? Pshaw. Brad Pitt looks more like “the guy who dealt weed in college,” writes Reed Tucker in the New York Post . Pitt’s facial hair, when it debuted in 2008, seemed like a temporary phase—but two years later, the beard is “longer, grayer, scragglier and even more knotted—and probably has a “family of spiders living inside.” More»

Dodger-loving reporter donates to charity rather than shaving

(NEWSER) - Chuck Todd isn’t shaving off his goatee, despite having lost a baseball bet to Jake Tapper. The NBC talking head has taken the coward’s way out and will donate to charity instead. Todd was supposed to shed his trademark goatee if the Dodgers lost the NLCS; had they won, his ABC rival would have had to grow some facial hair. But they had an escape clause: Either could opt out and donate $1,000 to charity. Todd will go the extra mile, donating $2,000 to two charities. More»

Clean-shaven troops complain lack of facial hair makes it harder to win Afghan respect

(NEWSER) - American troops in Afghanistan want to take a razor to the military's long-standing rule banning beards, US News & World Report writes. Beards are a sign of manhood in traditional areas of Afghanistan, and clean-shaven troops grumble that the rule—which the military maintains is essential for hygiene and discipline—makes it harder to gain respect and trust from the locals. More»

Devil in a Blue Dress author selects five most influential books

(NEWSER) - Walter Mosley has won accolades from readers and critics alike for his Easy Rawlins detective series, and the novelist has a philosophical side, too. Newsweek presents his list of important works that "most greatly impacted the intelligence, potential and humanity of the people of the world."

1. The Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein
2. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
3. Das Kapital, Karl Marx