NYT's okay for domestic news. Harper's is overall the best for quality of commentary but lacks scope. The Economist remains pretty good overall, as does Bloomberg Business Week; Bloomberg's probably the best overall for free online news right now. Glenn Greenwald is currently the Howard Zinn Heavyhitter but Salon is wretched; honestly, if everything about it were twice as good as it is it still wouldn't be half as good as Harper's or Mother Jones. Onion AV Club is the best entertainment news and commentary in any medium. If you aren't getting your legal news from scotusblog.com, rectify that immediately.
Print subscriptions to Harper's and the Economist are cheap and the most likely to get you laid. Internationally, Al Jazeera, Der Spiegel, and the Telegraph are all pretty good; Der Spiegel in particular saved me a couple grand by calling the subprime crisis back in 2006.