The famous Dupont slogan “Better Living Through Chemistry” was never intended to apply to drug use, but as Benjamin Breen explains in Tripping on Utopia, his charming and highly readable history of the rise and fall of psychedelic substances in the United States and abroad, it might as well have been. A historian of science […]

Among all the available definitions of cinema, few are at once truer and more politically incorrect than the one offered by Jean-Luc Godard. “The history of cinema,” the director of Breathless, Contempt, and Weekend once said, “is boys photographing girls.” In its day, Godard’s remark undoubtedly inspired a thousand dissertations on the evils of the […]

There have been great presidents who never did any soldiering, of course, but there has never been this long a run of American commanders in chief who haven’t seen war up close.  Now that the only veteran to have seriously contended for the 2024 presidency, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), is gone from the race for […]

The Ukrainian ambassador to France is a courtly man who discharges his duties with all the gravitas of an envoy of a nation at war. Yet, at a ceremony on Jan. 16, he allowed his somber Slavic face to break into a smile — broad and uninhibited — as he pinned a ribbon and medal […]

Alabama on Thursday became the first state to execute a death row inmate using nitrogen gas. Kenneth Smith was put to death by nitrogen hypoxia at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., making his death the first in the U.S. to be carried out using the previously untested method. Smith was executed...

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (Minn.) said President Biden has seen a physical and communication decline, as fears of the president’s age swarm his reelection efforts. “Look, I’m an American, I want to respect my presidents. I do respect President Biden,” Phillips told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I’m not seeing cognitive decline. Of course,...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said he thinks Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) saved his political future by dropping out of the Republican presidential primary race. “I mean, I think if he continued on [...] he was gonna get trounced in his own state,” Newsom said, adding that GOP challenger Nikki Haley is facing similar...

Joy Behar, co-host of ABC’s “The View,” offered praise for Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley in her campaign against former President Trump on Thursday. The co-hosts of the talk show reviewed a clip of Haley’s speech at a campaign event in North Charleston, S.C., where she said Trump threw a temper tantrum in his speech...

The Supreme Court denied Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith’s last chance to avoid a nitrogen gas execution by Alabama Thursday, with three liberal justices dissenting. Smith, convicted for a 1988 murder-for-hire killing, is set to be executed by way of nitrogen hypoxia. The method involves stopping people from getting the oxygen they need...

The American population is aging — by 2060, nearly one in four Americans will be 65 or older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Assisted living facilities are already inadequately prepared for the aging population, witnesses told a Senate panel during a Thursday hearing. Patricia Vessenmeyer, who testified at the hearing, assisted her husband, John...