Commentary

The Paleo Diet urges us to mimic our prehistoric ancestors’ food choices. In practice, this means eschewing dairy products, cereals, pulses and processed sugar, and consuming vegetables, fruit, nuts, pasture-raised meat and wild-caught seafood instead. Clinical research has yet to substantiate its purported health benefits.

Martin Amis, pre-eminent novelist-critic of his generation, has died at the age of 73. His dazzling, pyrotechnic prose dominated the world of English writing from the mid-1970s through the fin de siècle.

More and more Americans are moving from Democratic-leaning blue states to Republican-voting red ones, and one of the effects of this change is that they are relocating to places with lower life expectancy.

China’s newest hypersonic missile, the DF-27, can fly as far as Hawaii, penetrate U.S. missile defenses and pose a particular threat to U.S. aircraft carriers. This capability threatens to shift the strategic balance of power and leave the U.S. with limited options for assisting Taiwan in the event China invades.

Joe Biden is arguably a provisional figure, and the prospect of his continuing tenure in office demonstrates that the U.S. has not yet moved on from the chaos generated by Donald Trump’s 2016 election.

Drawing on the success of movements like the Black Joy Project, which uses art to promote Black healing and community-building, trans activists are challenging one-dimensional depictions of their community by highlighting the unique joys of being transgender.

Many religious traditions preach the need to care for strangers. But what happens when caring for the stranger comes into conflict with government policy?

Beer and wine helped develop civilization and shaped culture and landscapes over millennia. Today, craft breweries, which are by definition small and independent and thus focus their production on innovative, small-scale methods rather than industrialized, mass-produced ones, are still playing that role.

One year in the next five will almost certainly be the hottest on record and there’s a two-in-three chance a single year will cross the crucial 1.5℃ global warming threshold, an alarming new report by the World Meteorological Organization predicts.

Woodie Guthrie had a lot to say about Congress in general and how it handled the national debt in particular. In his early version of “This Land Is Your Land,” he ended it with his narrator surveying a line of hungry people lined up “by the relief office” and then asked, “Was this land made for you and me?”

It’s not clear whether Ned Ludd was a real person, or simply a figment of folklore invented during a period of upheaval. But his name became synonymous with rejecting disruptive new technologies – an association that lasts to this day.

Of the long list of lyrical tributes to mothers that rap artists have recorded over the past 50 years, perhaps none has had as an enduring impact as Tupac Shakur’s “Dear Mama.”

Anti-abortion groups are looking for new ways to wage their battle against abortion rights, eyeing the potential implications of a 150-year-old law, the Comstock Act, that could effectively lead to a nationwide abortion ban.

While one top U.S. education official described the scores as “alarming,” the decline actually began nearly a decade ago. From the perspective of education reform and policy, the latest history and civics test scores were a predictable outcome.

The Trump attorneys’ line of questioning reinforced common myths about sexual assault that have been perpetuated in other high-profile sexual assault cases, such as those of comedian Bill Cosby and Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Dog ownership has several benefits for people’s psychological and physical health. However, relationships with dogs are complex and can involve some conflicts. Undesired dog behaviors such as aggression and barking are the leading reason people give up their dogs.

Even as Israeli society tears itself apart and investors pull their money from the country in response to the proposed overhaul of the justice system, many members of the government remain ideologically committed to neutering the courts – no matter the cost.

Much of the rising intolerance to speech has a common thread: Instead of using speech or protest to counter the speech or expression that critics dislike, people on the right and the left appear to want to prevent ideas they don’t like from entering the conversation.

Serfs lost stability in their everyday lives as they were thrust into a new economic system. Precarity, debt and a lack of stability are again the dominant themes in today’s digital economy. The gig economy, in which people can juggle two or three part-time roles to make ends meet, is largely to blame.

Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon had become potential threats to the networks’ audience shares and advertising revenue. And rather than a victory for women or truth, these firings are an effort to sustain and grow corporate profits for CNN and Fox.

For decades, the white power movement has gained steady momentum in the U.S. The movement has long included men, women and children; felons and religious leaders; high school dropouts and holders of advanced degrees; civilians and veterans and active-duty military personnel.

A decline in traffic to the site seems to have been caused by a drop in referrals from feeder sites such as Facebook. This was itself caused by a switch to its users watching and sharing more video on sites like TikTok.

When a powerful storm flooded neighborhoods in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in April with what preliminary reports show was 25 inches of rain in 24 hours, few people were prepared. Even hurricanes rarely drop that much rain in one area that fast. Residents could do little to stop the floodwater as it spread over their yards and into their homes.

A strain of sorrow and pessimism underlies all of Kurt Vonnegut’s fiction, as well as his graduation speeches. He witnessed the worst that human beings could do to one another, and he made no secret about his fears for the future of a planet suffering from environmental degradation and a widening divide between the rich and the poor.

Each year on April 28, Canadians remember and honor those who have been killed or suffered injuries or illness at work. This day, known as the National Day of Mourning, was established by the Canadian Labour Congress in 1984 and made official in 1991. The United States has no such equivalent, though Workers Memorial Day is now worldwide.

Our apparent national impasse points to a lack of “epistemic humility,” or intellectual humility – that is, an inability to acknowledge, empathize with and ultimately compromise with opinions and perspectives different from one’s own. In other words, Americans have stopped listening.

Assessing Willie Nelson’s legacy is challenging because there are so many Willies to assess. There is historical Willie Nelson, child of the Depression. There is iconic Willie Nelson, near embodiment of Texas myth. There is outlaw Willie Nelson, revolutionizing the country music industry. There is activist Willie Nelson, Farm Aid’s co-founder and biofuel pioneer. There is Willie Nelson the songwriter of rare and poignant gifts, and more Willie Nelsons yet to be named.

Carlson’s departure came on the heels of Fox News’ US$787.5 million settlement of the lawsuit lodged by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s promotion of misinformation about the 2020 election. Dominion had cited claims made on Carlson’s program as well as on other shows as evidence of defamation.

How to make sense of what four federal court decisions mean for the FDA’s authority to approve drugs – and where that leaves access to medication abortion, which is used in more than half of all abortions today.

America’s love affair with guns and lethal self-defense is replete with laws that selectively shield citizens from criminal responsibility when they use force and claim self-defense. Since their Florida start in 2005, these “stand your ground” laws have spread to around 30 states, transforming the United States’ legal landscape.