In a lab room, a toddler, deaf from birth, sits while a tone plays. There’s no reaction. His face does not change.  Six weeks later, after a single injection of an experimental gene therapy, the same toddler is back in the same room. The tone plays. The toddler’s head turns toward the sound. And somewhere […]

How would you grade America’s first 250 years?  That’s the question I posed to historian and professor Heather Cox Richardson on this week’s episode of America, Actually — and a question I pose to myself. All grades are subjective, and the rubric of whether America earns a passing grade is one of position and perspective, […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump told Congress the Iran war is over. Is it?  What happened? Friday marks a legal deadline for Trump, after which he should […]

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has a longstanding fascination with the Crusades. That’s right, the Crusades: the series of late 11th to 13th century medieval wars in which Europeans fought to control the Holy Land. He has tattoos that reference the Crusades, which actually came up during his confirmation hearing in 2025. And his 2020 […]

The Devil Wears Prada is one of the great millennial fairy tales.   Released in 2006, the year before the financial crisis and Great Recession would come for us all, the movie (based on a novel inspired by writer Lauren Weisberger’s experience working for Anna Wintour at Condé Nast) posits a subversive fantasy: Our heroine Andrea […]