CATEGORIES

GODZILLA MINUS ONE

The beginning of Godzilla Minus One, the latest installment in the 70-year series of kaiju flicks made by the Japanese production company Toho, upends one part of the usual formula: Tokyo is already a smoldering wasteland.

Predictably, No Progress on Global Emissions

EIGHT YEARS AFTER the Paris climate agreement, where do we stand on global emissions? The title of a new United Nations Environment Programme report sums the situation up: Broken Record: Temperatures hit new highs, yet world fails to cut emissions (again).

Feds Make a Pharma Patent Grab

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION may take redistribution to new extremes if a policy revision floated in December comes to fruition. The White House wants to give federal agencies the right to seize some pharmaceutical patents when they deem drug prices too high.

Claudine Gay's Defenders Shoot the Messenger

CLAUDINE GAY RESIGNED as president of Harvard University in January, following numerous allegations that she plagiarized passages in her published works. But in some corners of the media, the fact that she committed plagiarism mattered much less than the fact that it was conservative writers who caught her.

Sheriff 'Floored and Shocked' by Deputies' Brutality

\"I'M JUST FLOORED and shocked,\" Rankin County, Mississippi, Sheriff Bryan Bailey said last August after five of his former deputies admitted to punching, kicking, tasing, torturing, and humiliating two men during an unlawful home invasion the previous January.

Big Brother in the Driver's Seat

IF YOU'VE SEARCHED online about buying a car, you know you're in for a wave of aggressive come-ons and sales pitches. But I found a way to make car sellers clam up: All you have to do is start asking questions about the increasingly intrusive \"nanny\" nature of automobiles.

Ski Jump Snow Job

IN 1994, COPPER Peak, a ski-flying hill located in a remote area of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, hosted its last ski-jumping competition-or so it thought.

COVID Vaccine Injuries Deserve a Day in Court

SOME 270 MILLION Americans received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. Tens of thousands have since claimed they suffered a COVID vaccine injury, ranging from minor side effects to severe adverse reactions.

The Life and Death of a Company Town

MORE THAN A century ago, there was a town where families of different races lived side by side. Neither housing nor schooling was segregated, and blacks and whites received the same wages for the same work. They also enjoyed many appealing amenities, from high-quality homes to a three-story YMCA.

Creating Our Own Simulations

FOR RENÉ DESCARTES, minds were essentially thinking (or feeling) things. For the founding fathers of behaviorism, minds were identical with behaviors-talking, habits, dispositions to act in one way or another. More recently, minds have been imagined as a kind of computer: the software running on the hardware of the brain.

The Revolting Mr. Taxpayer

THOUGH ANIMUS TOWARD tax increases was a key reason for the American Revolution, historians have not shown much interest in the topic in other contexts. One reason may be that the history of tax revolts, much like the history of mutual aid or of nonunion workers during strikes, cannot easily be subsumed under the most popular analytical categories, such as economic class. So Linda Upham-Bornstein's \"Mr. Taxpayer versus Mr. Tax Spender\": Taxpayers' Associations, Pocketbook Politics, and the Law During the Great Depression is a welcome sign.

REEXAMINING THE REALIGNMENT

CAN FREE MARKETS WIN VOTES IN THE NEW GOP?

Indonesia's Free Market 'Superblocks'

YOU DON’T NEED CENTRAL PLANNERS TO GET PEDESTRIAN-FRIENDLY URBAN DESIGN.

THE LAST LIBERAL

Bill Maher on weed, wokeness, and 30 years of free speech

THE REAL STUDENT LOAN CRISIS

MISLED BY A BAD LAW, GRADUATE STUDENTS ARE DROWNING IN DEBT.

The Bankruptcy of Bidenomics

BIDEN'S ECONOMIC POLICIES GAVE US THREE YEARS OF EXCESSIVE, WASTEFUL, AND POORLY TARGETED FEDERAL SPENDING.

'I Knew They Were Scumbags'

How federal prison guards confessed to rape-and got away with it

The 'Monstrous Beastliness' of Urban Policing

OAKL AND, CALIFORNIA, IS “the edge case in American policing,” journalists Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham declare in The Riders Come Out at Night. “More has been done to try to reform the Oakland Police Department than any other police force in the United States.”

Did Evolution Give Us Free Will?

A neuroscientist takes on determinism.

THE MINESWEEPER MORAL PANIC

WHEN COMPUTERS CAME TO OFFICES, BOSSES FOUND A NEW WAY TO WORRY THAT WORKERS WERE WASTING TIME.

MIKE ROWE WANTS MORE PHILOSOPHER-WELDERS

The Dirty Jobs host on \"essential\" work, college, and the skills gap

The Joy of Capitalism

MARKETS DON'T JUST MAKE US RICHER; THEY MAKE US HAPPIER.

TAKE NUTRITION STUDIES WITH A GRAIN OF SALT

THE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF FOOD AND DRINK IS A MESS.

The Tech Giants Were Always Doomed

COMPETITION, NOT ANTITRUST ACTION, IS HUMBLING FACEBOOK, AMAZON, AND TWITTER.

Was Racketeering Trump's Real Crime in Georgia?

IN 1969, LAWRENCE Speiser, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington, D.C., office, appeared before Congress to testify against a proposed law that would greatly expand the powers of federal law enforcement. “Our constitutional system of government wisely limits the range of methods available to us, reflecting our historical commitment to liberty and justice rather than to efficiency and expediency,” Speiser said. “To the extent that this puts us at a disadvantage in dealing with the criminal organization, it is a price we must pay, for ultimately it is this which distinguishes the lawful from the lawless society.”

The Right To Give

IN JULY, PHILLIP Picone, a Houston activist, stood before a jury of his peers, charged with the heinous crime of feeding the needy.

Congestion Pricing Hits a New Roadblock

SINCE 2019, NEW York has sought to establish the nation’s first congestion pricing zone, which would charge drivers fees for rush hour trips to improve traffic flows and raise funds for the city’s dilapidated subway system. That plan to toll drivers entering lower Manhattan’s gridlocked streets recently hit another roadblock: New Jersey.

Trump, Who Freed Drug Offenders, Also Wants To Kill Them

DONALD TRUMP CAN’T seem to decide whether he wants to execute drug dealers or free them from prison. The former president’s debate with himself reflects a broader clash between Republicans who think harsher criminal penalties are always better and Republicans who understand that justice requires proportionality.

The Bad Law That Made Good Bars

WHEN YOU STEP into the Raines Law Room at The William hotel on East 39th Street in Manhattan, you’ll find a series of tastefully decorated lounges. Softly upholstered chairs, tufted leather couches, and low-light sconces create an atmosphere that’s more swanky club or private living room than hotel bar. But although there’s a boutique hotel with a few dozen rooms above (rates run anywhere from $275 to well over $1,000 per night), the Raines Law Room is a bar.

Q&A Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi is the author of four New York Times bestsellers. As Rolling Stone’s campaign reporter in 2016—and an early critic of how the mainstream media covered allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election— he concluded that political journalism was hyper-focused on the “pursuit of getting rid of Donald Trump.”