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The deadly pursuit of fame

The tragic deaths of Hayden Panettiere and Jason Arday can be tied to the same phenomenon. It's not new but has accelerated in today's influencer culture: youth's hunger for fame. Panettiere was an accomplished actress who, buried in depression and addiction, died from an apparent drug ...

Almanac for Aug. 21, 2026

Today is Friday, Aug. 21, the 233rd day of 2026. There are 132 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 21, 1831, Nat Turner launched a violent slave rebellion in Virginia, resulting in the deaths of at least 55 white people; scores of Black people were killed in retribution after the rebellion, and Turner was later executed. Also on this date: In 1858, the first of seven debates took place between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. In 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. (It was recovered two ...

Nighthawk summer

ESCANABA — Upper Michigan has an invisible air force patrolling the summer sky. They zoom, dive bomb, and attack at dusk and in the twilight hours. Hardly anyone notices them. Hardly anyone hears their peent-peent cries as they zero in on their prey. But everyone benefits greatly from their diligent work. Nighthawks are aerodynamic soldiers of the night sky. They eliminate tons of insects from the air. Most of the day this brave bird rests roosting on a limb or in fields, roadsides, gravelly roof tops or on Stoney ledges. As the sun starts to sink into the western sky, this ...

Racist Tests

Did you know that the SAT is racist? During Woke I, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now calls it, "antiracists" said the SAT's creators "were avowed eugenicists." No wonder Black people get lower scores. Even if the test isn't racist today, it still gives unfair advantages to white kids ...

Almanac for Aug. 20, 2026

Today is Thursday, Aug. 20, the 232nd day of 2026. There are 133 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 20, 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization movement. Also on this date: In 1858, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was first published in the "Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society." In 1862, the New York Tribune published an open letter by editor Horace Greeley calling on President Abraham Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free enslaved people and end the ...

A foreseeable and dire munitions crisis

During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis, a defiant Iran starkly demonstrated the limits of American power. Forty-five years later, it is doing the same thing, although in vastly different circumstances. Back then, when the post-Vietnam military was at a low ebb, we didn't strike Iran, and a ...