Film poster of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” 1984 movie. Tristar Pictures

Since Halloween is a holiday devoted to celebrating the scary, you might think that every type of fright would be welcome: Decomposing zombies and slimy aliens, ferocious werewolves and bloodthirsty vampires. Yet not so long ago in a galaxy a lot like this one, an outraged right-wing mob decided that a fictional killer in a Santa Claus costume was morally unacceptable....

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Barack Obama EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images

Claude A. Clegg III’s book “The Black President: Hope and Fury in the Age of Obama” accomplishes various things. Foremost among them, it serves as an antidote to Donald Trump’s gaslighting. Clegg, a history professor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, first explores how Barack Obama’s presidency was experienced by the Black community, an issue central to any account of the Obama era....

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Siberian Husky Getty/Mirjam Claus

Dogs may be man’s best friend, but many humans also view them as commodities to be bought and sold. The rise of dog breeding in the 19th century, spurred by a Victorian belief in eugenics, led to a pet culture in which dogs are bought and sold, bred for their “pedigrees, and even inbred to the point that their health is compromised. ...

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New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gives a tour of the World Trade Center attack site on 18 September, 2001, in New York. | George W. Bush speaks through a megaphone beside retired firefighter Bob Beckwith, 69, to firemen and other workers 14 September 2001 at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center....

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As legendary quarterback Tom Brady celebrated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 2021 Super Bowl victory with President Joe Biden, Brady cracked some jokes at the expense of a guy widely perceived his friend — at least until now. Along with ridiculing one of Donald Trump’s disparaging nicknames for Biden, Brady also mocked Trump’s claims that he didn’t really lose the 2020 election by quipping, “Not a lot of people think that we could have won....

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Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley calls himself a history “aficionado,” and we’ve had several conversations  about the relationship between history and current events. Recently we found ourselves discussing the War of 1812 because of a major similarity with the coup attempt of Jan. 6, 2021 — namely, a direct attack on the U.S. Capitol.

As O’Malley reflected on the events of Jan. 6...

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If you’ve ever seen a full moon in June, you may have noticed something a little off about it. The moon usually glows a bright snowy white. Yet the full moon during this month generally appears with an orange tint, as though it were made of stale cheddar. 

This is a phenomenon known as the “Strawberry Moon” and, in the year 2021, it is scheduled to happen on the night of Thursday, June 24....

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Last year in May, only a couple months after America entered a state of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself in an interview with Dr. David Reiss. I was wondering even at that time how people would react to the fear of getting sick or dying, to the frustration of not being able to resume their normal lives and to the unhealthiness of so sharply curtailing their social interactions....

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