Culture

The college admissions scam (aka Operation Varsity Blues) is truly the gift that keeps on giving, in the sense that it serves as a constant, grim reminder of the myriad ways in which the wealthy and privileged exercise their considerable power to put poor and disenfranchised people at even further …

Last week, the FDA announced that it had officially approved Spravato, a brand-name nasal spray containing esketamine, a chemical cousin of ketamine, to treat depression. The drug was hailed by many as a game-changer, as it’s proven to be an effective therapy for people with treatment-resistance depression (TRD), or approximately …

UPDATE: Jussie Smollett plead not guilty to 16 counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reports. The former Empire actor was arrested after allegedly orchestrating a hate crime against himself, though he was released from prison after posting $10,000 of a $100,000 …

For decades, law enforcement officers in California could rest assured that their personnel records — including civilian complaints, use of force reports and disciplinary measures — would never face public scrutiny, shielded, as they had been since the 1970s, by the state’s strict police privacy laws. That all changed last …

A Banksy mural outside Paris’ Bataclan that paid tribute to the victims of the November 2015 terror attack was stolen late Friday night. “We are today filled with a deep sense of indignation,” the Bataclan tweeted. “The work of Banksy, a symbol of contemplation belonging to all – residents, Parisians …

When you think of weed, you likely think of a sticky bud, an oil, maybe even a tincture. But what if you reconfigured your notion of cannabis to instead envision an abstract scientific equation? Sure, this may sound like the stuff of stoner sci-fi, except that it’s the real-life direction …

A few years ago, I was in Charlotte, North Carolina and a mutual friend suggested I look up Tommy Tomlinson, a longtime Charlotte Observer columnist who was transitioning from the paper to becoming one of America’s best longform sportswriters. Tomlinson proposed lunch at a Greek restaurant not far from my …

Joseph DeAngelo, the man alleged to be the long-sought ‘Golden State Killer,’ has been cleared in the 1975 murder of 14-year-old Donna Jo Richmond in Exeter, California. Richmond was beaten, strangled and stabbed 17 times; Oscar Clifton, a convicted sex offender, was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to …

On December 7th, Kelly Stough, a 36-year-old black transgender woman from Detroit, was shot and killed in the city’s Palmer Park neighborhood. On Monday, Albert Weathers, a 46-year-old preacher, was charged in her murder. The Wayne County prosecutor’s office charged Weathers with the use of a firearm in the commission …

Life expectancy in the United States has dropped for the third year in a row, as suicide and overdose deaths continue to rise, according to a new report released Thursday by the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics. The average American life expectancy dipped just slightly from …