Author: Lance Garrison

In The Wall Street Journal, the editorial board called for an end to the conspiracy theories swirling around America’s most scrutinized couple: “Maybe the Chiefs will win the Super Bowl, or maybe not. Maybe Ms. Swift and Mr. Kelce will live happily ever after, in a world-historical setback for the art form of breakup songs, or maybe not. Maybe she will endorse Mr. Biden again, or maybe not. But the C.I.A. isn’t orchestrating it all, and neither are the Illuminati, the Freemasons, Elvis, J.F.K., Bigfoot, Opus Dei, or alien lizard people living among us.”Examining the sport of football beyond Kelce,…

Feb. 8, 2024 — New and effective weight loss drugs have been a game changer for people with obesity or who are overweight with a related health condition. But patients taking these drugs should not neglect diet and exercise, experts say. In approving GLP-1 medications such as Wegovy and Zepbound, the FDA has specified that patients taking these medications should also maintain proper nutrition and get regular exercise. Many patients receive prescriptions for these GLP-1 drugs without being advised to modify their lifestyles. One reason is that the primary care doctors who often prescribe the medications aren’t necessarily trained in obesity medicine…

To the Editor:Re “The ‘Gig’ Label Is Being Used to Exploit Workers,” by Terri Gerstein (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 29):We are the freelance writers and editors Ms. Gerstein mentioned who are suing the Department of Labor over the independent contractor rule that will, as she said, “make it harder for employers to treat workers as independent contractors rather than employees.” So let us explain.The Department of Labor acknowledges in its 339-page rule published Jan. 10 that most of the public comments made by independent contractors expressed opposition to the rule, “criticizing the Department’s proposed economic reality test as ambiguous and…

Whoever Donald Trump chooses as his running mate, please let it not be a woman.Perhaps you think it’s beside the point to worry over this.But before writing off the vice presidency as a distraction, remember, three years ago, his vice president stood between democracy and autocracy, after he noticed at the very last minute there was a Constitution standing in the way of Trump overturning the 2020 election.There’s also the very real prospect that should a 78-year-old Trump be re-elected, he may not complete his term.And there’s the reality that the pageant has already begun.“It’s very clear he’s holding these…

Each year, more than 17 million students complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, hoping to secure the financial support they need to afford college. But this year, operational glitches and repeated delays in the U.S. Department of Education’s “Better FAFSA” rollout threaten to harm the very students and families that financial aid is intended to help. Despite promises of an easier, more straightforward application process, students and families so far have been met with glitches and delays, and still today, there are entire groups of students blocked from even completing the form.The department notified schools on…

Toby Keith already had a string of country hits before he wrote the 2002 song that cemented his place in the then-burgeoning culture wars: “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).” He later said the song was written in 20 minutes as an emotional response to both his father’s death and the Sept. 11th attacks. When Keith played it for the first time in a solo performance (his band hadn’t yet learned the chord changes) at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., the response was rapturous. As the Rolling Stone writer Mark Binelli wrote, “The room went…

Voters in El Salvador this week gave their tough-on-crime president a sweeping mandate: Keep going.While votes are still being counted, President Nayib Bukele claims he won re-election by a landslide, with more than 85 percent of the vote. If those results hold when the official count is announced, not even Latin America’s best-known populist presidents, like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez or Bolivia’s Evo Morales, will have come close to winning election by such margins.Mr. Bukele’s unparalleled rise comes down to a single factor: El Salvador’s stunning crime drop. Since he took office in 2019, intentional homicide rates have decreased from 38…

In Homs, in western Syria, a drone attack by unknown assailants killed and injured scores of cadets, family members and others at a military academy graduation ceremony on Oct. 5. The Syrian military and Russian forces, which have been backing President Bashar al-Assad, retaliated by attacking at least 2,300 locations in the opposition-controlled northwest, with schools, hospitals, markets and camps for Syrians forced from their homes among them. Some 120,000 people — many of whom had already been displaced several times, including by the huge earthquake last February — were sent fleeing, and at least 500 civilians were injured or…

“There’s no alliance more historic, nor more important, than the alliance between Black Americans and Jewish Americans.”That’s what Marc Morial, the president of the National Urban League, said in 2020 during his organization’s Black-Jewish Unity Week joint event with the American Jewish Committee.But, Morial told me this week, that alliance is “being tested” by diverging views about the Israel-Hamas war. And that divergence could influence the way both constituencies — both of which traditionally support Democrats — approach this year’s elections.The relationship between these two communities is longstanding and hit its stride during the civil rights movement. But it hasn’t…

Individually, we adore and pamper our children. We shuttle them from soccer practice to music lessons and then organize their play dates with meticulous fanaticism.Yet collectively, we mistreat America’s children, especially by the standards of other wealthy countries. When we’re formulating policies for children as a whole rather than coddling our own little angels, we fall scandalously short. We prize children in the abstract but as a society tend to ignore their needs. Children are more likely to go hungry or live in poverty in America than in most of our peer countries, and they are also much more likely…