Opinion

The heyday of the new atheism in Western life, when anti-God tracts by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens bestrode best-seller lists, did not arrive because brilliant new arguments for God’s nonexistence were suddenly discovered. Rather, it arrived because specific events and deeper forces made the time ripe for unbelief — …

Liam Payne was just 14 when he took his first shot at the big time, trying out for the hit star-making show, “The X Factor.” He was 17 when the show’s judges teamed him up with Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson — all young, handsome, telegenic-but-relatable …

The Oliver Sacks that most of the world knew — the one I fell in love with after we met in 2008, when he was 75 — was the beloved neurologist and the author of many best-selling books, admired worldwide. A forthcoming volume of Oliver’s letters, nearly 350 of them, …

To the Editor: Re “Unexpected Problem in the Rise of Marijuana” (front page, Oct. 5): As we navigate the evolving landscape of marijuana legalization, it is crucial to emphasize the need for effective treatment options alongside these reforms. While legal access to cannabis may alleviate burdens on the criminal justice …

Senator JD Vance of Ohio finally has an answer for journalists who ask him who won the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump. Here is how my newsroom colleagues captured the scene: I am not going to explain, again, the sheer absurdity of Vance’s views, but his comment did get me …

No place symbolizes the profound shifts that have taken place in the U.S. economy like Bethlehem, Pa., a city that lost its mighty steel mill but has been reborn with the help of a casino, a hotel and a couple of Walmart distribution centers. Thanks to the rise of online …

If you tramp through the woods of New England and upstate New York, you will see stone walls marking the borders of farms that have been abandoned for a century or two. You may see the foundation of a small house, the entrance to a mine or the crumbling walls …

Reading the news that Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s pitiless leader, had been killed on Wednesday by Israeli forces in southern Gaza, I had the same sense of elation so many people felt when Osama bin Laden was killed. To take satisfaction in the violent end of another human being, even an …

Toward the end of his tenure, Gen. Mark Milley, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 to 2023, told Bob Woodward of The Washington Post that Donald Trump was a fundamental threat to the safety and integrity of the United States. “No one has ever …

Cindy Jager was the lone worker on duty in the crammed aisles of an old-fashioned variety store overflowing with hardware and party supplies and fake pumpkins. When I came across her, she was carefully rearranging cleaning products on a back shelf of the shop in Walker, Mich. When I brought …