Though John Moe's podcast, 'The Hilarious World of Depression' centers on mental illness, the conversations are funny. Humor "can bust me out" of a dark place, he says, the way platitudes never would.

The stage version of 'Fleabag,' starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is streaming on Amazon Prime for a limited time to support coronavirus relief efforts.

Kevin Kline won a Tony Award for his hilarious romp through this Noel Coward farce. Here's how to see it online for free.

The Groundlings' anniversary show in Hollywood is good for some cheap laughs — just $5 to view.

Robert Wickens made the surprise charge of the race, taking eighth, but it was Scott McLaughlin clinching his first IndyCar victory of any sort Saturday.

Multiple late wrecks allow McLaughlin to capitalize

Humor is very subjective and I know that I’m a tough critic. Recently, however, I shared a book with my 5-year old niece and I could barely contain my own giggles.  But it was her “ooohs” and laughter that made me giggle even more. But no one enjoyed the book more than my sister who now wants her own copy. I decided I had to find out more about who created Llama Destroys the World (Holt), a husband–wife creative team.

Kevin McCloskey delivers fascinating information in digestible, user-friendly formats, which appeal to not only young readers but experienced ones as well.

Widely considered the ‘kings of comedy’ in Jamaica, Ity and Fancy Cat have been serving up laughter to audiences for years. Their comedy series, The Ity and Fancy Cat Show, ended in 2017 but the duo continued to deliver high-quality entertainment...

"Tom's Holiday is all about road safety for young children. Tom and his family park the car and head for the beach at a little beachside village. The beachside village is different from home in the city - there are no footpaths. Mum and Dad teach Tom that we must be careful because holiday towns don't have kerbs and gutters. The roads can be thin and there aren't white lines. It's very important that children hold their parent's hand" -- From the Internet.

Heredity -- Genetics.

Dementia -- Treatment.

Sandra Manninen
Jun 21, 2017; 37:6125-6131
BehavioralSystemsCognitive

Our ongoing celebration of the Library of Congress National Book Festival continues with crime and mystery writer Karin Slaughter discussing "Broken," part of her Will Trent series, on the Fiction & Mystery stage at the 2010 Festival.

Participants from around the world learnt to speak the language of love and laughter during an outreach to the indigenous tribes in Panama.

Within days of the Supreme Court’s decision to abolish union fees for nonmembers, conservative groups—including ones with ties to Ed. Secretary Betsy DeVos—launched email, social media, and billboard campaigns to try to convince teachers not to join their unions.

By Bishop Arthur Serratelli

On January 18, 2019, a video of Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann went viral. He was at the Lincoln Memorial standing face to face with a Native American man during the March to Life in Washington, D.C. On the basis of that picture, a frenzy of condemnations from reporters, commentators and politicians were heaped upon this student, accusing him of prejudice and hatred. Misinformation and lies spread like wild fire. Finally, when the facts were uncovered, the high school student was exonerated of any wrong-doing, even though much wrong had been done to him and his family. It was a rush to judgment. 

On January 29, 2019, American actor and singer Jussie Smollett reported that two masked men attacked him at 2 AM near his apartment in Chicago. He claimed that the attack was racist and homophobic. After Smollett’s initial report, friends and fans, celebrities and politicians expressed outrage at this hate crime. Twitter and Instagram fueled the frenzy of self-righteous indignation. However, in just three weeks, it was discovered that the whole event had been orchestrated by Smollett. Yet, before the facts were fully known, there was the rush to judgment and much chatter.

Gifted with reason, we are wired to make judgments. Discerning the good from the bad, the beautiful from the ugly, the right from the wrong, and virtue from vice: this is an essential part of our being human. However, every judgment must be founded on truth, not rumor; on fact, not fiction; on substance, not appearance. And every judgment must always be tempered with compassion. Albeit from opposite directions, the Sandmann and Smollett incidents show how quick we are to believe or disbelieve, to accuse or defend and how easily we pick a side and draw a line in the sand. And, all the while, truth grows ever more fragile.

Today’s rush to judgment gathers speed along the newly constructed digital highway. We get information instantaneously and, because we want solutions just as fast, we are quick to judge. As a result of this incessant communication about other people’s lives, we live on the edge between truth and falsehood. What years ago was whispered between a few people now goes viral and can never be retrieved. As a result, in this environment, deliberately passing on stories that destroy other people’s good names is nothing less than cyber bullying.

There is no area of modern society that is exempt from someone passing on false information, half-truths or blatant, deliberate lies. In a society of fast-paced information sharing, gossip has become so commonplace that people justify it as a way to right wrongs, correct others and unseat those whom they deem unfit for their chosen work. However, unlike the surgeon’s scalpel that removes the cancer, gossip is the arrow that destroys the other. 

As a statement sometimes attributed to Mark Twain says, “a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots.” In a similar vein, Jonathan Swift once wrote, “if a lie be believ’d only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it; so that, when men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late…the tale has had its effect” (Jonathan Swift, The Examiner, Number 15, November, 1710).  For this reason, people of good faith should be slow to judge others. And never should they gossip. People who constantly judge or criticize others truly lack compassion.

Sadly, making negative judgments on others on the basis of appearances and then spreading those judgments to others is found among those who consider themselves Church-going people. It is especially found among those who set themselves as crusaders for a just cause and, then by their lack of charity, become unjust themselves. The fondness to judge and criticize others may well be a way of not facing one’s own sins. "It is often easier or more convenient to see and condemn the faults and sins of others than it is to see our own” (Pope Francis, Angelus, March 3, 2019).

In speech after speech, Pope Francis has been courageously warning us of the evil of gossip. “Gossip is a weapon and it threatens the human community every day; it sows envy, jealousy and power struggles… We might welcome someone and speak well of him the first day but little by little that worm eats away at our minds until our gossip banishes him from good opinion. That person in a community who gossips against his or her neighbor is, in a sense, killing him.” (Pope Francis, Homily, Domus Sanctae Marthae, September 2, 2013).  

Few things can match the harmful effects of gossip, whether it be slander or detraction. Defamation inflicts grave harm on the individual and destroys the community. It is against charity and, since God is love, it is against God himself. Charles Spurgeon, one of the most popular Baptist preachers of the 19th century, summed up the evil of talking about other people by saying, “the tale-bearer carries the devil in his tongue, and the tale-hearer carries the devil in his ear.” Gossip makes the devil laugh!

SLAUGHTER BEACH RD REHABILITATION, SOUTH, 2019

With the leaders busy wrecking in front of him, Scott McLaughlin calmly won Saturday's virtual IndyCar Series race on the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Singapore government is reviewing the sale and slaughter of live animals at wet markets, Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources, said on Tuesday. The relevant agencies are doing so while taking into consideration international benchmarking and scientific evidence, she added.Her comments were in response to a parliamentary question from MP for Nee Soon Group Representation Constituency Louis Ng. He asked whether her ministry would consider banning the…

Title: Laughter Can Stimulate a Dull Appetite
Category: Health News
Created: 4/26/2010 2:10:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 4/27/2010 12:00:00 AM

Title: A Memory Aid for Seniors: Laughter
Category: Health News
Created: 4/27/2014 4:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 4/28/2014 12:00:00 AM

Title: Laughter May Work Like Meditation in the Brain
Category: Health News
Created: 4/27/2014 12:35:00 PM
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Lorry driver Maurice Robinson has admitted the manslaughter of 39 people who were found dead in a refrigerated trailer in Essex.

Follow our live coronavirus updates here Coronavirus: the symptoms

A man has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the deaths of 39 migrants found in a refrigerated lorry container in Essex.

Care home workers say employers are playing "Russian roulette" with their lives as personal protective equipment (PPE) is withheld or rationed amid unclear guidance, according to a union.

The House of Commons echoed with peals of laughter today as Matt Hancock complimented a fellow Tory MP on his lockdown hairdo.

This Friday, May 8 would've marked Ahmaud Arbery's 26th birthday. And though he's no longer with them, the Arbery family is finding comfort in the fact that Georgia state...

'It's very weird without an audience,' one fan wrote

O'Porter and Flack were good friends

The massive popularity of horror films like Joker and It have been a real downer for happy, family clowns. Mark Wilding hears how the entertainers are fighting back

In the corner of Matthew Indge’s kitchen is a photograph of the entertainer Kerby Drill. For many years, Drill was both a clown and a comic voice of authority. He toured the nation’s schools and appeared on television shows, often promoting road safety, until he passed away last year, aged 97. Indge describes him as his “clown hero”, but he recognises that Drill represents a very different era of clowning. “The truth is,” Indge says, “these days, I don’t know if kids are going to listen to a clown saying be careful on the road.”

Indge has been clowning for 32 years, since he was eight years old. In a way that wasn’t necessary for Drill, Indge must now take steps to prove to his audiences that he doesn’t represent a dark and sinister threat. When we meet, he’s preparing for a performance as Zaz the Clown at a five-year-old’s birthday party, and “just to save me any problems,” he says, “I’ll make up in front of the kids” – an attempt to provide reassurance that there’s a benign performer behind the mask.

Liverpool star Mohamed Salah has - quite literally - laughed off suggestions of a move away from Anfield.

This Friday, May 8 would've marked Ahmaud Arbery's 26th birthday. And though he's no longer with them, the Arbery family is finding comfort in the fact that Georgia state...

Two Sydney brothers are acquitted of causing their bedridden mother's death by failing to get her medical help, after a judge agrees it had been her choice to sleep in a urine-soaked bed, surrounded by squalor.

The Australian racing industry is in turmoil after revelations of former racehorses being slaughtered at abattoirs, with leading trainer Chris Waller so shocked he "couldn't watch" the vision.

Chris Waller continues his big race domination, taking out The Everest at Randwick with Yes Yes Yes, on a day marked by protests and calls for change after an investigation revealed widespread slaughter and abuse of former racehorses in Australian abattoirs.

Challenged by animal activists over the slaughter of newborn male calves, some dairy farmers are marketing older calves as veal to the ethical consumer.

This Friday, May 8 would've marked Ahmaud Arbery's 26th birthday. And though he's no longer with them, the Arbery family is finding comfort in the fact that Georgia state...

Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin says he did his best "Bradbury" to avoid the carnage and win the virtual IndyCar race at Indianapolis.

Kyle Palmer, 27, of Biloxi, Miss., was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr., in the Southern District of Mississippi to 36 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

Washington Beef LLC, the operator of a large slaughterhouse in Toppenish, Wash., has agreed to pay a $750,000 civil penalty and will install several pieces of new waste water treatment equipment that the Environmental Protection Agency estimates will cost approximately $3 million to resolve allegations that it violated the Clean Water Act.

Morgan Hanks, 25, of Newport News, was arrested on charges contained in a two-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury on July 13, 2010, and unsealed today in the Eastern District of Virginia.

A federal jury in Norfolk, Va., today convicted Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va., of involuntary manslaughter while working as contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense in Afghanistan.

BP Exploration and Production Inc. (BP) has agreed to plead guilty to felony manslaughter, environmental crimes and obstruction of Congress and pay a record $4 billion in criminal fines and penalties for its conduct leading to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 people and caused the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history, Attorney General Eric Holder announced today.

Mar 24, 2020

Patricia (Pat) McLaughlin, our beloved colleague and friend at the Center since 2001, passed away in February after a brief illness. Hired as Faculty Assistant to John Holdren, Co-Director of the Center’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP) nearly 20 years ago, she continued to work with STPP and with John until her illness.