In the fall of 1920, Andrew Mellon was 65 years old and one of the richest men in the world. Instead of basking in the wealth he had amassed as a banker and financier, Mellon accepted a summons from President-elect Warren G. Harding and got on a train to Marion, Ohio. Unaccompanied by staff, Mellon trudged alone for a mile to Harding's house. A reporter saw him arrive. "Great Scott," he exclaimed. "Isn't that Andrew Mellon of Pittsburgh?"

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The President and the Oligarch: Roosevelt, Mellon, and the Triumph of Big Government

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The ark that Noach built was enormous. But it was also far too small.

The Torah gives its dimensions precisely: 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high, making it approximately 530 feet long according to Rav Moshe Feinstein's measurement of a cubit.

Inside, Noach was to shelter his family, representatives of the animal kingdom and enough food to sustain them throughout the Flood.

But how could they possibly all fit?

The Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, 1194-1270), commenting on Genesis 6:19, asks this very question. Given the number and size of the animals, not to mention the food they required, even ten arks of those dimensions would not have been enough.

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The Norwegian worthies who serve on the Nobel Prize Committee have demonstrated dubious judgment in the past.

For example, in 1994, they gave Yasser Arafat a share of the Peace Prize for his "efforts to create peace in the Middle East." Six years later he walked away from the Camp David talks and the second intifada followed.

In 2009, they gave their gold medal to Barack Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." The prize came less than nine months into his presidency, when even ardent admirers would have been hard-pressed to cite achievements.

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Since early October, American and other Western health and biodefense officials have been concerned by reports on social media that a young Russian researcher at an anti-plague institute in Siberia had died of a highly contagious form of plague after accidentally breaking a vial of the deadly germs in her laboratory.

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Two massacres, two Islamic terror attacks, two world-historical events.

The anniversaries of Sept. 11, 2001 and Oct. 7, 2023 mark incidents that changed the course of history in both obvious and subtle ways. Among the results were the American war against Iraq and the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza, respectively. Neither has been entirely successful, but both removed immediate threats while embedding other threats more deeply in Western society.

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The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, thrust Israel into wars on seven fronts. A new book by Yonah Jeremy Bob, of the Jerusalem Post, and Elliot Kaufman, of the Wall Street Journal, chronicles an eighth front: the battle inside Israel's war cabinet. In the War Room details the clashes between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister without Portfolio Benny Gantz, and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. We've heard about these conflicts in bits and pieces over the past three years, but until the release of this new book, they lacked a cohesive narrative.

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Pope Leo XIV began an official visit to Spain (June 6–12) by urging Spaniards to embrace multicultural coexistence with Islam and stop "fanning the flames of polarization" over mass migration from the Muslim world. He said that Christians and Muslims can live together as friends and proceeded to present medieval Spain—which was occupied by Islamic invaders for nearly 800 years—as an interfaith utopia that led to advancements in astronomy, medicine, and science.

The Pope declared:

"Your own history suggests that a culture of encounter, not confrontation, is what fosters stability and prosperity....

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A century ago, the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard and one of the founders of the NAACP, W.E.B. DuBois published The Gift of Black Folk, a book that was commissioned by the Catholic organization the Knights of Columbus, as part of a series intended to help Americans appreciate the contributions of minority groups.

DuBois was highly educated and an avid reader of great texts from Plato to Frederick Douglass. The irony of the present moment is that if DuBois were currently a student in a core philosophy class at Texas A&M University, he would be assigned only a redacted version of Plato's great work, The Republic.

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Imagine your physician walks into the exam room, recommends a prescription medication, and casually mentions she's being paid by the company that makes the drug to say so. You'd probably have questions.

You might even find a new doctor.

Now imagine that same scenario playing out on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube — except the advice is coming from a celebrity "influencer" who's very familiar to you, who has an emotional backstory, and a financial arrangement buried somewhere in a sea of hashtags. Millions of people encounter exactly this situation every day, and most of them have no idea it's happening.

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ANYONE WHO spends time with me knows me knows how much I despise litter. For as long as I can remember, I have fumed at the sight of trash on sidewalks, beer cans in the gutter, or garbage flung from passing cars. I often pick up litter when I'm walking, and when my kids were young I made them pick it up, too.

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