Christmas is traditionally a popular time to open a film, so it’s no surprise that a slew of new releases are hitting the multiplex this week.

Will any of them be able to gain a foothold following last week’s record-breaking debut of Star Wars: The Force Awakens? Let’s hope so, because one of them is among the year’s best: a serious comedy that takes on a complex and controversial topic with the help of big-name stars working at the top of their game.

The Big Short, directed and co-written by Adam McKay (Anchorman), is a based-on-reality examination of the banking and housing “bubble” that triggered 2008’s Great Recession.

This sounds like the kind of dry, complicated subject that’s best handled by a well-documented book—and indeed, the source material is Michael Lewis’s book of the same name. In McKay’s hands, the subject is still complicated, but it’s anything but dry.

Leaders provide vision. They help people understand where they are, how they got there and what they must do to go forward. They help calm nerves and strengthen courage. They are steady in times of trouble, inspiring in times of demoralization.

Donald Trump’s reaction to the terrorist acts in Egypt, Lebanon, Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., both divides and weakens us. And for the most part, his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have allowed him to lead the Republican Party and its run to the White House to ignominy.

Americans are understandably worried. We have been fighting wars in the Middle East for over a decade. We lost thousands of lives and spent literally trillions of dollars in a wrong-headed war of choice in Iraq. We toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, producing failed states and generating more terrorists. Now we are trying to take out Assad in Syria even as his mortal enemy ISIS takes credit for terrorist horrors in Paris and Beirut. The violence keeps spreading; the terrorists keep reviving. And Americans grow more and more worried.

Oak Harbor, OH and Rockville, MD—A meeting held today by teleconference, between U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff at the agency’s headquarters near Washington, D.C. and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) officials from the Lake Erie shoreline atomic reactor in northwest Ohio, revealed that the problem-plagued Davis-Besse plant’s backup diesel generators (EDGs) likely would not work, if called upon to cool the overheating core in an emergency. The reason is the voltage setting has been set too low, for years or even decades. Watchdogs from Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Committee, and Union of Concerned Scientists listened in, and members of the public provided comments to NRC.

The voltage, as documented in the plant’s Technical Specifications, has long been set at only 4,031 volts, whereas a minimum of 4,070, or perhaps even 4,088, volts is needed. First in May 2012, and again in April 2015, FENOC has applied to NRC for approval of a License Amendment Request (LAR) to address the still unresolved problem. 

“…and the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame;
And on each end of the rifle we're the same” -- John McCutcheon

101years ago this Christmas season one of the most unusual aberrations in the bloody history of the organized mass slaughter that is war occurred. It was so profound – and so disturbing to the professional war-makers - that it was never to be repeated again. “Christian” Europe was in the fifth month of the 1914 – 1918, so-called Great War that finally ground to a mutually suicidal halt after four years, with all of the original participants financially, spiritually and morally bankrupted.

“Money doesn’t win. Pre-primary polls don’t win,” said Jason Edwards. “Votes win, and we have the people to go out and get them.”

Edwards was speaking on December 16 outside the Ohio Secretary of State’s office as nearly 6,000 petition signatures were delivered to put presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on the Ohio ballot for the May primary.

Sanders’ prospects for winning the Democratic primary in Ohio are “very good,” said Edwards, a member of Central Ohio Grassroots for Bernie Sanders and a delegate for the national campaign. For the general election, “We’ve got a lot of work to do as volunteers,” he said. “As long as we keep up our grass-roots effort around the country, we’re going to be fine.”

 “I’m very confident that Bernie would win the general election,” said Bianca Davis, a graduate student in physics at Ohio State. “We need his policies. We need universal health care, we need maternity and paternity leave, we need infrastructure, and we need to address climate change. At the first Democratic debate, Bernie was the only one who said that climate change is the biggest security threat.”