Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart appear on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"

Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central

Once written off as a baseless conspiracy, the lab leak theory — the idea that COVID-19 was spread thanks to a lab accident — has been gaining traction in recent months.

Recently, on the first in-person episode of Stephen Colbert's A Late Show in over a year, none other than Jon Stewart expressed his support for the idea. Or rather, he expressed his opinion that he believes there is "a chance" the pandemic was unleashed in a lab.

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Culture Feature

We Know for a Fact That UFOs Exist — But What Are They?

UFOs or UAPs have been observed for decades without a clear explanation. Will we finally get one next month?

On Sunday night, an episode of 60 Minutes aired that has since brought an old debate back to light.

Multiple former Navy pilots and the one-time head of the Pentagon's since-abandoned Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) appeared on the show to share accounts of their personal encounters and their broader thoughts on apparent flying objects that seem to defy our understanding of the physics of aerospace.

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Politics Features

John Boehner Bashes Ted Cruz and Fox News, Ignores His Own Guilt

The former speaker has plenty of blame to throw around for the current state of the Republican party, but not much interest in accountability.

Former Speaker John Boehner really wants you to buy his new book On the House: A Washington Memoir.

He wants it so bad that he's giving out free samples of some of the spiciest portions, to much fanfare from the internet — with his name and some keywords trending on Twitter almost as soon as the excerpt went live on Politico Friday morning. Of particular note is Boehner's willingness to throw shade at people who are ostensibly on his side of the political divide.

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Video

This Haunts Me: What Really Killed Brittany Murphy?

The mysterious circumstances around the Clueless star's death will once again be explored in an upcoming HBO Max documentary.

Brittany Murphy Actress Brittany Murphy arrives to launch the summer sale of the Harrods department store in central London. Murphy's final movie opens in Eugene, Ore.

Matt Dunham/AP/Shutterstock

When a troubled Hollywood star suddenly dies, apparently with a grab bag of pills in her system, there doesn't seem to be much of a mystery.

And that's exactly how it was treated in the press when Clueless and 8 Mile star Brittany Murphy passed away in December of 2009. While the Los Angeles County coroner initially declined to declare drug use as the cause of death, that seemed like the kind of formal omission that might have been made at the behest of loved ones and publicists.

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Culture Feature

Kennedy Conspiracies: RFK Jr. Banned From Instagram

Conspiracies and misinformation have played a central role in much of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s life.

Robert Kennedy Jr's speech on Trump's decision to exit Paris climate agreement, Granada, Spain - 08 Nov 2019

Miguel Angel Molina/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

On Thursday environmental activist, lawyer, and vaccine "skeptic" Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was banned from Instagram as part of parent-company Facebook's ongoing fight against misinformation on their platforms.

A spokesperson for Facebook reported that they had cut off his account for "repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines." This comes just a few months after Kennedy's group, Children's Health Defesne, filed suit against Facebook for rejecting their ads and fact-checking posts about vaccines and 5G. But to truly understand how we got to this point, it's worth taking a look back at the history of misinformation that has swirled around Kennedy's family.

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Culture Feature

7 New Year's Resolutions for America to Get Its S**t Together in 2021

We're crossing our fingers that the US finally found its rock bottom in 2020.

Hey, America, you okay?

Because honestly...you're not looking so good. We know that 2020 was a rough year, but you haven't exactly been doing yourself any favors with how you've handled it.

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