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Why are movies about two hours long? In this episode of Vox Almanac, Vox’s Phil Edwards researches the history of movies — and discovers the Italian silent film classic that changed all movies forever.

In the 1900s, movies were typically around 15 minutes long — that was the length of one reel (depending on playback speed and a few other variables). But in 1913, that changed significantly thanks to the blockbuster Quo Vadis — a two-hour epic that wasn’t just long, but had blockbuster ambitions.

Quo Vadis involved huge stunts, thousands of extras, and real Roman locations, taking movies to …

The one time in my life, aside from sleeping, when I’m not obsessing about money is when I’m playing bingo. I know that sounds ironic, but bingo is my mental escape, offering a few hours where the numbers in front of me all start with a letter, not a dollar sign.

I’ve been in debt my entire adult life, first with student loans from undergrad and the law school I never graduated from, then from living above my means — not hard to do on a $40,000 New York City salary.

In my 20s and 30s, I ignored my debt, …

Vice’s old CEO, Shane Smith, is a scandal-plagued figure in media circles. But Vice’s new CEO Nancy Dubuc doesn’t think he gets enough respect.

Dubuc took over as CEO in early 2018 after reports emerged of a rampant frat-boy culture at the media company that caters to millennials who are turned off by traditional old-guard media fogeys. Smith, the ousted CEO who once called himself a “brand artist,” remains the company’s chairman, so he is still involved in selling ads to possible buyers.

“Shane doesn’t get as much credit as he maybe deserves,” Dubuc told Recode’s Peter Kafka at the …

Facebook has come under heavy scrutiny in recent months over its political ads policy that allows politicians to lie in ads. On Monday, one of Facebook’s top marketers again defended the policy and said the company has no plans to change it, insisting that it’s up to voters to decide what messages resonate and are true, even if they’re false.

“That’s not a role that Facebook should be playing and interfering with democracy,” said said Carolyn Everson, vice president of global marketing solutions at Facebook, in an interview with Recode’s Peter Kafka at the 2019 Code Media conference …

This past weekend served as a fitting cap to a dramatic week of public impeachment hearings — and set up this week’s sessions in riveting style.

On Saturday, the House Intelligence Committee, which leads the impeachment process, released a transcript of the closed-door deposition of Tim Morrison, formerly the top Ukraine official on the National Security Council. He revealed that President Donald Trump ordered his staff to withhold military aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into Joe Biden’s family and Democrats.

Further, Morrison testified that Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 was so concerning, …

President Donald Trump made a trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, as White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham put it, to “begin portions of his routine annual physical exam” on Saturday. But there are indications the trip wasn’t as routine as the White House would have the public believe.

To be clear, there’s no hard evidence that Trump’s trip to the hospital was anything more more than a 73-year-old man being proactive about his health. But the White House’s complete lack of credibility on issues from crowd size to foreign affairs makes it disconcertingly easy …

House impeachment investigators are probing whether President Donald Trump, or anyone in his inner circle, directed the president’s former special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, to press Ukrainian senior officials to shut down a criminal investigation of ex-President Petro Poroshenko, according to sources close to the impeachment inquiry and committee records.

If House investigators are able to uncover evidence that Trump — or anyone close to him — directed Volker to shut down the legitimate investigation of a former head of state as conducted by a sovereign foreign nation, that might constitute a new abuse of power to …

The fifth episode of Watchmen takes us back to the ’80s — the age of hairspray, leather jackets, Howard Jones’s hit “Things Can Only Get Better,” the Cold War, and, in this universe, a psychic squid attack.

The 1980s-era of the Watchmen world is seen through the eyes of Looking Glass, the stalwart police officer with a mirrorball face and the uncanny ability to tell when people are lying. We meet him as a teen trying to promote the good word of Doomsday, how the end is near, and how God has pandas in heaven. To Looking Glass’s …

The United Kingdom’s Prince Andrew sat for an interview with the BBC’s Emily Maitlis that aired Saturday, and attempted to explain his relationship with financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — but offered little in the way of clarity. Rather, Prince Andrew, the third child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, was rambling and inconsistent in the face of pointed questions about his actions and affiliations.

Andrew has faced renewed questions about his relationship with Epstein following the financier’s death in August. At the time, Epstein was in jail, facing sex trafficking charges. Andrew, a longtime friend of …

The latest poll in Iowa shows South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg with a resounding lead in the Democratic presidential primary for the first time.

A November telephone poll conducted by noted Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer for CNN and the Des Moines Register saw Buttigieg soar to 25 percent support in the state, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a distant second place at 16 percent. Warren was found to be essentially neck-and-neck with former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who each received 15 percent support. The gap between these three candidates fell within the 4.4 …