Editorial/Op-Ed

(BALTIMORE – August 29, 2025) – I just finished watching the recent Hurricane Katrina documentary on Netflix, and it truly gutted me. At the time of Katrina, In 2005, I was 14 and I didn’t fully grasp connection between disaster, tragedy, and systemic racial injustice. Watching now, has hit me in a way I wasn’t ready for. The aftermath was worse than I remembered: families displaced, residents criminalized instead of cared for, and recovery that too often felt like punishment. One line stuck with me: “My mother said gentrification was on the way when she saw the bike lanes.” By…

Opinion | Don’t Drag Our Most Basic Rights Into the Culture Wars

One can believe, for example, all of the following: Crime is out of control in San Francisco, Boudin deserved his recall, and the police need more funding. But that person will likely still feel uneasy about the prospect of being filmed at all times. Within blue cities like San Francisco, which may have turned against the sort of progressive tactics that Boudin employed, the people who want to get tough on crime may very well still be concerned about warrantless racial profiling.I have written quite a bit in the past few months about what I see as a shift in…

A Mysterious Fall Was the First Sign Something Was Wrong

Myxomas are rare. In autopsy studies, around 100 myxomas are seen per one million population. For reasons that are not well understood, they are more common in women than in men. Size at the time of diagnosis can be variable. Most are ovoid, and they can range from as small as a pea to the size of a large grapefruit. These tumors are often found accidentally, as in this case, in ultrasounds ordered to look for something else. But they can cause symptoms and, rarely, even death.To understand the harm, it is important to know the anatomy, Minella explained. The…

Opinion | Biden’s Fist Bump With the Saudi Prince

To the Editor:Re “For Biden, Uneasy Visit to Saudi Leader” (front page, July 16):President Biden’s controversial trip to Saudi Arabia, which may have conferred undeserved legitimacy on an autocratic regime that suppresses human rights, was nevertheless intended for the broad strategic goal of Middle East stability and for American interests in the region.Horrific as the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi obviously was — with the undeniable responsibility for it resting with the highest levels of the Saudi government — the president’s unpopular mission may yet prove to have been a good strategic decision.Historically, presidents have negotiated with unsavory and…

For a Woman in a Wheelchair, Abortion Access Was One More Challenge

Roxanne Schiebergen, a 30-year-old writer and actress who lives in New York, was in the bathroom of her Midtown apartment when she received a text from a close friend one day in May. The text included a screenshot of a marketing flyer promoting a “Bans Off Our Bodies” rally sponsored in part by Planned Parenthood. The photo in the ad showed four women — and the woman at the center was in a wheelchair.Ms. Schiebergen said she looked at it with disbelief. She hoisted herself from the toilet and onto her manual wheelchair. She rolled herself into the living room…

Opinion | There’s a Better Way to Measure Economic Inequality

Differences in wealth and differences in income are the wrong ways to measure economic inequality, and going by either of them “dramatically overstates” the degree of inequality in the United States, a working paper argues.The right measure of economic inequality is differences in spending power, says the paper, “U.S. Inequality and Fiscal Progressivity: An Intragenerational Accounting,” which is by the economist Alan Auerbach of the University of California, Berkeley, the economist Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University and the software developer Darryl Koehler of Economic Security Planning.Spending power — the amount of goods and services that a person can buy —…

Opinion | I Work for Midwestern Democrats, and I Know How to Win Back Voters From the G.O.P.

CHICAGO — Democrats continue to bleed support from working-class voters of all races. Many are abandoning the party for the Republicans because they think Democrats are not committed enough to fighting for their livelihood and way of life.To win these voters back, Democrats have got to do more to demonstrate that we are putting American workers first, starting with taking on outsourcing and bad trade deals. Democrats in Congress are taking small steps — like prioritizing the passage of a bill that will support the semiconductor industry and help make the United States more competitive with China — but there…

Opinion | I Went to the State Where the First Big Fight Over Abortion Is On. Here’s What I Saw.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — When Sharon Brown answered the door of her modest town home on a recent Saturday, she was a little rude at first to the two young women standing before her. Yazmin Bruno-Valdez and Melanie Haas introduced themselves as volunteers with Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, a group that sounds conservative but is actually fighting to preserve abortion rights in the state. They were knocking on doors in Wyandotte County, one of the state’s bluer pockets, urging voters to oppose an amendment to the Kansas Constitution that would pave the way for tighter abortion restrictions, even a total…

Largest Study to Date Shows How Covid Vaccines Affect Periods

Nearly half of the participants of a recent study who were menstruating regularly at the time of the survey reported heavier bleeding during their periods after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine. Others who did not typically menstruate — including transgender men, people on long-acting contraceptives, and post-menopausal women — also experienced unusual bleeding.The new study — the largest to date — expands on research that has highlighted the temporary effects of Covid-19 vaccines on menstrual cycles, but until now focused primarily on cisgender women who menstruate.Although the vaccines have largely prevented deaths and severe disease with few reported side effects, many…

With ‘How to Change Your Mind,’ Taking a Trip With Michael Pollan

In late 2012, the best-selling author and journalist Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) was at a dinner party in Berkeley, Calif. Among his fellow diners was a prominent developmental psychiatrist, in her 60s, who spoke at some length about a recent LSD trip. This pricked up Pollan’s ears.His first thought, as he shared during a recent video interview: “People like that are taking LSD?” The psychiatrist went on to explain that the drug gave her a better understanding of the way children think.“Her hypothesis,” Pollan said, “was that the effects of psychedelics, LSD in that case, give us a taste…

Covid Rises Across U.S. Amid Muted Warnings and Murky Data

CHICAGO — Covid-19 is surging around the United States again in what experts consider the most transmissible variant of the pandemic yet.But something is different this time: The public health authorities are holding back.In Chicago, where the county’s Covid warning level was raised to “high” last week, the city’s top doctor said there was no reason for residents to let the virus control their lives. The state health director in Louisiana likened a new rise in Covid cases there to a downpour — “a surge within a surge” — but characterized the situation as concerning but not alarming.And the public…