Author: Lance Garrison
What is Nikki Haley doing? What are her real intentions? Those questions have dominated every aspect of her candidacy.So much of what’s been said about Ms. Haley the last few months has been about what she’ll do after she loses — even that the original premise of the campaign must have contained hidden ambitions or total delusion. There’s been an assumption, even from would-be allies, that there must be another angle to the campaign, that she must want the vice presidency.That’s partly because, in her speeches, Ms. Haley often resists giving her listeners satisfaction, withholding the obvious point, allowing them…
By Dawn Buse, PhD, as told to Keri WigintonHeadache disorders, including migraine, consistently rank among the leading causes of disability worldwide, especially for those ages 15-49. That’s a big deal. Yet people often don’t think of migraine as a significant disease. It’s often minimized and ignored.Migraine is incredibly burdensome. But less than half of people with the disease talk to their doctors about it. And only 5% of people with chronic migraine have gotten the proper diagnosis and preventive care.Stigma might be partly to blame.What Do People Get Wrong About Migraine?There are theories about why migraine is so stigmatized. One reason…
To the Editor:Re “Colleges Fled SAT in Spite of Its Utility,” by David Leonhardt (news analysis, front page, Jan. 12):Mr. Leonhardt helpfully reminds us that standardized exams can improve access for high-performing, underrepresented minority students. But using this research to call recent movements toward test-optional admissions policies misguided not only oversimplifies college readiness, but also disregards students whose access to college is hindered by mandatory test submission.These students — neurodiverse students with learning disabilities, differences and anxiety issues — often struggle with standardized exams, and the College Board’s accommodations system does little to help. These students’ high school experience often…
The response has been almost like clockwork, at nearly every medical visit in the last few weeks. “It’s time for the flu shot,” I’ll say to my patients, “plus the updated Covid vaccine.” And that’s when the groans start.In the past, the flu shot elicited the most resistance. The patients at my New York City practice would take their other vaccinations without a second thought but balk at the flu shot — because their sister is allergic to eggs, or because they’re sure that the flu shot always gives them the flu or because they just “don’t do” flu shots.…
Michael Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is concerned enough about the risk of war between the United States and China that he is listening to the audiobook version of Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August,” the classic history of how the major powers in 1914 stumbled into World War I.“I think this is the most dangerous time since I was a kid in 1962,” during the Cuban missile crisis, he told me. “The world war potential is really, really significant.”I came to Taiwan to gauge that risk and assess how to manage it better. For…
Most of my writing this week was on the recent elections in Iowa and New Hampshire, but most of my reading was focused elsewhere. In particular, I want to highlight this report from Jessica Valenti, published in her excellent newsletter, on proposed travel bans for abortion care in Tennessee and Oklahoma. The Tennessee ban, proposed by State Representative Jason Zachary, would make it a felony to take a minor out of state to obtain an abortion. As Valenti notes, “That means a friend, aunt or grandmother who helps a teenager get an abortion could be sent to prison for 15…
Nikki Haley lost the New Hampshire primary but found a cause: getting under Donald Trump’s not exactly rhinoceros-thick skin. The story of the Republican primary campaign in the days since Trump’s victory has been one where the victor acts like a sore loser and the likely loser loosens up, goads her stronger rival and finds a pool of small-dollar donors to keep her in the race.Haley’s turn toward mockery and confrontation has created modest excitement in the disillusioned world of NeverTrump punditry. Maybe the remaining non-Trump Republican is giving up on being vice president or winning some future G.O.P. primary…
Should terminally ill people be able to choose how they die? Six years after being diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer, Julie Petrow-Cohen decided to use medical aid in dying — or MAID, as it is often called — to end her life. But for many Americans in similar circumstances, this is not an option. In this audio essay, the writer Steven Petrow shares the story of his sister’s last day and why MAID should be a right for everyone.Read Steven’s guest essay on Julie’s decision here.(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available by Monday.)The Times is committed…
If you can imagine the lobby bar of the Manchester Marriott as an Anglo-Saxon mead hall, I can explain how it felt to cover the New Hampshire primary.I will need the help of the late Seamus Heaney, who described what it was like to be quaffing in Heorot Hall while Grendel lurked and swooped through the frost-stiffened north.In his lyrical translation of “Beowulf,” Heaney described Grendel as “the terror-monger,” the “captain of evil” and “the dread of the land.”He wrote that the fiend “ruled in defiance of right” and was “malignant by nature, he never showed remorse.”The “powerful demon, a…
The problem is not necessarily Mr. Netanyahu’s hawkish stance, which is shared by many Israelis enraged by the barbaric Hamas raid. It is Mr. Netanyahu’s confusion of leadership with political survival, with the widespread perception that he opposes any negotiated settlement, and any American advice or mediation, not because he really believes they run counter to Israelis’ interests, as he claims, but because appearing to stand up to “American pressure,” and portraying the Gaza war as a far broader conflict about a Palestinian state and Iran, serves his political ends.That, at least, appears to be what a majority of Israelis…