Author: Lance Garrison

Last week, Susanne DeWitt, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor who later became a molecular biologist, spoke before the Berkeley, Calif., City Council to request a Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation. After taking note of a “horrendous surge in antisemitism,” she was then heckled and shouted down by protesters at the meeting when she mentioned the massacre and rapes in Israel of Oct. 7.At the same meeting, a woman testified that her 7-year-old Jewish son heard “a group of kids at his school say, ‘Jews are stupid.’” She, too, was heckled: “Zionists are stupider,” a protester said. At the same meeting, others yelled,…

Lynne DeMarsh woke one morning in 2017 with pain and discharge from one nipple. A decade earlier, the Rockledge, FL, resident had had a lumpectomy and radiation therapy for triple-negative breast cancer. But she had been healthy ever since.DeMarsh quickly visited an oncologist near her home for her new symptoms. Her doctor diagnosed her with inflammatory breast cancer, a fast-moving disease that’s usually caught in late stages. But her doctor’s next comment left her just as shaken as her diagnosis did.“He said, ‘Get your affairs in order because you will probably only live a couple years,’” DeMarsh, 56, recalls. “He…

In 1996, Doug Olson learned he had chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a type of cancer that starts in white blood cells. This cancer often grows slowly, so his doctor decided to watch it and wait to treat him.But when Olson’s cancer started to grow a few years later, he had several rounds of chemotherapy. Then, in 2009, the tumor changed. Chemo no longer helped. Olson’s doctor, David Porter, MD, recommended a bone marrow transplant. But none of Olson’s siblings was a good match.”It seemed like the news kept getting worse,” Olson says.Then Olson’s doctor suggested a clinical trial for a…

It has been a week since the Dali, a container ship, struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. It’s still stuck there, and the images remain amazing, in part because the vessel is so huge compared with what’s left of the bridge. How could planners not have realized that operating superships in the harbor’s confined waters posed a risk?And with the ship and pieces of the bridge blocking the harbor entry, the Port of Baltimore remains closed. How big a deal is that for the economy?Well, it would have been quite a big deal if it had happened in…

April 2, 2024 – Eating food with high amounts of salt has long been linked to a greater risk of high blood pressure and heart disease. But much of the research on salt’s effects have been with middle- and upper-income populations. A study says large portion of low-income African Americans and White Americans exceed the current recommended sodium intake level. So why is this population getting too much salt? “In this marginalized group, it is almost always consistent with food access,” said Lena Beal, a registered dietitian nutritionist and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Lower access to healthier…

To the Editor:Re “The Overlooked Truths About Biden’s Age,” by Frank Bruni (Opinion, March 30):Mr. Bruni was absolutely right to point out that the presidency is not a one-person job. When we go to the polls in November we are electing a general manager/captain/coach. His job is then to get the team assembled and come up with a plan. That is what our executive branch is about.The president needs the right people under him and around him. Joe Biden put together a great cabinet and other advisers quite quickly three and a half years ago. Seven and a half years…

By Lori Hewlett, as told to Michele JordanAfter teaching elementary school for more than 30 years, I have embraced this season of life with open arms. I know it’s not like that for some, but I have learned some lessons that I try to pass on to women as they go through “the change.” A Welcome SurpriseI started menopause somewhat on the earlier side. I taught school for over 30 years and began menopause during my teaching career. I was about 45 years old, and I remember seeing the afternoon teacher (I taught morning kindergarten) fanning herself while I too was…

It’s a regular day in her mid-40s, and Rochelle Pagano is on her way to work. But during the drive to the martial arts studio she runs with her husband on the outskirts of Philadelphia, she senses something is off. Suddenly, she feels short of breath and jittery. She’s tense and has no idea why.A perimenopausal Pagano breathed through the episode, and her panic passed within a minute or two. But she didn’t spot the connection between her shifting hormones and the unexplained worry until years later. The Anxiety That Came With MenopauseAs she entered her early 50s, Pagano started to…

Mr. Gantz, one of the few Israeli leaders who could unseat Mr. Netanyahu, has remained in the emergency war coalition not only because of his continuing support for the war but also to act as a counterweight to Mr. Netanyahu’s extremist coalition partners. Yet, as a result, Mr. Gantz’s party has lent both stability and a veneer of cross-partisan legitimacy to Mr. Netanyahu’s unruly, hard-right coalition. If Mr. Gantz began his political career to challenge Mr. Netanyahu, he and his party have now become the prime minister’s political lifeline.Still, with or without the fig leaf of unity that Mr. Gantz…

I owe the last 25 years of life to my father, who dozed under general anesthesia as a surgeon cut eight inches from stomach to spine, removed one of his kidneys, placed it on ice and sent it to a nearby operating room where it was fitted into my abdomen. My brother had a kidney transplant that same week, six days before I did. His new kidney came from a man we never knew who died in a car accident in the mountains.We were teenagers, afflicted with a congenital kidney disease. But we were lucky.There are 100,000 people in the…