Author: Lance Garrison
To the Editor:According to national polls, many believe that when he was president Donald Trump was better with economic policy than President Biden. What is forgotten is that Mr. Trump’s tenure was mostly before Covid.The populace forgets that the pandemic resulted in multiple supply shortages and labor disruptions, which were major contributing causes of inflationary pressures. Republicans blame government spending but discount the disruptive effect of Covid.President Biden’s policies have brought jobs, economic growth and a reduced inflation rate. Unfortunately he has not been able to offset all the residual economic effects of the Covid pandemic.Gilbert J. WiseNew YorkTo the…
This month MethaneSAT, an $88 million, 770-pound surveillance satellite conceived by the Environmental Defense Fund and designed at Harvard to precisely track the human sources of methane being released so promiscuously into the atmosphere, was launched by SpaceX, to great fanfare.Methane, a somewhat less notorious greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is produced by industrial and natural processes — leaking oil and gas infrastructure, decomposing melted permafrost, the belching of cows and the microbial activity of wetlands. Weve known that methane is producing a lot of warming and that there is a lot more of it in the atmosphere now, but…
Women in Tigray have been subjected to unimaginable crimes during both the war and its ongoing, tumultuous aftermath. Over 100,000 women in Tigray are thought to have experienced conflict-related sexual violence. Health experts recently estimated that over 40 percent of Tigray’s women experienced some type of gender-based violence during the war. Most of them — a whopping 89.7 percent — never received any post-violence medical or psychological support.Survivors have reported that foreign objects were inserted in their bodies, that their children were murdered in front of them, that they were forced into sexual slavery, starved and intentionally infected with H.I.V.…
The New York Times Opinion columnist David Brooks worries that the United States — and much of the world — is being harmed by the rise of populism. In this audio essay, he argues that the “us-versus-them” mentality, so core to populist movements, limits societal growth. Instead, Democrats should promote a positive-sum mind-set, centered on respect and dignity for every individual. He urges President Biden and other American leaders to embody a culture that celebrates what he describes as “liberal capitalism.”(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 24 hours of publication in the audio player above.)This…
We have a presidential election between two candidates that few Americans wanted to see. As much as people argue and complain about polling, it’s one of the tools we have to understand what’s going on in the United States, and how politics has changed and could change further. What does Donald Trump’s base look like now, exactly? Who counts as an independent? When voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump if he were convicted of a crime, should we believe them?I spoke with David Byler, chief of research at Noble Predictive Insights and a polling expert and former writer at…
The trends in these subgroups provide little comfort to the Biden campaign.Among Black voters, Biden led Trump by 55 points (73-18), far less than his 83-point margin in 2020. Among Hispanics, Biden led by 6 points (48-42), compared with a 24-point advantage in 2020. Among 18-to-29-year-olds, Biden led by 8 points (50-42) compared with 24 points in 2020.Despite the erosion of Black, Hispanic and youth support since 2020, Biden remained competitive in Carlson’s data compilation — just two points behind Trump (47-45) among all respondents. This was possible because Biden made modest gains among very large subgroups: 1.3 points among…
A few months before Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered some 1,000 members of the state police and National Guard to patrol New York City’s subway system in response to a string of violent attacks, some of them deadly, I had an unsafe subway experience of my own. It didn’t involve crime — unless you’d call the system’s shameful lack of elevators and accessible stations criminal.An infection in my 10-year-old son’s leg required us to make regular trips from our Brooklyn home to a hospital on 71st Street in Manhattan. He had been getting around on crutches but these trips were long,…
What Oprah did try to do is finally write the ending to a story about bodies that she has been writing for almost 40 years. “The Oprah Winfrey Show” went into national syndication in 1986. I was 10 years old. That means I have been in a psychosocial relationship with Oprah’s weight-loss struggles for longer than I have been an adult.In the 1980s, most of the Black women on television were either fair-skinned beauty queens like Vanessa Williams or darker-complexioned mother figures like Nell Carter. Oprah was not a thin beauty queen, but she also wasn’t the help. Engaging, articulate,…
Once upon a time, a handsome young prince surveyed all the lovely, intelligent, kindhearted ladies of the land and, from their number, picked his bride.The new addition to the family was a delight, a beauty, a breath of fresh air. She enjoyed a brief honeymoon period when everyone adored her. Then something changed. Maybe she dared to express a desire or let slip an opinion. Perhaps she appeared in public looking less than perfect, or broke with tradition and refused to appear at all — or maybe it was simply a matter of what goes up must come down.Whatever the…
You’ve heard about the foods that can make your heartburn worse, from coffee to chocolate to tomatoes. But what about foods that could make your heartburn better? Check out some key eats you should add to your diet.When acid and other liquids in your stomach back up into your esophagus, you get heartburn. The acid that’s already in your stomach isn’t the only problem, though.The natural acids in foods you eat — like many fruits, vegetables, and drinks — play a role, too, says Bani Roland, MD. She is a gastroenterologist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. To curb…