Author: Michelle Korhonen
Everyone knows that inequality has gotten out of hand in the United States. Thanks largely to the work of three now-famous economists—Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman—it’s probably one of the most widely accepted facts in modern American life. Since the early aughts, they have meticulously documented the rate at which the richest have pulled away from the rest. Their research transformed domestic politics, leading President Barack Obama to declare inequality the “defining issue of our time,” and turning the one percent into a shorthand for excessive wealth and power.But what if this “fact” was never true?That’s exactly the…
More recent generations of women experience menopause differently than those that came before them, including suffering more frequent hot flashes and a longer period of transition.Doctors and data researchers are now coming to the conclusion that a patchwork of factors – obesity, medication use, smoking history, and even environmental pollution – influences the way menopause presents itself.Those factors combine to alter how DNA is expressed in ways that previous generations’ wasn’t. For example, people today living in areas with high rates of air pollution show alterations in how genes involved in inflammation and cardiovascular disease are expressed that differ from a generation…
A new study seeks to find the reasons that health-care personnel avoid the easy treatment for this potentially life-threatening condition.
Axios recently reported that President Joe Biden carries cheat sheets with him into meetings with supporters and donors. Some of these supporters have expressed alarm that a president would do such a thing. Perhaps these cards—aide-mémoire, after all—are a sign of age and frailty?From 2001 to 2002, I had the job of writing speeches for President George W. Bush. Bush was 54 years old when I started working for him—almost 10 years younger than I am now. He was a president of extraordinary physical vigor. He delighted in mountain biking down the plunging slopes of Catoctin Mountain at Camp David.…
This is the moment a bungling shoplifter spends more than a minute trying to shove bottles of booze down his top before simply giving up and running out of a Tesco store. The CCTV footage shows Joshua Turner, 21, pretending to do his shopping before dropping his basket in an aisle and shoving bottles of booze down his top in front of other shoppers.He then paces back and forth for more than a minute, struggling to zip up his jacket to hide the stolen goods before giving up and running out of the supermarket. The prolific shoplifter then returns to the same…
Mobile, Ala., like other communities benefiting from opioid settlement dollars, weighs whether to treat people in crisis now or invest in long-term solutions to cut future addiction rates.
Dear Therapist,I’m 70, nine years a widow, financially stable, no children, no parents. I have family and friends, near and far. I live alone. I used to love sex, but menopause brought on physical changes that inhibited me. Four years of topical estrogen have, my doctor says, fixed the problem. I went through an initial period of really enjoying the novelty of asexuality (my goodness, the time it frees up!), but that’s changed. I miss sex.Last night at dinner, my niece said, “You’re buff!” While I have no illusions that time has not passed—this buff isn’t the same as it…
The residents of a Cumbrian town in the grips of a housing crisis have claimed victory after plans to house asylum seekers in eight rundown properties were shelved following a protest. There have been celebrations in Millom, Cumbria, after the Government announced a U-turn on plans to house around 40 asylum seekers in a town where public amenities are already stretched to breaking point. Almost 2,000 people joined an action group and public meetings were packed to the rafters as locals banded together to demand that the plans were scrapped.Millom’s victory has seen action groups from other parts of the country contact…
For the past decade, one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world, square mile after square mile, has been my home: Queens, New York. The soundtrack outside my door is extraordinary: On any given block, passing voices speak varieties of Polish, Ukrainian, Egyptian Arabic, Mexican Spanish, Puerto Rican Spanish, Dominican Spanish, Ecuadorian Spanish, Kichwa, and all the forms of New York City English they give rise to. As a linguist, I can usually distinguish them from one another, but understand only a fraction of what people are saying.In my neighborhood, like in many other working-class immigrant neighborhoods in…
Madonna had been paying tribute to artists who have passed away from AIDS during her Celebrations tour, but a recent performance included a surprising inclusion: Luther Vandross.An image of Vandross was shown next to Queen singer Freddie Mercury during Madonna’s Sacramento tour stop on Saturday.After word of the image surfaced, the late singer – who passed away in 2005 at 54, from complications of a 2003 stroke – his estate reached out to Madonna, who had the image quietly removed.Vandross’ estate clarified that the singer was never diagnosed with AIDS or the HIV virus in a statement. ‘Luther Vandross passed away…