The Food and Drug Administration’s approval on Friday of two groundbreaking gene therapy treatments for sickle cell disease has brought a rare moment of hope and celebration to people with the agonizing blood disorder. But there is no clear path for the new therapies — one-time treatments so effective in clinical trials that they have […]
Read MoreTag: Income Inequality
Pope Francis Couldn’t Travel to the U.N. Climate Summit, but His Voice Did
Pope Francis, who reluctantly canceled his trip to the annual United Nations climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, because of a lung infection, sought on Saturday to lend his voice to the world’s destitute facing the brunt of climate disruption. In an address written by the pope and delivered at the summit by the […]
Read MoreMore States Now Require Financial Literacy Classes in High Schools
A flurry of states now require financial literacy classes for high school students, covering topics like budgeting, saving and managing debt. Just seven states — Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia — earned an A grade, meaning they require students to take a semester-long personal finance course, or its equivalent, on a “report […]
Read MoreU.S. Rate of Suicide by Firearm Reaches Record Level
The rate of suicides involving guns in the United States has reached the highest level since officials began tracking it more than 50 years ago, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate increased by more than 10 percent in 2022 compared with 2019, and in some racial […]
Read MoreApple Is Doing Its Part to End Green Bubble Shaming. It’s Our Turn.
For more than a decade, smartphone users everywhere have faced a major problem in how we communicate: the “green versus blue bubble” disparity. When iPhone users send texts to other iPhones, the messages appear blue and can tap into exclusive perks like fun emojis and animations. But if an iPhone user texts an Android user, […]
Read MoreNikki Haley Is Coming for Your Retirement
That said, Haley has shown some consistency on issues of economic and fiscal policy. And what you should know is that her positions on these issues are pretty far to the right. In particular, she seems exceptionally explicit, even among would-be Republican nominees, in calling for an increase in the age at which Americans become […]
Read MoreWhy Warblers Flock to Tonier Neighborhoods
At a meeting of urban wildlife researchers in Washington, D.C., in June, one diagram made it into so many PowerPoint presentations that its recurrence became a running joke. The subject, though, was serious: The diagram illustrated the links between structural racism, pernicious landscape features such as urban heat islands, and impacts to biodiversity, and it […]
Read MoreThe Super Rich No Longer Try To Support Their Societies
Throughout much of the Western world’s history, the wealthiest have been viewed in their communities as a potentially unfavorable presence, and they have attempted to allay this sentiment by using their riches to support their societies in times of crises like plagues, famines or wars. This symbiotic relationship no longer exists. Today’s rich, their wealth […]
Read MoreThe Startling Evidence on Learning Loss Is In
In the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress sent $190 billion in aid to schools, stipulating that 20 percent of the funds had to be used for reversing learning setbacks. At the time, educators knew that the impact on how children learn would be significant, but the extent was not yet known. The evidence is […]
Read MoreWant to Know What’s Bedeviling Biden? TikTok Economics May Hold Clues.
Look at economic data, and you’d think that young voters would be riding high right now. Unemployment remains low. Job opportunities are plentiful. Inequality is down, wage growth is finally beating inflation, and the economy has expanded rapidly this year. Look at TikTok, and you get a very different impression — one that seems more […]
Read MoreWhy Great G.D.P. Growth Isn’t Good Enough for Bidenomics
On Oct. 26, the Department of Commerce announced that gross domestic product had grown at an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter. This growth rate ran well above even optimistic forecasts, leading to what can only be called triumphalism from a White House dead-set on making “Bidenomics” a key to its 2024 […]
Read MoreIn San Francisco, He Was Attacked by a Homeless Man. But Was There More to the Story?
San Francisco counts its homeless population once every two years, usually on a single night in January. The most recent “point in time count,” in 2022, recorded 7,754 homeless people, of whom 4,397 were the unsheltered people referred to in the lawsuit. While these numbers haven’t changed much since 2017, the total number of people […]
Read MoreLos Angeles Will Offer More Energy Incentives to Low-Income Residents
Los Angeles said on Thursday that it would build electric vehicle chargers and offer bigger rebates for the purchase of battery-powered cars in response to a new report that concluded that low-income people were being left behind in the transition to clean energy. City officials said they would offer qualified residents up to $4,000 to […]
Read MoreBy the Numbers: How Schools Struggled During the Pandemic
One Big Challenge: Staff Shortages The survey shows that during the 2020-2021 school year, shortages of key school staff were common — a problem that has continued even after the height of the pandemic. In the 2020-2021 year, more than a quarter of schools employed uncertified teachers and 24 percent had no counselors. And of […]
Read More5th National Climate Assessment Lays Out Climate Threats and Solutions
The food we eat and the roads we drive on. Our health and safety. Our cultural heritage, natural environments and economic flourishing. Nearly every cherished aspect of American life is under growing threat from climate change and it is effectively too late to prevent many of the harms from worsening over the next decade, a […]
Read MoreBiden Finalizes Significant Overhaul in Federal Regulations
The Biden administration has overhauled how the federal government assesses the costs and benefits of regulation and some government spending programs, clearing a path for more aggressive efforts to fight climate change and help the poor. Officials at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a branch of the Office of Management and […]
Read MoreReading List: Scams and Scammers
This week, following the guilty verdict in the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, I’ve had scammers on my mind. It’s tempting to cast scam artists as supervillains: they lie, cheat, and hurt innocent people while hiding in plain sight. There’s something darkly compelling about watching someone discard the rules and norms that limit the rest of us, […]
Read MoreWhy Does the Right Hate America?
U.S. democracy is clearly in crisis. It’s entirely possible that in less than two years dissenters will face the power of a government with an authoritarian bent; if that sounds to you like hyperbole, you aren’t paying attention. But is America beyond the political realm also in crisis? Are the very foundations of society eroding? […]
Read MoreInside the Private World the Richest New Yorkers Built for Themselves
It’s a great time to be rich in New York City. Everyday life is increasingly unaffordable for most New Yorkers, but a new class of private, members-only and concierge services is emerging as a kind of gated community within the city. Ultraexclusive clubs, laundry specialists, on-demand helicopter rides and services that allow users to bid […]
Read More‘More Than Just Rugby’: Championship Generates Harmony in South Africa
The towering hall thundered with the euphoria of a nation where everyone seemed, for the moment, to have left their differences behind. The celebrants spoke Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, Afrikaans and English. They were Black and white, young and old, mining company managers and restaurant waitresses. They sang and danced together to songs blasting from speakers. […]
Read MoreUnited Auto Workers Strike a Blow for Equality
It’s not officially over yet, but the United Auto Workers appear to have won a significant victory. The union, which began rolling strikes on Sept. 15, now has tentative agreements with Ford, Stellantis (which I still think of as Chrysler) and, finally, General Motors. All three agreements involve a roughly 25 percent wage increase over […]
Read MoreGovernor Murphy Joins School Halloween Fray in New Jersey: ‘Give Me a Break’
If you happen to attend one of the 10 schools in New Jersey’s South Orange and Maplewood school district, put away that Spiderman costume on Halloween. Or wait until after school. Earlier this month, Dr. Ronald G. Taylor, the superintendent of the district, sent a letter to parents saying that Halloween would not be celebrated […]
Read MoreIt’s Time to Tax Billionaires, New Report Says
There are around 2,500 billionaires in the world right now, with a combined wealth of over £10 trillion. Just a fraction of that money is enough to, say, end global poverty, eradicate malaria and re-freeze the Arctic. Instead, a new report reveals billionaires are operating on the “border of legality” and getting away with paying […]
Read MoreNonunion Workers Are Playing a Big Role in the Autoworkers’ Strike
Tens of thousands of people who work for Toyota in Kentucky, Mercedes-Benz in Alabama or Tesla in Texas are technically not involved in the high-stakes negotiations taking place between labor and management in and around Detroit. But they are very much a presence. Executives at Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, […]
Read MoreHow High Interest Rates Sting Bakers, Farmers and Consumers
Home buyers, entrepreneurs and public officials are confronting a new reality: If they want to hold off on big purchases or investments until borrowing is less expensive, it’s probably going to be a long wait. Governments are paying more to borrow money for new schools and parks. Developers are struggling to find loans to buy […]
Read MoreThe Path to Reducing Pedestrian Deaths Is Steep but Straight
Last year, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association, more than 7,500 pedestrians were killed while walking on U.S. roadways. Between 2010 and 2021, in fact, pedestrian deaths rose 77 percent, from an annual total of 4,302 to 7,624. These increases represent 40-year-highs for pedestrian fatalities. There are no numbers yet, for 2023, but a […]
Read MoreAmerican Household Wealth Jumped in the Pandemic
American families saw the largest jump in their wealth on record between 2019 and 2022, according to Federal Reserve data released on Wednesday, as rising stock indexes, climbing home prices and repeated rounds of government stimulus left people’s finances healthier. Median net worth climbed by 37 percent over those three years after adjusting for inflation, […]
Read MoreThe Debate Over How Dangerous Trump Rages On
These questions were gaining salience even before the 2020 election. As Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, explains in her 2018 book, “Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity”: The election of Trump is the culmination of a process by which the American electorate has become deeply socially divided along partisan lines. As […]
Read MoreLonger Commutes, Shorter Lives: The Costs of Not Investing in America
The stagnation of investment does not stem only from the size of government. It also reflects the priorities of modern government, as set by both Republicans and Democrats. The federal government has grown — but not the parts oriented toward the future and economic growth. Spending has surged on health care, Social Security, antipoverty programs, […]
Read MoreMary Lou Retton Crowdfunded Her Medical Debt, Like Many Thousands of Others
When Mary Lou Retton, the decorated Olympic gymnast, accrued medical debt from a lengthy hospital stay, her family did what countless Americans have done before them: turned to crowdfunding to cover the bills. On Tuesday, Ms. Retton’s daughter started a fund-raising campaign on social media for her mother, who she said was hospitalized with a […]
Read MoreClaudia Goldin’s Nobel-Winning Research Shows ‘Why Women Won’
Claudia Goldin, who won the Nobel Prize in economics on Monday, has documented the journey of American women from, in her words, holding jobs to pursuing careers — working not just to support themselves, but because work is a fundamental aspect of their identity and satisfaction. She has described the changing roles of women in […]
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