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The hantavirus cruise: a ship of fools

On April 1, 114 guests and 61 crew members, unaware of the presence of a killer virus among them, boarded the MV Hondius. That ship has earned the moniker "Ship of Fools." Because of the top brass's reckless disregard of infection control principles, the ship's passengers and thousands of ...

What regrets and remote controls have in common

If you have ever regretted saying something and wished you could take the words back, you are not alone. It is tough knowing how to respond during an emotionally charged conflict. You may be able to change future conflicts, but it will take some exercise. No need to get out your bike or get on ...

Family planning in an age of anxiety

"Why so few babies?" asked a New York Times essay that sounded oddly familiar to me. In my college days, it seemed that everybody was talking about "The Population Bomb," the 1968 best-seller in which Stanford biologist Paul R.Ehrlich predicted worldwide famines and other dire consequences allegedly facing our baby boom generation. The Times essay, by contributing opinion writer Anna Louie Sussman, is drawn from her forthcoming book "Inconceivable: The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty." In contrast to Ehrlich, whose predictions fortunately did not play out quite as ...

Virginia Democrats reveal a radical design

Virginia Democrats are doing an unwitting service to the whole country -- by revealing just how hostile their party is to the most essential checks and balances. Democrats violated the state's constitution by pushing through a referendum to take four congressional seats away from Republicans. But when Virginia's supreme court threw out the illegal map, Democrats didn't back down: They started thinking of ways to get rid of every justice on the court, so they could pack it with new ones expressly picked to return a verdict more favorable to the party. If the Democrat-controlled ...

No matter how many props nurses get, they deserve a little more

My son came home from school the other day and announced that the two most underappreciated occupations were teachers and nurses. During National Nurses Week, he had heard that, he told me, from his teacher. And though her bias might have tinged the first part of her claim (frankly, I think one of the most underappreciated occupations has to be "person who cleans the bathrooms at O'Hare Airport"), it certainly got me thinking about the nurses I've known. Immediately, I remembered the nurses at the NICU when my own two preemies were boarded there, unflappable in the face of my ...

Our savings matter, but This bipartisan push misses the mark

President Donald Trump and Congress want to help you increase your savings. And you should. At the household level, saving is the foundation of financial security and the seed capital for a better retirement. At the economy-wide level, savings fund investment that expands the capital stock, ...