�����鶹��Ʒ

The Trump administration is proposing to shorten ObamaCare’s annual open enrollment period by a month, a move the administration said is aimed at helping consumers pick the right plan. According to a proposed rule released Monday, open enrollment would run from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15, instead of through Jan. 15. (Weixel, 3/10)

�����鶹��ƷHealth News: Trump Health Care Proposal Billed As Consumer Protection But Adds Enrollment Hoops
The Trump administration issued its first major set of proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act on Monday that federal officials said are intended to crack down on fraud in the program. Policy experts said they will make it harder for consumers to sign up for coverage, potentially reducing enrollment. Details were released Monday after a draft press release was inadvertently posted earlier. (Appleby, 3/10)

More on the cost of health care —

�����鶹��ƷHealth News: Thought Inflation Was Bad? Health Insurance Premiums Are Rising Even Faster
Kirk Vartan pays more than $2,000 a month for a high-deductible health insurance plan from Blue Shield on Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace. He could have selected a cheaper plan from a different provider, but he wanted one that includes his wife’s doctor. “It’s for the two of us, and we’re not sick,” said Vartan, general manager at A Slice of New York pizza shops in the Bay Area cities of San Jose and Sunnyvale. “It’s ridiculous.” (Reese, 3/11)

Women in the U.S. continue to pay significantly higher out-of-pocket healthcare costs than men, with a new report from GoodRx showing an $8.8 billion gap in prescription spending in 2024. Here are four takeaways: Women consistently spend 30% more out of pocket on prescriptions than men, totaling $8.5 billion more in 2024 alone. The disparity is driven by higher healthcare utilization, chronic condition management and the costs of female-specific treatments, according to the healthcare technology company's report. (Murphy, 3/10)

Two federal committees tasked with advising policymakers on food safety have been disbanded as part of the administration’s cost-cutting and government-shrinking goals, according to advocates and one committee member. The elimination of the panels, whose members included experts from academia, industry and nonprofits, has raised alarms among some food-safety advocates, who point to large-scale outbreaks in recent years as a reason for needing even more attention and modern science around the issue. (Heil, 3/10)

The Agriculture Department has axed two programs that gave schools and food banks money to buy food from local farms and ranchers, halting more than $1 billion in federal spending. Roughly $660 million that schools and child care facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program in 2025 has been canceled, according to the School Nutrition Association. (Brown, 3/10)

Around 300 groups representing the food and agriculture sectors urged the Trump administration to use “sound, quality science” when seeking to improve the health of American citizens. In a letter to department heads including US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the organizations that represent soybeans to maple syrup said they were eager to share “significant concerns regarding unfounded criticisms levied against the safety of the food and agricultural value chain.” (Chipman, 3/11)

Cargill Inc. said the US food industry can’t fully replace seed oils as there aren’t enough alternatives in the market. The world’s largest commodities trader said the best substitutes for things like soybean and canola oil make up just a fraction of the total volumes needed by the industry. Science supports the health benefits of oilseeds, said Florian Schattenmann, Cargill’s chief technology officer. (Hirtzer, 3/10)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old U.S. Agency for International Development, cutting 83% of them, and said he would move the remaining aid programs under the State Department. Hours later, a federal judge said President Donald Trump had overstepped his authority in shutting down most foreign assistance, saying the administration could no longer simply sit on the billions of dollars that Congress had provided for foreign aid. (Knickmeyer, 3/11)

A US judge ordered the Trump administration to undo some of its cuts to billions of dollars in foreign assistance programs through the US Agency for International Development, the latest turn in a legal fight that’s likely to end up at the US Supreme Court. In a ruling Monday, US District Judge Amir Ali in Washington issued a mixed ruling on a an effort by a group of nonprofits to block the spending cuts. The ruling requires USAID to follow through on payments obligations under contracts with groups that provide food and other essential services to people across the globe. (Larson, 3/10)

Elon Musk pushed debunked theories about Social Security on Monday while describing federal benefit programs as rife with fraud, suggesting they will be a primary target in his crusade to reduce government spending. The billionaire entrepreneur, who is advising President Donald Trump, suggested that $500 billion to $700 billion in waste needed to be cut. “Most of the federal spending is entitlements,” Musk told the Fox Business Network. “That’s the big one to eliminate.” (Megerian, 3/10)

�����鶹��ƷHealth News: Under Trump, Social Security Resumes What It Once Called 'Clawback Cruelty'
A year ago, a new head of Social Security set out to stop the agency from financially devastating many of the people it was meant to help. Overpayment OutrageSocial Security has been overpaying billions of dollars to people, many on disability — then demanding the money back, even if the government made mistakes, an investigation by �����鶹��ƷHealth News and Cox Media Group revealed. The reporting has triggered harsh criticism in Congress and led to an investigation by the agency. (Hilzenrath and Fleischer, 3/11)

�����鶹��ƷHealth News: Nursing Homes And The AMA, Once Medicaid Defenders, Hang Back As GOP Mulls Big Cuts
When congressional Republicans in 2017 pushed to repeal the Affordable Care Act and slash Medicaid, dozens of physician groups, patient advocates, hospitals, and others rallied to defend the law and the safety-net program. Eight years later, two industry groups have been notably restrained as GOP lawmakers consider sweeping new Medicaid cuts: the American Medical Association and the American Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes. (Levey, 3/11)

On veterans' health care —

For years, his morning routine was as therapeutic as the job he loved: Wake up at 4:30. Run or lift weights by 5 a.m. Then head to the veterans mental health facility where he works in California to help veterans who are struggling after leaving the military — just as he once had. But these days, he says he sleeps through his alarm and wakes up already exhausted, with a pulsing dread in his stomach. The first thing he does is check his email: Does his staff still all have jobs? Does he still have a job? Does his team still exist? (Kehrt, 3/7)

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against two veterans who argued that their disability claims were unfairly denied because they did not receive favorable decisions when the evidence presented in their cases was equal. In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims is not required to review the Department of Veterans Affairs' application of the "benefit-of-the-doubt" rule in most decisions. The standard requires the VA to approve veterans' claims when the supporting evidence, either for or against approval, is close. (Kime, 3/10)

Also —

The thoughts come quickly for Bianca Panelosa – make toilet paper and napkins from old rags, dilute juice and milk for cereal, ask the kids to eat less. The single mother of three, with a fourth on the way, waits in the cold predawn hours outside a food fair in north Houston, brainstorming ways to make ends meet so she can feed her children. “I’m just trying to work it out,” says Panelosa. “I’m still thinking.” Panelosa remembers how she beat the odds before: surviving domestic violence and escaping homelessness after a divorce – which forced her to move back in with her parents. This time, it’s tariff wars and rising prices at a time when she can’t work. (Flores and Harlan, 3/11)

In a sweeping interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, outlined a strategy for containing the measles outbreak in West Texas that strayed far from mainstream science, relying heavily on fringe theories about prevention and treatments. He issued a muffled call for vaccinations in the affected community, but said the choice was a personal one. He suggested that measles vaccine injuries were more common than known, contrary to extensive research. (Rosenbluth, 3/10)

The National Institutes of Health will cancel or cut back dozens of grants for research on why some people are reluctant to be vaccinated and how to increase acceptance of vaccines, according to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post on Monday. The email, titled “required terminations — 3/10/25,” shows that on Monday morning, the agency “received a new list … of awards that need to be terminated, today. It has been determined they do not align with NIH funding priorities related to vaccine hesitancy and/or uptake.” (Johnson and Achenbach, 3/10)

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to purge conflicts of interest from the government agencies he's now in charge of, alleging close ties between employees and the pharmaceutical industry. In his confirmation hearings for the role, he took aim at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee that plays a key role in setting policies around vaccine schedules and access, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. (Huang, 3/11)

More on the measles outbreaks —

The building where hundreds of families are lining up for measles care amid a fast-growing outbreak in West Texas looks more like an abandoned car dealership than a doctor’s office. There’s no signage, nothing saying “Open” or indicating office hours. But nearly every day, dozens of pickup trucks from all over Gaines County fill the parking lot, squeezing into any available space. (Edwards and Zadrozny, 3/10)

It will likely be weeks before public health agencies know the full extent of measles exposure in Virginia and Maryland following the discovery of an infected person living in Howard County, officials said. (Gluck, 3/10)

In other news about HHS Chief Robert Kennedy Jr. —

Three senators are calling on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to disclose what he and President Donald Trump discussed with drugmakers during closed-door conversations. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden and Bernie Sanders sent a letter dated March 10 to Kennedy, who is a longtime critic of the pharmaceutical industry. They accused him of attending “unofficial, million-dollar dinners” with industry executives at Mar-a-Lago. (Muller and Garde, 3/10)

The Federal Trade Commission under President Trump is making its first move to challenge private equity in health care, by suing to block the $627 million acquisition of a maker of specialized coatings for catheters and other medical devices. It's the first such FTC action around M&A since Trump was sworn in and could signal continued regulatory scrutiny as private equity buys more health care firms. (Bettelheim, 3/10)

More health industry developments —

All three people aboard a medical helicopter were killed when it crashed into a densely wooded area outside Jackson, Miss., on Monday while returning from transporting a patient, hospital officials said. Two of the people were crew members who worked for the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the other was a pilot, Dr. LouAnn Woodward, the center’s top administrator, said during a news conference. The helicopter was not carrying any patients at the time of the accident, she added. (Vigdor, 3/10)

The three-bed Homer G. Phillips Memorial Hospital in north St. Louis could soon lose its license for good. The troubled facility closed in December when the state found it didn’t have enough blood on hand. Hospital officials at the time said the closure was temporary but in late February sent many employees emails saying their jobs at the hospital had been eliminated. (Fentem, 3/11)

Mass General Brigham is laying off a second round of employees this week, as part of a restructuring plan announced in February. The organization said last month it would cut management and administrative positions to reduce redundancies and create more efficiency, in response to a projected $250 million budget shortfall in the next couple of years. Local media outlets report the cuts will affect about 1,500 employees, or just under 2% of the workforce, though the system has not confirmed numbers. ( Hudson, 3/10)

For James Edwards, a 57-year-old patient with congestive heart failure, recovering at home from shortness of breath rather than in a hospital setting was a welcome option. Nurses come to check on him twice a day and monitoring equipment would notify the hospital about any change in vitals. The house calls are part of a mobile medical program that's growing nationally, with Medicare, Medicaid and some private insurance carriers offering coverage for the service. (Strassmann, 3/10)

Clinicians’ increased burdens are making it harder for valid concerns voiced by patients, their families and their caretakers to be acknowledged, raising the risk of missed diagnoses and exacerbated health disparities, the ECRI warned in a new report. An annual ranking of the top 10 patient safety concerns, released Monday by the healthcare quality and safety group and its Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) affiliate, places dismissed concerns above other issues like insufficient artificial intelligence governance and medical misinformation. (Muoio, 3/10)

Also —

Lincare, a giant respiratory-device supplier with a long history of fraud settlements and complaints about dismal service, is facing its latest legal challenge: a lawsuit that claims its failures caused the death of a 27-year-old man with Down syndrome. The case, set to go to trial in state court in St. Louis on March 17, centers on the 2020 death of LeQuon Marquis Vernor, who suffered from severe obstructive sleep apnea and relied on a Lincare-supplied BiPAP machine to help him breathe while sleeping. The lawsuit, filed by his mother, accuses Lincare of negligence after the company took seven days to respond to her report that the device had stopped working. (Elkind, 3/10)

Elizabeth Fusco’s relatives had their usual family dinner in New Jersey in early 2020. Soon, her mother, three siblings and aunt were all dead. (Tully, 3/10)

Looking back at the past five years —

Five years ago Tuesday, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic involving a dangerous new virus—and across the planet, life as we knew it ground to a shuddering halt. Today, COVID continues to kill more people than influenza—although the flu has hospitalized more people in the U.S. this winter. And SARS-CoV-2 still triggers localized waves of infection several times a year, wastewater testing reveals. More than seven million people worldwide have died of COVID, though this is likely a gross underestimate. And the virus continues to kill thousands of people every month. (Lewis, 3/5)

Here’s an incomplete collection of charts that capture that break — across the economy, health care, education, work, family life and more. (Bhatia and Cabreros, 3/9)

COVID-19 put public health officials on the front lines against a once-in-a-lifetime threat. It's left them with less power and resources to respond to future emergencies. Instead of strengthening America's public health infrastructure, the pandemic experience spawned hundreds of new laws in at least 24 states limiting public health orders or otherwise undercutting emergency responses. (Reed, 3/10)

The 2020s have inarguably been Covid-19’s decade. Since the coronavirus outbreak was acknowledged as a pandemic exactly five years ago, the pandemic has killed well over 1 million Americans, derailed the global economy, and sparked political upheaval that continues today. It also yielded what many hail as the greatest scientific accomplishment in human history: the development of effective vaccines in under a year. Yet in dominating the early 2020s, Covid-19 also distracted from what is arguably a more significant public health emergency. Even at the height of the pandemic, more young Americans died of drug overdose than Covid. (Facher, 3/11)

Sweden, Taiwan, Uruguay, Iceland and a few others never enacted a lockdown that involved severe restrictions on the movement of people, such as legally binding stay-at-home orders applied across large swathes of the population. Those countries instead chose other measures, such as restrictions on large gatherings of people, extensive testing and quarantining infected people or travel restrictions. Five years later, the scientific studies and data have piled up, offering a detailed, long-term assessment of whether these countries were right to reject this most drastic of public health interventions. (Baraniuk, 3/5)

What we now know about covid —

Five years on, scientists are starting to understand how the virus can lead to long-term, sometimes invisible changes. (Blum, Agrawal and Callahan, 3/10)

It's easy to forget how helpless clinicians around the world felt 5 years ago, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. They were either bracing for or treating a flood of new patients coming to the hospital — and they had not a single clinical trial to guide treatment decisions. There was, of course, no shortage of opinions on what to do, said Roy Gulick, MD, MPH, an infectious diseases physician at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, who was on the frontlines of the outbreak at the time. (Fiore, 3/10)

Looking ahead —

Five years after Covid-19 shut down activities all over the world, medical historians sometimes struggle to place the pandemic in context. What, they are asking, should this ongoing viral threat be compared with? Is Covid like the 1918 flu, terrifying when it was raging but soon relegated to the status of a long-ago nightmare? (Kolata, 3/11)

Five years ago, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Whether it still is depends on who you ask. There are no clear criteria to mark the end of a pandemic, and the virus that causes the disease — SARS-CoV-2 — continues evolving and infecting people worldwide. “Whether the pandemic ended or not is an intellectual debate,” says clinical epidemiologist and long COVID researcher Ziyad Al-Aly of Washington University in St. Louis. “For the family that lost a loved one a week ago in the ICU, that threat is real. That pain is real. That loss is real.” (Prillaman, 3/10)

The patient wasn’t initially worried when she first caught COVID-19. Fully vaccinated and relatively healthy at the age of 41, Johanna Claudette of the Irving Park neighborhood thought the positive test in February 2022 wouldn’t be a big deal. But within days, her memory became spotty. Her heart raced and she became fatigued. Today, she said, she’s still grappling with blurry vision, chest pain and brain fog — all symptoms of the chronic condition called long COVID, which can linger for months or even years after an initial infection and which has afflicted millions worldwide. (Lourgos, 3/9)

The federal government program that provides free at-home Covid-19 tests says it is “not currently accepting orders,” according to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response website. It’s not clear whether the program has shut down permanently. (Christensen, 3/10)

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up a Christian therapist’s challenge to a state law barring “conversion therapy” that attempts to change a young person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Kaley Chiles, who practices in Colorado, says the state law banning such treatment is unconstitutional and has forced her to deny counseling to potential clients who share her faith, in violation of her religious beliefs. (Marimow, 3/10)

More on gender-affirming care and DEI —

The Health and Human Services Department is investigating four medical schools and hospitals on allegations of discrimination in their medical education, training or scholarship programs. The agency said Friday it received complaints the four HHS-backed institutions, which were not identified, allegedly chose participants based on race, sex, color or national origin, violating an executive order President Donald Trump signed Jan. 21, his second day in office. (DeSilva, 3/10)

Employees at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, received internal guidance last week to flag manuscripts, presentations or other communications for scrutiny if they addressed “controversial, high profile, or sensitive” topics. Among the 23 hot-button issues, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica: vaccines, fluoride, peanut allergies, autism. While it’s not uncommon for the cancer institute to outline a couple of administration priorities, the scope and scale of the list is unprecedented and highly unusual, said six employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. (Waldman and Song, 3/10)

For many Americans, planning a doctor’s appointment comes with logistical headaches: taking a day off from work; scheduling months in advance; dealing with insurance coverage and related costs. For Emory Hufbauer, it also involves a seven-hour cross-country flight. Hufbauer is intersex, meaning they were born with sex characteristics that don’t fit neatly into the binary of male or female. As an infant, they were subjected to procedures that assigned them a sex. They have long struggled to find health care needed as a result of these procedures in their state of Kentucky, where they advocate to bring that care and help others navigate it. (Rodriguez and Sosin, 3/10)

Panic buttons, security cameras and active-shooter drills: Those are some of the ways doctors who treat transgender children have armed themselves when facing violent threats over the years. Now doctors say threats of violence are rising — along with fears of legal action — in the wake of Trump’s Jan. 28 executive order that labeled gender transition care for minors a “dangerous trend” and “a stain on our Nation’s history.” Dozens of providers gave sworn affidavits as part of a lawsuit four states filed challenging the legality of Trump’s executive order. (Parks, 3/9)

Last Friday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins stated on X that a $600,000 grant to Southern University in Louisiana was being revoked for studying "menstrual cycles in transgender men," in the latest mischaracterization of a grant that was then canceled by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency team, known as DOGE. ... The grant was actually intended for research on the potential health risks posed by synthetic feminine hygiene products and for developing alternatives using natural fibers and fabrics, according to the project's documentation, which was publicly filed on the USDA website. (Ruetenik, 3/10)

Three additional companies are now vying to run Key West’s only hospital. The Lower Keys Medical Center is operated by Community Health Systems, a Tennessee-based company. But the lease on the hospital is set to expire in 2029. The district board overseeing health infrastructure in the Lower Keys is working to prepare for that. (3/10)

The LFKHD is a special taxing district the Legislature created in 1967 to fund and maintain hospital provisions for residents between Key West and the Seven Mile Bridge. That includes a lease to Key West HMA, a Tennessee-based limited liability company that operates the Lower Keys Medical Center acute care hospital; and the Key West Health and Rehabilitation Center nursing home. (Scheckner, 3/10)

More health news from across the U.S. —

At least 30,000 New Yorkers have switched out of Medicaid’s consumer-directed personal assistance program — or CDPAP — as the deadline approaches for participants to transition to a new system run by financial services company Public Partnerships LLC, POLITICO reports. The data, which is shared by Medicaid managed long-term care plans with the state Department of Health, indicates that more than 10 percent of CDPAP recipients decided in the past two months to switch to personal care services rather than remain in the program. (Carballo, 3/10)

The state legislature is considering whether to roll back Colorado’s first-in-the-nation transparency requirements for sperm donors and banks aimed at helping families and donor-conceived children be more informed about their genetic lineage. (Paul, 3/10)

The vast majority of births in Maine — roughly 97 percent — occur in hospitals. But like the rest of the country, the number of home births has risen in the state in recent years, jumping 41 percent between 2018 and 2023, from 228 to 321. Nationwide, the percentage of home births in the United States reached 1.26 percent of all births in 2020, a 22 percent increase from 2019 and the highest level since at least 1990, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Hedegard and Cough, 3/9)

For the last year, members of Texas’ maternal mortality review committee have been increasingly vocal about the ways state law limits their ability to analyze maternal deaths and near-misses. Now, it’s time to see whether legislators will heed these calls for change. (Klibanoff, 3/11)

The Department of Adult Correction is constitutionally required to provide medical, mental and dental health care to the roughly 31,000 people in North Carolina’s 53 prisons. However, providing this health care comes with a growing price tag, a fiscal analyst told state lawmakers March 4 during a presentation to the Joint Appropriations Committee on Justice and Public Safety. (Crumpler, 3/11)

Researchers have corrected a disease-causing gene mutation with a single infusion carrying a treatment that precisely targeted the errant gene. This was the first time a mutated gene has been restored to normal. The small study of nine patients announced Monday by the company Beam Therapeutics of Cambridge, Mass., involved fixing a spelling error involving the four base sequences — G, A, C and T — in DNA. (Kolata, 3/10)

In other health and wellness news —

In 2014, engineering professor Chad Bouton got a lesson on the importance of touch. Bouton, an engineer at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research on Long Island, had developed a brain-computer interface that allowed a man living with paralysis to control one hand. (Hamilton, 3/10)

The surge of online weight-loss drug providers is unexpectedly fueling demand for a much older, once-stigmatized treatment: hormone replacement therapy. Facing a dearth of providers for treating menopause symptoms including weight gain, women are looking for answers online and increasingly finding all-in-one hubs run by top telemedicine companies. (Reed, 3/11)

For decades, scientists have been on the hunt for an antiaging drug. Now, some say we may have already found it. A fast-growing body of research signals potential health benefits of GLP-1s, the class of diabetes and weight-loss drugs known by names like Ozempic, beyond what they were initially approved to treat. That includes age-related conditions like Alzheimer’s, osteoarthritis, certain cancers and even mortality. (Janin, 3/10)

�����鶹��ƷHealth News: Your Neighbor Has Backyard Chickens. Should You Be Worried?
The latest outbreak of bird flu has upended egg, poultry, and dairy operations, sickened dozens of farmworkers, and killed at least one person in the U.S. Traditional methods to curb H5N1 have so far failed. While the virus isn’t known to be spreading between people, each new infection is a chance for it to evolve. That could set the stage for another pandemic. Scientists worry the United States isn’t doing enough to track and curb the virus. (Maxmen, 3/10)

Like most doctors, I always felt a calling to care for people. Quitting early wasn’t my plan, but our broken health system left no other option. December 2024 marked the close of my 27-year, solo, OB-GYN practice, leaving 2,500 Ohio women looking for a new doctor. My only available choice was to retire. (Lisa Bohman Egbert, 3/11)

To some pundits and politicians, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recklessly approves medications that harm patients while padding the pockets of shareholders. For example, the new Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has tried to get proven vaccines pulled from the market, casts dispersions on “pills and the potions and the powders” plaguing the health care system and thinks there’s some serious corruption between Big Pharma and the FDA. However, fresh evidence from the HHS’ watchdog shows the problem is not a pushover FDA. If anything, the problem is a risk-averse agency too eager to say “no.” (Ross Marchand, 3/10)

In her debut memoir, ‘Firstborn,’ Lauren Christensen must make a choice: continue with a pregnancy that could put her life at risk, or leave the state to terminate. “FULMINANT HYDROPS,” the doctor said to me on the morning of January 25, 2023, in the maternal-fetal medicine department of Duke University Hospital. (Lauren Christensen, 3/10)

As our nation starts a debate about how to make America healthier, we need to make sure we aren’t impairing access to healthier beverage choices. A bill moving through the Maryland General Assembly would do just that by taxing any drinks with caloric or non-caloric sweeteners. (Seth Goldman, 3/9)

President Trump was elected in part on a promise to make America healthy again. But over the past two months, the new administration’s actions have made it clear that public health is no longer a priority. The situation may become even worse because of the escalating trade war the U.S. is waging on Mexico, Canada, and China. (Vishal Khetpal, 3/10)

The murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson horrified me. I did not know him. I thought first about his wife and young sons and the shock and grief they — and his colleagues — must feel. I then realized that they must now live in fear for their lives. I was also not at all surprised by those who saw this differently. (Elliott S. Fisher, 12/5)