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Columns/Opinion

Investing in child care supports all of us

We have a child care crisis in the United States. And as a child care education provider, I know how to fix it: Put families first.The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that each month, tens of thousands of Americans miss work due to a lack of child care, resulting in $122 billion annually in lost productivity, earnings and revenue.Meanwhile, early childhood education and child care workers are among the lowest-paid workers in the country, even as we’re entrusted with our nation’s most valued and vulnerable population.I’m also a veteran of the U.S. Armed Services. I grew up ...

Want to save the bees? First you’ll need to relearn all you thought you ‘knew’ about them

When most people hear “save the bees,” they think of fuzzy honeybees buzzing about the garden. But honeybees, who aren’t native to North America, comprise only a tiny fraction of the bees who live among us. There’s a bustling world of native bees, each with their own unique contributions, characteristics and challenges. June 17 to 23 is National Pollinator Week, a time to deepen our understanding of all these buzzing beauties — and take action to protect them.Of the world’s 20,000 bee species, some 4,000 are native to the U.S. These unsung heroes of pollination play a ...

Applying for a job shouldn’t be humiliating

Everyone has a job-search horror story or knows someone who does. After flying my husband to Chicago for a day-long interview, one company told him the position had been filled the day before — but that they’d interview him anyway to be “nice.”Another relative was retrieved an hour late from a 60-minute computer test in an empty conference room — and flunked because the company couldn’t verify that she finished on time.Other bad experiences are far too common: Job applications elicit zero response; companies ghost applicants after multiple rounds of hours-long ...

Heat waves are deadlier than hurricanes. Let’s make them natural disasters, too

Unlike other natural disasters, extreme heat doesn’t topple buildings, flood streets or turn road signs into missiles. It doesn’t provide a dramatic backdrop for daredevil weather reporters. What it mostly does is kill people, quietly and efficiently. It’s long past time we respect its destructive power, which will only grow as a warming planet makes heat waves more frequent and intense.This discussion is particularly relevant this week, as a “heat blob” that has punished Mexico and the Southwestern U.S. for months creeps into the Midwest, Northeast and Canada, subjecting ...

U.S. exceptionalism is dead no matter who wins the election

A facile way to frame the future of American foreign policy is to set up two scenarios as a binary choice. If former President Donald Trump returns to the White House, the United States becomes isolationist. If President Joe Biden wins reelection, the U.S. remains broadly internationalist.That framing neglects a change that may be less obvious but more consequential for other countries, a shift that will keep playing out no matter who wins in November: For the first time in its two-and-a-half centuries, the U.S. will stop looking at the world through the lens of its own exceptionalism, ...

Accessto new Alzheimer’s treatments bogged down by Medicare

Alzheimer’s is a progressive, fatal disease that boggled scientists for a century.In the past 30 years, $42 billion has been invested in research and development of drugs that could treat it. More than 150 trials ended in failure.Now, at last, we have two treatments with significant clinical benefit — one, lecanemab, approved by the Food and Drug Administration and another, donanemab, recently endorsed by its advisory panel — and a scientific pathway that could one day point the way toward a cure.Unfortunately, it’s not clear how quickly patients and their families will be able ...