The Last Children of Down SyndromePrenatal testing is changing who gets born and who doesn’t, Sarah Zhang wrote in the December issue. This is just the beginning.“The Last Children of Down Syndrome” was well written, thought-provoking, and emotional. I did not have prenatal testing, and at the age of 29 I gave birth to a son with Down syndrome. It was a shock, to say the least.
If there was one idea shared by just about every author of the Constitution, it was the one articulated by James Madison at the convention on June 26, 1787.The mass of the people would be susceptible to “fickleness and passion,” he warned. They would suffer from “want of information as to their true interest.” Those who must “labour under all the hardships of life” would “secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings.
As COVID-19 case numbers drop, hospitalizations decrease, vaccine administrations increase, and blockbuster season approaches, Americans who think big movies deserve a big screen are wondering when they can dare return to theaters. The closest deadline for many is the March 31 release date of Godzilla vs. Kong: If you’re going to watch a skyscraper-sized monkey punch a battleship-length lizard, you probably want to do so on a screen the height of a McMansion.
Parenting advice on menstruation talks, mean girls, and older parents.
Health care workers are organizing online networks to promote Covid shots, strategically aiming to drown out vaccine opponents active on those sites.
It turns out the pandemic may not have been the budget wrecker everyone feared.
Downtowns won’t recover from the pandemic anytime soon. Public transportation must look elsewhere.
The Congressional Budget Office’s scoring of the proposed wage hike looks bad—because it was designed to be.
What happens if a pandemic-era trend sticks around?
A century before GameStop, a stock market outsider took on short sellers. It was a spectacle and a disaster.
Doing so could alleviate limits on the final step of vaccine production.
The 200 million doses just purchased will be available by May, rather than June as originally predicted.
Democrats long complained the rules were illegal and aimed at shrinking health coverage for poor adults.
Gov. Gavin Newsom last month abruptly announced the state would play a bigger role in California’s vaccination drive.
In 1955, a junior United States senator named John F. Kennedy published Profiles in Courage, a collection of short essays about eight of his predecessors who had risked their careers for their ideals over the previous 150 years.In one single day in 2021, that many senators showed courage worth enduring historical honor. Seven were Republicans: Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Pat Toomey.
Vaccine shortages frustrate countries around the world. The lines for vaccines are illogical. But residents of wealthy nations will likely get access to doses in the coming months. It may be much longer for the rest of the world—and, as epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves explains on the podcast Social Distance, that affects us all and should prompt dramatic action.
Two new books flesh out the history of smut, from Etsy-like handicrafts to the sexy swamp of Tumblr.
My brother wants me to talk to her. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.
These hearts, I do not like them.
Parenting advice on financial strife, helicopter parents, and stubborn friends.
The U.S. wants to stop new coal projects, but risks losing poor countries to Beijing’s “Belt and Road” agenda.
Investors are pumping up bubbles across markets, with excitement growing about more stimulus and widespread vaccinations.
As the critical swing vote in a 50-50 Senate, Joe Manchin has emerged as the most powerful man in Washington.
The decision breaks with the Trump administration’s opposition to Okonjo-Iweala and brings the U.S. in line with much of the rest of the world.
Amid a global rise in domestic violence during the pandemic, we speak with the founder of V-Day, a day of action to fight violence against women. V, the award-winning playwright of “The Vagina Monologues,” formerly known as Eve Ensler, says organizers around the globe are finding ways to fight back.
Legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader says the U.S. is experiencing a “corporate crime wave,” and that the Trump administration’s $2.5 billion settlement with Boeing over the manufacturer’s faulty 737 MAX jets amounts to a “slap on the wrist.” Boeing’s faulty planes were involved in two fatal crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019, including Nader’s 24-year-old grandniece Samya Stumo.
As the historic Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump continues, we speak with longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who says Democrats have set themselves up for defeat by rushing proceedings and failing to call witnesses — including Trump himself. “The narrow approach of the articles of impeachment keep the Democrats from having a full hand,” says Nader.
Democratic House impeachment managers have wrapped up their case against Donald Trump, saying the former president remains a threat and should be convicted of inciting the deadly January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The trial now moves ahead to Trump’s legal team presenting their defense.
She “married goofy Eric Trump,” one Twitter critic noted. ‘Nuff said.
Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.