A few Fridays ago, just before what I had come to think of as “showtime,” I lined my eyes, stepped into my costume, readied a prop and adjusted the lighting, which mostly meant fiddling with a bedside lamp. Then I logged into a Zoom meeting. That meeting, an online recital for friends and colleagues, capped…
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With the coronavirus spreading into red America, policymakers there have been forced to change course. Some reopening plans have been scuttled; Republican leaders in Washington have broken ranks with President Trump on response policy; and the president himself eventually declared that Americans should wear protective masks. At the grass-roots level, however, it’s not clear if…
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Lexi Shangraw, a San Francisco resident, flew to Phoenix in early March for what was supposed to be a brief visit. But when lockdowns started, she ended up staying longer than anticipated in hopes of waiting out Covid-19. Last month, she decided it was finally time to return home. Dubious about the safety of big…
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In early July, Bruna Borelli, along with her husband and two other couples, drove a minivan for 12 hours from Sterling Heights, Mich., to New York City for a vacation. Before they left, the friends watched the news carefully, making sure that Michigan hadn’t been added to the long and growing list of states whose…
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By the end of June, when my husband landed in the hospital, its administrators had begun allowing one visitor per patient, much to my relief. At 92, Don had fallen and fractured a hip. He would need an operation and then rehab in a facility that responded to the ongoing coronavirus by extending its ban…
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Growing up in San Diego in the early 2000s, Kelsey Fehlberg proudly displayed her state quarters in a map with inserts for each coin. Then, she said, sometime in middle school, “I started to be too cool for it.” Her collection collected dust in her parents’ closet for 15 years, until she was home for…
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The 5-year-old boy lay in his grandmother’s arms. “My feet, my feet,” he wailed. She smoothed the tangled bangs away from his forehead then reached for her phone. She wasn’t sure what was going on with her grandson, but she had cared for enough children and grandchildren to know that something was really wrong. His…
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Here’s what you need to know: ImageTaking the oath of citizenship at a naturalization ceremony in New York, this month.Credit…Frank Franklin Ii/Associated Press A judge halted a wealth test for green cards during the pandemic. A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with plans to deny green cards for permanent…
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Major Depressive Episodes Far More Common than Previously Believed, New Study Finds The number of adults in the United States who suffer from major depressive episodes at some point in their life is far higher than previously believed, a new study by the Yale School of Public Health finds. National survey data currently shows that…
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Behavioral and nicotine replacement therapies offered together can help people who are incarcerated quit smoking, according to Rutgers researchers. The study published in the American Journal of Men’s Health, found that the combination of group-based tobacco dependence treatment and nicotine replacement therapy was an effective and feasible option to reduce tobacco dependence among men who…
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