Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Moves to Speed Testing as Fight Against Virus Intensifies

Here’s what you need to know: ImagePresident Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times The Trump administration announces steps to speed up testing. The Trump administration moved on Friday to dramatically speed up coronavirus screening, introducing an emergency hotline for private laboratories and new partnerships with companies developing tests that can…

Why Soap Works

It probably began with an accident thousands of years ago. According to one legend, rain washed the fat and ash from frequent animal sacrifices into a nearby river, where they formed a lather with a remarkable ability to clean skin and clothes. Perhaps the inspiration had a vegetal origin in the frothy solutions produced by…

How to Give Bad News

I know bad news is coming my way when my oncologist walks into the exam room with a nurse. It doesn’t matter that he introduces her as a new nurse getting to know the system. In my more than six years of seeing my oncologist for metastatic colon cancer, he has never come in accompanied.…