Clean water in 1842, food safety in 1906, a ban on lead-based paint in 1971. These sweeping public health reforms transformed not just our environment but expectations for what governments can do. Now it’s time to do the same for indoor air quality, according to a group of 39 scientists. In a manifesto of sorts […]

She landed work in a canning and munitions factory outside Rochester, N.Y. But she found the conditions unsafe and unfair and organized some of the workers to strike, unaware of the futility of making demands on the federal government in wartime. She was arrested and charged with instigating a riot. But the booking officer realized […]

First came the walks — and then, seemingly all at once, the wheels. Back at the beginning of the pandemic with interminable lockdowns on the horizon, people broke up the monotony of their homestays with short jaunts on foot around the neighborhood just to get some sunlight and fresh air; or, as the writer Ruby […]

Mint has a great deal to say. This persistent perennial contributes refreshing coolness to food and drink, often with a bittersweet edge and sometimes spiked with notes of pepper. It’s not subtle like some herbs, and makes its presence known in everything from cocktails to candy, regardless of whether the context is savory or sweet. […]

In May 1979, Los Angeles pathologists blamed “massive intravascular sickling” in the death of Jerry Eugene Wright Jr., a 20-year-old Black man whom police officers had mistaken for a drug user. In fact, he had been the victim of a violent robbery; they handcuffed him, put him facedown on the ground and ignored bystanders who […]

Advice from federal health officials that fully vaccinated people could drop their masks in most settings came as a surprise to Americans, from state officials to scientific experts. Even the White House got less than a day’s notice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the press secretary, Jen Psaki, said at a news […]

At Fort Bragg, soldiers who have gotten their coronavirus vaccines can go to a gym where no masks are required, with no limits on who can work out together. Treadmills are on and zipping, unlike those in 13 other gyms where unvaccinated troops can’t use the machines, everyone must mask up and restrictions remain on […]

John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, said people would need to assess their own comfort in different situations, depending on the size of the gathering and the number of cases in the area. “Would I go to a modest dinner party with vaccinated friends?” he said. “Absolutely. But walking into […]

Before the pandemic, he would have said he was a kid who was on track for a scholarship down the road, maybe even at a college like Northwestern, where his father studied briefly before transferring out. When he became obsessed with the musical “Hamilton” in seventh grade, he went ahead and read the Federalist Papers […]

Federal health officials have now confirmed 28 cases, including six in men, of a rare blood clotting disorder in adults who have received the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine. Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, the deputy director of the immunization safety office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, presented the new cases on Wednesday at […]