This week the Pentagon acknowledged that the coronavirus pandemic — which President Donald Trump has correctly called a plague — has affected U.S. military operations. The disease has definitely reduced the combat effectiveness of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. The virus threatens the lives of the warship’s skilled personnel. Given the training […]

This is for every American of Asian heritage, but one in particular. That would be Andrew Yang, the former Democratic candidate for president. Last week, with surely the best intentions, he gave Asian Americans the absolute worst advice imaginable. Indeed, advice so bad as to be painful. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Yang […]

Hospitals struggling to treat waves of very sick people now face a new threat: millions of uninsured Americans pounding at their gates. How can the hospitals afford to treat them, even if they have the beds? The obvious response was for President Donald Trump to open early enrollment in the federal Affordable Care Act marketplace. […]

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.” (Proverbs 17:22 NLT) Everywhere you look — from newspaper headlines, to TV “alerts,” to those too-long White House briefings, to people wearing masks in public places, there is hardly any news that isn’t negative. Stories of people not getting the coronavirus, […]

Al Green was famously “tired of being alone.” Me, I’m great at it. As an introvert, I can happily spend hours in my own company, behind my own walls. So I figured this period of quarantine would be much easier for me than for many of you. And I was mostly right. Until Wednesday. Wednesday, […]

Gov. Janet Mills has instructed Mainers to stay home, but what about those without a home, or those at risk of losing it? That is the hole in Gov. Mills’ strategy to protect the people of this state from COVID-19. While we have been ordered to stay home, the banks and landlords have not been […]

I confess to a certain self-interest in today’s column. The media, especially newspapers, are in trouble. Conservatives like myself have been relentless in attacking their collective bias over the years, but as more of them fold or reduce staff, it is crucial the institution be saved. Margaret Sullivan, a columnist for The Washington Post, has […]

On Jan. 20, the United States confirmed its first case of the coronavirus. The nation’s political and media elite obsessed over Mitch McConnell’s just-announced resolution governing the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. On Jan. 23, China locked down the city of Wuhan. Cable news in America lit up with praise for the epic, nay historic, […]

“Politics abhors a vacuum,” said the late John McCain, as have others. The coronavirus menace shows the truth of it. President Donald Trump’s floundering response created a void into which New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was sucked. New York City is itself a stage, and Cuomo now commandeers the spotlight. His daily news conferences detailing […]

My editor groaned when I told her the subject of this column. In a moment, you’ll be groaning, too. Last week in this space, I opined upon “the quiet death of an Italian priest.” Giuseppe Berardelli was 72 and died of the novel coronavirus. This happened, I reported, after he gave away his respirator, which […]