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Patient who underwent surgery for femur walks with a bad limp

DEAR DR ROACH: I’m an 80-year-old female who sustained a right femur fracture in February. I had surgery within 24 hours of the incident. Surgery went well, and I was discharged two days later. Recovery at home has also gone well. I’m using a walker and a cane for mobility assistance. The hospital referred a home-based physical and occupational therapy company that set up a twice-a-week program at my home. So far, I’m doing well at 14 weeks, just not quite back to my usual activities. When I try walking around my house without the walker or cane, I have a very distinct limp, and ...

The bottom 1% we rarely talk about

America spends an extraordinary amount of time debating the top 1% — the billionaires, corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers — and the widening gap between the rich and everyone else. It is an important conversation in a nation that prizes both opportunity and free enterprise. But there is another 1% we talk about far too little. Not the poor. Not the single mother working two jobs. Not the veteran struggling to find his footing. Not the family living paycheck to paycheck. Poverty is not a moral failing, and millions of Americans with modest means are among our country’s ...

Republicans control Congress, so why is Trump’s SAVE America Act stuck?

President Donald Trump’s obsession with unfounded claims of election fraud has defined his second term in office. But in recent months his fixation has moved from executive nominee litmus tests and executive orders reinforcing proof of citizenship to vote into legislation – dragging Congress into the fray. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE America Act, featured heavily in Trump’s primetime speech on July 16, 2026. It’s become the focus of the administration in recent months, eclipsing prior legislative efforts by proposing stringent and widespread ...

Dear Annie: The burden of always being available

Dear Annie: My younger sister has always been the “fun one” in our family. She breezes in late with a bottle of wine and a funny story, and somehow everyone forgives her before she has even taken off her coat. She forgets birthdays, cancels plans at the last minute and borrows money she never seems to pay back. My parents still smile and say, “That’s just how she is.” I, on the other hand, have become the family’s unpaid manager. I am the one who takes my mother to her doctor’s appointments, makes sure my father’s prescriptions are filled, hosts Thanksgiving and ...

Word recall difficulty causes concern in 70-year-old female

DEAR DR. ROACH: I’m a healthy 70-year-old female who still works full-time and plays tennis regularly. I’m 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weigh 140 pounds. My concern is my memory, especially my speech. English is my second language, but I’ve been in the United States for over 40 years. Words often disappear from me when I need them and come back later when the subject is closed. When I shared my concern with my friend, I was told that nicotine patches are helpful for memory loss, even though I’m no longer a smoker. I quit smoking 15 years ago after decades of smoking. What’s ...

Paving paradise: Dismantling the US Roadless Rule threatens to disrupt wildlife, water and peace in the last quiet places in America

Pause for a moment and listen. What do you hear? Chances are, somewhere in the background, is the ever-present hum of a road. More than 4.2 million miles of public roads crisscross the lower 48 states — enough to reach the Moon and back almost nine times. This vast network of roads spiderwebs its way across the contiguous U.S., leaving only about 5% as an inventoried roadless area or wilderness. Now, some of those last remaining lands free of roads are under threat from the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of the 2001 Roadless Rule. That includes southeast Alaska’s ...