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Woman weighs treatment against her potential risk of fracture

DEAR DR. ROACH: I’m a very healthy and active 74-year-old woman, and I’m also quite proactive with my health. I get bone scans done every two years and have osteopenia in both my hips and spine. But because of a T12 fracture in 2018, which was followed by a kyphoplasty, I was recently recommended to see a specialist for more extensive blood work and scans. These scans also showed osteopenia, but in my wrists (which were never previously scanned), I have severe osteoporosis. With the severe compression between the T11 and T12 vertebrae, I know I need to do something. The first ...

Autonomous weapons can select targets without human help – now is the time for binding rules

Government experts are meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, to work towards a possible negotiating mandate on autonomous weapons systems (AWS). These are military systems that can select and engage targets without human intervention. This major international gathering follows a recent call by the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for urgent controls on these weapons, sometimes dubbed “killer robots” in descriptions by the media. Recent events in Ukraine have further consolidated concerns that a slide towards weapons with full autonomy (and without ...

Fulton Sheen and me

History yields people whose influence extends far beyond their earthly lives. They become teachers to generations they never met, spiritual companions to people whose names they never knew, and reminders that faith is not merely a set of propositions to be accepted but a way of life to be embraced. For me, one of those extraordinary figures is Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Fulton Sheen possessed a rare gift: He could bring the richness, beauty and intellectual depth of traditional Catholicism into the homes of ordinary Americans. Through his Emmy Award-winning, half-hour weekly ...

Dear Annie: Trauma takes its toll on teacher

Dear Annie: I’ve been a teacher for 19 years. I’ve quit my job and have what I think are panic attacks when I think about going back. Throughout my career as a mandated reporter, I’ve had to call the authorities multiple times, and I’ve always been a shoulder for children who’ve been abused to cry on. I never let it interfere with my attitude. I was always able to move on and not let it get me down. However, this last year broke me. I had two second grade students who changed everything, and those rose-colored glasses I managed to keep on through 18 years of hearing ...

Five tests of American restraint

Five seemingly unrelated developments — the Supreme Court’s intervention in mail-in ballot rules, a federal judge’s decision affecting foreign students and journalists, the blockade threatening Saudi Arabia, an unusual alliance in Michigan politics, and the accelerating power of artificial intelligence — are testing whether American institutions can exercise authority without abandoning restraint. Let’s begin with the Supreme Court’s decision concerning mail-in ballots. The Trump administration asked the justices to permit new Postal Service requirements before the ...