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The truth about Trump’s birthday bash

Columns

In light of my recent Substack post about Trump’s plans for a Trump rally on the mall to celebrate the start of America’s 250th birthday festivities — designed, in his words, for “patriots” and promising to be “wild” — several of you wanted to know more about how it’s being planned and paid for. This year’s 250th anniversary events, commemorating America’s founders’ refusal to be bound by a tyrant, were supposed to be planned by a nonpartisan, nonprofit group created by Congress in 2016 via a bipartisan congressional caucus of more than 350 members. That ...

Dear Annie: Sister-in-law dishing out insults at dinner

Columns

Dear Annie: My sister-in-law has turned every family gathering into a courtroom, and somehow I am always the defendant. For years, I have hosted holidays, birthdays and Sunday dinners because I genuinely love having family together. I cook, clean, set the table and try to make everyone feel welcome. But my sister-in-law has a habit of correcting me in front of everyone. If the turkey is dry, she announces it. If I forget someone’s favorite side dish, she sighs dramatically. If my children are noisy, she says, “Well, in our house, we had rules.” If I buy a dessert instead of ...

Man feels as if a death sentence hangs over him due to MGUS

Columns

DEAR DR. ROACH: After a routine blood test raised suspicions, my husband was diagnosed with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). At first, we thought this wasn’t a big deal, but further tests indicate that he’s in the “high risk” category, although he doesn’t have symptoms. The hematologist/oncologist has indicated that he has a 50% chance of developing a blood cancer called multiple myeloma in 20 years. My husband is very upset and feels that a death sentence is hanging over him. The oncologist says he has to be monitored every three months. I’ve ...

Have we badly misunderstood the Bible’s relevance for today?

Letters to the editor

Kimball Shinkoskey Woods Cross Experts in the religious world believe the Ten Commandments are a moral code intended to guide the private lives of both Jewish and Christian believers. Have the experts ever been wrong before? Hmm . . . experts for a long time were certain that the earth was flat. Turns out, modern scholars have noted that the commandments exist in the form of an ancient international treaty document. This is a huge signal that the document is a treaty negotiated between two or more separate and independent political entities, like the very proud twelve individual ...

Artificial intelligence: A modern Tower of Babel?

Columns

On May 25, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.” This pastoral letter has been much anticipated by the Catholic Church, and immediate news headlines expressed intrigue that the pope addressed the moral dilemma of AI and compared it to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. He also discussed Nehemiah, the cupbearer to Persian King Artaxerxes I during the 5th century B.C. In a detailed breakdown of the pope’s central points in “Magnifica Humanitas,” Our Sunday Visitor ...

Figuring out the cause and cure for a case of restless legs

Columns

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am an active senior and have started to feel symptoms of restless legs syndrome (RLS). I’m wondering how and why this started. In the evenings, I use an athletic foam roller, drink water, and take magnesium supplements. I’d like to hear how to remedy this so that I can get some much-needed sleep. — J.L. ANSWER: We don’t understand exactly why people get RLS. One common finding is low iron stores, so you should have this tested by your regular doctor. If your iron is low, it should be supplemented, but your doctor should also find out the cause of why it’s ...