Opinion

In late 2016, Steven Klein realized that he’d lost control over his drinking and stimulant use. He became sober that December, with help from 12-step meetings. But he also struggled with overeating, which he views as another addiction. Stress from the pandemic caused him to gain more than 40 pounds …

During the pandemic, there was a rise in violent crime. But by 2023, violent crime was near its lowest level in over 50 years. But that year, Gallup found that 77 percent of Americans said they believed that crime was increasing. I hear that in my everyday life. People talk …

If you tramp through the woods of New England and upstate New York, you will see stone walls marking the borders of farms that have been abandoned for a century or two. You may see the foundation of a small house, the entrance to a mine or the crumbling walls …

One day last month I stepped out of my car in Riegelsville, Pa., and onto a sidewalk in front of the town’s post office, where residents come to pick up their mail and often spend a few minutes talking with neighbors. The first person I encountered was a young man …

I watched the ultrasound screen as my OB-GYN counted my follicles, the egg-producing sacs in my ovaries. They looked like the black holes in NASA images. I had more than 30 inside me. The sight unnerved me. My doctor seemed excited. “Those are some juicy-looking ovaries!” she said. Her comment …

OpenAI is now worth as much as Goldman Sachs or AT&T. The artificial intelligence start-up behind ChatGPT has also said it intends to shed its status as a nonprofit to become a for-profit business within two years. Outside experts and OpenAI employees have expressed concern that as a result, the …

There’s hardly a spot of color on the hardwood trees in our yard, but the light is glorious, as it always is in October, and the signs of fall are unmistakable. The pokeweed, in full berry-laden splendor at the end of September, has been reduced to drooping leaves and magenta …

In August, health officials recorded the first case of polio in Gaza in more than 25 years, in an unvaccinated 10-month-old baby whose lower left leg became paralyzed by the virus. Sadness and frustration washed over me when I first heard the news. It is outrageous that polio — which …

Listen to and follow ‘The Opinions’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio Despite concerns over the falling birthrate, especially on the right, the Times Opinion columnist David French recognizes that the push to have more families — and bigger ones — has become problematic. In this …

At the beginning of the Biden presidency, many of us serving in the National Security Council gathered to read the intelligence and reached a key conclusion: The 2020s would be what we called the “decisive decade” in U.S. competition with China. Beijing seeks to displace the United States from its …