Like many young people, Watergate inspired me to become a journalist. But unlike some of my contemporaries, I was lucky enough to find myself reporting on how Watergate affected the Congressional representation in my own hometown, while still a college student. Before I tell this serendipitous tale, I’d like to…

I often think of my best friend Marion, especially when I’m dancing at an outdoors event. I imagine her gazing down at me from one of those high nimbus clouds in the sky, saying, “You go girl!” It was Marion, after all, who taught me how to move and we…

At a barbecue this weekend, the hostess mentioned that she regularly saw Mike Barnicle, the disgraced former columnist from The Boston Globe, on Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough’s daily morning show on MSNBC. This friend had read my memoir, Brassy Broad: How one journalist helped pave the way to #MeToo, in…

I love traveling, in large part because I get to meet people from different cultures and countries and learn more about how the problems we face in the United States are echoed and sometimes amplified around the world. When I was in the Boston area for my son’s graduation from…

In 2021, the CEOs of America’s seven largest health insurance companies cumulatively earned more than $283 million in 2021 — by far the most of any year in the past decade, according to this story in statnews. The CEO of UnitedHealthcare alone earned $142 million, largely from exercising his stock…

When I was 20 years old, I was raped in London at the beginning of my junior year abroad. Lucky for me, the kind custodian of the YWCA where I was staying for a few nights, suggested that I go to a nearby hospital the next morning and ask for…

Okay, so J.D. Vance won the Republican nomination for a Senate seat in Ohio (in a crowded five-candidate field by seven points). Some political pundits are crowing that this is a sign of Donald Trump’s continuing hold over the Republican party. Maybe, or maybe not. One can’t discount the fact…

In the New York Times today, a former top FDA official shines the spotlight on a stunning revelation: that the mega consulting firm McKinsey was working with Purdue Pharma at the very same time it was getting paid by the Food and Drug Administration to help organize its offices overseeing…

Throughout my career, I’ve been drawn to writing about marginalized populations, including people with mental illness, sexual abuse survivors and sex workers. But one marginalized group I have never written about are native Americans. So you can imagine my delight in discovering the National Museum of the American Indian, one…