One of the first things that viewers would have noticed when Ross Douthat and Ben Sasse sat down to record an episode of his “Interesting Times” podcast in Austin, Texas, was Sasse’s face. It had dried blood on it, which is a side effect of daraxonrasib, the medication his oncologists at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston have prescribed to treat Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He claimed that his skin feels “nuclear.” Nevertheless, he arrived. In the first minute, he made a joke. The combination of Ben Sasse’s blood, humor, and willingness to simply sit there and be seen…
Author: Michael Martinez
The lawsuit contains a detail that is difficult to refute. An emergency room physician was called to assist with Conor Hylton’s intubation when his condition collapsed in the early hours of August 15, 2024, when his eyes rolled back, and his body started to seize in a hospital bed in Milford, Connecticut. Despite working in the same building, the doctor was unable to locate the intensive care unit. He had to pause and get directions from a nurse. It took about ten minutes to complete that detour. At the age of 26, Conor Hylton was running out of time. As…
When Annabelle Gurwitch was eighteen, she heard a Samuel Beckett play in a theater and thought it was kind of funny. She keeps thinking about this line. “I am unable to continue. I’ll continue. At that moment, she laughed. When she went to urgent care in November 2020 for a COVID-19 test and left with a Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis, she wasn’t laughing. At that moment, she remembered the Beckett line, and the gap between those two sentences felt like a chasm she truly didn’t know how to cross. Gurwitch doesn’t act like she knows what to do, which…
His hometown was East Providence, Rhode Island, a bustling waterfront town founded by Portuguese, Irish, and Cape Verdean immigrants seeking factory jobs and a place to settle in the United States. One of twelve kids. When Davey was still a toddler, his father passed away. Mary Rose, his mother, was a domestic worker. When he was old enough to comprehend his neighborhood, he gave a straightforward description of it: rats, roaches, and drugs that were as ubiquitous as candy. Davey Lopes found the exit door through sport and kept it open for 45 years in a row while playing professional…
A certain type of public figure exists just outside the spotlight; they are not well-known enough to be followed everywhere, but they are noticeable enough that people pay attention when they speak candidly about a challenging topic. With a poise that feels earned rather than forced, Emily MacDonagh Andre occupies that space. In addition to being a best-selling children’s author, mother of three, and practicing NHS physician, she is also, almost coincidentally, Peter Andre’s wife. In headlines, that final section usually appears first. Most likely, it shouldn’t. Over the past few weeks, Emily, 36, has shared two important health revelations…
A disease linked to wartime prison camps and medieval famines appears in the same county as Beverly Hills and Malibu, which is incredibly unsettling. And yet, here we are. With 220 confirmed cases in 2025 alone, up from 187 the previous year, Los Angeles County is currently reporting the highest number of flea-borne typhus cases in its history. Almost nine out of ten patients end up in the hospital. This is a hard reality to accept for a city that tends to project an image of sunshine, wealth, and outdoor wellness culture. Flea-borne typhus is not a recent illness. For…
Some football players are talented. Some football players are successful. And then, on rare occasions, there are football players whose lives have significance outside of the game itself—something more difficult to quantify but unavoidable. Joe Thompson was that type of person, and the peculiar, agonizing, and subtly remarkable trajectory of his life begs the question of how one person can bear so much and yet repeatedly decide to return to the light. Growing up in Bath, Thompson enrolled in Manchester United’s renowned academy at the age of nine. Eventually, he found his football home at Rochdale AFC, a club that…
Tessa Sanderson recently talked about a moment on Good Morning Britain that really resonated with me because of its subtle honesty rather than its drama. She claimed that when she saw others wearing hearing aids, she would firmly tell herself, “That won’t be me.” In the hopes that no one would notice, she would pretend to read lips, follow conversations, and smile at the appropriate times while sitting in rooms. A small piece of plastic worn behind the ear embarrassed a woman who had stood by herself in front of the entire world in an Olympic stadium, javelin in hand.…