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Almanac for March 18, 2026

Today is Wednesday, March 18, the 77th day of 2026. There are 288 days left in the year. Today in history: In 1925, nearly 700 people died when the Tri-State Tornado struck southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana; it remains the deadliest single tornado in U.S. history. Also on this date: In 1922, Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years' imprisonment for civil disobedience. (He was released after serving two years.) In 1937, in America's worst school disaster, nearly 300 people — most of them children — were killed in a natural gas ...

Supposedly easier way out of obesity may not be so easy

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about how it’s “taking the easy way out” to use GLP-1s to lose weight. That stands for glucagon-like peptide-1, a drug used for type 2 diabetes that has been shown to also help with obesity. It may be true that this is taking an easier way out. But then ...

Judge blocks slimmed-down vaccine recommendations

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked federal health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child, and said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee. The decision halts an ...

Almanac for March 17, 2026

Today is Tuesday, March 17, the 76th day of 2026. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick's Day. Today in history: In 1992, white South Africans voted 68.7% to 31.3% to end over 40 years of apartheid in a national referendum. (Voters of all races were allowed to vote two years later in the general election that resulted in Nelson Mandela becoming president.) Also on this date: In 1762, New York held its first St. Patrick's Day parade. In 1776, the Revolutionary War Siege of Boston ended as British forces evacuated the city. In 1950, scientists at the ...

Silent attacks on personal freedom

During the first Trump administration, the FBI quietly spent $5 million on Pegasus, an Israeli-developed software product known generically as zero click. Zero click permits the user to download the contents of another mobile or desktop device without tricking the user of that device into ...

Political parties on perilous ground

As Donald Trump's Republicans look askance as he launches what looks to some like another long-term war in the Middle East, and as the anti-Trump Democrats hold up Homeland Security funding in what looks to some like prioritizing illegal immigrants over U.S. citizens, one is tempted to ask, ...