The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently estimated that the U.S. unemployment rate might exceed 30% in the next few months. If this happens, it won't be the inevitable consequence of the coronavirus pandemic and the associated public health response. It will be the fault of elected officials for failing to pursue a solution that's right in...Read more

Two words, above all others, stuck with me after I spoke by phone with Brian Gleason from his temporary home office in Malvern, Pa., recently.

"Catastrophic" and "bankruptcy."

Gleason was referring to what seems like an inevitable looming reality for Main Street store proprietors, restaurants, and other small-retail-sector businesses whose ...Read more

The president's daily Coronavirus Task Force presentations have morphed into a beast that bears no resemblance to the informative crisis briefings they were originally intended to be. Once managed by a composed and eloquent Vice President Mike Pence, they are now the vehicle for the uninterrupted rambling and factually suspect musings of ...Read more

I will give abortion foes this: When it comes to finding new and creative ways of forcing women to give birth to unwanted babies, they are devilishly clever.

In the past few weeks, these relentless crusaders have unleashed a new war on a procedure that is safe, legal and time sensitive.

Their casus belli? Coronavirus, of course.

Never let a ...Read more

To slow the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world are entreating or even ordering residents to stay home as much as possible and keep a safe distance from one another. And to make sure the message gets through, they're keeping a much closer eye than usual on where people go and what they do, often (as in China and Singapore) by ...Read more

Scientific research suggests that prayer has the power to calm the mind, increase resistance to temptation and make people happier.

One thing prayer can't do, however, is stop the coronavirus. So far, two members of one Sacramento church have died from COVID-19. Four other members of the church are infected. It's important to note that these ...Read more

Are you a small business owner or employee scared stiff about the COVID-19 pandemic putting you out of work? Or a small nonprofit or sole proprietorship? Good news -- the calvary rides in today! Well, some of them. Maybe.

Amidst one of the biggest surges ever in U.S. unemployment, banks were scheduled to launch a new federally guaranteed low-...Read more

If you were to get the new coronavirus, would you, should you, let it be widely known?

Or to put it another way: Would you want to keep it secret?

As more of us contract the wildly contagious disease officially known as COVID-19, this thorny question presses in. You may not know anyone yet who has it. I don't. Or, more likely, I probably do, ...Read more

It's not only factories that can't retool overnight to meet the COVID-19 pandemic. Our brains can't, either. The way we think and the things we think about follow patterns that are capable of evolution and change -- just not that fast.

You can see this phenomenon all around you right now: whatever we cared about before, we're now using as our ...Read more

We all have to adjust to what life throws at us -- a bit of bad luck, a surprising twist in an important relationship, a new boss at work, maybe a health problem that demands a change of lifestyle. All of us face the unexpected at some point, and all but the stubborn and clueless find a way to adjust.

But not like this. Not all at one time.

It...Read more

Among the other disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been the closing of houses of worship and the cancellation of religious gatherings. The arrival of what could be called spiritual distancing was powerfully symbolized last week by images of Pope Francis offering a blessing to an empty St. Peter's Square. Christians around the world ...Read more

The COVID-19 crisis threatens to undo years of educational efforts to help disadvantaged students catch up to their more affluent classmates. The same old problems -- lack of internet access or computers for doing homework, parents who have limited financial or educational resources to help their children with school -- are exacerbated now that ...Read more

The Department of Justice sent out a memo last week with this arresting detail: Prosecutors around the country should consider coronavirus as a "biological agent," and therefore charge certain acts related to COVID-19 as federal crimes of terrorism.

As a former U.S. prosecutor, I have no quarrel with the department's being able to "make a ...Read more

The TV news screen was wall-to-wall with Cuomos Monday night. CNN anchor Chris was in the left box, where he belonged, because this was his "Cuomo Prime Time" show. New York Gov. Andrew was in the guest's box on the right. The Cuomo brothers were busy giving each other the business, New York Italian style. Which is to say, Cuomo style.

And my ...Read more

Of course, scammers are trying to take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic, but common sense is a powerful tool to avoid getting ripped off. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

A Tuesday story in Business Insider warned about people getting social media requests from official-sounding senders to provide personal ...Read more

An unprecedented effort by the federal government to shield Americans from the worst economic blows of the global pandemic was hailed as a bipartisan triumph when it passed Congress nearly unanimously. That's why it's all the more disappointing that one of the few safeguards built into the $2.2 trillion rescue bill -- oversight of a $500 billion...Read more

I've got some words for the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri and the eight other states that have yet to adopt statewide stay-at-home orders to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. And they're not nice words.

What the #@& are you waiting for?

As I was writing this, the confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the globe topped 1 ...Read more