A Letter From Paris, Where the New Normal Is Less Grouchy Than You’d Expect

Through Three Lockdowns, Parisians Have Read, Biked, and Even Behaved Like Tourists in Their Own Town

What is the new normal here in Paris? The answer is one that’s less grouchy than you might expect. Mais ça commence à bien faire—it’s getting a little much.

We’re more than a year out from #TheMoment, March 17, when the first lockdown in France began. At that crossroads where countries made different political decisions, France chose to put health first.

Now, as we settle into a third lockdown, to encounter someone without a mask in the street is startling. Every few streets or so, outside every pharmacy, there are little collapsible …

How France’s Panthéon Started Living Up to the Nation’s Ideals

Resistance Heroine Simone Veil Was Laid to Rest This Summer Alongside Voltaire and Rousseau—the Fifth Woman So Honored

When architectural critics gaze at the Panthéon in the Latin Quarter of Paris, one thought often comes to mind: Rarely have so many blocks of stone been heaped so high …

We’ll Always Have (the) Paris (Accord)

Economic Necessity Gives Hope That the Global Climate Agreement Will Endure

The United States is out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Trump administration says we will burn coal and fossil fuels if we like, and no one …

Obsessing About Terrorism Is Bad for Your Mental Health

Constant Media-Induced Anxiety Can Inflict Psychological Harm

My patient, Anna, is an African-American woman in her 60s living alone in Los Angeles. She has a progressive arthritis and she walks slowly with the aid of a …

Why Americans Care More About Paris Than Other Terrorist Targets

Race and Ethnicity Are Factors, But the Primary Reason Is the Way Empathy Works

A terrorist attack on a familiar city can inspire a response among global observers not unlike that of motorists passing by a horrible car accident. We slow down to look, …