A Food Critic Loses Her Sense of Smell

The Trump administration on Tuesday bypassed the traditional system of vaccine guidance and abruptly ended the government’s recommendation that two key groups of Americans receive vaccinations against Covid. Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter at The New York Times, discusses what could be a turning point in public health.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortions in the United States actually went up, in part because of a novel legal strategy that pitted blue states against red states. Pam Belluck, who covers health and science for The Times, discusses that strategy and explains how proceedings against a New York doctor could take it apart.

A session with Terry Real, a marriage and family therapist, can get uncomfortable. He’s known to mirror and amplify the emotions of his clients, sometimes cursing and nearly yelling, often in an attempt to get men in touch with the emotions they’re not used to honoring. Real says men are often pushed to shut off their expression of vulnerability when they’re young as part of the process of becoming a man. That process, he says, can lead to myriad problems in their relationships. He sees it as his job to pull them back into vulnerability and intimacy, reconfiguring their understanding of masculinity in order to build more wholesome and connected families. In this episode, Real explains why vulnerability is so essential to healthy masculinity and why his work with men feels more urgent than ever. He explains why he thinks our current models of masculinity are broken and what it will take to build new ones. This episode was inspired by a New York Times Magazine piece, “How I Learned That the Problem in My Marriage Was Me” by Daniel Oppenheimer. For more Modern Love, search for the show wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Wednesday.

For the past week, an international outcry has been building, particularly in Europe, over Israel’s plans to escalate its military campaign in Gaza and over its two-month-long blockade, which has put Gaza’s population on the brink of starvation. On Wednesday in Washington D.C., two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot and killed by a man who chanted “Free Palestine” afterward. Aaron Boxerman, who covers Israel and Gaza for The Times, explains the desperate situation in Gaza … and Israel’s fears that the world has become an increasingly dangerous place for its people.

Vice President JD Vance met with the new pope a few days ago. He then sat down with The Times to talk about faith, immigration, the law and the partisan temptation to go too far. Ross Douthat, an opinion columnist and the host of the new podcast “Interesting Times,” discusses their conversation.