Lori Falce stories, Page 10

Both sides dig in. Both sides are sure they are right. Both sides are sure there is no middle ground — only winners and losers. It is the story of our politics. It happens in halls of Harrisburg and the courthouses of counties and God knows it happens every day...

Since the beginning, civilization has been built on infrastructure — even before there was infrastructure. When we were just nomadic tribes, the framework was about who was hunting and who was gathering, the paths to follow and the water to find. Wheels and fire changed those. The Egyptians might have...

Mother is a complicated word. We think of it most easily as a noun — a female parent, the pie-baking June Cleaver who kisses skinned knees and helps with homework. But there are a million kinds of mothers, making it hard to stick with the stereotype. There are mothers who...

Political speeches are becoming a lot like a slow night at a comedy club. That’s not just because of the awkward pauses when a joke doesn’t land right or the forced laughs when a canned joke is trotted out for the millionth time. Nope, it’s because of the name dropping....

For me, every issue I write about is a crime scene. Every argument is the give and take of prosecution and defense. After 30 years of murders, sexual assaults, theft and fraud, the way I process information is a lot like a courtroom. A crime reporter frames the mechanics of...

It seems like just a couple of weeks since I was writing a column where I said we need to pay more attention to the way diseases and treatments affect the bodies of women. Oh, wait. It was. Now, here we are, with one of the three vaccines meant to...

There isn’t much that can make someone bristle like fact-checking. As it’s part of my 9-to-5 job, it’s not something I like to do in my free time. Still, sometimes it needs to be done. If my mother was about to make a cake with a cup of salt instead...

“At least you have your health.” It’s the phrase that gets used when something goes wrong, reminding you to look for the silver lining in that storm cloud. But what about when the cloud is medical? What do you do when your health is the issue? That is what many...

Filibuster is a ridiculous word. It means “freebooter” or pirate in Dutch. While piracy might not seem like a word that has much to do with lawmaking, filibuster says otherwise. In English, it refers to a special kind of stand taken by one senator in the face of overwhelming opposition....

No one knows every law. Congress makes them. So do state legislatures. They are passed for each county, for each city, for each school district. Making them is a defining aspect of every level of government. And there are just too many to track. That’s why we have as many...

“A Dyson Sphere Could Bring Humans Back from the Dead, Researchers Say.” OK, that might be the most startling headline I have ever read. It popped up on my smartphone. I did a double take and obviously I clicked, curious about how my vacuum is going to create zombies. News...

The doctors stood at the foot of my father-in-law’s bed, explaining to my husband and me what was happening and why. The cardiologist talked about heart rhythms and lost muscle and the crippling heart attack that had brought my father-in-law to the hospital in the first place. It was critical,...

Unpredictable as the weather. It’s a phrase used often, a kind of mild indictment of meteorologists everywhere. It tells us that nothing is really predictable. Just like the clouds and the rain, anything on the horizon can be blown off course by a little wind or melted away by a...

Spend some time on social media and you might think a brand new starlet had taken over the musical world. Her name is on a million hashtags. It’s like everyone under 30 just discovered Britney Spears. Yes, Britney of the red patent leather catsuit or the Lolita plaid skirt and...

When Ash Wednesday next week starts the Lenten season, 40 days of faith and fasting leading toward Easter, you won’t have to be Catholic to be part of it all. The no-meat-on-Fridays ritual will mean that fish-fry fundraisers and restaurant seafood menus will give everyone a little glimpse of what...

I hate needles. Always have. Always will. I have a cartoon-like response to being approached with a syringe. But I’m also an adult and I have learned that, like death and taxes, needles are an unavoidable part of the deal. There are flu shots. My doctor will periodically want a...

Movies have given us a lot of unrealistic expectations. We expect love to conquer all. We expect a last minute judicial Hail Mary to save an unwinnable court case. We expect the underdog to win the big game. Television has convinced us that the most complicated problems can be solved...

Every year, Pantone — a 70-year-old company in New Jersey that has built its business on the matching and mixing of colors — pulls out its crystal ball and makes a prediction for the coming 12 months. The company looks at the trends, analyzes the horizon and announces the Color...

On a fall day in Philadelphia when my mother was 13, she walked out of class and saw people sobbing in the hallway. “What happened?” she asked. It was the day that President John F. Kennedy was shot. School was dismissed. Everyone went home and glued themselves to the television...

I love a dramatic gesture. If you use a pregnant pause to build anticipation, I will eat it up. If you can make an entrance a little more grand, I fully support that. If you want to make turning in your two weeks’ notice a production worthy of Meryl Streep,...

We have it in us to be better. On New Year’s Day, televisions and social media ads will be filled with the same thing. They will offer a hundred different ways to sell self-improvement. Download this app and track your calories. Subscribe to that streaming service and learn a language....

In my mother’s dining room, an antique sideboard carved and joined by my great-grandfather usually groans with the silver and gold she treasures — the frames that show her four kids and six grandchildren, her parents and her sister and the two dark-haired men who got her to say “I...

Tick, tick, tick. The clock is counting down. Down to a line drawn in the sand — the minute that the federal legislators all pack up and leave Washington for their home states. Gotta love Christmas break, right? Except that the same thing happens every year. Something comes down to...

The box sat in the entry of the school like something someone had started to fill and then forgotten. It was big — about the size of a refrigerator but half as tall. Inside, it was scattered with various boxes, bags and cans. There were a few brightly colored rectangles...

I love a puzzle. Give me a stack of crosswords and a pen and I can entertain myself for hours. I am the reason they put those little peg brain-teasers on the table at Cracker Barrel. I have spent more than 30 years turning an unsolved murder over and over...