Author: Reporter

Yoo Young Yi’s grandmother gave birth to six children. Her mother birthed two. Yoo does not want any. “My husband and I like babies so much … but there are things that we’d have to sacrifice if we raised kids,” said Yoo, a 30-year-old Seoul financial company employee. “So it’s become a matter of choice between two things, and we’ve agreed to focus more on ourselves.” There are many like Yoo in South Korea who have chosen either not to have children or not to marry. Other advanced countries have similar trends, but South Korea’s demographic crisis is much...

NASA’s Orion capsule made a blisteringly fast return from the moon December 11, parachuting into the Pacific off Mexico to conclude a test flight that should clear the way for astronauts on the next lunar flyby. The incoming capsule hit the atmosphere at Mach 32, or 32 times the speed of sound, and endured reentry temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit before splashing down west of Baja California near Guadalupe Island. A Navy ship quickly moved in to recover the spacecraft and its silent occupants — three test dummies rigged with vibration sensors and radiation monitors. NASA hailed the descent...

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin was on the Senate floor, but her mind was on the other side of the Capitol. The House was voting that July afternoon on Democratic legislation to protect same-sex and interracial marriages in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to an abortion. And it was suddenly winning more Republican votes than Baldwin, or anyone else, had expected. Baldwin, who became the first openly gay senator when she was elected a decade ago, said she was “overjoyed” as she saw the votes coming in. She excitedly walked over to Ohio...

Police are searching for the shooter who killed a U.S. Postal Service employee as he was delivering mail in Wisconsin. The shooting happened just before 6:00 p.m. on December 9 on the city’s north side. The Milwaukee Police Department said the 44-year-old mail carrier was pronounced dead at the scene. He had worked for the Postal Service for 18 years. Police said the Postal Service and the FBI are assisting in the investigation. Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson called the crime “alarming,” in a statement released in the eventing on December 9. “The shooting death of a Milwaukee postal worker...

Mental health advocates say there is a cruel quirk in abortion bans in several states: There are exemptions for life-threatening emergencies, but psychiatric crises do not count. It makes no sense to an Arizona mother of three who became suicidal during her fourth pregnancy and says an abortion saved her life. Or to researcher Kara Zivin, who nearly died from a suicide attempt in pregnancy and whose work suggests these crises are not uncommon. Zivin had a healthy baby, but she sympathizes with women facing mental health emergencies who believe their only option is to end a pregnancy. “People...