Jarvis DeBerry

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Jarvis DeBerry

The day before Thanksgiving 1996, 18-year-old Jessie Hoffman, a valet at the New Orleans parking garage where Mary “Molly” Elliott parked for work, kidnapped the recently married 28-year-old ad executive, made her withdraw money from an ATM, raped her, shot her and left her to die at a boat launch in neighboring St. Tammany Parish. Tuesday, in retaliation for the indisputable terror and violence Hoffman inflicted upon Elliott more than 28 years ago, Louisiana plans to suffocate him to death.

1 month ago | msnbc.com | Jarvis DeBerry

John M. Barry’s 2004 book “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History” won the National Academies of Sciences award that year for outstanding book on science or medicine. He later assisted the George W. Bush and the Barack Obama administrations with their pandemic preparedness plans. We spoke for almost an hour on Feb. 18, 2025, at Barry’s office at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine where he is a distinguished scholar.

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Jarvis DeBerry

In July 1970, when he was proposing the creation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, President Richard Nixon wrote to Congress, “We face immediate and compelling needs for better protection of life and property from natural hazards, and for a better understanding of the total environment — an understanding which will enable us more effectively to monitor and predict its actions, and ultimately, perhaps to exercise some degree of control over them.” If you live in hurricane...

1 month ago | msnbc.com | Jarvis DeBerry

In July 1970, when he was proposing the creation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, President Richard Nixon wrote to Congress, “We face immediate and compelling needs for better protection of life and property from natural hazards, and for a better understanding of the total environment — an understanding which will enable us more effectively to monitor and predict its actions, and ultimately, perhaps to exercise some degree of control over them.” If you live in hurricane...

2 months ago | yahoo.com | Jarvis DeBerry

Five years ago this month, a surgery team at Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans removed a kidney from my cousin Aisha and placed it inside me. Before the transplant, a doctor had noted that the surgery a living donor endures is the only one that provides no physical benefit to that patient. Even now, a mixture of gratitude and disbelief still comes over me when I think about Aisha subjecting herself to an operation so I could be well, and I honor her gift by doing everything I can to preserve it.