Mariya Manzhos

Somerville

Staff writer @Deseret. Bylines @nytimes, @theatlantic, @washingtonpost, @wpmagazine, @slate, @BostonGlobe. Before: @Gannett, @KyivPost. 🇺🇦➡️🇺🇸

Articles

Meet the Utah mom using TikTok to help kids stand up to bullies

2 weeks ago | deseret.com | Mariya Manzhos

Jaime Hamilton can't keep up with the hundreds of heartbreaking messages she gets every day. "What do you do when someone hits you in the head every day even tho you have told them to stop (7th grade)" "My son was choked by another boy in school/lunchroom and nothing was done by principal." "I lost my 14-year-old son to suicide ( stemmed) from bullying." "They called my daughter a stupid Barbie.
New York's Senate approves assisted suicide, sparking criticism from faith leaders

2 weeks ago | deseret.com | Mariya Manzhos

New York lawmakers on Monday passed a bill that would allow terminally ill adults to end their lives with doctor-prescribed lethal medication. The State Senate approved the measure with a 35-27 vote, following the state Assembly's approval in April. If signed into law by Gov.
The assisted dying movement is gaining momentum. These opponents are pushing back

3 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Mariya Manzhos

What does it mean to die well, with dignity? The question is at the heart of the contentious debate over whether legalizing physician-assisted death for terminally ill patients is an act of compassion, upholding an individual’s dignity, or a troubling step toward devaluing human life.
What it takes to save a university, according to Gordon Gee

4 weeks ago | deseret.com | Mariya Manzhos

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Gordon Gee owns somewhere around 2,000 bow ties. About half are "in retirement," gradually being repurposed into quilts for his granddaughters. A couple dozen or so hang in his office at West Virginia University, where he's served as president for the past 11 years. The designs in his collection range from traditional to whimsical - classic stripes and polka dots to flamingos, Santa Claus heads, hearts and flip-flops.
How tension between the U.S. and China is playing out in higher ed

1 month ago | deseret.com | Mariya Manzhos

Mounting tensions between the U.S. and China have affected trade, military relations and scientific cooperation. The disagreements have also been reverberating on American university campuses. U.S. colleges and universities have been scaling back or restructuring their academic and cultural exchange programs with China, or cutting ties altogether, citing national security concerns and fears over intellectual property risks and academic freedom.
Meet Solly Baby founder Elle Rowley, who sees motherhood as a hero's journey

1 month ago | deseret.com | Mariya Manzhos

In the spring of 2014,Elle Rowley was driving back from the Los Angeles airport when her phone lit up with a flurry of notifications. She had just dropped off a college friend, a photographer who had flown in from New York to take photos of the new spring collection for Solly Baby, the baby carrier company Rowley had startedthree years earlier. Right before that drive to the airport, Rowley - then nine months pregnant with her third child - had launched a new Solly Baby collection on her website.
Schools across the U.S. are banning phones. How far should restrictions go?

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Mariya Manzhos

Faculty at Schoharie Junior/Senior High School in New York knew something had to change when students began texting during a history class presentation by a Holocaust survivor. “This was an opportunity that the students were missing out on to check out what’s on Instagram,” said David Russell, principal of Schoharie, a school for grades six through 12 in upstate New York. “These people weren’t going to be around forever.”The phones weren’t just a distraction.
The call of the 'Godstruck' and what it says about faith today

2 months ago | deseret.com | Mariya Manzhos

In third grade, Kelsey Osgood declared to her classmates that God was "not real." Growing up in the secular suburbs of New York City, she had already internalized the idea that being religious meant being unintelligent. Yet, Osgood, who today describes herself as having been a "precocious" and "obnoxious" atheist, couldn't stop talking about God - or, more accurately, his absence. As she got older, that conviction began to pose some challenges.
Meet Richard Daynard, the 81-year-old law professor who took on sports betting

2 months ago | yahoo.com | Mariya Manzhos

BOSTON — In the 1980s, when Northeastern University law professor Richard Daynard began his crusade against the tobacco industry, few in the legal community gave him much of a chance. Since the 1950s, Big Tobacco had weathered a steady stream of lawsuits, with not a single one succeeding in court. The industry relied on what seemed like an ironclad defense: that smokers willingly assumed the risks and that the science linking cigarettes to disease remained uncertain and contested.
This group of Americans is becoming more religious. It might not be who you think

Mar 29, 2025 | deseret.com | Mariya Manzhos

"It was the most transcendental experience I had ever had in worship," says Nathanael Ginn, a 31-year-old from Indianapolis, recalling the first Eastern Orthodox service he attended at his local Antiochian Orthodox Church in 2017. This moment came during Ginn's spiritual quest. Growing up, Ginn's family bounced between Baptist, evangelical and nondenominational churches. At 16, after losing his uncle to suicide, Ginn experienced a spiritual crisis.