<p>New York Daily News</p>

<p>But what if uncertainty and crisis are the norm? New York Daily News This past week, President Joe Biden and the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury issued new rules meant to ensure that insurance coverage for mental health conditions and substance abuse disorder has parity with the level of services available for physical health. The provisions will be phased in between now and 2026, forcing insurers to stop arbitrarily denying coverage for these conditions in a way that they would be barred from doing for, say, a medically-required surgery. This is something that all Americans should be able to cheer for, as it will benefit everyone in some form or another. There have certainly been moments when everyone has seemed in agreement about a crisis of a lack of mental health care accessibility, but unfortunately, these moments often come when some group needs to distract from some other policy failure. If and when gun rights absolutists want to wave off the idea that the widespread availability of deadly military-grade firearms might have had something to do with the latest mass killing, they’ll point to a breakdown in mental health service delivery as the real culprit. When NIMBYs and others standing in the way of progress on housing construction are asked to answer for the fact that their positions are ballooning the homeless population, they’ll often retort that the real issue is mental health, preventing people from staying in their homes and holding down jobs and whatnot. These issues are all interrelated and certainly mental health has an impact on all of them, but it is crucial to talk about and act on mental health on its own terms, not just as some corollary issue to others. Our leaders have long understood this, which is why the health parity law is itself already more than a decade and a half old, and its foundation has been set by incremental policy shifts for decades before. These new rules are really about ensuring the proper implementation of what’s already on the books, for everyone’s sake. Perhaps you don’t have or don’t think you’ll require any mental health needs, but like physical health, the status of being healthy is never guaranteed. You never know when there might be a need for treatment, and many of us will likely require some mental health care at some point in our lives, particularly as we age, and especially given research showing that the younger generations are starting off from a worse baseline level. Throw in the impact of a global pandemic, which will have lasting physiological and psychological impact — including through the continuing scourge of long COVID — and there’s plenty of reason to get more serious about ensuring appropriate coverage. We also know that the ravages of substance abuse are getting more acute, as larger and larger numbers of people die from overdoses and are otherwise sucked in by the potency and availability of powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl, not to mention the proliferation of legal opioids that large pharmaceutical companies are only now beginning to take responsibility for. Fortunately, we’ve moved to the point where most policymakers understand that we cannot police ourselves out of this crisis and need a public health approach. That only works if there are public dollars and expansive enough private coverage.</p>

<p>The Federal Trade Commission lawsuit to block the Kroger-Albertsons supermarket merger went to trial this week, and the stakes are large for consumers. Chair Lina Khan is again contorting antitrust law and — get this — Kamala Harris is cheering this government bid to raise food prices.</p>

<p>The United States of America needs more housing — lots of it. The lack of supply in cities and suburbs in particular is the main force driving up the cost of living for millions, and keeping young people on the outside looking in, their faces pressed against the double-pane glass.</p>

<p>Given the time constraints, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris conducted a cautious and orderly process as she vetted her various options for vice president. It was pretty clear by Monday that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was going to get her nod over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, but we were impressed that what is now known as the Harris-Walz campaign avoided leaks. It was a skilled rollout of a man who is well liked by the Democratic Party’s attentive progressive base but who is little known to most Americans.</p>

<p>The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday during a campaign rally was a shocking moment for America, though thankfully he wasn’t seriously wounded.</p>

<p>Solar and wind farms aren’t going away anytime soon. Although green energy is the wave of the future not only in the U.S. but in the world, it has raised the ire of homeowners and some politicians.</p>

<p>In ruling that Donald Trump and other former presidents enjoy immunity from prosecution for “official acts,” the Supreme Court on Monday gave shockingly short shrift to the principle that no one is above the law. It did so, moreover, in a ruling that divided Republican and Democratic appointees at a time when the court must contend with complaints that its members are politicians in robes.</p>

<p>In a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines this past Friday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority decided that congressional intent be damned in siding with a plaintiff who had sued against the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ determination that bump stocks basically turned legal firearms into prohibited machine guns.</p>