Human behavior during COVID-19 has upended one of the most fundamental assumptions of economics, even if economists haven’t yet come around to admitting it. In sum: People are worse at big, important decisions than previously thought, and better at small, trivial ones.

As one of the most memorable school years in history winds down, state and local school leaders are considering how to make the most of the $190 billion federal dollars in COVID-19 relief flowing to our nation’s public schools.

Did we ever tell you about the unidentified flying object discovered outside Baltimore? In 1949, a farm in Glen Burnie was briefly swarming with state troopers and military investigators checking out reports of a flying saucer. And, indeed, they found what were later described as “prototypes” of aircraft in a rundown barn — experiments in manned flight pieced together by an eccentric designer.

Businesses are scrambling to fill job vacancies as the country continues to reopen from the coronavirus pandemic, but the reality is that there simply are not enough people looking for work. The state of Pennsylvania, like others, made the right move to pull back on the relaxed standards for unemployment benefits and to reinstate the requirement that those collecting benefits must be actively looking for work.

Herd immunity from the COVID-19 virus is the place we want to be. The quickest and most efficient way of getting there is widespread vaccination.

Last week, the Washington Supreme Court tried to figure out who counts as a journalist in the digital age. It concluded that just having a camera and a YouTube channel isn’t enough, at least not under state law.

More than 450,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses in less than a decade. Though the synthetic and powerful opioid fentanyl now is the leading cause of opioid overdose deaths, the epidemic had its roots in prescription opioid addiction.

The seafood industry is at crossroads in America. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the seafood supply chain distribution, causing severe financial setbacks to suppliers and distributors. And while many businesses are starting to rebound, the U.S. seafood industry remains at a significant disadvantage: It relies almost solely on international imports. In fact, 90% of seafood that Americans consume is imported, creating a trade deficit of over $17 billion annually. The U.S. is missing an opportunity to create a competitive seafood industry with new jobs and a boost to the economy at a time when it’s needed most.

If you want an idea of just how dysfunctional Congress is today, take a look at its record on wildfire prevention.

We don’t yet know where the virus that causes COVID-19, the disease that’s killed nearly 600,000 Americans and 3.5 million globally, came from. SARS-CoV-2 may well have crossed over from a wild animal in an unsanitary wet market in or around Wuhan, China. Or it may have emerged from a lab in that city of 11 million where scientists were studying bat coronaviruses.

The first warm days of spring in Michigan are always so exciting to celebrate. It is reminder that Memorial Day weekend is on the way as well as the kickoff for summer.

The Biden administration proposes increasing taxes on high-income individuals and businesses. In light of enormous government debt, one could be forgiven for seeing it as a step toward fiscal responsibility. However, it’s not.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has taken a firm stance when it comes to the so-called “ghost guns” made from do-it-yourself kits or 3D printers — they should be subject to the same regulations as other guns, including background checks on buyers and the requirement of a serial number. It’s a commonsense position that the Biden administration supports in a proposal now under review that should be enacted into law.

The mood in the U.S. feels hopeful, but for tens of millions of others across the world the darkest days of the pandemic are just beginning. As the head of the Baltimore-based international humanitarian organization Catholic Relief Services (CRS) — and a man who recently lost family in India to the coronavirus — I can attest to the COVID-19 tsunami unfurling elsewhere.

Two of the biggest problems we face today — a shortage of decent, affordable housing and climate change — are connected. Fortunately, the solutions are connected as well. That’s why we must not only “build back better” in the wake of pandemic and recession, but build back greener.

The Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the country’s history, a day when democracy was threatened by its citizens. We cannot erase the events of that day, but we must do everything possible to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Ocean conservation was once a goal for Democrats and Republicans alike. In Congress, they collaborated to ensure that U.S. fisheries would be sustainably managed, to protect imperiled marine creatures by banning the use of driftnets and shark finning, and to set aside large areas of the ocean for special protection. While he was president, George H.W. Bush designated six National Marine Sanctuaries, more than during any previous administration, and President Bill Clinton convened America’s first National Oceans Conference. President George W. Bush used the Antiquities Act to establish what was then the largest marine protected area in the world, Papahanaumokuakea, in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. And President Barack Obama quadrupled the extent of protected U.S. waters.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who has made herself the face of Republican lunacy, was roundly flayed over the weekend for a TV appearance in which she equated a mask mandate on the House floor to the Holocaust.

The United States and the European Union have responded with immediate and appropriate outrage to the apparent hijacking of a plane by the authoritarian government of Belarus so that a dissident, activist journalist on board could be arrested. What’s particularly welcome is that the tough words have been accompanied by actions.

An innovative lottery program in Ohio looks like it might have succeeded in raising vaccination rates. If the result holds, it means a triumph for behavioral economics. And that will open up the possibility of using lotteries to lure people into doing all sorts of things.