Music: Júlio Resende — ‘Vira Mais Cinco (Para o Zeca)’
The terrible costs of a phone-based childhood
Jonathan Haidt writes: Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent. The problem was not limited to the U.S.: Similar patterns emerged around the same…
How does U.S. intelligence disagree with Israel on Gaza?
In its annual report, the US intelligence community says Hamas cannot be destroyed. The group’s elimination is a core aim of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s merciless onslaught in Gaza. So why is the US continuing to arm Israel, to fight a war it doesn’t believe can be won?
Trump takes control of the RNC with mass layoffs, restructuring
The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump took charge of the Republican National Committee this week with the political equivalent of shock and awe — leaving dozens out of work, revamping strategic priorities and raising fears among some former officials about the party’s future support for down-ballot candidates. The senior leadership has been almost entirely replaced or reassigned, while dozens of lower-ranking officials including state directors were either fired or told to reapply for their jobs. A nationwide network…
‘Make the RNC white again’: GOP ends minority outreach program
The Daily Beast reports: After years of accusations of financial mismanagement, the Republican National Committee is overhauling its 2024 election operations—a full-on MAGA makeover that the RNC claims will curb excessive spending and steer as much money as possible to supporting Donald Trump’s campaign. But it appears that one of those strategic spending moves may have a profound effect on a successful minority outreach program, which two people with knowledge of the plans characterized as self-defeating, potentially erasing gains with…
The West is still oblivious to Russia’s information war
Ian Garner writes: A few weeks ago, a Russian autocrat addressed millions of Western citizens in a propaganda event that would have been unthinkable a generation ago—yet is so normal today as to be almost unremarkable. Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin has now been viewed more than 120 million times on YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter. Despite the tedium of Putin’s two-hour-long lecture about an imaginary Russian and Ukrainian history, the streaming and promotion of…
How China became the world’s leader on renewable energy
Isabel Hilton writes: Last November, Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry shook hands on a pledge to triple renewable energy globally by 2030. It was hailed as a welcome revival of climate cooperation between the world’s biggest and second-biggest emitters of greenhouse gases and offered hope that the two veteran climate negotiators had found a way through a blizzard of negative diplomatic exchanges to keep alive the prospects for greater global ambition on tackling climate…
Salty foods are making people sick − in part by poisoning their microbiomes
Salt has taken over many diets worldwide – some more than others. ATU Images/The Image Bank via Getty Images By Christopher Damman, University of Washington People have been using salt since the dawn of civilization to process, preserve and enhance foods. In ancient Rome, salt was so central to commerce that soldiers were paid their “salarium,” or salaries, in salt, for instance. Salt’s value was in part as a food preservative, keeping unwanted microbes at bay while allowing desired ones…
Music: Daniel García Trio — ‘Spring of Life’
EU chief accuses Israel of using ‘starvation as a war arm’ in Gaza
The Times of Israel reports: The European Union’s foreign policy chief accuses Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war and of blocking overland routes that are the best way to get food to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing famine in the Gaza Strip. Josep Borrell tells the UN Security Council that humanitarian assistance must get into Gaza where there is no natural disaster, flood or earthquake. “This is a man-made crisis,” Borrell says. “And when we look…
In Israel’s war on children, more have been killed in four months than have died in four years of conflict around the world
Staggering. The number of children reported killed in just over 4 months in #Gaza is higher than the number of children killed in 4 years of wars around the world combined. This war is a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and their future.#ceasefireNow for the… pic.twitter.com/tYwSNHecpy — Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) March 12, 2024
Climate change matters to more and more people – and could be a deciding factor in the 2024 election
Young people demonstrate ahead of a climate summit in New York in September 2023. Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images By Matt Burgess, University of Colorado Boulder If you ask American voters what their top issues are, most will point to kitchen-table issues like the economy, inflation, crime, health care or education. Fewer than 5% of respondents in 2023 and 2024 Gallup surveys said that climate change was the most important problem facing the country. Despite this, research that I conducted…
Special prosecutor Hur admits telling Biden he seemed to have ‘photographic recall’
HuffPost reports: Although special counsel Robert Hur impugned Joe Biden’s memory in his investigation over whether the president mishandled classified documents, he actually told Biden that he appeared “to have a photographic understanding and recall.” The comment, which appears in transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden, did not make it into Hur’s final report. Hur concluded in the report that Biden should not be charged over the documents, but made sure to mention his doubts about the president’s memory. But…
New data explodes myth of crime wave fueled by migrants
Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria write: Republican politicians and sympathetic media outlets are claiming that America is in the midst of a violent “crime wave,” driven in part by undocumented immigrants. New data, however, demonstrates that there was not a spike in violent crime in 2023. Instead, across America, rates of violent crime are dropping precipitously — and the decline is especially pronounced in border states. In January 2024, the Republican National Committee claimed that “crime continues at historic highs…
Startling study finds Americans struggle to differentiate facts from political opinions
PsyPost reports: In the digital era, navigating the relentless surge of political information has become a daily challenge for Americans. Yet, a recent study spearheaded by scholars from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign reveals a concerning trend: many Americans find it difficult to differentiate between statements of fact and statements of opinion. This struggle poses significant implications for civic discourse and the ability to sift through political information effectively. The findings have been published by the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation…
Stone tools that are 1.4 million years old mark the migration of ancient humans in Europe
Discover magazine reports: Researchers have spent years grappling with the uncertain details of archaic humans’ first entry into Europe, but stone tools created about 1.4 million years ago may offer important insight. The tools were discovered at the Korolevo archaeological site near Ukraine’s border with Romania, and have now considered the oldest known artifacts in Europe made by ancient humans. A team of archaeologists recently dated the tools and published their findings in Nature, delivering progress on critical questions about…