Andrew Van Dam, Department of Data columnist - The Washington Post
Stephan:
This is yet another, and very surprising, to me at least, negative trend going on in the United States. We are getting shorter and fatter, less healthy, and with shorter lives, and a declining democracy compared to people in other nations. I don’t know how much clearer one could get that the United States is on the wrong track. Our only social priority is cultivating greed and doing anything for profit. It has resulted in a wealth inequality that affects every aspect of American culture Read this very well researched and written report, and ask yourself: What can I do to change what is happening in my country?
You already know we’re getting heavier. Rising obesity rates are as American as apple pie — a cliché that seems freshly relevant in this context. But did you know we’re also getting shorter?
We didn’t! At least, not until we tried to use the National Health Interview Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to figure out which professions boast the tallest workers.
We split the rankings by gender, so our analysis didn’t simply lead us to the most male-dominated jobs, such as mechanics and engineers. Among women, the tallest are public officials — a category that includes top executives as well as legislators — and a broad category that includes writers, artists, entertainers and athletes. Among men, the tallest are, again, public officials, who share that distinction with sales representatives.
This made us wonder: Heights are self-reported in this survey, and the tallest professions are known for their spin skills. So, could the great American height slump somehow be fueled by Americans growing more honest about their stature?
Well, no. We saw similar results in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a separate, […]
I think we are headed for a major crisis if the Supreme Court overturns Colorado Supreme Court. And it will get even more dramatic if another state chooses to take criminal Trump off the primary ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court is already at the lowest level of respect it has had, as this Pew Research Center research shows us, an this was from last July. It is even lower now I suspect, and we are about to learn whether the “originalists” are sincere or it is just another scam. We are getting to a point where either a majority of Americans demands respect for democracy, or Trump is re-elected and we become an autocracy.
Following a series of high-profile rulings addressing such issues as affirmative action, LGBTQ rights and student loans, the share of Americans with a favorable opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to its lowest point in public opinion surveys dating to 1987.
Fewer than half of Americans (44%) now express a favorable opinion of the court, while a narrow majority (54%) have an unfavorable view, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The court’s favorable rating has declined 26 percentage points since 2020. The current survey marks the first time in our polling dating to 1987 that the public’s views of the Supreme Court are significantly more negative than positive.
How Democrats and Republicans see the Supreme Court
Just 24% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents view the Supreme Court favorably, down 7 percentage points since April and the lowest favorable rating for the court in either party in more than 30 years.
As recently as 2021 – before the court’s decision last year to overturn the federal right to abortion, as well as […]
I told you this was coming, and here it is. I think this is where EV charging is heading. The gas station network model was almost mandatory for internal combustion engines, but not suited for EVs. How ironic that it is starting in Florida.
A new roadway in Central Florida will charge EVs as they drive. Credit: Getty
Electric vehicle owners have been notified of new road plans that promise to act as a charging station as cars drive on them.
In Florida, between Lake and Orange Counties, EV enthusiasts are excited about what has been dubbed a “tremendous evolution.”
The Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) confirmed the approval of an expressway development between the counties that would link Highway 27 and State Road 429 on Thursday, per NBC affiliate WESH.
CFX’s governing board unanimously approved the first phase of the toll road’s construction, which will be called State Road 516.
The authority’s Manager of Community Engagement, Brian Hutchings, told the outlet that the conception came out of data that showed only a few roads connected the counties, which are among the fastest growing areas in the state.
“They’re two of the fastest-growing regions in the entire state of Florida,” Hutchings emphasized of Lake and Orange County.
The first phase of the roadway is expected to cost about $218 million.
Roishetta Ozane and Bill McKibben, Contributing Writers - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan:
We are about to see how serious Biden is about climate change. It is a clear case of it’s not what he says, it is what he does.
‘The CP2 terminal in Cameron parish, Louisiana, will be associated over its lifetime with 20 times more greenhouse gases than the Willow Project.’ Credit: Leah Millis / Reuters
More than 200 nations pledged last week in Dubai that they would be “transitioning away from from fossil fuels”. Some cheered and some scoffed; we’ll soon know if the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas – the United States – meant what it signed, or if it was just more (literal) hot air.
That’s because the US Department of Energy (DoE) must decide whether to stop rubber-stamping the single biggest fossil-fuel expansion on earth, the buildout of natural gas exports from the Gulf of Mexico. So far they have granted every export license anyone has requested, and as a result the US has become the biggest gas exporter on planet earth. If they keep it up, the veteran energy analyst Jeremy Symons says that before long US liquefied natural gas exports will produce more greenhouse gases than everything that happens on the continent of Europe.
Dan Whateley, Senior Media Reporter - Business Insider
Stephan:
Newspapers are dying all over the country, which means that local coverage good and bad, is largely just disappearing. Instead it is being replaced with social media, and particularly TikTok, and that is where GenZers are getting what passes for news. The fact is that Americans are appallingly ignorant of any accurate understanding of the actual facts about news because there are no ethical standards about news coverage as used to be the case. That is why I go to such lengths to make sure SR, both the daily web publication and the SR podcast are entirely and demonstrably fact-based.
Young people on TikTok learn about what’s happening from a hodgepodge of alternative sources, from news commentary influencers to purportedly on-the-ground “citizen journalists.” Credit: James Clapham for Business Insider
Kelsey Russell, a 23-year-old TikToker in New York, is on a mission to pull off what media executives have struggled to do for decades: Persuade young people to buy newspapers.
The grad student posts several videos a week in which she flips through print pages of The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and other legacy publishers to summarize stories. The broadsheets, blanketed with Russell’s notes and highlights, are something of a nostalgic prop for her roughly 88,000 followers, some of whom may have watched their parents flip through physical papers but never touched one themselves.
Before finding a news niche, Russell spent years building a TikTok following by posting restaurant reviews and travel vlogs. Today she often blends her peppycommentary on news she thinks young people care about — such as healthcare and climate — with lifestyle content. In a November post, for example, she began […]
