When life gets boring as you get older

(Issue raised on Aging with an Attitude)

Marci Meroz, retired psychologist -- There is something called “radical acceptance” in the practice of psychology. Simply stated, it is a complete and nonjudgmental acceptance of reality, and it sounds easier than it is. The goal of radical acceptance is to reduce suffering by shifting your focus away from fighting against reality, to accepting it. It is worth the effort.

The truth is that life gets boring with age. Some people don’t experience boredom and appear well equipped to keep life interesting. But everyone experiences loss, and losses add up with age. Many losses are beyond your control, but boredom isn’t one of them. Boredom means that things are going well generally, but there is a lack of excitement or challenge. Being sick and tired of being sick and tired could tip the balance. That is radical acceptance.

Health

Health.com  - Ghirardelli Chocolate Company is recalling a number of powdered beverage mixtures, such as hot cocoa mix, the Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday. The products may contain Salmonella, bacteria that can cause severe or potentially life-threatening foodborne illness. So far, no illnesses have been reported in connection to the recall.1

CEOs of US’s top energy firms received average pay raise of $12.3m

The Guardian -   The US’s top utilities’ CEOs enjoyed a 16% pay raise last year – to an average of $12.3m – even as consumers shoulder the pain from high bills spurred by continuing inflation, the Iran war and datacenter growth, a new review of industry financial documents shows.

Utility bills are up as much as 40% in some regions since 2021, and, nationwide, utilities shut off power to customers 13m times last year, federal data shows.

Amid the difficulties, CEO pay increased at 38 of 51 top utilities, industry watchdog Energy and Policy Institute (EPI) found in its review of companies’ financial records.

EPI also detailed how some executives received pay raises despite failing to meet performance standards, including for outages. Many executives were also provided private jets, condominiums and other perks for which customers often paid the costs.

.The issues “feel unjust at face value”, said Jonathan Kim, a research associate with EPI, who authored the report. “It’s the idea that we should be footing the bill for these people’s grotesquely large salaries,” Kim added.

Word

Artificial Intelligence

NY Times -   In Brooklyn, an artificial intelligence program helps public school students pronounce words. In Queens, high school students ask Google Gemini how to improve their essays. And in the Bronx, students in a robotics lab consult an A.I. tool before building parts on a 3-D printer.

As teachers and students in New York City and across the United States have increasingly embraced artificial intelligence in the classroom, school leaders in the nation’s largest school system were set to make one of their biggest splashes yet — the opening of an A.I.-focused high school in Manhattan next school year.

But on Monday, the new schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels, abruptly halted the creation of the school amid a groundswell of opposition to the rapid adoption of the technology and its potential harms.

In an interview, Mr. Samuels said that he understood the concerns and questions parents have about artificial intelligence in the classroom and its safety and impact on critical thinking. “I want to be able to think about the technology in a very thoughtful way,” Mr. Samuels said.

Despite the decision not to proceed, school leaders in New York City and beyond remain bullish on the future of artificial intelligence in education and its potential benefits. They argue that it could transform teaching and learning, a claim also promoted by companies that sell the tools, and that it would be irresponsible to ignore or restrict the technology.

But New York parents have expressed concern about the artificial intelligence programs used in schools or accessible on students’ computers, as well as the lack of information about the applications and data they collect. Some families recently delivered to Mayor Zohran Mamdani a petition with thousands of signatures calling for a two-year moratorium on generative A.I., such as chatbots.

“The intense outrage among parents in New York City is as great as I’ve seen it on any education issue that I’ve been working on for 25 years,” said Leonie Haimson, an education advocate in New York City and member of the Coalition for an A.I. Moratorium.

Food stamps

Independent, UK - Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins boasted Tuesday that more than 4 million Americans had lost food stamps benefits in a crackdown on “fraud” – but federal data indicates participation dropped after the administration made funding cuts to the program and implemented work requirements.

...Between January 2025 and January 2026, roughly 4.2 million people stopped receiving food stamps, otherwise known as SNAP, benefits, according to data collected by the Department of Agriculture. The most significant decline in participation occurred after July 2025 with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which added more restrictions to SNAP.

Experts had warned that the federal government’s large funding cuts to the program, combined with stricter work requirements for able-bodied people between 18 and 64, and immigration status restrictions, would lead to more people losing SNAP benefits.

Polls

InteractivePolls

Harvard Harris: Dem Primary Crosstabs Black Dems Harris: 71% (+8) Newsom: 15% (-8) Pritzker: 5% Shapiro: 4% AOC: 3% —— White Dems Harris: 41% (+10) Newsom: 26% (-6) Shapiro: 11% Pritzker: 10% AOC: 7% —— Hispanic Dems Harris: 50% (+13) Newsom: 23% (+2) AOC: 11% (-13) Shapiro: 8% Pritzker: 5% —— Asian Dems Harris: 50% (-4) Shapiro: 16% (+1) Newsom: 12% (-7) AOC: 9% Pritzker: 0% Harvard/Harris | 4/23-26 |

Reuters 

Reuters/Ipsos poll | 4/24-4/27

President Trump approval

Disapprove 64% (+2)

Approve 34% (-2)

(Shift from 4/15-4/20)

Do you approve of Trump's handling of the cost of living?

No 69%

Yes 22%

Axios -   The share of Americans who say their financial situation is getting worse is higher now than at any point in the past 25 years, per new Gallup data out Tuesday morning. Americans are struggling after years of higher inflation and a recent surge in gas prices due to the Iran war — a major challenge for President Trump and Republicans as the midterm elections come into view. By the numbers: 55% of respondents to a poll conducted April 1-15 said their financial situation is getting worse; that's up from 53% last year and 47% in 2024.  The number is higher than at any point since 2001, even compared with recessions during the pandemic or in the wake of the financial crisis.

Social Security

Newsweek -    A new bill in Congress, titled the Social Security Caregiver Credit Act of 2026, would change how Social Security benefits are calculated, meaning millions of parents could end up with larger payments when they retire.

After years of seeing a decline in stay-at-home mothers, the United States started seeing the number of women leaving the workforce to raise children rise in 2014. That number has stabilized in recent years, but with the cost of childcare rising, some parents are making the decision to have one parent stay home because they can't justify spending more than half of their salary on childcare. However, leaving the workforce—even temporarily—means parents who stay home get lower Social Security payments when they retire.

Representative Brad Schneider wants to change that. Last week, the Illinois Democrat introduced a bill that would credit parents who stay home with their kids toward future retirement benefits, even if they're unpaid. In 2021, there were an estimated 11 million people who stayed home with their kids.

"Caregiving is an essential element of family life and a vital service for children, the ill, the disabled, and the elderly," the bill says. "The establishment of a caregiver credit would bolster the economic prospects of unpaid caregivers and would provide them with vital retirement security."

Middle East

NBC News -  American military bases and other equipment in the Persian Gulf region suffered extensive damage from Iranian strikes that is far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair, according to three U.S. officials, two congressional aides and another person familiar with the damage.

Iran swiftly retaliated after the U.S. and Israel attacked on Feb. 28, hitting dozens of targets across U.S. military bases in seven Middle Eastern countries. Those attacks struck warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars, satellite communications infrastructure, runways, high-end radar systems and dozens of aircraft, according to the U.S. officials and an assessment by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

In the initial days of the war, an Iranian F-5 fighter jet bombed the U.S. base Camp Buehring in Kuwait, despite the base having air defenses, a rare breach that marked the first time an enemy fixed-wing aircraft has struck an American military base in years, according to two of the U.S. officials.

The U.S. bases that came under attack are home to thousands of American troops, and in some cases their families, though they were largely cleared out in the days and hours before the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran.

The Pentagon has not detailed the extent of the damage to U.S. military bases publicly or, according to the U.S. officials, to members of Congress.

The Guardian -    The Middle East oil and gas crunch will impose as much as a trillion dollars of additional costs on the global economy while petroleum companies rake in spectacular profits from elevated fuel prices, analysis has revealed. The uneven distribution of risk and reward comes amid rising concern that the US-Israeli attack on Iran is worsening inequality, poverty and hunger across a world that has become dangerously dependent on fossil fuels.

Even if the strait of Hormuz swiftly returns to normal operations, the burden of elevated oil and gas prices will reach about $600bn, according to recent International Monetary Fund figures analysed by the climate campaign organisation 350.org. Should the supply disruption continue, the economic hit to households, businesses and governments could surge above $1tn, it said.

The Guardian -Amid a patchy ceasefire, Lebanon’s minister for the environment has accused Israel’s military of committing “an act of ecocide” in its operations against Hezbollah in the southern region of the country. In just 2023 and 2024, the Israeli military has damaged 12,350 acres of forest cover and destroyed 5,320 acres of orchards, including more than 2,000 acres of olive groves, according to a 106-page report.

NBC News - Peace talks between U.S. and Iranian officials have stalled, sending oil prices higher while a standoff in the Strait of Hormuz remains. Without a clear resolution to the war in sight, those high prices are here to stay indefinitely, experts say. Now, three emerging forces are at work and will likely lead to what one analyst is calling an “extended stagflationary shock” both for the U.S. and for the world. 

First, the world’s backup supply of crude oil products is rapidly being depleted. The ongoing supply deficit means the market will ration remaining oil supplies by increasing their price — and that will lead to the second factor: demand destruction. Finally, alternative sources of fuel production outside the Middle East are not going to make up for the shortage. 

.... In the meantime, the U.S. appeared skeptical about a new Iranian proposal that would end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz without resolving the impasse over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Tehran’s latest offer looked “better” than past pitches, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last night, after it was discussed by Trump and his national security team. But there was little sign that Washington might be willing to abandon its naval blockade and accept the offer.

NPR - Diplomatically, the ceasefire agreement is holding steady, meaning none of the involved parties — Israel, Lebanon or Hezbollah — have officially declared it over, NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf says. But Israel is conducting multiple airstrikes daily against what it identifies as Hezbollah targets, primarily in the south. Lonsdorf was in southern Lebanon speaking to residents, and says the region does not feel like it's under a ceasefire. The sporadic air strikes taking place while she was there a few days ago have since intensified. Israel has also issued new evacuation orders for several communities beyond the zone it occupies. Many people are reevacuating after trying to go back to their homes. Abed Ammar, 35, said to Lonsdorf in a voice note, “If this was a ceasefire, we could be at home. This is not a ceasefire.”

Judge Says Maurene Comey Can Sue the Trump Administration for Firing Her

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55 Representatives are not running for reelection

MS NOW-   The number of House members who have opted not to run for re-election has surged, marking the largest wave of departures in three decades.A handful of them are Republicans from swing districts who appeared to be headed toward a loss in the November elections. But a lot more are from safe GOP seats that would likely withstand the biggest of blue waves, and their possible reasons for leaving are an indication of what’s going wrong in Washington.

In all, 55 incumbents have announced they will not run for re-election, the highest since 1992, when a record 65 members of both parties retired after it was revealed that many of them were intentionally overdrawing their House bank accounts by thousands of dollars without paying a penalty.

In the past, a lawmaker who literally could not lose might have stuck around even when in the minority, since they could still influence bills while going through committee or as part of a negotiation with the majority. But partisan polarization has turned more legislating into party-line votes and massive omnibus bills introduced at the last minute, leaving members of the minority with little to do.

Even being in the majority has not been much fun for the current crop of Republicans, who not only have to answer questions about President Donald Trump’s constant controversies but also don’t have much to show for it. The current Congress is likely to be one of the least productive sessions in history, with fewer votes taken and laws passed than usual.

Trump's war on the media

NY Times -   Federal regulators on Tuesday ordered a review of all station licenses owned by ABC, an extraordinary move to pressure a major television network whose programming has frequently angered President Trump. The agency overseeing the review, the Federal Communications Commission, said in a filing that the review was related to an investigation into ABC’s diversity and inclusion policies. But it came in the middle of a fight this week between Mr. Trump and the network’s late night host, Jimmy Kimmel, that prompted the president to demand that ABC fire Mr. Kimmel.

The F.C.C. action represented an escalation by the Trump administration and the president to punish major media outlets for their coverage. Mr. Trump has personally sued several news organizations, including The New York Times, and the Pentagon has tried to sharply restrict news media access.

Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. chairman, Brendan Carr, has repeatedly threatened to take action against broadcasters, including to take away their valuable station licenses. His agency’s action on Tuesday was the first direct step toward potentially doing so.

It is extremely difficult for the government to take away stations’ rights to broadcast; it must be able to make a convincing case that the stations had shown a pattern of violating rules and regulations. Even if the F.C.C. ultimately decides to block the renewal of ABC’s station licenses, the network would have ample recourse in the courts. And it would be able to continue to broadcast as the fight played out.

The federal government has never before ordered such a sweeping review of a major television network’s licenses, which allow the companies to broadcast in local markets. All told, ABC owns eight of the more than 200 local stations that carry its programming across the country, in vital markets including New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

.... ABC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But media lawyers and free speech advocates have decried the action, and vowed to fight it in court.

Immigration

Brian Allen - The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank. It just published a 30-year study showing i mmigrants paid 14.5 trillion dollars more in taxes than they received in government benefits.  Every single year. For thirty years. Without exception.

Deep State Tribunal -   Obama-appointed judges continue blocking President Trump’s efforts to end Biden-era mass parole programs, shielding hundreds of thousands of migrants from deportation and fueling accusations of judicial overreach. Judges Indira Talwani and Allison Burroughs, both Obama appointees, issued stays halting Trump’s termination of humanitarian parole for over 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Rulings require case-by-case reviews instead of blanket revocations, delaying deportations and restoring work permits. These decisions echo past blocks on Trump’s 2017 travel bans, raising concerns about activist judges undermining the executive branch’s immigration authority.

Trump’s DHS cites fraud, security risks, and vetting gaps in Biden programs as justification for terminations.

Environment

Trump Administration Will Pay More Energy Firms to Cancel Wind Farms

Data: U.S. Drought Monitor. Map: Axios Visuals

Axios- Georgia's devastating wildfires could be a preview of a potentially brutal fire season nationwide, Alex Fitzpatrick writes.  The Highway 82 Fire and Pineland Road Fire have destroyed more than 120 homes, fueled by dry conditions, high winds and even leftover debris from 2024's Hurricane Helene.

Much of the U.S. is at least "abnormally dry" after long stretches of low precipitation, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.  Severe, extreme or exceptionally dry conditions prevail across much of the West, South and Southeast.

About 1.8 million acres have burned nationwide this year as of April 24, per the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). That's nearly double the year-to-date 10-year average, and the highest year-to-date figure since 2017.

John Bailey, professor of silviculture and wildland fire at Oregon State University's College of Forestry, tells Axios: "Over the last few years, different states have set new records for acres burned and acres of high severity fire and homes burned."  

Three factors are driving those record-breaking fires, says Bailey, author of "A Walk With Wildland Fire": An "inordinate amount of fuel in the landscape," new homes in fire-prone areas that become fire fuel themselves, and longer and more severe fire seasons.  More from Axios Atlanta.

Democratic Conservation Alliance - This month has been full of bad news for people who care about our planet and our natural heritage:

➡️ Trump's "God Squad" overrode the Endangered Species Act, eradicating lifesaving protections for a rare whale species that is now at dire risk of going extinct.

➡️ Emperor penguins were declared endangered, with scientists warning that the species is at risk entirely because governments like ours have failed to take action to save our planet from carbon emissions.

➡️ And Trump gutted the Forest Service, leaving hundreds of millions of acres of public lands without protection right before wildfire season and defunding critical research for conservation efforts country-wide.

Congressional Insider -   Two wildfires have consumed over 40,000 acres and destroyed 122 homes in south Georgia, threatening 1,000 additional properties. Human activity ignited both blazes: a party balloon contacting a power line and sparks from a welding operation during extreme drought conditions

Why has the GOP done so little to help average working people?

Hartmann Report -  Gallup just found that only 10% of Americans approve of the job Republicans in Congress are doing, with 86% actively disapproving of the GOP’s behavior.  Turns out, there’s a reason........

Since 1981 Democrats have passed the Family and Medical Leave Act; Earned Income Tax Credit expansions; Children’s Health Insurance Program; Affordable Care Act; Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; Every Student Succeeds Act; American Rescue Plan Act; Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; Inflation Reduction Act; PACT Act, and dozens of others.

Which raises the question: Why have Republicans avoided doing anything at all to help average working people for over 40 years?

Can a President sue his own agencies for money?

Deep State Tribunal  - A federal judge is holding up Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department until his lawyers can convince her it’s legal for a president to take his own federal agencies to court for money.

Trump is the ultimate boss of the agencies he’s suing, so there doesn’t appear to be any real “adversary,” as required by courts, noted Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida, where the suit was filed.

In this case, that would mean no one is legitimately arguing on behalf of the public interest. “There must be an honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights by one individual against another, which is neither feigned nor collusive,” she added, quoting a previous decision.

The parties may not be “sufficiently adverse” to one another for the case to be allowed to continue, she warned. In fact, Trump’s “named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction,” she underscored in an order Friday.

Williams ordered Trump’s lawyers and the Department of Justice to submit briefs about why the case should proceed, and set a hearing on the issue for next month.

House minority leader attacks White House press secretary

Deep State Tribunal  - House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries unleashed an unprecedented personal attack on White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, calling her “sick,” “demented,” and a “stone-cold liar” after she exposed uncomfortable truths about the Democratic Party’s political priorities.

Jeffries publicly attacked Leavitt with inflammatory insults including “sick,” “demented,” and “out of control” during a Friday press conference. The outburst followed Leavitt’s claim that Democrats prioritize “Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals” as their main constituency

California to vote on new restrictive ballot rules

Democracy Docket - A sweeping proposal to impose new ID requirements and restrict voting access in California has officially qualified for the November 2026 ballot.  California Secretary of State Shirley Weber confirmed Friday that an anti-voting initiative backed by Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R) and GOP allies gathered enough valid signatures to move forward. The campaign submitted more than 962,000 signatures, clearing the final hurdle to place the measure before voters in November.

While marketed as a voter ID initiative, the measure goes significantly further, rewriting California’s constitution to impose new rules on both in-person and mail-in voting, which is how most Californians cast ballots.  If the measure is approved, voters would be required to present a government-issued ID when voting in person. For mail-in voting, the measure would require voters to write identifying information — such as the last four digits of a driver’s license, Social Security number or other document — on the outside of their ballot envelope. Election officials would then be required to verify that information before counting the ballot.

CEOs getting older

Axios -  The average American CEO now 61, up from around 51 in 2000, Axios' Emily Peck writes. A new study finds that older leaders tend to manage businesses that grow more slowly and are less likely to radically innovate. But they also appear to be more sought after in uncertain economic times. One finding from the database of more than 50,000 leaders: Smaller, privately held companies are more likely to hire older leaders.

Meanwhile...

The Guardian - Since 2014, the numbers of US citizens renouncing their citizenship each year have been in the thousands, hitting a record of 6,705 in 2020. With the Trump administration slashing the fees to renounce citizenship from $2,350 to $450, this year is expected to reach similar heights.

Public school teachers

NPR - The average salary for public school teachers in the U.S. is up 3.5% from the previous year. However, when adjusted for inflation, today's teachers are estimated to earn less than they did in 2017, according to a new review of school-related data from the National Education Association. Here are some key findings:

🧑‍🏫 The average salary for new teachers in the U.S. is $46,112. Among the locations with the highest salaries are the District of Columbia ($64,640), and Washington ($60,658). The states with the lowest starting salaries are Montana ($36,682) and Nebraska ($39,561). 
🧑‍🏫 The beginning of the 2024-25 school year saw a 0.3% drop in student enrollment from the previous fall. Since 2016, schools have experienced a roughly 3.6% decline in enrollment.
🧑‍🏫 States with collective bargaining laws have higher average starting salaries and top salaries than states without them.
🧑‍🏫 Washington stands out among the 11 states that have seen an inflation-adjusted increase in teacher pay since 2017. Teacher pay in the state has increased 36%. The rise came after the state’s supreme court put the state on notice and imposed a $100,000-a-day fine to ensure better funding and support for public schools.

Donald Trump

Bloomberg - Jimmy Kimmel defended a joke he made last week about Melania Trump having “a glow like an expectant widow,” prompting Trump to call for his firing. The late-night host cited his First Amendment right to free speech.

Artificial Intelligence

Bloomberg - OpenAI failed to meet its own goals for new users and sales, raising internal concerns about its ability to sustain spending on AI infrastructure, the Wall Street Journal reported. Shares of partners including SoftBank Group and Oracle fell on the report, adding to scrutiny of the sector ahead of earnings from Alphabet and other Big Tech firms.