Meanwhile. . .

Vox -According to Pew Research, back in 1980 about 6 percent of Americans aged 40 and over had never been married. Now that number sits around 25 percent... Back in the ’70s, a little over 20 percent of Black women had never been married. Now it’s nearly 48 percent.

Axios - The storm that brought New York City the most snow in more than two years was also one of the biggest forecast busts in recent memory... The miss, with computer models shifting significantly on all aspects of the event within 24 hours of the first flakes flying, calls into question scientists' abilities to anticipate extreme weather events.  Extreme weather is becoming more frequent and unpredictable as the climate warms, including heavy precipitation and sweltering heat waves. When some of the country's biggest cities are involved, the economic consequences of a forecast miss can be significant.  For example, from Sunday into the middle of Monday, the forecast for Boston called for up to a foot of snow, with some areas potentially picking up more than that. That unraveled Monday evening, as computer models showed the heavy snow sliding further and further southward. The city's total? Less than an inch. Meanwhile in New York City, a forecast of an inch of slush turned into a bona fide snowstorm over the same timeframe, with 1 to 2 inches per hour falling yesterday morning. MORE

Nice News - “If you really understand hand-holding — what it is and how it has its effects — you begin to understand just about every single facet of what it is to be a human being,” clinical psychologist James Coan told Dr. Trisha Pasricha in her recent “Ask a Doctor” column for The Washington Post. “It expresses all the things that we are for each other.”   Coan has been involved in several experiments on the topic, including one in which 16 married women were placed in MRI machines and faced with the prospect of an electric shock. When they held hands with strangers, it lowered their stress. When they held hands with their husbands, it lowered their stress even more. And the most profound effect occurred in couples who scored highest on marital quality tests.   Subsequent studies replicated this result with other types of relationships, including friends and those who were dating. For Coan, the most surprising revelation from the experiments is that hand-holding isn’t an added benefit or a boost to our brains. Rather, it represents the baseline — we’re meant to be sharing our lives, and our burdens, with other people. “To the human brain, the world presents a series of problems to solve,” he said. “And it turns out being alone is a problem.” MORE