December 15, 2025
Meanwhile. . .
People - Nick Reiner has been taken into custody following the deaths of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner. Rob and Michele were killed in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, Dec. 14. Sources previously told PEOPLE they were found by their daughter Romy. According to Los Angeles Sheriff's Department records, Nick was taken into custody and is being held on $4 million bail.
Americca's neediest cities
WalletHub - WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 28 key metrics to
determine where Americans are most economically disadvantaged. The data
set includes factors like the child poverty rate, food insecurity rate
and uninsured rate.
Key Stats
| Neediest Cities in America | |
| 1. Detroit, MI | 11. Baton Rouge, LA |
| 2. Brownsville, TX | 12. Los Angeles, CA |
| 3. Shreveport, LA | 13. Fort Smith, AR |
| 4. Cleveland, OH | 14. Philadelphia, PA |
| 5. Little Rock, AR | 15. Newark, NJ |
| 6. Gulfport, MS | 16. Memphis, TN |
| 7. Corpus Christi, TX | 17. Baltimore, MD |
| 8. Birmingham, AL | 18. Houston, TX |
| 9. Laredo, TX | 19. Columbia, SC |
| 10. New Orleans, LA | 20. Las Cruces, NM |
Key Stats
- Overland Park, Kansas, has the lowest child poverty rate, which is 11.8 times lower than in Cleveland, Ohio, the city with the highest.
- Gilbert, Arizona, has the lowest adult poverty rate, which is 5.4 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest.
- Columbia, Maryland, has the fewest homeless persons (per 1,000 residents), which is 42.2 times fewer than in New York, the city with the most.
- Sioux Falls and Rapid City, South Dakota, have the lowest unemployment rate, which is 5.4 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest.
- South Burlington, Vermont, has the lowest share of uninsured residents, which is 13 times lower than in Brownsville, Texas, the city with the highest.
Nancy Pelosi doesn't expect a woman president in her lifetime
The Guardian - Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing congresswoman and former House speaker, has conceded that she may not see a woman be elected US president in her lifetime.
The California Democrat said as much in a USA Today interview published on Sunday with her retirement looming after four decades in Congress – and invoked a turn of phrase referring to a metaphorical barrier impeding advancement in a profession that often confronts women and racial minorities.
“It’s not a glass ceiling. It’s a marble ceiling,” Pelosi told the publication while discussing the defeats her party colleagues Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris respectively endured against Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections – as well as institutional resistance she met during her own rise on Capitol Hill.
The California Democrat said as much in a USA Today interview published on Sunday with her retirement looming after four decades in Congress – and invoked a turn of phrase referring to a metaphorical barrier impeding advancement in a profession that often confronts women and racial minorities.
“It’s not a glass ceiling. It’s a marble ceiling,” Pelosi told the publication while discussing the defeats her party colleagues Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris respectively endured against Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections – as well as institutional resistance she met during her own rise on Capitol Hill.
Health
The Guardian - With subsidies for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance set to expire, Americans who rely on them will probably switch to plans with lower monthly premiums and high deductibles or decide not to purchase any coverage, which will have a serious and damaging impact on the entire sector, according to healthcare policy experts.
The average amount ACA plan enrollees pay annually for premiums is estimated to more than double, from an average of $888 this year to $1,904 in 2026, according to a KFF analysis.
That will then have economic downstream effects, including for rural hospitals and people who have employer-sponsored health insurance, according to the experts.
With “a significant portion of people dropping their marketplace coverage and being uninsured, it doesn’t just impact them, it impacts everyone”, said Emma Wager, a senior policy analyst for KFF’s program on the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
In 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress passed legislation to extend eligibility for ACA health insurance subsidies and increased the amount of financial assistance available to people who were already eligible for subsidies, which caused a dramatic increase in how many people enrolled in coverage through the healthcare marketplace.
Those premium tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year, despite a push from Democratic lawmakers and a small minority of Republicans to extend them for three years. On Thursday, legislation to preserve the credits failed to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to pass in the Senate
The average amount ACA plan enrollees pay annually for premiums is estimated to more than double, from an average of $888 this year to $1,904 in 2026, according to a KFF analysis.
That will then have economic downstream effects, including for rural hospitals and people who have employer-sponsored health insurance, according to the experts.
With “a significant portion of people dropping their marketplace coverage and being uninsured, it doesn’t just impact them, it impacts everyone”, said Emma Wager, a senior policy analyst for KFF’s program on the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
In 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress passed legislation to extend eligibility for ACA health insurance subsidies and increased the amount of financial assistance available to people who were already eligible for subsidies, which caused a dramatic increase in how many people enrolled in coverage through the healthcare marketplace.
Those premium tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year, despite a push from Democratic lawmakers and a small minority of Republicans to extend them for three years. On Thursday, legislation to preserve the credits failed to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to pass in the Senate
Ukraine
NBC News - Ukraine has relinquished its ambition to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees, in an effort to end Russia’s war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Politics
MS NOW - Two dates ought to be circled in red on the calendars of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. Dec. 31 is when a set of expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies expire. Without new legislation, health care costs will skyrocket for millions of their members’ constituents.
Jan. 30 is the expiration date of the short-term funding bill lawmakers passed to reopen the government in November. Absent another continuing resolution or an appropriations bill for the rest of the fiscal year, we’ll find ourselves right back in another shutdown.
Jan. 30 is the expiration date of the short-term funding bill lawmakers passed to reopen the government in November. Absent another continuing resolution or an appropriations bill for the rest of the fiscal year, we’ll find ourselves right back in another shutdown.
December 14, 2025
Multi-ethnicity doesn't have to be that hard
Sam Smith- I lived a majority of my life in Washington DC, much of it during a time when being white there put you in the minority. In fact, DC had a black majority from the time I returned to it in 1959 after college to when I moved away fifty years later. But I can't think of any time when the color of my skin caused me a major personal or political problem, though DC got little credit for its lack of ethnic conflict.
For me, it was never a big issue in part in part because I had grown up with four sisters and a brother and we didn't always agree with each other. From an early age I learned that people were highly varied and you had to learn how to live with them anyway. And you did that in part by emphasizing issues and things you agree about.
Looking back, there was one thing about DC's multi-culturalism that made it much easier for those of different ethnicities to get along: you looked different but you shared issues.
In fact, this was the reason I got more heavily involved with civil rights in the first place. I had taken part in a day log protest against a DC Transit fare increase, including driving 71 folks for free. After the day was over I wrote a piece about it and shortly thereafter got a call for assistance from the protest's organizer - a black guy also in his 20s named Marion Barry. Some years later Barry would become our controversial mayor and once said, "Sam's a cynical cat." But an issue affecting both blacks and whites had brought us together for a number of years.
There were other examples of causes that affected both whites and blacks that I worked on such as plans to build freeways through both black and white neighborhoods and a bi-ethnic drive for home rule and statehood.
One day I drove to the SNCC headquarters to help drive protesters and quoted one of them: 'We've got to live together, man. You're white and you can't help it. I'm Negro and I can't help it. But we still can get along. That's the way I feel about it." I agreed.
The freeway issue was helped by this poster:
 |
The black journalist Chuck Stone described me as "one of a small group of whites with whom many blacks would trust their political lives." In short, what I learned as a minority white guy in DC was to find ways to join with blacks to fight for causes that would help everyone. It's not a bad strategy for various ethnicities to use nationally - aiming at issues such as the mess Trump is making of the economy. Find something that's hurting both white and blacks and you can build a coalition fast.
Arkansas becomes first state to end contract with PBS
AP News - The commission that oversees public television in Arkansas voted Thursday to sever ties with PBS, making it the first state to end its contract with the broadcast giant that provides popular television programs such as “Sesame Street,” “Nova” and “Antiques Roadshow.”
The eight-member Arkansas Educational Television Commission, made up entirely of appointees of the governor, announced in a news release Thursday that it planned to disaffiliate from PBS effective July 1, citing annual membership dues of about $2.5 million it described as “not feasible.” The release also cited the unexpected loss of about that same amount of federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was targeted for closure earlier this year and defunded by Congress.
PBS Arkansas is rebranding itself as Arkansas TV and will provide more local content, the agency’s Executive Director and CEO Carlton Wing said in a statement. Wing, a former Republican state representative, took the helm of the agency in September.
“Public television in Arkansas is not going away,” Wing said. “In fact, we invite you to join our vision for an increased focus on local programming, continuing to safeguard Arkansans in times of emergency and supporting our K-12 educators and students.”
PBS confirmed in an email Thursday that Arkansas is the first state to definitively sever ties with the broadcaster. Alabama considered similar action last month, but opted to continue paying its contract with PBS after public backlash from viewers and donors.
The eight-member Arkansas Educational Television Commission, made up entirely of appointees of the governor, announced in a news release Thursday that it planned to disaffiliate from PBS effective July 1, citing annual membership dues of about $2.5 million it described as “not feasible.” The release also cited the unexpected loss of about that same amount of federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was targeted for closure earlier this year and defunded by Congress.
PBS Arkansas is rebranding itself as Arkansas TV and will provide more local content, the agency’s Executive Director and CEO Carlton Wing said in a statement. Wing, a former Republican state representative, took the helm of the agency in September.
“Public television in Arkansas is not going away,” Wing said. “In fact, we invite you to join our vision for an increased focus on local programming, continuing to safeguard Arkansans in times of emergency and supporting our K-12 educators and students.”
PBS confirmed in an email Thursday that Arkansas is the first state to definitively sever ties with the broadcaster. Alabama considered similar action last month, but opted to continue paying its contract with PBS after public backlash from viewers and donors.
The culture war
Arts Journal - The entertainment landscape is undergoing tectonic shifts that make previous disruptions look like minor tremors. The headline grabber is Netflix, which proposes to swallow Warner Bros. whole. As The New Yorker notes, this feels existential—a move that could portend the end of mainstream moviegoing as we know it. While Ted Sarandos reportedly made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago (The Hollywood Reporter) to smooth the way, analysts warn that this consolidation creates a runaway market leader (Slate), leaving rivals to wither. It signals a future where residuals dissolve into upfront fees (TheWrap) and the “Paramount” era of studio dominance officially fades to black.
If Netflix is buying the past, Disney is spending on the future. The House of Mouse will invest $1 billion in OpenAI, a deal that will see Mickey and Marvel characters officially licensed for video generation (The Wall Street Journal). It’s a jarring pivot: while Disney aggressively sues Google for copyright infringement (TechCrunch) on one hand, it is essentially legitimizing the AI revolution with the other, redefining copyright in real-time (Wired). Side Note: In what kind of traditional licensing deal does the licensor pay the licensee for IP rights? (that should tell you much about this deal right there). Meanwhile, we are left to ponder if we are outsourcing not just our animation, but our actual thinking (The Atlantic) to algorithms.
On the political front, the culture wars are moving from the budget office to the design studio. The State Department declared a war on “woke” fonts, ordering a retreat from the gentle curves of Calibri back to the serifed walls of Times New Roman (The Guardian). Closer to home, the Kennedy Center is getting a “Trumpian revamp,” (Washington Post) trading aesthetic for portraits of the first family. The chill is financial, too: Arkansas PBS has become the first state network to sever ties with the mother ship (AP), and there is talk of stripping licenses from NPR stations entirely (Ars Technica).
Small presses are facing an existential funding crisis (LitHub), Broadway’s suburban audience has retreated to 30-year lows (The Hollywood Reporter), and the Louvre is literally leaking on its art (The Guardian) while staff vote to strike (AP).
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Politics
MS NOW - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene may be leaving Congress in January, but that doesn’t mean she can’t create one more headache for her colleagues. According to three sources, the controversial Georgia Republican has been working behind the scenes to see if there’s support to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, reports Mychael Schnell. Under House rules, only nine Republicans would be needed to trigger a vote on the speaker’s job. Read more.
MS NOW - Eileen Higgins handily won a runoff election on Tuesday, making her the first Democrat in almost three decades to become the mayor of Miami. But this isn’t just local news. The win has implications for national politics, as Miami-Dade County went for Trump in 2024 by a double-digit margin, writes Philip Bump. While some are tempted to credit the win to Trump’s loss of support among Hispanics, the truth is that he’s lost support across the board. The swing to Democrats is an indicator of Republican apathy and Democratic enthusiasm, among other troubles for the GOP. Read more.
Citizens United: The Corporate Coup by a Corrupt Supreme Court
From The Last American President by Thom Hartmann - The groundwork for the GOP’s plutocratic takeover of American politics was laid on January 21, 2010, when the Supreme Court issued a ruling that fundamentally transformed American politics. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the court’s 5–4 Republican majority struck down key provisions of campaign finance laws dating all the way back to the late nineteenth century, ruling that corporations and outside groups could spend functionally unlimited sums on elections through the Super PACs the decision invented.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, made the extraordinary claim that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” This statement would soon be revealed as one of the most naïve or cynical pronouncements in Supreme Court history.
This wasn’t merely a legal technicality: it was the culmination of a century-long corporate campaign to claim the Constitutional rights of persons while avoiding the responsibilities of citizenship....
Citizens United represented their ultimate victory, handing them the power to flood our democratic processes with unlimited cash while remaining legally obligated solely to maximize shareholder returns. American democracy was being transformed into what Franklin Roosevelt once called “economic royalism,” aka rule by the economic elite rather than we the people.
Unlike the First Gilded Age, when robber barons like J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller primarily purchased individual politicians, this Second Gilded Age enabled the wholesale capture of our political system itself. The American experiment in self-governance—unique in its founding premise that all political power originates from the people themselves—was being fundamentally rewired to ensure that political power originated from those holding or controlling great wealth. And Trump, himself a product of inherited wealth with an instinctive deference to monied interests despite his populist rhetoric, was the perfect vehicle for this transformation.
The practical effects were immediate and profound. Political spending by outside groups exploded, jumping from $750 million in the 2008 presidential election to over $4.5 billion in 2016.4 But more significant than the amount was the source: just 150 billionaire families put up more than 60 percent of all Super PAC money raised in the years following Citizens United....
Into this system stepped the new American oligarchs, whose names would become synonymous with the corruption of American democracy...
These men and their billionaire colleagues didn’t, in my opinion, want democracy; they wanted control. Control over a government that might otherwise regulate their industries, tax their enormous wealth, or hold them accountable for environmental and social damage their businesses caused.
Citizens United gave them the tools to seize that control. And in Donald Trump, they found the perfect front man for their operation.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, made the extraordinary claim that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” This statement would soon be revealed as one of the most naïve or cynical pronouncements in Supreme Court history.
This wasn’t merely a legal technicality: it was the culmination of a century-long corporate campaign to claim the Constitutional rights of persons while avoiding the responsibilities of citizenship....
Citizens United represented their ultimate victory, handing them the power to flood our democratic processes with unlimited cash while remaining legally obligated solely to maximize shareholder returns. American democracy was being transformed into what Franklin Roosevelt once called “economic royalism,” aka rule by the economic elite rather than we the people.
Unlike the First Gilded Age, when robber barons like J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller primarily purchased individual politicians, this Second Gilded Age enabled the wholesale capture of our political system itself. The American experiment in self-governance—unique in its founding premise that all political power originates from the people themselves—was being fundamentally rewired to ensure that political power originated from those holding or controlling great wealth. And Trump, himself a product of inherited wealth with an instinctive deference to monied interests despite his populist rhetoric, was the perfect vehicle for this transformation.
The practical effects were immediate and profound. Political spending by outside groups exploded, jumping from $750 million in the 2008 presidential election to over $4.5 billion in 2016.4 But more significant than the amount was the source: just 150 billionaire families put up more than 60 percent of all Super PAC money raised in the years following Citizens United....
Into this system stepped the new American oligarchs, whose names would become synonymous with the corruption of American democracy...
These men and their billionaire colleagues didn’t, in my opinion, want democracy; they wanted control. Control over a government that might otherwise regulate their industries, tax their enormous wealth, or hold them accountable for environmental and social damage their businesses caused.
Citizens United gave them the tools to seize that control. And in Donald Trump, they found the perfect front man for their operation.
How the marriage gap is growing
Washington Post - Last month, Pew Research Center compared data from 1993 and 2023, finding 12th-grade boys are more likely than 12th-grade girls to say they want to get married someday, a flip from three decades ago. Boys’ plans for marriage have barely budged since 1993, dropping to 74 percent from 76 percent. Girls, however, swung away from marriage by double digits. In the early 1990s, 83 percent of girls wanted to get married. In 2023, 61 percent said the same....
Pew’s findings should be considered alongside an NBC News survey published in September that found lifestyle preferences falling along partisan lines. “Gen Z men who voted for Trump rate having children as the most important thing in their personal definition of success,” NBC News reported. “Gen Z women who voted for Harris ranked having children as the second-least important thing in their personal definition of success.”
Unsurprisingly, young women are also more likely to identify as liberal, and the margin is widening. As the New York Times reported, “Today, around 40 percent identify as liberal, compared with just 19 percent who say they’re conservative. The views of young men — who are more likely to be conservative than liberal — have changed little.”
My Dual Citizenship Is None of Bernie Moreno’s Business
Alaric DeArment, New Republic - On November 26, after I’d spent hundreds of dollars obtaining certified documents and a considerable amount of time agonizing over the status of my application, FedEx delivered the piece of paper I had spent three years waiting for: confirmation of my acquisition of German citizenship by descent. But less than a week later, I learned that some Midwestern car salesman turned senator wants to take that away from me and millions of other Americans.
On December 1, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio announced new legislation, the Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, which would ban dual citizenship, a move that followed months of agitation against dual citizenship by far-right podcasters. Under the bill, Americans who acquire the nationality of other countries would “be deemed to have relinquished United States citizenship,” while those who already had it would have a year to renounce it or else lose U.S. citizenship. “Existing law allows certain United States Citizens to maintain foreign citizenship, which may create conflicts of interest and divided loyalties,” the bill states, and “it is in the national interest of the United States to ensure that United States citizenship is held exclusively.”
Here in a place called “reality,” my dual citizenship in no way threatens America’s national interests and is actually none of Moreno’s business. Ditto for the multiple citizenships of children born to American parents on foreign soil, descendants of immigrants from various countries, and Black Americans connecting with their heritage through citizenship-by-descent programs from certain African nations. That I can belt out a rendition of “Das Lied der Deutschen” that’s just as sappy as “The Star-Spangled Banner” does not aid or comfort America’s enemies. The fact that I am one among many everyday Americans with multiple citizenships has as much to do with Moreno as what we eat for breakfast or the colors of our curtains.
December 13, 2025
TSA Giving the Names of All Air Travelers to ICE
Mediaite - The Transportation Security Administration is providing Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the names of all travelers passing through American airports. TSA has submitted lists of names to the immigration agency multiple times a week since the program began in March, The New York Times reported on Friday. ICE then checks travelers’ information against its own internal list of those subject to deportations.
2025 Was A ‘Great’ Year For Just 1 In 10 Americans
Study Finds - Americans are limping into 2026 with low expectations after a year most would rather forget. Only 10% of people called 2025 a “great” year, according to a survey, with the vast majority describing it as “just okay” (39%), “bad” (19%), or even “awful” (10%).
Determined to turn things around, 38% of Americans are setting personal goals for the new year. The Talker Research survey of 2,000 Americans shows people are creating an average of six resolutions each, with financial security and physical fitness leading the charge...
The widespread dissatisfaction with 2025 appears to be fueling a renewed commitment to self-improvement. Rather than accepting another lackluster year, Americans are doubling down on personal goals, hoping that intentional changes can shift their circumstances in meaningful ways.
Putting more money into savings (45%) and getting more exercise (45%) tied as the most common resolutions, followed by improving overall physical health (41%). Other popular goals include eating healthier (40%), improving holistic financial wellness (34%), spending more time outdoors (29%), and boosting mental health (29%).
Determined to turn things around, 38% of Americans are setting personal goals for the new year. The Talker Research survey of 2,000 Americans shows people are creating an average of six resolutions each, with financial security and physical fitness leading the charge...
The widespread dissatisfaction with 2025 appears to be fueling a renewed commitment to self-improvement. Rather than accepting another lackluster year, Americans are doubling down on personal goals, hoping that intentional changes can shift their circumstances in meaningful ways.
Putting more money into savings (45%) and getting more exercise (45%) tied as the most common resolutions, followed by improving overall physical health (41%). Other popular goals include eating healthier (40%), improving holistic financial wellness (34%), spending more time outdoors (29%), and boosting mental health (29%).
Word
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson: Trump is now able to “fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs and replace them with loyalists and people who don’t know anything."
Meanwhile. . .
Roll Call - Donald Trump posted 22 items on Truth Social yesterday.
NY Times - TheTrump administration is providing the names of all travelers passing through U.S. airports to immigration officials in search of people with deportation orders, in an expansion of its crackdown.
Health
The Hill - Measles outbreaks are spreading across the U.S., and the nation is likely to lose its status as a country where the disease is eliminated, something that infectious disease specialists say is directly related to President Trump’s appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
South Carolina this week quarantined at least 254 people after confirming more than two dozen measles cases in the state. It’s the latest in what has been the worst year for measles in the U.S. in recent history.
An outbreak in West Texas this year saw more than 700 confirmed cases since January and the deaths of two children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have been 47 reported outbreaks in the country this year.
Axios - American families, small business owners, farmers and shift workers all rely on the health care tax credit to afford health coverage. More than 22 million Americans now face a cost crisis if Congress does not extend the tax credit. Time is almost up.
The Jewish Diaspora Movement
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Photo by Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images In These Times - “I want the spiritual technologies of Judaism to be able to ground and nourish a movement that is facing despair after despair after despair,” [Rabbi Louisa] Solomon says. ?“And I don’t want these institutions that are fucking racist and transphobic and Zionist to … gate keep all of the access to those resources and that history.” |
Wood Banks Aren’t Inspiring. They’re a Sign of Collapse.
New Republic - Rural America knows the truth long before the rest of the country feels it. Nothing collapses all at once. It just stops working in small places first while everyone else calls it local hardship. That’s why wood banks—like a food bank but for fuel—are important. They’re the clearest sign that basic systems in this country have already failed.
A wood bank is exactly what it sounds like. People in rural and Indigenous areas still heavily rely on wood heat as the primary fuel source for their homes. Volunteers cut and split firewood, stack it somewhere public, and give it away for free to those who can’t afford it. No paperwork. No means tests. No government forms. Just a pile of hardwood that shows up because someone else’s house would be cold without it.
Most articles about wood banks wrap them in the same tired language. Community spirit. Rural generosity. Neighbors helping neighbors. It’s the kind of coverage you get when journalists focus on the people stacking the wood instead of the conditions that made it necessary. They never mention the underlying reality. Wood banks exist because without them, people would freeze. It’s the same everywhere: Local news crews film volunteers splitting logs while pretending it’s heartwarming, reporting on senior citizens splitting 150 cords a year for neighbors in need as if the story is about kindness instead of the failure that created the need in the first place....
You don’t start a wood bank in a country with functioning institutions. You start one when heating assistance programs can’t keep up, when the grid flickers every time the wind shifts, when propane and heating oil costs swing so hard that families can’t budget more than a week out. You start a wood bank when seniors stop turning on their heat because they’re scared of the bill. You also start one when the country pretends energy insecurity doesn’t exist because acknowledging it would mean admitting that entire regions were left behind on purpose. Federal data shows that families are using less fuel than they did five years ago but spending more for it. Heating oil and propane have seen some of the steepest price swings, especially in rural states, and those increases hit households that already live on tight margins.
That’s collapse. Not the cinematic kind. Not the dramatic scenes everyone imagines when they talk about a country falling apart. Collapse is boring. It’s ordinary. It looks like people standing next to a log splitter on a Saturday morning because the safety net dissolved and no one replaced it. Collapse isn’t a single moment. It’s what happens when the systems people rely on keep existing on paper but stop functioning in practice. Heating programs remain funded but reach only a fraction of eligible households. The grid stays interconnected, but the outages keep stacking up and repairs keep getting delayed. Fuel is available, but the costs vary so widely that families can’t budget for it or afford it. These are small failures that accumulate until ordinary people are left to solve problems that institutions were supposed to solve.
Study: Sleep does more than diet or exercise for longevity
Science Alert - What you gain in a day by staying up late might be curtailing how long you live, according to a new study linking insufficient sleep to a lower life expectancy.
While poor sleep has been previously linked to a host of health issues and shorter lifespans, this latest investigation found that getting enough shut-eye had a stronger connection to living longer than diet and exercise – factors that are known to add years to your life.
Researchers from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) crunched the numbers on survey data from across the US, covering the years 2019 to 2025.
Measures of life expectancy were compared against self-reported evaluations of sleep duration, with less than seven hours per night considered a threshold for insufficient sleep.
While poor sleep has been previously linked to a host of health issues and shorter lifespans, this latest investigation found that getting enough shut-eye had a stronger connection to living longer than diet and exercise – factors that are known to add years to your life.
Researchers from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) crunched the numbers on survey data from across the US, covering the years 2019 to 2025.
Measures of life expectancy were compared against self-reported evaluations of sleep duration, with less than seven hours per night considered a threshold for insufficient sleep.
States taking lead on AI health issues
Axios - While President Trump demands a single national framework on AI policy, states are going their own way with hundreds of proposals aimed at setting guardrails for how the technology is used in health care.
That could set up a clash over who determines how AI models and systems can be deployed in insurer reviews, mental health treatment and chatbots that interact with patients.
More than 250 AI bills affecting health care were introduced in 47 states as of mid-October, according to a tracker from Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
- 33 of those bills in 21 states became law.
- A half dozen states have enacted laws focused on use of AI-enabled chatbots, including Illinois' new law banning apps or services from providing mental health and therapeutic decision-making.
What they're saying: "There is a lot of bipartisan alignment on the topic. Red states are mirroring provisions of laws introduced in blue states and vice versa," said Randi Seigel, a partner at Manatt...
Many of these efforts could bump up against Trump's push to establish a federal framework for AI and preempt state laws.
- Trump signed an executive order Thursday that requires the attorney general to establish a task force to challenge burdensome state AI regulations.
- It also draws Congress into the fight by calling for a legislative recommendation for a federal AI framework. Share this
Polls
Newsweek - Recent polling shows the proportion of Latinos who support Trump is declining. According to Pew Research Center analysis based on September and October polling, 70 percent of Latinos disapprove of Trump's job performance. A further 65 percent disapprove of his approach to immigration and 61 percent say his economic policies have made the economy worse.
The analysis also found that 81 percent of Latino Trump voters still approve of his job performance—though this is a decline from the 93 percent they recorded at the start of his second term.
Other polls are similarly negative. A November poll by Axios/Ipsos of over 1,100 Latino and Hispanic Americans, conducted with Noticias Telemundo, found that 65 percent believe it is a "bad time" to be Latino or Hispanic in the United States. This is 25 percentage points more than in March 2024, when 40 percent reported this view.
The analysis also found that 81 percent of Latino Trump voters still approve of his job performance—though this is a decline from the 93 percent they recorded at the start of his second term.
Other polls are similarly negative. A November poll by Axios/Ipsos of over 1,100 Latino and Hispanic Americans, conducted with Noticias Telemundo, found that 65 percent believe it is a "bad time" to be Latino or Hispanic in the United States. This is 25 percentage points more than in March 2024, when 40 percent reported this view.
Pew Research - Roughly one-in-five U.S. teens say they use TikTok and YouTube almost constantly. And 64% of teens report using AI chatbots, including 28% who use them daily.
Pew Researcg - Roughly one-in-five U.S. teens say they use TikTok and YouTube almost constantly. And 64% of teens report using AI chatbots, including 28% who use them daily.
FactPost - 64% of
Americans are buying cheaper or less food. 34% have skipped a meal
altogether. 48% said they use savings for their basic expenses. Nearly
half of Americans say groceries, housing, utilities, and health care are
just getting harder to afford.
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