November 16, 2025
Federal alcohol report being buried
Huffington Post - How many alcoholic drinks do you have in an entire week? Five, seven, 10? More? If you have one drink a day, your health could be impacted - but the powers that be aren’t doing much to make that fact known.
In September, Vox reported that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Department of Health and Human Services decided not to publish a large federal study on the negative impact alcohol has on our health. A draft of the report, known as the Alcohol Intake and Health Study, was published for public comment in January and is available online.
“This report and our findings were, as we were told, going to inform the new drinking guidelines,” said Priscilla Martinez, the deputy scientific director at the Alcohol Research Group and an author of the report...
Now, instead, a competing report that’s in-line with the country’s current drinking guidelines (one drink or fewer a day for women and two or fewer for men) will inform the guideline update, according to the New York Times. Some of the panelists behind this competing report have financial interests aligned with the alcohol industry, the New York Times reported.
“I think you generally want to have any recommendations about diet or lifestyle behaviors [to be] informed by the most sound science,” Martinez said. “And so that’s what I think is unfortunate about the [the Alcohol Intake and Health Study] not being included.”
Corporate layoffs vs. CEO pay
RBReich - Amazon announced 14,000 layoffs. Its CEO made over $40M last year.
UPS announced 48,000 layoffs. Its CEO made over $24M last year.
Intel announced 20,000 layoffs. Its new CEO's pay package is valued at nearly $69M.
UPS announced 48,000 layoffs. Its CEO made over $24M last year.
Intel announced 20,000 layoffs. Its new CEO's pay package is valued at nearly $69M.
Trump regime
Republicans against Trump - The Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. — The New Yorker
Jeffrey Epstein
Epstein's email says Bill Clinton 'NEVER EVER' went to his island. Trump says otherwise.
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom - Tune into Fox News (don't, actually) and you will see a steady stream of Trump sycophants alongside curious case of California Derangement Syndrome.
But here are some cold, hard facts you will never see on the network.
🆙 Prices are not, down ... they are UP.
☕️ Coffee: UP 18.9%
🛜 Utilities: UP 11.7%
💡Electricity: UP 5.1%
🚗 Vehicles: UP 11.5%
💰 Middle class families in California pay less in taxes than in states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
🔴 Life expectancy, infant mortality, deaths of despair, wages and uninsured rates are all worse off in red states.
🚨 For Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans talking trash: California is the fourth largest economy in the world. We contribute $83 billion to the federal government while Texas takes $71 billion.
🥇 California is #1 in manufacturing, #1 in farming, #1 in new business starts, #1 in tech and VC investments, #1 in Fortune 500 companies, and the #1 public higher education system in the country.
👨👩👧👧 California has some of the strongest gun laws in the country and as a result has a 43% lower gun death rate than the rest of the U.S. according to data from the CDC while President Trump oversaw the largest spike in homicides recorded in U.S. history.
Florida suing Planned Parenthood for "racketeering"
MS NOW - In a new lawsuit, Florida’s Republican attorney general accuses Planned
Parenthood of “misrepresenting the safety” of abortion pills and alleges
its activities constitute “racketeering” — a charge usually applied to
organized crime. He is seeking $350 million in penalties and asking the
court to consider shutting the organization down, writes UC Davis law professor Mary Ziegler.
While public opposition to abortion restrictions has given pause to the
Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, a judge in a red
state might not have the same qualms. Meanwhile, Missouri’s Republican
attorney general is making similar claims. Neither lawsuit is meant to
be limited to those states, however, as the damages would have an effect
nationwide. Read the column here.
Tariffs
MS NOW - Trump’s latest
pledge to send “low- and middle-income” Americans a $2,000 tariff rebate
check should be taken with a grain of salt. The biggest problem is that
the math doesn’t add up, writes Philip Bump.
Sending checks to everyone making less than $100,000, for example,
would require $249 billion, far more than tariffs are likely to raise by
year’s end. The other problem is that American consumers already pay
55% of tariff revenue, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis. That means
that any tariff checks would just be moving money from one group of
Americans to another. Read more.
Healthcare
MS NOW - The government
shutdown ended after 43 days, but for millions of Americans, the
uncertainty has only just started. Because the deal to end the shutdown
didn’t extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, millions of families
are seeing their insurance rates for next year spike, writes Dr. Uché Blackstock, founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity.
Health policy research organization KFF estimates the average annual
premium payment for subsidized enrollees could more than double, from
$888 to $1,904. Read more.
November 15, 2025
Six-figure incomes are in 'survival mode'
USA Today - A six-figure salary doesn’t mean what it once did. That’s the takeaway from a new Harris poll, which suggests a six-figure income in 2025 equates to survival, but not necessarily to success.
One in three six-figure earners described themselves in the poll as financially distressed. Two in three said six-figure pay is not a sign of wealth. The Harris Poll survey, released Nov. 14, reached 2,109 Americans, including 728 who earn at least $100,000 a year.
One in three six-figure earners described themselves in the poll as financially distressed. Two in three said six-figure pay is not a sign of wealth. The Harris Poll survey, released Nov. 14, reached 2,109 Americans, including 728 who earn at least $100,000 a year.
Meanwhile. . .
The Trump administration has released the names of 608 people detained by immigration agents, and whose arrests might have violated a court order, and only 16 of them have been identified by the federal government as a "high public safety risk" because of their alleged criminal histories, according to court documents.
A new Apple feature allows users to add their passports to iPhones and smartwatches for smoother travel. More
Polls
Newsweek - The latest YouGov/Economist polling, conducted between November 7 and 10, shows that Trump's support among the oldest voters has fallen sharply since October. Last month, Baby Boomers were evenly split, with 49 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval. In the new November data, approval drops to 42 percent while disapproval climbs to 57 percent—a 15-point net decline in just one month.
Politics
Judge bars Trump administration from cutting funding to University of California
Roll Call - Halfway through the 2026 midterm cycle, the fight for the House is remarkably stable, and that’s good news for Democrats’ chances of winning the majority.
Republican efforts to pad their majority through mid-decade redistricting haven’t been as successful as projected thus far, and President Donald Trump’s first year of his second term hasn’t been as popular as Republicans had expected.
Nearly 90 years of history is on Democrats’ side. The president’s party has lost House seats in 20 of the past 22 midterm elections, and the fewest number of seats lost in those cycles was four (1962) and five (1986).
MS Now - Since the House Oversight Committee released documents on Wednesday related to the late convicted sex offender, including emails by Epstein that mention Trump by name, Trump has been dodging the press.
On Friday, Trump had no public events or meetings on his schedule. And instead of engaging with reporters — whom this president typically veers toward — Trump has retreated to social media to launch his counteroffensive on the Epstein crisis.
Axios - President Trump pulled his support for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) yesterday, ending a years-long alliance after weeks of Greene publicly breaking with her party, Axios' Kate Santaliz and Alex Isenstadt write.
Greene was once considered one of Trump's fiercest allies and a MAGA brand ambassador. But Trump accused her of veering "too far to the left" and said he'd back a primary challenger "if the right person runs."
Greene has taken positions in recent weeks that have puzzled Republicans, and irritated Trump.
- She's said her party has "no plan" when it comes to health care.
- She was one of four Republicans to sign a discharge petition to release the Epstein files, against Trump's wishes.
- In an interview with Axios last month, she slammed Trump's second-term agenda as "America Last." MORE
NY Times - On Sunday, Trump granted sweeping pardons to 77 people who helped him attempt to subvert the 2020 election. Last week, Trump pardoned Glen Casada, the Republican former speaker of the Tennessee House, and Casada’s former chief of staff, Cade Cothren. Both men had been convicted of charges including wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In the same set of pardons, Trump also pardoned Robert Harshbarger Jr., the husband of Diana Harshbarger, a Republican representative from Tennessee. As our newsroom reported, Robert had pleaded guilty to “health care fraud and distributing a misbranded drug, in this case kidney medications, some of which came from China, that were not approved for the purpose by the Food and Drug Administration.”
This is just a partial list of the most notorious and unjustifiable pardons of Trump’s second term so far. MORE
Axios - The Trump administration killed a Biden-era proposal to require airlines to compensate passengers for flight delays or cancellations. The Transportation Department said airlines already have incentives to reimburse passengers voluntarily. Go deeper.
Attorney General Pam Bondi assigned the U.S. attorney in Manhattan to investigate Jeffrey Epstein's ties to prominent Democrats, including former President Clinton. President Trump ordered the investigation on Truth Social. Go deeper.
Trump regime opens up millions of Arctic land to fossil fuel drilling
RBReich - The Trump regime just killed a rule
protecting millions of acres of western Arctic lands from fossil fuel
drilling. It’s yet another giveaway to Big Oil — which spent $450 million backing Trump and Republicans and lobbying Congress last year.
Billionaires
RBReich - 53% of Americans believe billionaires are a threat to American democracy. Meanwhile, just 100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion on federal elections last year — a 160-fold increase since Citizens United.
Nearly Half of Gen Z Adults Have Never Had Sex
Newsweek - Roughly half of Generation Z adults have never had sex, according to a new report from DatingAdvice.com and the Kinsey Institute.
While across America, one in five U.S. adults said they never had sex, that figure was staggeringly high for Gen Z, of which 48 percent said they were virgins.
Why It Matters
Gen Z—composed of young people born from 1997 to 2012, is seeing its adult sector, ages 18 to 28—having less sex than many of the older generations, marking a shift in many pertaining to views on romance, dating and relationships.
While across America, one in five U.S. adults said they never had sex, that figure was staggeringly high for Gen Z, of which 48 percent said they were virgins.
Why It Matters
Gen Z—composed of young people born from 1997 to 2012, is seeing its adult sector, ages 18 to 28—having less sex than many of the older generations, marking a shift in many pertaining to views on romance, dating and relationships.
Donald Trump
NY Times - President Trump came under pressure this week when Congress released a trove of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails, in which the convicted sex offender mentioned his ties to Trump. The president emphatically denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and insisted that anyone suggesting otherwise was perpetuating a “hoax.”
Today, however, Trump demanded that the Justice Department begin an investigation into several other people mentioned in the emails, including former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and the venture capitalist and megadonor Reid Hoffman. Notably, he singled out only Democrats, and his own name was nowhere to be seen.
Independent UK - Donald Trump has claimed that London is so dangerous that "people are being stabbed in the ass" as he continued to criticize the city's mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan.
The US president has previously described Sir Sadiq as a "terrible mayor" and made an unfounded claim that Sir Sadiq wants to impose sharia law in London. Sir Sadiq responded by dubbing Mr Trump “racist, sexist, misogynistic,” and “Islamophobic."
"My mother loved London... That was a different London than you have today. Today you have people being stabbed in the ass or worse," Mr Trump claimed in a GB News interview.
Axios - President
Trump pulled his support for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)
yesterday, ending a years-long alliance after weeks of Greene publicly
breaking with her party, Axios' Kate Santaliz and Alex Isenstadt write.
Greene
was once considered one of Trump's fiercest allies and a MAGA brand
ambassador. But Trump accused her of veering "too far to the left" and
said he'd back a primary challenger "if the right person runs."
Greene has taken positions in recent weeks that have puzzled Republicans, and irritated Trump.
- She's said her party has "no plan" when it comes to health care.
- She was one of four Republicans to sign a discharge petition to release the Epstein files, against Trump's wishes.
- In an interview with Axios last month, she slammed Trump's second-term agenda as "America Last." MORE
NY Times - On
Sunday, Trump granted sweeping pardons to 77 people who helped him
attempt to subvert the 2020 election. Last week, Trump pardoned Glen
Casada, the Republican former speaker of the Tennessee House, and
Casada’s former chief of staff, Cade Cothren. Both men had been
convicted of charges including wire fraud, money laundering and
conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In the same set of
pardons, Trump also pardoned Robert Harshbarger Jr., the husband of
Diana Harshbarger, a Republican representative from Tennessee. As our
newsroom reported, Robert had pleaded guilty to “health care fraud and
distributing a misbranded drug, in this case kidney medications, some of
which came from China, that were not approved for the purpose by the
Food and Drug Administration.”
This is just a partial list of the most notorious and unjustifiable pardons of Trump’s second term so far. MORE
17% drop in American religion
New Republic - The 17-point drop in the percentage of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their daily life — from 66% in 2015 to 49% today — ranks among the largest Gallup has recorded in any country over any 10-year period since 2007.
About half of Americans now say religion is not an important part of their daily life. They remain as divided on the question today as they were last year.
Such large declines in religiosity are rare. Since 2007, only 14 out of more than 160 countries in the World Poll have experienced drops of over 15 percentage points in religious importance over any 10-year period.
Only a small number of mostly wealthy nations have experienced larger losses in religiosity, including Greece from 2013-2023 (28 points), Italy from 2012-2022 (23 points), and Poland from 2013-2023 (22 points). Other countries, including Chile, Türkiye and Portugal, have seen declines similar in magnitude to the U.S. decline.
About half of Americans now say religion is not an important part of their daily life. They remain as divided on the question today as they were last year.
Such large declines in religiosity are rare. Since 2007, only 14 out of more than 160 countries in the World Poll have experienced drops of over 15 percentage points in religious importance over any 10-year period.
Only a small number of mostly wealthy nations have experienced larger losses in religiosity, including Greece from 2013-2023 (28 points), Italy from 2012-2022 (23 points), and Poland from 2013-2023 (22 points). Other countries, including Chile, Türkiye and Portugal, have seen declines similar in magnitude to the U.S. decline.
Jeffrey Epstein
The Outstanding Question About Epstein and Trump
NY Times - This week, Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, revealed that a whistle-blower gave the House Judiciary Committee information about the special treatment that Ghislaine Maxwell is receiving at the minimum-security federal prison she was recently transferred to.
In a letter to Donald Trump, Raskin wrote that Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation, has had custom meals delivered to her cell. The warden, he said, personally arranged for Maxwell to meet privately with family members and other visitors and even provided snacks and refreshments. According to Raskin, her guests were allowed to bring computers, potentially allowing her unauthorized communication with the outside world.
Maxwell was allegedly taken to the prison’s exercise room after hours so she could work out alone, and “allowed to enjoy recreation time in staff-only areas,” wrote Raskin. An inmate who trains service dogs was reportedly instructed to give her special access to a puppy. Raskin claimed that a top official at the prison said that he is “sick of having to be Maxwell’s bitch.”
Courier - The US House Oversight Committee on Wednesday announced a massive document dump from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, including thousands of emails discussing a wide range of topics, including women, blackmail, and spending the holidays with Donald Trump.
The 20,000 documents come in the form of poorly organized folders with unhelpful labels, screenshots of emails, and heavily redacted spreadsheets. Some of the files are devoid of context, such as a video in the NATIVES folder of a dog playing with plushies of Trump and Hillary Clinton, while others are broken up in confusing ways, like email chains split into several PDFs.
To make this massive data dump more accessible, COURIER has compiled the 20,000 documents from Epstein’s estate into an easily searchable repository via Google Pinpoint. Use the search tool here.
Saving medicine about to be tossed
Nice News - Each year, $11 billion worth of unopened, unexpired prescription
medication is thrown away — but one organization is working to
redistribute it to low-income communities in the U.S. instead. Sirum, a
nonprofit social enterprise, makes individuals and organizations aware
of what they can donate and disperses unused medicine
to those who need it most. “Getting medications to the millions of
people who need it to live a healthy life, saving medicine to save lives
— that is something we can do today,” co-founder Kiah Williams said in a
2020 TED video.
Food stamps facts
Pew Researh - In May 2025, nearly 42 million Americans – around one-in-eight – received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Our updated analysis of federal data answers questions about who uses the program, how much it costs and more.
I’m a Psychoanalyst. This Is What Technology Is Doing to Us.
Psychoanalyst Steven Barrie-Anthony - I increasingly see
in my practice how people are beginning to feel that technology has
pulled them away, again and again, from what matters most. Perhaps tech
has interrupted their creative lives or their emotional growth. A
pattern familiar to many of us is how these distractions disrupt
connection with others...
Anger often comes first. Then we get to the hurt beneath it. All these moments — not actually unseen, but noticed and ignored — leave this residue of grief...
One constant I’ve found is how technology brings a kind of alexithymic fog — alexithymia being the condition of having difficulty identifying or being able to express one’s emotions. This isn’t universal, and the emotions we’re pushing away aren’t always the same. But it happens in a startlingly consistent way.
When we do manage to feel, it can be difficult to dwell with the feelings. Instead, we move swiftly into action... We toss the phone, delete the app, do a digital detox. These solutions rarely hold. The detox ends. We pick back up the phone. We reinstall the app. Rather than staying with the feeling, we vacillate between immersion in tech and rejecting it entirely. This circuit, moving from feeling to doing, is a key piece of technology’s anesthetizing environment.
Tech encourages the instrumentalization of emotional life, by which I mean that our feelings seem real only if they translate into actions that help us achieve specific goals. Take the avalanche of fitness metrics appearing on devices like Apple watches — resting heart rate, step count, sleep score. These numbers take on lives of their own and come to feel more real than the mind-body states they measure. On social media, similarly, the representations we put forward can take on a kind of hyper reality. With A.I. tools like ChatGPT, the college experience shifts from creative immersion to identifying prompts to achieve a specific aim.
To use the language of Silicon Valley, we are highly incentivized to focus on action in pursuit of external markers of success. The notion of staying with feeling without translating it into action seems pointless. MORE
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