Inflation in the United States is down significantly from its recent highs, falling from an annual rate of 9.1% in June 2022 to 2.5% in August 2024. But actual prices remain elevated and, absent a recession, are likely to stay that way.

On average, consumer prices in August 2024 were 22.0% above where they were in January 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic scrambled the U.S. economy and much of the rest of American life. Today, 74% of Americans say they are very concerned about the price of food and consumer goods, while 69% say the same about housing costs, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

Of course, people don’t live on national averages. They live in particular places and buy particular things, and their experiences of inflation depend greatly on those particulars. The cost of apartments in Atlanta, bananas in Boston and sportswear in Seattle all factor into the national average inflation rate but can – and do – vary considerably from it….

Read it all.

NEW from @pewresearch: While *inflation* has eased, consumer *prices* are still much higher than before the pandemic, especially in certain metro areas. That may be why ~7 in 10 Americans are "very concerned" about prices. https://t.co/tI4k5ZyLU7 pic.twitter.com/sgAe9ziZ6c

— John Gramlich (@johngramlich) October 7, 2024

Currently, a hurricane disaster that is significantly more challenging than Katrina is being serviced by something like a third of the resources that Louisiana called upon. And yet few people in Washington even think this is a problem. At the same time as Congress has borrowed another 10 or 20 billion dollars to hand over to Ukraine and Israel, presidential candidate Kamala Harris has announced that the victims of Helene will be able to apply for $750 in relief assistance to help them get back on their feet.

As Chernobyl was, Helene is now becoming: a point at which the sheer absurdity and uselessness of the machine becomes too obvious to ignore. Looking at the disaster unfolding in Appalachia, the winners of the Cold War are now starting to ask the same question that eventually brought down the Soviet Union: what the hell is even the point of all of this anymore?

Read it all.

Very thoughtful essay on the response to Hurricane Helene, likening it to the Soviet response to Chernobyl.

“As Chernobyl was, Helene is now becoming: a point at which the sheer absurdity & uselessness of the machine becomes too obvious to ignore.”https://t.co/y9PzwMpeJ2

— TheBlogMire (@theblogmire) October 8, 2024

As marijuana legalization has accelerated across the country, doctors are contending with the effects of an explosion in the use of the drug and its intensity. A $33 billion industry has taken root, turning out an ever-expanding range of cannabis products so intoxicating they bear little resemblance to the marijuana available a generation ago. Tens of millions of Americans use the drug, for medical or recreational purposes — most of them without problems.

But with more people consuming more potent cannabis more often, a growing number, mostly chronic users, are enduring serious health consequences.

The accumulating harm is broader and more severe than previously reported. And gaps in state regulations, limited public health messaging and federal restraints on research have left many consumers, government officials and even medical practitioners in the dark about such outcomes.

Again and again, The New York Times found dangerous misconceptions.

Many users believe, for instance, that people cannot become addicted to cannabis. But millions do.

Read it all.

NYT: As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms – The drug, legal in much of the country, is widely seen as nonaddictive and safe. For some users, these assumptions are dangerously wrong. https://t.co/yi8TpMPjvV

— Aaron M. Renn (@aaron_renn) October 5, 2024

The illicit fentanyl that kills tens of thousands of Americans a year is largely produced from Chinese chemicals cooked up in clandestine Mexican laboratories, according to U.S. authorities. This requires drug traffickers to transport the necessary chemicals halfway around the world. But cartels have found a clever way to smuggle these chemicals from China to Mexico – by first importing them into the United States.

Master carton shipping has become an indispensable way for delivery companies to move vast quantities of merchandise around the world quickly. It’s legal, it’s practical, and in the era of e-commerce, it’s key to our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not.

Still, the practice makes it a snap for traffickers to sneak fentanyl chemicals into the country, hidden in small boxes packed inside other boxes. On top of that, a little-known U.S. trade regulation has made this smuggling easier still.

The de minimis rule exempts low-value parcels from taxes, duties and stringent customs reporting rules. It’s meant to keep U.S. Customs and Border Protection from wasting time and effort when the cost of collecting tariffs on cheap imports exceeds the revenue gained.

Read it all.

A tweak in a trade rule fueled America’s online shopping habits. It also helped Mexican narcos smuggle vital fentanyl-making chemicals from China Here’s how: https://t.co/ahkIC9QfdB by @draz_DJ @gottesdiener @kristinacooke @SEisenhammer via @specialreports pic.twitter.com/aXnl1Yfpkw

— Reuters Investigates (@specialreports) October 1, 2024

Devastating hundreds of miles from the Florida Gulf Coast to Georgia to the mountains of North Carolina, Hurricane Helene has created a complicated equation for Christian organizations that are on the frontline of disaster response.

“In my more than 20 years of disaster experience, I can’t think of a time when such a large area was at risk,” Jeff Jellets, the disaster coordinator for The Salvation Army’s work in the South, said in a statement.

Samaritan’s Purse chief operating officer Edward Graham told CT that the organization had to call in equipment and volunteers from its Canadian arm for its hurricane response and even had to adjust some of its overseas work. Just for this disaster, Samaritan’s Purse is operating in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Read it all.

Christian relief organizations, partnered with local churches, are working on bringing help to the most difficult-to-reach places in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. @emlybelz reports: https://t.co/mEcdbaJecl

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) September 30, 2024

“When I came to CHBC,” Dever explained, “I was very clear with them that I was happy for every aspect of my public ministry to fail, if necessary, except for the preaching of God’s Word.” The hyperbole was intentional. Dever wanted the church to understand the primacy of the preached Word in the congregation’s life.

“Preaching is central to the pastoral ministry,” Dever explained at the congregational Q&A in 1993. “A lot of churches in America don’t think that. I think they’re wrong.”

Dever began by preaching expositionally through Mark’s Gospel. From his time studying the Puritans, Dever realized that in a “Christian culture,” the way you preach evangelistically to self-conscious Christians who may not be converted is by constantly repeating the same truth in sermons: This is what a Christian is like. The Gospels provided the perfect lens to do so through Jesus’s words.

Read it all.

What are the marks of a faithful pastor?

Preach
Pray
Love
Stay

On the 30th anniversary of Mark Dever's installation as pastor of @CHBCdc, here are some reflections on how these goals have shaped Mark's ministry on Capitol Hill.https://t.co/rhunQTIFQm

— Caleb Morell (@calebmorell) September 25, 2024

Earlier this month, a detective knocked on Shavon Harvey’s door, in suburban Ohio, to ask about her son. The son had sent a Snapchat message from her phone to his friends, saying there would be shootings at several schools nearby.

She rushed to the police station, where her son was already in custody, but the police did not release him. He was charged with inducing panic, a second-degree felony, and officials kept him in detention for 10 nights.

He is 10.

Ms. Harvey’s son is far from the only child arrested this month after similar behavior. And he’s not even the youngest.

Read it all.

We need to find a non-law-enforcement solution to students who make threats on social media. This @nytimes piece explains why.

As School Threats Proliferate, More Than 700 Students Are Arrested https://t.co/dnTc2hQ1MG

— Tom Warrick (@TomWarrickAC) September 26, 2024

The dynamics at Grace are a dramatic example of an emerging truth: For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than their female peers. They attend services more often and are more likely to identify as religious.

“We’ve never seen it before,” Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, said of the flip.

Among Generation Z Christians, this dynamic is playing out in a stark way: The men are staying in church, while the women are leaving at a remarkable clip.

Church membership has been dropping in the United States for years. But within Gen Z, almost 40 percent of women now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, compared with 34 percent of men, according to a survey last year of more than 5,000 Americans by the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute.

Read it all.

In a first among Christians, young men are more religious than young women.
Within Gen Z, almost 40% of women now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, compared with 34% of men. In every other age group, men were more likely to be unaffiliated https://t.co/Efq8pmjqxa

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) September 24, 2024

Climate optimism is fading. Higher costs, pushback from businesses and consumers, and the slow rollout of technology are delaying the transition from fossil fuels.

Renewable energy is growing faster than expected. But surging demand for power is sucking up much of that additional capacity and forcing utilities to burn fossil fuels, including coal, for longer than expected.

With greenhouse-gas emissions continuing at record levels, scientists expect floods and heat waves to get worse. This year is on track to be the hottest on record.

“The pace of our response is obviously totally insufficient,” said Sonia Seneviratne, a climate scientist at Swiss university ETH Zurich. On this trajectory, “it will become increasingly impossible to face the changing climate we are going to experience,” she said.

Read it all.

Climate optimism is fading as high costs and new priorities like AI push the energy transition down the priority list for businesses and investors. Climate week story taking stock of the setbacks w/ @edmballard:https://t.co/7tZDL7w0Sd

— Amrith Ramkumar (@AmrithRamkumar) September 23, 2024

On July 21st Matt Roan, chair of the Cumberland County Democratic Committee, hosted a meeting with volunteers. The event took a turn when Mr Roan stopped to read a statement from Joe Biden announcing his departure from the presidential race. “There was this sort of sense of sadness—and then immediate hope,” Mr Roan recalls in his office, which overlooks the Pennsylvania state capitol. The activist speaks highly of Mr Biden but acknowledged that “things were not looking good” at the time. The rise of Kamala Harris attracted a surge of volunteers to a county that favoured Donald Trump by around 18 points in 2016 but only 11 points in 2020. If such improvements hold there and in other areas like it, Ms Harris would probably win the state and the presidency.

Both campaigns see Pennsylvania as a fulcrum of the 2024 election, and for good reason. The Economist’s forecast model suggests that the state—with its 19 electoral-college votes, the most of any swing state—is the tipping-point in 27% of the model’s updated simulations, meaning it decides the election more often than any other state. Mr Trump wins only 7% of the time when he loses the Keystone State. Indeed, he narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2016, and then he lost by 80,000 votes out of nearly 7m cast in his unsuccessful re-election bid four years later.

No state has drawn more money. Of the $839.5m that the Harris campaign and allied organisations already have spent or committed to advertising, $164.1m has gone to this state of 13m people. The less well-heeled Trump operation has directed $135.7m of $458.8m to Pennsylvania. Turn on the television, watch a YouTube video or listen to the radio inside Pennsylvania and it won’t be long before spots for Ms Harris or Mr Trump begin to play.

Read it all.

The battle for Pennsylvania is on.

For all the money both presidential candidates are pouring into the swing state, the race remains extremely close https://t.co/Su2xduW2Pr

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) September 20, 2024

US military aid packages for Ukraine have been smaller in recent months, as the stockpiles of weapons and equipment that the Pentagon is willing to send Kyiv from its own inventory have dwindled. The shift comes amid concerns about US military readiness being impacted as US arms manufacturers play catchup to the huge demand created by the war against Russia.

The shortage means the Biden administration still has $6 billion in funds available to arm and equip Ukraine, but the Pentagon lacks the inventory it is willing to deliver more than two years into the war, two US officials told CNN.

“It’s about the stockpiles we have on our shelves, what [the Ukrainians] are asking for, and whether we can meet those requests with what we currently have” without impacting readiness, one of the officials said.

The Pentagon has asked Congress for more time to spend that money before it expires at the end of September, according to Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary. It’s a stark reversal from last winter, when the administration was pleading with lawmakers for additional funding to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

Read it all.

New: US military aid packages for Ukraine have been smaller as stockpiles of weapons DoD is willing to send from its own inventory have dwindled. It's resulted in a new problem for the admin: Too much money for Ukraine and not enough time to spend it. https://t.co/Fpxse6f4yq

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) September 17, 2024

In his recent advisory on parents’ mental health, the United States surgeon general, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, said out loud what many parents might have only furtively admitted: Parenting today is too hard and stressful.

Of course, there have always been concerns about families’ well-being. And while some of today’s parents’ fears are newer — cellphones, school shootings, fentanyl — parents have always worried about their children.

So why has parental stress risen to the level of a rare surgeon general’s warning about an urgent public health issue — putting it in the same category as cigarettes and AIDS?

It’s because today’s parents face something different and more demanding: the expectation that they spend ever more time and money educating and enriching their children. These pressures, researchers say, are driven in part by fears about the modern-day economy — that if parents don’t equip their children with every possible advantage, their children could fail to achieve a secure, middle-class life.

Read it all.

So true, right here in our wealthy Silicon Valley community – nearly every kid is scheduled every day, weekends, too, sports, classes, etc. I'm part of it, teaching robotics after school, too:
Today’s Parents: ‘Exhausted, Burned Out & Perpetually Behind’ https://t.co/0JjY4ep8lr

— Steve Mushero (@stevemushero) September 14, 2024

Britain and the U.S. are poised to cross a decisive Rubicon in the Ukraine war on Friday at a White House summit where they will discuss plans to allow Kyiv to strike targets inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles.

In a final bid to scare off the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday evening he would regard such an agreement as tantamount to NATO directly entering the war. “This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are fighting Russia,” he said.

The threat came with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer still en route to Washington ahead of Friday’s talks with President Joe Biden over Ukraine’s possible use of British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles on Russian soil.

“Russia started this conflict,” Starmer responded, speaking to journalists on board his flight. “Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia can end this conflict straight away.”

Read it all.

BIG READ

Putin threatens war as Western allies near deal on missile strikes in Russia

Big read on the drumbeat towards a deal — nothing announced tomorrow but will be a crucial staging post

We get inside all the issues & report from over the Atlantic https://t.co/F6y7P0TnhW

— Dan Bloom (@danbloom1) September 12, 2024

The U.S. is gradually moving aircraft and commandos into coastal West Africa in an urgent effort to try to stop the march of al Qaeda and Islamic State militants across one of the world’s most volatile regions.

American forces were evicted this summer from their regional stronghold in Niger, farther inland, and now the Pentagon is patching together a backup counterinsurgency plan in neighboring countries—refurbishing an airfield in Benin to accommodate American helicopters, stationing Green Berets and surveillance planes in Ivory Coast, and negotiating the return of U.S. commandos to a base they used to occupy in Chad.

“Losing Niger means that we’ve lost our ability to directly influence counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in the Sahel,” said retired Maj. Gen. Mark Hicks, former commander of U.S. special-operations forces in Africa, referring to the vast, semidesert band just south of the Sahara.

Islamist militants are wreaking havoc across the core of the Sahel—Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger—attacking police and military, stirring local grievances, imposing their harsh version of Islam in occupied villages and causing some 38,000 deaths since 2017, according to the Pentagon’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, which analyzed figures collected by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a U.S.-based, nonprofit monitoring service.

Read it all.

If only the moderators had asked serious questions about topics like this last night….

U.S. Forces Try to Regroup as al Qaeda, Islamic State Sow Terror in West Africa https://t.co/2olUuGnpKq

— Morgan Ortagus (@MorganOrtagus) September 11, 2024

How messy will it get? There are three possible outcomes. Start with the extremely unlikely one, which is a vote so close that Kamala Harris and Mr Trump tie in the electoral college. Were this to happen, the next president would be picked by the House of Representatives, with each state wielding one vote. Even if Ms Harris won the popular vote on November 5th, Mr Trump would almost certainly become president. That would be fair in the sense that it would follow the rules, but Democrats would be furious.

The second outcome is a Trump win. Democrats could bring legal challenges in close states where Ms Harris lost. Some of these might end up at the Supreme Court, where three justices appointed by Mr Trump would have to adjudicate their merits. Three of the conservative justices worked on George W. Bush’s legal team back in 2000 on Bush v Gore. That would make it hard to persuade Ms Harris’s supporters that decisions favouring the Trump campaign were impartial. After the court’s rulings on abortion and presidential immunity, Democrats have come to view the justices as Republican politicians in robes. Nevertheless, most elected Democrats would probably accept the rulings, if more grudgingly than in 2000.

However, if enough Democratic lawmakers were really convinced the courts had acted unfairly, they could try to block certification of the result in Congress, following the precedent set by Republicans in 2021. Then, 139 House members and eight senators (all Republicans) voted to reject the results. A reform of the Electoral Count Act, passed two years ago, raises the threshold, so that 20 senators and 87 members of the House would have to object. In the unlikely scenario that those preliminary votes passed, Democrats would probably lose the subsequent full votes of both chambers. All this is possible, but the most probable outcome, if Mr Trump were to win the election, is that Ms Harris would concede, taking the wind out of any Democratic challenge to the result.

If Ms Harris wins, Mr Trump will not be so gracious. In that third scenario, the complexity of America’s voting system collides with the MAGA conspiracy machine.

Read it all.

How ugly will it get?
America’s election is mired in conflict
Donald Trump’s conspiracy machine is already gearing up for election night https://t.co/wBPTd73SzQ

— Pablo Secada (@psecadae) September 12, 2024

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Seal Team 6, the clandestine US Navy commando unit that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, has been training for missions to help Taiwan if it is invaded by China, according to people familiar with the preparations.

The elite Navy special forces team, which is tasked with some of the military’s most sensitive and difficult missions, has been planning and training for a Taiwan conflict for more than a year at Dam Neck, its headquarters at Virginia Beach about 250km south-east of Washington.

The secret training underlines the increased US focus on deterring China from attacking Taiwan, while stepping up preparations for such an event.

The preparations have only grown since Phil Davidson, the US Indo-Pacific commander at the time, warned in 2021 that China could attack Taiwan within six years.

Read it all.

This is an amazing scoop by @FT and @Dimi. It is sure to get under Beijing's skin.

US Navy Seal unit that killed bin Laden trains for Chinese invasion of Taiwan https://t.co/6ngSZFvKrA via @ft

— Dennis Wilder偉德寧 (@dennisw5) September 12, 2024

The Man Behind the Red Bandana from Drew Gallagher on Vimeo.

On Sept. 11, Mr. Colasanti kissed his wife, Kelly, and children, Cara, 4, and Lauren, 1, before catching an early train to arrive by 7:30 a.m. at Cantor Fitzgerald, where he worked as a bond trader on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower.

His plan was to get in early so he could return early to his family in Hoboken. Every night, he gave his girls a bath, then tucked them in.

“He put us first always,” Kelly Colasanti said. “He was a great father. He had such a great relationship with both the girls.”

Read it all.

9/11

A day of reflection.
A day of community.
A day of remembrance.

Today marks 23 years since our immeasurable loss.

As an extension of Tribute in Light, for the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we have partnered with the @Sept11Memorial and will be… pic.twitter.com/IvHEq0Pprr

— Luna Park in Coney Island (@LunaParkNYC) September 11, 2024

From there:

I got up and turned on the TV, and there was just this big black hole in the World Trade Center. And there was just smoke billowing out of it. I called my sister Cathy I said, “You might wanna wake up, turn in your TV and take a look at what they’re showing.” The commentator’s saying that it’s an American Airlines plane. And I casually asked Cathy, I said, “Do you know where Betty is?” And she says, “Betty’s supposed to be flying out of Boston.” And I said, “Do you think Betty is on that plane?” We just didn’t know. So I left a phone call on her cellphone, just asking her when she’s landed or anywhere you’re on the ground, to just give us a call and tell us you’re okay. And there was no call from Betty. I called American Airlines, and it was only then that it was confirmed that Betty was on the flight.

I just want to add, through your passing, Betty, our family’s gotten very very close. Dad, who’s quite stoic, doesn’t really say a whole lot, man of the family, one day told us that he cries himself to sleep. Even to this day, he just keeps staying up watching TV, hoping somehow that you’ll reappear. And we’re all still waiting for that phone call from you to tell us that you’re okay. We just miss you a whole lot.

You may find the transcript of Betty Ong’s conversation reporting the hijacking from the American airlines plane here.

Today, we honor the memory of those lost on 9/11, and remember all the heroes who responded that day.#NeverForget pic.twitter.com/YyMGdyaH6U

— City of New York (@nycgov) September 11, 2024

“The cloudless sky filled with coiling black smoke and a blizzard of paper—memos, photographs, stock transactions, insurance policies—which fluttered for miles on a gentle southeasterly breeze, across the East River into Brooklyn. Debris spewed onto the streets of lower Manhattan, which were already covered with bodies. Some of them had been exploded out of the building when the planes hit. A man walked out of the towers carrying someone else’s leg. Jumpers landed on several firemen, killing them instantly.

“The air pulsed with sirens as firehouses and police stations all over the city emptied, sending the rescuers, many of them to their deaths. [FBI agent] Steve Bongardt was running toward the towers, against a stream of people racing in the opposite direction. He heard the boom of the second collision. “There’s a second plane,” someone cried.”

–Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Random House [Vintage Books], 2006), pp.404-405

Never forget.

NYC
DC
Shanksville
USA#NeverForget911 pic.twitter.com/UiWtEffc1R

— Rich Eisen (@richeisen) September 11, 2024

This site is intended as a place to remember and celebrate the lives of those lost on September 11, 2001. It includes Guest Books and profiles for each of those lost.

It is well worth your time to explore it thoroughly today.

The sun rises behind lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center seen from the Empty Sky 9/11 Memorial in Jersey City on the 23rd anniversary of the attacks on the WTC in New York City, Wednesday morning #newyorkcity #nyc #newyork #sunrise #sept11 #NeverForget pic.twitter.com/1q9RhuEWIt

— Gary Hershorn (@GaryHershorn) September 11, 2024

Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, according to U.S. and European officials, a move that gives Moscow another potent military tool in its war against Ukraine and follows stern Western warnings not to provide those arms to Moscow.

The development comes as Russia has stepped up its missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, killing dozens of civilians in recent days. Washington informed allies of Iran’s shipments this week, European officials said, including a briefing for ambassadors in Washington on Thursday.

A U.S. official confirmed the missiles “have finally been delivered.”

“We have been warning of the deepening security partnership between Russia and Iran since the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and are alarmed by these reports,” said National Security Council Spokesman Sean Savett. “We and our partners have made clear both at the G-7 and at the NATO summits this summer that together we are prepared to deliver significant consequences. Any transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia would represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”

Read it all.

The next time you are stuck in traffic, look around you. Not at the cars, but the passengers. If you are in America, the chances are that one in 75 of them will be killed by a car—most of those by someone else’s car. Wherever you may be, the folk cocooned in a giant SUV or pickup truck are likelier to survive a collision with another vehicle. But the weight of their machines has a cost, because it makes the roads more dangerous for everyone else. The Economist has found that, for every life the heaviest 1% of SUVs or trucks saves in America, more than a dozen lives are lost in smaller vehicles. This makes traffic jams an ethics class on wheels.

Each year cars kill roughly 40,000 people in America—and not just because it is a big place where people love to drive. The country’s roads are nearly twice as dangerous per mile driven as those in the rest of the rich world. Deaths there involving cars have increased over the past decade, despite the introduction of technology meant to make driving safer.

Weight is to blame. Using data for 7.5m crashes in 14 American states in 2013-23, we found that for every 10,000 crashes the heaviest vehicles kill 37 people in the other car, compared with 5.7 for cars of a median weight and just 2.6 for the lightest. The situation is getting worse. In 2023, 31% of new cars in America weighed over 5,000lb (2.27 tonnes), compared with 22% in 2018. The number of pedestrians killed by cars has almost doubled since 2010. Although a typical car is 25% lighter in Europe and 40% lighter in Japan, electrification will add weight there too, exacerbating the gap between the heaviest vehicles and the lightest. The Ford F-150 Lightning weighs around 40% more than its petrol-engine cousin, because of the battery that moves all those lithium ions from cathode to anode.

Read it all.

The Economist just published a deeply-researched story about car bloat, and it's very, very damning:

"For every life that the heaviest 1% of SUVs and trucks save, there are more than a dozen lives lost in other vehicles."

Well worth your time: https://t.co/eHalcNkiBX pic.twitter.com/1RBfAooX6V

— David Zipper (@DavidZipper) September 1, 2024

From Archbishop Steve Wood:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In the midst of this time of uncertainty, social tensions, and violence, please join Jacqui and me as we pray for peace in the United States tonight: pic.twitter.com/cLxBRg7sgE

— ACNA (@The_ACNA) July 14, 2024

Firms that manage drug benefits, which promise to keep a lid on high drug costs, instead steer patients away from less expensive medicines and overcharge for cancer therapies, Federal Trade Commission investigators found.

The FTC, in a report released Tuesday, detailed a number of actions that it said large pharmacy-benefit managers use to boost their profits and increase the spending of the health plans and employers that hired them to control costs. The actions can also lead to higher outlays for patients at the pharmacy counter, the agency said.

The findings follow a two-year investigation into the firms, known as PBMs, and calls from some lawmakers to rein in the firms’ business practices.

FTC Chair Lina Khan said the agency planned further scrutiny of big PBMs with the goal of making healthcare affordable. “Dominant pharmacy-benefit managers can hike the cost of drugs—including overcharging patients for cancer drugs,” she said. 

Read it all.

PBMs are a paradigmatic example of how a middleman meant to reduce costs and enhance efficiency becomes so bloated and powerful that it adds to costs and reduces efficiency. Great to see FTC addressing this issue!https://t.co/q0s3VC638W

— Kate Judge (@ProfKateJudge) July 9, 2024

The 6th Street Bridge in Los Angeles is wired to glow with colorful lights celebrating the city’s spirit. But the bridge, known as the “Ribbon of Light,” goes dark at night now. So do stretches of the busy 405 freeway and dozens of street blocks across the city.

In St. Paul, Minn., a man was recently hit by a car and killed while crossing a street near his home where streetlights had gone out.

And in Las Vegas and surrounding communities, more than 970,000 feet of electrical wiring, the equivalent of 184 miles, have gone missing from streetlights over the past two years.

The lights are going out across American cities, as a result of a brazen and opportunistic type of crime. 

Read it all.

Metal Thieves Are Stripping America’s Cities
Across the country, copper and other valuable materials have been stolen from streetlights, statues and even gravesites, costing millions to repair. https://t.co/vJh8sUvbzp

— Stuart Falk (@stufalk) July 10, 2024

1. Which of these events actually happened on July 4, 1776?

A) The U.S. declared victory in the Revolutionary War.

B) A group of patriots dressed as Native Americans tossed British tea into the harbor to protest excessive taxes.

C) The Declaration of Independence was finalized.

D) The Constitution was finalized.

E) Paul Revere rode from Boston to Lexington and Concord to warn the patriots that the British would attack by sea….

Check it all out and see how you do.

Happy #FourthofJuly to our friends celebrating #IndependenceDay across the United States !

Signed,
Your Oldest Ally pic.twitter.com/a5TXLiMuIp

— Embassy of France in the U.S. (@franceintheus) July 4, 2024