American Women Suck

… I want to sacrifice for something… Something true. Something that feels real. Something that helps me affirm that all of this nonsense I’m forcing myself to comply with, just because the world I live in today makes it seem important, is actually completely unnecessary. No, not just unnecessary… But…threatening to the thing that calls me. It’s something old. Ancestral. Something that demands answers. Something more than just transactions and work and fitting in. Something that doesn’t feel like a searing, heavy chain holding down a lively, fantastical soul. … Here’s the thing about sacrifice though: It doesn’t play for any team. It exists regardless of what we want, and even more so when we act. And I think that’s something we don’t understand when we’re trying to choose. There is no such thing as no sacrifice. The flaw of any human brain that dreams, is that it convinces us, we convince ourselves, that we can have it all. And even if we get the “all”, wealth, the job, the vacations, the partner and two kids…we had to sacrifice to get these too. In process, we have to sacrifice time, indulgence, money, our own ego, our rest, our time with friends, our hobbies. We have to sacrifice all other paths, even when we decide, with complete unapologetic satisfaction, in what we want. … So, what’s the lesson? What question must we answer? I think, it’s that we must fall fully into one path. It’s unavoidable. We must gather the few most important things to us and give every part of our being to them. Or else, the worst thing that could come from a life happens: Mediocrity. Because we can’t choose to give up having every option. Can you really imagine FOMO being the thing that steals your life? When we can’t choose to sacrifice, we sacrifice all the amazing experiences we can’t even see that lie on the chosen path. Things that would take steps in directions we didn’t expect that would lead us to the unfathomable. When we can’t choose to sacrifice, we lose our growth, our strength, our social attractiveness, our lust for life. And we end up cycling ourselves into a fear that makes us feel like someone we can’t stand to be, and without even knowing why. We find ourselves as the indecisive, the dull and unattractive, the bitter. The body and mind used as pawn with no power but forward, flailing movement through mortality, waiting for time or enemy to end us. … So, what do we do? Trusting ourselves to be our greatest ally. Trusting and executing on the sacrificial fires. Burning off the parts of us that have never fit. And more importantly, bringing everything we love into our lives that we fear, because only the exposure can prove to us what is real for us, and what is false and burn-worthy. Finding out what we would do anything for and sacrifice all other things for, and not talking ourselves out of it. And if it’s right… If it truly is for you, and not something to make you just feel important or to do right by others, the release of all other things should feel like freedom. Maybe not at first. Opinions of you might change. Others may be confused, hurt, or aggressive toward you. But what matters more? Filling your life with intentional direction? Or a constant anxiousness about which path to choose and never choosing because of what you might lose? WHEN YOU CHOOSE ONE LIFE, ALL OTHERS MUST DIE. Truth and Love, Reader. If you like my writing and the things I question, you might(I mean…probably) also like my newsletter. If not, you can still get all my stories here on Medium! Substack is where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get not just my medium stories, but chat with me directly, have access to all of my content in one place, and have access to The Art of Questioning audio. Only at https://zackaryhenson.substack.com There are so many great stories on Medium! If you want to have access to some of the best writing by thousands of creators, start your membership with the link below, which will also support my writing. Remember…question everything! https://zackaryhenson.medium.com/subscribe — This post was previously published on medium.com. Love relationships? We promise to have a good one with your inbox. Subcribe to get 3x weekly dating and relationship advice. Did you know? We have 8 publications on Medium. Join us there! Hello, Love (relationships) Change Becomes You (Advice) A Parent is Born (Parenting) Equality Includes You (Social Justice) Greener Together (Environment) Shelter Me (Wellness) Modern Identities (Gender, etc.) Co-Existence (World) *** – Photo credit: Ryan Carpenter On Unsplash The post What Should We Sacrifice? appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

The US has reportedly terminated Biden-era agreements to jointly police “disinformation” The United States has withdrawn from a series of international agreements aimed at countering alleged foreign “disinformation,” effectively ending joint efforts with EU governments to police online content, the Financial Times has reported, citing unnamed European officials. The US State Department notified participating nations last week that it would terminate memoranda of understanding (MoUs) signed under the Biden administration, according to the report published on Monday. The agreements with some 22 countries, mainly in Europe and Africa, were part of a broader initiative led by the now-defunct Global Engagement Center (GEC). The GEC was formally disbanded in April after congressional Republicans blocked a funding renewal in December. Originally established in 2011 to fight online terrorist propaganda, the center’s mandate was later expanded to cover alleged foreign state-backed “disinformation.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously characterized the GEC as a taxpayer-funded tool for political suppression, alleging it was used by the Biden administration to target conservative voices under the guise of combating propaganda. “Under the previous administration, this office... spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving,” Rubio said in April. The move marks another step in a broader campaign by President Donald Trump to dismantle “ineffective” institutions perceived as vehicles for political censorship. Since taking office, Trump has also defunded the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees the Cold War-era broadcasters Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), widely regarded as Western propaganda outlets. Washington has also pushed back against the EU’s Digital Services Act, which mandates the removal of content deemed illegal or harmful. US diplomats were reportedly ordered in August to lobby against the legislation, calling it a threat to free expression and a burden on American tech firms. Critics of the EU law have argued that it institutionalizes censorship across the bloc and unfairly targets non-EU media and platforms. The EU imposed sweeping sanctions on Russian media after the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. Outlets like RT, Sputnik, and RIA Novosti have all been banned across the bloc, while their personnel have been targeted with sanctions. Moscow described the crackdown as “global censorship and a regime of zero tolerance for dissenting opinions.” View the full article

By Evan Lerner – U. Utah Nearly a quarter of people over the age of 40 experience painful osteoarthritis, making it a leading cause of disability in adults. Osteoarthritis degrades joint-cushioning cartilage, and there is currently no way of reversing this damage: the only option is to manage pain with medication, and eventually, joint replacement. Researchers are now demonstrating the potential for another option: gait retraining. By making a small adjustment to the angle of their foot while walking, participants in a year-long randomized control trial experienced pain relief equivalent to medication. Critically, those participants also showed less knee cartilage degradation over that period as compared to a group that received a placebo treatment. Published in The Lancet Rheumatology and co-led by Scott Uhlrich of the University of Utah’s John and Marcia Price College of Engineering, these findings come from the first placebo-controlled study to demonstrate the effectiveness of a biomechanical intervention for osteoarthritis. “We’ve known that for people with osteoarthritis, higher loads in their knee accelerate progression, and that changing the foot angle can reduce knee load,” says Uhlrich, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “So the idea of a biomechanical intervention is not new, but there have not been randomized, placebo-controlled studies to show that they’re effective.” With support from the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies, the researchers were specifically looking at patients with mild-to-moderate osteoarthritis in the medial compartment of the knee—on the inside of the leg—which tends to bear more weight than the lateral, outside, compartment. This form of osteoarthritis is the most common, but the ideal foot angle for reducing load in the medial side of the knee differs from person to person, depending on their natural gait and how it changes when they adopt the new walking pattern. “Previous trials prescribed the same intervention to all individuals, resulting in some individuals not reducing, or even increasing, their joint loading,” Uhlrich says. “We used a personalized approach to selecting each individual’s new walking pattern, which improved how much individuals could offload their knee and likely contributed to the positive effect on pain and cartilage that we saw.” In their first two visits, participants received a baseline MRI and practiced walking on a pressure-sensitive treadmill while motion-capture cameras recorded the mechanics of their gait. This allowed the researchers to determine whether turning the patient’s toe inward or outward would reduce load more, and whether a 5-degree or 10-degree adjustment would be ideal. This personalized analysis also screened out potential participants who could not benefit from the intervention in instances where none of the foot-angle changes could decrease loading in their knees. These participants were included in previous studies, which may have contributed to those studies’ inconclusive pain results. Moreover, after their initial intake sessions, half of the 68 participants were assigned to a sham treatment group to control for the placebo effect. These participants were prescribed foot angles that were actually identical to their natural gait. Conversely, participants in the intervention group were prescribed the change in foot angle that maximally reduced their knee loading. Participants from both groups returned to the lab for six weekly training sessions, where they received biofeedback—vibrations from a device worn on the shin—that helped them maintain the prescribed foot angle while walking on the lab’s treadmill. After the six-week training period, participants were encouraged to practice their new gait for at least 20 minutes a day, to the point where it became natural. Periodic check-in visits showed that participants were adhering to their prescribed foot angle within a degree on average. After a year, all participants self-reported their experience of knee pain and had a second MRI to quantitatively assess the damage to their knee cartilage. “The reported decrease in pain over the placebo group was somewhere between what you’d expect from an over-the-counter medication, like ibuprofen, and a narcotic, like oxycontin,” Uhlrich says. “With the MRIs, we also saw slower degradation of a marker of cartilage health in the intervention group, which was quite exciting.” Beyond the quantitative measures of effectiveness, participants in the study expressed enthusiasm for both the approach and the results. One participant said, “I don’t have to take a drug or wear a device… it’s just a part of my body now that will be with me for the rest of my days, so that I’m thrilled with.” Participants’ ability to adhere to the intervention over long periods of time is one of its potential advantages. “Especially for people in their 30s, 40s, or 50s, osteoarthritis could mean decades of pain management before they’re recommended for a joint replacement,” Uhrlich says. “This intervention could help fill that large treatment gap.” Before this intervention can be clinically deployed, the gait retraining process will need to be streamlined. The motion-capture technique used to make the original foot-angle prescription is expensive and time-consuming; the researchers envision this intervention to eventually be prescribed in a physical therapy clinic and retraining can happen while people go for a walk around their neighborhood. “We and others have developed technology that could be used to both personalize and deliver this intervention in a clinical setting using mobile sensors, like smartphone video and a ‘smart shoe,’” Uhlrich says. Future studies of this approach are needed before the intervention can be made widely available to the public. Additional researchers from the University of Utah, New York University, and Stanford University contributed to the work. Support for the research came from federal research grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institutes of Health, and National Science Foundation. Source: University of Utah Original Study DOI: 10.1016/S2665-9913(25)00151-1 — This post was previously published on FUTURITY.ORG and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. — Subscribe to The Good Men Project Newsletter Email Address * Subscribe If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join us as a Premium Member today. All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here. — Photo credit: iStock.com The post New Approach May Relieve Arthritic Knees Without Drugs or Surgery appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

By Zhaoyin Feng, Hasya Nindita This article was submitted as part of the Global Voices Climate Justice fellowship, which pairs journalists from Sinophone and Global Majority countries to investigate the effects of Chinese development projects abroad. Find more stories here. For much of the last 50 years, high-income countries have consumed massive amounts of plastic and trash and given little thought to what would become of it. This was largely because it was out of sight, out of mind, as much of that trash ended up being shipped overseas, first to China, and then recently to Southeast Asia and other Global South countries. But this model could be coming to an end as some of the top waste-importing countries in Southeast Asia have started to ban foreign waste imports this year. Thailand and Indonesia both announced they would stop importing plastic waste in January 2025, in an effort to combat toxic pollution. Malaysia prohibited the import of plastic scrap on July 1, 2025. Vietnam has announced that a ban on plastic waste imports will go into effect sometime this year. In announcing the decision, Indonesia’s Minister of Environment Hanif Faisol Nurrofiq said in a statement: Translation Original Quote We already have enough trash, we’ve had enough of it. Colonizing us by sending trash to Indonesia is enough, whatever the reason. For the last decade, Southeast Asia countries have grown into a hotspot for foreign waste dumping, with the majority of waste coming from the European Union, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Economists call this model “cold economics.” With lower labor costs and a weaker exchange rate to the dollar in Southeast Asia, it is more affordable for Western countries to export their waste to the region, rather than managing it domestically. For countries in Southeast Asia, agreeing to import waste means economic incentives. Traditionally, proponents have argued that managing imported waste could create jobs and boost local economies. The global plastic waste management market, valued at around USD 37 billion in 2023, is projected to grow to roughly USD 44 billion by 2027. However, Southeast Asia only became a dumping ground several years ago; before then, most of the waste ended up in China. China: The world’s former largest waste importer China started to import foreign waste in the 1980s during its initial stages of rapid industrialization. During that period, the fast-expanding manufacturing and construction sectors had a high demand for plastics, metals, paper, and other raw materials. China then decided to import cheap “foreign garbage” to obtain these raw materials. Since 1992, China has taken nearly half of the world’s plastic waste. Li Ganjie, then China’s Minister of Environmental Protection, said on March 17, 2018: Translation Original Quote About 20 years ago, our total import volume (solid waste) was only 4 million to 4.5 million tons. In 20 years, the import volume of solid waste increased to 45 million tons, which is a rapid growth. However, these imports often consist of low-value waste streams, ranging from untreated organic matter and household trash to medical waste, industrial residues and liquids, and even certain types of used electronics or components. While some of these materials may offer limited recycling potential, most fall short of environmental safety standards. Their processing can release toxic heavy metals, harmful organic chemicals, or even radioactive substances, resulting in both resource depletion and environmental contamination, which has raised concerns among people regarding ecological and environmental damage. Toxic and hazardous solid waste brought in from abroad creates a shadowy chain of disposal. Incineration releases gases that contaminate the air and endanger human health, while acid leaching and water-washing processes pollute rivers, lakes, and soil. When dumped directly or sent to landfills, the waste further adds to the strain on the environment. Fu Shihe, a professor at the School of Economics of Xiamen University, argued in the Chinese state-funded news outlet, People’s Daily: Translation Original Quote To reduce environmental pollution, the government needs to carry out environmental control. China then started to implement a ban in 2017, restricting the importation of 24 types of solid waste. With the gradual implementation of the ban, China successfully reduced 82 percent of total solid waste imports in 2020 from 2016. In 2021, China decided to prohibit all solid waste imports altogether. China’s decision led to a surge of imported waste to Southeast Asia and India. According to the statistics of the Southeast Asia Branch of Greenpeace, the Southeast Asian Association (ASEAN) ‘s imports of waste plastics in 2018 increased by 171 percent compared with 2016, and the total amount increased from 837,000 tons to 2,266,000 tons. What is “waste colonialism”? The term “waste colonialism” was first introduced in 1989 during the United Nations Environment Program Basel Convention, describing the dumping of waste from higher-income countries into low-income countries. This practice, environmentalists argue, is a form of “environmental racism” and a “historical environmental and social injustice” which not only causes waste pollution, but also climate change. From 2017 to 2021, Southeast Asian countries received approximately 17 percent of global plastic waste imports, according to UN reports. Furthermore, between 2021 and 2023, Malaysia imported an average of 1.4 billion kilograms of plastic waste each year, Vietnam received around 1 billion kilograms, and Indonesia received nearly 600 million. Waste volume in Southeast Asia has been increasing rapidly since 2000, reaching about 150 million tons in 2016 and projected to be more than double that by 2030. As a result, Southeast Asian countries now face problems similar to those in China in 2017. The people and environment are suffering from the pollution caused by imported waste, especially because the imports are often poorly sorted and mishandled. For plastic waste, many in the region still burn the waste instead of recycling it. When waste is burned, the toxic fumes are released into the air, increasing the rates of respiratory issues like asthma and breathing difficulties, as well as skin conditions, cancers, and other chronic illnesses. Overcapacity in landfills also leads to hazardous chemicals leaching into groundwater and soil, posing other health threats to nearby communities. Waste is also polluting bodies of water. Seven of the world’s ten most plastic-polluted rivers are in the Philippines, which accounts for about 36 percent of global river-borne plastic pollution. The Mekong Delta, one of Southeast Asia’s most critical ecosystems, is also threatened by plastic waste and environmental degradation worsened by the importation of waste. “Other countries in Southeast Asia are likewise being harmed by foreign plastic waste daily. We sincerely hope that exporting countries will help us put a stop to waste dumping and trafficking,” says Wong Pui Yi, BAN researcher from Kuala Lumpur, to Recycling Today. A pile of waste in Bantargebang, Indonesia. Source: Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 3.0 How to tackle this problem? For years, environmental activists have been calling for stricter regulations to overcome this issue. They have also argued that a global treaty on waste is crucial to reduce plastic production and improve frameworks for waste management and recycling on a global level. At the regional level, an action plan on waste policy in Southeast Asia could strengthen the commitment to tackle this problem. To address the waste export issue, the European Union announced that, starting mid-2026, it will ban plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries to safeguard the environment and public health. The OECD is an economic and development organization of 38 mostly high-income nations. Investing in better waste management through technology could be part of the solution. Waste to Technology (WTE), which converts non-recyclable waste into energy, has started being constructed in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. To support this, the Global North must be responsible for investing in waste management infrastructure in the Global South, Greenpeace insisted. — This post was previously published on globalvoices.org under a Creative Commons License. — Subscribe to The Good Men Project Newsletter Email Address * Subscribe If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join us as a Premium Member today. All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here. — Photo credit: iStock.com The post Tracing ‘Waste Colonialism’ in Southeast Asia appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

— Success in the restaurant industry depends on more than preparing quality dishes. Guests expect authenticity, variety, and convenience, while operators face rising costs and strong competition. Thriving in this environment requires fresh thinking, where smart business choices blend with memorable dining moments. Every element, from menus to service flow, contributes to an experience that keeps patrons returning with anticipation. Progress comes less from sweeping overhauls and more from purposeful refinements that build momentum. Adjustments to menu offerings, adoption of innovative tools, and thoughtful staffing practices all open opportunities for lasting growth. Restaurants willing to experiment strategically gain resilience, strengthen guest loyalty, and stay relevant in a market that rewards originality, consistency, and experiences worth sharing long after the meal. Guest Experience With Automatic Beverage Systems A self-pour wall instantly turns ordering into an interactive moment that guests remember. With an automatic beer machine, diners can explore at their own pace, sampling smaller pours without waiting for staff. The experience feels personal, reducing delays and errors while allowing employees to focus on genuine table interaction instead of repetitive tasks. Tracking ounces poured not only reduces waste but also creates natural opportunities for add-ons. Offering curated tasting flights with set pour sizes invites exploration while keeping choices manageable. Placed in a visible spot, these systems spark curiosity, encourage conversation, and add a sense of novelty that pairs efficiency with delight. Expanding Revenue With Strategic Menu Diversification A diverse menu signals attention to every diner, fostering inclusivity without diluting creativity. Offering artisanal sodas, house kombucha, or refined zero-proof cocktails improves nonalcoholic options, making them feel intentional rather than secondary. Seasonal features and themed dishes add freshness that draws attention, while thoughtfully paired beverages amplify the sense of discovery with each visit. Menu strategy becomes even more powerful when designed around exploration. Bundled items encourage trial without excess, guiding guests toward balanced choices. Personalized suggestions from staff feel collaborative, deepening trust while raising average spend. Regular tracking of results reshapes the menu into a dynamic tool, balancing creativity with agility that drives steady financial growth. Building Lasting Loyalty Through Personalized Engagement An individual’s order history reveals reliable cues like visit days, favorite plates, spend patterns and preferred heat levels. Use simple POS queries to segment frequent diners, lapsed guests and big spenders so offers match actual behavior. Recommendations shown in the app or as server prompts convert best when they tie to past choices and current menu items. Points for social shares, milestone spending and referrals create varied paths to rewards; awards tied to behavior beat blanket coupons. Priority reservations, menu-preview nights and behind-the-scenes tastings map cleanly to spend tiers and tend to raise average checks. Monthly chef’s-table previews for top-tier members create memorable rewards that nudge repeat bookings. Optimizing Operations With Smarter Labor Management Balancing labor efficiency with a warm guest experience requires precision. Modern scheduling software draws on real-time sales and reservation data to anticipate demand more accurately, allowing managers to cover peak periods without overstaffing. Predictive shift structures and flexible pools reduce idle hours while protecting attentive service, creating a floor that feels smooth and prepared. Cross-training expands versatility, enabling servers, bartenders, and hosts to support each other during rushes. This adaptability not only prevents bottlenecks but also fosters teamwork, reducing stress and overtime costs. Freed from operational firefighting, managers can focus on coaching meaningful guest interactions, enhancing both service quality and employee satisfaction. Amplifying Reach Through Community and Digital Visibility Collaborations with local producers strengthen credibility while creating unique dining experiences. Hosting a pop-up with a nearby farm or featuring an artisan baker on the menu highlights authenticity and sparks guest curiosity. Subtle touches, like descriptive menu notes and visually appealing plating, encourage diners to share their experience online, blending community pride with organic digital promotion. Consistent visibility requires structured upkeep. Updating photos, syncing menus across apps, and engaging with reviews maintain a polished presence. Co-branded events with local partners extend reach beyond the dining room, while steady online activity reinforces discovery. Together, these practices build a reputation that feels both rooted locally and visible broadly. Sustainable success in restaurants comes from consistent improvements that feel both practical and meaningful. Thoughtful menu additions, smarter tools, and flexible staffing build momentum that strengthens operations day by day. Loyalty grows when guests sense genuine care in every interaction, and community ties deepen when collaboration feels authentic. Technology, visibility, and creativity provide leverage, but it is the combination of small, deliberate steps that creates lasting impact. Each effort adds to a foundation that supports both profitability and guest connection. In the end, restaurants thrive when progress feels intentional, memorable, and grounded in experiences guests want to revisit. — This content is brought to you by Mala Khan iStockPhoto The post Innovative Ways to Take Your Restaurant Business to New Heights appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

Tallarines verdes is a beloved Peruvian dish that blends Italian influence with local flavors. Light yet satisfying, its vibrant green sauce makes it a standout whether served as a main or alongside your favorite proteins. A Note From Kristen I love exploring dishes from all over the world, and during my time living in Peru I fell in love with this one. Today, I’m excited to share one of my all-time favorite pasta recipes, tallarines verdes. It’s like pesto sauce but with a uniquely Peruvian twist that adds creaminess and a slightly sweeter taste. The combination of spinach and basil gives it a distinct flavor that’s hard to resist. If you’ve never experienced Peruvian cuisine before, this is a perfect place to start. Enjoy! ~Kristen How to Make Peruvian Green Spaghetti PREPARE Cook spaghetti in salted water until al dente; reserve ½ cup pasta water and drain. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Sauté onion and garlic for 3–4 minutes until soft. ADD GREENS Add spinach and cook for 1 minute until just wilted. COMBINE In a blender or food processor, blend the spinach mixture with basil, evaporated milk, queso fresco (or feta), Parmesan, and walnuts. BLEND Blend until smooth. ADD Pour the sauce into a skillet over medium heat, then add the pasta and a splash of reserved pasta water to loosen. TOSS Toss until coated and glossy, then season with salt and pepper to taste. SERVE Serve and enjoy! Tallarines Verdes Recipe Creamy and full of flavor, this Tallarines Verdes recipe makes Peruvian green spaghetti with a rich sauce that’s easy and delicious. Author: Kristen Wood Servings: 6 servings Prep Time: 10minutes minutes Cook Time: 15minutes minutes Total Time: 25minutes minutes Course: Main Course Cuisine: Peruvian, South American Diet: Gluten Free, Vegetarian Ingredients 1 lb spaghetti or gluten-free spaghetti if necessary 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 1 yellow onion chopped 2 garlic cloves minced 1 cup evaporated milk use evaporated coconut milk if vegan or dairy-free 2 cups fresh spinach leaves packed 1 cup fresh basil leaves loosely packed ¼ cup queso fresco or feta cheese crumbled, or vegan feta ¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese rennet-free if vegetarian, plant-based Parmesan if vegan 2 tablespoons raw walnuts salt to taste ground black pepper to taste Instructions Cook the spaghetti in salted water until al dente; reserve ½ cup pasta water and drain. While the pasta cooks, heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Sauté the onion and garlic for 3–4 minutes, until soft but not browned. Add the spinach and cook until just wilted, about 1 minute. In a blender or food processor, combine the spinach mixture with the basil, evaporated milk, queso fresco (or feta), Parmesan, and walnuts. Blend until smooth. Pour the sauce into a skillet over medium heat. Add the cooked pasta and a splash of the reserved pasta water to loosen. Toss until glossy and coated. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately, optionally topped with more cheese or a fried egg. Enjoy! Notes Storage and Reheating. Store any pasta leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. If possible, keep the sauce and spaghetti separated to preserve the former’s color and texture. You can freeze the sauce for up to 3 months. I don’t recommend freezing the noodles as they get mushy. Reheat the sauce on the stove over low heat. To restore creaminess, add a splash of milk or vegetable broth. Nutrition Serving: 1serving | Calories: 435kcal | Carbohydrates: 67g | Protein: 16g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 0.04g | Cholesterol: 19mg | Sodium: 173mg | Potassium: 462mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 9g | Vitamin A: 1327IU | Vitamin C: 7mg | Calcium: 224mg | Iron: 2mg — Previously Published on moonandspoonandyum *** Does dating ever feel challenging, awkward or frustrating? Turn Your Dating Life into a WOW! with our new classes and live coaching. Click here for more info or to buy with special launch pricing! *** On Substack? Follow us there for more great dating and relationships content. Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today. All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. A complete list of benefits is here. — Photo credit: Kristen Wood The post Tallarines Verdes Recipe (Peruvian Green Spaghetti) appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

By Mark Keierleber, The 74 This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox. School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here. As students across the country return to school, a mass school shooting in Minneapolis has again reignited debates about the proliferation of guns in the U.S., campus security — and youth embrace of violent online extremism. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz this week announced plans to convene a special legislative session to consider tougher gun laws in the wake of the Annunciation Catholic School shooting that took place while students attended an annual Mass to kick off the new academic year. Two children were killed and 21 people, 18 of them students, were injured. Vice President JD Vance and his wife went to the church Wednesday, met with the parents of the two slain children and visited one of the hospitalized young survivors. The injured girl’s father, Harry Kaiser, questioned Vance on whether he would “earnestly support the study of what is wrong with our culture, that we are the country that has the worst mass shooter problem?” As has happened in shooting after shooting, attention quickly turned to the assailant’s online presence as people sought to understand what could motivate such a heinous act. On social media, unfounded claims about the shooter’s motives — from anti-Christian hate to the radicalization of transgender people — reached millions of eyeballs. The 23-year-old perpetrator died by suicide after the rampage. Like other shooters, the Minneapolis attacker left a paper trail indicating mental health struggles, suicidal ideation and, perhaps most importantly, a deep fascination with mass killers. The attacker “appeared to hate all of us,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a briefing. “More than anything, the shooter wanted to kill children.” In the news A ‘catastrophic’ hack: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Wednesday against education technology giant PowerSchool, which fell victim to a massive cyberattack last year that compromised the sensitive data of some 60 million students and 10 million educators globally. The state alleges the breach, which affected some 880,000 Texas teachers and students, occurred because PowerSchool “failed to implement even the most basic security features.” | The Texan The move is the latest in a slew of lawsuits from parents, students and school districts adversely affected by the massive hack. | The 74 Matthew Lane, a 19-year-old from Massachusetts, is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court next week after pleading guilty to the extortion scheme over the summer. | MassLive As Texas and other Republican-controlled states seek to erode the separation of church and state by endorsing Protestant Christianity over other faiths, Paxton has urged students to use a new law allowing prayer time in public schools to practice the Lord’s Prayer “as taught by Jesus Christ.” | The Texas Tribune Victims speak out: Haley Robson, who was 16 when she was first sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein, recounted on Wednesday how she was forced to recruit young victims from her high school. | BBC Florida’s surgeon general announced plans to end state vaccine mandates for children attending public schools, while officials in California, Oregon and Washington joined forces to preserve access to the life-saving shots. | The Washington Post The Los Angeles school district has settled a lawsuit filed by parents who allege the pandemic-era remote learning policies of the country’s second-largest K-12 public education system discriminated against students of color, English learners and those with disabilities. | CalMatters Sign-up for the School (in)Security newsletter. Get the most critical news and information about students’ rights, safety and well-being delivered straight to your inbox. Submit The Walt Disney Company has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit over alleged children’s privacy violations after the entertainment behemoth improperly uploaded kid-focused videos to YouTube and enabled targeted advertising. | Axios Meanwhile, the FTC announced a settlement with a Chinese robot toy manufacturer accused of illegally collecting U.S. children’s location data. | CyberScoop Stainless steel water bottles made by Stanley and Yeti are all the rage. But this New York district says they’re a no-go on campus — claiming they pose safety risks. | News 12 Trump vs. trans kids: As the administration seeks to clamp down on districts that don’t inform parents when their children identify as transgender at school, the Education Department revived an obscure 12-year-old privacy case to access district emails. | The 74 Two Northern Virginia school districts have sued the Trump administration challenging the federal government’s assertion that policies allowing transgender students to use restrooms and locker facilities violate anti-discrimination laws. | Politico The legal dispute has been fodder in the state’s gubernatorial race, in which Republican candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has placed anti-trans bathroom policies among her top campaign issues. | The 74 In South Carolina, state officials filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after an appeals court blocked enforcement of a new law denying trans youth access to facilities that align with their gender identity. | Politico The Trump administration warned officials in 40 states they could lose federal funding unless they scrap lessons from sexual education materials that focus on LGBTQ+ issues. | The Associated Press An online group that calls itself Purgatory has claimed responsibility for a string of swatting calls that drew massive law enforcement responses to college campuses at the start of the new academic year. | The New York Times In a middle-of-the-night operation, the Trump administration scooped up 76 unaccompanied minors as they slept at federal shelters, in a deportation bid that was then temporarily blocked by a federal judge. | NPR A new Florida law will require educators to get parents’ permission before spanking students as a form of school discipline. | Florida Phoenix Student activists lobbied for the law after an investigation by The 74 revealed that Florida educators most often used corporal punishment to address minor infractions like “excessive talking,” “insubordination” and “horseplay.” | The 74 ICYMI @The74 Confusion as Kids Head Back to School and RFK Jr. Calls the Shots on Vaccines ‘We’ve Been Successful at Protecting Our Kids’: Los Angeles Unified Claims Safety From ICE So Far Kids Shouldn’t Access Social Media Until They’re Old Enough to Drive, Book Says Emotional Support Sinead ponders summer’s end while boating over Labor Day weekend. : Kathy Moore — This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America. *** Subscribe to The Good Men Project Newsletter Email Address * Subscribe If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join us as a Premium Member today. All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here. Photo credit: unsplash The post Another School Year, Another School Shooting appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

Language models have been conditioned to hazard wild guesses instead of admitting ignorance, a study has found The company behind ChatGPT has addressed the persistent problem of Artificial Intelligence models’ generating plausible but false statements that it calls “hallucinations”. In a statement on Friday, OpenAI explained that models are typically encouraged to hazard a guess, however improbable, as opposed to acknowledging that they cannot answer a question. The issue is attributable to the core principles underlying “standard training and evaluation procedures,” the company added. OpenAI has revealed that the instances where language models “confidently generate an answer that isn’t true” have continued to plague even newer, more advanced iterations, including its latest flagship GPT‑5 system. According to the findings of a recent study, the problem is rooted in the way language models’ performance is usually evaluated at present, with the guessing model ranked higher than a careful one that admits uncertainty. Under the standard protocols, AI systems learn that failure to generate an answer is a surefire way to get zero points on a test, while an unsubstantiated guess may just prove to be correct. “Fixing scoreboards can broaden adoption of hallucination-reduction techniques,” the statement concluded, acknowledging, however, that “accuracy will never reach 100% because, regardless of model size, search and reasoning capabilities, some real-world questions are inherently unanswerable.” View the full article

The bloc could impose punitive measures on Beijing for buying oil and gas from Moscow if Washington backs the move, the newspaper has claimed The European Union is considering secondary sanctions on China over its continued purchases of Russian oil and gas, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing anonymous sources. The British newspaper reported that EU officials began discussing the matter on Sunday. A source said that the talks are still at a “very early stage.” Before committing to any punitive measures against Beijing, Brussels reportedly wants to have the “full backing of the US and co-ordination with Washington,” according to the FT. To ensure this, EU officials travelled to the US on Monday, while US Energy Secretary Chris Wright will head to Brussels later in the week, the paper wrote. Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, China emerged as the top importer of Russian oil. Earlier this year, the EU sanctioned several Chinese firms over their alleged support for industries that aid Russia’s military. Beijing slammed the move as “unreasonable” and accused the bloc of “double standards.” It emphasized that China strictly regulates dual-use goods and insisted it has not supplied any lethal weapons to parties involved in the Ukraine conflict. On Sunday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested the US and EU could impose more sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil. Beijing earlier vowed to “ensure its energy supply” in ways that protect its interests, and cautioned that “tariff wars have no winners.” Last month, US President Donald Trump doubled tariffs on India to 50% citing New Delhi's continued purchases of Russian oil. Indian officials denounced the move as “unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable.” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said last week that India will continue to buy Russian crude, stressing that the nation’s oil purchases are driven by its economic priorities and not external pressure. Last week, during his four-day visit to China, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West against talking to such global economic powerhouses as China and India in an “unacceptable” tone. He argued that pressure on Beijing and New Delhi is intended to slow their economic rise. View the full article

Recently, my son experienced a difficult breakup, and as a mother, I wanted to help. This breakup shattered his heart and caused him to reflect on what makes relationships work, and if he was willing to open his heart again. This was his first love, and as you know, the first love is the hardest. They had been together for 2.5 years and had been living together for 6 months until the horrible breakup. As they shared a home and life, his girlfriend noticed a discontentment lurking beneath her external joy. She genuinely cherished the moments with my son. Yet, there was a clear source of internal discontent within her. She told my son she was bored. She didn’t like adulting. She wanted to travel, have fun, and be young! Photo by Alfonso Escalante: https://www.pexels.com/photo/low-angle-photo-of-volkswagen-kombi-2533092/ She asked my son to go with her on her travels. She believed traveling the world would heal her discontentment with life. With a renewed sense of excitement, she approached him with an invitation to join her on this adventure. She believed that exploring the world together could be a chance for them to heal and rediscover what truly matters. Now, my son is still in college and has a good job; he didn’t want to drop everything and become a nomad to travel. My son was very supportive. He didn’t want to stop her from experiencing new adventures, so he encouraged her to travel. She wanted him to go with her on these grand adventures, and she made it clear she wouldn’t go without him. They were at a standstill! Sadly, in the end, they decided to break up. This breakup was excruciating for both of them. My son watched her go down a deep spiral. She believed that traveling and exploring the world would alleviate her internal sadness stemming from childhood wounds. She went into a deep depression and never ended up traveling after all. As she continued down this rabbit hole, she discovered she ended the relationship because she was scared of truly being unconditionally loved. She didn’t feel safe growing up, and she never knew her father. All her childhood wounds and fears were bubbling up from this relationship with my son. She came to an awareness; she believed that traveling would save her from her sadness. She discovered she had ruined a beautiful relationship with my son in an attempt to escape her pain and fears. So she asked him if they could rekindle the relationship. Now my son is questioning whether he should get back together with her. He said, “Mom, she shattered my heart once; do I dare do it again?” Here was my advice. Guiding our children through life’s ups and downs is never easy, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. Here are some words of wisdom that I’ve gathered over the years that I hope will help. LOVE RUNS DEEP I encouraged him to communicate openly about his feelings because he still loved her deeply. He felt a strong connection with her, and his heart wasn’t ready to let go. Trust needs to be rebuilt slowly and thoughtfully, so I reminded him to be patient with himself and with her. BELIEF IN CHANGE People can change if they want to. I told my son to ask her if she is willing to explore travel in other ways  —  and that he shouldn’t squash her dreams. They should try and work together to find a compromise. Relationships are not only about fun but also about work. If she is willing to adult, and not just wanting to travel, then the relationship is worth exploring. PATIENCE WITH HER HEALING Childhood scars don’t vanish overnight. If you are considering getting back together, ask yourself: Are you ready for the work? Her childhood wounds won’t heal overnight. Be prepared, this may happen again. Ask yourself if you can do this? Be honest with yourself. Allow her to continue to heal with an open and loving heart. ENCOURAGE MUTUAL GROWTH Honest communication is the foundation of any lasting relationship. Be willing to share your vulnerabilities, set boundaries, and build together. Honest communication can clear up small issues before they grow into large ones. Sharing your real thoughts and emotions helps both partners learn to adapt and to support each other. SHARED HOPE FOR THE FUTURE True love means respecting each other’s goals and finding happiness within yourself first. Do not believe the other person is responsible for your happiness. If you go down this road, the relationship is destined for failure. This journey requires open communication, patience, and commitment, as both partners work towards a balanced life that supports personal and shared dreams. Remember, a successful relationship thrives on mutual respect and a shared vision for the future. Keep believing in each other and in the power of unity — it’s the key to achieving true fulfillment together. Conclusion: A Hopeful Love Story My son and his ex-girlfriend are slowly getting back together. They are going on dates once a week and having deep, honest conversations. In truth, the reasons why his girlfriend was depressed, she wasn’t being honest in sharing her deepest, darkest feelings. She is now being vulnerable with her childhood wounds and fears. My son is allowing and respecting her vulnerabilities. In many ways, I told my son that your girlfriend reminds me of myself when I was young. With all my childhood wounds, your father was lovely in honoring me while I was healing. He saw that I was still a wonderful person underneath my scars. “When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have. The best thing we can offer another person is our true presence.” (Thich Nhat Hanh) — Featured image: Photo by Fernando Cabral: https://www.pexels.com/photo/nature-man-love-people-3554376/ The post She Shattered Your Heart — Now What? appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

By Anya Petrone Slepyan https://open.spotify.com/episode/3hxxU1q8cXiTA72JGQrFwL?si=8ce3273cd56c48fa Recently, I traveled around 6,000 miles from my home in Santa Fe, New Mexico to visit friends in Finland. Under their guidance I ate reindeer, drank vodka, marveled at public infrastructure, and spent hours in the sauna. I also had lots of conversations with Finns about politics, cultural differences, and of course, aliens. In part, that’s because I was doing research for Crop Circle Cinema, our new podcast about rural alien movies. But the topic came up organically, too. I was an ocean away from the southwestern high desert, but in our world of globalized mass media, New Mexico’s reputation preceded me. Many people brought up the hit TV show “Breaking Bad.” The rest wanted to talk about Roswell. Roswell is the county seat of rural Chaves County in southeastern New Mexico. It’s an easy day trip from three different national parks, and just a few hours away from the historic Trinity Site, where the first nuclear bomb was tested. But these attractions are secondary for most people who visit the town. Roswell gained infamy in 1947 when mysterious debris was found in a rancher’s field, and the staff of the Roswell Army Air Field issued a statement identifying the debris as part of a “flying disc.” That statement was quickly retracted, but it did little to squash the alien-based theories springing up around the event. The result, nearly 80 years later, is that Roswell has become synonymous with extraterrestrial encounters. And the town, with its official motto of “We Believe,” is more than happy to encourage that connection. A multitude of Roswell-based movies and TV shows, as well as curated tourism destinations like the International UFO Museum and annual UFO Festival, have created a feedback loop that continues to build the town’s reputation as the place to go for all things alien. Local stores and global chains put UFOs and little green men (or in some cases, giant green men!) in storefronts and on signs. It’s also the setting for my favorite teen-soap of all time, ‘Roswell’ (1999) in which four royal aliens (it’s a long story) go to high school and deal with lots of other teenage stuff while trying to save multiple planets. One of them even works at the UFO museum! But while Roswell is the most famous ‘alien’ town in the country, it’s far from the only one. Dozens of small towns around the United States host alien festivals, while others like Green Bank, West Virginia, home of the world’s largest radio telescope, have more scientific connections to outer space. This relationship between real rural communities and alien-based media, tourism, and local identities is the focus of the fourth episode of Crop Circle Cinema. In our final episode, we explore how tales of UFOs and abductions have been transformed into modern-day folklore, and how rural communities from Roswell to Spruce Pine, North Carolina have been shaped by associations with extraterrestrial life. This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. — Previously Published on dailyyonder.com with Creative Commons License *** – The world is changing fast. We help you keep up. We’ll send you 1 post, 3x per week. Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today. All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. A complete list of benefits is here. — Photo: unsplash The post Roswell, New Mexico: The Town Where “We Believe” appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

An Instagram post declaring that the slogan ‘Never Again’ must apply to all people reportedly upset Jewish groups A Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles has deleted a social media post featuring a slogan long associated with the Holocaust after some people claimed it alluded to the war in Gaza. The message, shared with the Holocaust Museum Los Angeles’ 24,000 Instagram followers over the weekend, showed a graphic of hands and forearms of different skin tones – including one with a Holocaust tattoo – linked in a circle. Its caption read “‘Never Again’ can’t only mean never again for Jews.” While some initially praised the post as an acknowledgment of Palestinian suffering, it quickly drew backlash from Jewish groups, prompting its removal. The museum later said the post was part of a pre-planned campaign “intended to promote inclusivity and community,” not “a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East.” The LA Holocaust Museum posted on Instagram, “Never again can't only mean never again for Jews.” They later deleted the post and issued a clarification. Taking it down was disappointing—there was nothing wrong with that message. pic.twitter.com/mbJvRLUXZM — Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) September 7, 2025 Although the post did not mention Gaza, some pro-Israel commentators urged donors to cut the institution’s funding. The removal of the post, in turn, led pro-Palestinian voices to accuse the museum of backtracking on a universal anti-genocide principle. The LA museum, founded in 1961 by Holocaust survivors, is currently closed for renovation until June 2026. It has pledged to “do better” and ensure that posts in the future are “more thoughtfully designed.” The controversy comes as Israel presses its military campaign in Gaza, which was launched after Hamas’s deadly October 2023 incursion that killed around 1,200 people and saw more than 250 taken hostage. About 50 are still believed to be in captivity. Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli strikes have since killed over 64,000 people and wounded over 163,000 since the operation began. UN agencies have reported “mounting evidence” of famine in Gaza and there has been growing international criticism of Israel’s campaign as genocidal. Several Western nations announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state and scale back military or trade cooperation with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Gaza’s population could have been wiped out within hours if genocide had been the goal. View the full article

By Jim Hightower In a 2006 documentary, I assailed Texas Republican lawmakers for ramming a brutish gerrymandering scheme into law, doing my report from a street sign in central Austin. That sign was the exact location the GOP had used as the pin point for slicing up the city’s one congressional district into four pieces like a pizza. Each slice radiated far out of town, merging into Republican suburbs in distant cities — thus suppressing Austin’s progressive voice in Congress. Now here they come again, assaulting progressive voters throughout the state with gerrymandering. At the command of Donald Trump, our so-called “representatives” are submissively shoving millions of Texans into jerry-rigged Trump enclaves, solely to serve his political desires. Far from being just another corrupt hyper-partisan political manipulation, this GOP ploy is stripping away America’s fundamental principle of representative democracy. Instead of grassroots communities sorting out their differences and choosing their own governing representatives in local elections, political hacks in Washington and the state capital are cynically relocating people’s political “locality” (with no participation at all by the people). Instead of constituents choosing their members of Congress, gerrymandering lets members choose their constituents. So “your” representative doesn’t need to know you, much less serve you. Thus, the issues that Congress considers don’t percolate up from local communities. They’re chosen by national and state political operatives and multimillion-dollar campaign donors. It’s the nationalization of local elections, ignoring the real needs of hometown people. Why shouldn’t you have a representative who’s at least from your community, maybe even knows your name — and cares about something more constructive than Trump’s anti-democratic, plutocratic agenda. — Previously Published on otherwords.org with Creative Commons License *** Does dating ever feel challenging, awkward or frustrating? Turn Your Dating Life into a WOW! with our new classes and live coaching. Click here for more info or to buy with special launch pricing! *** On Substack? Follow us there for more great dating and relationships content. Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today. All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here. — Photo credit: unsplash The post With Gerrymandering, Your Local Rep. Isn’t Local — And Isn’t Yours appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

In 2018, Europe swore it would shield the Iran deal from Trump. In 2025, it brought Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ back under their own banner Back in 2018, Europe blasted Donald Trump for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. Paris, Berlin, and London warned of a looming crisis in the Middle East and insisted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was the only safeguard against another regional war. They even rolled out a special financial vehicle, Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), to shield trade with Tehran from US sanctions. For a moment, it looked as if Europe was finally ready to assert its own strategic autonomy. Seven years later, the picture couldn’t be more different. Britain, France, and Germany have triggered the snapback mechanism – a procedure written into UN Security Council Resolution 2231 back in 2015. On paper, snapback is a technical clause: if one of the deal’s signatories claims Iran is in breach, all the pre-2015 UN sanctions come rushing back. In practice, it’s a political bombshell. The very governments that once positioned themselves as defenders of the deal are now taking the first steps to dismantle it. How snapback works Snapback is a built-in device of Resolution 2231: once a party to the deal files a complaint, a thirty-day clock starts ticking. If the Security Council can’t agree to keep the sanctions lifted, the old restrictions automatically spring back into place – no new vote, no vetoes, just the force of the mechanism itself snapping shut. And those sanctions aren’t symbolic. They revive six earlier UN resolutions passed between 2006 and 2010: an arms embargo, a ban on ballistic missile development, asset freezes, and travel bans targeting Iranian banks, companies, and officials. In other words, a full reset to the era of maximum pressure that Tehran endured more than a decade ago. On paper, it reads like legalese. In practice, it carries weighty consequences. For Europe, it means slamming shut whatever limited doors were still open for trade and diplomacy with Tehran. For Iran, it’s a return to a familiar landscape of international isolation – one it has increasingly learned to navigate through ties with Russia, China, and regional partners. Europe’s brief rebellion When Donald Trump tore up the nuclear deal in 2018, Europe seemed almost defiant. Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Theresa May openly criticized Washington’s unilateral move, warning it could ignite a new crisis in the Middle East and weaken the global nonproliferation regime. For a moment, it looked as if Europe was ready to chart its own course. © Francois Lenoir / Pool via AP To prove it, Paris, Berlin, and London announced a special financial vehicle called INSTEX. On paper, it was meant to let European companies keep trading with Iran while bypassing US sanctions. In speeches, leaders cast it as a bold example of strategic autonomy – Europe standing by international law against American pressure. In practice, it never delivered. Transactions were scarce, businesses stayed away, and INSTEX turned into little more than a symbol. What was meant to showcase Europe’s independence exposed instead its limits. Behind the rhetoric, the continent still lacked the muscle to stand up to Washington. Even after the deal began to unravel, Tehran held on longer than many expected. For a time, Iran continued to observe key limits, signaling that it still wanted the agreement to survive. The steps it did take after 2019 – enriching uranium beyond agreed levels, reducing access for inspectors – were limited and largely declarative. They were less about racing toward a bomb than about sending a message: if Europe and the United States failed to keep their end of the bargain, Iran would not keep waiting forever. Europe could have treated those moves as a call for dialogue. Instead, it chose to treat them as violations to be punished – leaning on legal mechanisms and pressure rather than genuine diplomacy. In practice, this meant not saving the deal but accelerating its collapse. © Doug Mills-Pool / Getty Images When Joe Biden took office in 2021, many in Europe breathed a sigh of relief. After four years of Trump’s “maximum pressure,” there was hope the US would return to the nuclear deal or at least give Europe more room to re-engage with Tehran. European diplomats saw Biden’s presidency as a reset button, a chance to salvage what was left of the JCPOA. Talks resumed in 2022, bringing negotiators from Washington, the E3, and Tehran back to the table. But the optimism didn’t last. The West’s conditions went far beyond nuclear conditions: Iran was pressed to scale back its ties with Russia and cut off growing cooperation with China. To Tehran, those demands amounted to political disarmament – a direct threat to its sovereignty and security. The negotiations collapsed. For Europe, it was a sobering moment: the Democratic administration they had counted on offered no breakthrough. For Iran, it confirmed what many suspected – that Washington’s return to the deal would come with strings too heavy to accept. The US get what they want The word snapback has already made waves in the halls of the UN back in August 2020. That summer, the Trump administration formally notified the Security Council that Iran was in breach of the nuclear deal and demanded that the old UN sanctions be reinstated. US lawyers pointed to Resolution 2231, which still listed Washington as a “participant” in the agreement – even though Trump had withdrawn the US two years earlier. © Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images The reaction was swift and humiliating. Russia and China dismissed the move outright, and so did America’s closest allies in Europe. London, Paris, and Berlin all publicly declared that Washington had no standing to use the mechanism after quitting the deal. The snapback effort fizzled, and the sanctions remained suspended. The irony is hard to miss. In 2020, Europe stood shoulder to shoulder with Moscow and Beijing to block Washington’s attempt. Five years later, the very same European capitals are the ones pulling the trigger. When London, Paris, and Berlin announced they were triggering snapback, they wrapped the move in the language of diplomacy. In Paris, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot stressed that France was still “open to a political solution.” In Berlin, Johann Wadephul urged Tehran to re-engage with the IAEA. Britain’s David Lammy said Iran had provided “no credible guarantees” about the peaceful nature of its program. On the surface, it sounded like a routine chorus of diplomatic talking points. But behind the careful wording was a clear message: Europe was abandoning the posture of dialogue and embracing pressure. What the E3 once condemned in Washington, they were now carrying out themselves – only this time under their own flag. In Tehran, the language was restrained but pointed. Officials called the European move “illegal and regrettable,” a formula that barely concealed deep frustration. For Iran, Europe’s decision confirmed once again that Brussels talks about strategic autonomy but falls in line the moment Washington sets the course. Across the Atlantic, the response was the opposite: warm approval. Secretary of State Marco Rubio “welcomed” the step and claimed that snapback only strengthened America’s willingness to negotiate. Formally it sounded like an invitation to dialogue. But the memory of the spring talks – which ended not with compromise but with Israeli sabotage and US strikes on Iranian facilities – made the words ring hollow. A world that has moved on Europe’s wager on sanctions is a throwback to the early 2010s, when Tehran was isolated and the West could dictate terms. But that era is gone. Today Iran is not only a strategic partner for Moscow and Beijing but also a full member of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – platforms that carve out alternatives to the Western order. In this new landscape, snapback may sting in Tehran, but it hits Europe too. Brussels loses credibility as a negotiator and opportunities as a trading partner. Each step in Washington’s shadow makes the European claim to “strategic autonomy” sound thinner. The paradox is striking. On paper, Europe insists on its independence. In reality, its voice is fading in a multipolar world. While Brussels signs off on sanctions, Beijing and Moscow are busy sketching the architecture of a new order – one where Europe is no longer at the center. View the full article

Dmitry Kuleba has said he had to escape the country “like a thief in the night” Ex-Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba claimed he managed to “run away” from the country shortly before Vladimir Zelensky enacted a decree barring former diplomats from foreign trips. Kuleba, who is currently in Poland, made the remarks in an interview with Corriere della Sera published on Monday. The ex-diplomat said he left Ukraine mere hours before the travel restriction took effect. “I never thought I would have had to run away from my country like a thief in the night,” Kuleba told the Italian newspaper. The ex-minister claimed that the decree was aimed directly at him and a handful of other former diplomats. While the measure is officially linked to broader travel restrictions placed on military-age Ukrainian men, that is not the case given that former diplomatic officials are not obliged to serve, Kuleba asserted. “The truth is that Zelensky and his entourage do not want us to go abroad and say things that, in their opinion, may contradict the government narrative,” he claimed, adding that he personally “in general” tends to defend Kiev’s actions during his overseas trips. Kuleba blamed the latest measure taken against the ex-diplomats on the purported “Soviet mentality” still persisting in “certain palace circles.” For such officials, “if you go abroad as a free citizen, you automatically become an agent who plots against the state,” Kuleba claimed without naming anyone in particular. The ex-minister’s press service, however, attempted to tone down the remarks, stating to Ukrainian outlet Hromadske that the Italian newspaper had presented Kuleba’s words “incorrectly.” According to the press service, the ex-minister did not leave the country for good but rather embarked on a scheduled trip to South Korea and is set to return to Ukraine on September 20. Kuleba held the foreign minister office from March 2020 before his tenure abruptly ended a year ago in a major cabinet reshuffle. According to Ukrainian media reports at the time, Zelensky had grown increasingly dissatisfied with Kuleba over his allegedly lackluster efforts to secure more arms supplies from Western sponsors. View the full article

By Liz Mineo | Harvard Staff Writer | Harvard Gazette ‘Future of Jobs’ report highlights value of emotional intelligence A recent report on “The Future of Jobs” by the World Economic Forum found that while analytical thinking is still the most coveted skill among employers, several emotional intelligence skills (i.e., motivation, self-awareness, empathy, and active listening) rank among the top 10 in a list of 26 core competencies. In this edited conversation with Ron Siegel, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, he explains why emotional intelligence skills are crucial in the workplace, especially in the age of AI. What’s emotional intelligence? Is it a different way of being smart? It is a kind of being smart, but it’s not what we usually think of as being smart. In recent decades, psychologists who study intelligence have become aware that there are many different kinds of intelligence. You could think of somebody who has natural athletic ability as having a kind of body or coordination intelligence or somebody who has a natural math ability as having a good deal of mathematical intelligence, and so on. When we look over human experience in the developed world, where many people have basic food, clothing, and shelter, there’s nonetheless a great deal of conflict and unhappiness. Most of this strife involves the challenges of working with our emotions as humans, and particularly the complexity of our reactions in relationships. Emotional intelligence is a particular skill of recognizing one’s own feelings, working with those feelings, and not just reacting in ways that are going to be problematic. It also involves recognizing the feelings that are arising in others, and then being able to work with others, to work out conflicts, or get along well with one another. Why do employers consider emotional intelligence one of the top core skills needed to thrive in the workplace? The importance of emotional competence comes from the observation in the business world, in academia, the military, and every human enterprise, that there are people who are highly competent in technical and analytical skills, but when they interact with others, projects stall. So many resources are wasted in emotional misunderstandings or in people’s difficulty with emotional regulation. We humans are grossly inefficient in trying to get things done because most of our energy is spent on trying to make sure we look good, or on making sure that people think of us in a certain way, or on getting triggered by one another. I suspect that business leaders have realized that it’s relatively easy to get technical expertise in almost anything, but to get people who can understand and get along with one another, that is a challenge. In many projects, there is a growing awareness that this skill is going to be the one that carries the day. Can you talk about the evolution of the concept of emotional intelligence since publication of the 1995 book “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman, Ph.D. ’74? Humans have known about this for a long time. Western industrialized cultures have very much favored other forms of intelligence, like logical analytical ability, mathematical ability, and entrepreneurial skills over relational skills and the ability to connect with feelings and connect with one another. Over the years, psychologists have become more aware of a strong cultural bias toward certain kinds of intelligence and against other kinds of intelligence, and they have tried to rectify that by looking at emotional intelligence. And when Daniel Goleman wrote his landmark book, people started realizing that there are many people who may have high SAT and GRE scores but are not thriving in life or even succeeding in their work. And when we look at why that is, it turns out that they don’t know how to manage their own emotions or how to read other people’s emotions, and they don’t know how to get along effectively with other people, while other people with far lower GRE and SAT scores have skills to understand and read people and can get a team together and lead them to accomplish things and have great success. There’s a growing realization that emotional intelligence matters, even for external material, goal-oriented activities. Are emotional intelligence skills relevant in the age of AI? As people increasingly are interacting with chatbots rather than real human beings to get their work done, I suspect that authentic, connected human interactions are going to become more important. Humans are hardwired to be a social species­ — we long for connection to others. We hate the experience of being ostracized and pushed out of the group. That’s in our basic primate nature, and I suspect that as more of people’s lives are engaged in interactions with AI, even though it does a nice job of imitating human responses, that people will long for simple, natural responses. That’s my hope, anyway, that people will value genuine connection rather than preferring to spend time with chatbots because “My chatbot is so much more complimentary toward me than my spouse or is so much more willing to change its mind to accommodate my needs.” I’m hoping we don’t just go for the chatbots because they’re better at boosting our egos. As people increasingly are interacting with chatbots rather than real human beings to get their work done, I suspect that authentic, connected human interactions are going to become more important. What are the components of emotional intelligence? How can we become emotionally competent? The first component is self-awareness, which means being conscious of our own thoughts, feelings, and what’s happening inside of us. It is the capacity to notice that every simple interaction stimulates myriad different emotions and associations to all the other moments in our life. The second big area is self-regulation, which is the ability to manage our emotions in a healthy way. It means that we’re able to feel the full range of our emotions and yet not be overwhelmed by them. The third big component is social awareness or empathy, and that’s noticing what’s going on in others. This means being free enough of self-preoccupation so that we can see that other people have needs, desires, fears, and hurts, and so we can respond to them in appropriate ways. And the fourth big component is social skills, which is the ability to work well in teams, to be able to solve conflicts and help the team to cooperate. Emotional competence is key in our personal lives too. I’m a clinical psychologist by training and I know that most people are not struggling because they can’t figure out the answer to a technical question. They are struggling because they can’t figure out how to get along with their kids, their parents, their spouses, their siblings, their neighbors, or their friends. How do we stop hurting each other’s feelings and find a way to feel safely connected and love one another? That’s our big challenge. — This story is reprinted with permission from The Harvard Gazette. *** Subscribe to The Good Men Project Newsletter Email Address * If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join us as a Premium Member today. All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here. — Photo credit: unsplash The post Why Employers Want Workers With High EQs appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

The animated movie ‘Elio’ Is out now on Digital Pixar has made some wonderful films over the years. Each one has told some amazing stories and have taken viewers of all ages on some mind blowing journeys. When I first heard about Elio it looked like it could be a fun animated film. I was able to get a digital copy of this movie and here is what I thought of it. (c) Walt Disney Studios You can read the plot for this film here: Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination, finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions and somehow discover who he is truly meant to be. (c) Walt Disney Studios Overall this was an alright movie. The visuals were amazing and really helped bring the environments and the characters to life. The story was fine but not as great as it could have been and parts of it felt kind of weak. There are a few emotional moments that could tug at your heart strings a bit though. Kids are sure to enjoy this one, but it won’t be for everyone. ‘Inside the Communiverse: The World and Characters of Elio’ showed how this story came together and the process of bringing many of the characters to life. ‘Extraterrestrial Easter Eggs and Fun Facts’ was a lot of fun to watch and revealed some pretty cool easter eggs that I totally missed. There was also a funny Gag Reel and a few interesting deleted scenes. (c) Walt Disney Studios Elio is available now on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital. You can follow this film on Facebook and Instagram. The post The Family Fun Space Adventure ‘Elio’ Is Out Now on Digital appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

⏱️ Every five seconds, someone’s identity is stolen. Don’t let it be yours. I trust NordProtect for real protection and real alerts. No gimmicks, just results. Get 65% off now while you still can. I switched from LifeLock and saved a ton of money! The post Every five seconds, someone’s identity is stolen appeared first on Komando.com. View the full article

By Noreen Want to know how to save money when buying a house? We’ve got some ideas for you! From consolidating your shopping trips to sharing closing costs, these tips will help you keep more money in your pocket when you buy your home. Some of these may seem counterintuitive (wait, like, I should spend money on an inspector?), but I promise they’ll benefit you in the long run. Without further ado, here are 14 ways to save money when shopping for a new home. 1. Decide What You Want Make your choices. List your needs and wants, negotiables and non-negotiables, when it comes to buying a house. Then, don’t waste a minute looking at anything else. And don’t budge! This list of wants and needs might include “less than a 25-minute drive to work” or “3 bedrooms or more.” You know what you and your family need the most. Does this mean you can’t change your mind? No, you can always adjust the scales. But by sticking to your guns, you’ll avoid the things you don’t need and focus on everything you do. 2. Shop Neighborhoods From Your Couch An online map lets you learn a lot about a home or neighborhood. Have the little Google man walk around for you so that you don’t waste time and fuel driving around towns. This way, you’ll know ahead of time if there’s something like a busy intersection around the corner, a power plant two doors away, or even something good like a bakery two doors down. 3. Scour Listing Photos You can learn a great deal about a home by stealthily inspecting its listing photos. Look for things like dated electric outlets, heating sources, mold, potential repairs; the list goes on. When buying our foreclosure home, we knew before we saw it in person that it would need work. Sometimes, you can even tell if a photo has been doctored, stretched, or enhanced. If you decide it’s not your house, pitch it and move on! 4. Consolidate Your Home Shopping Days Particularly if you live far away from your new home’s destination, you can save money by shopping for houses in clusters. We lived in Queens while shopping for a house in Jersey. Whether we drove or took the train, tolls and train fares cost a small fortune for two adults to commute. Take a full day or weekend to view neighborhoods and homes in bulk. 5. Drive Around a Prospective Neighborhood Once you are ready to consolidate your shopping days, schedule a “drive-by” day without a realtor. Make a list of houses you want to see, then drive by all of them. You can probably cut your list down very quickly. You may not have initially noticed something geographically undesirable, like a train station next door or a sewage plant across the street. Or maybe the pictures looked amazing but conveniently didn’t show that the house isn’t standing up straight (yes, this exists!). Regardless of the turn-off, trust me on this: I promise you’ll know the second you look at a house if it’s not for you. Trust your gut, and don’t buy that house. 6. Organize Your Money Get your financial ducks in a row. A better credit score means a better mortgage rate. A higher down payment means a smaller mortgage. Furthermore, with an airtight financial presentation, you’ll get preapproved for a loan faster – and time is money when bidding on a house! 7. Make the Ask Check if the seller will contribute to closing costs. Hey, you never know until you try! 8. Explore All Possible Costs Look at fees besides the monthly mortgage payment. When shopping for a house, particularly for the first time, it’s easy to look at principal + interest costs as provided by a listing website. If the principal, interest, taxes, and insurance (PITI) look like they will be less than your monthly rent, buying a home is tempting! But have you considered property taxes, HOAs, and utilities? What about the costs of trash and recycling pickup, if applicable? Or consider everyone’s favorite duo – maintenance and repairs? By foreseeing potential “extras,” you could save yourself a lot of money in the future. 9. Understand PMI PMI is private mortgage insurance. No, it doesn’t insure you – it insures the bank in case you don’t pay. If you make a down payment of less than 20%, you’ll have the cost of PMI on top of your mortgage, interest, and taxes. It’s not cute! Avoid it if you can! 10. Educate Yourself Don’t pay for investing courses, classes, seminars, or coaches… YET. There is an OCEAN of information out there on buying houses. Start with your local library and read up on investing strategies that will work for you. Read all the blogs! Follow the investors you admire on social media. Use your best judgment to decide what philosophies you want to adapt and which you want to ditch. I would be shocked if you exhaust all the free avenues of information necessary before you get your first house. 11. Use an Experienced Agent Now is not the time for an agent’s first real estate deal. An experienced agent should guide you through the home-buying process more efficiently. Get recommendations from family, friends, and coworkers. Are you hoping to support your cousin’s bestie’s sister, who just got their real estate license? Well, maybe they can work with an experienced agent as an assistant. But don’t sacrifice your home purchase in the name of being nice. This is a big deal with a lot of money on the line. 12. Pay For Quality, Once Skipping things like a title search or home inspection might seem like they’re saving you money upfront. But if you miss a huge problem, you’ll pay exponentially more for it down the road, so don’t skimp on them. For example, let’s say you skip the inspection and don’t know that there’s a little mold in one duct. It spreads, and instead of paying $500 for an inspector and $5 for a bottle of Lysol, you’re paying $4,000 for mold abatement professionals to fix the whole basement. 13. Remember a Contingency If you’re buying a home that needs work, carefully estimate your repair costs and create a home renovation budget. Then – and here’s the important part – add 10-15%! There’s nothing wrong with a foreclosure or fixer-upper – in fact, we tackled a two-for-one in that regard. It was financially a great decision, but know that we were very intentional when bidding and renovating. A contingency fund is imperative, even more so with an older home or foreclosure. 14. Cash Is King Have cash at the ready in a high-yield savings account. Cash always helps. Cash, cash, cash. The Benjamins. The coins. As my immigrant Irish grandma would say, “‘Tis better to be looking at it than for it.” So, save up! There you go – 14 ways to save when you’re buying a home. From consolidating your shopping trips and organizing your money to planning a contingency fund and keeping cash, you will be a savvy house shopper in no time! This article originally appeared on Wealth of Geeks. — Previously Published on The Invested Wallet. — Subscribe to The Good Men Project Newsletter Email Address * Subscribe If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join us as a Premium Member today. All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here. — Photo credit: iStock.com The post 14 Smart Ways to Save Money When Buying a House appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

A black man kills a white woman in an American city, and the mainstream media gives it zero coverage. Imagine if the races were reversed. The US mainstream media tends to operate by encouraging a certain prefabricated outrage. Sensationalized narratives are cultivated along predictable tracks. But no less egregious is what the media chooses to ignore. Few events of late have better exposed the ideological underpinnings of the media – and of the elite whose narratives it plugs – than the recent brutal and shocking murder of a young Ukrainian woman on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina. On August 22, a career criminal, Decarlos Brown Jr., casually walked up behind 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was seated on a train minding her own business, and stabbed her three times in the neck in cold blood, killing her. He sauntered away, still clutching the knife dripping blood. The mindless and savage attack was captured on surveillance footage, but Charlotte’s Democratic Mayor Vi Lyles pushed for it not to be released, ostensibly out of respect for the victim’s family. But the footage did eventually surface, and the story spread like wildfire. But this was a wildfire that couldn’t reach the impervious redoubt of the mainstream media – even after Elon Musk gave it the push into viral territory by chiming in on an End Wokeness thread pointing out the stunning media silence. In fact, not a single major legacy outlet – the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Reuters, CNN, Wall Street Journal, and others – picked it up. One would think that, by sheer chance, one of these esteemed outlets would have bucked the trend. But that didn’t happen because, as Matt Taibbi once brilliantly pointed out, “Reporting is done in herds, no one wildebeest can break formation without screwing things up for the others. So, they’ll all hold the line, until they all stop holding the line.” As of this writing, it seems the media herd is starting to reluctantly skate to where the puck is going. And that means that some version of the story, however sanitized, will soon appear everywhere. Read more ‘Western liberal dictatorships’ spreading hate – Moscow So what exactly has given this story its irresistible momentum? Let's start with the blatant double standard about reporting interracial crime. A white victim and a black perpetrator, as was the case in this instance, is usually a circumstance that tips the scales in favor of silence. When an instance of black-on-white crime cannot be avoided, the respective races of the individuals involved are not mentioned, and the tone is more along the lines of “aww shucks, what a tragedy.” When the racial roles are reversed, the media coverage is extensive and sensational, and the race angle is established immediately and runs throughout the ensuing coverage like an electric wire. Given such highly distorted media coverage of interracial crime, one would be forgiven for assuming that it is blacks who are perpetually in mortal danger of racist attack by whites in the US. This view was a large part of the impetus behind the Black Lives Matter movement. However, the actual statistics on interracial crime, which are not easy to find, show otherwise. Buried inside this Department of Justice (DOJ) report from 2020 is a rather remarkable admission: “[In 2019], there were 5.3 times as many violent incidents committed by black offenders against white victims (472,570) as were committed by white offenders against black victims (89,980).” Such stark wording was not repeated in subsequent reports under the Biden DOJ, but there is no reason to believe anything has changed in the streets. Zarutska’s murder certainly comes at a time of record-low American trust in the mainstream media. Instances of misreporting and factual disasters have become such a recurrent theme as to not require individual examples. The media’s efforts at narrative formation have also become so heavy-handed that identifying the establishment cause being promoted in almost any piece of reporting is now a parlor game. But – and I venture into very risky terrain here – the uproar over this senseless killing also points to a deeply ensconced taboo slowly starting to unravel: Many white Americans are tired of being denied the right to display even the slightest and most tentative hint of the type of racial solidarity that other groups are extended so liberally. It is a story being played out on a different stage with different actors in Great Britain. Read more US scientists axe ‘woke’ to keep cash flowing – WSJ There’s another angle here, and it is one that has already been remarked upon in numerous places. The victim was a citizen of a country that the US has spent enormous treasure and effort ostensibly defending since 2022. The roughly $130 billion in aid that Washington has coughed up for Kiev comes out to some $3,500 per Ukrainian citizen. Certainly enough for a bodyguard on train rides. And yet the silence from the pro-Ukraine crowd has mirrored that of the media at large. This certainly confirms what has been abundantly clear throughout the war and remains so today: Ukrainian deaths that don’t advance a Western elite media narrative are dismissed and ignored. But this lack of reaction also casts in sharp relief the reality that pro-Ukraine sentiment in the US is largely a cause bundled in with the rest of the progressive agenda, underpinned by the uniform mouthpiece of a jaded media. The Ukrainian flags one sees out and about rarely reflect a principled stance but rather deference to elite cues. It will be said that all sides have merely assumed their positions on the barricades to score political points on this deeply human tragedy. We will all be accused of coming to praise Caesar rather than to bury him. This young woman’s death is indeed a human tragedy and a particularly painful one. But to see it as only a tragedy is to dismiss its larger context and to refuse to draw any conclusions. That is willful ignorance. When a tragedy unveils such a confluence of two deep ideological biases, what it does is reveal the contours of the magnet moving underneath the pattern of American life. View the full article

A black man kills a white woman in an American city, and the mainstream media gives it zero coverage. Imagine if the races were reversed. The US mainstream media tends to operate by encouraging a certain prefabricated outrage. Sensationalized narratives are cultivated along predictable tracks. But no less egregious is what the media chooses to ignore. Few events of late have better exposed the ideological underpinnings of the media – and of the elite whose narratives it plugs – than the recent brutal and shocking murder of a young Ukrainian woman on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina. On August 22, a career criminal, Decarlos Brown Jr., casually walked up behind 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was seated on a train minding her own business, and stabbed her three times in the neck in cold blood, killing her. He sauntered away, still clutching the knife dripping blood. The mindless and savage attack was captured on surveillance footage, but Charlotte’s Democratic Mayor Vi Lyles pushed for it not to be released, ostensibly out of respect for the victim’s family. But the footage did eventually surface, and the story spread like wildfire. But this was a wildfire that couldn’t reach the impervious redoubt of the mainstream media – even after Elon Musk gave it the push into viral territory by chiming in on an End Wokeness thread pointing out the stunning media silence. In fact, not a single major legacy outlet – the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Reuters, CNN, Wall Street Journal, and others – picked it up. One would think that, by sheer chance, one of these esteemed outlets would have bucked the trend. But that didn’t happen because, as Matt Taibbi once brilliantly pointed out, “Reporting is done in herds, no one wildebeest can break formation without screwing things up for the others. So, they’ll all hold the line, until they all stop holding the line.” As of this writing, it seems the media herd is starting to reluctantly skate to where the puck is going. And that means that some version of the story, however sanitized, will soon appear everywhere. So what exactly has given this story its irresistible momentum? Let's start with the blatant double standard about reporting interracial crime. A white victim and a black perpetrator, as was the case in this instance, is usually a circumstance that tips the scales in favor of silence. When an instance of black-on-white crime cannot be avoided, the respective races of the individuals involved are not mentioned, and the tone is more along the lines of “aww shucks, what a tragedy.” When the racial roles are reversed, the media coverage is extensive and sensational, and the race angle is established immediately and runs throughout the ensuing coverage like an electric wire. Given such highly distorted media coverage of interracial crime, one would be forgiven for assuming that it is blacks who are perpetually in mortal danger of racist attack by whites in the US. This view was a large part of the impetus behind the Black Lives Matter movement. However, the actual statistics on interracial crime, which are not easy to find, show otherwise. Buried inside this Department of Justice (DOJ) report from 2020 is a rather remarkable admission: “[In 2019], there were 5.3 times as many violent incidents committed by black offenders against white victims (472,570) as were committed by white offenders against black victims (89,980).” Such stark wording was not repeated in subsequent reports under the Biden DOJ, but there is no reason to believe anything has changed in the streets. Zarutska’s murder certainly comes at a time of record-low American trust in the mainstream media. Instances of misreporting and factual disasters have become such a recurrent theme as to not require individual examples. The media’s efforts at narrative formation have also become so heavy-handed that identifying the establishment cause being promoted in almost any piece of reporting is now a parlor game. But – and I venture into very risky terrain here – the uproar over this senseless killing also points to a deeply ensconced taboo slowly starting to unravel: Many white Americans are tired of being denied the right to display even the slightest and most tentative hint of the type of racial solidarity that other groups are extended so liberally. It is a story being played out on a different stage with different actors in Great Britain. There’s another angle here, and it is one that has already been remarked upon in numerous places. The victim was a citizen of a country that the US has spent enormous treasure and effort ostensibly defending since 2022. The roughly $130 billion in aid that Washington has coughed up for Kiev comes out to some $3,500 per Ukrainian citizen. Certainly enough for a bodyguard on train rides. And yet the silence from the pro-Ukraine crowd has mirrored that of the media at large. This certainly confirms what has been abundantly clear throughout the war and remains so today: Ukrainian deaths that don’t advance a Western elite media narrative are dismissed and ignored. But this lack of reaction also casts in sharp relief the reality that pro-Ukraine sentiment in the US is largely a cause bundled in with the rest of the progressive agenda, underpinned by the uniform mouthpiece of a jaded media. The Ukrainian flags one sees out and about rarely reflect a principled stance but rather deference to elite cues. It will be said that all sides have merely assumed their positions on the barricades to score political points on this deeply human tragedy. We will all be accused of coming to praise Caesar rather than to bury him. This young woman’s death is indeed a human tragedy and a particularly painful one. But to see it as only a tragedy is to dismiss its larger context and to refuse to draw any conclusions. That is willful ignorance. When a tragedy unveils such a confluence of two deep ideological biases, what it does is reveal the contours of the magnet moving underneath the pattern of American life. View the full article

By Greg Toppo, The 74 This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox. Jean M. Twenge holds an unusual place among Ph.D. psychologists. For the past two decades, she has toggled between the obscurity of the academy and the glare of academic fame. The author of two college textbooks and five books for non-academic readers, she is equally at home researching and writing about adolescent mental health, sleep disorders, digital technology, homework and narcissism. She was one of the first experts to warn nearly a decade ago that smartphones could hold negative consequences for our mental health. A decade after the advent of the iPhone, Twenge went viral in 2017 with an Atlantic piece that asked, provocatively, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” A professor at San Diego State University, she has collaborated for years with the researcher and author Jonathan Haidt, whose 2024 book The Anxious Generation was a mega-bestseller that has helped build momentum for school cellphone bans in a growing number of states — 35 as of this fall. And she is one of the few experts in the education and mental health world to have appeared on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Twenge’s 2017 book, iGen, looked at how modern teens are somehow both more connected than previous generations and less prepared for adulthood. In it, she theorized that depression rates among teens are rising because they spend more time online, less time with friends in person, and less time sleeping — a problematic combination. The dilemmas Twenge identified in 2017 are only getting worse: By 2023, the typical American teen was spending nearly five hours a day using social media, recent research finds, with severe depression rates rising. In one key study, girls who were heavy users of social media were three times as likely to be depressed as non-users. Her sixth book, out Tuesday, offers practical guidelines for parents raising kids in the age of ubiquitous connectivity and sophisticated — some would say addictive — social media. Twenge doesn’t shy away from challenging harried parents to do better. Among her suggestions: No one — parents included — should have electronic devices in the bedroom overnight. Likewise, she says, the first handheld device a kid should receive is a “basic phone” that allows calls, texts and not much else. “It’s a really big myth out there that if kids are going to communicate, it has to be on social media,” she said. “That’s just not true.” Ahead of its publication, Twenge spoke with The 74’s Greg Toppo about her rules, her work with Haidt and her belief that we need stiffer laws that keep young people off social media until they’re old enough to drive. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity. I wanted to start with a quote from your book. It’s a parent’s description of his 10-year-old after she got her first smartphone: “She suddenly wasn’t playing with her younger siblings as much. Novels were promptly cast aside. She wasn’t around to help with dinner anymore. She danced less, laughed less. She was quieter. Our home was quieter.” That’s so heartbreaking, but I’m guessing it’s not unusual. I don’t think it is. Many, many parents describe how their kids are different after they give them a smartphone. And it’s especially heartbreaking when that’s a 10-year-old, but even when it’s a 16-year-old who might otherwise be ready. It’s very noticeable how they change after they get that phone in their pocket. Were there any particular data points about smartphones and social media that persuaded you they were causing a mental health crisis? It was a slow process for me, and it wasn’t an immediate conclusion when I first started to see these trends in adolescent mental health. It was first a process of ruling out obvious causes, like the economy, which wasn’t aligned at all, and any other big events that might happen. I would trace it, really, to the big survey data sets that I work with on teens, where there was just this combination all at once of not just rising depression, but teens spending less time with each other in person and less time sleeping. And then realizing, “Well, wait: What might explain all of those things happening at the same time?” And it seemed clear that a good amount of that answer is probably smartphones and social media, particularly after I found a Pew Research Center poll about the ownership of smartphones, that [it] reached 50% in the U.S. at the end of 2012. And that’s right around the same time all these changes were happening. I want to dig into a few of your rules. No. 3: “No social media until age 16 or later.” That seems a lot tougher than what most families practice. Why 16? And what do you say to parents who worry about their kids’ social isolation and FOMO or Fear Of Missing Out? I have not found that with my kids — that they’ve been socially isolated for not having social media. Most other parents I talked to who have put off social media have also not found that with their kids. Social media is just one mechanism for communicating. There’s so many others. Kids can call each other, they can text each other — they do a lot of texting. They can FaceTime each other, they can get together in person. Usually that ends up tilting toward texting, but it does not have to be social media. It’s a really big myth out there that if kids are going to communicate, it has to be on social media. That’s just not true. And that leads to rule No. 4, where you advocate “basic phones” — your phrase — before smartphones. In a world where even school assignments need Internet access, is that practical for most families? Yeah, because kids have laptops. And if the family can’t afford to buy them a laptop, almost all schools provide a laptop. So they have Internet access on their laptop even if they don’t have it on their phone. And laptops have come so far down in price too, that if you haven’t bought a laptop recently, or if you use Mac laptops like I do and my kids do now, you might not realize you can get a Chromebook for $150. So that’s another big thing: Maybe 10 years ago, if a kid doesn’t have Internet access on their phone, then they don’t have Internet access at all. That’s just not true in the current landscape. Although you do have problems with school laptops. Oh, yes. I mean, this is a thing! They get Internet access on the laptop, whether it’s a school laptop or a personal one, and then that opens a whole other can of worms. Absolutely true. Laptops are the bane of my existence as a parent, particularly the school laptop, although they’ve gotten a little bit better, at least in my district. Actually, that was going to be my next question, this parental controls thing. It sounds like your district is being responsive. Well, on that issue, they still don’t have a coherent phone policy during the school day. In the high school, it’s especially bad. That’s something I’m hoping will change. It is changing in a lot of schools around the country, thankfully. A lot more schools are doing “no phones during the school day, bell to bell,” which is what needs to happen. A big message of the book is phone-free schools. And I know you’ve worked with Jonathan Haidt, who has pushed for schools to get rid of phones. A few critics have said that this is a simple solution to a complex problem, and that it’s not entirely clear that phones are actually causing the mental health issues that Haidt has become a best-seller writing about. How do you respond to that criticism? There are a couple of things to unpack there. For one thing, even if you take mental health out of the equation, kids should still not have their phones at school for academic and focus reasons, for the reason of developing social skills by talking to their friends at lunch, for the reason that a bell-to-bell ban is actually easier to enforce than a classroom-by-classroom ban. There are so many reasons for it that don’t even include mental health. The second question is [about] the research on phones and social media and mental health: We’ve known for quite a while that teens who spend more time on social media are more likely to be depressed or unhappy. Almost every single study finds that. Where you sometimes get more debate is, “O.K., that’s correlation. What about causation?” But in the last 10 years, we’ve gotten a lot more studies, and the studies that ask people to cut back or give up social media for at least three weeks a month or so, almost all of those studies show an improvement in well-being. And I don’t want to get too in the weeds here, but that’s actually a little bit shocking, because by definition in those experiments, you’re taking people who are at average use and having them cut back to low. That’s actually not where we see the biggest effects in the correlational studies. The heaviest users are much more likely to be depressed than the average or light users. So, you know, you can’t ethically do an experiment that would really answer the exact question: You can’t take 12-year-olds, randomly assign them to spend eight hours a day on social media, and then see what happens. At least I hope not. In the book, you talk about the 10 rules “creating a firewall for kids against anxiety, attention issues and constant insecurity.” I think most parents would get behind that. But let’s be honest, they’re users of these tools themselves. How do we craft rules around web dependence and social media without being hypocrites? Parents have to be role models. Parents are also allowed a small amount of what I call “digital hypocrisy.” Because they’re adults, they have jobs, they may be responsible for elderly parents, etc. But that said, parents should think about their technology use as well. They should get their phones and electronic devices out of their bedroom at night. They should also consider doing things like not having social media on their phone. If they want to use Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, do it on your laptop. That’s what I do. I mean, I don’t have much social media to begin with. I have X, but I don’t have it on my phone, and that’s very much a purposeful decision. During family dinners, unless there’s a really specific reason for me to have my phone with me, it’s upstairs. That seems to be an easy one: Phones away at dinner. Well, you’d think so, but you’ve got to get the whole family on board, and sometimes husbands are not really into that. I want to skip to Rule No. 8: “Give your kids real-world freedom,” which will probably be met with some resistance. I have a 4-year-old grandson, and when I read your recommendation to let 4-to-7-year-olds go find items a few aisles away in the grocery store, I shouted, “Hell no!” Why? Why is there, do you think, a resistance to that idea? I have nightmares about this child being snatched from me at Safeway. I guess I want you to just pull me back from the edge, if you would. I mean, that is not just unlikely to happen — the chances of that are so infinitesimal it probably shouldn’t even factor into our decision making. There’s one stat in there, and I forget the exact number, but someone calculated that if you wanted your kid to get kidnapped, how many hours — it turned out to be years — would they have to be in your front yard for that to happen? It’s something like 100,000 years. O.K., well that helps. And a four-year-old loves that stuff! They love being grown up. I mean, look, even if you don’t do the grocery store thing, make sure they learn how to tie their own shoes, that they know how to get dressed. I remember when my girls were that age, and it occasionally amazed me when I would be with other moms in various situations and their kids couldn’t dress themselves at that age, and that’s where it starts. At pretty much every age, the great thing is that giving kids independence makes it easier for parents. It is easier as a parent if your 4-year-old can dress themselves. It is easier if your teenager makes dinner once a week. It’s good for everybody. A lot of people might see this freedom rule as somehow contradictory to some of the other rules, in which you talk about adults being “in control.” Can you parse that? For sure. Jon has said this as well — and I completely agree: We have overprotected kids in the real world and underprotected them online, and these principles are just trying to get those two to balance. When you’re talking about the real-world freedom thing, it’s not a matter of letting kids completely run wild and do whatever they want. We’re talking about giving kids some of the freedoms that parents themselves had when they were kids, and to build independence in a way that is really good for kids and good for them as they grow up. I can’t even remember who said this to me when I had young kids: “You’re not raising children, you’re raising adults.” And that’s just so true. That is your job as a parent. Giving kids some freedom and independence is a really, really key part of raising an adult. I wrote a whole book about learning games, and one of the powerful ideas that I took from that reporting is that many adults don’t realize how social video games have become. You acknowledge that, saying gaming is the primary way that some kids spend time with friends. But I gather that you see the risks as well. And I wonder if you could talk about that. It really comes back to the principle of “Everything in moderation.” Many games are not as obviously toxic as social media. Games tend to be more in real time, more interactive. But is it a good idea for kids to be spending five or six hours a day gaming? Probably not. There have to be some limits. You quote Sean Parker, the Facebook founder, admitting they’re “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology” to keep users on the app. Given social media’s sophistication, are mere parental rules sufficient? I mean, don’t we need a bigger hammer, like legislation and policies? Absolutely! Yes! Yes! It would be absolutely amazing for parents and for kids if we had laws that verified age for social media. I mean, ideally, that would be age verification to make sure they’re 16 or older, to raise the minimum age to 16. But even if we just enforced existing law with the minimum of 13, that would be progress, given the enormous numbers of 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds who are on social media, often without their parents’ permission — often explicitly against their parents’ permission — and actually against the COPPA law [Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule] that was passed in 1998. What is the biggest obstacle to getting better regulation, or, to your point, to enforcing the existing regulations? It’s interesting. The barrier is not the inability to verify age or the inability to verify age without a government ID. There are so many companies that will verify age now that they have their own trade association. It can be done in many different ways. The biggest barrier is tech companies themselves. Any time a state passes a law about verifying age on social media or even pornography sites, the companies will sue — every single time. They have sued to keep those laws from going into effect. Are any emerging technologies that parents should be concerned about? Do your rules need updating for AI or virtual reality or whatever comes next? AI chatbots are what a lot of parents are rightly worried about. And yes, you could certainly modify or add to the rules and say, “No AI chat bots until 16 or 18 — probably 18.” And of course, it depends on what we’re talking about. It is common for kids to use ChatGPT when they need to look up something for homework or even have it write their essays — that’s a whole other horrible discussion. But what I’m specifically referring to is the many chatbots out there right now that are supposed to be AI friends, or worse, AI boyfriends or girlfriends. There’s already been a tragic case of a child who committed suicide, apparently due to one of these AI girlfriends. It’s just really scary to think of kids having their first romantic relationship with an AI chatbot. It’s terrifying. The good news is, if you follow that rule about your kids having basic phones, if you give them one of the phones that’s designed for kids, those phones do not allow AI relationship chatbots. It’s on their banned apps, just like social media and pornography and violence apps. Parents have such a tough job, and it’s nice that there are at least a few tools out there that can make their lives easier and keep their kids off of things like AI girlfriend and boyfriend chatbots. In keeping with the theme of overwhelmed parents, I wonder: If I were to come to you as a parent and say, “Oh my God, Jean, 10 rules is a lot. If I could only do two or three, where would I start?” Is that even a smart thing to do? And if so, where would you start? I would say, “No electronic devices in the bedroom overnight.” Start there, because the research is so solid on it, and it’s such a straightforward rule, and it works for everybody, of all ages. Your teenager can’t say, “Well, you do it differently,” or, “You get to be on social media.” No, actually, my phone is outside my bedroom when I sleep at night too. So that’s a great place to start. And then, just because they have so much utility, I would probably say the second rule, about basic phones, because even with all of the mess of the laptops, I’m just so happy and grateful that my kids did not have the Internet or social media in their pocket until they were older. As a parent and a grandparent, I really appreciate you using your real life to inform a lot of these rules. In a way, it hardens them a bit, makes them more durable. Anything I haven’t asked you about that you feel needs to be in the mix? Two things I’ll throw out there just in terms of pushbacks: With “No phones during the school day,” the pushback is often “What about school shootings?” And it’s actually less safe for students to have access to their phones during an active shooter situation. And I go through the reasons for that in that chapter. And then the real-world freedom piece: When you look at the things that I’m suggesting in terms of how to give your kids freedom, obviously letting them go off on their own in the real world is important, and you should do that too. But there are lots of things in that list of suggestions you can do without even leaving the house: teens making their own doctor and hairstylist appointments, for example, or middle-school kids, or even elementary school kids, cooking dinner for the family. Those are great experiences for kids to have without too much parental interference. You do have to — and I know this by experience — step back, especially with the cooking piece, and let them do it by themselves and learn how to make mistakes. It’s tempting to just be there when they’re doing that, but you learn quickly that if you leave them alone, they’ll figure it out. And then you can go do something else. Go and read that book you’ve been meaning to read for a while. Go for a walk. Watch TV. Have some relaxation time that you wouldn’t otherwise get. I wrote a piece a couple weeks ago on unschooling, this idea of pulling kids out of school and letting them find their own level and their own interests. This almost strikes me as unparenting. It is — and I’m not a huge fan of unschooling, because it’s a rare kid it would actually work for — but it is. It’s the general idea that not being up in your kids’ business all the time is better for both parents and kids. It’s something we really have to consider more. — This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America. *** Subscribe to The Good Men Project Newsletter Email Address * Subscribe If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join us as a Premium Member today. All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here. Photo credit: unsplash The post Kids Shouldn’t Access Social Media Until They’re Old Enough to Drive, Book Says appeared first on The Good Men Project. View the full article

The US president can call up members of his administration at any time of day or night, according to his VP US President Donald Trump works almost without resting, Vice President J.D. Vance has claimed, noting that the American leader frequently contacts his aides and cabinet members at any time of the day or night. Speaking in an interview with Fox News host Lara Trump, Vance explained that the president can call up his team at 12:30 am or 2 in the morning and then be on another call at 6 am. “It’s like, ‘Mr. President, did you go to sleep last night? Like, what is going on here?’” Vance said. “One thing I’ve learned just working with him every day is, he doesn’t have an off switch,” he said. Media reports have long described Trump as a light sleeper who averages less than five hours of rest each night. Members of his administration have echoed similar experiences. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in July that Trump often telephones him shortly after midnight. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. also told reporters last month that Trump calls him “three or four times a week” about health policy matters. Vance’s comments come as speculations about Trump’s health have increased in recent weeks. Observers have pointed to his minimal rest and photographs showing bruises. The White House has attributed these to frequent aspirin use and a condition known as chronic venous insufficiency, dismissing claims of more serious health issues. Last month, rumors spread online that Trump had supposedly died after a brief absence from public events. Hashtags such as #TrumpIsDead gained traction on social media. However, the president soon reappeared in public. View the full article

Paris has little chance of reining in its finances amid ongoing “political destabilization,” the German state media network has reported France’s ballooning sovereign debt coupled with political infighting could threaten the fiscal stability of the Eurozone, Deutsche Welle has reported, citing an expert. France has one of the highest national debts in the EU, currently standing at €3.35 trillion ($3.9 trillion) — about 113% of GDP. The ratio is expected to climb to 125% by 2030. Its budget deficit is projected at 5.4–5.8% this year, well above the bloc’s 3% limit. Friedrich Heinemann of the ZEW Leibniz Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim, Germany, told the outlet in an article published on Saturday “we should be worried. The eurozone is not stable at this point.” A drastic austerity plan proposed by French minority government Prime Minister Francois Bayrou triggered a no confidence vote that he lost on Monday evening. The plan involved slashing public sector jobs, curbing welfare spending, as well as axing two public holidays. The right-wing National Rally, the Socialists, and the leftist France Unbowed vehemently opposed the proposal. An Elabe poll ahead of the vote also showed most respondents were against the measures. Heinemann told DW he doubts France will find a way out soon, given the bitter political infighting. In July, Bloomberg, citing ING Groep NV experts, similarly claimed that France’s rising debt could be a “ticking bomb” for EU financial stability. Despite the considerable budget deficit, France plans to hike military spending to €64 billion in 2027, double what the country spent in 2017. President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly cited a supposed Russian threat. The Kremlin has consistently dismissed the claims as “nonsense,” accusing the EU of rapidly militarizing. In May, member states approved a €150 billion ($169 billion) debt program for arms procurement. View the full article

Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has been ousted by the National Assembly in a no-confidence vote The French government has fallen after Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a crucial confidence vote in parliament on Monday. Bayrou is the second consecutive prime minister under President Emmanuel Macron to be ousted, throwing the nation into political and economic turmoil. A no-confidence motion in the National Assembly requires at least 288 votes to pass. Monday’s motion received 364 votes, with the left-wing New Popular Front and the right-wing National Rally uniting in opposition to end a months-long standoff over Bayrou’s austerity budget. Having previously survived eight no-confidence motions, Bayrou called this vote himself, in a bid to secure backing for proposals that forecast almost €44 billion ($52 billion) of savings to ease France’s debt burden before the budget is presented in October. The prime minister, who has repeatedly warned that France’s national debt poses a “mortal danger” to the country, appeared to acknowledge his fate. In a bitter remark on Sunday, Bayrou lashed out at rival parties that he said “hate each other” yet joined forces “to bring down the government.” Bayrou is the second French prime minister in succession to be brought down following Michel Barnier’s ejection last December after just three months in office – and the sixth to serve under Macron since he was first elected in 2017. Bayrou’s ouster reportedly leaves the French president to choose between appointing a Socialist prime minister to steer a budget through parliament, effectively ceding control of domestic policy, or call snap elections that polls suggest favour Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. With Macron’s approval ratings already hitting historic lows, either choice risks further weakening his presidency. Analysts warn that if markets lose confidence in France’s ability to rein in its deficit and mounting debt, the country could face turmoil reminiscent of the UK during the brief Liz Truss premiership. Public discontent with Macron’s leadership has deepened, with the latest Le Figaro poll showing nearly 80% of French no longer trust the president. Thousands marched through Paris at the weekend demanding Macron’s resignation and carrying placards reading ‘Let’s stop Macron’ and ‘Frexit.’ View the full article