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Microplastics Have Been Linked With Myriad Human Health Problems. Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out How They Harm the Body
Lab experiments suggest that tiny bits of plastic can react with water inside us to produce highly reactive molecules. They can lead to damaging oxidative stress and inflammation
UConn Researcher’s Insight on Small-Business Bankruptcy Recovery Draws the Attention of Congress
'Small businesses are an important part of the economy, but financial distress does not necessarily mean that the underlying business isn’t worthwhile& ...
It’s Time We Reframe Healthcare Organizational Culture Using Behavioral Science
Data, behavioral insights, and experimentation can be used to understand how stress, motivation, and trust shape company culture. Positively changing company culture leads to direct improvements in patient health outcomes, clinician wellbeing, and company performance.
Rubio Stresses Need for U.S. Security Work With Greece on Migration and Terrorism
Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised Greece for spending more on defense, while saying it needs to address “mass migration.”
Don’t trade your mental health to be the best
Columnist Sara Sayed emphasizes the importance of students taking advantage of mental health resources to manage academic stress.
Are Labaron Philon Jr.'s Preseason Struggles Worth Stressing Over?
Labaron Philon Jr. is going to be a hit for the 76ers, but right now it's looking like he's struggling, and the season hasn't even started yet.
Stress Testing 6 Completely Different Gravel Bikes to Find the Future of Gravel
In episode 2 of the Velo Gravel Field Test, we put our 6 test bikes through 3 rounds of head to head challenges: climbing, descending, and efficiency.
Stressed out by politics? You’re not alone. Political stress is rising, therapists say
After several years as a clinician helping couples and individuals navigate the struggles of daily life, therapist Amity Heyborne began noticing a new source of distress among her clients: political polarization.
This Overlooked Part Of Your Stress Hormones May Affect Metabolic Health
How the body stores fat goes way beyond calories and macros.
Brown County Public Health wants more pep in your day
Health officials recommend sleep, movement and less screen time to combat fatigue, stress.
Conference to Explore Alternatives to Coercive Mental Health Care
The 18th annual Critical Voices Network Ireland (CVNI) conference will take place at University College Cork November 12 and 13, bringing together speakers and participants to explore critical and alternative responses to human distress.
Better Business Bureau warns of student loan scams
Paying your student loans is a stressful process but if you’re not careful, you could fall victim to a scam.
Broncos vs. Chargers gameday inactives for Week 5
The Denver Broncos will be down both their starting cornerbacks for this game against the Los Angeles Chargers. They also activated defensive lineman Sai’vion Jones instead of Jordan Jackson. The defense is going to be stressed, but fortunately they are facing a team that is down a lot of starters on the offensive side of […]
Column: More than just a phase: The real science behind why teens feel everything so intensely
When a minor inconvenience feels like the end of the world, take a deep breath. Remember you’re navigating the complex reality of a growing mind.
Alt-pop songstress Julia Wolf tried to become a vampire. Plan B? Hypnotizing the internet with 'In My Room'
Grunge-pop hit 'In My Room' shot Julia Wolf to internet fame. As she embarks on tour, arriving in L.A. on Oct. 25, Wolf is 'saying the crazy stuff out loud' and reflecting on a childhood of 'Twilight'-fueled escape.
Formula 1: Max Verstappen says sport 'less stressful' without Christian Horner, speaks on whether he would drive for Ferrari and his new contract
Max Verstappen on F1 post Christian Horner: It is not as spicy but I quite like how things are going with everyones behaviour, lets put it like that; Verstappen says it is not my concern if Horner returns to sport; watch Singapore Grand Prix weekend live on Sky Sports F1 from Friday
Coastal forces shape building sciences practice
When Built Environments relocated to Wilmington, the firm’s partners weren’t looking for the lazy tranquility one hopes for when on vacation. Instead, they sought sultry heat. They wanted to understand whipping coastal winds and punishing precipitation – the kind that tropical storms produce. That’s because how materials degrade can reveal a lot about how they can be improved. “We specifically chose the Wilmington market because it does fall within Climate Zone 3A, which is a coastal warm-humid climate,” said Jarrett Davis, who joined Built Environments in 2023 to lead the company’s building science practice. “There’s not a lot of product research in that climate zone, but there are a lot of structures here that get weatherized pretty severely.” Built Environments has provided building science, material testing and code compliance consulting for 25 years, ever since principal materials scientist Steve Doggett founded the company in Minnesota. “There are very few manufacturers that understand fully how their own materials and products work, whereas we know their shortfalls and their benefits out in the real world on jobsites,” Doggett said. “That’s why the original Built Environments was formed, to make buildings better.” He said the 15-employee company is just as comfortable on a jobsite, retrofitting a high-end beachside property, for example, as it is recreating some of the coast’s most intense weather conditions in the great indoors. The company operates an A2LA-accredited ISO/IEC 17025 mechanical testing laboratory on Wright Street. The year-old facility has expanded Built Environments’ in-house capabilities, Doggett said. “We’re able to simulate that hurricane wind (and) rain and perform structural and impact testing on wall assemblies, roof assemblies and glazing assemblies,” he said. “There are certain requirements that those windows and doors need to meet as far as wind ratings and pressure ratings and things of that nature.” Standard Glass Co.-Glass Depots, of Wilmington, is currently testing a new glazing system using Built Environments’ stress testing, the partners said. One method involves what’s called a “large missile cannon.” “We take 8-foot two-by-fours, and we shoot them at assemblies, so they have to withstand that impact,” Davis said. “It’s pretty cool to see, I’m not going to lie.” In many cases, the lab can run a full, wall-scale test of a product in a matter of weeks or months, whereas “it might take midrange manufacturers years,” Doggett said. “We’re nimble. We can cut that time in half.” The lab also develops intellectual property. Doggett, for example, shares a patent with Sustant LLC, of Minnesota, on a fastener patch to increase the air and water tightness within building envelopes. “We have too many ideas and not enough time,” he said. But the partners noted that they or their fellow principals – of which the company has four total, including a principal engineer and a principal codes and standards expert – could be anywhere on a given day, including in the courtroom providing expert testimony in contentious insurance cases. “Let’s say there is a fire on a structure,” Davis said. “We can analyze all the specific materials within that assembly – an exterior wall or something like that – because there are loads that require certain heat release. And so, we can measure each one of those materials, if need be, to say if this was likely or not a code-approved assembly.” Despite what can be inferred in a lab, the partners said nothing beats learning from how materials change over time under real-world strain. Take, for instance, the curious case of the creaking condo. “We recently had a customer that came to us trying to assess a sound issue of a roof. It was making noises that no one could explain or account for. How do you tackle something like that?” Doggett asked rhetorically. “There’s really no generally agreed-upon methodologies.” The problem turned out to be a faulty installation of a commercial roof system. “The building in this particular case was not local,” he said. “In the initial installation, the commercial roofing contractor installed the wrong fasteners in the wrong locations into the deck, and essentially the solar radiation was causing the building to move quite substantially early in the morning when the sun initially hit that assembly after a quite cool evening, causing the threads on the fasteners to kind of jump within the material, within the metal.” Built Environments designed an effective repair methodology that was within budget, the partners said. “We get the bizarre,” Doggett said. “I will say that’s something that has stayed the same over 25 years.” The partners said they are hiring, and that Cape Fear Community College is one of their main recruiting grounds. Davis and Doggett look for talented people who can understand traditional methodologies yet are open to on-the-job training and new understandings, they said. After all, it’s not just weather that can ruin a building. “My favorite saying is,” Davis said, “‘What are the eight most expensive words in construction? That’s how my daddy used to do it.’”
Health expert shares simple ways to help lower inflammation throughout the body
Clinical pharmacist Jim LaValle breaks down how diet, stress, medications, blood sugar, environmental exposures and even overtraining may contribute to inflammation — and why the gut-brain connection matters.
Dental hygienists stress importance of good oral health
Going to the dentist can cause anxiety for some. The best advice from a dental hygienist is to ask a lot of questions.
‘Halloweenmas’: how the spooky one-nighter turned into a month-long spectacular
Welcome to Halloweenmas, weeks of themed fun and gifts – from costume parties to decorating trees – without the stress, rules or cost of Christmas
‘Like riding a roller coaster’: UNL political science professor breaks down the stress of politics
Nebraska has seen a particularly turbulent midterm election – from the controversial and litigious rise of two new political parties, to a petition fraud investigation that’s led to several arrests.
Lane Johnson's mental health advocacy may be the newly retired Eagle's most lasting impact
The star lineman made it more acceptable for men to acknowledge emotional distress and ask for help by opening up about his own depression battle.
Yale School of Medicine On the Science of Childhood Anxiety, Say, Anxiety Disorders Are the Most Common Mental Health Challenges In Youth
Credit: Matt Bradbury October 5, 2026 - By Isabella Backman - Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health challenges in youth. Left untreated, they can disrupt the lives of both children and their families. The good news is that with intervention, most children will overcome these conditions. Across Yale School of Medicine, scientists are working to understand anxiety at every level, from common anxious behaviors to molecular biomarkers in the brain. They are using their findings to develop and disseminate new evidence-based treatments for childhood anxiety. Today, the go-to treatment for childhood anxiety disorders is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This is a form of psychotherapy that teaches children skills for confronting anxious thoughts and helps them practice managing situations that cause anxiety. While it is the gold-standard treatment backed by considerable scientific evidence, up to 50% of children will not see sufficient benefit from CBT alone. Wendy Silverman, PhD, Alfred A. Messer Professor in the Child Study Center, co-directs the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Program alongside Eli Lebowitz, PhD, associate professor in the Child Study Center. One of their main interests is learning how to improve outcomes beyond CBT. “We’re developing cutting-edge, research-based knowledge that can reduce the suffering that anxiety causes children and their families,” says Silverman. Changing parent behavior YSM experts are investigating how to improve CBT outcomes for children by involving the parents. Silverman’s research has uncovered two main components of parent intervention that improve childhood anxiety: not enabling children to completely avoid the things that make them anxious and taking steps to enhance their autonomy. Parents may unintentionally reinforce their child’s anxiety by allowing them to avoid what makes them anxious. They also may unintentionally limit the children’s sense of autonomy by being overly intrusive. “One of the things that we take pride in is that we’ve focused on trying to understand what parents need to do, and to test our ideas and see if changing the parents’ behaviors is enhancing the effects of CBT,” Silverman says. “Our findings thus far suggest that they do." As much as CBT can be helpful, it can also be challenging to get one’s child to do the necessary steps for CBT to work. This is one important reason why Lebowitz created a novel intervention program for parents named Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE). Existing intervention programs often teach parents to act as therapists for their child, such as training them on how to practice breathing exercises. “It makes sense, but this doesn’t work very well in practice,” says Lebowitz. “And part of the reason, I think, is that it’s not easy to get your kid to do things, especially if they’re not excited about doing it.” SPACE is unique because it focuses entirely on parent involvement and changing parental behavior—children are not involved in the sessions. For example, parents learn how to use supportive messages that convey confidence that their child can tolerate and manage distress. “It might sound like a parent saying to a child, ‘I get that this is really hard for you, but I know that you can handle it,’” Lebowitz says. The program also works with parents to identify the ways in which they are accommodating anxious behaviors. “We’ll pick one thing that parents are doing that is an accommodation and help them make a detailed plan for how they’re going to change that,” Lebowitz explains. Treating Anxiety in Children and Adolescents Much of the existing research on SPACE has focused on parents of children under age 14. Ongoing studies are now exploring its use with parents of older teens. “Both anxiety and accommodation can interfere with normative developmental shifts during the teen years, including increased autonomy and individuation from parents,” says Rebecca Etkin, PhD, associate research scientist in the Child Study Center. “In this sense, SPACE may be particularly well-suited for anxious teens and their parents. We want to see whether it is effective during this distinct developmental window.” Unfortunately, many families in need of CBT face barriers, including limited availability of services and geographic constraints. One way to improve access is digital interventions. Silverman and her team are developing an evidence-based digitized intervention program for parents that they can access directly from their computer or smart phone. “The work we’re doing will be one of the very few parent interventions that is digitized and importantly tested for effectiveness,” she says. Creating interventions for anxiety-related challenges Silverman and Lebowitz recently received a generous gift to develop and test other interventions that help parents reduce other child anxiety-related behavioral and emotional difficulties, such as restrictive eating and unexplained somatic symptoms. One of these projects in particular focuses on understanding the risks of social media and its potential benefits, including offering a sense of connection. “A lot of research has focused on the idea that social media is harmful and the less of it the better,” says Lebowitz. “But we actually see is that this is not quite right—there are negatives, but there are also positives. So, we’re trying to get a little bit more nuanced of a picture.” The team is working with teens with social anxiety and their parents over an extended period to better understand their social media habits and how their anxiety levels affect engagement with different platforms. The teens will answer questions sent to an app on their phones about mood and social media usage in an effort to capture emotional responses as they unfold. “We hope to develop interventions that can help make the best of social media while protecting against the more problematic effects,” Lebowitz says. The brain’s role in anxiety Researchers are also testing therapies to address anxiety at the neurological and molecular levels. In collaboration with Dylan Gee, PhD, professor of psychology in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Hilary Blumberg, MD, John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine, Lebowitz and Silverman are using brain imaging to identify changes in a child’s brain before and after parents enroll in SPACE. In one study, children viewed anxiety-inducing images while undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); the researchers conducted scans with and without the children’s parents nearby. Before SPACE, children’s brains were better able to activate the regulatory circuitry needed to turn off an anxious response when their parents were nearby. But after SPACE, children could activate this circuitry even without the parent around. “As parents work on gradually reducing some of their accommodations, you can see a child get better at regulating their own fear system in the brain,” Lebowitz says. “It’s remarkable.” Research into the molecular underpinnings of anxiety can also inform new childhood anxiety treatments. In a recent study, Lebowitz, Silverman, and Flora Vaccarino, MD, Harris Professor in the Child Study Center, discovered that a protein known as fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) could be protective from the toxic effects of stress. FGF2 levels in children and their parents were linked to the children’s risk of developing anxiety and depression, the study showed. The findings could help explain why some children who are exposed to early life trauma such as poverty or abuse are more prone to developing mental health disorders. And FGF2 could be a target for treatment. “This is very novel because it starts to give a clue to what is the molecular chain that connects those lived experiences to the actual psychological outcomes,” Lebowitz says. New ways to study and treat childhood anxiety Michael Crowley, PhD, associate professor in the Child Study Center, collaborates with Silverman and Lebowitz to study the role that attention plays in development and maintenance of childhood anxiety. There is a large body of research that shows that anxious children, like anxious adults, are prone to focus on threatening stimuli such as angry faces compared with neutral faces. This has led to innovative interventions that involve attention retraining. The idea is that if experts train children to look away from threatening stimuli, it may reduce their anxiety—especially children with social anxiety who are most prone to attend to threats. The researchers have just completed a clinical trial for attention retraining with 10- to 14-year-olds with social anxiety disorders and are currently analyzing the findings. Besides this innovative attention retraining research, as Crowly notes, “I like to design tasks that are engaging to kids,” Crowley says. “My goal is to assess something without the kids knowing what we are assessing.” With this goal in mind, Crowley has created a virtual game, named Boom, to study threat processing in children with anxiety disorders. The game is similar to that of hot potato—the child and three digital players take turns virtually passing a ball to each other’s gloves. At some point, the ball turns into a bomb, and as the bomb lands in each player’s glove, the outline of the glove turns yellow. The goal is to avoid having the bomb go off in your glove. What isn’t obvious is that the game is designed to measure different types of threatening stimuli, both ambiguous and direct. In the game, the direct threat occurs as the bomb is traveling towards your glove. The ambiguous threat is the yellow outlined glove as it is unknown where the bomb will travel next. While children play the game, Crowley’s team measures their brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG). The researchers have discovered that in kids with anxiety, the brain reacts more strongly to ambiguous threats than it does in their peers, but less strongly to direct threats. They believe that the initial abnormally large brain response to not knowing where the bomb is going impairs the brain's ability to properly respond when the threat is actually traveling the child’s way. “The brains of children with anxiety are unable to differentiate between threats you need to do something about and those that are not your problem.” Michael Crowley, PhD, develops innovative games for studying anxiety in children and adolescents.Credit: Matt Bradbury Based on these insights, Crowley hopes to study whether interventions like attention training could restore appropriate threat processing. Crowley’s team is also working on a test called the Balloon Risk Avoidance Task, which evaluates risk-taking and avoidance behaviors. It features a digital balloon that is full of air and about to burst. Kids have six seconds to let air out of the balloon. The more air they let out, the less risk they face that the balloon will pop. But at the same time, the balloon becomes less valuable as it deflates. “The more air you keep in the balloon, the more points you get,” Crowley explains. So far, the researchers have found that when the balloons pop unexpectedly, teens with social anxiety show distinct brain responses. Studying these responses can help psychologists understand the underlying pathways driving the various manifestations of anxiety. The genetics of anxiety When Thomas Fernandez, MD, associate professor in the Child Study Center and of psychiatry, was still in training, there was a lot of excitement about understanding the genetics associated with autism spectrum disorder. Since then, scientists have identified around 250 genes associated with autism. The genetic contribution to anxiety disorders, on the other hand, has historically received less attention. Anxiety is less heritable than autism, but the genetic contribution for anxiety disorders that emerge in childhood may be higher than for anxiety disorders overall. While scientists estimate the heritability of anxiety disorders in general to be around 30% to 50%, some studies suggest higher heritability for certain childhood-onset anxiety presentations. “I saw firsthand how researchers in the field went about finding vulnerability genes for autism,” Fernandez says. “So, we’re using a very similar playbook for childhood anxiety.” “I saw firsthand how researchers in the field went about finding vulnerability genes for autism. So, we’re using a very similar playbook for childhood anxiety.” Thomas Fernandez, MD Associate Professor In the Child Study Center and in Psychiatry Now, Fernandez and Emily Olfson, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Child Study Center, are studying children and their parents to identify genetic changes that are present in the child but not the parents, known as “de novo mutations.” “All of us have some de novo mutations—maybe about 50 to 100 sprinkled throughout the genome,” Olfson says. “But when they occur within the coding regions of genes, they can be really disruptive.” Previous research shows that people with autism have higher rates of damaging de novo mutations than the general population. In 2022, Olfson, Lebowitz, Silverman, and Fernandez published a study on 68 children and their families that found that children with anxiety had similarly high levels of these mutations. Studying de novo mutations can help point the researchers to where they should be looking for genes associated with anxiety. “The end game is using the genes to steer us toward the right part of biology that we can then target to come up with better treatments,” Fernandez says. Building on those findings, the team is now studying more families to better understand how these de novo mutations, along with other genetic and environmental factors, shape pediatric anxiety disorders. They recently received a National Institutes of Health grant to enroll 750 new families over the next five years. Olfson is the principal investigator, with co-investigators Lebowitz, Fernandez, Silverman, and Shuangge Steven Ma, PhD, department chair and professor of biostatistics at Yale School of Public Health. Neurodevelopment, Risk Genes, and Mental Health Conditions - The Olfson Lab Joel Gelernter, MD, Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry, is interested in how different anxiety disorders differ genomically. “We are studying social phobia, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder, working to understand why people differ in their risk to these specific anxiety disorders and evaluating various risk factors,” he says. Gelernter was recently involved in one of the largest studies to date of the genomics underlying anxiety disorder. The study included around 122,000 people with anxiety disorders and around 730,000 without. It found that some genetic differences associated with anxiety were linked to signaling that helps reduce overactivity in the nervous system. Many anxiety medications available today work by targeting this process. “It’s nice when the biology that you get out of a large genome-wide study ratifies things that we already know because that can help increase confidence in further findings from the study,” Gelernter says. Uncovering the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders John Krystal, MD, Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Professor of Translational Research and chair of the Department of Psychiatry, is interested in the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), of which anxiety is a major symptom. In the late 1980s, Krystal’s team discovered that the drug yohimbine activated symptoms in patients with PTSD. “This was the first time we could link a specific biological mechanism to the symptoms of PTSD,” Krystal says. At the time, he adds, this finding was highly controversial. “A lot of people felt that PTSD was a purely psychological syndrome that didn’t have an underlying biology.” Since then, Krystal has dived deep into understanding the neurobiology of PTSD to learn how to better treat it. His team is evaluating the use of ketamine and psychedelics. These would be among the first treatments to be developed specifically for PTSD. They may also be applicable for other disorders including anxiety disorders, Krystal adds. An important gap in PTSD treatment is the absence of biological tests that inform how to best help patients manage their PTSD symptoms. A doctor doesn’t diagnose cancer based on how they feel. Rather, they use tests of the biology of the cancer to determine the best course of treatment. “And we can’t do that in any psychiatric disorder other than Alzheimer’s disease,” Krystal says. “But now we are building a foundation for this approach to the treatment of anxiety disorders for the first time.” Source: Yale School of Medicine
How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy
Hey all, Jason here. Money20/20 is still two weeks away, but I’ve already started packing (not procrastinating for once!). My calendar is already filling up with various sessions I want to catch, meetings, and of course happy hours, dinners, and other side events. If you’ll be in Vegas and want to catch up, let me know by replying to this email, and we can try to find a time amidst the chaos of the Venetian. A big if not totally unexpected piece of news dropped on Friday: the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group that represents smaller U.S. banks, filed a lawsuit against the OCC and Comptroller Jonathan Gould, arguing that the regulator’s move to grant trust bank charters to firms seeking to use them to conduct substantial non-fiduciary activities exceeds the authorities granted to the OCC by Congress. I haven’t had time to fully digest the legal filing or speak to folks in my network about it, but you can expect to see coverage and analysis on it in next week’s newsletter. Subscribe or Support by Upgrading The NerdCon agenda just dropped. It’s stacked. Partner content: Nubank built an AI-first bank. Chime built its own banking core. Figure and Valon are rebuilding the mortgage stack. At NerdCon, you’ll hear from the people behind those bets: what they chose, what they learned, and what they’re still figuring out. The agenda is live, with leaders from Nubank, Chime, OpenAI, Remitly, Mercury, Figure, Valon and more. Follow the mainstage conversations, bring the problem your team is wrestling with to a hands-on workshop, or pull up a chair at a roundtable. Pick your quests. Meet us in San Diego, November 18–20. Fintech Business Weekly readers save 20% with code FBW20. Explore the Agenda Things To Know & Other Good Reads Federal Reserve Board finalizes changes to enhance the transparency and public accountability of its stress test and reduce volatility in its stress test-related capital requirements (Federal Reserve Board of Governors) FDIC Announces Conclusion of Independent Monitorship (FDIC) Modernizing Financial Regulation: Initial Observations from eSLR (Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman) The Data Version of Godzilla versus Kong: FRED Takes on AI (Fed Governor Christopher Waller) Financing the AI buildout (Brookings) Q3’26: Rules for Banks but Not for Crypto (Fintech Takes Banking) The Inevitability of Local Stablecoins (Lombard Notes) Delusions of AI Governance: The Human-in-the-Loop Comfort Blanket (Fintech Snark Tank) Stripe agrees to acquire Parafin to expand revenue opportunities for platforms and help small businesses grow (Stripe) Listen: Fighting Fraud in the Age of AI, with SEON’s Tamas Kadar (Fintech Business Weekly) How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy If there is one overarching theme across the economy and politics in the U.S. at the moment, it’s “affordability.” The term is vague enough to encompass a panoply of factors shaping Americans’ day-to-day lives: rising costs for the hallmarks of being “middle class,” including healthcare, housing, childcare, and education, inflation and rising interest rates, and a job market with the specter of AI hovering over it. At the same time, policy shifts under the Trump administration have resulted in reduced subsidies to those who get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and new restrictions on qualifying for Medicaid and SNAP, the impacts of which have yet to be fully felt. These factors are contributing to declining consumer confidence and general dissatisfaction with the economy, despite continuing GDP growth and stock market records. This divergence is encapsulated in the idea of the “K-shaped” economy, in which a small proportion of Americans have seen their wealth balloon, while the majority of American households struggle to preserve the lifestyle they have. Perhaps the greatest determinant of which branch of the “K” a household is on is whether their wealth and income are primarily derived from employment vs. from assets. Nearly two decades of low interest rates and, more recently, elevated rates of inflation have benefited asset owners, while those whose income is primarily or solely derived from labor have largely seen real purchasing power stagnate or decline. This is reflected in recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that labor share of U.S. GDP — the fraction of economic output that accrues to workers as compensation in exchange for their labor — dropped to just 52.8% in Q2 2026, the lowest since the BLS began keeping records. In 1947, approximately 2/3rds of economic output accrued to workers; even as recently as 2001, labor’s share of GDP was 64.1%. Against this backdrop, we’ve seen the rise of more credit and credit-like products: cash advance apps, “no-fee” overdraft, earned wage access, and buy now pay later, which are often used as small-dollar short-term borrowing mechanisms to meet immediate consumption needs or pay other bills (eg utilities, cell phone, other debt payments). With the markers of a middle class existence and, increasingly, basic financial stability seemingly out of reach for many, it should be no surprise there’s been an increase in “financial nihilism,” something industry peers like Alex Johnson and Frank Rotman have discussed and analyzed the roots of. The explosion of gambling and gambling-adjacent products and services — often marketed under the guise of being an “investment” — is inextricably intertwined with the rise of financial nihilism. Crypto, sports betting, and, more recently, prediction markets offer an escape or even hope of sorts, like a contemporary, digital version of a scratch-off lottery ticket, while leaving the overwhelming number of people who use such products worse off. Share of Households That Are Financially “Vulnerable” Ticks Up The Financial Health Network’s 2026 Financial Health Pulse® report adds context on how American households are faring. (I linked to this report in last week’s newsletter, but wanted to take time to further unpack the data in the report this week.) The Financial Health Network publishes the report annually, providing insight into how Americans’ financial circumstances are changing over time. The 2026 report is derived from a survey fielded in April and May 2026. The report leverages survey responses to assess indicators of financial health across spending, saving, borrowing, and planning/protecting and to determine a zero to 100 “FinHealth” score. Those with scores between 0 and 39 are considered “Financially Vulnerable,” consumers with scores ranging between 40 and 79 are defined as “Financially Coping,” and those with scores of 80 to 100 are “Financially Healthy.” The report found that moderate improvements in 2025 were reversed, with the share of respondents considered financially “vulnerable” rebounding to 17%. The longitudinal data reflect the impact of pandemic-era programs, like expanded unemployment, cash stimulus payments, and pauses of federal student loan payments. The positive impacts of those programs, as reflected in the Financial Health Pulse reports, had largely disappeared by 2023. While pandemic-era inflation — to be fair, in part caused by the various support and stimulus measures — had come down from as high as 9% in 2022, it has rebounded since the start of Trump’s second term, with tariffs and energy market disruptions owing to the war in Iran pushing prices back up. Specific indicators in the survey that deteriorated from 2025 to 2026 include the share of respondents spending less than their income over the past 12 months, the share paying all bills on time over the past 12 months, the share that have a manageable amount or no debt, the share that are “moderately” or “very” confident their insurance is adequate to cover them in an emergency, and the share that “somewhat” or “strongly” agree that their household plans ahead financially. Unsurprisingly, lower- and moderate-income households are more likely to struggle to pay their bills on time and have any funds leftover to save. The share of low-income households whose income exceeded their spending dropped from 35% in 2025 to 31% in 2026, while the share of upper-income households whose income exceeded expenses remained unchanged at 63%. Households with student loans or revolving credit card debt reported having “a bit more” or “far more” debt than was manageable at rates far higher than those not carrying these types of debts. The share of those with student loan debt indicating their debt load was too high to manage increased from 50% in 2025 to 55% in 2026, while the share of those with revolving credit card debt saying the same ticked up from 51% in 2025 to 54% in 2026. Households that had student loans were markedly more likely to be financially “coping” or “vulnerable” vs. those without student loans. In 2026, 27% of households with student loans were considered financially vulnerable, a jump of 6% points vs. 2025. Households without student loans saw just a 1% point increase (not statistically significant) in those considered financially vulnerable. Households’ perception of the affordability of categories of goods and services paints a stark picture, with less than one-fourth considering higher education affordable, about a third deeming childcare affordable, and less than half viewing healthcare as affordable. Fintech Business Weekly is made possible by the generous support of paying subscribers — bringing you independent analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto without fear or favor. You can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. Paying subscribers enjoy: access to the entire archive of nearly six years of newsletters extended versions of the weekly newsletter, with additional content and analysis and (for founding member tier) quarterly personal 1:1 fintech Q&A / strategy calls with me, tapping into my unparalleled knowledge of the intersection of banking and fintech and experience working in the sector, including helping to launch Goldman Sachs’ retail bank Marcus Support Fintech Business Weekly You can also support Fintech Business Weekly by sponsoring a newsletter or podcast, putting you in front of 93,000+ of the most influential decision makers in banking, fintech, and crypto. Learn more about sponsor opportunities or request a media kit by dropping me an email. Democratic Senate Report Highlights How Iran Uses Tether to Evade U.S. Sanctions Iran uses stablecoins, specifically Tether, to evade sanctions, fund regional proxies, and to purchase military drones, a report released last week by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says. The report was authored by committee ranking member Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and the minority staff. Crypto and stablecoin proponents will often push back on criticism that criminals make use of these assets by arguing that, on an absolute dollar basis, far more illicit funds flow through traditional banking systems and payment rails than via crypto and stablecoins. And while that is likely true, it elides the reality presented in news story after news story: whether state actors — Russia, Iran, North Korea — or criminal groups, those looking to engage in illicit transactions increasingly favor stablecoins and, specifically, Tether (USDT). The report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released last week adds context to how Iran uses Tether has a lynchpin in its shadow banking system. The report analyzed 846 wallets that have been sanctioned or targeted for seizure, finding that 84% of them transacted exclusively or primarily in Tether. The ability to create near limitless, anonymous wallets and to move funds effectively instantaneously and irreversibly have made crypto a favored financial mechanism for bad actors. Stablecoins solved key drawbacks of bitcoin, namely, the original cryptocurrency’s highly volatile value in dollars. And while Tether (the company) has the technical ability to “freeze” or destroy funds, the company is often limited and reactive in its approach to doing so, the Senate report argues. Tether, which is nominally based in crypto-friendly El Salvador, “has stated that its compliance with OFAC sanctions is ‘voluntary’ and that it follows ‘OFAC guidelines,’” the Senate report says. Owing to these favorable attributes, Tether “became a primary cryptocurrency for Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis beginning in 2023 and has expanded in scale since,” according to the report. Tether’s role in Iran’s shadow banking system, the report says, is enhanced by crypto exchanges like Bybit, Kyrrex, OKX, Gate, and Binance, and through “over the counter” exchanges and hawala networks. The consequences of these financial flows aren’t hypothetical. The Senate report links Tether as a funds transfer mechanism to Iranian proxies in the region, including Hizballah, the Houthis, and Hamas. Tether has also been used to make payments to secure components necessary to manufacture drones, the report says. The report concludes by arguing that “[s]tablecoin issuers with a significant nexus to the United States, particularly those that offer dollar-denominated stablecoins, should be subject to American sanctions law rather than being allowed to hide behind foreign jurisdictions.” Stablecoin issuers like Tether must be held accountable for repeated failures to prevent illicit finance and sanctions violations by law enforcement, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and OFAC, the report argues. [Paying Subscriber Exclusive] OUSD Goes Live, Make Your Own Neobank, U.S. Sanctions Russia’s A7 Network As “Transnational Criminal Organization” OpenUSD, the stablecoin issued by the Open Standard consortium that includes Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, core providers, crypto firms, and numerous banks, went live last week. Social commerce platform Whop raised eyebrows in fintech by offering creators on its platform the ability to launch their own neobanks, which the company describes as “great businesses that are easy to run,” in just 15 minutes. And OFAC and FinCEN target Russia’s “shadow banking” A7 Network — more on these stories after the paywall.
Microplastics Have Been Linked With Myriad Human Health Problems. Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out How They Harm the Body
Lab experiments suggest that tiny bits of plastic can react with water inside us to produce highly reactive molecules. They can lead to damaging oxidative stress and inflammation
MotoGP riders divided on contentious 2027 weekend format change
Bagnaia and Marini welcome the changes, while Acosta and Alex Marquez warn of increased stress and risk
Mole Rats Get Stressed When Earth's Magnetic Field Vanishes, Study Suggests
The dark side of magnetic attraction.
Habits for Reducing Stress and Improving Health
As the year comes to an end and life gets busier, it can be difficult to keep a consistent routine and find time to take care of both your physical and mental health. Ben Meer, author of "How to Be Good at Life," joins the 3rd Hour of TODAY to share tips on how to create better habits that can reduce stress and improve your well-being. His recommendations include breaking daunting tasks down into smaller chunks, setting concrete goals and reserving at least one hour a week to organize your responsibilities.
Bye week open thread
Ah, the sweet relief of a stress-free Saturday watching college football. The No. 1 Texas Longhorns will head into the Cotton Bowl next weekend against the Oklahoma Sooners as the top-ranked team in both polls after the season’s only bye week affords the burnt orange and white faithful a chance to relax and enjoy the […]
Political cartoons for October 13
Tuesday’s political cartoons include diesel deals, midterms stress, and more
SIU hosts Saluki Care Week to promote student mental, physical health
Southern Illinois University is hosting Saluki Care Week to help students destress and connect with on-campus health services.
Laurel House opens doors for independent business owners
COLUMBIANA - A business that lets beauty professionals run their own company, without the stress of owning a building, is now open in Columbiana.
Tocotrienol supports embryonic mitochondrial health under maternal inflammatory stress
New research highlights the potential role of palm tocotrienols in supporting mitochondrial function and early embryonic development under maternal inflammatory stress
AI Chatbots Often Fail To Help Users in Mental-Health Crisis
New research shared exclusively with TIME shows chatbots are good at spotting distress, but frequently fail to refer users to resources
Leela Gray stresses blue-collar roots in 'closing argument' of CD 13 campaign
'You can't fix something when you're not listening.'
How the Trump administration's revamped healthcare price transparency rules could impact patients
Consumer advocates say the rules are an important step, but stress there's more work today to ensure full transparency.
Australia: NSW Health warns against handling bats due to lyssavirus
NSW Health is advising the public not to handle, or otherwise handle bats, following a recent increase in people being bitten or scratched across the state. In the two weeks from 28 September to 10 October, 43 people were assessed by NSW Health after being bitten or scratched by bats. This includes in coastal areas in Hunter New England, the Mid North Coast, Northern NSW, and the Central Coast. This is a significant increase when compared with 10 reported cases of bat bites or scratches for the same two-week period in 2025. Keira Glasgow, Director in Health Protection at NSW Health, said, “We want people to assume that any bat could carry Australian bat lyssavirus, which is a close relative to the rabies virus and very dangerous to humans.” “If you see a bat that is injured or in distress, call your local wildlife rescue service and do not touch it. Only trained, protected and vaccinated wildlife handlers should interact with bats. “It is incredibly rare for Australian bat lyssavirus to transmit to humans, but once symptoms of lyssavirus start in people who are scratched or bitten by an infected bat, sadly there is no effective treatment. “If you are bitten or scratched by a bat, urgent medical assessment is crucial.” Rabies virus and Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV) belong to a group of viruses called lyssaviruses. These viruses transmit via a bite from an infected ("rabid") animal. They all cause a similar illness known as rabies, which affects the central nervous system and is usually fatal. Rabies and ABLV infection cause similar symptoms. The early symptoms are flu-like, including headache, fever and fatigue. The illness progresses rapidly to paralysis, delirium, convulsions and death, usually within a week or two. Rabies cases and the three known human cases of ABLV infection have shown a wide variability in the time it takes for symptoms to appear following exposure to an infected animal (from several days to several years). The best way to protect yourself from infection is to not touch bats. If you see a bat in distress, injured or trapped on the ground, do not try to rescue it. Instead, contact trained experts. Outbreak News Today is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
Will Florida’s Amendment 3 property tax reduction pass? Polls differ widely
The most recent round of public, preelection polls show Florida voters are stressed about affordability and the cost of living. But it’s unclear if they’ll approve a plan that would
World Mental Health Day: 4 Mental Health Tips For Busy Workdays
This World Mental Health Day, discover four practical ways to improve your mental health at work, manage daily stress and make wellbeing a priority.
Heart Attack Recovery Isn't Just Physical. Your Mental Health Matters, too
A heart attack or heart disease diagnosis can affect more than a person's physical health. Depression, anxiety and other emotional challenges are common following a cardiac event, making mental health an important part of the recovery process. In recognition of National Depression Screening Day, Dr. Amar Doshi discusses the connection between heart health and emotional well-being, explains why psychological distress is common after a cardiac event and shares strategies to support both mental and physical recovery.
Mental illness: why is it on the rise?
Dismissing ‘overdiagnosis’ of conditions can be unhelpful for those suffering real distress – but so can a ‘label for life’
Ashwagandha Promises Calm. The Science Is More Complicated
The popular supplement may help ease stress, but evidence for anxiety remains uncertain–and rare side effects complicate its soothing reputation.
How the Trump administration's revamped healthcare price transparency rules could impact patients
Consumer advocates say the rules are an important step, but stress there's more work today to ensure full transparency.
Your Mental Health: The stress of making ends meet
Paying bills can be tremendously stressful.
Bishop’s computer science chair says AI is eliminating ‘grunt work’ and reshaping digital jobs
Dr. Russell Butler, chair of Bishop’s University’s Department of Computer Science, says artificial intelligence is increasingly taking over routine digital “grunt work,” changing the skills students and workers may need in the years ahead. Photo courtesy of Bishop’s University. Click here to read our platform! Get local news like this every morning. Subscribe free below. Subscribe Pulse Newsroom Artificial intelligence is already taking over some of the routine digital work once performed by entry-level employees, according to Bishop’s University Computer Science chair Dr. Russell Butler — a shift he believes will make expertise, judgement and the ability to evaluate AI-generated work increasingly important. Butler described the change as automation reaching what he calls the “bottom of the cognitive pyramid” during an interview with The Pulse about AI, university education and the future of digital work. His argument is not that humans are disappearing from the workplace. Instead, he sees their role changing as AI becomes capable of handling more of the repetitive tasks involved in computer-based work. “Everything’s converging on just AI basically doing all the grunt work,” Butler said. The bottom of the cognitive pyramid Butler is from Lennoxville, completed his undergraduate studies at Bishop’s and later earned his PhD at the Université de Sherbrooke. He joined Bishop’s in 2019 and now chairs its Department of Computer Science. He uses AI in research, teaching and other creative work, and said the technology is increasingly capable of handling routine digital tasks that once required substantial human time. “You’ve got the grunt work, like moving things around in Excel, doing basic programming tasks,” Butler said. “That’s like the bottom grunt work that the entry-level worker would have done two or three years ago.” Butler went further, saying in his view that much of this type of work has already been absorbed by AI tools. He connected that change to a shift he sees taking place in computer science, where entry-level roles have declined while experienced workers can use AI to increase what they can produce. “A senior developer now has access to essentially an unlimited amount of junior developers on demand,” Butler said. He was describing AI systems metaphorically, not literal employees. His point was that one experienced developer can now ask AI tools to produce code or other technical work that might previously have been assigned to more junior workers. That raises a broader question for universities and employers. If some of the simpler work traditionally given to newcomers can now be done by machines, how do people gain the experience needed to become senior workers themselves? Students doing work that once required years of programming Butler said he is already seeing the change inside his classroom. He created a Bishop’s course called CS208, Coding in Plain English, to show students — including those without traditional programming backgrounds — what they can accomplish using AI. Some come from disciplines such as psychology or neuroscience with no previous programming experience. “What I’m finding is that students who have zero programming experience, they come in from another discipline like psychology or neuroscience or something, they are now able to get up and running with real data sets,” Butler said. Butler’s own doctoral work involved neuroimaging, and he said he has assigned students work he considers comparable to the kinds of analysis he performed during his PhD. He described giving students a real dataset, an expected result and instructions to use AI to complete the analysis. Butler said those students have been able to carry out work at a level he associates with tasks he once performed after years of programming experience. That does not mean a student using AI instantly acquires the same knowledge as an experienced computer scientist. But Butler sees it as evidence that AI can dramatically lower the technical barrier between having a problem to solve and producing a working result. The role of the person using the system then changes. They need to know what to ask for, understand enough about the subject to judge the answer and take responsibility for what is ultimately produced. What about AI hallucinations? One persistent concern surrounding generative AI is hallucination — when a system produces information that sounds convincing but is false or unsupported. Butler said that problem has improved substantially in newer systems and is not as severe as it was with earlier models. He pointed in particular to newer AI systems’ ability to search the web, consult scientific databases and return source links rather than simply generating a citation from their internal model. Butler nevertheless said users should verify what AI produces. “You should verify,” he said while discussing citations generated with AI. His position is that hallucinations have become less common in the systems he uses, not that incorrect AI output is impossible. Human checking remains part of the process. Hours of work compressed Butler offered another example from his administrative work at Bishop’s. The university has been comparing CEGEP courses with first-year Bishop’s courses to determine where students may qualify for advanced standing. Traditionally, Butler said, that means reviewing two sets of course descriptions and manually matching one institution’s courses with another’s. As department chair, that could require hours of reading and comparison. He said AI can now be given both sets of material and asked to generate an initial mapping automatically. “It saves me hours and hours of work,” Butler said. Butler said the AI-generated mapping can also produce a better result than he would produce himself. He sees similar opportunities in businesses. A company may receive specifications, drawings, emails or other digital material from customers and then have employees convert that information into an internal format before anything can be manufactured or delivered. AI can increasingly perform parts of that intermediate processing. In Butler’s view, the employee does not necessarily disappear. Instead, the job becomes more about checking the result. “The human is still there,” he said. Judgement could become more valuable That change is central to Butler’s view of where digital work may be headed. If AI can produce a first draft, write basic code, compare documents or process large amounts of information, he argues that knowledge and judgement become increasingly important. “The real scarce resource going forward is going to be domain knowledge, expertise, and… credentials, authority, the ability to work with other people,” Butler said. He is therefore encouraging students not only to learn AI tools but also to broaden their education. He mentioned acting, fine art and photography as examples of courses that can help develop what he described as taste and intuition — the ability to recognize what is good, what is not and what should be changed. “And that’s the skill that they need now because the grunt work has been automated and now it’s about evaluating what the AI produces and telling it how to improve or expand the output,” Butler said. That does not remove the need for technical knowledge. Butler’s argument is that the emphasis may shift away from manually completing every step of a task and toward directing, checking and improving work produced with AI assistance. He also stressed that humans remain responsible for final decisions. “At the end of the day, the human has to make the final call,” Butler said, pointing to the question of accountability. Physical work may be different Butler draws a distinction between digital work and jobs requiring people to manipulate the physical world. He expects AI to continue advancing quickly in tasks performed almost entirely on computers. He is more cautious about claims that humanoid robots will soon be able to replace workers such as plumbers or electricians. Butler said those trades would not be replaced “anytime soon” in his view and described some current robotics demonstrations as overhyped. He described the situation as counterintuitive. “It’s almost like we solved the highest level first,” he said, contrasting advances in digital AI with the harder problem of building robots capable of operating reliably in the physical world. Butler’s argument is that some digital occupations could face automation sooner than trades requiring complex physical work. The wider AI shift in the Townships Butler’s comments come as local institutions are increasingly grappling with how AI should be used. The federal government recently announced up to $162 million over five years for 10,000 AI-related placements through Mitacs. The Université de Sherbrooke told The Pulse that the number of its collaborative research and innovation projects supported through Mitacs has approximately doubled since 2018-19, while the number of placements has approximately tripled. UdeS also said it already has projects involving both AI adoption and the application of AI to other fields. At Bishop’s, Butler said part of his role involves building the Computer Science department’s local presence, connecting students with regional partners and strengthening relationships with the Sherbrooke technology ecosystem. Those developments put universities in a difficult position. They have to prepare students to use the tools employers increasingly have available while also making sure graduates understand enough to recognize when those tools are wrong, incomplete or being applied to the wrong problem. The risk of losing human skills Butler does not see AI as risk-free. Later in the interview, he raised a separate concern: as AI becomes better at reading, writing, programming and other cognitive tasks, people could lose some of the underlying skills that historically helped produce new ideas. “The other danger is that we’re going to lose the human skills,” Butler said. He specifically mentioned reading and writing and argued that people could lose some of the lower-level understanding that contributes to breakthroughs. Butler said AI systems are based on existing human knowledge and argued that they become much more powerful when paired with a capable person. That tension runs through his view of the technology. AI can remove hours of routine work. It can allow beginners to perform tasks that once required substantial technical training. It can give experienced workers significant leverage. But the more capable the technology becomes, the more important it may be for people to develop the judgement needed to decide what should be done in the first place. For Butler, that is where education may have to change. Students still need to understand their field. They still need to know when something is wrong. And they still need to be able to make the final decision. But if AI increasingly handles the bottom of the cognitive pyramid, the value of a worker may depend less on how quickly they can perform the grunt work and more on whether they understand what the work is supposed to accomplish. Don’t miss the next story that affects your community. Join thousands of readers getting The Pulse every morning—plus breaking news alerts when it matters most. If you value this kind of local journalism, consider supporting it. Subscribe, share and like! Subscribe Share
HOMETOWN HEALTH: How pregnancy stress affects fetal brain development
Chronic stress has previously been linked to preterm birth and other complications during pregnancy.
How a controversial camera system is monitoring mental health patients
The Lampard Inquiry started back in September 2024 and I remember going to the first hearing in Chelmsford. Subscribe The bereaved families made placards of their loved ones, they stood outside in silence and then laid flowers to mark the moment. Now, two years on, in a process meant to last another two years, there’s been a development. Last week, we were told the chair, Baroness Lampard, pictured below, could be looking at making interim recommendations. Throughout the process, she has remarked that although this inquiry is looking at almost 2,000 people who were under the care of Essex mental health services from 2000-2023 when they died, the findings could have national implications for other trusts. ‘Records 24 hours a day in patient’s bedroom’ So why has this happened? One system that the inquiry is going to take a closer look at is a controversial monitoring system called Oxevision. It monitors some vital signs of patients remotely by using a camera placed in a room. It’s used by 40% of NHS mental health trusts. But campaigners, particularly the group Stop Oxevision, have asked for this technology to be removed from mental health wards as soon as possible. I spoke to a member, Hat Porter, today and they described to me what they thought this technology did and explained their concerns: “It records 24 hours a day and it’s located in a patient’s bedroom, which is obviously somewhere you’d usually expect to be a private place. “Our concerns are that the use of the technology has been has been kind of implemented as a substitute for proper in-person support, that it’s kind of over relied on and that there’s a lot of misunderstandings and that the presence of a camera, which has often been used without people’s consent, sometimes without even their knowledge, that that has a really big impact on privacy, dignity and human rights.” ‘Not sufficient’ I put it to them that the company behind Oxevision would dispute their claims about consent and in videos I’ve seen online from NHS trusts, they make it clear that the technology is complementary to trained staff and not a replacement. [ ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/the-nottingham-inquiry-what-lessons) [ How the Nottingham inquiry shines a spotlight on other key mental health care failings ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/the-nottingham-inquiry-what-lessons) Victoria Macdonald · Feb 12 [ Read full story ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/the-nottingham-inquiry-what-lessons) A team of lawyers has been working on the inquiry and with bereaved family members who have concerns about this technology. I spoke to solicitor Priya Singh, from Hodge Jones & Allen, who made the point that questions usually asked by nurses would be missing from using devices like this. “It’s not sufficient to say, oh, the patient is moving around. Somebody must go in and say, are you okay? Are you distressed? Do you want help? Is there anything I can do? Share Channel 4 News “How are you spending your time? So I think a lot of our families cannot see the function of it when ultimately the patient should only really be observed when they’ve been prescribed to be observed, they can be observed more, but that more should really be happening face to face.” The Chair will hear evidence over the next two weeks and then a decision made after that, which could have national impact if she does decide this technology should be investigated or even removed. The Department of Health and Social Care said: “The Government is committed to ensuring that lessons are learned from the Lampard Inquiry to improve patient safety. “We are confident that the Inquiry will play an important role in identifying wider learnings for the health system following the tragic events in Essex and will contribute to improvements in patient safety.” We approached LIO Health, which runs Oxevision, for comment. Subscribe Share Channel 4 News Leave a comment
Three Years of 80% Charge Limits on iPhone: The Results
Since 2023, Apple's newer iPhones have had an 80 percent charge limit for those who want to extend battery lifespan. Charging to 80 percent instead of 100 percent is supposed to put less stress on the battery, improving longevity. For the last three years, I've used that setting on my iPhone. I started with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, then did the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and most recently, the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
PTSD, Health-Related Social Needs Together Increase Cognitive Risks Significantly in Veterans
A recent study asked a question critically important to VHA clinicians: Are post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and health-related social needs (HRSNs) associated with incident mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease-related dementias among U.S. veterans?
Handy Youth Develop Smart Fidget Device to Support Mental Health Awareness, Win National Innovation Award - Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report
Handy Fidgibeat team South Florida teens develop Fidgibeat, a prototype that combines fidgeting with real-time heart rate and usage tracking to help inform conversations about stress and emotional well-being October […]
JFK’s mistresses recall their ‘irresistible’ and ‘solicitous’ affairs with the president in new book
Laurence Leamer’s latest book, “Ladies Man: The Careless Heart of John F. Kennedy,” is available for purchase wherever books are sold.
New Wisconsin teen mental health resource connects families, youth-serving programs
Topics on the hub include emotional regulation and coping skills, healthy relationships, social media wellness, stress and mindfulness, sleep and mental wellness, bullying and cyberbullying, school-life balance and crisis support.
Pope hope, that’s entertainment, and getting ahead in the CIA
Happy Friday friends, I want to start by just breathing for all of us a big long collective sigh of relief at the news this week that the pope’s doctors have basically blown the all clear for Leo’s health. Going from knowing nothing to him declaring to the world he needed surgery, to a cancer diagnosis, to bouncing out of the hospital in barely even days, to ringing the bell in less than two weeks is whiplash inducing. But in the best possible way. We are living in a world in which the Roman pontiff, by dint of history, biography and circumstance, is once more at the epicenter of global affairs. Not just conversations about religion, or Christian and post-Christian values, but the bleeding edge of the most pressing issues of human affairs. Think I am exaggerating a touch? Consider the images of the crowds who greeted Leo in Paris just weeks ago, and juxtapose them with the absolute photo negative scenes unfolding there recently. Ask yourself how many world leaders are talking about AI right now and directly citing the pope as they do so. Try to name a country who has had as many top-ranked diplomats in and out of both Russia and Ukraine in the last three years as the Vatican has in the last three months. It has been fascinating to watch Leo XIV emerge as not just a kind of pop culture reference point or totem to be cited (Francis was often name-checked this way) but as a kinetic force in global conversation. Given the state of things, we need global figures of gravitas and values, even better if they have real wisdom behind what they are saying. So news of Leo’s illness was, it seemed to me, a tremor with potentially Richter Scale implications. That not only has the worst not come to pass but instead we’ve had the best of outcomes announced is something to really be grateful for. Humanity, it seems to me, is entering one of its irregular but cyclical phases where the pace of change — technological, social, and geopolitical — outstrips the ability of previously settled norms and received wisdom to cope. Such periods – and I think the first decades of the last century were a similar such time – throw into question the viability of all kinds of institutions. And many of ours have been straining to breaking point for a few years now. The papacy has the power and the potential to be a steadying pole in all of this. That’s my hope, anyway. It’s a lot to freight the office with, though it is arguably its ultimate purpose from its founding, to be a steadying rock on which all that matters can be anchored. It’s also, of course, an intolerable weight of responsibility to place on a single man. But I am encouraged to have hope in – and for – Leo. The apostle whom he succeeds, after all, was famously unequal to some moments, failed some tests of faith, and resiled from taking the road which led ultimately to the circus on Vatican hill. Human frailty and limitations, of health, of character, of temper, can open us to Christ, whose strength is greatest in our weakness, so St. Paul learned. That gives me hope, and I am sure it consoles Leo, too. And so I will continue to pray for him. Because we need apostles of rock right now. Here’s the news. Subscribe The News The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued yesterday a new document “Venite ad me: Considerations on the Transmission of the Faith in an Epochal Change.” It’s not a short document, and it is at pains to stress this isn’t a doctrinal note from the dicastery, either. Rather, it brings together reflections on an important issue from the Church around the world. Some of it I actually found really rather powerful. It is, however, 25,000, which is a lot for a busy reader to get through on a weekday. So, you can read our busy reader’s summary right here. — News broke yesterday of an Oct. 22 meeting of U.S. bishops with President Donald Trump. The meeting was organized by an official at the Heritage Foundation, according to several sources close to the meeting. Video of several U.S. bishops praying in the Oval Office over President Trump was posted on social media Thursday afternoon, first by White House Communications Advisor Margo Martin, and then by the official twitter.com account of the Archdiocese of Denver. The meeting has drawn sharp criticism because of its proximity to the upcoming midterm Congressional elections, in which Democrats are widely expected to win control of the House of Representatives, while control of the Senate remains closely contested. Sources close to the bishops’ conference told The Pillar that some USCCB senior officials were surprised by the existence of the meeting when video of it first emerged online. And a source close to conference president Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City told The Pillar that the archbishop was “deeply frustrated” by the occasion of the meeting. An official conference spokesperson told The Pillar that the meeting was “not organized with or by the USCCB” and was “not affiliated with the conference.” You can read the whole story here. — The next National Eucharistic Congress will be held in Indianapolis in 2029, a return to the city that hosted the last gathering in 2024. You read it here first. By here, I don’t mean this newsletter, I mean at The Pillar. We broke the story this week. It’s a big deal, in as much as the last congress was a roaring success and the next installment has the potential to be a real focal point for evangelizing efforts in the coming years. Read all about it here. — As Pope Leo prepares for the longest trip of his pontificate, Church leaders in Uruguay say the pontiff will encounter a highly secularized culture, in a country with a very different Catholic history than many of its South American neighbors. The nation has not had a papal visit since 1988, and leaders who spoke with The Pillar say it has a dire need for evangelization, even amid the prospect of a small revival in faith. This is real reporting on the Church in the country, and frankly a story you simply are not going to be able to read anywhere else. Read the whole thing. — The Archdiocese of Detroit announced this week a plan that would see the vast majority of its parish priests reassigned next summer, amid a restructuring process expected to dramatically shrink the number of parishes in the archdiocese. Archbishop Edward Weisenburger said this week that the plan “asks much of our priests,” but is a “sacrifice they are making as brothers of one, unified presbyterate.” The thing is, as JD pointed out in an analysis yesterday, pastors of parishes have a legal right to stability in office, so the only way this kind of wholesale reassignment goes ahead is if all of the archdiocesan clergy agree to resign. That creates its own kind of legal issues, though, and re-raises longstanding questions about the effectiveness of canonical due process protections for priests when dealing with coercive exercises in authority. Read the whole thing here. — More than three months after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its decree declaring the excommunication of the leadership of the Society of St. Pius X, questions remain about the full effects of the society’s schism. Specifically, the DDF’s July claim that marriages witnessed and confessions heard by SSPX priests are now invalid remains contested — and it emerged this week it appears that the Vatican’s own legal experts don’t agree. You can read my whole analysis of the situation and what it means here. All I would add is that the DDF’s undeveloped, some would say unsubstantiated, claim about the invalidity of some SSPX sacraments came in their July Explanatory Note on the schismatic consecrations by the society that month. It touches directly on both papal acts of governance — indeed it purports to nullify them — and the most intimate pastoral encounters possible in a parish setting. If there is one aspect of the Francis-era style of governance I would like the curia to finally cut out, root and branch, it would be these attempts to try to effect extraordinarily sensitive legislative acts via a note. — At least a dozen French bishops have spoken out following an eruption of violence on the country’s streets Oct. 17. Not surprisingly, they unanimously condemned the violence, but the length and content of their interventions varied significantly. Several sought to distinguish between the actions of rioters and what they suggested were the legitimate concerns of peaceful young protesters. Many also evoked Pope Leo XIV’s Sept. 25-28 visit to France, suggesting it offered a powerful counter-image to the scenes of looting and destruction. A number of bishops also stressed their solidarity with law enforcement officials who struggled to contain the disorder, as well as the owners of the roughly 3,000 damaged or looted businesses. What’s the background to the nationwide unrest that the French media calls “les violences du 17 octobre”? And what exactly are the bishops saying? Read all about it here. — A Polish bishop called for the firm defense of unborn children as well as compassion for their mothers this week, as the lower house of Poland’s parliament passed two bills seeking to liberalize the country’s abortion laws. The bill on decriminalizing assistance in an abortion passed by 217 votes to 213, while the abortion in cases of fetal abnormality bill passed by 233 to 203, thanks to the government’s majority in the lower house. Both bills will now move to the Polish Senate, the upper house of parliament, where the ruling coalition has a larger majority. The fetal abnormality bill is symbolically significant because if it became law, it would effectively overturn a 2020 ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal that a 1993 law permitting abortion for a severe and irreversible disability or a life-threatening incurable disease was unconstitutional. Read the whole story here. Subscribe **[The St. Paul Center App | Bible Study On-The-Go Read and understand the Bible with St. Paul Center’s new app! With today’s leading Catholic Scripture scholars as your guides, the St. Paul Center app empowers you to read the Bible](https://stpaulcenter.com/app?utm_source=pillar&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=applaunch)** from the heart of the Church. Download the app for free at either the Apple or the Google app stores. https://stpaulcenter.com/app That’s entertainment I have written before about my deep and sincere reservations about the celebrity exorcist subculture which has taken root in American Catholicism. And, because I am very ill at ease with the entire thing, I try to keep a weather eye on the phenomenon without being drawn into the kind of online back-and-forth which these figures sometimes generate. Earlier this week, JD noted that one such celebrity exorcist type, Fr. Chad Ripperger, has undertaken, on the request of his bishop, a year’s fast from interviews and public speaking. I’m sure that will be salutary for him, if for no other reason than that receiving with docility requests from one’s rightful ecclesiastical superiors always comes with graces. Then a second thing happened this week which caught my eye. Apparently, another fixture in the celebrity exorcist world, Fr. Carlos Martins, has initiated a lawsuit against two lay men — apparently associates of Rippenger, though I am unclear in what way, exactly — for allegedly defaming him and his ministry on a podcast. It seems the suit was initiated nearly a year ago and is now pending. At issue, I read, is that the two men described Martins on a podcast as “not who he says he is” with regard to his exorcism ministry and that he “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” These statements Martins considers to be false and defamatory and, his suit claims, “directly affected the sale and reception of [his] The Exorcist Files book that was newly released at the time these episodes aired.” I don’t want to get too into the weeds of the details here, but a couple of things struck me about all this.
Rewriting the playbook: The grassroots movement for Black midlife health
I was 45 when my body first started sending distress signals: drenching night sweats, sudden 2 a.m. awakenings and a persistent brain fog that had me forgetting...
The Politics of Heat, Homes, and Lobster Boats.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by First National Bank. MOUNT DESERT ISLAND REGION—The candidates’ forum focusing on House District 15 and incumbent Holly Eaton and Clifford Noyes last week spent a lot of time on the candidates’ thought of heating, communication with constituents, property taxes, education costs, and other issues. It also was a time for the community to ask their own questions and see two candidates up close and personal at the Southwest Harbor Fire Department firehouse. Jim Vallette organized the hour-long event, which was moderated by Carrie Jones of the Bar Harbor Story. Ken Rozsahegyi provided technical support for the congenial event. House District 15 serves Brooklin, Deer Isle, Eagle Island Township, Frenchboro, Isle au Haut, Marshall Island, Southwest Harbor, Stonington, Swan's Island, Tremont, and Vinalhaven. Jones advised as she began the question and answer part of the event, ”Treat everyone here like they are going to be the ones who might give you a ride in a rainstorm, pull your pet out of a burning building, or be the one grading your kids’ papers at school, okay?” She continued. “That’s it. Tonight isn’t meant to be a gotcha debate. The goal is to give people in the district a chance to get to know both candidates, hear what they care about, and understand what they’d actually try to accomplish in Augusta.” The questions and discussion throughout were kind. Eaton currently serves in the position. She’s a Democrat from Deer Isle, raised in a fishing family and has worked in nonprofits and volunteered for her school board. Noyes is unenrolled (politically) and from Southwest Harbor and currently a school board member, self employed as a mason. He focused on fiscal issues throughout the forum. Eventually, at Jones’ prompting, the candidates played “Rock, Paper, Scissors” for who would go first for their closing statements. Noyes used the opportunity to urge others to head to the ballot. “Whether you vote for me or Holly, it’s important that people vote,” Noyes said. He hoped the voter turnout in the district would be over 35 percent because that would mean people were truly engaged. Eaton stressed that she’s a Democrat, but in Augusta, her role isn’t about party. “I am a Democrat, but when I go to Augusta, I am there to represent the people of District 15. I want people to feel as though I’m accessible, that I’m responsive, and that I show up for the district,” Eaton said. Being there for others was vital, she explained. “When something comes before me in Augusta, I try to look at it through the lens of the people and the communities that I represent. How will this affect the people who live here? Does it make it easier or harder to raise a family here, to operate a small business, to work on the water, to afford a home, to keep our schools open, or provide the essential services our communities depend on?” Eaton said. Noyes spoke about fiscal responsibility and about the state being more responsive to communities and the ideas that come from them. “I feel that we desperately need to restore some fiscal sanity, a little bit. So when the legislature meets again,” Noyes said, “it could be critical for Maine residents that we don’t keep digging this hole that we’re in financially and keep raising our taxes so the struggling families struggle even more.” The two answered a series of questions from Jones, then answered questions from the audience and participants via Zoom. Jones asked what they heard the most from people about what was making their lives hard and what can the legislature in Augusta do it about those issues. Both spoke to concerns about heating oil costs. Noyes spoke to the three H’s: health, home, and heat. Eaton and Noyes spoke to the burdens of families with lower incomes, with Eaton mentioning LIHEAP (Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program). They both were in favor of free community college and trade programs. They both supported the working waterfront. Both said that data centers—such as the one proposed in Eastport, which is out of the district—should be a local decision, but neither were in favor of it. The working waterfront was supported by both. Eaton’s served on the Maine Marine Resource Committee in the legislature. She advocated a diversity of fishing resources and less of a reliance on lobstering. Shrimp, she hoped, would make a comeback. Noyes worried about out-of-state pressure on the lobstering industry, also spoke of shrimp harvesting timings, and said he supported the lobstering industry. QUICK NOTE Carrie Jones is, obviously, the co-founder of the Bar Harbor Story, which made us have a bit of a hard time putting out this story and thinking it through and how to present it. We ended up with this article. The debate in its entirety is below, many thanks to Ken and Jim for making it publicly available. UPCOMING AND PAST EVENTS The following events are or were organized by the League of Women Voters Downeast. DISTRICT 7 DISTRICT ATTORNEY DISTRICT 13 Thursday, Oct 15, 2026 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM Candidate Forum: House District 13 125 State St , Ellsworth Featuring candidates Michael Cunningham (D) and Russell White (R), moderated by Cyndi Wood, managing editor of the Ellsworth American. DEMOCRACY FORUM Friday, Oct 16, 2026 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM Democracy Forum — Election 2026: What’s on Your Ballot RECENT PRESS RELEASES AND BRIEFS To see all the press releases, click here. To see our news, click here. For the full archive, click here. All of these are on our dedicated website. [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/feeling-stressed-kids-corner-invites) [ Feeling Stressed? Kids’ Corner Invites Parents, Educators, and Caregivers to Rediscover the Joy with National Speaker Raelene Ostberg Oct 14 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/feeling-stressed-kids-corner-invites) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/feeling-stressed-kids-corner-invites) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/mainely-meats-pink-party-for-breast) [ Mainely Meat’s Pink Party for Breast Cancer Awareness is October 18! Oct 14 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/mainely-meats-pink-party-for-breast) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/mainely-meats-pink-party-for-breast) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/conners-emerson-school-announces) [ Conners Emerson School Announces Public Surplus Property Sale Oct 14 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/conners-emerson-school-announces) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/conners-emerson-school-announces) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/planting-the-writers-garden) [ Planting the Writer’s Garden 12:15 AM ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/planting-the-writers-garden) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/planting-the-writers-garden) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/artist-maria-de-los-angeles-explores) [ Artist Maria de los Angeles explores migration and belonging in COA public lecture 12:19 AM ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/artist-maria-de-los-angeles-explores) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/artist-maria-de-los-angeles-explores) HELP SUPPORT THE BAR HARBOR STORY When we started The Bar Harbor Story, we didn’t know if anyone would read it. But you showed up. You shared. You sent tips. Now—over 400,000 views every month later—it’s clear: people here care about their community and each other. We’ve kept everything free because news should never be out of reach, but every one of our stories takes time to write, and your support keeps The Bar Harbor Story going. If you value our work, please consider a paid subscription, a founding membership, or a sponsorship. It truly helps us cover one more meeting, tell one more story, shine one more light. Even $5 a month makes a difference. Click here to become a one-time supporter now. Thank you so much for being here. Founding member information can be found here. Have questions about sponsorships? Just send Shaun an email at sfarrar86@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you. Subscribe Share Bar Harbor Story Share Leave a comment
Study: IL lawyers report mental health challenges, substance abuse, suicide ideation
(CAPITOL CITY NOW) - For many lawyers, the effects of the job can include declining mental health, substance abuse, problem gambling, suicide ideation, and even declining cognitive skills. These are the results of a survey of Illinois attorneys, "The Weight of Practice," commissioned by the Illinois Lawyers' Assistance Program. Factors include the stress of being
Bat mothers' hearts beat faster when they hear their pups
They can even pick out their offspring’s distress cries amongst thousands of bats.
‘Like riding a roller coaster’: UNL political science professor breaks down the stress of politics
Nebraska has seen a particularly turbulent midterm election – from the controversial and litigious rise of two new political parties, to a petition fraud investigation that’s led to several arrests.
Kona Destroys You Like No Other Ironman. We’ve Got the Receipts to Prove It.
From muscle micro-tears and brain fog to gut distress, science explains why racing - or even watching - the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii leaves you utterly steamrolled for days.
HEALTH FIRST: Novant Health surgeon stresses early detection in breast cancer care
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a time to highlight the importance of screening, early detection and advances in treatment.
Regenerative Growers in Florida aim to improve soil for health of food, environment, consumers and workers
The broad set of practices is becoming more popular at a time when climate change is stressing the state’s land—and the people who work on it.
Regenerative Growers in Florida Aim to Improve Soil for Health of Food, Environment, Consumers and Workers
The broad set of practices is becoming more popular at a time when climate change is stressing the state’s land—and the people who work on it.
Tired of Being Tired? 7 Science-Backed Ways to Sleep Better
Daylight saving time starts in a few weeks, ushering in the longer nights and shorter days associated with winter. But for many people, the extra hours of darkness aren’t necessarily more restful. Experts say sleep deprivation is on the rise in the U.S. And the combination of stress, shift work and the false bravado of […]
Garmin Approach S72 connects golf performance with health tracking
Starting at $799.99, the S72 pairs swing metrics and green-reading tools with sleep, stress and heart-rate tracking for health-minded golfers.
Can AI solve our mental health access problem?
Last week I asked you what worries you most about AI in health. It was close, but your top answer was “AI giving bad health advice.” Last week’s poll results: You’re in good company. This concern was top of mind at a conference I joined at Stanford last week, where researchers, clinicians, and people who build AI systems spent a day debating trust and safety in health AI. Stepping back, I’m also hearing your emerging concerns about AI’s impact on our well-being generally. I see this as a matter of public health, and we’ll take it in pieces as we learn together. Today we’ll focus on AI chatbots used for therapy for mental health. Early this month, Governor Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 903, California’s most ambitious attempt to regulate AI use for mental health. It’s at the center of active debate, and raises the questions patients, family members, citizens, and voters will face as AI moves deeper into health care. Let’s work through it. What is “AI-based therapy”? It’s really two things: purpose-built mental health apps designed to deliver structured support, and general chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini that people increasingly use for emotional support—even if they weren’t built for it. Spoiler alert: I don’t know whether the shift toward AI therapy is good or bad. The evidence isn’t there yet. But I do know it’s already happening, and I have some ideas about how we can roll it out with safety in mind. The therapy dilemma, in a nutshell Mental health challenges are common, and strain health and well-being across populations. Therapy (interactive dialogue with a trained, empathetic practitioner) helps many people heal. The demand for licensed therapists far exceeds the supply in California, and AI-based therapy can narrow that gap. AI-based therapy remains novel, unproven, and not well tested. Right off the bat, we can see we’re dealing with trade-offs here. Since the main driver of demand for therapy from a robot is lack of access to therapy from a human, we’ll start there. It’s too hard to find and afford a human therapist California is short roughly 55,000 licensed, non-prescribing therapists and counselors, about 40% of what we need. Psychiatrists, who rely on talk therapy as a complement to prescribed medications, are even more scarce. Eight counties have none, and density ranges from 1.7 per 100,000 residents in San Benito County, to 68.1 in Marin County. My wife is a psychiatrist in Marin, and even here access is tight. If it’s hard in the best-supplied county, imagine rural Sierra County, or the San Joaquin Valley. In 2024, more than half of Californians who tried to make a mental health appointment struggled to find a provider who took their insurance, compared with 14% for physical health care. When Senate staff posed as “secret shopper” patients and called 120 mental health providers in Medicare Advantage networks, they landed an appointment less than once for every five tries. Insurers pay behavioral health clinicians about 22% less than medical and surgical clinicians for comparable office visits. On top of that, billing denials and prior authorizations hit hardest at the solo and small practices common in mental health. Psychiatrists opt out of Medicare at the highest rate of any specialty. In many places, a cash practice for therapy fills quickly with patients paying $250 or more an hour, with no insurance paperwork at all. Families who can pay cash find providers more easily. Those who rely on insurance, including Medi-Cal enrollees, older adults, rural residents, and non-English speakers, compete for what’s left. So we can’t pretend the human system works, and we can’t blame people for turning to AI for support when they’re in distress. AI is filling the gap It’s estimated that roughly a quarter of AI users use it for mental health support. If you have internet, it’s available 24/7, it’s cheap, and it speaks your language. Uninsured adults are about twice as likely as insured adults to do it (30% vs. 14%). It feels anonymous in ways that may enable people to ask things they’re unsure or embarrassed about. The largely hidden, personal use makes it hard to study whether it’s actually helping people with their mental health issues, but researchers are trying. Does AI therapy work? A 2026 analysis of nearly 40 randomized trials found chatbots showed a real but small reduction in depression symptoms. But most of these trials were compared to an alternative of no therapy, not a human therapist. So the benefit of AI therapy is probably real, but modest, and mostly untested against the alternative of human contact. We need more studies. Serious concerns OpenAI’s own estimate is that more than a million ChatGPT users each week show signs of suicidal planning or intent. These are high stakes encounters, and AI doesn’t always get it right. That’s partly because a chatbot can sound like a therapist, but it has no license, no duty of care, and it’s not clear who to hold accountable when it gets things wrong. AI is also designed to help users in whatever task they’re seeking to accomplish. People may feel like they’re getting therapy, but they’re mainly getting a convincing conversation. It’s easy for an AI companion to wander into gray areas, like playing along with “creative writing” that may be about the user’s own suicidal intent. Courts are driving safety conversations A wave of lawsuits have been filed on behalf of families claiming that chatbots pushed people they loved toward self-harm, including teens who died by suicide. The first settlements came this year. OpenAI is headquartered in San Francisco, and dozens of cases alleging that ChatGPT drove users to suicide or self-harm are now before a San Francisco judge. Character.ai has filed for bankruptcy after several states brought lawsuits accusing the chatbot of pushing dangerous content to kids. But the technology seems to be improving. Last month, an independent evaluation found that newer AI models “almost never endorse suicide.” That’s progress, but our societal appetite for even one preventable death is very low. So how do we move forward? Finding a middle ground Earlier this month the governor vetoed Senate Bill 903, a bill designed to place guardrails on the use of AI for therapy. The bill would have prohibited any AI-based platform from being advertised as psychotherapy, and would have required a licensed professional to review and approve each encounter where AI was used to support therapeutic decisions. Newsom called it overly broad, since even routine screening questions would have needed clinician sign-off. Knowing we’re already short on mental health providers, requiring human review of AI encounters may not relieve our access problems. Still, the answer isn’t no oversight. Here’s one feasible short term solution. Rather than reviewing each encounter, a licensed clinician can design the guardrails: what counts as a crisis, what triggers an immediate handoff to a human, and what gets sampled for audit each month. The AI runs inside that structure. Conversations get checked, failures get reported, and a real clinician owns the framework. Medicine already has models to learn from. The FDA process for rolling out newly approved medications is an example. After a product reaches patients, we keep watching for adverse events. Patient-facing AI needs the same “digital pharmacovigilance”: systematic tracking of harms, near misses, and the types of groups that get hurt and why. It’s also critical that users know that they can reach a human if they’re in crisis. Most chatbots now include messages like these: Bottom line The rush to use unproven AI tools for mental health support is mostly a workaround, a sign of a health system people can’t get into. We need better access to proven care from licensed clinicians. That takes reimbursement that makes accepting insurance viable, and a bigger workforce. But, built and tested well, AI could be part of the answer. It could be the 2 a.m. check-in when no one else is awake, or a way for patients to practice skills their therapist taught them. It could be the first step to get someone the right level of care, and take paperwork off clinicians’ plates so they spend more time with patients. None of this is simple. The SB 903 veto doesn’t end the debate, and the legislature will be back. In the meantime, those of us using these tools need to stay informed, ask hard questions, and hold the companies building them accountable. I’ll try to do my part, and we’ll keep learning together. Love,Matt P.S. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health challenges, emotional distress, substance use problems, or just needs to talk, call or text 988- you’ll reach a real person— or chat at 988lifeline.org 24/7. Dr. Matt Willis is the author of Your Local Epidemiologist in California. A California native, he’s served as a primary care physician, CDC epidemiologist, and public health officer for Marin County, where he guided the pandemic response. He lives in Marin with his family and their dogs, Teddy and Ramona. Thank you Cynthia He, MD, PhD, and Parnika Saxena, MD, for their guidance in preparing this article. Cynthia works in an outpatient mental health clinic, treating patients who have Medi-Cal or, sometimes, no insurance. Parnika works in an inpatient psychiatric unit, treating patients with public or private insurance or self-pay ability. All opinions are their own and do not represent their employers.
Prince Harry recalls slipping into deep depression after major life change with Meghan Markle
Prince Harry opened up about facing depression after leaving behind a stressful situation in the U.K. and moving to Canada with Meghan Markle.
Franciscan Health presenting The Family Dinner Project
News release, Franciscan Health: Initiative aims to help families connect over meals MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. – Franciscan Health is again hosting The Family Dinner Project, a free program focused on helping families connect, laugh and grow one meal at a time. The program provides easy recipes, fun conversation starters and simple activities to help dinnertime become a positive experience for the whole family. The Family Dinner Project sparks real conversations without cell phones, builds stronger family bonds, removes mealtime stress by making it fun and fits into any schedule or lifestyle. All families are welcome, whether big or small, multigenerational
1 in 5 Lawyers Rate Their Mental Health as 'Fair' or 'Poor,' Illinois Study Finds
Nearly 27% of lawyers surveyed by the Illinois Lawyers’ Assistance Program said they have daily or weekly feelings of stress regarding work, and 66% believe their workplaces harm their mental health, physical health or overall wellness and would consider leaving.
'If You Can Keep It': Mental Health And Democracy
A veteran journalist covered the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol. That experience got her exploring the connection between stress, trauma, and our political choices.Our mental health might affect our politics. But our politics also definitely affect our mental health.In this edition of “If You Can Keep It,” we examine that intersection.Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.
Exposome Signature: A multi‑system view of human adaptation to spaceflight
Spaceflight is extremely challenging for both body and mind. Astronauts experience a combination of stressors – microgravity, radiation, confinement, isolation, circadian disruption and environmental changes – that can trigger physiological responses resembling those seen on Earth in chronic diseases and accelerated aging. One characteristic effect is low‑grade inflammation (LGI), a subtle and persistent activation of the immune system.
IRGC General Warns Regional States against Letting US Use Their Territory
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Brigadier General Ali Fadavi warned regional countries against allowing the US to employ their territories for operations against Iran, stressing that any location used as a launch point for attacks on Iran will be targeted.
Studying Science in an Anti-Scientific Time
This Chronicle Review Deep Cut was first published in 2025. By Julianne Werlin Thanks for reading The Chronicle Review! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe The last two decades have not been kind to science studies. Already bruised and battered by the “science wars” of the 1990s, by the 2000s sociologists of science — who had long argued that science had to be understood in its human context — were encountering the funhouse-mirror version of their own views in right-wing critiques of climate scientists. It was enough to give some prominent scholars pause. “Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field known as science studies?” asked Bruno Latour, the most famous sociologist of science in the world, in 2003. “Should we apologize for having been wrong all along? Or should we rather bring the sword of criticism to criticism itself and do a bit of soul-searching here: What were we really after when we were so intent on showing the social construction of scientific facts?” In response, Latour proposed a change of method and attitude. Science studies, now chastened and contrite, would no longer seek to strip facts of their authority, but to enrich and enhance them. What this meant in practice was never fully clear. But his diagnosis of problems resonated, even if his solutions did not. Latour’s exercise in public hand-wringing signaled a shift in mood. By 2016, with the first election of Donald Trump, the idea that skepticism of science was a right-wing position, not a left-wing one, had become a commonplace, discussed eagerly in The New York Times. For liberals, vaccine denial during the Covid era and Trump’s second-term attacks on the funding of scientific research, covered extensively in these pages, added a new urgency to the defense of science on both practical and principled grounds. There was little appetite for a sociology or philosophy of science that emphasized the messiness and missteps of the scientific process rather than its integrity and triumphs. The distinguished historian of science Peter Dear’s new book, The World as We Know It: From Natural Philosophy to Modern Science (Princeton University Press, 2025), which seeks to tell the story of 18th- and 19th-century science for a general public, may seem comfortably remote from these bitter contests. In its 16 short chapters, Dear draws swift, sure sketches of major discoveries from Newton to Einstein, ably guiding the reader through debates on stellar nebulae, animal taxonomy, atomic chemistry, evolution, and other flashpoints in the history of science. But though a work of history, Dear’s book must still negotiate our polarized present. In a blurb on its back cover, the historian of biology Lynn K. Nyhart alludes to the “present moment, when scientific knowledge is being swamped by misinformation and its institutions are under siege.” Dear himself, in his conclusion, refers to the “yard signs” and “bumper stickers” that proclaim “Science Is Real.” One antidote to both anti-science propaganda and to reductive slogans in science’s defense is a robust history and philosophy of science: exactly what Dear’s scholarship has long offered. But his new book illustrates how difficult such work has become. Dear, an emeritus professor of history at Cornell University, is best known as a creative and philosophically minded historian of the Scientific Revolution. His edited volume The Literary Structure of Scientific Argument (1991) analyzed the rhetoric of Galileo’s thought experiments to brilliant effect. Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (1995) was a major contribution to the analysis of scientific experiments in early modern Europe and beyond, while Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge in Transition, 1500-1700 (2001), now in its third edition, remains one of the best overviews of the profound epistemological upheavals of 16th- and 17th-century science. But Dear has also ventured into later periods. Nearly two decades ago, in The Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the World (2006), he turned to the 18th and 19th centuries to sketch a history and theory of scientific knowledge. Aimed at a generalist audience, Dear’s simple prose belied serious philosophical ambitions. Science, Dear argued, has two aspects: “natural philosophy,” the quest to understand the true nature of the universe, and “instrumentality,” the applied skills and technologies that allow us to manipulate the world for human advantage. Both strands are ancient, but the innovation of the phenomenon we call “science” was to yoke them together. As Francis Bacon wrote, “Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known, the effect cannot be produced,” an insight typically abridged to “knowledge is power.” Or, in Bertrand Russell’s characteristically blunt phrase, science has two functions, “1. to enable us to know things, and 2., to enable us to do things.” So far, so conventional. But Dear took issue with this familiar story in one respect. Bacon’s formula implied that theory and practice could be fused in a single method. In fact, Dear argued, the quest to understand nature and the desire to manipulate it were coupled only loosely. They could come together, but they could also pull apart. Focusing on natural philosophy, the “knowing” half of the scientific circle, he used a series of case studies from cosmology, taxonomy, chemistry, electromagnetism, and quantum theory to show how theories changed over time, in dialogue with practice, but never reducible to it. Take the case of matter, the basic substrate of the physical world. In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists not only disagreed about what it was, but also about how well it could be known. In 1789, the chemist Antoine Lavoisier dismissed speculation about the atomic composition of chemicals as “discussions entirely of a metaphysical nature,” as he sought to orient chemistry away from philosophical abstraction and toward laboratory results. But in the 19th century, atoms returned with a vengeance in the atomic chemistry of John Dalton, who wanted to explain the underlying structure of nature. It was not just that Dalton and Lavoisier had a different set of experimental results, or even a different theory, Dear showed. What counted as an explanation had changed. In arguing that scientific theories depended on their intelligibility to human beings with complex arrays of beliefs and commitments, Dear was in sympathy with science studies. Key figures such as the sociologist Steven Shapin emphasized the importance of psychological mechanisms like trust in the formation and acceptance of scientific ideas. But in focusing on the scientific pursuit of knowledge, not its politics or economics, Dear resisted the more cynical perspective of some of his colleagues. The Intelligibility of Nature strikes a very different note than Shapin’s collection of a few years later, Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as If It Was Produced by People With Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority (2010), to name just one example. Walking a very fine line, Dear depicted science as driven at once by complex social dynamics and by the intellectual power of real discoveries. It was a testament not only to his own acumen but also to the vitality of the field that he was able to do so. Nearly two decades later, The World as We Know It returns to the questions broached in The Intelligibility of Nature. Like Dear’s earlier study, it begins with the Newtonian cosmos and ends with debates between Einstein and Bohr on quantum physics. Beyond its terminal figures, many of the same characters appear in both studies, including the naturalists John Ray and the Comte de Buffon; the chemists Étienne François Geoffroy, Antoine Lavoisier, and John Dalton; as well as Charles Darwin and Michael Faraday, among others. Its subject is nearly identical: As in The Intelligibility of Nature, The World as We Know It considers natural philosophy as opposed to instrumentality, here defined as the “desire to create a picture of what the world is really like — the world as God knows it — rather than simply having instrumental or operational control over it.” The two books also overlap in insights — and sometimes even in language. The reader who has learned in The Intelligibility of Nature that Buffon’s method of classifying animals “reflected his belief in the importance of the senses and empiricism in learning about nature (a doctrine associated with Newton and the philosopher John Locke)” will experience a sense of déjà vu on reading, in The World as We Know It, that the classification “reflects Buffon’s commitment to the epistemological stance of Newton and his philosophical underlaborer John Locke, who stressed the role of the senses in creating natural knowledge.” Later in the passage, we read that, “because of its stress on understanding the ways of life of animals in their environments, Buffon’s approach could almost be labeled (anachronistically) as ‘ecological.’” And again, “an anachronistic way of putting it would be to say that Buffon recommends an ecological mode of understanding.” Likewise, in The Intelligibility of Nature we read of Dalton that he was initially drawn to meteorology, and that: He did a bit of experimental work on these things, especially having to do with the water-holding capacity of gases, but his real interest lay in understanding what, at an underlying natural-philosophical level, was really going on physically.” Whereas, in The World as We Know It: He did experimental work on these things, especially concerning the water-holding capacity of gases — although not at a very refined level quantitatively — but he was continually trying to develop a theoretical conception of what was happening physically. The final full chapter of each book closes on the same resigned note. Intelligibility: These days, most serious work on the natural philosophical underpinnings and implications of quantum mechanics is performed not by physicists but by philosophers of science. Among scientific practitioners themselves, Bohr’s attempt to use instrumentality as sufficient grounds for a respectable science has met with a high degree of success. And again, in The World as We Know It: Bohr’s and Einstein’s concerns are now questions that are mostly discussed by philosophers of science rather than by physicists themselves. The marginalization of these sorts of questions amounts to the demise of natural philosophy, at least in physics, in the 20th century. Quantum mechanics “works,” and that’s good enough for most scientists who encounter it. Examples could be multiplied. When handling the same subject matter, some echoes are inevitable. Scholars should not feel that because they have written “Isaac Newton died in 1727” in one book, in the next they must describe him as perishing, expiring, or meeting his maker. But the repetitions of language and arguments (not to mention six reproduced images) threaded throughout The World as We Know It are more extensive than that. They should have been caught by Princeton University Press or its reviewers, and revised. Because the two books have so much in common, it is easy to see where they diverge. The World as We Know It is a less theoretical work than its predecessor. The sociology of knowledge that organized The Intelligibility of Nature has been reduced in scale and folded into readings and examples. The taut interplay between history and theory, which gave the earlier study so much interest, is there, but it is subtle. In the earlier book, the case studies demonstrated theoretical claims about the character and development of science. In the later work, each narrative of discovery is an end in itself. Insights emerge from the history, but they do not control the organization of the study. With the theory muted, it can be hard to understand the logic uniting Dear’s sprawling history of more than two centuries of scientific knowledge. The 16 brisk chapters cover an enormous amount of material. But the closer the volume edges to comprehensiveness, the more obvious the missing elements become. A chapter on “Institutions and Pedagogy,” describing the birth of the research university, illustrates the problem. Inserted roughly halfway through the book, the unnumbered chapter is designed as an “entr’acte,” in acknowledgement that it does not fit the study’s organization around scientific discoveries. Yet as Dear is well aware, no general history of the development of modern science can bracket its 19th-century institutionalization and professionalization. It was the 19th-century university, after all, that gave us the “scientist,” a term coined by the Cambridge philosopher William Whewell. Dear’s history of scientific discoveries implies a wider social and institutional history, but it remains largely subterranean, only occasionally extruded under the pressure of the narrative. It must be said that the balance is not all on the side of the earlier study. There are some advantages to the more historical, less theoretical organization of The World as We Know It. Dear’s accounts of paradigm shifts are remarkably lucid, no small accomplishment given that they span fields and centuries. He makes excellent use of the wealth of new scholarship on Darwin and his influences, to which he has himself contributed. It is satisfying to see puzzle pieces from Buffon’s natural history, Georges Cuvier’s animal taxonomy, Thomas Robert Malthus’s demography, and Charles Lyell’s geology recombined seamlessly in the Darwinian jigsaw. Likewise, Dear’s discussion of stellar nebulae, divided between chapters two and 15, shows vividly how Newton, Kant, Herschel, and Hubble reimagined insights and observations as they sought to discover whether the diffuse light that filtered through early telescopes was a glowing, gaseous substance or discrete but distant stars. Yet despite such pleasures, the book remains a more modest work than The Intelligibility of Nature. Dear has clearly not changed his views about the history of science. But in the two decades that have elapsed, the discipline and the world around it have changed, making it harder to write a sociologically and philosophically ambitious history of science for the general reader. That is a shame, because in the age of Silicon Valley and biotechnology, both the reciprocity and the tensions Dear identified between the epistemological and instrumental ambitions of science are more evident than ever. In recent years, some of the most exciting new books on the history of science in early modernity have focused precisely on this pressure point. Important studies such as Pamela H. Smith’s From Lived Experience to the Written Word (2022), James Poskett’s Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science (2022), and Vera Keller’s The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge (2023) all shed new light on how early modern science negotiated the relationship between its instrumental and epistemological ambitions, or in Russell’s phrase, knowing and doing. There is every opportunity for a philosophically informed approach to draw new insights from this wealth of material. Dear, unfortunately, has not done so in The World as We Know It. But for future scholars of the history of science, his body of work over nearly four decades may provide just the model. Julianne Werlin is an associate professor of English at Duke University. 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From PMS to Menopause: Two new clinical studies strengthen the science behind one saffron extract
PMS and menopause represent distinct stages of a woman’s life, with different hormonal patterns and symptoms. Yet both are characterised by significant hormonal fluctuations that can influence interconnected biological pathways involved in emotional well-being, sleep, stress response and overall quality of life
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Catching up with sleep health supplements: A roundup of the latest science
Sleep has moved from a lifestyle concern to a core measure of health, as inadequate sleep affects a substantial share of adults and often occurs alongside chronic stress, undermining health, well-being and performance across sleep-wake cycles and life domains.
Mental Health Support for Cyber Operators Is Critical to U.S. National Security
Many Americans can picture the movie Top Gun’s dogfights, but cyber battlefields and their stresses are harder to envision. The majority of personnel work long shifts in front of computer monitors in...
Coastal forces shape building sciences practice
When Built Environments relocated to Wilmington, the firm’s partners weren’t looking for the lazy tranquility one hopes for when on vacation. Instead, they sought sultry heat. They wanted to understand whipping coastal winds and punishing precipitation – the kind that tropical storms produce. That’s because how materials degrade can reveal a lot about how they can be improved. “We specifically chose the Wilmington market because it does fall within Climate Zone 3A, which is a coastal warm-humid climate,” said Jarrett Davis, who joined Built Environments in 2023 to lead the company’s building science practice. “There’s not a lot of product research in that climate zone, but there are a lot of structures here that get weatherized pretty severely.” Built Environments has provided building science, material testing and code compliance consulting for 25 years, ever since principal materials scientist Steve Doggett founded the company in Minnesota. “There are very few manufacturers that understand fully how their own materials and products work, whereas we know their shortfalls and their benefits out in the real world on jobsites,” Doggett said. “That’s why the original Built Environments was formed, to make buildings better.” He said the 15-employee company is just as comfortable on a jobsite, retrofitting a high-end beachside property, for example, as it is recreating some of the coast’s most intense weather conditions in the great indoors. The company operates an A2LA-accredited ISO/IEC 17025 mechanical testing laboratory on Wright Street. The year-old facility has expanded Built Environments’ in-house capabilities, Doggett said. “We’re able to simulate that hurricane wind (and) rain and perform structural and impact testing on wall assemblies, roof assemblies and glazing assemblies,” he said. “There are certain requirements that those windows and doors need to meet as far as wind ratings and pressure ratings and things of that nature.” Standard Glass Co.-Glass Depots, of Wilmington, is currently testing a new glazing system using Built Environments’ stress testing, the partners said. One method involves what’s called a “large missile cannon.” “We take 8-foot two-by-fours, and we shoot them at assemblies, so they have to withstand that impact,” Davis said. “It’s pretty cool to see, I’m not going to lie.” In many cases, the lab can run a full, wall-scale test of a product in a matter of weeks or months, whereas “it might take midrange manufacturers years,” Doggett said. “We’re nimble. We can cut that time in half.” The lab also develops intellectual property. Doggett, for example, shares a patent with Sustant LLC, of Minnesota, on a fastener patch to increase the air and water tightness within building envelopes. “We have too many ideas and not enough time,” he said. But the partners noted that they or their fellow principals – of which the company has four total, including a principal engineer and a principal codes and standards expert – could be anywhere on a given day, including in the courtroom providing expert testimony in contentious insurance cases. “Let’s say there is a fire on a structure,” Davis said. “We can analyze all the specific materials within that assembly – an exterior wall or something like that – because there are loads that require certain heat release. And so, we can measure each one of those materials, if need be, to say if this was likely or not a code-approved assembly.” Despite what can be inferred in a lab, the partners said nothing beats learning from how materials change over time under real-world strain. Take, for instance, the curious case of the creaking condo. “We recently had a customer that came to us trying to assess a sound issue of a roof. It was making noises that no one could explain or account for. How do you tackle something like that?” Doggett asked rhetorically. “There’s really no generally agreed-upon methodologies.” The problem turned out to be a faulty installation of a commercial roof system. “The building in this particular case was not local,” he said. “In the initial installation, the commercial roofing contractor installed the wrong fasteners in the wrong locations into the deck, and essentially the solar radiation was causing the building to move quite substantially early in the morning when the sun initially hit that assembly after a quite cool evening, causing the threads on the fasteners to kind of jump within the material, within the metal.” Built Environments designed an effective repair methodology that was within budget, the partners said. “We get the bizarre,” Doggett said. “I will say that’s something that has stayed the same over 25 years.” The partners said they are hiring, and that Cape Fear Community College is one of their main recruiting grounds. Davis and Doggett look for talented people who can understand traditional methodologies yet are open to on-the-job training and new understandings, they said. After all, it’s not just weather that can ruin a building. “My favorite saying is,” Davis said, “‘What are the eight most expensive words in construction? That’s how my daddy used to do it.’”
This Week: Politics 101, 20th Street Bikeway, Muni Trivia
Here is a list of events this week. Monday/Tonight! SF Politics 101 with Joel Engardio. Learn how local politics shaped San Francisco. Monday/tonight, October 19, 5:30-6:45 p.m. SPUR Urban Center, 654 Mission Street, S.F. Wednesday 20th Street Protected Bikeway Ribbon Cutting. The Oakland Department of Transportation, city officials, Bike East Bay and other community partners will celebrate the completion of the 19th Street BART to Lake Merritt Urban Greenway. Wednesday, October 21, 1:30 p.m. 400 Thomas L Berkley Way, Oakland. Thursday 2026 Silver SPUR Awards. This SPUR event brings together elected officials and business, civic, and philanthropic leaders to celebrate four individuals and their contributions. Thursday, October 22, 4-7:30 p.m. Blue Shield of California Theater at YBCA, 700 Howard Street, S.F. Get tickets here. Friday Woman and Non-Binary Morning Ride. Join the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for a socially distanced bike ride for women and nonbinary cyclists. Friday, October 23, 7:15-8:45 a.m. McLaren Lodge, 501 Stanyan Street, S.F. Friday Muni Trivia Night. Bring your friends or come solo and make some new ones. Friday, October 23, 7:30 p.m. Standard Deviant Brewing, Pier 70, suite 195, 1070 Maryland Street, S.F. RSVP here. Saturday Fifth Annual Firefighter Family Ride. Join SFFD, SF Safe Routes to School, and the SF Bicycle Coalition for a fun, low-stress bike ride through one of the city’s most beautiful routes. Saturday, October 24, 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Panhandle Park Blacktop (Fell & Ashbury) to JFK Promenade (Whale’s Tail). Sunday Canvas for No on Prop G. Join the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to canvas for No on ‘G’ to save Sunset Dunes Park. Sunday, October 25, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Marina Blvd & Laguna Street, S.F. Got an event we should know about? Drop us a line.
Meghan Markle reacts to ‘sickening’ child pornography allegations against father: ‘I am deeply distressed’
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Brazil: Lessons from a Disaster
By Antonio Martins (Outras Palavras) Defeats become deeper and more prolonged when we misunderstand what caused them, avoid correcting course, and embrace “solutions” that only compound our mistakes. Lula’s government and the Brazilian left suffered a disaster in Sunday’s election. Contrary to every poll, the president finished the first round 2.2 million votes behind Flávio Bolsonaro—and, more significantly, 3.4 million votes below his total four years ago, when the machinery of the state was working against him and in favor of his opponent. His vote share declined in 98 percent of Brazil’s municipalities. The PL, the main party of the far right, elected 121 deputies and 28 senators, becoming the largest caucus in both houses of Congress. The parties aligned with the Centrão—Brazil’s bloc of transactional center-right parties—were somewhat diminished, but will still hold roughly 250 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 35 in the Senate. That will make it easier to assemble the majorities needed to amend the Constitution or impeach Supreme Federal Court justices. If elected, Flávio Bolsonaro could appoint four members of the Court, substantially altering its internal balance of power. What produced these results? How can the far right be prevented from consolidating them into a prolonged political hegemony? And what is the essential change of direction the left now needs? Explaining the Disaster Across the commercial media and the exuberant chaos of digital platforms, interpretations are multiplying. Some focus on specific episodes: Lula’s absence from the Globo debate, his very close relationship with Alexandre de Moraes, or his emphasis on issues supposedly remote from most people’s everyday concerns, such as rare earth minerals. Among the more systemic interpretations, three seem especially questionable. One argues that the principal defeat was not the left’s, since its congressional representation declined only slightly. The decisive movement captured at the ballot box, according to this view, was a shift within the right itself—from the more moderate and transactional forces of the Centrão toward the more ideological and radicalized forces of the PL and Novo. A second interpretation holds that the nature of electoral and political processes has changed. The material interests and aspirations of society, it argues, no longer play the central role they once did; they have given way to forms of subjective self-identification that the left has yet to understand. And a third concludes that, because of these two developments, we should expect a political winter: a prolonged period in which the far right and the broader right dominate Brazilian political life. There are important elements in all three interpretations. The problem lies in what they deny or leave out: Lula’s third government was a small-bore government. It offered the majorities that elected it neither a clearly better life nor reasons to believe again in politics and its power to transform society. These failures flowed from two fatal accommodations, which I will examine below. As a result, the government suffered a slow but steady erosion of support. And, as has happened in so many Western countries, it gave the far right the opportunity to present itself as anti-system and to benefit from popular frustration and distress. The interpretation that emphasizes the migration of votes from the center-right and traditional right toward the far right has been advanced, among others, by the courageous journalist Leonardo Sakamoto. In his UOL column on Monday, October 5, he highlights the miserable behavior of the traditional conservative parties. Over the past four years, they repeatedly joined forces with the “neo”-fascists, helping to “normalize” them—a criticism that could equally be directed at almost the entire corporate media. Believing they could use the far right as a stepping stone, they instead ended up partly devoured by it. This was especially true in the Senate, where the PL’s gain of 13 senators and Novo’s gain of two came at the expense of the PSD, which lost nine; the MDB, which lost two; the PSDB, which lost two; and the PP, which lost one. Sakamoto’s observation is accurate and necessary, but it leaves uncomfortable questions unanswered. Why did the erosion of the Centrão benefit the far right rather than, for example, producing growth for the left—as has happened so many times before, both in Brazil and elsewhere? The answer is not difficult. Throughout its four years in office, Lula’s third government was almost invariably associated with the Centrão. Here lies its first accommodation: accepting the limits imposed by conservative institutions; avoiding, as much as possible, any attempt to strain those limits through popular pressure; and believing only in the modest changes that could be squeezed through openings in Congress. The failure of the campaign to end the six-day workweek is emblematic. Lula could have electrified the presidential race by pairing it with a popular campaign for passage of the measure. Instead, he chose to place his hopes in the hands of Senate president Rodrigo Alcolumbre. He generated no mass mobilization, did not force his opponents onto an uncomfortable defensive, and won no victory. In September 2025, the government squandered the greatest of its many opportunities to shake up conservative power in Congress. Popular opposition to the so-called Shielding Amendment—which, if approved, would have restricted criminal proceedings against members of Congress—brought crowds into the streets, mobilized primarily by artists and social movements. This opened the possibility for a broader political education: a campaign that could begin exposing the limits and dysfunctions of Brazil’s political system while putting Bolsonaro’s movement on the defensive for its predictable support of political privilege. The amendment was defeated. But the executive branch then backed away from the fight. It remained associated with an institutional world widely seen as corrupt, elitist, and indifferent to ordinary people’s struggles. In doing so, it forfeited its credibility as a vehicle for the protest vote. On Sunday, it reaped the bitter fruits. Are We Doomed? Taking a different approach from Sakamoto, the philosopher Moysés Pinto Neto and other writers have drawn attention, in their first analyses of October 4, to the fragmentation of the public sphere produced by Big Tech platforms. Through their algorithms, these platforms present each person with a different view of social reality. As a consequence, it becomes much harder to identify common material problems and demands—for example, the fight for labor rights or for a properly funded public health system. Voters no longer embrace such demands, these authors argue, because they no longer see themselves as part of a collective. Instead, they tend to value the identities assigned to them by neoliberal subjectivity—the role of the entrepreneur, for example. On this interpretation, the left’s possible error lies in clinging to outdated illusions. Moysés’s warning is highly relevant and resonates with arguments such as Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s “Apocalyptic Fascism and the Billionaires’ Bet.” Unlike a century ago, the far right no longer promises a radiant future. It concentrates instead on resentment—especially that of young men. “They belong to a generation that fears it may never own a home, but compensates with the pleasure it gets from constantly provoking progressives online. Convinced their future has been stolen, they share memes romanticizing historical authoritarian regimes,” the authors write. But Moysés seems to confuse this danger with inevitability. He fails to see that the left’s answer cannot be adaptation. On the contrary, it must strengthen the possibility of politics as collective action. Nor does he recognize that precisely such a reversal is already becoming possible in some of the most promising mobilizations of the twenty-first century: the election, at the end of 2025, of the young Muslim Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York, on a platform centered on the intensely material fight for an affordable city; the Left Party’s victory in Berlin two weeks ago, built around the demand to expropriate private real-estate corporations; and the very recent wave of demonstrations in Spain—including an occupation of Madrid’s Puerta del Sol—in which tens of thousands of young people mobilized by the Tenants’ Union have demanded limits on rents. By putting itself in the straitjacket of the “fiscal framework” in the first months of 2022, Lula’s third government adopted the second fatal accommodation of its term. Faced with conservative institutions and a country devastated by four years of Bolsonaro, increased public investment was the government’s remaining weapon for offering a more dignified life to the majority and forging an anti-conservative pact with them. The same state that disburses 1 trillion reais a year to enrich a small class of rentiers could instead spend money to extend the Family Health Strategy to every Brazilian, at a cost of 30 billion reais; provide full-day public schooling and childcare to all adolescents and children—and, especially, relief to their mothers; achieve universal sanitation while cleaning up polluted urban rivers; multiply metro systems; begin transforming the urban peripheries; and undertake many other urgently needed projects. In April 2023, an article in Outras Palavras warned that the fiscal framework could “shrink the Lula government and preserve the forces that condemn the country to inequality and regression.” A year later, another article showed that restraints on public spending were strangling policies vital to ordinary people and undermining the president’s popularity. In November 2024 came a reality check, in the form of the government’s humiliating defeat in the municipal elections. Even then, the fiscal lock was neither removed nor loosened. On the contrary: throughout the government’s four years, fiscal restraint remained central to its political narrative. The administration proudly proclaimed that it had “put the state’s accounts in order,” without grasping either how misleading that phrase was—given the payment of 1 trillion reais in interest—or how badly the message was hurting it politically. Lula finally woke up in September 2026. The increase in Bolsa Família benefits, after four years of being frozen; the announcement that anti-obesity drugs would be offered through Brazil’s public health system; and the ban on online betting showed that the state has the power to act decisively on behalf of the majority when those in government are willing to confront obstacles. The huge marches that closed the campaign in Fortaleza, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo on the eve of October 4 showed how such initiatives can mobilize activists and the broader public. But it was too late—and too little to change the outcome of the first round. History has not ended The possibility of a turnaround in the three weeks leading up to November 25 cannot be ruled out. It will not be simple or easy. Lula must not only make up a deficit of 2.2 million votes; he must also offset the movement of voters who backed other right-wing candidates in the first round, most of whom are likely to move toward Flávio Bolsonaro. Pulling that off will require a broad, grassroots effort to win over voters, potentially reinforced by new initiatives from Lula. The coming hours and days will be decisive. If Bolsonaro’s movement also wins the presidency, the result will create a high-risk situation for Brazilian sovereignty and democracy. The enormous challenges posed by such an outcome would require the left to reexamine, in depth and with a genuine willingness to engage in self-criticism, its political projects—or its lack of them—and its practices. But would that mean we are condemned to the long winter of far-right hegemony that some analyses are beginning to forecast? It is far too early to say, suggests a recent text by Álvaro García Linera, the thinker who served as vice president of Bolivia under Evo Morales. His central hypothesis is that this political current will prove short-lived. At a moment when the entire world is once again talking about sovereignty and protecting national economies, the far right offers a stale, recolonizing neoliberalism. Its submission to the United States is as blatant and pathetic as Flávio and Eduardo Bolsonaro’s overtures to Donald Trump. Its project amounts to something like every man for himself: greater inequality, capitalism without limits, devastation, and supremacism. Will it work? In the United States, just two years into his second term, Trump himself is reaching record levels of unpopularity and may be on the verge of losing Republican control of both the House and Senate in November. Every new beginning is difficult. Whatever the outcome of the second round, the defeats of October 4 show how profoundly the Brazilian left will have to rethink and rebuild. But just as it would be foolish to underestimate the seriousness of its mistakes, it would be equally foolish to conclude that rebuilding a political project is no longer possible. History has not ended. The times are moving faster than ever. Originally published in Portuguese by Outras Palavras. English translation by Eric Blanc; I’ve added the subtitles. More We can’t stop the far right at home or abroad without a revitalized labor movement, which is yet another reason why you should become a sustaining supporter of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) — one of US labor’s pivotal bright spots. Relatedly, Jacobin published a short piece of mine reflecting on a decade of Bernie Sanders inspiring a whole new generation of young worker organizers.
Open science is compatible with research security, says Canada’s chief science advisor
Open science is “not incompatible” with research security and science leaders and policymakers should “demystify” the false dichotomy between the two, according to Mona Nemer, Canada’s chief science advisor. More than a decade ago, EU policymakers were promoting open science, open innovation and open collaboration across the world. It was a political movement that aimed to make scientific research, data, software, publications and methodologies transparent, accessible and reusable for everyone.But that rhetoric has changed over the past few years. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and Donald Trump came back to power in 2025, international partnerships have become more pragmatic. Countries are trying to implement protectionist policies and governments are increasingly worried about technology espionage. According to Nemer, science can remain open if the sector can come up with improved security protocols that would protect research data from undue manipulation by foreign actors. “If anybody can fiddle with the with the data, then [open science] is actually quite dangerous and quite useless,” she told Science|Business. Universities and research institutions are increasingly vulnerable to attempted espionage and other types of foreign interference. In September, the UK’s domestic counter-intelligence service MI5 issued a security warning against collaborations with the China General Technology Research Institute. And earlier this year, Germany’s Helmholtz Center for Information Security was criticised by federal research minister Dorothee Bär, who told a parliamentary hearing that “existing rules and systems” at the institute “were not suitable” for preventing leaks to China. According to Nemer, universities and research institutions should perhaps follow the example of the private sector, as companies have been able to safeguard their research while still publishing results. “I think that there is a level of research security hygiene that researchers and institutions need to just adopt,” she said. “You don't have to tell Sanofi or IBM how to safeguard their research, which they end up publishing anyway.”While certain areas of research will not be open for collaboration with certain partners, in other areas cooperation is necessary even with researchers based in adversarial countries. “I stress this because politics change,” she said. “Science and politics don't make for good fellows, and whether we like it or not, politics will influence certain things.”Researchers will play an important role in “protecting the integrity of science,” said Nemer. “I think that it's time that there's a commitment to a certain scientific compact, so that citizens don't think that science is actually an open door for espionage and for anti-nationalism.”New partnershipsNemer spoke with Science|Business on the margins of the Hamburg Science Summit on September 17, the day when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for increased cooperation with the EU, including in science and technology. Canada is looking to strengthen ties with partners in other corners of the world, after the Trump administration threatened to put tariffs on Canadian goods and services and even openly suggested Canada could become the 51st state. In parallel, the US government has indicated it wants to retreat from international science projects, including US collaboration with Europe’s CERN particle accelerator and other big science labs.Related articlesThe stats we need to better understand R&DCanada looks to deepen research and education links with the EUCan researchers trust that AI models won’t leak their ideas?Nemer said the US is still a science “powerhouse,” but Canada and Europe will have to work closely together on global challenges. “It’s important for both [sides], but I think it's also important for the rest of the world, because the cut in funding for development, in health, in regions like Africa and other places, have dramatic effects.” The Trump administration is also planning a review of the Nelson memo, a Biden-era document that mandated that results of federally funded research would be openly available. With that idea being called into question, Nemer said it could be “very disruptive” to scientific collaborations and could jeopardise research on climate change, the Arctic and global health. “When your collaborator suddenly tells you I'm not going to share the data with you as a researcher, if this happens, I think it's very worrisome,” she said. “I'm certainly hoping that a lot of the Canadian institutions, funders, researchers, have started looking at joining forces on databases and using more European research infrastructures,” Nemer added.
How worried should Catholics be about the pope’s health?
Pope Leo XIV announced on Sunday that he will undergo surgery this week to remove a “nodule” from his lung. The pope made the announcement at the end of his Sunday Angelus address, asking for prayers. “Dear all, recently, during some checkups, the doctors discovered a nodule in my lung. It was detected at a very early stage and was well-localized,” Leo said. “The doctors felt it was necessary to intervene, and so, following their advice, I decided to have surgery to remove it. The procedure is already scheduled for the next few days. I thank you for your spiritual support and I entrust myself to your prayers.” The Vatican press office subsequently added that Leo is scheduled to undergo surgery at the Gamelli hospital on Tuesday, Oct. 13. The pope is expected to spend up to a week in the Gamelli recovering, after which, for the moment, he is still expected to undertake his largest and longest to-date Apostolic journey, heading to Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru, beginning Nov. 6. Prayers have, understandably, poured in from dioceses around the world, accompanied by the best wishes of heads of state and international institutions. So how worried should Catholics be for the health of the pope? The Vatican’s messaging around Leo’s pending surgery is, in many ways, a new approach to papal health issues. But, despite the pope’s personal candour, the Holy See’s messaging perhaps raises as many questions as it answers. Subscribe — Leo’s decision to announce his own medical status and pending hospital stay during the Sunday Angelus is, it should be said, already something of a big deal. Traditionally, the health of popes simply hasn’t been discussed publicly or officially, until circumstances made it absolutely necessary. Memorably, in 2023 Pope Francis was rushed to the Gemelli in an ambulance, exhibiting signs of cardiac arrest according to many close to him, only for the Sala Stampa to put out a statement insisting he was merely going in for “pre-scheduled” tests. That Pope Leo has decided to announce his condition himself, with remarkable frankness, is a significant comms policy shift around the Apostolic Palace. This might reflect a deliberately more open posture, as opposed to the traditional, otiose evasiveness, and the first fruits of an American pope and American prefect of the Dicastery for Communications favoring honesty as a baseline. Equally, it must be allowed, it could be that the pope’s situation is serious enough that there would be no keeping it under wraps or playing it off, and the decision was made to be as open as possible to head off speculation about the papal health. Certainly, Leo appeared to make every effort to sound reassuring — stressing that, whatever the diagnosis is, exactly, it is “well-localized” and “early stage.” Of course, for everyone listening, talk of a “nodule” in a lung will immediately send thoughts — and prayers — running to concerns about words not used, like “cancer,” “tumor,” “begnin” or “malignant.” To be clear, none of those words may yet be medically appropriate. And there is every reason to believe and assume that Leo is giving almost as much information as he may have himself at this stage. But the context of the pope’s announcement and the timing of his surgery do reasonably raise reasonably serious concerns for Leo. We don’t know, and this isn’t to say anyone has the right to expect to know, when the routine medical checks made this discovery. It could have been last week, last month, or even earlier. As such, it isn’t really possible to say with what kind of urgency Leo is being brought in for surgery. However, there is clearly some serious urgency to the matter. Leo making the announcement and going into hospital this week, of all weeks, means he is having to miss the balance and conclusion of his global meeting of the heads of the world’s bishops conferences, which he convened in Rome this week. That, as the Vatican has announced, has meant some serious changes to the schedule, with the newly minted dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Tagle, subbing in for the closing Mass on Wednesday, and the meeting’s organizers announcing that the final working document/summary of the meeting being delayed until Leo can read and feed into it. Those changes suggest that the timing of Leo’s surgery isn’t of his own choosing, and he is acting on the best medical advice he can get by moving urgently. Had this issue been discovered weeks ago, it seems reasonable to assume the pope would have seen it dealt with before the meeting began. And were it possible to delay it, even by a few days to allow the meeting to conclude as scheduled, the expectation would surely be he’d have opted for that. It cannot be excluded that Leo is simply having to fit in with the schedules of his medical team, but a man who occupies arguably the most important and prominent role in Italy, if not Western Europe, could generally be assumed to be the one whose calendar others work around. All this points to a very recent medical discovery leading to a “days matter” diagnosis, or at least suspected possible diagnosis. Of course, another factor weighing in the balance is Leo’s upcoming apostolic visit to three South American countries, including a return to Peru, where he spent many years as a priest and bishop. It is entirely possible that the doctors, and the pope himself, are more concerned about the potential knock-on effects of surgery, and the time needed for recovery, for a 71-year-old — even one as physically sound and actively sporty as Leo. The pope is due to depart Rome November 6 for his 10-day three-country trip, returning on Nov. 17. It may be that Leo has simply made the decision to allow maximum time for his own post-op recovery, and even allow for potentially unforeseen circumstances, so that he is at full strength for the landmark trip. While it might be an inconvenience, and clearly a last-minute wrench in the works for the Amoris meeting, it is possible that Leo simply weighs the importance of that conference more lightly in the balance than even the possibility of missing his homecoming trip to Peru, or even having to scale back his itinerary for the trip. If that is the case, it would suggest a real abundance of caution by the pope approaching his Latin American tour, and a sobering indication of where Leo ranks the non-synodal meeting currently underway in Rome. In any event, what can be said for certain is that the pope having to take this, of all weeks, out of his schedule for surgery and an extended hospital stay is extremely unfortunate timing. It is clear that this is a decision Leo has made on the advice of his doctors. Together, they clearly consider that the risks of delaying, even by a little as a few days, represents an unacceptable risk for the pope. Even expecting and allowing for Leo’s full and speedy recovery, that should be a very sobering thought for Catholics everywhere. Subscribe
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