Less than 30% of high school students sleep the recommended amount. Among middle schoolers, nearly 60% do not get enough sleep at night. The causes: too- early school start times, lack of morning exposure to daylight and excessive exposure to bright electric light and screens late in the evening.
Commentary
Developed Nation No More: How the U.S. Is Falling
The United States may regard itself as a “leader of the free world,” but an index of development released in July 2022 places the country much farther down the list, ranking between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries..
Child Poverty Falls to Record Low Thanks to Government Help
The U.S. government’s most accurate measure of child poverty fell to 5.2% in 2021, the lowest level on record and a decline of 4.5 percentage points from a year earlier. This sharp reduction was due, in large part, to generous government benefits. The decline would have been even larger had the government made it easier for families to receive those benefits.
The Catholic Church Is Diversifying Down to Its Controversies
Tribalism, debates over LGBTQ rights, polygamy, the ordaining of women, along with poverty, adapting to local culture, sexuality and gender, church governance and the continuing sexual abuse crisis are all part of a changing Catholic Church.
Barbara Ehrenreich Made Not Getting By in America Visible
Barbara Ehrenreich, who died on Sept. 1, is best known for her 2001 book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” Ehrenreich’s ability to document in clear, accessible prose exactly how low-wage work forced people into an unavoidable grind remains a revelation of a wide divide on how the other half lives.
The Southern Ocean Is Absorbing Too Much Heat
This Southern Ocean warming and its associated impacts are effectively irreversible on human time scales, because it takes millennia for heat trapped deep in the ocean to be released back into the atmosphere.
Abort Artemis
Nothing justifies the bloated, over-budget, six-year late Artemis moon-shot program–not science, not discovery, certainly not costs or safety risks, when private companies and unmanned space flights are light years ahead of NASA’s arrested development mentality.
Burning Man’s Hold on Our Primordial Need for Ritual
The overwhelming majority of the 70,000 people who attend the Burning man festival each year in Nevada identify as nonreligious, yet the deeply spiritual experiences they report resemble those of religious groups. Indeed, the similarities with religion are no accident.
The Tragedy of Turning Florida’s Rural Lands Into Urban Sprawl
Lately, it seems Florida’s big-money developers, aided by politicians from the governor on down, have put a target on every rural spot that’s left on the map of Florida. From the Panhandle to the Keys, they want to change everything that’s now slow-paced and softly green to match the cookie-cutter concrete sprawl found everywhere else.
Can A ‘Christian’ Wedding Website Designer Deny Service to Same-Sex Couples?
Lorie Smith designs websites. She intends to begin designing wedding websites and is unwilling to create them for same-sex couples, saying it would go against her Christian beliefs. Under Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act, though, it is discriminatory and illegal to refuse services to someone based on “disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry.”