Good morning, it’s Thursday, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the kids are definitely not alright.
This likely doesn’t come as news to you – especially to those among you who are parents.
Being a young person – particularly a teenager – is not an easy task, between hormones and schoolwork, and bullying and peer pressure and family expectations and everything else piled on your shoulders.
Doing all that in the digital age when everything is endlessly and relentlessly connected, but somehow no one is actually CONNECTING, like on a personal level, and the angst and anxieties of the teen years is magnified exponentially, well…it’s just hard.
A lot harder than what I went through, you know, back when we had rotary phones and the handheld personal device wasn’t even a blip on the radar screen, and the internet was something only the federal government and a select few techies knew about.
Add on top of that the isolation and fear and remote learning imposed on today’s teens by the pandemic, and you’ve got a perfect storm in the making. The situation got so bad that in 2021, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued a rare public health advisory that urgently called on the nation to respond to the growing mental health crisis impacting young people.
“It would be a tragedy if we beat back one public health crisis only to allow another to grow in its place,” Murthy wrote at the time. “Mental health challenges in children, adolescents, and young adults are real, and they are widespread. But most importantly, they are treatable, and often preventable.”
Sadly, though, it still seems like things are going in the wrong direction.
A 2023 trends report from the American Psychological Association found that the mental health of young people in the U.S. is in crisis. In the 10 years leading up to the pandemic, feelings of persistent sadness, hopelessness, suicidal thoughts and behaviors among young people all increased by about 40 percent according to the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.
The mental health system – especially when it comes to inpatient psychiatric services – is overwhelmed and unable to meet the needs of the growing number of young people who desperately require treatment.
Experts are struggling to come up with a plan to address this crisis, with mixed results. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, for example, has come up with new recommendations around screening for depression and suicide risk for children and adolescents.
A lot of the prevention effort has to come down to education – teaching people what to look for in terms of warning signs, symptoms, and red flags – as well as doubling down on funding for the services necessary to ensure that not just teens, but everyone struggling with mental health challenges, can access the services, treatment, counseling, housing, etc. they need.
Today is World Teen Mental Health Day, which was launched in conjunction with something called the Hollister Confidence Project, established by the clothing company of the same name, which specializes in (among other things) teen attire. The purpose of this day is to draw attention to, education individuals on, and break taboos around the rise in teen mental health issues.
It’s a little bit of a dreary day, with cloudy skies and rain showers in the morning. The good news is that it will be a bit warmer: Somewhere in the low-to-mid-40s. I’ll take it.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden could end up wielding the first veto of his presidency not on one of the great issues of state, but over a wonky skirmish sparked by the Republican Party’s assault on what its culture warriors brand as “woke” capitalism.
Biden will soon be in a position to issue his first veto, after moderate Senate Democrats – Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia – helped Republicans pass a measure that would undo an environmental and social investing rule.
The Senate voted 50-46 to overturn a Labor Department rule making it easier for fund managers to consider environmental, social and corporate governance issues for investments and shareholder rights decisions, such as through proxy voting.
Speaking at House Democrats’ annual issues conference in Baltimore, Maryland, Biden celebrated Democrats’ legislative accomplishments over his first two years in office but told his allies that they still have more work to do.
Biden said he’s going to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines “come hell or high water.”
During his speech in Maryland, Biden mocked Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for her outbursts during his State of the Union speech in February.
Biden will headline a conference next week for a union that was the first major labor organization to endorse a presidential candidate during the 2020 campaign.
The government’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, may have saved Biden’s $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan from what experts considered all but certain defeat.
The Biden administration is weighing approval of a major oil project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope that supporters say represents an economic lifeline for Indigenous communities in the region but environmentalists say is counter to climate goals.
Republicans subjected Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to a four-hour grilling before the Senate Judiciary Committee , a harbinger of the fights that loom ahead as the party targets the Justice Department in the months leading up to the 2024 election.
Embattled Long Island Rep. George Santos introduced his first bill, seeking to partially undo former President Trump’s tax plan that limited how much homeowners could deduct in state and local property taxes, placing him at odds with some fellow Repiblicans.
Kellyanne Conway, who managed the final months of Trump’s 2016 campaign, met with prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, the latest sign that the office is ramping up its criminal investigation into the former president.
The Republican establishment is down on CPAC. But for Trump and his campaign operation the conservative conference is not just the main event, it’s a crucial early test of his political strength.
FBI agent Peter Strzok said Trump and others “successfully chilled the FBI’s willingness to investigate anything” Trump-related, complicating later inquiries into the former president’s handling of classified document.
Britain’s former health minister denied wrongdoing after a newspaper published extracts of private messages he sent in the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was urged to speed up an official Covid-19 inquiry, after a leak of WhatsApp messages from former Health Secretary Matt Hancock prompted renewed questions about government policy at the height of the pandemic.
Novavax, which makes the Nuvaxovid vaccine used to treat Covid-19, posted huge sales gains for the past three years during the height of the pandemic. But the company is now facing serious financial challenges, and has warned it may not be able to survive.
Novavax said its current cash flow forecast should support short-term operations, but “significant uncertainty” about 2023 revenue, U.S. government funding and ongoing arbitration are jeopardizing the company’s outlook in the future.
An estimated 16 million households receiving SNAP benefits in 32 states and Washington, will soon see benefits decrease by at least $95 monthly due to the end of the Covid emergency, according to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Demand for U.S. workers shows signs of slowing, a long-anticipated development that is appearing in private-sector job postings even while government reports indicate the labor market is running hot.
Starbucks committed “egregious and widespread” violations of federal law in its campaign to halt unions, a federal administrative judge ruled, ordering the company to give back pay and damages to workers who launched national organizing efforts.
In a sweeping decision, an administrative judge in New York ruled that Starbucks had violated federal labor law dozens of times in responding to a union campaign in the Buffalo area shortly after the campaign began roughly 18 months ago.
Gov. Kathy Hochul won’t be lending her support to an ongoing effort to cap annual rent increases and ban most landlords from evicting tenants without good cause.
Opposition from municipal officials who worry about the loss of local decision-making, as well as progressives calling for more aid for low-income renters, has arisen as Hochul tries to sell her housing proposals a month to go before the state budget is due.
A survey conducted by Slingshot Strategies of 400 registered voters across New York, with an oversample of an additional 400 voters in Westchester and Putnam counties, found substantial support for Hochul’s proposal in the suburbs north of New York City.
Hochul’s proposed $455 million loan to prop up New York’s fading horse racing industry is a load of manure, critics charge.
Hochul defended her budget’s plan to shift key Medicaid money away from county governments as local officials and some lawmakers raise an alarm over the measure.
The state Department of Labor continues to modernize its computer and security systems to crack down on unemployment insurance fraud after at least $4 billion in improper payments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hochul has found a new way to antagonize New York’s union leaders — with labor groups blasting expected job losses from her proposed ban on flavored tobacco.
Republican leaders in the Assembly and Senate had breakfast at the executive mansion with Hochul to discuss the state budget.
Ed Cox is considering a run for his old job. Cox, the former New York state GOP chair from 2009 to 2019, said he’s “talking to Republican leaders around the state and I have nothing to add at this point.”
Now out of office after falling short in the general election and Democratic primary, respectively, former Reps. Lee Zeldin and Tom Suozzi this week announced new roles for themselves.
As New York grapples with higher-than-average maternal mortality rates, state lawmakers are examining how to reintegrate doulas within the state’s health care system.
A year after the state’s minimum staffing requirements went into effect, the vast majority of nursing homes in New York are not providing the 3.5 hours of daily care per patient mandated by law, but stakeholders are divided on the reason why.
New York is striving toward ambitious goals for renewable energy and has inked contracts for new wind and solar projects. But few have been built, and now concern is growing about the pace of construction.
Former state Senate powerbroker Jeff Klein was back in Albany advocating on behalf of the “disabled” despite a years-long cloud of scandal hanging over his head, stoking outrage from a former staffer who accused him of sexual misconduct.
New York’s mayor said that God chose him to lead the nation’s largest city, and not someplace like Topeka, Kan. The mayor of Topeka was not amused.
City Council leaders announced they will use $1.2 million in leftover youth development funding to launch a migrant aid initiative — without involvement from Mayor Adams’ team.
Council members are accusing the Adams administration of “undermining success” of the city’s free early childhood programs.
The City Council assembled to examine the inner workings of a Police Department unit that became a lightning rod in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd, when racial justice protests swept New York City. No one from the NYPD showed up.
The NYPD’s failure to testify in person at the City Council hearing prompted lawmakers to threaten cuts to its funding and to use Council subpoena powers to force police officials to show up if they fail to appear again.
New Yorkers shouldn’t be surprised to encounter clipboard-toting City Council candidates or campaign volunteers starting this week — despite an ongoing lawsuit that sought to halt the start of the petitioning process for the upcoming elections.
New York City has agreed to pay $21,500 to each of hundreds of demonstrators who were penned in by the police in the Bronx during racial justice protests in 2020, then charged at or beaten with batons, according to a legal settlement.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the settlement, if approved by a federal judge, would be “the highest per-person settlement in a mass arrest class action lawsuit in New York City history.”
New York City has agreed to settle and pay four members of FDNY EMS who were punished for speaking out about their agonizing experiences working on the COVID-19 front line.
The Council scraped together $1.2 million in unused funds for two dozen nonprofits providing migrant-related services, prompting critics to say it’s time Biden came through with some of the billions in expenses New York is racking up to cover a crisis he created.
Manhattan Councilman Christopher Marte told angry constituents he wishes he could immediately reprimand a top aide accused of harassing a female journalist — but that bureaucratic protocols are preventing him from taking action.
Cops are investigating who leaked live-streamed porn images of former NY1 weatherman Erick Adame.
The Olympic-sized swimming pool at Astoria Park at 19th Street at 23rd Drive is undergoing $19 million in renovations and will be closed this summer, officials said.
A legal blunder will force the Albany Common Council to ratify its recently passed affordable housing legislation a second time.
A California panel denied parole for Sirhan B. Sirhan, the man convicted in the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, in its first review of the case since Gov. Gavin Newsom decided last year that Mr. Sirhan, 78, should not be released.
A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared to support New Jersey’s plan to shut down the mob-busting Waterfront Commission — despite New York’s efforts to keep the bistate agency intact.
