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7 Signs Your Kid Has Screen Addiction and What To Do About It

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At this point, discussing the relationship kids and teens have with screens feels passé. You may have mentally muted those notifications—and experts get it. But they say it’s important for parents to continue to tune into the crisis and their kids’ behavior around screens.

“While we’ve yet to fully realize the downstream effects of this new digitized dynamic, the available data overwhelmingly points to a corrosive effect on our children’s mental health and well-being,” says Kellyn Smythe, MS, an admissions director for Pacific Quest, a residential treatment facility helping adolescents recover from social media and screen addiction.

The average teen spends nearly five hours per day on social media, according to a 2023 Gallup Poll.1 And a study from the same year suggests that habitually checking social media in early adolescence could change the brain’s sensitivity to rewards and punishments. Of course, younger kids are also using screens. A 2025 survey from the Pew Research Center found the majority of parents say their kids ages 5 to 7 and ages 2 to 4 use smartphones.

But recent research shows that screen addiction may be more important to pay attention to than screen time itself. A big reason is those who feel addicted to their devices are more at risk for mental health issues. 

Smythe has been at the forefront of this crisis. He and mental health providers discuss the signs of screen addiction and withdrawal, plus how to help your kid or teen foster a healthier relationship with their devices.

What Is Screen Addiction?

“Simply put, if your child, with any regularity, chooses screen time over in-person experiences—and seemingly can’t prevent themselves from doing so—it’s fair to deem them ‘screen-addicted,” ​​Smythe says.

Screens include smartphones, tablets, computers, and TVs. Addiction can happen because of the stimulation people get from using tech. Data shows social media, for example, triggers surges in dopamine, a neurotransmitter known as the “feel good” chemical connected to our reward-seeking behaviors.

“Individuals afflicted with screen addiction continue to gradually immerse themselves in screen time to a point where it exceeds their ability to control it,” explains Matt Glowiak, PhD, LCPC, CAADC, chief addiction specialist with Recovered.org, an organization that provides resources for mental health and addiction treatment. “They spend more time on the screen than intended or desired, even to the detriment of everything else in their lives. When not on the screen, their thoughts and emotions are nearly absent in the real-life setting while obsessing about their next use.”

It can be harder for kids and teens to pump the brakes than adults.  

“While many adults might eventually recognize problematic use but struggle to stop, with children and adolescents, considering their developmental level, problematic use is oftentimes out of their awareness,” explains Dr. Glowiak. “It becomes the ‘new norm.'”

Simply put, if your child, with any regularity, chooses screen time over in-person experiences—and seemingly can’t prevent themselves from doing so—it’s fair to deem them ‘screen-addicted.’

— Kellyn Smythe, MS

Signs Your Kid May Have Screen Addiction

When parents understand the signs of screen addiction, they can intervene. ​​When it comes to teens, Smythe encourages parents to look out for ones who:

  • Habitually avoid in-person experiences, like hangouts with friends, sports, and family events, in favor of screen time
  • Show irritability or have outbursts around screen time boundaries
  • Attempt to or use screens as an emotional regulation tool (“For example, a teen might feel the need to engage with a digital device when attending a common social experience, such as going out to dinner with the family,” he says.)
  • Miss school
  • Exhibit signs of anxiety or depression
  • Experience changes weight, well-being, or activity
  • Avoid typical social milestones, such as attending school dances, sleepovers, family vacations, and dates

For younger kids, parents may also notice an intense preoccupation with screens, a loss of interest in other activities, frustration when they can’t use screens, and difficulty in stopping them from using them. Plus, the amount of screen time a kid wants may keep increasing.

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https://www.parents.com/thmb/SiLfcmj4jxJxD8OZuIvGpc22cJA=/750x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-2238051733-b070f4517e8a4159afb15cf3ea355a8c.jpgPhoto:  GettyImages/StockPlanets

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.parents.com/signs-of-screen-addiction-in-kids-11848694

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‘The System Is Meant to Break You’: What ICE Is Doing to People Here Legally

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In August, Jemmy Jimenez Rosa and her husband, Marcel, took their three young daughters on a vacation to Cancún, Mexico. On their return to Boston Logan airport, a Customs and Border Protection officer took Ms. Rosa aside and led her to a back room where she was told she should say goodbye to her girls. “I keep thinking this is a nightmare. Is this a nightmare? Like, is this really happening?” Ms. Rosa recalled.

Ms. Rosa was placed in a detention cell at Logan. Officers gave her virtually no information and dismissed her husband’s requests that he be allowed to bring her diabetes and anxiety medication. Ms. Rosa was born in Peru and has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States since she was 9 years old; she is now 43. Just weeks before the trip to Cancún, she had renewed her green card without incident. Her husband and her daughters are American citizens.

Over the past several months, alongside a team from Opinion Video, I’ve spoken to a half-dozen people and their families who have been taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. Each was re-entering, or was already in the country legally. No one was smuggled across the border.

None of the people we spoke to had a recent criminal record. (Three had minor nonviolent brushes with the law, all in the distant past; one received a pardon.) All were treated like suspected violent criminals, forced into tiny cells, dressed in prison uniforms, manacled for transfer. Those we spoke to were held for anywhere from 10 days to over 70 days. The experience shattered their equilibrium.

Immigration and Border Patrol officers have long held extremely broad discretionary powers to welcome or reject noncitizens arriving in the United States. And this is far from the first wave of xenophobia to hit America. But something different is happening now in the breadth and ferocity of efforts to change the makeup of this country.

The videos circulating on social media are brutal and terrifying — the often violent arrests, people pulled screaming from their cars, out of day care centers, away from their children and their spouses. What should give Americans equal pause is the inhumanity happening beyond the cameras, away from the view of judges and lawyers, and the media. Due process is not a constitutional right afforded only to citizens; legal restrictions on unlawful detention apply to all people on U.S. soil.

The stories we were told call into question both the constitutionality and the morality of how the Trump administration is directing immigration policy. That immorality, once unleashed, may ultimately be aimed at others in this country, regardless of immigration status. If a woman returning from vacation with her young children can be suddenly removed from her family and her life, how can we believe that any of us will remain safe?

There was a disquieting sameness to the horror that was described to us. Those we interviewed despaired at how the detention centers were kept purposefully, horrendously cold, forcing some of them to huddle up against strangers. They spoke of lights left on 24 hours a day and of interstate transfers that came without notice. They described food that was inadequately distributed and made them unwell. Of being forced to urinate and defecate in front of fellow detainees and guards. Of being humiliated and mocked by officers. All referred to a destabilizing lack of information, the dreadful understanding that they could be held for weeks or months without anyone informing them why they were being held at all.

We heard how they begged for recourse — asked to speak with the outside world, for bond hearings, to protest their detention. They referenced, with anxiety and sorrow, others they encountered, some presumably still languishing in those cells, without counsel or relief.

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https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/11/23/multimedia/23wildman-01-mtvh/20wildman-01-mtvh-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webpLuis Manuel Diaz for The New York Times

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/opinion/ice-immigration-green-card-detention.html

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Do Brain-Decoding Devices Threaten People’s Privacy?

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Before a car crash in 2008 left her paralysed from the neck down, Nancy Smith enjoyed playing the piano. Years later, Smith started making music again, thanks to an implant that recorded and analysed her brain activity. When she imagined playing an on-screen keyboard, her brain–computer interface (BCI) translated her thoughts into keystrokes — and simple melodies, such as ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’, rang out.

But there was a twist. For Smith, it seemed as if the piano played itself. “It felt like the keys just automatically hit themselves without me thinking about it,” she said at the time. “It just seemed like it knew the tune, and it just did it on its own.”

Smith’s BCI system, implanted as part of a clinical trial, trained on her brain signals as she imagined playing the keyboard. That learning enabled the system to detect her intention to play hundreds of milliseconds before she consciously attempted to do so, says trial leader Richard Andersen, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Smith is one of roughly 90 people who, over the past two decades, have had BCIs implanted to control assistive technologies, such as computers, robotic arms, or synthetic voice generators. These volunteers — paralysed by spinal-cord injuries, strokes or neuromuscular disorders, such as motor neuron disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) — have demonstrated how command signals for the body’s muscles, recorded from the brain’s motor cortex as people imagine moving, can be decoded into commands for connected devices.

But Smith, who died of cancer in 2023, was among the first volunteers to have an extra interface implanted in her posterior parietal cortex, a brain region associated with reasoning, attention, and planning. Andersen and his team think that by also capturing users’ intentions and pre-motor planning, such ‘dual-implant’ BCIs will improve the performance of prosthetic devices.

Andersen’s research also illustrates the potential of BCIs that access areas outside the motor cortex. “The surprise was that when we go into the posterior parietal, we can get signals that are mixed together from a large number of areas,” says Andersen. “There’s a wide variety of things that we can decode.”

The ability of these devices to access aspects of a person’s innermost life, including preconscious thought, raises the stakes on concerns about how to keep neural data private. It also poses ethical questions about how neurotechnologies might shape people’s thoughts and actions — especially when paired with artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, AI is enhancing the capabilities of wearable consumer products that record signals from outside the brain. Ethicists worry that, left unregulated, these devices could give technology companies access to new and more precise data about people’s internal reactions to online and other content.

Ethicists and BCI developers are now asking how previously inaccessible information should be handled and used. “Whole-brain interfacing is going to be the future,” says Tom Oxley, chief executive of Synchron, a BCI company in New York City. He predicts that the desire to treat psychiatric conditions and other brain disorders will lead to more brain regions being explored. Along the way, he says, AI will continue to improve decoding capabilities and change how these systems serve their users. “It leads you to the final question: how do we make that safe?”

Consumer concerns

Consumer neurotech products capture less-sophisticated data than implanted BCIs do. Unlike implanted BCIs, which rely on the firings of specific collections of neurons, most consumer products rely on electroencephalography (EEG). This measures ripples of electrical activity that arise from the averaged firing of huge neuronal populations and are detectable on the scalp. Rather than being created to capture the best recording possible, consumer devices are designed to be stylish (such as in sleek headbands) or unobtrusive (with electrodes hidden inside headphones or headsets for augmented or virtual reality).

Still, EEG can reveal overall brain states, such as alertness, focus, tiredness, and anxiety levels. Companies already offer headsets and software that give customers real-time scores relating to these states, with the intention of helping them to improve their sports performance, meditate more effectively, or become more productive, for example.

AI has helped to turn noisy signals from suboptimal recording systems into reliable data, explains Ramses Alcaide, chief executive of Neurable, a neurotech company in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in EEG signal processing and sells a headphone-based headset for this purpose. “We’ve made it so that EEG doesn’t suck as much as it used to,” Alcaide says. “Now, it can be used in real-life environments, essentially.”

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https://static.scientificamerican.com/dam/m/79c0456bf6a62480/original/brain_decoding_tech_devices.jpg?m=1763568811.238&w=900iStock/Getty Images Plus

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-brain-decoding-devices-threaten-peoples-privacy/?_gl=1*1trcz4r*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTA4MzcwMDEwLjE3NjM4NjU2MDA.*_ga_0P6ZGEWQVE*czE3NjM4NjU1OTkkbzEkZzAkdDE3NjM4NjU1OTkkajYwJGwwJGgw

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Trump Reacts To Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Resignation, Doubling Down On Insults

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President Donald Trump on Saturday reacted to the sudden resignation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a week after he publicly pulled support from the longtime MAGA ally.

Greene announced her official departure from Congress in a video Friday. Trump first reacted to her exit by phone on that same night, telling ABC News White House correspondent Rachel Scott, “I think it’s great news for the country. It’s great.” The president started posting on social media earlier than usual Saturday, doubling down on his joy.

“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown, because of PLUMMETING Poll Numbers, and not wanting to face a Primary Challenger with a strong Trump Endorsement (where she would have no chance of winning!), has decided to call it ‘quits,’” he wrote on Truth Social at 6:45 a.m.

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Greene has accused the president of turning on her because of her continued call to release classified documents related to late sex trafficker and Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein. He has meanwhile accused her of going “Far Left” and claimed that she calls him too much.

“For some reason, primarily that I refused to return her never ending barrage of phone calls, Marjorie went BAD,” he wrote in his Saturday screed.

He also took aim at two Kentucky Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. Rand Paul. Massie filed the discharge petition to a force a vote on the release of the Epstein files, while Paul has said he was “on the side of transparency” in the matter.

Greene’s “relationship with the WORST Republican Congressman in decades, Tom Massie of Kentucky, also known as Rand Paul Jr. because he votes against the Republican Party (and really good legislation!), did not help her,” Trump wrote.

The Georgia congresswoman had broken with Trump not only over his dismissal of the Epstein “hoax,” but also over his handling of the recent government shutdown and lack of a Republican plan to help people who are losing subsidies to afford health insurance policies.

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President Donald Trump on Saturday reacted to the sudden resignation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-reacts-marjorie-taylor-greene-resignation_n_6921c8a5e4b06c13afa51883?origin=home-whats-happening-unit

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G20 Leaders Push Back on U.S. Peace Plan for Ukraine

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Leaders of some of the world’s most powerful countries pushed back on demands that Ukraine cede territory and limit the size of its army included in President Trump’s latest proposal to end the war with Russia. But they said they believed the plan provided a basis for further negotiations, according to a joint statement released after they met in Johannesburg on Saturday.

The proposal, a 28-point plan, calls for Ukrainian concessions already largely rejected by the country’s president and allies. Mr. Trump gave President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine until next week to agree to the plan, though he said Saturday the plan was “not my final offer” and suggested that the deadline could be extended should progress be made in negotiations.

It remained unclear Saturday how much wiggle room Ukraine and its European allies would have to change the proposal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy, will head to Geneva on Sunday, where they are expected to meet senior Ukrainian officials to discuss Kyiv’s response to the American proposal, a U.S. official said Saturday.

Even before the latest proposal was made public last week, Ukraine’s allies in Europe and across the globe faced pressure to show they could get Ukraine the economic and military support it needs to continue battling Russia should the United States cease its contributions. Germany, which is already Ukraine’s largest military backer in Europe, this month pledged an additional $3.5 billion in assistance for next year, and France and Sweden recently pledged hundreds of new fighter jets.

Though couched in diplomatic language, public statements from European leaders about the new proposal, including at Saturday’s G20 meeting, made clear that their support for Ukraine was unwavering, whatever the pressure from the White House. In a joint statement adopted Saturday the leaders of 11 nations — including Germany, France, Britain, Japan and Canada — and the European Union said the 28-point plan included “important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace.”

But they also made clear that they took issue with provisions of the plan that would strip Ukraine of territory and limit the size of its armed forces.

“What is at stake is Ukrainian sovereignty and European security,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Saturday, adding that European countries would work with the Ukrainians over the next two days to create a plan for the way forward.

“Our problem is not the U.S.,” Mr. Macron told reporters at the G20 summit. “Our unique problem — all of us — is Russia, who started this war, who refused to take the cease-fire proposals.”

How much influence European leaders might have at this point in the war is unclear. Together with Ukraine, they have been cut out of the deliberations that produced this latest proposal. In the past though, Europe’s unified support of Kyiv together with the stubborn refusal of President Vladimir V. Putin to back down from his maximalist demands have been enough to at least preserve the status quo and keep Ukraine in the fight.

Mr. Macron said negotiating teams from the European Union, Germany, Britain and France would meet with American and Ukrainian negotiators in Geneva “to be able to bring substance back to the table and reconcile all these views.” This will be followed by a meeting of the “coalition of the willing,” a group of more than 30 countries supporting Ukraine, he said.

In a video posted to social media on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky expressed a grim view of the proposal before him and expressed doubt that it could be a starting point to negotiate peace.

“Right now, this is about much more than any points in any document,” he said. “We must ensure that nowhere in Europe or the world does the principle prevail that crimes against people and humanity, against states and nations, can ever be rewarded in any way or forgiven.”

Saturday’s meeting took place on the sidelines of the Group of 20 heads of state summit, an annual gathering that brings together leaders of the world’s largest economies to try to agree on shared ambitions on the most pressing global issues. The United States did not send a delegation; Mr. Trump said he was boycotting it because of his belief that South Africa was persecuting its white minority.

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https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/11/22/multimedia/22int-g20-ukraine-pmwc/22int-g20-ukraine-pmwc-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webpAntónio Costa, president of the European Council, left, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, right, with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, in Johannesburg on Thursday.Credit…Joao Silva/The New York Times

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/world/africa/g20-south-africa-ukraine-russia-united-states.html

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The Lost Planet that Created the Moon Came From the Inner Solar System

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Roughly four and a half billion years ago, the planet Theia slammed into Earth, destroying Theia, melting large fractions of Earth’s mantle, and ejecting a huge debris disk that later formed the moon. Scientists have long wondered what Theia was made of and where it came from. Now they have evidence that it formed very close to home.

The original giant impact model of the moon’s creation, proposed in the 1970s, predicted the moon was made mostly of Theia’s material. This scenario implied there should be differences in the chemical composition of the moon and Earth, but research has found that the two are nearly identical—far more similar than two independent planetary bodies should be. A new study, published today in Science, took a close look at other things Theia gave us beside the moon: additional molybdenum and iron left behind in the collision.

Ancient Earth would have had these heavy elements accumulate in its core but not in the rocky mantle closer to the surface, so any iron present now in Earth’s mantle likely came from Theia and can tell us about that planet’s composition, says study co-author Thorsten Kleine, director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany.

Kleine and his colleagues analyzed 15 terrestrial rocks and six lunar samples brought to Earth by Apollo missions. They focused first on iron isotopes: variations of the element with different numbers of neutrons. Rocks and planets in the Solar System share nearly identical distributions of these isotopes, but in the last few years, Kleine and some of the new paper’s co-authors discovered that certain very tiny deviations from the standard iron isotope ratio can reveal the sample’s place of origin. “The discovery of iron isotope anomalies is relatively recent, which I guess is why no one has done it for the moon so far,” Kleine says. “These analyses are difficult and the variations are small, so it is not an easy experiment to do.” The team combined the data on iron with isotope distributions of molybdenum and zirconium found in the same samples to reverse engineer Theia’s likely size and composition. The researchers also compared the measurements to those of samples from 20 meteorites that originated in both the inner and outer Solar System to determine Theia’s place of origin.

The new study reveals Theia as a rocky planet with a metallic core that most likely contained five to ten percent the mass of Earth and formed in the inner Solar System, closer to the sun than Earth is. This picture lines up with previous hypotheses for why the bodies were so similar, Kleine says; what we didn’t know was where it formed exactly.

Back in 2020, Kleine and other scientists demonstrated that celestial bodies that formed closer to the sun are richer in heavy elements such as molybdenum. Following this principle, Kleine and the new study’s co-authors estimated that Earth has a bit more molybdenum and zirconium than it should and figured these additional heavy elements must have been brought here by Theia. They combined that data with what they’d learned about the iron.

“The authors make new iron isotope measurements at exceptional levels of precision,” says planetary scientist Sara Russell, leader of the Planetary Materials Group at the Natural History Museum, London, who was not involved in the new study. For her, the study’s implications go beyond just the origins of Theia—they help us understand what eventually shaped the Earth-moon system into a cradle of life. “This careful work and insightful modeling help us better understand our origins,” she adds.

The team hasn’t yet run its proposed scenario through simulations of the giant impact, Kleine says, but he looks forward to running those simulations, as well as analyzing lunar samples to look for other element isotopes.

Russell hopes future sample-return missions can boost this type of analysis. “I find it amazing we are still learning new things about the moon and Earth over 50 years since the Apollo astronauts collected these rocks from the lunar surface,” Russell says. “Collecting samples in space and bringing them to curate on Earth means we can make much more detailed measurements than are possible in space and preserves them for future generations to make their own discoveries.”

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https://static.scientificamerican.com/dam/m/5ff7c728901ea71e/original/Hopp-ado0623-Theia.jpg?m=1763662001.785&w=900

Artist’s impression of the planet Theia colliding with ancient Earth to create the moon. PS/Mark A. Garlick

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lost-planet-theia-that-created-the-moon-came-from-the-inner-solar-system/

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Writing Descriptive Paragraphs

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Writing descriptive paragraphs can be successful as one of the first writing activities for students. Start by helping students understand the difference between simple and complex sentences, and move on to practice writing complex sentences. Students should also be familiar with a wide range of descriptive adjectives. Start by having students answer basic questions below. Next, use the writing exercise to expand the answers into a well-formed descriptive paragraph.

Descriptive paragraphs are often used to describe what a person looks and acts like. Read this example descriptive paragraph, notice how descriptive paragraphs are arranged by putting together all the sentences about the same thing.

Here is an example of a descriptive paragraph:

I am forty years old, rather tall and I have blue eyes and short black hair. I wear casual clothes as I teach students in a relaxed atmosphere. I enjoy my job because I get to meet and help so many different people from all over the world. During my spare time, I like playing tennis which I play at least three times a week. I also love listening to classical music and I must admit that I spend a lot of money on buying new CDs! I live in a pretty seaside town on the Italian coast. I enjoy eating great Italian food and laughing with the likable people who live here.

Written Exercise I

Answer these questions about yourself on a piece of paper.

  • How old are you?
  • What do you look like?
  • What kind of clothes do you wear? Why?
  • What kind of job do you do? Do you like it?
  • What are your favorite hobbies? Why do you like them?
  • Where do you live?
  • Do you like living there? Why or why not?

Written Exercise II

Now that you have the information about yourself ready. Fill in the gaps in to complete this descriptive paragraph about yourself.

I am _________ years old, I _________________ (your looks). I wear ________________ because ______________. I am a ______________. I like / don’t like my job because _____________________. I enjoy ______________. I often _____________ (describe how often you do your hobby). I also like ________________ (write about another hobby) because ________________. I live in ____________. People in ____________ are ________________ . I enjoy / don’t enjoy living in ______________ because ____________.

Practice

Ask your friends the same questions as in Exercise I and write paragraphs about them.

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https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/eRW8rjqzRRoGHdpgQrffhn50YI4=/750x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-597064091-58e2dbf75f9b58ef7ef7f94d.jpgWestend61/Getty Images

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.thoughtco.com/writing-descriptive-paragraphs-1212345

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Abbott’s Moves to Restrict Muslims Leave Some Concerned and Puzzled

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Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has announced a flurry of steps this week aimed at thwarting Islamic groups in the state, moves that both worry and baffle Muslims and religious experts.

On Tuesday, he declared that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy and civil rights groups, was a foreign terrorist organization, an accusation the group said had no basis in fact. The following day, he directed law enforcement officers to investigate an Islamic organization in Dallas, saying the group was illegally enforcing Islamic “Shariah law” in the state.

In a letter sent on Wednesday to district attorneys and sheriffs in two North Texas counties, Mr. Abbott suggested there were multiple entities in the state “masquerading” as legal courts, but he named only one: the Islamic Tribunal, an independent institution that has operated in the Dallas area for more than a decade.

The letter quoted from the tribunal’s website to suggest it was illegally posing as a rival court to the Texas judicial system and speculated that the court could recommend stoning as a punishment.

Other faith groups operate ecclesiastical tribunals in the United States that resolve spiritual matters and disputes that overlap with the traditional court system. In Judaism, rabbinical courts known as beth dins rule on the details of divorce agreements, among other issues. Catholic dioceses, including the diocese of Dallas and others throughout Texas, also operate courts to handle cases of church law, including marriage and annulment.

The governor’s statement said the Islamic Tribunal was different from other faith-based arbitration bodies because it was “purporting to replace actual courts of law to evade neutral and generally applicable laws.”

“The Constitution’s religious protections provide no authority for religious courts to skirt state and federal laws simply by donning robes and pronouncing positions inconsistent with western civilization,” the governor wrote in the letter. He offered no specific examples of resolved disputes that have violated U.S. law but urged the counties to work with the state’s Department of Public Safety and attorney general, Ken Paxton, who had “additional investigative tools at their disposal.”

For experts in Islamic law and culture, the move was puzzling.

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https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/11/19/multimedia/00NAT-ABBOTT-MUSLIM-gqhv/00NAT-ABBOTT-MUSLIM-gqhv-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webpGov. Greg Abbott of Texas in September. This week, he declared that a Muslim advocacy and civil rights group was a terrorist organization. The group said the statement had “no basis in law or fact.”Credit…Antranik Tavitian/Reuters

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/us/abbott-texas-muslim-investigation.html

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See Photos of the Northern Lights That Dazzled the U.S.

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On Tuesday night, sky watchers across the U.S. were treated to a phenomenal aurora display, the product of a severe geomagnetic storm triggered by a recent burst of solar activity.

Auroras were visible in areas that included Indiana, New Jersey, northern California, Florida, and Texas. That is remarkably far south for the northern lights, or aurora borealis, which are typically restricted to a doughnut surrounding the North Pole.

The southern lights, or aurora australis, were also visible in parts of Australia.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center, which forecasts the effects of solar activity on Earth and its surroundings, geomagnetic storm conditions are expected to continue at a somewhat lower level.

And the event isn’t over yet. Auroras occur after the sun emits what scientists call a coronal mass ejection, or CME, in the direction of Earth. A CME is essentially a blob of the plasma and magnetic field that makes up our star. When this material interacts with the gases in Earth’s atmosphere, the resulting energy transfers light up the skies.

Last night’s auroras were the result of CMEs released on Sunday and Monday, but Tuesday also saw such an outburst from the sun, and experts expect it will reach Earth in the coming hours. An initial aurora forecast for tonight suggests the spectacle could continue tonight only for a more northern portion of the country.

Auroras are part of a class of phenomena dubbed space weather and are both the prettiest and the least harmful example. Other types of space weather can be dangerous to technology in orbit and even to the power grids that sustain modern life on Earth. And the current space weather activity has had a perhaps surprising side effect: delaying today’s scheduled launch of a Blue Origin rocket that will carry a pair of NASA spacecraft bound to study space weather at Mars.

Whether or not you were able to catch sight of an aurora, consider submitting your observations to the volunteer science project Aurorasaurus. Through this program, scientists and sky watchers team up to understand the what the effects of specific space weather events are, as well as how auroras work more generally.

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https://static.scientificamerican.com/dam/m/6bcf796471bac337/original/GettyImages-2246283882_web.jpeg?m=1762963853.668&w=900

The aurora borealis glows above rural Monroe County near Bloomington, Ind., on November 12, 2025.  Jeremy Hogan/Getty Images

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/northern-lights-dazzle-u-s-skies-after-powerful-solar-storm/?_gl=1*tar8bc*_up*MQ..*_ga*NDMwMjYwNTYxLjE3NjM2OTkwMzM.*_ga_0P6ZGEWQVE*czE3NjM2OTkwMzIkbzEkZzAkdDE3NjM2OTkwMzIkajYwJGwwJGgw

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10 Habits That Will Completely Transform Your Life and Business in 2026

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Click the link below the picture

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The best habits aren’t about optimization. They’re about sustainability, resilience and showing up as the healthiest, happiest version of you

Last year, I shared 9 Habits to help you better succeed in business, life and relationships, and many of you wrote to tell me how small shifts completely changed your energy, focus and confidence. This year, I’m taking it a step further.

In 2026, the goal isn’t nonstop improvement. It’s building sustainability, resilience and a healthier, happier, more productive you. Over the past year, I’ve deepened many of these routines and noticed more energy, strength and joy.

At 49, I’m the healthiest and fittest I’ve ever been, and that says a lot coming from someone who used to race triathlons and Ironman.

1. Strength-train four times per week

Muscle is longevity currency. It supports your metabolism, hormones and confidence. As we age, resistance training is the single most effective way to stay strong, mobile and injury-free. Muscle also keeps your metabolism active, your hormones balanced, and your body resilient as you age.

You can get started on an app such as Peloton or Ladder, or if you have the means, invest in a trainer who fits your goals and lifestyle. Schedule your strength training the way you schedule important calls: non-negotiable.

2. Go Zone 5 heart rate once per week

Dr. Stacy Sims calls high-intensity training “brain fertilizer.” Pushing into Zone 5 (that super hard exertion effort that makes you breathless) improves cognition, bone density and mitochondrial function.

It teaches your body and mind to handle stress, including the stress that we as founders and leaders face daily. Sprint run, bike, ski-erg, or swing a kettlebell — just hit that threshold at least once per week. (Spoiler: You feel amazing afterwards.)

3. Walk 30 minutes every day

Over 50% of adults in America spend about 9.5 hours per day sitting, and roughly 25% report no leisure-time physical activity outside their jobs. Walking is the most underrated productivity tool there is. It supports creativity, clears your mind, improves digestion, circulation and overall mood.

Many of my best ideas happen mid-walk, not mid-meeting. Swap one Zoom for a walking meeting or pace while on calls. In their recent book, Built To Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully, Kelly and Juliet Starrett explain: “Walking gets everything flowing in our body. It’s how we nourish all our tissues, how we decongest, how we stimulate the body to release waste.”

4. Protect your sleep like revenue

Sleep is the original performance enhancer. Seven to eight hours nightly fuels decision-making, emotional regulation and productivity. If you skip quality sleep, you’re essentially showing up jet-lagged to your work, your family and your health. Build a down-regulating evening routine and treat bedtime like a standing appointment with your future self.

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Great Habits

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/living/upgrade-yourself-in-2026-with-these-10-business-backed/498597

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