James' World 2

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Like many of her neighbors in East Carroll Parish, in rural northeast Louisiana, Wanda Manning has struggled to get decent, affordable internet service. “I’m paying a lot of money each month, about $140, to get internet and phone service, but the internet isn’t dependable,” she says. “I often have problems staying connected. I’ll be in a meeting one minute, and the next minute I’ll find I’m no longer online.”

But Manning, a retired teacher who is part of a local church organization that has made headlines fighting to bring better internet service to East Carroll, is better off than many others in the community, who either don’t have internet or have to rely on dial-up service. “When I was teaching school remotely, we had people walking around their trailers holding up MyFi mobile hotspots just so their kids could be in school,” she says.

East Carroll is not unusual. In communities across the country, millions of people find it hard to find or afford a reliable high-speed internet connection. In addition, many internet bills are confusing, making it difficult and sometimes impossible for consumers to compare prices when shopping for a better, less expensive plan.

Those problems emerged from an analysis of more than 22,000 internet bills that Consumer Reports and several partner organizations collected from people around the country. Data from the project will be used to support a public-service and advocacy campaign called “Fight for a Fair Internet,” to encourage lawmakers, regulators, and internet service providers (ISPs) to improve broadband access and affordability.

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CR’s analysis found hard-to-understand bills that make it difficult for consumers to compare plans. Illustration: Chris Griggs/Consumer Reports

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The letters were meant to signify “Only Kevin,” CNN’s Melanie Zanona reported, as a rejoinder to the Never-McCarthy hard-liners on the right. But the message had an unfortunate double meaning that highlighted the doubts about the always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride candidate for speaker. McCarthy is just that: Okay. As in: not great. Not even above average. Just okay. One can anticipate future pro-McCarthy slogans as the Jan. 3 speaker election approaches:“McCarthy is adequate.”

“Meh.”

“He’s the best we’ve got.”

“[Shrug emoji].”

The “O.K.” buttons may have been the biggest messaging misfire since McCarthy, called a “moron” by Speaker Nancy Pelosi over his resistance to pandemic safety measures, removed all doubt about the charge by selling T-shirts with large letters proudly announcing: “Moron.”

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) attends a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. (Mary F. Calvert/Reuters)

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For months now, we’ve been in a nationwide debate over whether we should cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt for tens of millions of people. Next year, the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on the hundreds of billions of dollars at stake — and talking heads will debate, yet again, who is deserving of help in America.

The student debt cancellation program excludes people with especially high incomes. But hiding in plain sight is another federal program — 529 college savings plans — that offers the biggest benefits to wealthy families.

With the right accounting and legal moves — ones that have never been subject to the kind of scrutiny that debt cancellation has faced — people with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spare can create 529 accounts that will end up holding millions of dollars. With some careful planning, no taxes will come due for most people as long as future generations use the money to pay for college (say, $84,000 a year at a private university like Duke), graduate school (hello, half-a-million-dollar New York University dental school) and any other related educational costs, including high-rise dorms and Apple laptops.

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Robert Neubecker

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Well, that’s not entirely true. Having some money helps. But it’s certainly not the biggest contributor to our happiness and well-being. So what is? 

Before the big reveal, there are two things to consider. 

First, for some of us, we were dealt a good genetic hand. We are predisposed to being happier in life. Our temperamental “wiring” makes us less neurotic, more emotionally stable, and nicer people to be around.

Second, for some of us, we ended up in the right place at the right time (or the wrong place at the wrong time). German philosopher Martin Heidegger calls this “thrownness”, or Geworfen. This is the idea that our experience in life, from birth to death, is arbitrarily determined by where we’re thrown into the world. Born into a specific family in a particular culture or religion at a given moment in human history is a matter of pure dumb luck.

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Photo: Getty Images

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Nestled in the Ring of Kerry, the sleepy town of Kenmare is shrouded in a mist that runs off its rolling hills. Home to just 1,563 people, it maintains a unique, Wes Anderson-style charm; in the modern world yet not entirely of it. It is a million miles away from the TikTok drama that surrounds one of its newest residents, Carrie Jade Williams.

Relatively unknown until November 2020, Williams’ status in the literary community grew after she won the Financial Times’ Bodley Head/FT Essay Prize, which is open to writers under the age of 35. The winning entry is published in the FT Weekend, the weekend edition of the British newspaper, although the competition does not appear to have been run for the last two years. Williams’ entry was a moving essay about her diagnosis with Huntington’s Disease, a debilitating, degenerative genetic condition that affects the brain. Written using a speech-to-text computer program, the essay won her a £1,000 prize. 

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Photo: TikTok / VICE

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Rumination leads to poor sleep

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tommaso79 | Getty

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