The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to allow President Trump to deploy hundreds of National Guard troops in the Chicago area over the objection of Illinois officials, casting doubt on the viability of similar deployments in other American cities.
The justices’ order is preliminary, but it blocks the Trump administration for now from ordering the state-based military force to the Chicago area, where an immigration crackdown led to thousands of arrests and confrontations between residents and federal agents.
In its three-page unsigned ruling against the administration, the court refused to grant the president broad discretion to deploy the military in U.S. cities, citing an 1878 law, which bans the use of the military for domestic policing. It represented a rare departure from recent cases, in which the conservative majority has overwhelmingly sided with Mr. Trump in preliminary tests of presidential power.
At this stage in the litigation, the court said the Trump administration had not shown that the statute at issue “permits the president to federalize the Guard in the exercise of inherent authority to protect federal personnel and property in Illinois.”
Three conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Neil M. Gorsuch — noted their objections in lengthy dissents, with Justice Alito writing that “the protection of federal officers from potentially lethal attacks should not be thwarted.”
In response to the ruling, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said the president had promised to “work tirelessly to enforce our immigration laws and protect federal personnel from violent rioters.”
She added: “He activated the National Guard to protect federal law enforcement officers, and to ensure rioters did not destroy federal buildings and property. Nothing in today’s ruling detracts from that core agenda.”
Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois called the ruling a victory for democracy.
“This is an important step in curbing the Trump administration’s consistent abuse of power and slowing Trump’s march toward authoritarianism,” Mr. Pritzker, a Democrat, said in a statement. “The brave men and women of our National Guard should never be used for political theater and deserve to be with their families and communities, especially during the holidays.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago said he hoped the Supreme Court’s ruling would shield other cities from unwanted National Guard deployments.
Mr. Trump had also in recent months ordered the National Guard to Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., also over the objections of state and local leaders. The president’s efforts to use troops for domestic policing prompted legal challenges accusing the Trump administration of exceeding its authority and infringing on traditional state powers over policing. The state-based troops are typically deployed at the request of governors to respond to emergencies in their own states, such as natural disasters.
Federal law allows the president to federalize members of the National Guard without the permission of state officials in certain circumstances, notably when there is a “rebellion or danger of a rebellion” against the government or when law enforcement is overwhelmed and cannot execute U.S. law.
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The president’s efforts to use troops for domestic policing have prompted legal challenges accusing the Trump administration of exceeding its authority. Credit…Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Offshore wind farms may do more than boost renewable energy: they might support marine ecosystems, too. That’s the takeaway of a new study conducted in China. The researchers found that wind turbines provided support for colonies of oysters and barnacles and that fish species and biomass were more abundant near the turbines than they were in an area without the machines.
The study counters a frequent criticism of offshore wind farms—that they are detrimental to marine life and may damage the seabed. China, while being the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is a global leader in renewable energy build-out, including offshore wind projects. It has the largest wind power capacity of any nation and plans to build the world’s largest wind turbine.
Located in China’s northern Yellow Sea, the wind farm evaluated in the study gave rise to a so-called benthic ecosystem—one dominated by seafloor organisms—that was nonexistent in a comparable area nearby that had no turbines. The researchers think the rough turbine surfaces provided an optimal habitat for such organisms.
Because these organisms were able to grow and thrive on and around the turbines, predatory fish followed the food, boosting the ecosystem’s diversity and stability overall, said James Tweedley, a senior lecturer at Murdoch University in Australia and a co-author of the study, in a recent statement.
Lawmakers are threatening to take action against the Trump Administration for only partially releasing government files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein despite a new law requiring it to make all such materials public by last Friday.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Monday that he is introducing a resolution directing the Senate to initiate legal action against the Justice Department “for its blatant disregard of the law in its refusal to release the complete Epstein files.”
“The law Congress passed is crystal clear: release the Epstein files in full so Americans can see the truth. Instead, the Trump Department of Justice dumped redactions and withheld the evidence—that breaks the law,” Schumer said in a press release. He called the move a “blatant cover-up,” accusing Justice Department officials of “shielding [President] Donald Trump from accountability.”
Schumer’s announcement comes after two other lawmakers—Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky—said over the weekend that they were discussing pursuing contempt findings against Attorney General Pam Bondi for the incomplete release. Khanna and Massie co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump last month that gave the Justice Department 30 days to make public a wide collection of unclassified documents related to Epstein, his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, and other people connected to their cases. The law allows the department to redact some information in certain situations, such as to protect victims’ identities and to adhere to the rules of grand jury secrecy.
“The quickest way, and I think most expeditious way, to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi,” Massie said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” which aired on Sunday. “Ro Khanna and I are talking about and drafting that right now.”
The resolution, Khanna told The Washington Post, would also include a provision that would permit a congressional committee to evaluate any redactions to the files to ensure that there is a valid reason for the redaction.
The Justice Department began releasing the files in the Epstein case on Friday, the deadline imposed by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Before the release, the Trump Administration warned earlier that day that it wouldn’t be releasing all the files—which is required by the law—because of the large scale of the redactions it said were needed to protect victims’ identities.
“What we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story to the extent it needs to be protected is completely protected,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News on Friday. He added that more documents are expected to be made public over the coming weeks.
Victims of Epstein and lawmakers quickly criticized the department for releasing incomplete and heavily redacted documents that included no significant new details about Epstein’s crimes or the attempts to investigate him.
“For survivors, this deadline was not symbolic for us but was a real opportunity to see whether transparency would finally outweigh the protection of powerful interests, after decades of reporting this abuse,” Liz Stein, an Epstein survivor and anti-trafficking advocate, said in a statement. “The DOJ’s partial, staggered release—largely repeating already public information, lacking context, and extending beyond the statutory deadline—violates federal law and risks shielding the individuals and institutions who perpetrated and enabled this abuse, falling far short of the transparency intended by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks at a press conference with other Senate Democrats on the upcoming deadline for the release of the Epstein files, in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 16, 2025.Nathan Posner—Anadolu/Getty Images
Hmmmm … Is War part of the current administration’s plan?
Click the link below the picture
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Where ICE makes arrests
The Trump administration has said it would prioritize deporting the “worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.”
Historically, ICE detained immigrants who had committed crimes through “custodial” arrests — picking up people who had already been arrested by other law enforcement agencies from jails and prisons.
While custodial arrests still make up half of all immigration arrests, ICE has increasingly gone after anyone who may be in the country illegally, whether they have a criminal record or not.
Most ICE arrests at jails and prisons take place in Republican-led states like Florida, Georgia, and Texas.
The rest are “at-large” arrests in the community, which are more common in states led by Democrats, like California and New York, where many local agencies do not cooperate with ICE.
More people who have been in the country for years or decades are being swept up and removed. More than 3,000 adults who entered before the age of 16 — potential “Dreamers” — have been deported, as have more than 4,000 children.
Where they are held
In the past, most people who were arrested were released to await their day in immigration court. Illegal immigration is a civil — not a criminal — offense, and detention was designed to hold only those deemed a flight risk.
But the Trump administration told ICE to hold people indefinitely and told immigration judges that most people are no longer eligible for bail. The Laken Riley Act, passed in January, further narrowed who can be released.
Immigrant detention centers are filling up, even as the Trump administration has opened dozens of new facilities to expand the capacity and reach of this network
The detained population has nearly doubled, to more than 68,000 people in December, an all-time high.
People detained by ICE have described unsanitary and unsafe conditions in some detention centers — including rotten food, a lack of access to showers and toilets, and the use of solitary confinement. At least 32 people have died in ICE custody since Mr. Trump took office, more than the number in Mr. Biden’s entire four years in office.
Officials have denied claims of poor conditions and mistreatment of detainees.
Because detention facilities are concentrated in the South, people arrested elsewhere are often quickly transferred long distances to places where there is space, often in Texas and Louisiana, far from family and lawyers.
Each line here represents the average monthly volume of transfers of immigrant detainees between detention facilities. Darker lines reflect higher numbers of detainee transfers.
People are moving around the system more than last year — passing through an average of three different facilities over seven weeks before they are deported. Immigration lawyers say the process has caused some people to give up their asylum cases and to agree to be deported.
Where deported people go
The Trump administration has deported people to almost every country in the world, including those that had resisted taking back their citizens. It has sent people to repressive regimes, including Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia, and it has pressed countries like South Sudan and Uganda to accept deportees from far-away places who have no ties to those countries.
Detailed data on ICE removals was available only through the end of July, but it showed that the monthly pace of deportations had more than doubled compared with last year for people from more than 100 places.
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How ICE has moved thousands of people through detention and out of the country.
Ancient Romans in Britain were riddled with intestinal parasites that spread through human feces.
A new analysis of the sewer system at Vindolanda, a Roman fort near Hadrian’s Wall, found that residents in ancient times were infected with at least three gut parasites—roundworm, whipworm, and Giardia duodenalis.
Roundworms and whipworms both live in the intestine and cause various ailments, including abdominal pain, nausea, fever, and diarrhea. Roundworms can grow as long as 30 centimeters, while whipworms tend to be smaller. People can get infected by ingesting food or drink contaminated with human feces holding the eggs of these worms. Giardia duodenalis, meanwhile, is not a worm but a tiny organism that lives primarily inside the small intestine. It exists in two forms—cysts and trophozoites—and causes giardiasis, an illness that causes severe diarrhea and makes it harder for the body to absorb vital nutrients. It is also spread through human waste.
For the analysis, published in the journal Parasitology, researchers looked at 50 sediment samples taken from the drain of a third-century latrine at the fort. About 28 percent of the samples contained whipworm or roundworm eggs, whereas others had traces of Giardia duodenalis. A sample from an older structure dating to the first century also contained the worms.
What all this suggests is that ancient Romans were probably not as fastidious about washing their hands or their food as we are today. Fecal matter may also have contaminated the drinking water supply at Vindolanda fort, sickening the residents. And once the Romans were infected, there was little that could be done, said study co-author Marissa Ledger, a medical microbiology resident at McMaster University in Ontario, in a statement.
“While the Romans were aware of intestinal worms, there was little their doctors could do to clear infection by these parasites or help those experiencing diarrhoea, meaning symptoms could persist and worsen,” Ledger said.
The conditions almost certainly affected the Romans’ ability to protect Hadrian’s Wall, a vital defense structure built by the Romans in C.E. 122 to keep out the Picts and other tribes who lived to the north. Disease outbreaks would have been common, with dozens sickened at a time.
Ultimately, the findings suggest life for a Roman soldier at Hadrian’s Wall was pretty miserable, the researchers said. “Excavations at Vindolanda continue to find new evidence that helps us to understand the incredible hardships faced by those posted to this northwestern frontier of the Roman Empire nearly 2,000 years ago,” said Andrew Birley, a co-author of the study and CEO of the Vindolanda Charitable Trust.
A Wisconsin teacher pleaded guilty to one count of child enticement and two counts of sexual misconduct and was sentenced to six years in prison
Madison Bergmann broke down in tears at her sentencing hearing on Friday, Dec. 19
Bergmann exchanged thousands of texts with an 11-year-old student, including one that referenced “making out” with him
A Wisconsin elementary school teacher who engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a student broke down in tears after being sentenced to six years in prison on Friday, Dec. 19.
Madison Bergmann was sentenced to six years of confinement, to be followed by six years of supervision, after pleading guilty to one count of child enticement and two counts of sexual misconduct, according to KARE 11, WQOW, and WEAU.
Bergmann, 26, frequently texted an 11-year-old student, PEOPLE previously reported.
Authorities previously said in a criminal complaint that Bergmann sent texts saying how much she enjoyed “making out” with him and that she liked when he touched her, KARE 11 reported.
The outlet further reported that subsequent searches revealed 100 handwritten notes and artwork, in addition to thousands of texts.
“Dude, I love you so much more — like I didn’t think it was possible — but oh my god today during reading….” she wrote in one of the texts, according to WEAU.
KARE reported that Bergmann ultimately pleaded guilty in order to receive a reduced sentence. The outlet reported that she had asked the judge to only sentence her to a year behind bars, whereas prosecutors requested 12 years.
In a video of the proceedings aired by KARE, Bergmann apologized for her conduct.
“I want to make it absolutely clear that I take full accountability for every boundary that was crossed,” Bergmann said through tears.
The victim’s father also spoke at the sentencing hearing, calling the texts “disturbing stuff.”
Just a few weeks after a whirlwind rebel offensive seized control of his homeland last year, a Syrian expatriate in Moscow treated himself to a meal in the city’s tallest skyscraper.
With views from the 62nd floor, stylish hostesses and elaborate cocktails, the restaurant “Sixty” regularly welcomes members of Russia’s political elite and foreign celebrities.
So the Syrian diner, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he had not been surprised when waiters asked him to refrain from taking photos.
But he was surprised to discover who one of the V.I.P.s dining in his midst was: his country’s ousted dictator, Bashar al-Assad.
For more than five decades, the Assad family name has been synonymous with brutal autocracy. Now, the Assads are fugitives living in Moscow.
Both the deposed president and his brother Maher, one of the regime’s most powerful military leaders, have betrayed little about how they spend their days in the country that propped them up when they were in power and took them in when they fell.
But from witnesses and family friends, and digital clues left on hard-to-track social media accounts, reporters for The New York Times have uncovered glimpses into a life of luxury and impunity.
Details of the Assad family’s lives emerged from a Times investigation into the whereabouts of 55 of the regime’s highest-ranking officials. The people who spoke to The Times — including family friends, relatives, and former officials — insisted on anonymity out of concern for their safety.
The Assads’ luxurious exile began from the first moments they fled to Moscow via private jets and car convoys, according to a relative, two family friends, and two ex-military officers from the Fourth Division, which Maher al-Assad led. All of them have spoken to, stayed with, or met members of the Assad family.
Under the close guard of Russian security services, they first stayed in opulent apartments run by the Four Seasons, which can cost up to $13,000 per week.
From there, the deposed president and his family moved to a two-story penthouse in Federation Tower, the same skyscraper where the restaurant Sixty is located. Later, Mr. al-Assad was moved to a villa in the secluded suburb of Rublyovka, west of Moscow, according to a former Syrian official in touch with the family, another acquaintance, and a regional diplomat told by Russian officials.
The enclave is popular with the Russian elite and boasts a “luxury village” shopping complex. The Russian security services continue to guard Mr. al-Assad and oversee his movements, the former officials and regional diplomat said, and have ordered the family not to make public statements.
In February, the Russian authorities moved quickly, three other former officials said, when Mr. al-Assad’s son Hafez, 24, wrote about the family’s escape on social media and shared a video of himself strolling through Moscow. He has not posted online since.
Two acquaintances said they had seen Maher al-Assad, a baseball cap low over his eyes, several times at a gleaming skyscraper in Moscow’s business district where they believed he was living. One family friend said he lived in the Capital Towers buildings in that district.
In June, he was seen in a video on social media at the trendy Myata Platinum hookah bar in Afimall, a nearby shopping and entertainment complex.
While in power, Maher and the forces he led were accused of shooting unarmed protesters, enforcing “surrender or starve” sieges and running a regional drug trafficking operation estimated to have made them billions of dollars.
Judging by the activities of the Assad daughters, the family has retained significant wealth.
In November, the ousted dictator invited friends and Russian officials to a villa in the suburbs for an opulent party celebrating his daughter Zein’s 22nd birthday, according to a relative, a former regime officer, and a family friend whose children or close friends attended the party.
Ms. al-Assad’s cousin and Maher’s daughter, Sham al-Assad, also appeared to celebrate her 22nd birthday with an extravaganza, held over two nights in mid-September at a gold-tiled French restaurant called Bagatelle in Dubai and then on a private yacht.
The social media accounts of both women are set to private, with user names that don’t obviously signal their identities. But The Times found and confirmed the authenticity of the accounts through tips from relatives and family friends, then examined images and videos from public-facing Instagram posts by their friends.
One post from Sham al-Assad’s birthday showed golden 22-shaped balloons surrounded by gifts in bags from luxury brands such as Hermès, Chanel, and Dior.
Another captured revelers at Bagatelle surrounded by champagne sparklers. There is a glimpse of Ms. al-Assad herself, shaking a bottle of Cristal in a cheering crowd. Another photo tags her cousin Zein’s Instagram, though she is not seen in the shot.
Amy Bies was recovering in the hospital from injuries inflicted during a car accident in May 2007 when routine laboratory tests showed that her blood glucose and cholesterol were both dangerously high. Doctors ultimately sent her home with prescriptions for two standard drugs, metformin for what turned out to be type 2 diabetes and a statin to control her cholesterol levels and the heart disease risk they posed.
The combo, however, didn’t prevent a heart attack in 2013. And by 2019, she was on 12 different prescriptions to manage her continued high cholesterol and her diabetes and to reduce her heart risk. The resulting cocktail left her feeling so terrible that she considered going on medical leave from work. “I couldn’t even get through my day. I was so nauseated,” she said. “I would come out to my car in my lunch hour and pray that I could just not do this anymore.”
Medical researchers now think Bies’s conditions were not unfortunate co-occurrences. Rather, they stem from the same biological mechanisms. The medical problem frequently begins in fat cells and ends in a dangerous cycle that damages seemingly unrelated organs and body systems: the heart and blood vessels, the kidneys, and insulin regulation, and the pancreas. Harm to one organ creates ailments that assault the other two, prompting further illnesses that circle back to damage the original body part.
Diseases of these three organs and systems are “tremendously interrelated,” says Chiadi Ndumele, a preventive cardiologist at Johns Hopkins University. The ties are so strong that in 2023 the American Heart Association grouped the conditions under one name: cardio-kidney-metabolic syndrome (CKM), with “metabolic syndrome” referring to diabetes and obesity.
The good news, says Ndumele, who led the heart association group that developed the CKM framework, is that CKM can be treated with new drugs. The wildly popular GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro, target common pathology underlying CKM. “The thing that has really moved the needle the most has been the advances in treatment,” says Sadiya Khan, a preventive cardiologist at Northwestern University. Although most of these drugs come only in injectable forms that can cost several hundred dollars a week, pill versions of some medications are up for approval, and people on Medicare could pay just $50 a month for them under a new White House pricing proposal. The appearance of these drugs on the scene is fortunate because researchers estimate that 90 percent of Americans have at least one risk factor for the syndrome.
More than a century before Bies entered the hospital, doctors had noticed that many of the conditions CKM syndrome comprises often occur together. They referred to the ensemble by terms such as “syndrome X.” People with diabetes, for instance, are two to four times more likely to develop heart disease than those without diabetes. Heart disease causes 40 to 50 percent of all deaths in people with advanced chronic kidney disease. And diabetes is one of the strongest risk factors for developing kidney conditions.At present, around 59 million adults worldwide have diabetes, about 64 million are diagnosed with heart failure, and approximately 700 million live with chronic kidney disease.
The first inkling of a connection among these disparate conditions came as far back as 1923, when several lines of research started to spot links among high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and high levels of uric acid—a sign of kidney disease and gout.
Then, several decades ago, researchers identified the first step in these tangled disease pathways: dysfunction in fat cells. Until the 1940s, scientists thought fat cells were simply a stash for excess energy. The 1994 discovery of leptin, a hormone secreted by fat cells, showed researchers a profound way that fat could communicate with and affect different body parts.
Since then, researchers have learned that certain kinds of fat cells release a medley of inflammatory and oxidative compounds that can damage the heart, kidneys, muscles, and other organs. The inflammation they cause impairs cells’ ability to respond to the pancreatic hormone insulin, which helps cells absorb sugars to fuel their activities. In addition to depriving cells of their primary energy source, insulin resistance causes glucose to build up in the blood—the telltale symptom of diabetes—further harming blood vessels and the organs they support. The compounds also reduce the ability of kidneys to filter toxins from the blood.
Insulin resistance and persistently high levels of glucose trigger a further cascade of events. Too much glucose harms mitochondria—tiny energy producers within cells—and nudges them to make unstable molecules known as reactive oxygen species that disrupt the functions of different enzymes and proteins. This process wrecks kidney and heart tissue, causing the heart to enlarge and blood vessels to become stiffer, impeding circulation and setting the stage for clots. Diabetes reduces levels of stem cells that help to fix this damage. High glucose levels also prod the kidneys to release more of the hormone renin, which sets off a hormonal cascade critical to controlling blood pressure and maintaining healthy electrolyte levels.
At the same time, cells that are resistant to insulin shift to digesting stored fats. This metabolic move releases other chemicals that cause lipid molecules such as cholesterol to clog blood vessels. The constriction leads to spikes in blood pressure and heightens a diabetic person’s risk of heart disease.
The circular connections wind even tighter. Just as diabetes can lead to heart and kidney conditions, illnesses of those organs can increase a person’s risk of developing diabetes. Disruption of the kidneys’ renin-angiotensin system—named for the hormones involved, which regulate blood pressure—also interferes with insulin signaling. Adrenomedullin, a hormone that increases during obesity, can also block insulin signaling in the cells that line blood vessels and the heart in humans and mice. Early signs of heart disease, such as constricted blood vessel,s can exhaust kidney cells, which rely on a strong circulatory system to filter waste effectively.
The year before Bies’s car accident, when she was in her early 30s, her primary care doctor diagnosed her with prediabetes—part of metabolic syndrome—and recommended changes such as a healthier diet and more exercise. But at the time, the physician didn’t mention that this illness also increased her risk of heart disease.
Not seeing these connections creates dangers for patients like Bies. “What we’ve done to date is really look individually across one or two organs to see abnormalities,” says nephrologist Nisha Bansal of the University of Washington. And those narrow views have led doctors to treat the different elements of CKM as separate, isolated problems.
For instance, doctors have often used clinical algorithms to figure out a patient’s risk of heart failure. But in a 2022 study, Bansal and her colleagues found that one common version of this tool does not work as well in people with kidney disease. As a result, those who had kidney disease—who are twice as likely to develop heart disease as are people with healthy kidneys—were less likely to be diagnosed and treated in a timely manner than those without kidney ailments.
Today’s teens are drinking and smoking less, but many are spending more time online, where risky behaviors can be harder for parents to spot.
Experts say this shift from in-person rebellion to digital risk-taking may leave kids more isolated and struggling with anxiety and loneliness.
Parents can help by staying connected to their child’s online world, setting clear screen limits, and encouraging face-to-face friendships and activities.
If you ever snuck home smelling like cheap wine and cigarettes in an act of teenage rebellion, well, you might be showing your age. Research suggests substance abuse isn’t the vice it once was for teenagers.
According to new data from consumer research platform Attest, 20% of 15- to 16-year-olds have tried alcohol, down from 71% of 10th graders in 2000. The same survey, based on results from 1,000 U.S. parents, revealed that cigarette and drug use is also lower, with 14% and 6% of teens trying them, respectively. Meanwhile, 44% of 10th graders in 2000 had tried marijuana, according to the report.1
While these figures are parent-led (and therefore potentially conservative), it’s reflective of an overall decrease in trends of substance use, says Joel Stoddard, MD, child and adolescent psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Previous research confirms substance use among adolescents is on the decline.2
But experts warn this doesn’t necessarily mean teenagers are making healthier choices. In fact, our youngest teens, Generation Alpha—those born between 2010 and 2024—as well as older ones, could be at risk of something else insidious.
“The rebellion has moved online, and it’s much harder for adults to see,” explains Saba Harouni Lurie, LMFT, ATR-BC, family therapist and owner and founder of Take Root Therapy. “When I was younger, rebellion was visible. Now, a teen can sit in their room looking perfectly compliant while they’re engaging in all kinds of boundary-pushing behavior on their phone.”
So, what does this mean for parents? Experts say there are a few things they need to be aware of.
A Generational Change
The new study is part of a bigger, generational picture. And it’s global.
For example, a recent study into more than 23,000 Australians by Flinders University found Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012) are almost 20 times more likely to say “no” to alcohol compared to Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964).3
While fewer teens engaging in substance use sounds like great news, Lurie says Gen Alpha may be avoiding one set of risks, while becoming vulnerable to another.
“What concerns me as both a clinician and a parent is that while substance use has declined, so has in-person socialization,” she says.
Teens are going out less, spending far less time with friends in person, and engaging in fewer unstructured social activities.
“So while the reduction in risky behavior is positive, I’m not sure we can conclude that Gen Alpha is simply choosing healthier lifestyles,” says Lurie.
Mackenzie Sommerhalder, PhD, assistant professor in child and adolescent psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, agrees, saying, “One might conceptualize increased use of social media and artificial intelligence (AI) as risk-taking behavior. The negative side-effects of these tools on adolescent development are well known, and yet adolescents continue to engage with the tools.”
More than a dozen photos — including one featuring President Trump — were removed without explanation from the large collection of files connected to the investigations of Jeffrey Epstein that the Justice Department released on Friday.
A total of 16 photos were taken down at some point on Saturday from the website that the department created to house files — among them, one of the few that contained Mr. Trump’s image. It was a photo of a credenza in Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan home, with an open drawer containing other photos, including at least one of Mr. Trump.
The Justice Department did not explain on the site why the images had been removed, and a department spokesman did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee immediately seized on the missing photo of Mr. Trump, reposting it on social media and asking Attorney General Pam Bondi if it was true that the image had been removed.
“What else is being covered up?” the post said. “We need transparency for the American public.”
Twelve of the other missing photos pictured the infamous massage room on the third floor of Mr. Epstein’s mansion in New York. The room, which sat down the hall from Mr. Epstein’s bedroom, was where investigators say that many of his sexual assaults occurred — some of them against teenage victims. The shelves in the room were stocked with lubricants and a silver ball and chain, among other things.
The massage room images that were removed depicted paintings and photographs of nude women, some with their faces redacted. But other images and artwork featuring nude women remained on the site. And some photos of the massage room — including the nude imagery — also remained.
The missing photos were part of a vast collection of materials that the Trump administration was compelled to release after the passage last month of a law mandating that the Justice Department disclose all files in its possession related to Mr. Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking minors.
Despite mounting expectations, the released files, which included thousands of photographs and investigative documents, were something of an anticlimax. They added little to the public’s understanding of Mr. Epstein’s conduct, and also did not provide much additional insight into his connections to wealthy and powerful businessmen and politicians who associated with him.
Mr. Trump has, uncharacteristically, said nothing about the files, which contained far more material about one of his political adversaries, former President Bill Clinton, than about him. Still, the Justice Department has said that more disclosures from its files about Mr. Epstein would be coming in the next few weeks.
On Saturday, the department released a second tranche of files that included transcripts from the closed-door grand jury proceedings in the federal investigations into Mr. Epstein and his close associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
While those documents had never before been made public, they added little to what has already been known about the cases.
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A photo taken of a credenza in Jeffrey Epstein’s home — which contained at least one image of President Trump — was among the material removed from the site. Credit…Department of Justice
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Explore the dynamic relationship between faith and science, where curiosity meets belief. Join us in fostering dialogue, inspiring discovery, and celebrating the profound connections that enrich our understanding of existence.
The president’s efforts to use troops for domestic policing have prompted legal challenges accusing the Trump administration of exceeding its authority. Credit…Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Liu Mingzhu/Getty Images
How ICE has moved thousands of people through detention and out of the country.
DeAgostini/Getty Images
KARE 11/YouTube Madison Bergmann
Jennifer N. R. Smith
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James' World 2 