CCF Briefing
1. U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High
2. Menstruation Joins the Economic Conversation
3. Periods in Space Are Not That Different, Though a Bit More Complicated
4. Why Do Boys Have Wieners?
5. Where do America’s poor live?
6. What’s the real gender pay gap?
7. TV’s Dwindling Middle Class
8. How the Other Fifth Lives
9. The Complex Math Behind Spiraling Prescription Drug Prices
10. Test Scores Show a Decline in Math Among High School Seniors
11. In Wealthy Pocket of Connecticut, an Innovative Approach to Affordable Housing
12. What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money?
13. Thriving at Age 70 and Beyond
14. Offering Kids a Taste of Alcohol
15. Aid in Dying in Canada
16. Race and the Standardized Testing Wars
17. Licensing Laws Are Shutting Young People Out Of The Job Market
18. The Voting Effect of Virginia’s Move on Felons? Small but Potentially Decisive
19. The Dangers of ‘Polypharmacy,’ the Ever-Mounting Pile of Pills
20. Why Won’t Hollywood Cast Asian Actors?
21. Bettye Caldwell, Educator Who Helped Pave Way for Head Start, Dies at 91
22. Rich People Are Living Longer. That’s Tilting Social Security in Their Favor.
23. Homicide’s Role in the Racial Life-Expectancy Gap
24. When the Patient Won’t Ever Get Better
25. Do Children in France Have a Healthier Relationship With Alcohol?
25a. Report: Gender wage gap has been growing wider and starting sooner than expected
26. Don’t believe the headlines—America’s educational standards aren’t collapsing
27. The GOP’s lost generation of millennial voters
28. 20 Years Later, Welfare Overhaul Resonates for Families and Candidates
29. Ignoring the Politics of Bad News
30. The Economy’s Crisis Ended Under Obama, But Its Long-Term Problems Didn’t
31. Raising a Child With Grit Can Mean Letting Her Quit
32. America’s great housing divide: Are you a winner or loser?
33. Aid in Dying: A Good or a Harm?
34. Don’t Treat Young Adults as Teenagers
35. Why Is American Home Birth So Dangerous?
36. What Can Stop Kids From Dropping Out
37. The awkward truth of ‘make America great again’
1. U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-surges-to-a-30-year-high.html
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WASHINGTON — Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every …
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Rates increased among almost all groups, a federal data analysis found, with women and middle-aged Americans hit particularly hard.
2. Menstruation Joins the Economic Conversation
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/business/menstruation-joins-the-economic-conversation.html
Businesses, lawmakers and advertisers, prodded in large part by calls for gender equality, have sought ways to make menstrual cycles less agonizing.
3. Periods in Space Are Not That Different, Though a Bit More Complicated
For future astronauts, who would rather not menstruate in space, researchers have written up some recommendations.
4. Why Do Boys Have Wieners?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-do-boys-have-wieners/
The questions kids ask about science aren’t always easy to answer.
5. Where do America’s poor live?
It depends on their race
6. What’s the real gender pay gap?
Despite advances, women remain more concentrated than men in lower-paying industries and occupations. Also, women still have slightly less on-the-job experience than men. This, too, lowers their average wages. Women’s entrance into the labor force has created new issues: the work-family balance; sexual tensions at work; lingering discrimination; the debate over family leave and affordable day care.
7. TV’s Dwindling Middle Class
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/magazine/tvs-dwindling-middle-class.html
Money worries and striving were part of the mainstream sitcom. Now most characters exist in a classless world.
8. How the Other Fifth Lives
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/opinion/campaign-stops/how-the-other-fifth-lives.html
The self-segregation of a privileged fifth of the population is changing the American social order and the American political system.
9. The Complex Math Behind Spiraling Prescription Drug Prices
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/high-drug-prices-explained.html
How much Americans pay at the pharmacy depends on a complicated system of list prices, discounts, fees and deductibles, with the sickest often paying the most.
10. Test Scores Show a Decline in Math Among High School Seniors
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/us/math-test-scores-decline-high-school-seniors.html
Average performance dropped in math from 2013 to 2015 but held steady in reading, results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed.
11. In Wealthy Pocket of Connecticut, an Innovative Approach to Affordable Housing
In compliance with a state law, New Canaan is trying to reverse decades of housing discrimination in one of the most economically stratified areas of the nation.
12. What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money?
13. Thriving at Age 70 and Beyond
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/thriving-at-age-70-and-beyond/
In “70Candles!,” older women explore the most important issues facing women as they age, and how society might help ease their way into the future.
14. Offering Kids a Taste of Alcohol
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/offering-kids-a-taste-of-alcohol/
Parents may think that giving children sips of wine at holidays promotes a healthy, festive attitude toward alcohol, but some studies show it correlates with problem drinking later.
15. Aid in Dying in Canada
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/opinion/sunday/aid-in-dying-in-canada.html
It’s important to provide a humane option to the dying. It’s also essential that people have access to palliative and hospice care.
16. Race and the Standardized Testing Wars
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/opinion/sunday/race-and-the-standardized-testing-wars.html
A growing number of minority parents and educators are joining the anti-testing movement.
17. Licensing Laws Are Shutting Young People Out Of The Job Market
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/licensing-laws-are-shutting-young-people-out-of-the-job-market/
18. The Voting Effect of Virginia’s Move on Felons? Small but Potentially Decisive
Research shows that few of the newly eligible voters will register; still fewer will vote. But they could decide a close election.
19. The Dangers of ‘Polypharmacy,’ the Ever-Mounting Pile of Pills
The combining of prescription and over-the-counter drugs has doctors more concerned than ever about the risks, especially among older adults.
20. Why Won’t Hollywood Cast Asian Actors?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood-cast-asian-actors.html
Economics has nothing to do with racist casting policies.
21. Bettye Caldwell, Educator Who Helped Pave Way for Head Start, Dies at 91
Dr. Caldwell, a longtime advocate for what she called educare, collaborated on a pilot project that helped prepare poor children for elementary school.
22. Rich People Are Living Longer. That’s Tilting Social Security in Their Favor.
23. Homicide’s Role in the Racial Life-Expectancy Gap
http://www.wsj.com/articles/homicides-role-in-the-racial-life-expectancy-gap-1461797871?mod=djemMER
In the western U.S., blacks and whites are now equally good at controlling chronic conditions like high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes. We’ve made progress toward closing the racial gap for almost all causes of death, with one notable exception: homicide. To narrow the black-white difference even more than we already have, treat violence like it’s a disease.
24. When the Patient Won’t Ever Get Better
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/when-the-patient-wont-ever-get-better/
There are about 100,000 men and women with chronic critical illness in the United States, and this number is only expected to grow.
25. Do Children in France Have a Healthier Relationship With Alcohol?
25a. Report: Gender wage gap has been growing wider and starting sooner than expected
New data shows that pay disparities between men and women begin right after college graduation, long before decisions like maternity leave can affect earnings.
26. Don’t believe the headlines—America’s educational standards aren’t collapsing
New test results released this week showed a slight dip in math and reading scores among U.S. high school seniors. Brad Hershbein explains why you should take this news with a grain of salt.
27. The GOP’s lost generation of millennial voters
New survey data suggest that young people have become increasingly averse to just about every plank in today’s creaky Republican Party platform.
28. 20 Years Later, Welfare Overhaul Resonates for Families and Candidates
A 1996 law creating work rules and time limits for aid recipients was initially hailed as a success, but poverty rates remain high, a daunting problem for the next president.
29. Ignoring the Politics of Bad News
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/us/politics/us-elections-economy.html
Politics aside, there is more good news than bad.
30. The Economy’s Crisis Ended Under Obama, But Its Long-Term Problems Didn’t
Among them: slow growth in wages and productivity; rising inequality; falling labor force participation, especially among men; and the decline of manufacturing and the failure to find a new source of middle-class jobs to replace it.
31. Raising a Child With Grit Can Mean Letting Her Quit
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/29/when-raising-a-child-with-grit-means-letting-her-quit/
The rule at the “grit” expert Angela Duckworth’s house? You can quit. But you can’t quit on a hard day.
32. America’s great housing divide: Are you a winner or loser?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/wonk/housing/overview/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines
The U.S. housing market has recovered from the crisis that plunged the country into recession. But a Washington Post analysis shows that the recovery was deeply uneven, creating winners and losers along lines of race, income and geography.
33. Aid in Dying: A Good or a Harm?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/opinion/aid-in-dying-a-good-or-a-harm.html
Advocates on both sides of the issue respond.
34. Don’t Treat Young Adults as Teenagers
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/dont-treat-young-adults-as-teenagers.html
Raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to 21 is misguided.
35. Why Is American Home Birth So Dangerous?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/why-is-american-home-birth-so-dangerous.html
If women knew the risks, they might not hire these midwives.
36. What Can Stop Kids From Dropping Out
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/what-can-stop-kids-from-dropping-out.html
Simple steps raise the graduation rate, especially among minority students.
37. The awkward truth of ‘make America great again’
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/29/opinions/2016-candidates-false-nostalgia-coontz/
Idealizing the era when America was the economic powerhouse of the world, bipartisanship reigned and male breadwinner families were the norm requires overlooking much else. Nostalgia is never random. We cherry-pick the past, highlighting what we like and leaving out the things we don’t, even if they were closely intertwined.
