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10 FEB 2022
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Facts, not fear. | |
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TRENDING TOPICS
LGBTQ discussions in school • Consumer debt record • Iran nuclear deal talks • NHS waiting time • Nuclear fusion breakthrough |
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FEATURED UNDER-REPORTED STORIES
Private equity landlords • Diet-heart hypothesis • Dutch floating homes |
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TRENDING TOPICS, MOST CREDIBLE STORIES |
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#1 in U.S. News • 22 articles
What does Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill aim to achieve? |
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Highly-rated - last 48 hrs
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signals support for 'Don't Say Gay' bill.
NBC News (Moderate Left) •
Factual Grade 88% • 4 min read
Florida Gov. DeSantis voiced his support for a bill that would prohibit the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the state's primary schools. Proponents of the Parental Rights in Education bill argue that discussions about LGBTQ issues are "not age-appropriate" for students.
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Although DeSantis stopped short of committing to sign the bill into law, it was the first time the Republican governor signaled his support for the measure since it was proposed by the state's House of Representatives last month. Following the governor’s comments, a nearly identical state Senate version of the bill passed Florida’s Senate Education Committee on Tuesday along party lines.
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State Rep. Joe Harding, the Republican who introduced the bill, said that the measure would not prevent students from discussing their families. He added that teachers would not be prohibited from lessons on LGBTQ history. Four states — Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Mississippi — have laws similar to the proposed Florida measure.
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Different political viewpoint
Fact check: Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill doesn’t mention ‘gay’, would apply to ‘primary’ grades.
Breitbart (Right) •
Factual Grade 74% • 3 min read
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Selected long-read
Young trans children know who they are. (2019)
The Atlantic (Moderate Left) •
Factual Grade 76% • 8 min read
View all articles | |
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TODAY'S POLL Are K - 5 students too young to talk about sexual orientation and gender identity?
All votes are anonymous. This poll closes at: 9:00 PDT
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YESTERDAY'S POLL
Have school mask mandates been effective in reducing Covid-19's toll?
674 votes, 84 comments Context: Multiple states lift or modify school mask mandates.
HIGHLIGHTED COMMENTS
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No - Do we really think that kids are disciplined enough to use masks properly all day? I also find it odd that nobody is talking about an MIT study from almost a year ago that indicates your chances of exposure, regardless of masking, is relative to your time inside a building, most of which have recirculating air systems - like schools!”
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Yes - How effective? Hard to say. Worth it? Extremely hard to say. But it is close to preposterous to say that masks, which are demonstrated to offer a little or a lot of protection (depending on the mask, the fit, the diligence of the wearer) have not kept a substantive portion of kids from getting infected and bringing it home to more vulnerable adults. Of course masks have helped, and without mandates, fewer masks would be worn and more lives would have been lost. How many? Hard to say.”
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Unsure - Considering that students rarely wear their masks properly, and that they must take them off to eat, it's impossible to know. What is known is that if high-quality masks are worn properly, transmission is reduced. What I find incredibly sad is that a certain proportion of the population has refused to do anything experts have recommended, and are now saying, "See? I told you it wouldn't work," when in fact we'll never know if it would have worked because they never cooperated in the first place.”
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#2 in U.S. News • 10 articles
Why has U.S. consumer debt risen to a record level? |
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Highly-rated - last 48 hrs
Consumer debt totals $15.6 trillion in 2021, a record-breaking increase.
CNBC (Moderate Left) •
Factual Grade 73% • 2 min read
Total U.S. consumer debt at the end of the year came to $15.6 trillion, a year-over-year jump of $333 billion during the fourth quarter and just over $1 trillion for the full year. The quarterly rise was the biggest since 2007, and the annual gain was the largest ever in records going back to 2003.
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Mortgages saw balances rise by $890 billion for the year, to nearly $11 trillion. Mortgage originations for the year totaled more than $4.5 trillion, a new record. Credit card balances increased by $52 billion in the final three months of the year, a new quarterly record that brought total debt in that category to $860 billion. Owing to the rapid gain in prices, auto-loan balances rose by $90 billion, or 6.6%, to $1.46 trillion.
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The news comes ahead of a period in which the Fed is expected to start jacking up interest rates as it looks to tamp down inflation. Fed interest moves are directly tied to the prime rate that consumers pay for many forms of debt, including credit cards and adjustable-rate mortgages.
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Different political viewpoint
U.S. households took on $1 trillion in new debt in 2021. [Free read link]
Wall Street Journal (Moderate Right) •
Factual Grade 72% • 2 min read
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Selected long-read
Americans’ pandemic-era ‘excess savings’ are dwindling for many. (2021) [Free read link]
New York Times (Moderate Left) •
Factual Grade 79% • 8 min read
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#1 in World News • 20 articles
Will the Iran nuclear deal be resurrected? |
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Highly-rated - last 48 hrs
U.S. debates whether a new Iran deal merits the risks. [Free read link]
Wall Street Journal (Moderate Right) •
Factual Grade 70% • 6 min read
Negotiations on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal resumed on Tuesday, with U.S. and Iranian officials saying an agreement could be within reach. But the advances Iran has made since the Trump administration exited the deal in 2018 have eroded gains for Western negotiators.
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In negotiating the 2015 deal, Obama administration officials calculated it would take 12 months for Iran to produce sufficient enriched uranium for a single bomb if it decided to break out of the accord. But in breaching the accord’s limits following the U.S. withdrawal [in 2018], Iran has gained irreversible knowledge. As a result, some analysts say the amount of time Iran would need could be as little as six months.
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Some former officials say a restored deal could keep the Iranians a safe distance from having sufficient weapons-grade uranium for a bomb for another eight years or so, but that without a deal they could soon be weeks or even days away. Critics argue it would merely put off the day of reckoning as Iran uses sanction relief to build up its military strength.
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Selected long-read
Can the Iran nuclear deal be saved? (2021)
Vox (Left) •
Factual Grade 87% • 8 min read
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Recent poll
Should the Iran nuclear deal be resurrected?
286 votes • 32 comments
View all articles | |
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#2 in World News • 16 articles
Why will the UK’s health system see record patient wait times? |
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Highly-rated - last 48 hrs
National Health Service waiting lists to rise until 2024, says Sajid Javid.
The Independent (Moderate Left) •
Factual Grade 74% • 3 min read
NHS waiting lists are set to continue rising until at least 2024 after hitting a record high of 6 million in November, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, has admitted. Mr. Javid acknowledged that an estimated 10 million people had yet to come forward for planned care; if they do, the national waiting list could rise from 6 million to at least 14 million.
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The NHS aims to restore the number of patients receiving a diagnosis within six weeks to pre-pandemic levels by 2025. Currently fewer than 75% of patients are diagnosed within that time, compared with 95% prior to Covid-19. Mr. Javid’s revised aspirations do not represent a significant toughening of existing measures.
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The government has promised that the NHS will deliver 30% more elective activity by 2024-25 than before the pandemic. The NHS has been promised an extra £8bn [$10.8bn] to reduce waiting times. The NHS said patients on its “long waiters” list could seek alternative treatments in other areas, and including care from private-sector providers.
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Selected local viewpoint
Hospital turns old offices into wards in bid to cut patient wait times.
Evening Standard (Moderate Right) •
Factual Grade 64% • 2 min read
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Selected long-read
The NHS is having its worst winter ever – and the reasons run much deeper than Covid-19.
The Conversation (Center) •
Factual Grade 81% • 6 min read
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#1 in Science News • 16 articles
How close is nuclear fusion technology after a breakthrough experiment? |
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Highly-rated - last 48 hrs
Experts hail big step forward in fusion technology in UK.
Associated Press (Center) •
Factual Grade 72% • 3 min read
Researchers at the Joint European Torus experiment near Oxford managed to produce a record amount of heat energy over a five-second period, which was the duration of the experiment, the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority said. The 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy produced were more than double the previous record achieved in 1997.
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“If we can maintain fusion for five seconds, we can do it for five minutes and then five hours as we scale up our operations in future machines,” said Tony Donne, program manager for EUROfusion. Scientists who were not involved in the project believed it was a significant result, but still a very long way from achieving commercial fusion power.
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The ultimate goal [of nuclear fusion technology] is to generate power the way the sun generates heat, by pressing hydrogen atoms so close to each other that they combine into helium, which releases torrents of energy. Scientists hope that fusion reactors might one day provide emissions-free energy without the risks of conventional nuclear power.
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Selected long-read
Will nuclear fusion ever power the world? (2021)
Gizmodo (Left) •
Factual Grade 83% • 9 min read
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