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Keaton Wagler Stays Positive After Struggling in Clippers Preseason Debut
Keaton Wagler speaks after his preseason debut with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Idaho health care providers struggling to afford health insurance
Idaho health care providers struggle with rising health insurance premiums, forcing some to forgo coverage and pay out-of-pocket expenses.
Sean Payton Is About To Make A Crucial Early Decision
The Denver Broncos are struggling offensively, and everyone is waiting to see if the coach will take the reins.
Health services may be missing the link between alcohol problems and eating disorders, study suggests
A review led by Bournemouth University researchers has highlighted the extent to which people seeking help for alcohol problems may also be struggling with a second, hidden problem with food and eating. ...
Former UCF RB Harvey Becoming Broncos' Go-To Receiver
RJ Harvey is transforming Denver's struggling offense, leveraging elite elusiveness and savvy improvisation to evolve from a depth tailback into Bo Nix’s most reliable aerial weapon.
Jobs in health care. Jobs for women. The US labour market is segmenting. Chernobyl’s radiation and Lenin’s love of literature.
Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. Elmer Bischoff, Two Figures at the Seashore, 1957 The only really dynamic job-creator in the US economy is health care: The largest crunch has come in Federal government, which has shed 2.7 m jobs. Source: tchouvkov on Twitter Tech is struggling. [ Joey Politano 🏳️🌈@JosephPolitano The US tech sector continues bleeding jobs in official data released today—overall, employment decreased by 17k last month and is down 69k over the last year That's nearly as bad as the worst of the 2024 tech-cession, and much worse than the 2022 boom or even pre-2020 norms 12:42 PM · Oct 2, 2026 · 15.2K Views 15 Replies · 47 Reposts · 390 Likes ](https://x.com/JosephPolitano/status/2106001807847940232?s=20) The new jobs are all for women. [ Justin Wolfers@JustinWolfers I'm not sure who saw this coming, but so far nearly all the jobs created during the second Trump administration have gone to women. 1:09 PM · Oct 2, 2026 · 33K Views 70 Replies · 146 Reposts · 644 Likes ](https://x.com/JustinWolfers/status/2106008723533533601?s=20) Meanwhile, real wages are being eaten up by modest over-target inflation. [ Heather Long@byHeatherLong The financial pain is real: Wage growth fell to 3% (y/y) in September. That's the lowest in 5 years. Wage growth: 3% Inflation: ~3.4% Inflation has eaten up all wage gains for the average worker since April. Many people are having to make hard choices about what to buy and what … 1:24 PM · Oct 2, 2026 · 37K Views 24 Replies · 275 Reposts · 533 Likes ](https://x.com/byHeatherLong/status/2106012367712620728?s=20) HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $60. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe Elmer Bischoff, Bathers, 1960 Americans are disillusioned with higher ed. For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Where the Chernobyl radiation went. h/t Simon Kuestenmacher aka simongerman600 How Lenin’s love of literature shaped the Russian Revolution - Tariq Ali This, then, was the intellectual atmosphere in which Lenin came of age. His father, a highly cultured conservative, was the chief inspector of schools in his region and much respected as an educationalist. At home, Shakespeare, Goethe and Pushkin, among others, were read aloud on Sunday afternoons. It was impossible for the Ulyanov family – “Lenin” was a pseudonym adopted to outwit the tsarist secret police – to escape high culture. At high school, Lenin fell in love with Latin. His headteacher had high hopes that he might become a philologist and Latin scholar. History willed otherwise, but Lenin’s passion for Latin, and taste for the classics, never left him. He read Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Juvenal in the original, as well as Roman senatorial orations. He devoured Goethe during his two decades in exile, reading and rereading Faust many times. Lenin put his knowledge of the classics to good use in the time leading up to the October revolution of 1917. In April of that year, he broke with Russian social-democratic orthodoxy and, in a set of radical theses, called for a socialist revolution in Russia. A number of his own close comrades denounced him. In a sharp riposte, Lenin quoted Mephistopheles from Goethe’s masterwork: “Theory, my friend, is grey, but green is the eternal tree of life.” Source: The Guardian Elmer Bischoff, The River, 1953 If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe
3 years after the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel still grapples with its mental health crisis
More than a third of Israelis have shown symptoms of mental health conditions, a report found. Three years after the October 7 attack, the country's health system is still struggling to come to terms with its effects.
DC performers, businesses grapple with impact of Kennedy Center closure
Following the Kennedy Center closure, businesses and arts organizations are taking financial hits as well as struggling to continue keeping their respective fields and organizations afloat.
A student guide to mental health resources on campus
Recognition of someone struggling is only the first step of prevention. Whether a student is experiencing a crisis themselves or knows someone who is, Auburn's mental health resources offer several means of support. College is a transitional time in life, and seeking help during those struggles, no matter how big or small, can make a significant impact.
3 Most Disappointing Cubs Players In 2026
From high-priced free agents to a botched blockbuster trade, these three struggling stars derailed Chicago's championship aspirations and fueled a premature postseason exit against the Padres.
FSU’s Pass Rush Turns In Dominant Performance Against Virginia
FSU’s struggling pass rush finally erupted against Virginia, producing 10 sacks as Tony White’s defense overwhelmed Beau Pribula.
In Texas, struggling small businesses turn to happy hours
Owners and operators are getting creative to stay afloat.
Liverpool will offload struggling forward: Three clubs want January deal
Liverpool strengthened their attack with a couple of new forwards in the summer transfer window. Victor Munoz was onboarded after the Reds triggered the FIFA World Cup winner’s £34m Osasuna release...
Packers vs. Buccaneers: Game Time, TV Channel, Injury Report, Betting Odds, Prediction and Key Matchup
The Green Bay Packers face a high-stakes crossroads against a winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers squad starting a rookie quarterback. Survival hinges on a battle of struggling offensive lines at Raymond James Stadium.
Hundreds gather in Duxbury to raise awareness for perinatal mental health support
Hundreds of people came together in Duxbury Saturday to make sure parents struggling with their mental health know they don’t have to face it alone.
Raiders Should Consider Trading For This Scuffling Receiver
The Las Vegas Raiders need a receiver, and Marvin Harrison Jr. is struggling with Arizona.
Nonprofit launches crisis line for those struggling with mental health, substance abuse
Studying Science in an Anti-Scientific Time
This Chronicle Review Deep Cut was first published in 2025. By Julianne Werlin Thanks for reading The Chronicle Review! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe The last two decades have not been kind to science studies. Already bruised and battered by the “science wars” of the 1990s, by the 2000s sociologists of science — who had long argued that science had to be understood in its human context — were encountering the funhouse-mirror version of their own views in right-wing critiques of climate scientists. It was enough to give some prominent scholars pause. “Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field known as science studies?” asked Bruno Latour, the most famous sociologist of science in the world, in 2003. “Should we apologize for having been wrong all along? Or should we rather bring the sword of criticism to criticism itself and do a bit of soul-searching here: What were we really after when we were so intent on showing the social construction of scientific facts?” In response, Latour proposed a change of method and attitude. Science studies, now chastened and contrite, would no longer seek to strip facts of their authority, but to enrich and enhance them. What this meant in practice was never fully clear. But his diagnosis of problems resonated, even if his solutions did not. Latour’s exercise in public hand-wringing signaled a shift in mood. By 2016, with the first election of Donald Trump, the idea that skepticism of science was a right-wing position, not a left-wing one, had become a commonplace, discussed eagerly in The New York Times. For liberals, vaccine denial during the Covid era and Trump’s second-term attacks on the funding of scientific research, covered extensively in these pages, added a new urgency to the defense of science on both practical and principled grounds. There was little appetite for a sociology or philosophy of science that emphasized the messiness and missteps of the scientific process rather than its integrity and triumphs. The distinguished historian of science Peter Dear’s new book, The World as We Know It: From Natural Philosophy to Modern Science (Princeton University Press, 2025), which seeks to tell the story of 18th- and 19th-century science for a general public, may seem comfortably remote from these bitter contests. In its 16 short chapters, Dear draws swift, sure sketches of major discoveries from Newton to Einstein, ably guiding the reader through debates on stellar nebulae, animal taxonomy, atomic chemistry, evolution, and other flashpoints in the history of science. But though a work of history, Dear’s book must still negotiate our polarized present. In a blurb on its back cover, the historian of biology Lynn K. Nyhart alludes to the “present moment, when scientific knowledge is being swamped by misinformation and its institutions are under siege.” Dear himself, in his conclusion, refers to the “yard signs” and “bumper stickers” that proclaim “Science Is Real.” One antidote to both anti-science propaganda and to reductive slogans in science’s defense is a robust history and philosophy of science: exactly what Dear’s scholarship has long offered. But his new book illustrates how difficult such work has become. Dear, an emeritus professor of history at Cornell University, is best known as a creative and philosophically minded historian of the Scientific Revolution. His edited volume The Literary Structure of Scientific Argument (1991) analyzed the rhetoric of Galileo’s thought experiments to brilliant effect. Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (1995) was a major contribution to the analysis of scientific experiments in early modern Europe and beyond, while Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge in Transition, 1500-1700 (2001), now in its third edition, remains one of the best overviews of the profound epistemological upheavals of 16th- and 17th-century science. But Dear has also ventured into later periods. Nearly two decades ago, in The Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the World (2006), he turned to the 18th and 19th centuries to sketch a history and theory of scientific knowledge. Aimed at a generalist audience, Dear’s simple prose belied serious philosophical ambitions. Science, Dear argued, has two aspects: “natural philosophy,” the quest to understand the true nature of the universe, and “instrumentality,” the applied skills and technologies that allow us to manipulate the world for human advantage. Both strands are ancient, but the innovation of the phenomenon we call “science” was to yoke them together. As Francis Bacon wrote, “Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known, the effect cannot be produced,” an insight typically abridged to “knowledge is power.” Or, in Bertrand Russell’s characteristically blunt phrase, science has two functions, “1. to enable us to know things, and 2., to enable us to do things.” So far, so conventional. But Dear took issue with this familiar story in one respect. Bacon’s formula implied that theory and practice could be fused in a single method. In fact, Dear argued, the quest to understand nature and the desire to manipulate it were coupled only loosely. They could come together, but they could also pull apart. Focusing on natural philosophy, the “knowing” half of the scientific circle, he used a series of case studies from cosmology, taxonomy, chemistry, electromagnetism, and quantum theory to show how theories changed over time, in dialogue with practice, but never reducible to it. Take the case of matter, the basic substrate of the physical world. In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists not only disagreed about what it was, but also about how well it could be known. In 1789, the chemist Antoine Lavoisier dismissed speculation about the atomic composition of chemicals as “discussions entirely of a metaphysical nature,” as he sought to orient chemistry away from philosophical abstraction and toward laboratory results. But in the 19th century, atoms returned with a vengeance in the atomic chemistry of John Dalton, who wanted to explain the underlying structure of nature. It was not just that Dalton and Lavoisier had a different set of experimental results, or even a different theory, Dear showed. What counted as an explanation had changed. In arguing that scientific theories depended on their intelligibility to human beings with complex arrays of beliefs and commitments, Dear was in sympathy with science studies. Key figures such as the sociologist Steven Shapin emphasized the importance of psychological mechanisms like trust in the formation and acceptance of scientific ideas. But in focusing on the scientific pursuit of knowledge, not its politics or economics, Dear resisted the more cynical perspective of some of his colleagues. The Intelligibility of Nature strikes a very different note than Shapin’s collection of a few years later, Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as If It Was Produced by People With Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority (2010), to name just one example. Walking a very fine line, Dear depicted science as driven at once by complex social dynamics and by the intellectual power of real discoveries. It was a testament not only to his own acumen but also to the vitality of the field that he was able to do so. Nearly two decades later, The World as We Know It returns to the questions broached in The Intelligibility of Nature. Like Dear’s earlier study, it begins with the Newtonian cosmos and ends with debates between Einstein and Bohr on quantum physics. Beyond its terminal figures, many of the same characters appear in both studies, including the naturalists John Ray and the Comte de Buffon; the chemists Étienne François Geoffroy, Antoine Lavoisier, and John Dalton; as well as Charles Darwin and Michael Faraday, among others. Its subject is nearly identical: As in The Intelligibility of Nature, The World as We Know It considers natural philosophy as opposed to instrumentality, here defined as the “desire to create a picture of what the world is really like — the world as God knows it — rather than simply having instrumental or operational control over it.” The two books also overlap in insights — and sometimes even in language. The reader who has learned in The Intelligibility of Nature that Buffon’s method of classifying animals “reflected his belief in the importance of the senses and empiricism in learning about nature (a doctrine associated with Newton and the philosopher John Locke)” will experience a sense of déjà vu on reading, in The World as We Know It, that the classification “reflects Buffon’s commitment to the epistemological stance of Newton and his philosophical underlaborer John Locke, who stressed the role of the senses in creating natural knowledge.” Later in the passage, we read that, “because of its stress on understanding the ways of life of animals in their environments, Buffon’s approach could almost be labeled (anachronistically) as ‘ecological.’” And again, “an anachronistic way of putting it would be to say that Buffon recommends an ecological mode of understanding.” Likewise, in The Intelligibility of Nature we read of Dalton that he was initially drawn to meteorology, and that: He did a bit of experimental work on these things, especially having to do with the water-holding capacity of gases, but his real interest lay in understanding what, at an underlying natural-philosophical level, was really going on physically.” Whereas, in The World as We Know It: He did experimental work on these things, especially concerning the water-holding capacity of gases — although not at a very refined level quantitatively — but he was continually trying to develop a theoretical conception of what was happening physically. The final full chapter of each book closes on the same resigned note. Intelligibility: These days, most serious work on the natural philosophical underpinnings and implications of quantum mechanics is performed not by physicists but by philosophers of science. Among scientific practitioners themselves, Bohr’s attempt to use instrumentality as sufficient grounds for a respectable science has met with a high degree of success. And again, in The World as We Know It: Bohr’s and Einstein’s concerns are now questions that are mostly discussed by philosophers of science rather than by physicists themselves. The marginalization of these sorts of questions amounts to the demise of natural philosophy, at least in physics, in the 20th century. Quantum mechanics “works,” and that’s good enough for most scientists who encounter it. Examples could be multiplied. When handling the same subject matter, some echoes are inevitable. Scholars should not feel that because they have written “Isaac Newton died in 1727” in one book, in the next they must describe him as perishing, expiring, or meeting his maker. But the repetitions of language and arguments (not to mention six reproduced images) threaded throughout The World as We Know It are more extensive than that. They should have been caught by Princeton University Press or its reviewers, and revised. Because the two books have so much in common, it is easy to see where they diverge. The World as We Know It is a less theoretical work than its predecessor. The sociology of knowledge that organized The Intelligibility of Nature has been reduced in scale and folded into readings and examples. The taut interplay between history and theory, which gave the earlier study so much interest, is there, but it is subtle. In the earlier book, the case studies demonstrated theoretical claims about the character and development of science. In the later work, each narrative of discovery is an end in itself. Insights emerge from the history, but they do not control the organization of the study. With the theory muted, it can be hard to understand the logic uniting Dear’s sprawling history of more than two centuries of scientific knowledge. The 16 brisk chapters cover an enormous amount of material. But the closer the volume edges to comprehensiveness, the more obvious the missing elements become. A chapter on “Institutions and Pedagogy,” describing the birth of the research university, illustrates the problem. Inserted roughly halfway through the book, the unnumbered chapter is designed as an “entr’acte,” in acknowledgement that it does not fit the study’s organization around scientific discoveries. Yet as Dear is well aware, no general history of the development of modern science can bracket its 19th-century institutionalization and professionalization. It was the 19th-century university, after all, that gave us the “scientist,” a term coined by the Cambridge philosopher William Whewell. Dear’s history of scientific discoveries implies a wider social and institutional history, but it remains largely subterranean, only occasionally extruded under the pressure of the narrative. It must be said that the balance is not all on the side of the earlier study. There are some advantages to the more historical, less theoretical organization of The World as We Know It. Dear’s accounts of paradigm shifts are remarkably lucid, no small accomplishment given that they span fields and centuries. He makes excellent use of the wealth of new scholarship on Darwin and his influences, to which he has himself contributed. It is satisfying to see puzzle pieces from Buffon’s natural history, Georges Cuvier’s animal taxonomy, Thomas Robert Malthus’s demography, and Charles Lyell’s geology recombined seamlessly in the Darwinian jigsaw. Likewise, Dear’s discussion of stellar nebulae, divided between chapters two and 15, shows vividly how Newton, Kant, Herschel, and Hubble reimagined insights and observations as they sought to discover whether the diffuse light that filtered through early telescopes was a glowing, gaseous substance or discrete but distant stars. Yet despite such pleasures, the book remains a more modest work than The Intelligibility of Nature. Dear has clearly not changed his views about the history of science. But in the two decades that have elapsed, the discipline and the world around it have changed, making it harder to write a sociologically and philosophically ambitious history of science for the general reader. That is a shame, because in the age of Silicon Valley and biotechnology, both the reciprocity and the tensions Dear identified between the epistemological and instrumental ambitions of science are more evident than ever. In recent years, some of the most exciting new books on the history of science in early modernity have focused precisely on this pressure point. Important studies such as Pamela H. Smith’s From Lived Experience to the Written Word (2022), James Poskett’s Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science (2022), and Vera Keller’s The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge (2023) all shed new light on how early modern science negotiated the relationship between its instrumental and epistemological ambitions, or in Russell’s phrase, knowing and doing. There is every opportunity for a philosophically informed approach to draw new insights from this wealth of material. Dear, unfortunately, has not done so in The World as We Know It. But for future scholars of the history of science, his body of work over nearly four decades may provide just the model. Julianne Werlin is an associate professor of English at Duke University. Thanks for reading The Chronicle Review! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe
A Mother's Fear: How local family navigated son's mental health crisis
Brianne McFarland said her family's life was just like any other until her middle-school-aged son, Jake, began struggling with his mental health.
‘Verity’ review: This Anne Hathaway movie’s inert from the get-go
The inert erotic thriller “Verity” begins almost with a rom-com meet-cute, except it’s a meet-horrible. Lowen (Dakota Johnson), a struggling New York writer, is on her way to a publishing
The Mindsets Leaders Need as AI Accelerates the Pace of Business
AI is changing not only what leaders need to know, but how they need to think. Yet many are struggling to adapt to the speed, uncertainty, and emotional complexity of an AI-driven workplace. To keep pace, you need to shift the mindsets that shape your behavior in three important ways: from certainty to clarity, from expertise to exploration, and from emotional control to emotional insight. A simple four-step practice—pause, perceive, pivot, and practice—can help you start to recognize and change automatic reactions. By deliberately reshaping the assumptions and patterns that guide your behavior, you can become more adaptable, curious, and effective as the nature of work continues to change.
Tennessee Titans Believe They Have a "Sleeping Giant"
Struggling at 0-3, Tennessee looks to a volatile special teams unit to spark a turnaround before a daunting revenge matchup against former superstar Derrick Henry.
Kauai small businesses still waiting for financial aid after Hurricane Lowell
Nearly a month after Hurricane Lowell devastated Kauai, struggling businesses are still waiting for help with unemployment numbers skyrocketing every week. Meanwhile, an application portal that was supposed to go
Battle of the Bays features winless Buccaneers and struggling Packers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-3) need a victory even more than the Green Bay Packers (1-2) on Sunday. At least Green Bay has quarterback Jordan Love. Tampa Bay is turning to undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels after Baker Mayfield dislocated his right thumb in a loss to Minnesota.
Bills Have a Major Problem Emerging in Their Secondary
Rising sack totals mask a vulnerable unit struggling with Christian Benford’s regression and mounting injuries. Now, Buffalo’s depth faces a brutal litmus test against the league’s elite quarterbacks.
Lukeba’s Return Could Be The Boost Demichelis Needs At Leipzig
The French defender’s recovery offers the tactical recovery speed essential for high-pressing football, providing the defensive security necessary to stabilize a struggling backline before a daunting fixture run.
New CNN reporting finds newly built veteran health centers struggling to hire staff
Lions’ Joey Porter Jr. Pursuit Takes Unfortunate Turn
The Detroit Lions, who are 2-1 through the first three games of the 2026 NFL season, are not only dealing with multiple injuries to key players but a struggling secondary that has brought into question their defense.The Lions have been linked to Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr., who seemed like a natural fit for […] The post Lions’ Joey Porter Jr. Pursuit Takes Unfortunate Turn appeared first on HEAVY.
Does an Arnaud Kalimuendo Loan Move Make Sense for Olympiacos?
Arnaud Kalimuendo is struggling for playing time at Nottingham Forest, and a loan move to Olympiacos could make sense in January. The two clubs share ownership.
Troy Jackson's Gaza misstep shows him struggling with a big step up to national politics
Jackson is working through one of the most divisive issues on the left while running against strongly pro-Israel Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Cass County Mental Health Initiative is shining light on suicide prevention awareness
Cass County Mental Health Initiative shines light on the community and those that are struggling with mental health
With Chargers struggling, could Jim Harbaugh leap back to college ranks? It's complicated ...
How Could Black, Newton Stand Out in Kings Training Camp?
Leaky Black and Tristen Newton battle to bolster Sacramento’s struggling perimeter rotation to accelerate the Kings' rebuild.
Conference League 'very winnable'
Brighton owner Tony Bloom says he is looking forward to seeing what the Seagulls can achieve after results he described as the "best in the history of the football club". In a rare interview, Bloom told BBC South East victory over Manchester United in the Carabao Cup, a 3-0 win over Premier League champions Arsenal and beating Coventry City 5-0 had boosted confidence at the club. Bloom helped transform Brighton's fortunes after he became majority shareholder in 2009, when the team were struggling in the third tier of English football and playing at a temporary ground.
Beale Street businesses ride out Memphis law enforcement surge
A year after a coalition of law enforcement agencies converged on Memphis, Beale Street businesses are struggling to stay afloat.
Veteran Guard Kevin Zeitler Visits with Green Bay Packers
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Packers add veterans Laken Tomlinson, Mekhi Becton to help struggling OL
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DRC: Early access to care and oxygen decisive for Ebola patients’ survival
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), health workers fighting the country’s largest-ever Ebola outbreak are struggling to overcome critical challenges to patient care, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday.
Lesbian Bar Project Co-Founder: Purity Politics Could Destroy Our Remaining Spaces
Subscribe As a professional lesbian and Massachusetts native, I’ve recently been asked by a lot of folks what I think about the saga unfolding at Last Ditch. The now-viral story, first reported by The Boston Globe, centers on a Western Massachusetts lesbian bar that lifted its mask requirement for one night a week to help drum up business. The decision ignited an intra-queer controversy that has been feasted on by media outlets across the political spectrum—from the New York Post to LGBTQ Nation—and is even reportedly being eyed for a Hollywood adaptation. Apparently nothing is more entertaining than a bunch of lesbians and queers fighting with each other over KN-95s. What has been lost in all of the chatter and media coverage is the very real possibility that Last Ditch, which just opened in April 2025, will have to close its doors. The venue’s one remaining founder, Jackie Matellian, revealed in a community Zoom meeting that she’s working four jobs, is now solely responsible for the bar’s $50,000 business loan and is struggling to keep up with the bills. So as we laugh about the controversy’s similarity to a “Portlandia” skit and how one of the bar’s founders left to enroll in clown school, we forget that yet another lesbian bar is facing an existential crisis—and this time the call is coming from inside the house. In 2020, my friend Elina Street and I created The Lesbian Bar Project, an Emmy-, Webby- and GLAAD Media Award-winning docuseries and initiative that tells the stories of lesbian queer bars around the world. We were moved to act because at the time there were only an estimated 16 lesbian bars in the United States, and the pandemic threatened to bring that number down even further. There are now more sapphic bars than there were just before the pandemic—about 36 of them in total—but this is down from approximately 200 in 1980. Maybe that doesn’t mean much to you, but for the millions of sapphics living in the U.S., this number is calamitous. As the world laughs at lesbians and sapphics, I want to take a second and tell you what I feel when I walk into one of these bars, which are all unique and irreplaceable in their own way: I feel seen. Sometimes I think Cubbyhole in New York City’s West Village neighborhood knew I was gay before I did. When I walked in there for the first time, before I was even out, I was transfixed by the colorful array of tchotchkes hanging from the ceiling and how the women standing next to me were completely unafraid to express their desire for one another. I knew the minute I was ready to come out, I had a home. I also felt the joy of a new couple falling in love at Seattle’s Wildrose, the quiet confidence of a short king lining up her shot at the pool table at Ginger’s in Brooklyn and the kick of cayenne pepper in Julie Mabry’s crawfish at Houston’s Pearl Bar. Subscribe Lesbian bars don’t just serve lesbians; they serve queer folks across the spectrum, including bisexual, pansexual and trans people. As Elina and I traveled across the U.S. and Europe and to parts of Latin America to document the bar owners, staff and patrons that make up the ecosystems of these spaces, we also became uniquely acquainted with the factors that threaten their existence: gentrification, wage gaps, sexism, environmental disasters, gun violence, rising insurance premiums and political administrations working to annihilate queer people and their families. Lesbian bar owners, like all leaders and entrepreneurs, are imperfect. There have been significant issues over the years at lesbian bars: employee harassment, racism, lack of accessibility, sexual assault and transphobia. All bar owners should be held accountable and should listen to their communities to evolve into safer and more equitable spaces. I also acknowledge my privilege: I am able-bodied, white, cis and from a family system that loves me for who I am. Not everyone has that. Queer people, especially trans and bisexual people, are suffering from disproportionately high levels of depression, and our mental health system isn’t equipped to support them. Immunocompromised people and long COVID are real, and many of my friends are suffering to this day. The people with the least safety net are often the ones for whom a bar closing costs the most. And yet, as we’re seeing with Last Ditch, the queer community often lashes out at each other. It’s also the mainstream media taking the internal conflict and making a mockery out of it, distracting from the real possibility that this bar could close due to financial pressures. A bar that many people loved and needed is facing extinction. Perhaps it’s safer to dissent with one another than with the larger forces trying to eradicate us, but in doing so, we risk destroying the few spaces we have left. Due to the constraints of purity politics—some in good faith, some not so much—lesbian bar owners, almost all of whom are queer women themselves, are forced to be everything for everyone, similarly to how women are forced to be everything for everyone. By asking these bars to uphold impossible standards—standards very few other third spaces are asked to consider—we all end up losing. I want to move as a community toward dialogue, compassionate dissent and collaboration to make our spaces better with the goal of keeping them OPEN and thriving, rather than destroying them from the inside with expectations that are arguably unattainable. Subscribe While I have your attention—for this fleeting second of the news cycle—may I urge us to spearhead a way to keep these small businesses afloat without attacking our own community along the way? Bar owners are left with an impasse: They want to be community-centered, but they also have to make money to keep their doors open. Sometimes they might make business decisions that don’t work for everyone—and that’s partly because different patrons have different priorities and want different things—but these owners deserve the opportunity for productive dialogue**.** We have to work with them and with each other to keep our spaces open, to keep them growing. Lesbian bars raised me into the queer woman I am today. One thing I think about as I reflect on the six years of work we’ve done to document these spaces is that shared, unspoken language I have with a stranger the moment we both walk into one of these bars: the nod, the ease, the not having to explain ourselves. I don’t want to lose that, and neither should you. If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button: Donate
“I Was Struggling”: Myles Garrett’s GF Chloe Kim Reveals Health Diagnosis After Years of Suffering
Cleveland Browns star Myles Garrett dominates on the field, but off it, his girlfriend Chloe Kim has been fighting a very quiet battle. The two-time Olympic snowboarding champion opened up about a condition she lived with for years without fully understanding it.
Compeer Rochester launches new campaign to end loneliness, improve mental health
Compeer Rochester just launched its "Scroll Less, Connect More" volunteer campaign. The group's research found American adults spend an average of 64 hours on screens per month. The campaign asks Rochesterians to put their phones on pause for just four of those hours to make a new friend and support a person struggling with a mental health diagnosis.
Michigan State Ranks Last in Big Ten in Scoring
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Alessio Milivojevic Remains Spartans QB, but Patience Is Growing Thin
Freshman promise has vanished behind a crumbling offensive line as Milivojevic’s turnover-prone struggles force Michigan State to decide if their struggling starter can still salvage the season.
Deserves more chances? Moisés is now last in Santos attack
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The Alternative for Germany (AfD), classified as far-right by German authorities, made history by becoming the largest party in the state parliament, winning 43.8 per cent of the vote — twice its share in the previous election. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which had governed the state continuously for 24 years, won just 17.2 per cent, its worst result ever in Saxony-Anhalt. On the night the results were announced, the atmosphere at the CDU gathering was unusually calm. There was neither shock nor argument, as if the defeat had long been expected. Several veteran party members who had spent years working in the state government said: “Defeat is not a bad thing. It is time to make changes.” This state election has not only upended Saxony-Anhalt’s political landscape, but also laid bare the deep tensions between Germany’s traditional party structure and model of governance, on the one hand, and an increasingly polarised society on the other. Its repercussions are already being felt at the federal level, making Saxony-Anhalt a useful case study of the broader trend towards political polarisation and realignment in Europe. Governing Difficulties after Electoral Victory The most immediate consequence of the election is a historic setback for the mainstream party order that took shape in post-war Germany. In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD has leapt from a peripheral party to the largest political force in the state. Its electoral base has expanded beyond the traditional category of “marginal protest voters” to take on the characteristics of a cross-class coalition. The party has not only consolidated its support in rural areas, but also attracted many middle-class voters and even members of the social elite with stable jobs, their own homes, and substantial incomes. It has thus evolved from a “protest party” into one with the potential to govern. Despite its commanding lead in the vote, however, the AfD faces an institutional obstacle to governing the state: the mainstream parties’ long-standing “firewall” against it. Neither of the two potential routes to forming a government appears likely to break the current political deadlock. The first would be a coalition of establishment parties, led by the CDU and bringing together the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens, the Left Party (Die Linke) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) in a cross-camp government. In terms of parliamentary arithmetic, such a coalition could prevent the AfD from forming a government and preserve the outward stability of the traditional political order. Yet these parties are fundamentally divided over key issues including immigration, the energy transition, economic management, and cultural and education policy. Coalition negotiations would therefore be extremely difficult, and even if a government could be formed, it would most likely prove short-lived. More importantly, an alliance of establishment parties aimed at keeping the largest party out of government would play directly into the AfD’s narrative that “political elites are suppressing public opinion”. It could deepen perceptions of political unfairness, further strengthening the AfD’s political capital, and creating a dynamic in which “the more it is suppressed, the more people vote for it”. Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s candidate for state premier, has said that if efforts to form a government fail because other parties refuse to cooperate, the AfD will push for a fresh election, which he believes could deliver the party an absolute majority of seats. This points to more intense political battles ahead. The second option would be a coalition between the AfD and the BSW. Together, the two parties would command a simple majority in parliament, making this, on paper, the quickest route to forming a government. The BSW is the only elected party that has not ruled out cooperation with the AfD, and the two parties share some common ground, including on policy towards Russia. There is therefore a degree of political basis for cooperation. Were such a coalition to materialise, Germany would see its first state government jointly formed by a party defined as far-right and one with a far-left background, creating what might be called a “bipolar anti-establishment alliance”. Such an outcome would fundamentally break with the ideological boundaries of post-war German party politics. It is worth noting that even if the AfD ultimately fails to enter the state government, its roughly 47 per cent share of parliamentary seats would give it a powerful blocking minority. Without its consent, major decisions requiring a two-thirds majority — including constitutional amendments, significant budgetary adjustments, and state-level institutional reforms — would be extremely difficult to pass. Therefore, whoever ultimately forms the government, the AfD will be an unavoidable force in Saxony-Anhalt politics, with a direct influence on the state’s legislative process. Systemic Failures in Germany’s Governance Model The Saxony-Anhalt election result reflects a systemic failure of Germany’s post-war mainstream-party model of governance to adapt to rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions. It stems from multiple, mutually reinforcing structural tensions and highlights the existing political system’s difficulty in adapting to “an increasingly polarised society First, collective anxiety has replaced individual material hardship as a central driver of political mobilisation. The rise of the AfD can no longer be explained simply by poverty or social marginalisation. Its increasingly cross-class electoral base suggests that what is driving voters towards the party is, above all, concern about the broader direction of society. This anxiety about the future of the political community goes beyond individual gains and losses. In political discourse, economic anxiety has become closely intertwined with immigration, while immigration and refugee issues are, in essence, questions of social fairness. This perception turns conflicts over the distribution of social resources into negative assessments of governing parties, providing a broad social basis for far-right political narratives. Second, regional disparities and East German identity have undermined the strategy of addressing eastern Germany’s structural challenges at the regional level. More than three decades after German reunification, eastern states such as Saxony-Anhalt have experienced periods of economic growth, but their underlying economic structures remain weak, and household incomes and wealth remain significantly below those in western Germany. At the same time, they continue to face population outflow, an ageing population, labour shortages, and other structural challenges. At a deeper level, historical experiences — including the collapse of the former East German economic system, mass unemployment during the transition, and the westward shift of decision-making power over major issues — have left some residents with a sense of being “second-class citizens” and of being excluded. For years, the German government treated the “syndrome” of reunification as a regional problem to be gradually addressed at the local level. That approach is becoming increasingly unsustainable, as regional development disparities emerge as a core structural factor shaping national politics. Third, the erosion of institutional trust is perhaps the most decisive factor. AfD supporters tend to distrust establishment institutions, including parliament, government, and the mainstream media. Their concerns about economic security, pensions, and social fairness are significantly greater than the social average. Increasingly, their support for the AfD reflects not an expectation that the existing system can be improved, but a search for an alternative to the current political order. Such a systemic deficit of trust will be extremely difficult for the traditional parties to repair in the short term. Fourth, a generational shift in political mobilisation has amplified political polarisation. Unlike traditional parties, which rely heavily on offline rallies and mainstream media coverage, the AfD has developed a social-media mobilisation strategy built around “raising an issue — identifying who is responsible — offering a simplified solution — building a shared identity”. It turns complex social tensions into concise political narratives, rapidly channelling public sentiment into political support. The contrast on the eve of the election was particularly telling. The establishment parties, together with trade unions and churches, organised an offline march attended by more than 10,000 people, but its reach was largely confined to those present and to traditional media coverage. The AfD held a much smaller indoor event, yet livestreaming on TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms, combined with the involvement of online influencers, gave it a reach and mobilising capacity far beyond that of the march. The contrast illustrates how the traditional parties’ methods of political mobilisation are increasingly struggling to keep pace with a political environment transformed by changes in media technology. A Microcosm of Structural Political Change in Europe The shockwaves from the Saxony-Anhalt election quickly travelled beyond the state to the federal level. Calls for political accountability followed immediately after the results were announced. The governing CDU and SPD are now under enormous pressure, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil face an unprecedented test. Political polarisation in Germany is no longer simply a regional phenomenon. The post-war model of multiparty government by establishment parties is breaking down and being reshaped. Viewed in a broader European context, the Saxony-Anhalt election is part of a continent-wide wave of party polarisation, mainstream-party decline, and rising right-wing forces. Far from an isolated phenomenon, it is a microcosm of the structural political changes unfolding across Europe. Weak economic growth, cultural tensions over immigration, and declining trust in institutions are fuelling the rise of right-wing forces in several countries, challenging the liberal internationalist order established in post-war Europe. As a core member state of the European Union, Germany’s ability to adapt its political system and the direction of its politics will have profound implications for both European integration and the evolution of the international order. Subscribe [ Pekingnology China’s Germany watchers take stock of Berlin’s uneasy turn On 7 December 2025, nearly 50 Chinese scholars and policy researchers gathered in Beijing for the 2025年德国形势年终研讨会 “2025 Year-End Seminar on the Situation in Germany… Read more 9 months ago · 31 likes · 1 comment · YIRUI LI and Yuxuan JIA ](https://www.pekingnology.com/p/chinas-germany-watchers-take-stock?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=1151841) [ Jiang Feng on Germany's 2025 and beyond: no easy exit ](https://www.eastisread.com/p/jiang-feng-on-germanys-2025-and-beyond) Yirui LI and Yuxuan JIA · Jan 24 The following is an op-ed by Jiang Feng, published on 29 December 2025 at Shanghai Observer 上观新闻, the digital platform of Jiefang Daily, the official newspaper of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). [ Read full story ](https://www.eastisread.com/p/jiang-feng-on-germanys-2025-and-beyond)
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The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Restaurant Barn. BAR HARBOR—Parents again raised concerns this week about how Bar Harbor students receive science instruction after fifth grade, months after the same issue came before the Bar Harbor School Board. The concern centers on a past scheduling change at Conners Emerson School that gives fifth graders a full year of science rather than switching between science and social studies at midyear. Principal Dr. Heather Weir Webster told the board that the school has been monitoring test scores, teacher feedback, and the experience of students as it considers whether the current approach is working. If it is not, the approach may be changed, but that would not likely occur this school year. In fifth and sixth grade, the school used to have one semester of social studies and one of science in each year. That schedule shifted because switching at midyear often broke up the learning units. So, approximately two-three years ago, they decided to shift that a bit. Science became a dedicated focus in fifth grade. Social studies was the dedicated focus in sixth grade. The school staff members are hoping to dive deeply into the data and see if the students are having a more quality experience throughout their time in those grades when it comes to science and social studies. If not, things could shift again. This year, Dr. Webster said at the September meeting, potential changes to curricula have been a bit complicated by moving into the school’s new building in late October and early November. “There have been no changes this year because it’s hard enough to handle the move. That allows them to have consistency,” Dr. Webster said. Dr. Webster said that after the Covid pandemic which prevented students from attending school in person, many fifth graders were struggling. “We tried several different configurations,” she said, including a co-teaching model to help with that struggle, but to also see how to best schedule and support those students. “We found that a January switch” where classes switched from social studies to science was really difficult. Part of the decision making stemmed from science being more hands-on and accessible to fifth graders. Social studies was a bit more abstract content, which was why the school tried the current configuration. In a letter submitted as public comment, parent Beth Dumont wrote, “In May 2026, I wrote to express my concern that our middle school students are not receiving consistent instruction in science and social studies. I appreciate that the Board took this concern seriously and requested a presentation from Principal Webster. I am also grateful for the opportunity to meet with Principal Webster and Julie Keblinsky in July to learn more about the current curriculum and scheduling. “During that meeting, I learned that the current model is intended to integrate science and social studies into other subjects during the years or semesters when they are not offered as standalone courses. “While I appreciate the intent behind this model, I remain concerned about its premise. Science and social studies are core academic disciplines that provide students with essential knowledge, skills, and ways of thinking. Yet under the current schedule, students are not guaranteed consistent instructional time in these subjects. Instead, exposure to content in these disciplines may depend on whether opportunities for integration arise within other classes. “To be clear, I strongly support interdisciplinary learning. Integrating science and social studies across the curriculum can enrich students’ educational experiences and help them make meaningful connections across subject areas. My concern is not with integration itself, but with relying on integration as a substitute for dedicated instruction in core disciplines.” Dr. Webster said that they’ve been monitoring test scores, talking to teachers, seeing how the pilot program works. It’s in its third year now of this schedule. One science teacher, she said, told her he’d seen positive outcomes with full year science and that there was a stronger classroom community. Another science teacher had concerns over the readiness last year, but she isn’t feeling that way about this year’s current class. A third teacher for social studies said he loves the full year. A fourth teacher of social studies hasn’t said that anything has changed. For the three fathers who spoke at the school committee meeting, the fractured science curriculum caused concerns. One father said that when he spoke to others, “all were surprised and confused as to why there was no dedicated, continuous science education,” at the school. Though students are testing well in science and math, he worried that without continuity in education, learning is lost. “We shouldn’t have to choose between key learning disciplines,” he said. Matthew Bergin, another father, agreed, adding, “I’m just a little concerned.” In her letter, Dumont wrote, “As the parent of a recent sixth grader who completed an entire year without a dedicated science course, I saw very little evidence that this integration was occurring in a consistent, systematic, or readily identifiable way. This is not a criticism of our middle school teachers, who have been uniformly excellent. Rather, it is a structural criticism of the current schedule.” Dr. Webster gave an update about all aspects of the schedule and how it’s created and she also spoke to social and emotional learning (SEL) in middle school. It’s explicitly taught but also embedded. Science is embedded as well and explicitly taught at all but that one grade. The school schedule is built from lunch out, then electives like art and physical education are placed, before going into the instruction time, teacher planning time, multi-tier support systems (MTSS), and then social and emotional learning. Teachers have to have 250 minutes a week of planning time per their contracts. That’s the minimum and occurs when their students are at specials. “The schedule is really not the purview of the board,” School Board Chair Marie Yarborough reminded the other board members and the public and thanked Dr. Webster for the presentation. The parents were also thanked for coming. LINK TO LEARN MORE [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/despite-strong-rankings-some-bar) [ Despite Strong Rankings, Some Bar Harbor Parents Raise Concerns About School's Science Education ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/despite-strong-rankings-some-bar) Carrie Jones · Jun 4 [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/despite-strong-rankings-some-bar) HELP SUPPORT THE BAR HARBOR STORY When we started The Bar Harbor Story, we didn’t know if anyone would read it. But you showed up. You shared. You sent tips. Now—over 400,000 views every month later—it’s clear: people here care about their community and each other. We’ve kept everything free because news should never be out of reach, but every one of our stories takes time to write, and your support keeps The Bar Harbor Story going. If you value our work, please consider a paid subscription, a founding membership, or a sponsorship. It truly helps us cover one more meeting, tell one more story, shine one more light. Even $5 a month makes a difference. Click here to become a one-time supporter now. Thank you so much for being here. Founding member information can be found here. Have questions about sponsorships? Just send Shaun an email at sfarrar86@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you. Subscribe Share Bar Harbor Story Share Leave a comment
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