Daily-Dose

Contents

• From New Yorker
• From Vox
• From The Hindu: Sports
• From The Hindu: National News
• From BBC: Europe
• From Ars Technica
• From Jokes Subreddit

From New Yorker

• Two January 6th Defendants and the Consolidation of Right-Wing Extremism - As Congress searches for accountability, Guy Reffitt and Jessica Watkins remain defiant. - link

• How Will Trump’s Primary Messages Affect the Midterms? - The former President has been sowing white-grievance politics and lies about election corruption from Pennsylvania to Wyoming, setting the scene for a potential constitutional crisis. - link

• The New Jobs Report Is Encouraging on Jobs and Inflation - The President deserves more credit for a growing economy, but public attitudes likely won’t change until there is progress on inflation. - link

• Iowa Primary Map: Live Election Results - The latest results from the Iowa primary ahead of the 2022 midterms. - link

• Montana Primary Map: Live Election Results - The latest results from the Montana primary ahead of the 2022 midterms. - link

From Vox

• Why meat is so expensive right now -

  

  Eat your veggies, beat inflation.

  Over the last year, you likely noticed a steep increase in your grocery bills. You may have just chalked it all up to inflation, and that’s certainly played a major role. But both the White House and consumer protection groups allege some meat producers are jacking up prices well beyond inflation — a practice known as price gouging.

  Food prices at home have increased almost 11 percent since last April, more than overall inflation (8.3 percent), but the cost of meat, milk, and eggs in particular has soared well beyond both measures. From April 2021 to April 2022, egg prices went up 22.6 percent, chicken is up 16.4 percent, milk and beef are up almost 15 percent, and fish and seafood are up 11.9 percent.

  But most plant-based staples — like beans, rice, bread, fruits, and vegetables — have risen slower than the general rate of inflation for groceries (as have cheese and ham, two of the handful of exceptions in the meat and dairy aisles).

  

  Tyson Foods, America’s largest meat producer, attributes the company’s price hikes to higher demand for meat as well as increased labor and fuel costs combined with the rise in the price of grains fed to farmed animals. Meanwhile, the poultry industry has been ravaged by the bird flu, which has prompted producers to cull nearly 38 million birds this year — mostly turkeys and egg-laying hens using rather grisly methods.

  Consumer protection advocates say these supply-side factors are partially to blame for the price hikes, but they also suspect big meat producers like Tyson Foods are making consumers pay more to fatten their profits.

  Claire Kelloway of the Open Markets Institute, an anti-monopoly nonprofit, points to Tyson’s second quarter earnings to understand how it might be using inflation as a cover to make more money.

  “[Tyson had] roughly $1.5 billion in higher costs, but that’s corresponded with $2 billion in price increases,” she told me. “So that is a solid half a billion dollars that is not related to an increased cost of business. That’s purely an exercise of their market power and ability to charge more, and their profits really speak to that.”

  John Hansen of the Nebraska Farmers Union, which advocates on behalf of independent ranchers and farmers, put it more bluntly: “There’s no question there’s been price gouging through the Covid disaster, and there’s no question that that price gouging continues.”

  Tyson Foods declined an interview request but pointed me to economists and analysts who refute the idea that meatpackers are price gouging, and testimony from Tyson Foods’ CEO, Donnie King, given to the US House Agriculture Committee in late April on the matter. King reiterated that strong demand and increased labor and input costs were the main reasons for higher meat prices.

  “Meat companies do not set prices for consumers,” Sarah Little of the North American Meat Institute told me over email. “Retailers do that.” She cited a Texas A&M economist who says some wholesale beef cuts have gone down in price while their retail price has risen. Tyson’s King also told the House committee that high prices have nothing to do with industry consolidation.

  But that’s something experts like Hansen and Kelloway — and President Biden — dispute.

  Kelloway says there is heavy market concentration in some parts of the produce aisle too, but it’s usually not as intense as it is for meat: In an article for Vox last year, she reported that the top four corporations in each industry slaughter 73 percent of all beef, 67 percent of all pork, and 54 percent of all chicken in the US. “When there are so few players, it’s not hard to keep track of everyone and what’s called ‘tacitly collude’ and all move in the same direction on price. … So I think that definitely seems to be happening,” she told me. “Even though that’s evidence of excessive market power, it’s not actually an antitrust violation.”

  “We basically have four meat processors in the whole country,” President Biden said a few weeks ago. “They process the meat that goes into the hamburgers you buy, so they set the price. When there’s no competition, they can set the price higher and higher.”

  Michael Mitchell of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy group, says some ranchers are getting a raw deal as well. Increasingly, US beef comes from ranchers who sign contracts with meatpackers to sell their meat at set rates, and Mitchell says the packers aren’t raising those rates in tandem with their record profits: “It’s really creating an environment in which ranchers get squeezed,” Mitchell said. “Because demand for meat is still relatively strong … the meatpackers can make a very, very healthy profit and the ranchers don’t see that.”

There are Congressional efforts underway to rein in alleged price gouging in the meat market, which long predates this high inflationary period. And last month, the USDA proposed long-awaited rule changes to the Packers and Stockyards Act, a 1921 law meant to prevent anti-competitive behavior in the meat industry, which antitrust advocates say has been weakly enforced. The new rules would create more transparency around farmer contracts in the poultry industry, and more proposed rule changes are expected to come.

But whatever the price, demand for meat remains strong because it tends to be inelastic — economist-speak for the fact that increases in price have little effect on overall sales. While untangling competitive issues in the meat industry could take years, for those looking to save on their grocery bills now, the fastest way is to switch to less expensive plant-based foods.

Eat plants, cheaply

University of Oxford researcher Marco Springmann and his colleagues published a study last year that found that in high-income countries, a flexitarian diet — a diet low in meat and dairy — reduces food costs by 14 percent on average. “In the [US], it’s even a bit more — more like 25 percent [cost savings] because US diets have so much meat and dairy, so there are lots of savings potential,” he told me. Fully vegetarian and vegan diets reduce food costs even further than flexitarianism.

However, there’s one major caveat. The flexitarian, vegetarian, and vegan diets analyzed by the researchers comprise whole plant-based foods, such as fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes — nearly all of which require cooking and preparation. They don’t include the packaged plant-based meat, milk, and egg alternative products that now line grocery store shelves, and which actually tend to cost more than their animal-based counterparts.

They’re not more expensive because of the basic ingredients, which are usually low-cost components like wheat, soy, peas, and vegetable oils. Rather, the startups churning out plant-based products don’t benefit from the economies of scale that big meat producers enjoy.

Animal-based meat, milk, and eggs are also comparatively cheap in part because of government support. For decades, the corn and soy fed to farmed animals has been heavily subsidized by the US government, and the industry has benefited from extensive government-funded research on how to make factory farming more efficient. The meat industry also benefits from business-friendly regulation.

Despite the high cost of plant-based alternatives, prices are beginning to come down. Plant-based startups often say price parity with conventional meat is a primary goal, and at least one claims to be getting close: Rebellyous Foods in Seattle, which makes plant-based chicken.

Plant-based advocacy groups say more government funding for R&D, like the meat industry has benefited from, would help startups like Rebellyous get there faster. That could give startups an edge, as a recent survey found lower prices in the plant-based aisle could attract more consumers.

Springmann also says his findings should ease policymakers’ financial worries about measures to increase plant-based eating, such as putting more plant-based meals in schools or updating federal dietary guidelines. “People are often concerned with how expensive [flexitarian, vegan, vegetarian] diets are, but our study shows that actually if it’s healthier and more sustainable and more plant-based, you don’t need to worry much about [cost].”

Even as plant-based meat sales have jumped in recent years, US meat consumption has steadily increased with it, hitting a record high of 224.8 pounds per person last year, with forecasts to go even higher in 2022. But sky-high meat consumption isn’t an immutable law of nature — Germany, the land of bratwursts, has seen a steady decline in meat consumption in recent years despite a strong economy, as have some other European countries.

But those of us here in the land of cheeseburgers and chicken wings do have the option of both helping the environment and reducing our grocery bill. Just follow the immortal words of parents everywhere: “Eat your vegetables.” And I’ll add one more: “Don’t forget legumes.”

A version of this story was initially published in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here to subscribe!

• What the TSA could teach Congress about gun control -

  

  TSA PreCheck uses enhanced background checks to make everyone safer.

  With the country continually in mourning over gun violence — we keep seeing mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting — it’s time to find ways to prevent it, lest we remain the “only nation where this regularly happens.” Those solutions needn’t be new, and could perhaps be kind of banal, like the risk-based decision-making behind TSA PreCheck screenings.

  The Transportation Security Administration introduced TSA PreCheck in response to September 11 to prevent future terror attacks on airplanes. The system has a dual mission: expediting travel for people who submit to enhanced background checks and making everyone safer by allowing the government to focus on people who are considered risky or whose risk is unknown.

  To qualify for TSA PreCheck, passengers undergo a screening process that determines whether or not they’re a risk. The process requires a questionnaire about biographical information and criminal history, fingerprints, and an in-person interview (exactly what’s involved in those background checks is classified). If approved, a so-called known traveler faces fewer security checks than everyone else. And by some measures, this system has been very effective. Experts say air travel has become safer even as threats have continued to evolve, partly since PreCheck allows the TSA to focus its attention on higher-risk travelers.

  As it considers a raft of new gun control legislation, Congress could learn a thing or two from TSA PreCheck. First off, a similar system for guns would require, at a base level, that everyone go through a federally standardized background check to get a gun, much like everyone has to go through airport security to fly. This would improve on the current state of background checks for guns, in which loopholes allow people to buy guns from private sellers or online without any type of background check. Gun laws also vary widely from state to state, which leads to a flow of weapons from less-strict states to stricter ones. Universal background checks are very popular on both sides of the aisle and even among gun owners.

  PreCheck-inspired background checks for guns could also be more thorough and use a wider array of signals than existing background checks for guns, which typically look at just criminal records, institutionalization, and drug use. For example, the Buffalo shooter obtained his gun legally because he didn’t have a criminal record. A system that took into consideration more factors — his young age, the type of weapon he wanted to buy, and the amount of ammunition he requested — could have flagged him as a danger.

  It’s also worth pointing out that travelers who have gone through the TSA PreCheck screening only need to do so once every five years. Adopting such a system for guns could mean that once gun owners are deemed safe, they can make purchases unencumbered — as long as they don’t do anything to nullify the approval — while the government directs its attention to those more likely to commit violent crimes.

  Sheldon H. Jacobson, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign whose research was foundational for creating the TSA PreCheck system, thinks lawmakers could employ similar risk-based decision-making to counter the scourge of gun violence in this country. Using a variety of signals to determine who might be a risk for causing gun violence in the first place, authorities could better match resources with risk.

  In a recent interview with Recode, Jacobson pointed out that millions of Americans have submitted themselves to background checks to get TSA PreCheck membership. They even do it for loans. Why are guns any different?

  Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

  Rani Molla

  How did TSA PreCheck come about?

  Sheldon H. Jacobson

  The first thing that people realized after September 11 is we can’t treat everybody like a terrorist. We don’t have the money. We don’t have the time. We don’t have the resources. And we batted around that we would do differential screening, but the question was: How do you sell that to Congress? How do you sell it to the people that we would treat people differently? Will it work?

  Basically, our research group undertook that problem. We did a proof of concept to establish that differential screening, if done appropriately, will actually result in more security and benefit to everybody, including the people who are of unknown risk. We made a presentation to the TSA in 2003 on this, and they accepted what we said. They basically ran it up the flagpole to get the salutes from the appropriate people in Congress to approve it. And then PreCheck started in 2011.

  Rani Molla

  Could you explain to laymen what differential screening, or risk-based decision-making, is?

  Sheldon H. Jacobson

  It’s matching risk and resources in an appropriate way so that you don’t use too many resources for people who have less risk. Meanwhile, you use an appropriate amount of resources when there’s people with more risk.

  Rani Molla

  So what does that look like in the case of TSA PreCheck?

  Sheldon H. Jacobson

  If you are willing to subject yourself to a background check, then there’s more information known about you. You then become a known traveler to the TSA. And because of that, they can apply a lower level of physical screening — what they call expedited screening at airports. You don’t have to take items out of your bags, for example. Everybody else who doesn’t have that is considered an unknown traveler, and then they apply a more enhanced screening protocol.

  Rani Molla

  How do you measure whether it’s working?

  Sheldon H. Jacobson

  Well, there’s a couple of ways. The simplest is that there’s been no incident involving a terrorist act on an airplane in the United States since September 11.

  Rani Molla

  Fair. But how does knowing someone’s background mean they’re not going to hijack the plane? How does the TSA PreCheck screening actually identify a threat?

  Sheldon H. Jacobson

  Exactly what the TSA does in the background checks is actually classified, so that’s not something that can be disclosed. Ultimately, they’re going to take your fingerprints, and they’re going to look into a whole bunch of things about you. Based on the information that they find, they will determine whether you qualify for PreCheck.

  Then, when a bunch of people are preparing to board a flight, the TSA will make another assessment about how many people of high risk or, shall we say, unknown risks are going to be on an airplane versus people with no risk. All of this goes into algorithms to assess the risk of airplanes, and most planes have very, very low risk, which is why the system works so well. That’s why PreCheck helps everybody. It helps not only the passengers who have PreCheck, but also all the passengers who don’t have PreCheck.

  Rani Molla

  Got it. How else is PreCheck useful?

  Sheldon H. Jacobson

  The other big benefit of PreCheck is getting people through the system much more efficiently. So as a result, they spend less time, you have happier passengers, you have a more efficient system, and you require fewer personnel at airports as well as less sophisticated equipment. The ideal is that 80 to 90 percent of all travelers are PreCheck qualified, and then, the checkpoints that we see at airports would be radically different because most people would go through PreCheck lanes and most of the lanes would be PreCheck. You’d have less personnel there and you’d have one lane for non-PreCheck passengers, and those people would be scrutinized very, very carefully. It saves the TSA around $1 per PreCheck passenger screening, so it’s around $1 million a day.

  Rani Molla

  What share of screenings now use TSA PreCheck?

  Sheldon H. Jacobson

  It fluctuates between 40 and 50 percent of screenings. Remember, that’s not 40 to 50 percent of the people in the country who fly. There’s many people who are business travelers who will travel once a week.

  Rani Molla

  So what can Congress learn from TSA PreCheck in trying to prevent gun violence?

  Sheldon H. Jacobson

  People are looking for a one-size-fits-all law that will do everything: background checks, red flag laws, ban assault weapons, whatever it may be. And the fact of the matter is that this is a complex enough problem that what you need are layers of policies as opposed to a single policy because no one policy will be airtight and capture every single potential perpetrator.

  You see that in recent events, that each of them has its own unique characteristics. And you may say, “Well, the 18-year-old in Uvalde, he had just picked up the gun a few days before, and really his background — except that he was young and inexperienced — would not have indicated very many red flags.” On the other hand, his youth would have been a possible red flag as would his stated need for a firearm, the need for the type of ammunition, and the volume of ammunition that he was requesting.

  All of these are layers that, when you put them together, I believe will amount to very airtight protection. But it also means that there will be obstacles for people to access weapons. There will be obstacles for people to access ammunition, and there may be delays. And some people will then argue that’s not fair, that’s not constitutional. But the reality is we’re going to have to make compromises to create these layers if we want the layers to be effective. If we want them to continue to not be effective, then we will continue to argue and not be able to get anything done.

  Rani Molla

  As many have noted, every time something this horrible happens — after Sandy Hook, for example — people assume that laws will change. But as you said, it seems like all Americans have done is argue, and that’s done very little to stop mass shootings in the US. How can we make sure something positive happens after Uvalde?

Sheldon H. Jacobson

We can find some common ground if we focus on what we’re trying to achieve, as opposed to the how. Let’s work on the how second. First, let’s find out what our objectives are. The objective is to reduce the number of preventable and premature deaths due to firearms. Very simple statement, and I believe everybody can agree with that objective. I can’t imagine anybody saying, “Oh, I can’t agree with that.”

Rani Molla

Right, but the how part is a bit of a sticking point.

Sheldon H. Jacobson

The how is the challenge. That’s why when you introduce layers, each layer may in fact be acceptable to some people. But it’s when you put them together that you get the impenetrable fortress that will reduce premature and preventable deaths.

Rani Molla

For guns, what does that look like? A lot more monitoring of who’s buying ammo and guns and their age and their background?

Sheldon H. Jacobson

These are all the things that everybody is discussing, and that includes red flags and background checks. The thing about background checks and why they’re so important is that, once you submit yourself to a background check, you’re making a statement that you’re willing to have someone look under the covers. When the TSA vets you for PreCheck and they approve you, you become a known traveler. And in many ways, we want every single person who’s interested in purchasing a firearm to become a known firearm owner. That, itself, is a deterrent for bad behavior.

Rani Molla

Because they know that they’re known?

Sheldon H. Jacobson

Yes, because they know that they’re known. And that’s why people who have PreCheck are very well behaved in your system compared to those who don’t. This is purely anecdotal, based on my conversations with people, but I believe it’s a reasonable statement: The TSA finds close to 5,000 guns every year at checkpoints. How many of them are PreCheck versus non PreCheck? They don’t report it and it’s never going to be reported publicly, but based on all my experience — but I have known no proof of this — the vast majority are not PreCheck passengers. PreCheck passengers are going to be careful when they go through because they’re more experienced, they know how to travel, and in some sense, they’ve been informed and vetted already.

Rani Molla

While horrible, the vast majority of gun deaths in the US are not part of mass shootings, but rather suicides. Could risk assessment be used to prevent some of those as well?

Sheldon H. Jacobson

I believe that anything we do to know more about people who are owning firearms, the more likely we’re going to have beneficial impacts on the well-being of people in the country when it comes to firearm safety.

Rani Molla

You’ve noted that we regularly go through risk screenings for much more banal stuff than guns, like travel and mortgages. Why are guns different?

Sheldon H. Jacobson

Great question. You can argue it’s based on the Constitution and the Second Amendment — now we’re getting into the psyche of people. It could be purely a political motive, that people want to retain their power in Congress, and the only way they can do that is to ensure they have votes. And there’s a group of people who just feel that they want to have the right to have a gun, no questions asked.

If a legislator is against background checks, then they should be against PreCheck and they should relinquish their PreCheck status and they should never apply for a loan. Because although the information being collected is different potentially, what is the same is the process of seeking information and being willing to offer it, and that’s the key point.

Rani Molla

It seems lawmakers could learn a lot from industries other than the firearm industry.

Sheldon H. Jacobson

The auto industry as well as the airline industry are always looking at continuous improvement of their processes. When there is an airplane accident, the National Transportation Safety Board goes in, does a root cause analysis, determines what happened, and then implements policies and procedures so that it won’t happen again on another flight. The auto industry has continued to improve automobiles in a manner that there’s more safety features built-in. And some of them have become laws and policies — safety belt use, for example. All of these industries continue improving. And you see it in the fact that there are fewer accidents and fewer deaths.

Every industry that wants to compete has to continue to improve, and government policies should be designed to improve the well-being of Americans and, ultimately, everybody who lives in the country. This is an issue that’s not seen improvement. Why aren’t we improving when everything else in our DNA says we should be improving?

Rani Molla

Again then, why is the gun industry different?

Sheldon H. Jacobson

That’s the question I keep posing. And that’s why I’ve come up with all these examples of things that we do routinely and accept. But when it comes to issues surrounding firearms, for some reason, walls go up and it’s like, “No, we can’t change.” And if we don’t change anything, we’re going to keep getting the same result.

I think people call that insanity: doing the same actions expecting different results. Well, we’re doing the same thing over and over again, and we’re getting the same results. So the question is, is this acceptable? And most of us will agree now it’s not acceptable.

• The kids who have never known life without Covid-19 -

  

  What the pandemic took from America’s youngest children — and how to help them get it back.

  It’s 10 am, and the flower shop at Classroom 9 is open for business.

  Nataly, 5, is the cashier, presiding over a toy register and a vibrant array of cloth roses, carnations, and orchids. Arlet, also 5, mops the floor. Their teacher, Rawshan Khanam, is the first customer. For a modest bouquet, Nataly quotes her a price of $50.

  Aside from a bit of sticker shock (inflation has clearly hit the preschool flower market), it seems like the most ordinary interaction in the world: a couple of little kids and their teacher playing store. The students at the Child Center of New York Corona Head Start program in Corona, Queens, however, spent some of their most crucial formative years in a pandemic, when going to the store — or anywhere else — was no longer so simple.

  

  That history keeps coming up even now that they’re attending preschool at the Corona Head Start program, which serves low-income kids in a part of New York City hard-hit by Covid. Khanam is reminded of everything her students have missed out on when she asks them about once-common childhood experiences. “Have you ever been to a museum? No. Have you ever been to a beach? No. Have you ever been to a library? No,” she said. “It’s so much ‘no’ in their lives.”

  At this point, two and a half years into the pandemic, many kids have begun to catch up on experiences they missed. Children under 5, however, still aren’t able to be vaccinated, leaving some families unsure how much return to normalcy is really safe — or possible. At the same time, infants, toddlers, and preschoolers have gone through crucial years of early social and emotional development at a time of trauma and isolation for many Americans. Many spent some of their earliest months on lockdown, often interacting only with family and missing out on small but real learning experiences like playing in a sandbox or going to the grocery store. Many of their caregivers went through extreme stress as well, which can affect children even before they’re born.

  Psychologists, educators, and other experts are still learning what it means for little kids to be born into the biggest public health crisis in a generation. Some of the news is concerning: one study, for example, found that babies born during the pandemic were slightly behind their pre-pandemic counterparts on measures of motor and social development. Parents and teachers are also worried about young children’s language development after long periods of isolation and mask-wearing. “Their speech is so delayed,” Khanam said.

  The picture that’s emerging, though, is not as bleak as some might fear. Experts agree that young children’s still-developing brains are uncommonly good at bouncing back from and adapting to new realities — even difficult ones. “Children are really resilient, and anything that they’re experiencing during this pandemic probably prepares them well for future stressors,” said Moriah Thomason, a human developmental neuroscientist at New York University.

  

  Today’s youngest children could actually emerge from this pandemic better equipped for what the next few years hold than adults who were already set in their ways when lockdown began. In order to heal and learn the lessons they missed out on in the pandemic’s earlier days, however, they need help — counseling, speech therapy, and other supports that are often in short supply as school systems and city governments continue to reel from the effects of the pandemic. As Khanam put it, “They’re resilient, they’re survivors, but they need services.”

  The first five years are widely regarded as some of the most important, developmentally, of a child’s life. During the earliest years, children establish the neural architecture they’ll build on throughout their lives — Thomason likens it to the foundation and scaffolding of a building. The first few years of life are also “a period of high neuroplasticity” when the brain is changing rapidly and environmental influences are especially important, Thomason said. “Disruptions in this period are associated with bigger long-term outcomes, as if you’ve opened a chasm.”

  The pandemic has certainly been rife with disruptions. Many babies and young children interacted only with immediate family for months at a time. For Rene, now 5 and one of the students in Khanam’s class, not being around his peers had a severe impact, his mom, Lucia Hernandez, said through an interpreter. She even noticed his skin becoming discolored during lockdown, which she believes was a symptom of stress.

  Kids’ opportunities for experiencing the wider world were also severely curtailed. At the beginning of lockdown, Bella, now 4, couldn’t even go to the park, her grandmother, Gladys Vasquez, recalled. Even when she and her big sister True were allowed to go out again, they couldn’t play with other kids. “The park is not that much fun when they’re by themselves,” said Vasquez, who lives with the girls on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where Bella now attends a Head Start program.

  While older kids attended school remotely, those under 5 often had no social outlets, even virtual ones, beyond their household. This age group was “more socially isolated than any other population,” said Jennifer March, executive director of the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, a child advocacy organization.

  

  The youngest kids may have begun feeling the effects of the pandemic before they were even born. When the crisis began, researchers at Columbia University set out to study the impact of maternal Covid-19 infection on babies. The good news is the impact was negligible: The team found no developmental differences between babies whose moms had been infected during pregnancy and babies whose moms had not.

  Then the researchers compared all the babies in their sample to babies born before the pandemic began. Here they did find differences: Babies born during the pandemic, regardless of whether they’d actually been exposed to Covid in utero, scored slightly lower than their pre-pandemic counterparts on measures of gross motor, fine motor, and personal/social skills.

  When the researchers drilled down further, they found the largest effect among babies whose mothers were in their first trimester when the pandemic first hit American shores in early 2020. They believe the cause may be prenatal exposure to maternal stress. “I have a 2-year-old who was born during peak pandemic,” said Lauren Shuffrey, an associate research scientist at Columbia University Medical Center who worked on the research. “It was a very stressful time for mothers.”

  Her team is not the only one to find differences between kids born before the pandemic and those born since. Researchers at Brown University found that infants’ scores on tests of language, motor, and visual skills began dropping in 2020, as Melinda Wenner Moyer reported in Nature. The differences were greatest in boys and babies from low-income families; motor skills were the most affected; and rather than resolving, the gaps appeared to widen as the pandemic went on. “The magnitude is massive — it’s just astonishing,” medical biophysicist Sean Deoni, who worked on the research, told Nature.

  Anecdotally, families and teachers, too, see impacts of the pandemic on young children. Bella has had issues with her speech, such as stuttering, that her grandmother attributes in part to isolation. “She was always home and not having someone always constantly teaching [her] something,” Vasquez said. “It’s hard for her to express herself verbally.”

  

  Rene, meanwhile, was receiving speech therapy before the pandemic started. During lockdown, the therapy switched to Zoom, which just wasn’t the same, Hernandez said. It was a common problem — one study of school-aged children with disabilities found that 42 percent lost access to all therapy services during the first four months of the pandemic, and 34 percent got at least one therapy remotely. Meanwhile, 40 percent of parents saw declines in kids’ motor, behavioral, social, or communication skills that they attributed to the change in therapy.

  The interruption in services had particular implications for the youngest kids. In normal times, if daycare or preschool teachers notice a child showing signs of a developmental delay or disability, they can refer the child for early intervention services, available in every state, that can help. Constrained state budgets can make it hard to get access to these services, even in the best of times, but “if something little is going on at 12 months, it’s so much better to intervene then,” rather than waiting until the child is 5 or 6, said Bridget O’Rourke, associate executive director for early childhood education at the social services agency University Settlement.

  During lockdown, though, “early intervention services essentially came to a halt,” O’Rourke said. Kids who were already getting therapies often stopped getting them, and many who would otherwise have been identified as having a delay or disability simply were not. Now those services have started up again, but there’s still a backlog to work through, and many families aren’t getting help in a timely fashion.

  Then there are the more intangible effects of the pandemic, the myriad small losses like flower shops, beaches, and libraries. Khanam pointed to psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of learning, which posits that children learn through social interaction with adults, other kids, and their culture as a whole. During lockdown, children missed out on countless opportunities to interact with other people, and their social environment still isn’t what it was before the pandemic began, Khanam said. “They didn’t learn how to share; they didn’t learn how to be compassionate about others.”

  “If you look at the theory, and look at this group,” she said, “we missed a big part of their life — like a big, big chunk.”

  

  

  Even now, a day at Corona Head Start isn’t quite what it was before Covid hit. Parents drop their kids off at the front door instead of coming into the building. Teachers used to eat breakfast and lunch with the kids; now they serve up pancakes, bananas, and milk and keep their masks on while the students eat. When the kids lean in to gossip with each other over breakfast, a teacher has to remind them not to get too close without their masks on.

  Fortunately for young children and their families, however, many of the losses of the pandemic can be repaired. For one thing, even though the effects of stress can begin in the womb, adaptation can start there too. Thomason points to the “Dutch Hunger Winter” of 1944-1945, during which pregnant women had to subsist on as little as 600 calories per day. Research later revealed that their babies were born metabolically prepared for a low-calorie diet.

  “Our biology is so attuned to the situation,” Thomason said. A pandemic is different from a famine, but the past suggests that children will adjust to this experience, too. “Even though we think about early development as a time of heightened, let’s say, vulnerability,” she said, “it’s also a time when the brain is very plastic and well prepared to adapt.”

  Indeed, the youngest children have sometimes adjusted better to the realities of the pandemic than their elders, who remember and miss the way things used to be. Bella’s older sister True, now 7, was upset and stressed during lockdown, sad to be missing in-person school, Vasquez said. For Bella, “it really didn’t affect her too much” emotionally. “She was a happy-go-lucky young lady.”

  Some research even suggests positive effects, not necessarily of the pandemic itself, but of increased time spent with family. According to an analysis by Thomason, in households where parents experienced more added responsibilities as a result of the pandemic — for example, because they were working from home and taking care of children at the same time — children actually had better outcomes than in homes where parents’ responsibilities were less.

  

  Trying to work while caring for kids during a deadly pandemic was deeply stressful for many parents, and millions of essential workers never had the choice to stay home at all. For parents who could, however, those burnout-inducing months (or years) may have had a silver lining for kids’ development. “Maybe what we were seeing was families that were more impacted in terms of parenting roles during the pandemic actually were spending more time with their children, and their children were actually experiencing the benefits,” Thomason said.

  Young children may also have spent more time with older siblings, which research shows is beneficial for cognitive and language development, Thomason said. As difficult as the pandemic has been, she believes it’s important not to assume the last two years have been wholly negative for children.

  “My strategy as a scientist, researcher, and mother has been to allow discussion of positives to come into the conversation,” Thomason explained. “There’s a degree to which, as a society, we are responsible for writing self-fulfilling prophecies in terms of what we take away from our experiences.”

  Where research does point to problems as a result of the pandemic, there’s no reason to assume they will be lifelong. Shuffrey, the Columbia researcher, pointed out that her research was conducted on very young babies, and the differences her team found were small. “It’s not as though a screening tool at six months is predictive of one’s future,” she said. “Kids are so resilient that I have no doubt that these kids are going to be okay. But it’s still important to continue to monitor and provide support, if and when needed.”

  It’s a message sent by educators and researchers alike: Now is not the time for defeatism over what young kids have lost in the pandemic, but for action. At Corona Head Start, what’s most needed is more staff to help kids who need speech therapy, early intervention, and other services, said Lillian Rodriguez-Magliaro, senior program director at the facility. Because of a statewide shortage of educators, some students at the school were identified as needing additional services in the fall and still haven’t received them. “What’s going to happen to the children that don’t get served?” Rodriguez-Magliaro said. “Our kids are moving into kindergarten.”

  

  

It’s an especially urgent concern for low-income families like those the Corona program serves, who can’t afford to pay for private therapies or other services outside of school. These families have already shouldered a disproportionate share of the pandemic’s trauma — indeed, Corona, one of the first Covid epicenters in the country, has lost hundreds of residents to the virus. Many parents, like Hernandez, who works as a housecleaner, were unemployed during lockdown in 2020, and many in the area still struggle to find jobs. Others worked outside the home as essential workers.

Their kids often did not experience an increase in family bonding time the way children of remote-working parents did. Thomason believes the benefits of increased parental interaction during the pandemic are probably concentrated among middle- and upper-middle-class kids, whose parents were able to be home with them in relative safety and financial security. The economic disparity in the pandemic’s impact “is probably the most significant thing we should all be talking about,” she said.

Remedying that disparity will mean closing the gap in access to services — which costs money. One big reason for the shortage of educators and other in-school service providers is low pay brought on by years of budget cuts, Rodriguez-Magliaro said.

“Teachers need to be paid more,” O’Rourke, of University Settlement, said. That’s especially the case for early childhood educators, who make less than elementary and high school teachers even though they work longer days and school years.

Families, too, need support to help them care for kids during an ongoing pandemic, experts say. That includes paid leave to be with children who are sick with Covid or quarantined after an exposure, Shuffrey said — something that remains a common occurrence, especially at daycares and preschools where kids are too young to be vaccinated. It also includes help with child care access. “Child care costs have gone up so significantly in the US in the past two years,” Shuffrey said. “Being able to provide families with child care that they can afford, so they can do things like work or take care of another family member, could be really, really supportive on a more structural level.”

The children born into the pandemic also need a culture that values them as people, rather than dismissing them as some kind of lost generation. “Stop labeling them ‘pandemic children,’” Rodriguez-Magliaro said. “It’s easy to label so that you don’t have to reflect on the need.”

Despite the challenges, she and others at the Child Center are surrounded by examples that kids can thrive with the right support, even in times that remain difficult. When Rene was able to go back to school in September 2020 and began receiving his speech therapy services in person again, his communication skills quickly improved, Hernandez said. “You can tell that there’s been a change.”

Today, he’s an energetic 5-year-old who hams it up while dancing to “I’m a Gummy Bear” and crowds to the front of the room with his friends when it’s time to look at the class caterpillar, who’s almost ready to form a cocoon. When he starts playing at the classroom’s sand table, his classmate Ruby clamors to join him.

Despite their time in isolation, the kids in Classroom 9 share a palpable affection for each other now. They hold hands during dance time, build pretend houses for each other, squabble over plastic butterflies and then make the butterflies hug. A school day for them involves “a lot of complaining, a lot of giggling, a lot of running, a lot of correcting,” Khanam said, “And at the same time, a lot of love.”

“When they grow up, I want to see them successful,” she says of the 18 preschoolers she teaches every day. And for policymakers and people in power, she has a simple ask: “Treat them as human beings.”

From The Hindu: Sports

• Have full trust in Hockey India but every federation has to abide by sports code: FIH - FIH is all set to host the first Hockey 5s World Cup in 2024

• Imperial Power, Prince O’ War, Ashwa Yudhvir, English Bay and A Star Is Born shine -

• Pakistan hosts West Indies for ODI series in intense heat - Pakistan will host the West Indies in a three-match ODI series in Multan, starting June 8, at a time when the country is reeling under political uncertainities and heatwave.

• Ranji Trophy | Mumbai’s Suved Parkar joins elite club with debut double hundred - In the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal between Mumbai and Uttarakhand, Suved Parkar — standing in for the injured Ajinkya Rahane — scored a double century, making him only the 12th Indian to do it on First-Class debut

• In Brazil, the land of football, women’s cricket thrives - Defying stereotypes, Brazil is emerging as a force to be reckoned with in cricket, especially the women’s national team, who were given professional contracts in 2020 — making the country the first in the world to take its women’s team pro before the men’s

From The Hindu: National News

• CBI takes over probe in rape and murder case of 14-year-old student of Noida school - The Supreme Court’s order comes after an appeal from the victim’s mother who alleged that it was a heinous crime of rape and murder, followed by abduction of family members.

• ED seizes ₹2.85 crore cash, 133 gold coins after raids against Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain - Satyendar Jain was arrested on May 30 under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is in ED custody till June 9

• Kerala government revives Meenachil river valley project after four decades - Government appoints six-member panel to study proposal

• Andhra Pradesh: Varla Ramaiah alleges ‘VIP treatment’ to jailed MLC - The TDP leader urges Director General of Prisons to inquire into the issue

• Andhra Pradesh: TTD launches scheme to help infants with cardiac ailments - Cost of medicines, surgical material and implants to be funded from donations

From BBC: Europe

• Ukraine war: EU blames Russia for food crisis prompting walkout - Ukraine is a major exporter of grain and cooking oil but the war has cut off supplies at ports.

• Eurostar: Call for ‘swift’ resumption of service in Kent - Officials say no decision will be made until later in 2022 amid ongoing talks with Kent authorities.

• Croatia 1-1 France: Les Bleus yet to win in Nations League - Nations League champions France are on one point from two games after being held by Croatia in Split.

• Kamila Valieva: Skating minimum age to be raised to 17 following Olympic controversy - The International Skating Union will raise the minimum age for competitors in senior events from 15 to 17 after the controversy surrounding Kamila Valieva at the Beijing Olympic Games.

• MPs condemn chaotic scenes at Paris final - Concerns over France’s suitability to host sporting events have been raised in the Commons.

From Ars Technica

• Microsoft won’t say if it will patch critical Windows vulnerability under exploit - Slow to act on the code execution bug from the start, company is still in no hurry. - link

• With BA.2.12.1 now dominant in US, experts eye new subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 - New data suggests BA.4, BA.5 are better at evading immune responses than BA.2.12.1. - link

• Dreamy first teaser for The Sandman helps kick off Netflix’s Geeked Week - Also: Locke & Key S3, The Midnight Club, Resident Evil, Wednesday, and more. - link

• iPadOS 16 has lots of updates, but new multitasking features require an M1 chip - Plus the iPad finally has a Weather app! - link

• Here’s a first look at Apple’s redesigned M2 MacBook Air - Plus, photos of the dual-port charger that comes with it. - link

From Jokes Subreddit

• A couple, after a rather successful first date and are heading back to the guy’s apartment. -

  As the guy reaches for his keys, the girl says, “Oh, this part usually tells me how a guy is in bed. If a guy fumbles around trying to get the key into the lock, it means he hasn’t had much experience and has no idea what he’s doing, but if the guy just jams the key in, it means he’s very forceful and demanding, and that’s no good either. Now let’s see how you do.”

  “Alright then,” Says the guy with a smirk on his face. He then proceeds to lick the lock.

  submitted by /u/SilentJoe27
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• An African leader makes an official trip to Russia. -

  As he’s leaving, the Russian leader tells him that in Russia they have a farewell custom called “Russian Roulette”, to demonstrate one’s courage.

  The Russian whips out a revolver, loads one chamber, gives the cylinder a spin, puts the gun to his head and pulls the trigger…

  Click! Empty chamber.

  He hands the revolver to his African guest and says," Your turn."

  Not to be outdone, the African repeats the ritual… Click! Empty.

  The next year, the Russian visits his counterpart in his country.

  As he’s leaving, the African tells him that he was very impressed with “Russian Roulette” and that he has devised an African ritual to demonstrate one’s courage.

  The African then disappears through a door, only to reappear a few minutes later smiling and says, “Your turn.”

  The African escorts the Russian through the door.

  In the room are 6 of the most beautiful, naked women he has ever seen.

  The African explains that he is to choose 1 of the women, who will perform oral sex on him.

  Absolutely dumbfounded, the Russian asks, “What kind of test of courage is this?”

  The African calmly answers,

  “One of them is a cannibal.”

  submitted by /u/AkaGurGor
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• How many dead whores do you need to change a light bulb? -

  I don’t know. But it must be more than 8, because my basment is still dark af.

  submitted by /u/Don_Corle1
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• My mom died because I couldnt remember her blood type -

  She kept saying “be positive” but it’s going to be hard when she’s not around

  submitted by /u/Kooky-Meat506
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• What do you call a Mexican Jedi? -

  Obi-Juan

  submitted by /u/bravestar3030
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