Mask Mandates Back in Philadelphia, Newsweek Lies about Teen Suicide Rates, Inflation Driving Baby Boomers into Homelessness, Solar Panels that Produce Electricity at Night?! (The Five for 04/12/22)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Stay tuned Friday for a couple of new project announcements.
With that being said…let’s get into the news!
[one]
Newsweek recently came out of the gate with an attention-grabbing headline…
…that is highly misleading.
From the Newsweek article:
One in four American teenagers who identify as gay, lesbian or bi-sexual said they seriously considered taking their own lives in the first half of 2021, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The figure came to light in the CDC's new "Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey," which assesses the impact of the pandemic on young Americans.
Some 46.8 percent of teenagers who identified as homosexual or bisexual said that they had seriously considered attempting suicide in the first six months of 2021, while 26.3 of all teenagers who identified as homosexual or bisexual said that they had attempted suicide in that time period.
Those numbers are alarming…but not unique to non-heterosexual students.
The data also looked at school students' mental health during the pandemic. More than a third (37 percent) of high school students said they experienced poor mental health during the pandemic, 44 percent saying they persistently felt sad or hopeless during the last year.
"These data echo a cry for help," Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC acting principal deputy director, said in a statement. "The COVID-19 pandemic has created traumatic stressors that have the potential to further erode students' mental well-being. Our research shows that surrounding youth with the proper support can reverse these trends and help our youth now and in the future."
So…44% of heterosexual students, and 46.8% of gay/bisexual students…experienced similar symptoms.
A more accurate headline would be “locking students down with pandemic restrictions led to a serious mental health crisis.”
I checked out the CDC’s website to see if they had any additional data on LGBT teens, and the findings (which are quite old—2015) reveaeal a lot:
These levels of dating violence and sexual abuse…and outright rape are highly concerning.
Perhaps one method of “sex ed” for kindergarten-3rd grade (the age group at the center of the controversial Florida Parental Rights in Education law) would be to start educating and encouraging children to report sexual abuse.
”If anyone does [action] to you, tell [teacher, clergy, police, etc.]”
To summarize, LGBT teens can best be protected by making sure students are meeting for education in-person, and abuse by adults and peers is easily reportable and taken seriously. Which the article essentially ignores.
It’s undeniable that Newsweek is operating on a dying business model…and last week they chose a clickable headline over the facts.
[two]
The devastating effects of rapid inflation are pushing low-income baby boomers into homelessness.
Karla Finocchio’s slide into homelessness began when she split with her partner of 18 years and temporarily moved in with a cousin.
The 55-year-old planned to use her $800-a-month disability check to get an apartment after back surgery. But she soon was sleeping in her old pickup protected by her German Shepherd mix Scrappy, unable to afford housing in Phoenix, where median monthly rents soared 33% during the coronavirus pandemic to over $1,220 for a one-bedroom, according to ApartmentList.com.
Finocchio is one face of America’s graying homeless population, a rapidly expanding group of destitute and desperate people 50 and older suddenly without a permanent home after a job loss, divorce, family death or health crisis during a pandemic.
“We’re seeing a huge boom in senior homelessness,” said Kendra Hendry, a caseworker at Arizona’s largest shelter, where older people make up about 30% of those staying there. “These are not necessarily people who have mental illness or substance abuse problems. They are people being pushed into the streets by rising rents.”
Academics project their numbers will nearly triple over the next decade, challenging policy makers from Los Angeles to New York to imagine new ideas for sheltering the last of the baby boomers as they get older, sicker and less able to pay spiraling rents. Advocates say much more housing is needed, especially for extremely low-income people.
[three]
Solar power sounds great in theory, but has been plagued with inconsistency issues.
However, a research team at Stanford may have just changed that, by developing solar panels that produce electricity at night.
A team of engineers at Stanford University have developed a solar cell that can generate some electricity at night.
The research comes at a moment when the number of solar jobs and residential installations are rising.
While standard solar panels can provide electricity during the day, this device can serve as a "continuous renewable power source for both day- and nighttime," according to the study published this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
The device incorporates a thermoelectric generator, which can pull electricity from the small difference in temperature between the ambient air and the solar cell itself.
Mini-grid applications refer to independent electricity networks. These can be used when a population is too small or too far away to extend the grid.
It wasn't until recently that solar energy declined in price and became much more affordable. Some companies have bought into the program, and California has even incentivized the shift to solar.
[four]
The Biden Administration announced the end of mask mandates at this year’s State of the Union, but now one major city is bringing them back.
Philadelphia health officials announced Monday that they are reimposing the indoor mask mandate in response to an increase in cases driven by the omicron BA.2 subvariant.
"Recently we've been watching COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise in several European countries and some places in the US, and now were starting to see cases here in Philadelphia rise," Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole said at a press briefing on Monday afternoon. "We're reintroducing the mask mandate in Philadelphia."3
If new cases hit between 225 and 500 per day, then the city will reimpose the requirement that residents show a vaccine card or negative COVID-19 test before entering bars and restaurants.
[five]
Last year, California experienced the state’s first ever population loss, as more Californians search for homes in states with less taxes and crime.
The fact that it’s now too dangerous to deliver the mail in one part of suburban LA can’t help the shrinking population trend.
The U.S. Postal Service is temporarily suspending services in a Santa Monica neighborhood after multiple attacks on its mail carriers, the agency said Monday.
There have been three incidents in the 1300 block of 14th Street in Santa Monica involving three separate letter carriers, USPS spokeswoman Natashi Garvins told KTLA.
“Multiple carriers have been subjected to assaults and threats of assault from an individual who has not been located or apprehended,” letters from USPS posted in the neighborhood read.
Violent crime is up throughout the Los Angeles area, including a 94% increase in murders over the last two years, according to the local ABC affiliate.
Until the next one,
-sth