United States | News & Politics

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Teahouses built for spending extended time in, open until the wee hours of the night, are popping up all over the city. Some are elusive, hidden in plain sight or only accessible via a mysterious membership. Others have gone viral on TikTok and have cover charges and waitlists to attend. Some reference East Asian tea ceremony culture, others lean California cool and bohemian.

Why the surge in places to drink tea? It might be because young people are consuming less alcohol (a 2023 study from Gallup found the number of people under 35 who drink has dropped 10% over the last two decades). Or maybe it’s due to the fact that the city has lost a sizable chunk of restaurants open past 10 p.m. — LAist reports nearly 100 since 2019 — leaving fewer places to sit and chat that aren’t bars or clubs. At the same time, activities centered on wellness and reflection, like gratitude groups, journaling or even reading silently in public, are being embraced by people of all ages looking for third spaces and activities outside of the standard dinner-and-a-movie.

NYU’s decision to withhold Logan Rozos’s degree for denouncing genocide in Gaza in his graduation speech is the latest example of right-wing cancel culture. After criticizing it on the Left, conservatives have learned to rally “woke” mobs of their own.

United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs against most of the world tanked stock markets, disrupted the U.S. bond market and destabilized the global economy.

Trump has economically and politically threatened American allies, shattering the unity of the western world. But Trump’s chaos may have inadvertently produced an opportunity to create a better world.

Some western commentators argue that the U.S. has been a benevolent superpower.

That may have been true for a small group of mostly western states that have benefitted from American domination. But much of the Global South was victimized by American military, economic and political interventions.

“It's hard to get ahead of it, because the animals can't talk to us and tell us they have a problem.”

Moving forward, the FDA will adopt the following Covid-19 vaccination regulatory framework: On the basis of immunogenicity — proof that a vaccine can generate antibody titers in people — the FDA anticipates that it will be able to make favorable benefit–risk findings for adults over the age of 65 years and for all persons above the age of 6 months with one or more risk factors that put them at high risk for severe Covid-19 outcomes, as described by the CDC (Figure 2). For all healthy persons — those with no risk factors for severe Covid-19 — between the ages of 6 months and 64 years, the FDA anticipates the need for randomized, controlled trial data evaluating clinical outcomes before Biologics License Applications can be granted. Insofar as possible, when approving a Covid-19 vaccine for high-risk groups, the FDA will encourage manufacturers to conduct randomized, controlled trials in the population of healthy adults as part of their postmarketing commitment.

Source.

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)

As Donald Trump works to undermine the Social Security Administration, his ultrarich Social Security commissioner, Frank Bisignano, was just approved for a giant tax break on a $484 million capital gains sale.

archived (Wayback Machine)

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are advancing President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks, spending cuts and beefed-up border security as Speaker Mike Johnson attempts to pass the package over unified Democratic opposition by Memorial Day.

House committees have labored on the legislation, which runs a whopping 1,116 pages and is titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a nod to Trump himself.

Still, GOP divisions run high. Fiscal conservatives worry the bill doesn’t cut Medicaid spending enough, while Republicans from competitive swing districts warn that they can’t support a bill that would jeopardize access to health coverage and food assistance for constituents.