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☆ How water-bottle fill stations can impact children’s health, according to a new study
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Madeline Holcombe | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Making water more accessible to kids leads to an increase in hydration and a decrease in children being overweight, according to a new study. The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, included more than 1,200 students across 18 schools in California’s Bay Area. Half of the schools were gifted water dispensers in the cafeteria and water-bottle filling stations in areas of high traffic, Patel said. “I always tell people, drink water first — as that will reduce a person’s thirst and likelihood that they will drink sugary drinks. “If we really care about kids’ health, we won’t give them health information with a side of body shame, because we know weight stigma hurts kids’ health,” Hanson said.

Persons: ”, Anisha Patel, Patel, “, Asher Rosinger, Rosinger, Oona Hanson, Hanson, ” Hanson Organizations: CNN, Pediatrics, Stanford University in, Health, Nutrition, Pennsylvania State University Locations: California’s Bay, Stanford University in California, Los Angeles

☆ 'Of course he lost': Ron DeSantis rejects Trump's 2020 election claims
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-07 | by ( Amanda Terkel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Ron DeSantis on Sunday rejected Donald Trump's claim that he was the true winner of the 2020 presidential election in his most forceful comments to date on the matter. DeSantis continued to discuss all the ways he believed the previous presidential election was not perfect. DeSantis' comments come just days after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he broke the law by trying to overturn the 2020 election. I don't think it was a good-run election," DeSantis said. Florida has long allowed anyone who wants to vote by mail to do so, including in the 2020 election.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, Scott Brown, Donald Trump's, DeSantis, Dasha Burns, Trump, Burns, Joe Biden's, Lester Holt, Mark Zuckerberg's, Hunter Biden, didn't, You've, —, Dr, Anthony Fauci, lockdowns, Trump's Organizations: Republican U.S, Florida Gov, NBC News, NBC, MSNBC, Trump, Republican, White, Coronavirus, Force, Republican National Committee Locations: Florida, Rye , New Hampshire, U.S, Iowa

Author Rachel Rodgers says that being in debt is not an automatic sign of being bad with money. As someone who has tackled debt myself, a home mortgage, student loan, or business debt is typically considered good debt because it's viewed as an investment that grow over time. Try the debt snowball methodIf you are paying more than the minimum payment, you can try the debt snowball method for debt elimination. By "snowballing" payments toward your smallest debt, you'll eliminate it quickly and move on to the next-smallest debt while paying the minimum on the rest. Rinse and repeat with the next smallest debt on the list.

Persons: Rachel Rodgers, Rodgers, it's Organizations: Service Locations: Wall, Silicon

Our experts answer readers' student loan questions and write unbiased product reviews (here's how we assess student loans). My husband and I aggressively paid of $80,000 in student loans during the pandemic. I would have stopped conflating net worth with my self-worthI've spent so much energy demonizing debt in the past, especially student loans. I wish I could reach out to my younger self and remind her that student loans are an investment in the future. Tons of people have student loans, and they don't have to be a huge psychic weight.

Persons: Ramsey, we'd, David Bach, I've Organizations: Service, PMI Locations: Wall, Silicon, Dave

☆ Opinion | How Conservatives Went From Demonizing Muslims to Wooing Them
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Michelle Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our L.G.B.T.Q. At the time, this sort of rhetoric was common among Trump and his allies, who fashioned themselves in the mold of European right-wing populists, demonizing Muslims as a threat to hard-won Western sexual freedoms. Seven years later, as the battle against wokeness has supplanted the war on terror in the right-wing imagination, conservative sympathies are reversing. “Republicans are wooing Muslim voters by promising to protect them from L.G.B.T.Q. “The revolt against the radical L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ takeover of the U.S. won another battle this week,” the article crowed.

Persons: Donald Trump, ”, Trump, Geert Wilders, Lucian Wintrich, wokeness, ” David Weigel, Laura Ingraham, ” Ingraham, Kareem Monib Organizations: Republican, Republican National Convention, Trump, White House, Pundit, Fox News, Muslim City Council, U.S Locations: Orlando, MAGA, Semafor, Maryland, Hamtramck, Mich

☆ Orcas ram and severely damage another boat. But a sailor onboard says stop 'demonizing' the 'beautiful creatures.'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Isobel Van Hagen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A pod of orcas rammed a yacht off the Spanish coast, destroying the rudder and piercing the hull. The crew was forced to make a Mayday call for assistance when the boat began to fill with water. Earlier this week, a pod of orcas rammed into the Mustique, destroying the yacht's rudder and piercing the hull. In an Instagram post on Saturday, Boyes added that interactions with orcas can be "quite terrifying." Boyes urged that more research into the "beautiful creatures" needs to be done, especially as the attacks are increasingly common.

It's important to understand your money story — the beliefs you have about how you get and spend money. "Emotions can cause and contribute to how you spend money, and vice versa, how we spend can cause and contribute to our emotional state being affected. Financial literacy isn't enough to solve many problems »Audit your emotions — and consider a journalTo get in touch with your emotions around money, keep track of them, suggests Wamala. "Ignoring your emotions keeps you in the dark when it comes to how and why you spend money," she says. "Rather than demonizing our money-related emotions, it's a much more empathic and sustainable approach to get curious about your emotions."

☆ A drag queen who survived the Orlando Pulse shooting says Florida's LGBTQ community is 'scared' of further hate following DeSantis' push to revoke a hotel's liquor license
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Lloyd Lee | Chris Panella | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

A drag queen who survived the 2016 Pulse club shooting said it only further demonizes LGBTQ people. "Not just in terms of limiting opportunities for drag entertainers, but by demonizing the art of drag as a whole," she wrote. Fine told Insider his motivation for pursuing the bill came after he found out a drag queen show was hosted in a public space in his district last year. However, the representative also said he would not support a bill that eliminates drag shows for consenting adults. In Florida, there have been at least nine demonstrations against the LGBTQ community, the organization found.

☆ MTG and George Santos are co-sponsoring a bill that could ban LGBTQ books in classrooms
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Marjorie Taylor Greene and George Santos are co-sponsoring a bill banning some books in schools. It aims to end "sexualization of children," echoing bills restricting access to LGBTQ material. Santos is the only openly gay Republican member of Congress. Ron DeSantis last year signed the so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, restricting the teaching of LGBTQ issues in schools. Santos is one 10 LGBTQ members of Congress and the only Republican LGBTQ member.

☆ Biden doubles down on needling Republicans over proposed Social Security and Medicare cuts: 'I'm your nightmare'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

"I guess I shouldn't say any more," he said, "but particularly on Social Security and Medicare." Rubio, who is in the rumored mix for the 2024 GOP nomination, said anybody who supports slashing Social Security or Medicare is delusional. "You have to listen to what the president said the last couple of years about protecting and fighting for Medicare and Social Security." "I've never ever said I would reduce Medicare or Social Security benefits. As for Social Security, its trust funds are expected to be insolvent by 2035, which would trigger 20% in cuts across the board.

☆ Here's everything you need to know about the history and meaning of drag
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Yelena Dzhanova | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Drag culture has centuries of history behind it, from Ancient Greece to the Harlem Renaissance. Here's a guide to drag culture in the US and how what it means today. But in drag, cis men don't have to present as women, and cis women don't have to present as men. But at the end of the day, Giuliani wasn't actually participating in drag culture, Walsh said. There's been a lot of grassroots-level organization around drag recently, Walsh said, partly in response to the uptick in violence against drag culture.

☆ Guns, drugs and migrants: Biden heads to Mexico to face diplomatic challenges with North American allies
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Peter Nicholas | Peter Nicholas Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

MEXICO CITY — When North American leaders gathered in 2021 — at the first summit for the group in five years — the mood was upbeat. Before he arrived in Mexico City on Sunday night, Biden stopped in El Paso, Texas, amid criticism from congressional Republicans that the southwest border has gotten more porous on his watch. Citing health concerns, López Obrador has called for banning imports of genetically modified corn. Ahead of the summit, the leaders sought to ease some of the strains and perhaps create a more convivial atmosphere. Rather than fly into the more conveniently located Mexico City hub airport, Air Force One landed Sunday at a new airport that was a pet project of López Obrador’s.

☆ A fake tweet spurred an anti-vaccine harassment campaign against a doctor
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Brandy-Zadrozny-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Brandy Zadrozny | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

When Dr. Natalia Solenkova woke up Monday morning, she was greeted with a flood of Twitter notifications on her phone. It was what misinformation researchers call a “cheap fake,” a term for a piece of fake media such as an image or video that takes little effort to produce. Someone had clumsily altered one of Solenkova’s posts to portray a blind, even deadly, zealotry for Covid vaccines and a vilification of anti-vaccine activists. “And then disinformation became rampant.”Despite the overwhelming success of the covid vaccines — which have prevented millions of severe infections and deaths — an aggressive and politicized anti-vaccine community has persevered. There were obvious tells that the tweet attributed to Solenkova was a fake, likely fabricated with what’s known as a tweet generator.

☆ Insider spent 18 months investigating 175 murders of transgender people. Here's what we found.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-31 | by ( Insider Investigations Team | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Colorado Springs was a center for anti-trans vitriol long before the deadly Club Q attack. Leia-jhene Seals mourns the Club Q dead at a November 20 vigil at All Souls Unitarian Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Those who stoke anti-trans bias are "essentially creating a boogeyman and then unleashing forces on that boogeyman," one expert on extremism told Insider. Many media reports said the Club Q attacker's motives were unknown. "The shooting was a tragedy, but it strengthened their enemy," Erin, a local transgender woman, told Insider.

☆ Putin's supporters call for the liquidation of Ukraine as 'genocidal rhetoric' swells
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Holly Ellyatt | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Alexander Nemenov | Afp | Getty ImagesProminent supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin are using increasingly "genocidal rhetoric" when discussing and demonizing Ukrainians, analysts note, with some pro-war commentators cheering the concept of the "liquidation" of the modern state of Ukraine. "To be a 'Ukrainian' one does not even have to speak the Ukrainian language (which is also still being formed). "All this can be stopped only through the liquidation of Ukrainian statehood in its current form," Medvedev said. Another popular motif being used by pro-war, pro-Putin bloggers is characterizing Ukraine and Ukrainians as "evil" or "sadists" or "Satanists." "As ISW has previously reported, Russian President Vladimir Putin has similarly employed such genocidal language in a way that is fundamentally incompatible with calls for negotiations."

A gunman opened fire at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Saturday night, killing five people and injuring 19 others. The shooting at Club Q is a tragic yet predictable outcome of demonizing LGBTQ people and using children as political pawns. Run by Chaya Raichik, Libs of TikTok has targeted LGBTQ people, drag events and Pride celebrations across the country. In addition to Boebert and Libs of TikTok, political leaders like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Florida Gov. We deserve to go to gay bars and drag shows or walk down the street without being attacked or harassed, or killed.

☆ In California, 10% of Legislature now identifies as LGBTQ
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

People by and large are totally fine with LGBTQ people, they support us, they are accepting and willing to vote for LGBTQ candidates,” California state Sen. Scott Wiener, a member of the LGBTQ Caucus, said Monday. Meanwhile, the Legislature has not yet reached parity in gender or in race and ethnicity, according to statistics from the California State Library. New Hampshire and Vermont have each had more LGBTQ legislators, according to the institute, but their legislatures are bigger than California’s and so have not reached the 10% threshold. Alaska and South Dakota elected their first out LGBTQ legislators, and Montana and Minnesota elected their first transgender legislators, according to the Human Rights Campaign. By contrast, “as California’s Legislative LGBTQ Caucus has grown, the state has led the nation in passing groundbreaking legislation protecting LGBTQ+ civil rights,” said Equality California spokesperson Samuel Garrett-Pate.

☆ Ahead of Malaysia's elections, political rivals battle over corruption and 1MDB scandal
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Su-Lin Tan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

watch nowMalaysia's nationalist UMNO party said its rivals are driving a "campaign of fear" against the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition in the lead-up to Saturday's elections and this could cost Malaysians. UMNO is part of the Barisan Nasional coalition. "I'm not at all denying that there are issues around integrity in our political system and this applies to all political parties." Corruption allegations against Najib led to the the long-standing ruling coalition Barisan Nasional being ousted from power in the last election in 2018, ending its 60-year political dominance in the Southeast Asian country. "Top leaders in our party are still facing court cases; now could you have said that for the time when Mahathir was prime minister?

As Republicans across the country saw their predictions of commanding victories up and down the ballot fall short on election night, Democrats in Pennsylvania were celebrating signs of a blue wave. Spencer Platt / Getty Images fileMany state Republicans said it’s no surprise that the strategy worked. “I think Republicans are going to be very demoralized here,” one Republican who worked on a Pennsylvania campaign, said in an interview. But while Oz struggled to overcome questions about his residency, Democrats and Republicans both said the election was driven by the Shapiro-Mastriano dynamic. “To have a wave, you not only have to have the initial motion, but you have to have the driver.

☆ Shaving my beard feels different on Election Day 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Baynard Woods | Baynard Woods Is The Author Of | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

It was only the second time I’d used a blade to scrape away my beard in the last two decades. Now, as many on the political right turn the gender binary and our physical expressions of it into a political platform, face-shaving hits differently. And my parents talked about it in terms of “grooming,” to echo another word increasingly deployed by right-wing gender essentialists. Of course, logical consistency isn’t driving these attacks against trans, queer and nonbinary people — the point is to stoke hatred. By using a fear and hatred of queer, trans and nonbinary people as weapons, many of today’s Republicans are attempting to subject their children and grandchildren are as bullied, insecure and unhappy as they were.

☆ In California's conservative Little Saigon, a progressive unravelling among Vietnamese Americans switches up Orange County politics and raises the stakes for Republicans
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Hanna Kang | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

The race in California's 45th House district has put a spotlight on its conservative Vietnamese American voter bloc in Little Saigon. Vietnamese American voters have long leaned conservative while the Asian American vote nationwide for decades trended Democratic. Westminster is the first city in the nation to have a Vietnamese American majority on the council, she added. "But what we've seen pretty clearly is that the Vietnamese community is home to diverse political perspectives." From a larger perspective, Joe said, Steel's strategy is short-sighted because it only reaches the immigrant Vietnamese conservative subgroup.

As a result, political observers say, public school funding is effectively on the ballot Tuesday. “These groups have been demonizing what is being taught in public schools, and that’s the fastest way to erode faith that public schools work,” Rottinghaus said. (Abbott publicly came out in support of private school vouchers two months after winning the primary with 66.5% of the vote.) Greg Abbott in the GOP primary, campaigned in support of private school vouchers. “I will never support vouchers.”Rep. John Bucy III said he will continue to oppose private school vouchers.

☆ Paul Pelosi break-in shows the Republican Party needs a counterradicalization strategy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Marc Polymeropoulos | Marc Polymeropoulos Served For Years In The Cia | Retired The Senior Intelligence Service In He Is An Msnbc National Security | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

It actively promulgated the killing of Americans and motivated adherents to conduct terrorist attacks around the globe, publishing bomb-making instructions online, for example. Terrorist propaganda is particularly dangerous because lone wolf attacks have been our greatest challenge in the international counterterrorism arena. That means calling out those in the right-wing ecosphere who for years have demonized, and at times even promoted and encouraged, attacks on Pelosi. While a few members of the GOP have spoken out against the attack on Pelosi, far too many are silent. In Saudi Arabia, for example, government officials took the lead in identifying at-risk individuals at all stages, including those in prison who had already perpetrated terror attacks.

PHILADELPHIA/LATROBE, Pa., Nov 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden told voters in Pennsylvania that a Democratic loss in Tuesday's midterm elections would have "decades" of consequences, while Republican candidates for Congress predicted a sweeping victory. Still, opinion polls show a significant number of Republican voters accept the claim, as do many candidates for Congress, governor and state offices overseeing election administration. Speaking before Trump at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Representative Glenn Thompson told supporters that Republicans were headed for major gains on Tuesday. TRUMP READIES ANOTHER RUNTrump is set to gin up support for his handpicked Republican Senate nominee, Oz, and Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano at a rally in Latrobe, southeast of Pittsburgh. Nonpartisan election forecasters and polls show Republicans are heavy favorites to win control of the House, with the Senate a toss-up.

PITTSBURGH/LATROBE, Pa., Nov 5 (Reuters) - Former President Barack Obama warned about divisions fueling a "dangerous climate" in U.S. politics as he stumped for Democratic candidates on Saturday three days ahead of midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. "This habit we have of demonizing political opponents, of saying crazy stuff, it creates a dangerous climate," Obama said, without referencing Republicans directly. Republicans contend that Democrats have also engaged in political violence, citing the widespread anti-racism protests that rocked the country in 2020. They have criticized Democrats for failing to keep their focus on inflation and crime, two of voters' principal concerns, according to most opinion polls. Scott Flaherty, a 53-year-old mechanic from Pittsburgh who was heading to the Trump rally, said he is tired of Democrats calling Republicans extreme.

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