15 Things from the week | 20 May 25
News and a few other things.
For long-time readers, you’ve likely noticed that I’ve slimmed down the size of the newsletter substantially over the past few weeks. While I used to cover news items from around the world, and on various topics, I now try to keep it to around 10 (give or take) things that stand out most to me. For that reason, I haven’t been including a lot of the news you might get from other news sources.
I say all this because by focusing on just a few things, that leaves MANY things I don’t include. It’s not that those news items (Syria sanctions, Saudi deals, the latest entertainment gossip, and others ) aren’t important, it’s just that I figure you’re probably already hearing about those things through other news sources.
I’m learning in life that less is more, most of the time.
If you have feedback for me on anything, feel free to drop me a note at curator@curatedcompositions.com
Today we have articles on the economy, housing, education, happiness, employment, and more.
The Economy
1. America spent more than $880 billion just on interest on its debt last year
America’s perfect credit era is officially over — marking the end of a century-long run. On Friday, Moody’s downgraded the US credit rating from its highest AAA grade to Aa1, citing “large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs.” The move follows earlier cuts from S&P in 2011 and Fitch in 2023, driven by rising debt concerns and political gridlock. Now, for the first time since 1917, the US no longer holds top-tier ratings from any of the major agencies — trailing the 11 countries that still boast the highest grading from all three, a group that includes Australia, Denmark, Germany, and Canada.
NOTE: You can find more of my thoughts on this here:
2. Europe Is Out. Road Trips Are In. Welcome to the Scaled-Back Vacation.
Summer vacation is getting a makeover. Americans are planning to take time off this summer, but their concerns about the economy are prompting them to swap air travel and extravagant holidays for road trips and shorter vacations. American travelers plan to take shorter trips this summer, with 41% surveyed taking a trip of three nights or fewer compared with 37% last year, according to a Deloitte report.
NOTE: And here we have this as a nice segue between the economy, vacations and housing:
3. Airbnb expands into services and experiences, plans more social and AI features
As part of a broader app update, Airbnb on Tuesday introduced a new feature that allows travelers to book services and experiences, like getting a massage, haircut, or chef-prepared meal, or taking part in some activity. These new offerings can be added to your stay, but they can also be booked independently, Airbnb says.
Housing
4. America’s homes, and the people who buy them, are getting older
Thanks to the combination of still elevated mortgage rates and house prices, which, at a national level, have been remarkably resilient in the face of higher borrowing costs, America’s post-Covid housing market is looking a little strange. In 2010, first-time home buyers were behind half of all purchases. Last year, they accounted for just 24%. With millions of younger people frozen out, America’s older, wealthier cohorts have invested in real estate, sending the average age of buyers up significantly. In 2024, the median age of first-time US homebuyers hit a record 38 years — the highest since data collection began in 1981 — per the National Association of Realtors. Overall, the average age of an American homebuyer also reached an all-time high of 56 years last year, a 44% increase from two decades ago, while for repeat buyers, the trend was even more stark.
NOTE: Here are the latest interest rates:
5. Newsom Asks Cities to Ban Homeless Encampments, Escalating Crackdown
Gov. Gavin Newsom escalated California’s push to eradicate homeless encampments on Monday, calling on hundreds of cities, towns and counties to effectively ban tent camps on sidewalks, bike paths, parklands and other types of public property. Mr. Newsom’s administration has raised and spent tens of billions of dollars on programs to bring homeless people into housing and to emphasize treatment. But his move on Monday marks a tougher approach to one of the more visible aspects of the homelessness crisis. The governor has created a template for a local ordinance that municipalities can adopt to outlaw encampments and clear existing ones.
California is home to about half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless population, a visible byproduct of the temperate climate and the state’s brutal housing crisis. Last year, a record 187,000 people were homeless in the state, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Two-thirds were living unsheltered in tents, cars or outdoors. Mr. Newsom cannot force cities to pass his model ban, but its issuance coincides with the release of more than $3 billion in state-controlled housing funds that local officials can use to put his template in place. And though it’s not a mandate, the call to outlaw encampments statewide by one of the best-known Democrats in the country suggests a shift in the party’s approach to homelessness.
Education
6. Student loan delinquencies surge back after 5-year pause
Student loan delinquencies spiked in the first few months of this year after a pandemic-era pause in reporting late payments ended, the New York Federal Reserve reported Tuesday in its quarterly household debt analysis. Serious federal student loan delinquency, marked when someone fails to pay for 90 days, surged from below 1 percent in the first quarter last year, during the five-year reporting pause, to nearly 8 percent this year as reporting resumed, the New York Fed found.
The student loan delinquency rate fell below 1 percent after the federal government paused student loan repayments and delinquency tracking in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Borrowers were given a one-year transition period after student loan payments technically resumed in late 2023, which protected them from some financial penalties and repayment. The delinquencies began appearing on credit reports this year, New York Fed analysts noted.
NOTE: Below is what loan delinquency rates looked like prior to the above news. Aside from the student loan delinquency rates, also note the credit card and auto loan delinquency rates.
7. The High-School Juniors With $70,000-a-Year Job Offers
Elijah Rios won’t graduate from high school until next year, but he already has a job offer—one that pays $68,000 a year. Rios, 17 years old, is a junior taking welding classes at Father Judge, a Catholic high school in Philadelphia that works closely with companies looking for workers in the skilled trades. Employers are dealing with a shortage of such workers as baby boomers retire. They have increasingly begun courting high-school students like Rios—a hiring strategy they say is likely to become even more crucial in the coming years.
Increased efforts to recruit high-schoolers into professions such as plumbing, electrical work and welding have helped spur a revitalization of shop classes in many districts. More businesses are teaming up with high schools to enable students to work part-time, earning money as well as academic credit. More employers are showing up at high school career days and turning to creative recruiting strategies, as well.
For years, the pendulum swung too far in the direction of a college-for-all mindset, and it’s important to make sure students are made aware of all their options, says Steve Klein, a researcher who focuses on vocational education at the nonprofit Education Northwest. At the same time, as interest in vocational education rises, he worries that sentiment runs the risk of swinging too much in the other direction. “There’s no one answer that works for all people,” he says, adding that too much of a focus on the skilled trades in high school means students risk losing exposure to broader career interests, too.
Happiness
8. How Nearly a Century of Happiness Research Led to One Big Finding
Much of it added up to one key insight: “The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period,” he said in a TED Talk in 2015. Strong, long-term relationships with spouses, family and friends built on deep trust — not achievement, not fortune or fame — were what predicted well-being. Waldinger had worried that his big reveal was so intuitive that he would be laughed off the stage; instead, the talk is one of TED’s most watched to date, with more than 40 million views.
Finding purpose in serving others, spending more time with others — it all points toward the same thing, Lyubomirsky says. “After all these years, it hit me,” she says. “The reason that all of these interventions are working is because they make people feel more connected to others. So when I write a gratitude letter to my mom, it makes me feel more connected to my mom. When I do an act of kindness, it makes me feel more connected to the person I’m helping, or just humanity as a whole. Yes, you could go running, and that would make you happier, and meditation doesn’t necessarily have to be about other people. But I would say that 95 percent of things that are effective in making people happy and that have been shown to be true through happiness interventions are because they make people feel more connected to other people.”
9. It’s Not Just a Feeling: Data Shows Boys and Young Men Are Falling Behind
Boys and young men are struggling. Across their lives — in their educational achievement, mental health and transitions to adulthood — there are warning signs that they are falling behind, even as their female peers surge ahead. In the United States, researchers say several economic and social changes have combined to change boys’ and men’s trajectories.
School has changed in ways that favor girls, and work has changed in ways that favor women. Boys are often seen as troublemakers, and men have heard that masculinity is “toxic.” Young people themselves tend to agree that girls are now at least equal to — and often doing better than — boys. Many young men say they feel unmoored and undervalued, and parents and adults who work with children are worried about boys. It’s not just a feeling: There’s a wealth of data that shows that boys and young men are stagnating.
NOTE: Key statistics from the article:
School has become more academic earlier, perhaps making it harder for boys, who generally mature later than girls, researchers say. Boys enter kindergarten behind girls, in both their academic readiness and their behavior. The gender gaps persist as they move through school. Across the United States, girls score better on reading tests than boys. Girls earn higher G.P.A.s. Boys are more likely to be suspended.
All this leads to a lower likelihood of graduating high school on time for boys than girls — 83 percent for boys compared with 89 percent for girls, according to a Brookings Institution analysis.
Women also outnumber men in college enrollment, which is linked to broader career prospects and higher earnings. Of recent male high school graduates, about 57 percent are enrolled in college, barely up from 54 percent in 1960, federal data shows. In that same period, women’s college enrollment has surged past them — 66 percent are now enrolled, up from 38 percent.
Among boys ages 3 to 17, 28 percent have a mental, emotional, behavioral or developmental problem, compared with 23 percent of girls, according to the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative.
In 2023, the suicide rate for males ages 15 to 24 was 21 per 100,000, up from 11 in 1968, according to an analysis of C.D.C. data by the American Institute for Boys and Men. The suicide rate for young women was five per 100,000, up from three.
Among men ages 25 to 34, 19 percent still live with their parents, up from 14 percent in 1983, according to census data. Of women that age, 13 percent live with their parents, up from 11 percent four decades ago.
While women and men used to be equally likely to be single — less than a third of those ages 25 to 54 were in 1990 — now 39 percent of men and 36 percent of women don’t have a partner, a Pew analysis of census data found (the mismatch may be because women often partner with older men, Pew researchers said).
Of men ages 25 to 54, 89 percent are in the labor force, down from 94 percent in 1975. Of women that age, 78 percent are in the labor force, up from 55 percent in 1975.
NOTE: I’m glad to see this topic continuing to get more attention. You can find more of my thoughts at the link below. (Hard to believe I wrote this a year ago.)
A Crisis Facing Boys and Men
The more I learn, the more concerned I become for our nation’s boys and young men. This is not to say that girls and young women aren’t struggling, they are, and the data supports it, but I’m especially concerned about boys and men. Part of my interest in this topic comes from being a father of two young men, and the another p…
10. A Norwegian Approach to Supporting Children’s Risky Play
As we work to make the online world safer for kids, we must also ensure that the real world becomes more inviting—full of adventure, joy, and meaningful independence. In some places, this may simply mean delaying access to devices and apps. In others, it will take more creativity and cultural change. In this post, Ellen offers a glimpse into how risky play thrives in Norway and outlines a path forward for those of us in the Anglosphere who are eager to restore a more vibrant real-world childhood.
In Scandinavia, particularly in Norway, there is a more liberal approach to child-rearing compared to many Western countries. In her book Reclaiming Childhood, Helene Guldberg, who grew up in Norway and later lived in the UK, explores this cultural divide. She notes that Norwegians' deep love of the outdoors contributes to a parenting style that resists overprotectiveness. In contrast, Guldberg observed that UK parents often restricted children’s independence in the name of safety.
Similar trends have taken hold in the United States, as Jonathan Haidt documents in The Anxious Generation. Australia is following suit, and even within Europe, a north-south divide appears: Southern European countries tend to have more risk-averse parenting and educational practices.
Why this cultural difference?
Part of the answer lies in friluftsliv, a uniquely Scandinavian philosophy that emphasizes life lived in the open air. It’s a cultural value rooted in the belief that experiencing nature, enduring the elements, and navigating challenges helps children build resilience and independence.
This perspective is reflected in national education policy. The Framework Plan for Kindergartens, which is grounded in the values of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, highlights outdoor play as essential. It states:
“Kindergartens shall help children to evaluate and master risky play through physical challenges.”
NOTE: We’re about to get a new “happiest place on earth”…all I can say is, I hope the entire park is indoors:
11. Disney Plans New Theme Park in Abu Dhabi
Disney is planning a new theme park in Abu Dhabi, an expansion of its lucrative Experiences business that will give the entertainment company an anchor in a major new market.
The new Disneyland project will be the company’s seventh global park. It will be designed by Disney Imagineers and financed and built by Miral, a local company that has built theme parks for other companies on the same island where the new project will be located.
Cyber
12. President Trump signs Take It Down Act, addressing nonconsensual deepfakes.
President Donald Trump on Monday signed the Take It Down Act, bipartisan legislation that enacts stricter penalties for the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery, sometimes called “revenge porn,” as fell as deepfakes created by artificial intelligence. The measure, which goes into effect immediately, was introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and later gained the support of First Lady Melania Trump. Critics of the measure, which addresses both real and artificial intelligence-generated imagery, say the language is too broad and could lead to censorship and First Amendment issues.
13. Rogue communication devices found in Chinese solar power inverters
U.S. energy officials are reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices that play a critical role in renewable energy infrastructure after unexplained communication equipment was found inside some of them, two people familiar with the matter said. Power inverters, which are predominantly produced in China, are used throughout the world to connect solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids. They are also found in batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers. While inverters are built to allow remote access for updates and maintenance, the utility companies that use them typically install firewalls to prevent direct communication back to China. However, rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by U.S experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues, the two people said. Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers, one of them said.
Foreign Affairs
14. The U.S. Nuclear Base Hidden Under Greenland’s Ice for Decades
While flying above the Arctic Circle last spring, a team of NASA scientists testing a new radar system over northern Greenland detected something unusual. Deep into the ice sheet, their instruments showed, sat a cluster of settlements connected by a network of tunnels, like a bygone civilization frozen in time. “It’s like flying over another planet, and it’s hard to imagine anyone or anything ever being able to survive there,” said NASA scientist Chad Greene, who was on the plane. What the scientists saw on their screens wasn’t a lost civilization but remnants of a U.S. military base built under the ice during the Cold War.
15. How Images of the Dalai Lama’s Hands, Feet Landed a Tibetan Woman in China’s Dragnet
China asserted its control over the Tibetan plateau in 1950, maintaining that the region had always been a part of China. But despite decades of harsh policies to assimilate the region, many Tibetans continue to see their land, with its unique ethnic identity, religion and language, as distinct from China and remain devoted to the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959.
Today, China is tightening its grip on Tibet. Street cameras, police checkpoints and increasingly sophisticated monitoring of digital devices have helped enforce Chinese rule and tamp down on even the faintest hint of support for Tibetan independence. Firsthand accounts from Tibetans about what is happening there, such as those provided by Nam Kyi, have become increasingly rare because of China’s expanding clampdown. Since 2020, fewer than 100 people have escaped to India, the most common destination for people fleeing, according to Tibetan exile leaders.
NOTE: Tibet is a fascinating place—historically, culturally, and geologically. Geologically, Tibet sits on the Tibetan plateau, which has an average elevation of over 14K feet (4.5K meters). The effective oxygen at that altitude is only 12.3%, as compared to 20.9% at sea level. On the north side of the plateau, there’s an escarpment (steep slope) that drops nearly 16,000 feet on the north side. To live here—much less to make to India (like the woman in the story above)—is incredible. Below is an elevation map of the Tibetan plateau, and you can find more interesting facts here.
Have a great week!
The Curator
Here are two resources to help you be a more discerning reader: AllSides and Media Bias Chart. Caveat: Even these resources/charts are biased. Who says that the system they use to describe news sources is accurate? Still, hopefully you find them useful as a basic guide or for comparison.