Lake County Ohio Weal

  CNN & AccuWeather: Sugar Drinks and Hot Weather Scientists find a surprising reason why people are eating more sugar Hotter weather makes bodies lose more water, causing people to crave hydration and cooling. By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) —  Ice creams, frozen desserts and super-chilled sodas take on a new appeal in  sticky summer heat . As climate change drives hotter temperatures, Americans are consuming more and more of them, new  research  finds, with worrying health consequences. There is plenty of evidence climate change will shape food availability and quality, leading to  shortages ,  price increases  and even affecting  nutritional value , said Pan He, a study author and a lecturer in environmental science and sustainability at Cardiff University. But far less is known about its effects on what we choose to eat and drink, she told CNN. The researchers   scoured US household food purchasing data between 2004 to 2019 allowing...

  The following article was published in the  Church Life Journal , of the McGrath Institute for Church Life, part of the University of Notre Dame: Religious Transmission: A Solution to the Church's Biggest Problem   The regular text below summarizes the article, often directly quoting to give the flavor of the author's comments. The boxes give my analysis and review of the article. The Catholic Churches Biggest Problem??? For over fifty years, the General Social Survey has asked a large, representative sample of Americans a battery of questions, including questions about religion. These data reveal a major problem—indeed, arguably the single biggest problem—for the Catholic Church in the United States. In 1973, 84% of all those raised Catholic still identified as Catholic when surveyed as adults. In 2002, that figure was 74%. By 2022, it had dropped to 62%. More and more of those raised Catholic are leaving. Pew has recently done a fine study of Catholic Identity that I ...

  The Current State of Climate Science

   Envisioning a Livable Future The Current State of Climate Science What’s happening? Are we too late? Can we bend the curve even now? What has changed since 2015? Further, what needs to be done, by when, and how to do it? Speakers:  Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist for the Nature Conservancy & Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor and Endowed Chair in Public Policy and Public Law, Texas Tech University Ben Sovacool, Director of the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability and Professor of Earth & Environment, Boston University Nancy Tuchman, Founding Dean of the Loyola University Chicago School of Sustainability and Professor of Biology, Loyola University Chicago

The following article was published in the Church Life Journal , of the McGrath Institute for Church Life, part of the University of Notre Dame: Religious Transmission: A Solution to the Church's Biggest Problem   The text below summarizes the article, often directly quoting to give the flavor of the author's comments. The boxes give my analysis and review of the article. For over fifty years, the General Social Survey has asked a large, representative sample of Americans a battery of questions, including questions about religion. These data reveal a major problem—indeed, arguably the single biggest problem—for the Catholic Church in the United States. In 1973, 84% of all those raised Catholic still identified as Catholic when surveyed as adults. In 2002, that figure was 74%. By 2022, it had dropped to 62%. More and more of those raised Catholic are leaving. Pew has recently done a fine study of Catholic Identity that I have reviewed in my post:   US Catholicism: The...

From Commonweal Magazine   Handing on the Faith: Are Catholic Enclaves the Answer? Paul Baumann August 30, 2025 This article is a response to the following article in Church Life Journal , where Michael Rota and Stephen Bullivant have an analysis of why those who are raised Catholic continue to flee the Church in extraordinary numbers and what might stanch the exodus. Religious Transmission: A Solution to the Church's Biggest Problem  

  STATISTA: Cost of Living is the Biggest Challenge That Americans Face by  Felix Richter,   Sep 1, 2025 While inflation has long come down from its 2021/2022 highs, when it peaked at 9 percent, it is still slightly elevated at 2.7 percent. More importantly though, people are still struggling to cope with the lasting effects of the inflation crisis. According to a Statista Consumer Insights survey conducted in June and July 2025, 49 percent of U.S. adults said that the high cost of living was one of the biggest challenges they currently face – making it by far the most common answer. It is a common misconception that prices come down when inflation cools, when in reality a period of high inflation leaves a legacy of high prices. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. consumer prices have increased 22.7 percent since January 2021, with some categories seeing even steeper price increases than that. Food prices have are up 25 percent, rents have increased almost 2...

  STATISTA U.S. Wages Have Not Kept Up With Inflation by Felix Richter,  Sep 1, 2025 While the U.S. economy has come through the inflation crisis relatively unscathed, with robust growth, low unemployment and high stock prices, many American families have not. Many Americans feel worse off now than they did a couple of years ago - and many actually are. The main problem with inflation is the fact that it hits consumers right where it hurts: the wallet. In times of high inflation, when prices increase faster than nominal wages, real wages go down, meaning that workers feel the purchasing power of their income decline. During the inflation crisis of the past few years, this has been the case from April 2021 to April 2023, when average real hourly earnings declined for 25 consecutive months on a year-over-year basis. In May 2023, real wages began to rise again as nominal wage growth outpaced inflation once again as it normally should. That doesn't mean that the effects of the inf...

  Statista: Who is Making Federal Minimum Wage or Less? by  Katharina Buchholz,   Sep 1, 2025 The federal minimum wage in the United States has stood at $7.25 an hour since 2009. Today, this rate still applied across 20 U.S. states, most located in the country's South, Midwest and Rocky Mountain region. In the remaining 30 states, minimum wages have risen and continue to do so, opening up a gap between these states and those applying federal minimum wage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80.3 million workers age 16 and older earned an hourly wage in 2024, of which 843,000 earned federal minimum wage or below. This is down from a high of 4.4 million in 2010, as several states introduced higher minimum wages in the meantime and some cities have also introduced their own minimum wages, diverging from state laws. Additionally, the fact that the minimum wage hasn't changed in so long means that going rates for lower-skilled workers have increased to somewhat above ...

  Statista: lifetime Odds of Dying From Selected Causes/ by Katharina Buchholz,  Aug 29, 2025 The National Safety Council reports that Americans are more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car crash or suicide. The likelihood of dying from opioid use in the U.S. increased from lifetime odds of one in 96 in 2017 to one in 57 in 2023 (down from one in 55 in 2022). The same year, someone living in the U.S. only had one in 87 odds of dying of suicide and a one in 95 chance of dying in a car crash. Potent and deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl - which is often mixed with heroin without the knowledge of drug users - contributed to this dismal development together with the ongoing crisis of prescription pain killer misuse. The U.S. experienced 105,000 overdose deaths in 2023, down from 2022 after a severe uptick during the coronavirus pandemic. The most likely cause of death in the U.S. continues to be heart disease with lifetime odds of 1 in 6, followed by cancer and stroke....

  Statista 7 or 10 Overdose Deaths Involve Fentanyl by Felix Richter,  Aug 29, 2025 Perhaps the most dangerous thing about fentanyl is the fact that, due to its low price and high potency, it is often used to lace other drugs. Whether it’s heroin, cocaine, meth or counterfeit pills mimicking prescription opioids such as Vicodin or Oxycontin – fentanyl is frequently used to increase the potency of illicit drugs, often unbeknownst to the user. This hidden presence dramatically increases the risk of accidental overdose, since people may take what they believe is a familiar drug but are actually playing a game of Russian Roulette, always in danger of ingesting a lethal dose of fentanyl. According to CDC data, synthetic opioids, i.e. mostly fentanyl, are now involved in 7 out of 10 overdose deaths in the U.S. after having contributed to a dramatic surge in drug-related mortality over the past decade. Due to the aforementioned, often hidden presence of fentanyl in other drugs, it ha...

  Statista: Fentanyl Fuels Drug Overdose Deaths in the US by  Felix Richter,   Aug 29, 2025 Over the past 10 years, the United States has seen a dramatic surge in drug overdose deaths, an increase almost entirely fueled by the rise of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. According to data published by the CDC, just over 105,000 overdose deaths were recorded in the U.S. in 2023 - the third consecutive year with more than 100,000 overdose deaths - with synthetic opioids involved in more than 70,000 or 69 percent of those deaths. To put this in perspective, the U.S. lost 58,220 people in the Vietnam War, meaning that fentanyl and similar drugs are now taking more American lives each year than that war did in more than a decade. Fentanyl is up to 50 times more potent than heroin and, due to its low price, it is often used to lace other drugs, which makes it especially dangerous. According to the CDC’s latest data, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl were involved in 7 out of 10...

  STATISTA: Social Media and Teen Mental Health by  Felix Richter,   Jun 30, 2025 In 2010, Mashable declared June 30 as Social Media Day, intended to celebrate the impact of social media on communication, connection and culture. Originally launched to recognize the positive impact that platforms like Facebook, Twitter (now X) or Instagram have on human interaction around the world, we’re marking the occasion by acknowledging some of the downsides of social media’s unstoppable rise over the past two decades. Specifically, we’re looking at its impact on children and teens, whose lives have changed fundamentally since social media platforms became ubiquitous. According to a survey of U.S. teens conducted by the Pew Research Center in the fall of 2024, 48 percent of Americans aged 13 to 17 now say that social media has a mostly negative effect on people of their age, up from just 32 percent two years earlier. Only 11 percent of teenagers in the U.S. now describe the impact o...