The Graduation Speech I'd Give, If Anyone Asked

It’s a deadly time to be a teenager. The most recent CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey reports that in 2021, more than one-fifth of high schoolers seriously considered committing suicide. Worse, 10% tried. Even without pandemic data, rates of youth depression almost doubled over the past decade, making youth mental health a current top priority for the U.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Wednesday that it has reopened its Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza after days of closure, but the U. N. said no humanitarian aid has yet entered and there is no one to receive it on the Palestinian side after workers fled during Israel’s military incursion in the area. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The Kerem Shalom crossing between Gaza and Israel was closed over the weekend after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers nearby, and on Tuesday, an Israeli tank brigade seized the nearby Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, forcing its closure.

Hong Kong’s government will be able to outlaw the famous protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” after a court of appeal overturned a ruling last year that permitted its use. Judges on Wednesday said that the song had been used as a “weapon,” making it dangerous to authorities if played in public settings.

George Miller has spent more than 40 years swerving in and out of the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max. It’s an unpleasant place: dry, barren, and violent, but Miller can’t seem to stay away. And he had a compelling reason to return after 2015’s hugely successful Mad Max: Fury Road.

The phone call from my daughter in North Carolina came at six o’clock in the morning, unusually early for her. “I’m pregnant,” Maggie announced, her voice bubbling with delight. From 1,600 miles away I put down my mug of smoky dark-roast coffee and gave a shout. Her news was the last thing I would have expected as I sat in my rented house in Albuquerque, watching roadrunners skitter over the xeriscaping in the front yard, stabbing at the dried mealworms I’d just put out for them.

Chest binding, or wearing anything to flatten the chest in order to appear masculine or androgynous, is one of many ways that transmasculine and nonbinary people can affirm their gender identity and harmonize their physical presentation with their sense of self. Some people bind in order to “pass” as male at times when being visibly transgender could be dangerous.