Seminal novelists of the genre such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour had already idealized the American Frontier in hundreds of best-selling books and stories. But Williams, a University of Denver professor for 30 years, took a darker view of U.S. expansion, one that dissected the heroic myths of archetypal cowboys, ranch hands and outlaws.

Director Gabe Polsky, who fought for more than a decade to turn “Butcher’s Crossing” into a movie, said he “never really connected with the genre.”

“Never. I tried to watch (Westerns) a little bit and just kind of disconnected because it was about searching for the Indians and bank robberies and revenge and all of that.”

In 2022, Polsky’s cinematic version, which stars Nicholas Cage, debuted on the film festival circuit, and is now in theaters.

As a novel, the coming-of-age story was arguably the first Western to subvert the genre’s morally certain, decades-old formulas. Williams preceded giants of the revisionist and anti-Western such as Cormac McCarthy (“No Country for Old Men”) and Larry McMurtry (“Lonesome Dove”), although his influence is only lately appreciated by critics and readers.

Williams, who also wrote 1965’s literary masterpiece “Stoner,” invests in the emotional lives of his characters as “Butcher’s Crossing” depicts a thrilling, stomach-churning buffalo hunt. Harvard dropout — and naive Ralph Waldo Emerson devotee — William Andrews trades Boston for the Kansas frontier in an effort to expand his horizons. There he joins buffalo hunter Miller (just one name), whose epic, money-making quest involves finding and skinning a legendary herd of Colorado buffalo to secure his biggest payout yet.

Like the book, the film — which stars Fred Hechinger (“The White Lotus”) as Andrews, and a fearsome Cage as Miller — is set in the early 1870s when Colorado was still a territory riven by murderous land grabs and precious-metal rushes.

“They’re hunting buffalo, but they’re also going out on this crazy sort of ‘Moby Dick’ search,” Polsky said of the movie, which was shot in the Blackfoot Nation in Northwest Montana due to the size and availability of the tribe’s buffalo herd.

In addition to Moby Dick, reviews have likened it to “Apocalypse Now” as it traces Miller’s mental unraveling on the cursed trek to claim and offload more buffalo hides than anyone actually wanted. “It’s an American tragedy, almost like ‘Death of a Salesman’ in a way,” Polsky said.

The movie hit theaters on Oct. 20, less than a week after the release of the new Ken Burns documentary, “The American Buffalo.” They cover roughly the time period in U.S. history, when the American bison population plummeted from about 60 million in 1860 to fewer than 300 in the span of just 20 years, Polsky said. The movie doesn’t shy from the horror, eschewing special effects and showing real animal skinning on screen.

“It was shot on Blackfeet land near Glacier National Park, and we promised we’d show them the movie before it came out,” said Polsky, whose team made good on the promise. “To do it with them really made a lot of sense because of their history with the animal and how important the animal is to them. We did a lot of ceremony with them before we shot, and they gave us lessons on skinning. Everything was real.”

Blackfeet representatives “loved the movie and were profusely thankful and talked a lot about it,” added Polsky, who pointed out that there are no Indigenous people on screen. “They understood right away you don’t need Native Americans to have these clichéd scenes in there with them. It says everything you need to say with what the hunters did. The (Indigenous people) are lurking. They’re watching. These hunters are self-destructive. Nature will correct you.”

Like Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a historically based feature about the racist savagery and murder of Indigenous people (in this case, 1920s Osage people whose land contained oil), it’s part of a re-examination of the evil wrought by ambitious men.

Despite its Montana shooting location, Polsky said the film remains rooted in Colorado.

“Montana had better (production) incentives, but the story is based here and I wrote it here,” he said. “I rented an apartment and mainly wrote the film at the Basalt Library. It was the first draft, so I took the book and started page by page trying to mold it into something cinematic. The novel has so much detail.”

Securing Cage to star afforded it Hollywood appeal. Polsky and his brother/business partner Alan first met Cage while producing 2009’s wild “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” which starred Cage as an amoral police officer with severe substance use disorders.

“I don’t know many A-list people on a first-name basis, but (Cage) was the first guy I thought of,” Polsky said. “He’s got that mysterious intensity, and believe me, on set he was even more intense. No one wanted to get near him. I don’t want to say he was a dark force, but he had electricity going through him at all times and everyone was just like ‘Ah! I don’t want to get shot.’”

Cage’s version of Method acting paid off in his performance, but he was also a consummate professional whose deep knowledge of the script and creative ideas during filming helped Polsky see it in a different way.

“He actually brought that buffalo coat he’s wearing on screen,” Polsky said. “He got it online. The glasses, the shaving-his-head thing — those were his ideas, too. He understands that the drive and ambition that created this country were also very destructive. It’s not a happy story all the time, and these real-life guys were individual forces of nature themselves.”

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox.

Seminal novelists of the genre such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour had already idealized the American Frontier in hundreds of best-selling books and stories. But Williams, a University of Denver professor for 30 years, took a darker view of U.S. expansion, one that dissected the heroic myths of archetypal cowboys, ranch hands and outlaws.

Director Gabe Polsky, who fought for more than a decade to turn “Butcher’s Crossing” into a movie, said he “never really connected with the genre.”

“Never. I tried to watch (Westerns) a little bit and just kind of disconnected because it was about searching for the Indians and bank robberies and revenge and all of that.”

In 2022, Polsky’s cinematic version, which stars Nicholas Cage, debuted on the film festival circuit, and is now in theaters.

As a novel, the coming-of-age story was arguably the first Western to subvert the genre’s morally certain, decades-old formulas. Williams preceded giants of the revisionist and anti-Western such as Cormac McCarthy (“No Country for Old Men”) and Larry McMurtry (“Lonesome Dove”), although his influence is only lately appreciated by critics and readers.

Williams, who also wrote 1965’s literary masterpiece “Stoner,” invests in the emotional lives of his characters as “Butcher’s Crossing” depicts a thrilling, stomach-churning buffalo hunt. Harvard dropout — and naive Ralph Waldo Emerson devotee — William Andrews trades Boston for the Kansas frontier in an effort to expand his horizons. There he joins buffalo hunter Miller (just one name), whose epic, money-making quest involves finding and skinning a legendary herd of Colorado buffalo to secure his biggest payout yet.

Like the book, the film — which stars Fred Hechinger (“The White Lotus”) as Andrews, and a fearsome Cage as Miller — is set in the early 1870s when Colorado was still a territory riven by murderous land grabs and precious-metal rushes.

“They’re hunting buffalo, but they’re also going out on this crazy sort of ‘Moby Dick’ search,” Polsky said of the movie, which was shot in the Blackfoot Nation in Northwest Montana due to the size and availability of the tribe’s buffalo herd.

In addition to Moby Dick, reviews have likened it to “Apocalypse Now” as it traces Miller’s mental unraveling on the cursed trek to claim and offload more buffalo hides than anyone actually wanted. “It’s an American tragedy, almost like ‘Death of a Salesman’ in a way,” Polsky said.

The movie hit theaters on Oct. 20, less than a week after the release of the new Ken Burns documentary, “The American Buffalo.” They cover roughly the time period in U.S. history, when the American bison population plummeted from about 60 million in 1860 to fewer than 300 in the span of just 20 years, Polsky said. The movie doesn’t shy from the horror, eschewing special effects and showing real animal skinning on screen.

“It was shot on Blackfeet land near Glacier National Park, and we promised we’d show them the movie before it came out,” said Polsky, whose team made good on the promise. “To do it with them really made a lot of sense because of their history with the animal and how important the animal is to them. We did a lot of ceremony with them before we shot, and they gave us lessons on skinning. Everything was real.”

Blackfeet representatives “loved the movie and were profusely thankful and talked a lot about it,” added Polsky, who pointed out that there are no Indigenous people on screen. “They understood right away you don’t need Native Americans to have these clichéd scenes in there with them. It says everything you need to say with what the hunters did. The (Indigenous people) are lurking. They’re watching. These hunters are self-destructive. Nature will correct you.”

Like Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a historically based feature about the racist savagery and murder of Indigenous people (in this case, 1920s Osage people whose land contained oil), it’s part of a re-examination of the evil wrought by ambitious men.

Despite its Montana shooting location, Polsky said the film remains rooted in Colorado.

“Montana had better (production) incentives, but the story is based here and I wrote it here,” he said. “I rented an apartment and mainly wrote the film at the Basalt Library. It was the first draft, so I took the book and started page by page trying to mold it into something cinematic. The novel has so much detail.”

Securing Cage to star afforded it Hollywood appeal. Polsky and his brother/business partner Alan first met Cage while producing 2009’s wild “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” which starred Cage as an amoral police officer with severe substance use disorders.

“I don’t know many A-list people on a first-name basis, but (Cage) was the first guy I thought of,” Polsky said. “He’s got that mysterious intensity, and believe me, on set he was even more intense. No one wanted to get near him. I don’t want to say he was a dark force, but he had electricity going through him at all times and everyone was just like ‘Ah! I don’t want to get shot.’”

Cage’s version of Method acting paid off in his performance, but he was also a consummate professional whose deep knowledge of the script and creative ideas during filming helped Polsky see it in a different way.

“He actually brought that buffalo coat he’s wearing on screen,” Polsky said. “He got it online. The glasses, the shaving-his-head thing — those were his ideas, too. He understands that the drive and ambition that created this country were also very destructive. It’s not a happy story all the time, and these real-life guys were individual forces of nature themselves.”

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox.

NEW YORK — Cher will come out of “retirement” to perform in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, appearing in the lineup just before the only star big enough to have the “Believe” singer as an opener: Santa Claus.

The Grammy-, Emmy- and Oscar-winner will perform at the end of the 2023 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan, thrilling the audience before the man of the hour closes the festivities.

Timing will be perfect for the 77-year-old superstar, who just released her first new album in five years, “Christmas.” She’s also expected to drop a 25th anniversary edition of 1998’s “Believe” on Friday.

This year’s parade will begin 30 minutes earlier than usual, at 8:30 a.m., to accommodate a packed schedule of performers and celebrities, Macy’s announced Wednesday.

“Our talented team of Macy’s Studios artisans and production specialists work year-round to deliver the nation’s most beloved holiday event, live on Thanksgiving morning,” parade producer Will Cross said in a statement.

Grammy winner Jon Batiste will open the parade. Other performers include Pentatonix, Manuel Turizo, Chicago, Brandy and Jessie James Decker, among many more.

This year’s parade will include 5,000 volunteers, 16 featured character balloons, 26 floats, 32 heritage and novelty balloons, 12 marching bands and nine performance groups. One of the marching bands will come from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, site of a mass shooting in 2018.

Olympic gymnastics silver medalist Jordan Chiles, Paralympic swimming gold medalist Jessica Long and 2023 Miss America Grace Stanke will be in attendance, with parade organizers teasing “additional stars to be announced.”

There will be seven new massive balloons this year, including Po from “Kung Fu Panda” and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Classics including SpongeBob, Ronald McDonald and Pikachu will return as well.

Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Al Roker from the “Today” show will host the festivities on NBC.

In recent years, Macy’s has sought to have superstars perform near the end of the parade to signal Santa’s entrance. The “Queen of Christmas,” Mariah Carey, got the honor last year.

©2023 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

There’s the time in 1968 when blues legend Muddy Waters declared Ivers – who sat in and played with Waters while still a student at Harvard University – to be the greatest living harmonica player.

Or maybe you start in the mid-’70s, when Ivers, now living in Los Angeles, dipped into film music with works such as co-writing and singing “In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)” for David Lynch’s “Eraserhead.”

Around that same time, he recorded several avant-garde pop albums, such as 1974’s “Terminal Love.” Ivers even opened for Fleetwood Mac at Universal Amphitheatre in 1976, but bombed. (Could it have been that he took the stage wearing only a diaper? Perhaps!)

Jump ahead to the early ’80s, and Ivers was the host of “New Wave Theatre,” the first show to put L.A. punk bands such as Fear, 45 Grave, Suburban Lawns, Angry Samoans, Grey Factor and Bad Religion on TV.

But all that crazy, beautiful, now mostly forgotten creativity ended up overshadowed by his death.

On March 3, 1983, Ivers was found bludgeoned to death in his apartment. Four decades later, the crime remains unsolved.

“I mean, all of us thought Peter Ivers was going to go to the top of the charts, and then everything flopped,” says filmmaker Penelope Spheeris, a friend of Ivers through the punk rock scene she chronicled in the 1981 documentary “The Decline of Western Civilization.”

Spheeris, whose films include “Wayne’s World” and “Suburbia,” is the host of “Peter and the Acid King,” a new podcast about Ivers’s life and death from iHeartPodcasts and Imagine Audio.

However, given all the mystery and menace that still swirls around the circumstances of his death, at first she wasn’t sure she wanted to get involved.

Spheeris signs on

TV producer Alan Sachs, the co-creator of “Welcome Back, Kotter,” was a close friend of Ivers. He’s also the creator of “Peter and the Acid King,” an outgrowth of his years of looking for the truth about Ivers’ death.

“I knew Alan Sachs from back in what I call the punk rock days,” Spheeris says. “So that would be right around ’79, ’80 through ’84. I knew him very well back then because we were at clubs together all the time.

“I hadn’t seen him for a long time, and I ran into him in a parking lot and he asked me I would do an interview about Peter, our mutual friend,” she says. “And I said, ‘Only if so-and-so is not alive anymore.”

Sachs told her that so-and-so, the person Spheeris had long thought might have killed Ivers, was dead. She did the interview, and that was that for a little while.

“A couple of years later – that’s how long Alan’s been working on this – I get a call,” Spheeris says. “And he said, ‘Can you maybe think about being the host for a podcast based on Peter’s life and that period of time?’

“I said, ‘I don’t know, I make movies, I’m not a podcast person,’” she says.

Eventually, and only after she was comfortable the podcast wouldn’t focus too much on the grim, grisly details of Ivers’s death, Spheeris was in.

“It was a concern, which has dissipated as I’ve gone through it and done narration,” she says. “I think the team over there at Imagine has done an amazing job at respecting Peter and the request I made about not getting into anything too graphic. I did have some apprehension about sensationalizing someone’s murder, you know.

“It’s a thin line; it’s like a tightrope here,” Spheeris says. “We’re trying to give respect to him and remember his legacy, and then not be too exploitive.”

An instant appeal

Spheeris isn’t quite sure when she first met Ivers. She thinks it was probably at the Zero Club, the notorious after-hours punk club at the time.

“He just sort of made you want to know him,” Spheeris says.

Before long, they were fellow travelers of the nightlife of Hollywood bars, punk circles, and house parties in Laurel Canyon.

“I bought a house in Laurel Canyon in 1974, which I still own, thank god,” Spheeris says. “So I know all the back roads here, and we used to have these lines of cars following each other, going to parties. So I would go to parties with him, and we’d see each other and got to know each other pretty well by hanging out.”

Ivers, who was born in 1946, was a decade or so older than most of the kids in the punk scene spun out of the Masque in Hollywood into clubs from the San Fernando Valley to Chinatown and the South Bay.

“He was so charismatic. It didn’t matter if he was really a punk or not,” she says. “He emitted this vibe like he was a star already. But he wasn’t. I think that’s what kind of drew everybody to him.

“Plus, you know, if you’re really a punk you’re not going to be judgmental about somebody. You’re just gonna let them be who they are.”

Trainwreck TV

“New Wave Theatre” was created by David Jove, a British expat in L.A. with musical aspirations, and Ed Ochs, a former Billboard editor. The show, which aired weekly on a little-viewed UHF channel, was only reluctantly embraced by punk bands such as the Dead Kennedys, the Plugz, and Ivy and the Eaters.

Part of that was the name – few self-respecting punks wanted to be called New Wave – and part of that was Ivers, who as host, wearing a sparkly pink jacket and rambling in a rapid-fire stream-of-consciousness patter about life, art and music made them cringe.

“It was actually brutal to watch,” Spheeris says. “Because it was so bad – in my opinion. I’m sorry. I don’t want that to be a negative reflection on Peter, but it was really bad.

“I mean, the original, real deal punk groups had great objections to the show because it seemed like they were trying to out-weird the real punk scene,” she says. “And I think that’s what they were doing, and that’s why it was a bit offensive.”

Still, people watched it enough that the fledgling USA Network eventually picked it up as part of its “Night Flight” late-night arts and variety show. And the bands kept going on to perform.

“It was a train wreck, that’s a good way to put it,” Spheeris says. “The fact is there were no outlets for the music back then, visual outlets. The reason the DIY concept came about was because punk bands couldn’t get record deals. And punk bands certainly could not get TV broadcast time. There was no place to be seen other than that show.”

So who done it?

“New Wave Theatre” ended with Ivers’ death. For Spheeris, the L.A. party scene ended for her that day too.

“I remember the fear of thinking that there was somebody that we all knew that probably did it,” she says. “I remember being afraid. And even though there were other serial killers and all that around that time, to have someone so close get murdered was really shocking.

“It did change things,” Spheeris says. “It was a big wake-up call. Let me tell you, we were partying back then. I mean, I can’t believe I lived through it. Every single night and a lot of times every weekend during the day and night.

“But when he got killed, it was like a screeching halt. I didn’t want to go out. I was convinced that whoever killed him was in the room.”

Spheeris, who knows how “Peter and the Acid King” ends, says she did not expect the story to go where it did. She had her own suspicions about who murdered her friend.

“Here’s what has really surprised me,” she says. “Back in the day, after Peter died, if was going into a room and that person was there, in a party situation, I would turn around and leave. I remember going back to my house and my heart was beating so fast because I even laid eyes on that guy.”

“But now that people have done all this research, I have to say I’m not convinced anymore that who I thought did it did,” Spheeris says. “So it’s a little unnerving. I’ve learned that person could still be alive and still be dangerous.”

Even with that undercurrent of dread in the story the podcast tells, Spheeris says she’s glad that her friend is getting recognized for what he created during his life, even if it was just a bit too far outside the mainstream for his rock star dreams to have succeeded.

“It had a certain performance art aspect to it, ‘New Wave Theatre,’ and all of his work, really,” she says. “And that’s the thing about good art, you know. It breaks the rules. And good rock and roll, it breaks the rules.

“And Peter was always breaking the rules.”

It almost seems like an anachronism. Taking a trip by train is like something out of the past.

Now, Amtrak is looking to double in size.

By using funds from the 2021 infrastructure bill, Amtrak is making improvements at some of its biggest and most popular hubs. Those include train stations in New York, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia.

“Amtrak is making significant investments to modernize our stations,” said EVP Laura Mason, who is overseeing the company’s internal infrastructure overhaul.

Amtrak’s budget is expected to zoom. Annual capital investments alone are slated to rise to $2.5 billion by 2025. They were $785 million as recently as 2019.

Improvements and renovations are scheduled for Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, New York’s Penn Station and Chicago’s Union Station.

Penn Station in Baltimore, which is over 100 years old, is also expected to undergo improvements and renovations. The station has not seen a refresh in almost 40 years.

The renovations could bring a whole new life to the national railroad company.

In August, Amtrak ordered 10 more Airo trainsets as part of its modernization efforts, bringing the total to 83 trainsets, which are expected to first debut in 2026.

The Amtrak Airo trainsets, which consist of both locomotive and passenger carriages, will modernize Amtrak’s fleet across the country, with greater comfort for passengers, more space for luggage and a greater focus on sustainability, producing 90% less particulate emissions than on traditional diesel trains.

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©2023 Northstar Travel Media, LLC. Visit at travelpulse.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

How many of us have wanted a reliable, evidence-based guide to aging that explains how our bodies and minds change as we grow older and how to adapt to those differences?

Creating a work of this kind is challenging. For one thing, aging gradually alters people over decades, a long period shaped by individuals’ economic and social circumstances, their behaviors, their neighborhoods, and other factors. Also, while people experience common physiological issues in later life, they don’t follow a well-charted, developmentally predetermined path.

“Predictable changes occur, but not necessarily at the same time or in the same sequence,” said Rosanne Leipzig, vice chair for education at the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “There’s no more heterogeneous a group than older people.”

I called Leipzig, 72, who works full time teaching medical residents and fellows and seeing patients, after reading her new 400-plus-page, information-packed book, “Honest Aging: An Insider’s Guide to the Second Half of Life.” It’s the most comprehensive examination of what to expect in later life I’ve come across in a dozen years covering aging.

Leipzig told me she had two goals in writing this guide: “to overcome all the negatives that are out there about growing older” and “to help people understand that there are lots of things that you can do to adapt to your new normal as you age and have an enjoyable, engaged, meaningful life.”

Why call it “Honest Aging”? “Because so much of what’s out there is dishonest, claiming to teach people how to age backwards,” Leipzig said. “I think it’s time we say, ‘This is it; this is who we are,’ and admit how lucky we are to have all these years of extra time.”

The doctor was referring to extraordinary gains in life expectancy achieved in the modern era. Because of medical advances, people over age 60 live far longer than people at the dawn of the 20th century. Still, most of us lack a good understanding of what happens to our bodies during this extended period after middle age.

Several months ago, a medical student asked Leipzig whether references to age should be left out of a patient’s written medical history, as references to race have been eliminated. “I told her no; with medicine, age is always relevant,” Leipzig said. “It gives you a sense of where people are in their life, what they’ve lived through, and the disorders they might have, which are different than those in younger people.”

What questions do older adults tend to ask most often? Leipzig rattled off a list: What can I do about this potbelly? How can I improve my sleep? I’m having trouble remembering names; is this dementia? Do I really need that colonoscopy or mammogram? What should I do to get back into shape? Do I really need to stop driving?

Underlying these is a poor understanding of what’s normal in later life and the physical and mental alterations aging brings.

Can the stages of aging be broken down, roughly, by decade? No, said Leipzig, noting that people in their 60s and 70s vary significantly in health and functioning. Typically, predictable changes associated with aging “start to happen much more between the ages of 75 and 85,” she told me. Here are a few of the age-related issues she highlights in her book:

• Older adults often present with different symptoms when they become ill. For instance, a senior having a heart attack may be short of breath or confused, rather than report chest pain. Similarly, an older person with pneumonia may fall or have little appetite instead of having a fever and cough.
• Older adults react differently to medications. Because of changes in body composition and liver, kidney, and gut function, older adults are more sensitive to medications than younger people and often need lower doses. This includes medications that someone may have taken for years. It also applies to alcohol.
• Older adults have reduced energy reserves. With advancing age, hearts become less efficient, lungs transfer less oxygen to the blood, more protein is needed for muscle synthesis, and muscle mass and strength decrease. The result: Older people generate less energy even as they need more energy to perform everyday tasks.
• Hunger and thirst decline. People’s senses of taste and smell diminish, lessening food’s appeal. Loss of appetite becomes more common, and seniors tend to feel full after eating less food. The risk of dehydration increases.
• Cognition slows. Older adults process information more slowly and work harder to learn new information. Multitasking becomes more difficult, and reaction times grow slower. Problems finding words, especially nouns, are typical. Cognitive changes related to medications and illness are more frequent.
• The musculoskeletal system is less flexible. Spines shorten as the discs that separate the vertebrae become harder and more compressed; older adults typically lose 1 to 3 inches in height as this happens. Balance is compromised because of changes in the inner ear, the brain, and the vestibular system (a complex system that regulates balance and a person’s sense of orientation in space). Muscles weaken in the legs, hips and buttocks, and range of motion in joints contracts. Tendons and ligaments aren’t as strong, and falls and fractures are more frequent as bones become more brittle.
• Eyesight and hearing change. Older adults need much more light to read than younger people. It’s harder for them to see the outlines of objects or distinguish between similar colors as color and contrast perception diminishes. With changes to the cornea, lens and fluid within the eye, it takes longer to adjust to sunlight as well as darkness.
• Because of accumulated damage to hair cells in the inner ear, it’s harder to hear, especially at high frequencies. It’s also harder to understand speech that’s rapid and loaded with information or that occurs in noisy environments.
• Sleep becomes fragmented. It takes longer for older adults to fall asleep, and they sleep more lightly, awakening more in the night.

This is by no means a complete list of physiological changes that occur as we grow older. And it leaves out the many ways people can adapt to their new normal, something Leipzig spends a great deal of time discussing.

A partial list of what she suggests, organized roughly by the topics above: Don’t ignore sudden changes in functioning; seek medical attention. At every doctor’s visit, ask why you’re taking medications, whether doses are appropriate, and whether medications can be stopped. Be physically active. Make sure you eat enough protein. Drink liquids even when you aren’t thirsty. Cut down on multitasking and work at your own pace. Do balance and resistance exercises. Have your eyes checked every year. Get hearing aids. Don’t exercise, drink alcohol, or eat a heavy meal within two to three hours of bedtime.

“Never say never,” Leipzig said. “There is almost always something that can be done to improve your situation as you grow older, if you’re willing to do it.”

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We’re eager to hear from readers about questions you’d like answered, problems you’ve been having with your care, and advice you need in dealing with the health care system. Visit kffhealthnews.org/columnists to submit your requests or tips.

___

(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2023 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The author was inspired to write her new picture book, “See You On the Other Side,” after she dreamt about it while pregnant with her daughter. Exploring grief as a universal human emotion, the children’s book is an ode to loved ones who have died, with the message that love will be cherished and carried on forever, Minor said.

“It’s a heart-opener. And the words are soothing, like a hug or a blanket. They’re so melodic – you can kind of tell it came from the dream space,” said the author, who lives in the Hollywood Hills.

Featuring evocative, detailed illustrations by artist Mariyah Rahman, the new book aims to be a comforting resource to children who may be grieving a death or who are learning about or coming to terms with the idea of loss.

Because the book itself is the result of loss.

Losing a friend

In 2020, she read an early version of what would become “See You On the Other Side” at the funeral of her friend, Broadway star Nick Cordero, who died during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cordero was married to Minor’s best friend, Amanda Kloots.

“A lot of people’s hearts were opened; there were a lot of tears,” she said. “It felt like it was for Elvis, their son, and for Nick.”

Seeing how people were moved at the funeral, Minor realized her words could provide solace to others – particularly young ones and families – experiencing feelings of loss. She wanted to write a book that would feel inclusive, comforting and uplifting.

Minor, whose debut, “The Sun, Moon and Stars,” was published in 2021, hopes “See You On the Other Side” reframes loss and brings families together to heal, especially in challenging times.

Minor collaborated with illustrator Mariyah Rahman who created the illustrations to pair with her words on grief and comfort.

Rahman, who is from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, got into “kid lit” illustration after going to the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. With “See You On the Other Side” her second picture book, Rahman said that her art style is a reflection of her diverse background, growing up in a mixed family from India, Venezuela and China. Her first book, “Plátanos Are Love,” explores Afro-Latine culture.

“I want any kids who read books that I illustrate to know there are so many kids who look like them,” Rahman said, “especially in a book about grief, to know that they’re not alone.”

She illustrated her deceased dog, Sunshine, in the book as a way to honor him, and dedicated the book to other pets who have passed away. Even her grandmother is reflected in one of the pages.

Reflecting a diverse world

Of the book’s illustrations, Rahman said it was “fun to research different cultures.” Included in the images, there’s a girl placing a letter on the family ofrenda, an altar for Día De Los Muertos, surrounded by orange jacaranda flowers, marigolds and plates of pan dulce; a same-sex couple plays with their child; an Indian family makes traditional bread together.

There’s even a spread about anger, because “it’s very natural to be angry when there’s a big change; something that’s hard to wrap your head around,” Minor said. “After the anger, the storm’s gonna blow over, we can get to the other side.

“You see the things, the shared experiences, the grief, that links us all together. There are feelings of grief coming from kids all over the world.”

Minor agreed that when she was growing up it was hard to find books with people of color in them, so she’s made a mission to make her books more inclusive.

“There’s a (drawing) that looks like my daughter, and she’s like, hey, that’s me,” she said. “I just think it’s so helpful for children to be able to see a reflection back – it lets them relate to it more, and to open their hearts more.”

Minor hopes the book will remind readers young and old of “the truth: that we are all one.”

“We want everyone to feel at home, and to see other cultures and families on the pages,” she said. “One thing that’s always constant is change – and we’re not immune to loss. So I think it is a gift to be able to introduce these topics with children, even in difficult times. We can get to the other side of it if we stay connected to our hearts and to each other. We will see the other side of it.”

“See You On The Other Side” is available online and in stores now. 

To score a table at Don Angie, the Italian-American hotspot in New York’s West Village, the official course of action is to log on to restaurant booking site Resy at 9 a.m. seven days before the desired dining date. At least, that’s the policy that chef-owners Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli have set up for potential diners.

But those who have recently tried to book those elusive seats via the reservation platform know they rarely open up.

If you head over to Appointment Trader, however, and are willing to pay up to $125 just for the opportunity to walk through the door, you can start bidding on seats for any day for the next few weeks.

The issue of seats disappearing that should be available began last summer, says Rito. “But it has become more pronounced over the last few months.”

She believes that bots—software programs engineered to perfect certain tasks, like swiping up Taylor Swift tickets or restaurant reservations the millisecond seats open up—are mostly to blame.

The operators behind those seat-snatching programs then try to make a quick buck—or several hundred—by reselling the reservations on sites like Appointment Trader. The two-year-old website enables individuals to buy and sell restaurant bookings and finds seats using bots as well as concierges and other people with access to restaurants.

Owners at several other of New York’s hard-to-get-into restaurants, from downtown Indian haunts Dhamaka and Semma to tiny Farra Wine Bar in Tribeca, and the revamped new American spot Virginia’s, also report being burned by bots. “We have noticed certain names making a large amount of reservations, and either no-showing or having different guests utilizing them,” says Isabella Pisacane, a partner and director of hospitality at French bistro Libertine. “Certain guests will appear trepidatious when approaching the maitre’d when checking in, as they’re not using their actual names.”

“It is a very serious issue now, happening to a lot of restaurants and bars,” says GN Chan, co-owner of Double Chicken Please in the Lower East Side and ranked No. 2 on the World’s 50 Best Bars list. He notes that the bar began receiving brokered reservations from bots soon after the drinking den was named the best bar in North America earlier this year.

Em Pak, a manager at Double Chicken Please, says that there are some signature ways to tell if a seat has been booked by a bot: Resy accounts may be connected to invalid email addresses comprised of jumbled numbers and letters, or profiles with a history of booking prime time, back-to-back reservations on weekends — such as 7 p.m. reservations every Friday and Saturday for several weekends. Others are the usual disconnected phone numbers attached to bookings and invalid credit cards.

But even though they may suspect suspicious activity in advance, Pak admits that a lot of the time they don’t know for sure, “and we don’t want to risk canceling a reservation that belongs to someone who authentically booked.”

This means that not only does the business miss out on the $20 cancellation fee charged to invalid credit cards, the bar loses time, and eventually customers and revenue, when they hold bot seats that go unfilled.

But Chan—who has seen seats at his bar selling for $340 each on six-month-old Cita marketplace, another website that enables diners to buy and sell restaurant reservations—calls out another issue. When guests drop $100 or more just to walk in the door, “people have [the] wrong expectation when they come” he says because those expectations might be unreasonably high.

Pak says that Resy, which runs the reservations for Double Chicken Please and is owned by American Express, has taken action: They are “deleting confirmed bot profiles and sending what are essentially cease and desist emails to broker profiles,” she says. The actions have helped, Pak adds, but the issue persists. Now, Double Chicken Please has cut down on the number of reserved seats they offer and are welcoming more walk-ins.

A spokesperson for Resy says that the company is taking measures to block bot-booking. “Resy detects and deactivates bad actor accounts, cancels reservations, and blocks bot traffic,” they said over email.

At Tock, another reservation site that books tables at notable restaurants around the world, there’s an in-house Fraud Prevention team that uses a proprietary algorithm to flag suspicious activity. It has used it to block cards and scalper accounts a handful of times. Two months ago, the company added verification techniques to block bots, that include having users check boxes to verify they are real people. Resy also uses a variety of checks, including checking boxes and two-factor authentication for profiles.

Some new sites are testing out their own bot workarounds. ResX, a six-month-old app that began as an Instagram account, is free to use and provides a platform for diners to give away and claim restaurant reservations. For $10 a month, ResX also offers access to what it calls “premium” restaurants, like the power pasta dining spot Misi in Brooklyn. Users earn “tokens” by giving away their reservations; the tokens, in turn, can be used to claim premium reservations.

Longtime ResX user Jake Andrew, who declined to give his last name, has used the app to avoid cancellation charges. That includes trading a table for 8 at Montauk’s Surf Lodge last summer — the definition of valuable culinary real estate in the Hamptons. “I was going to be charged $400, $50 per guest,” he says.

Another new members-only app, Dorsia, works with restaurants to score prime reservations at places like the supper club space 9 Jones and even the impossible-to-get-into Carbone in New York. (The site, whose name has a clear American Psycho connection, also covers cities like Miami, London, the Bay Area and Los Angeles restaurants.)

But a diner must agree to a certain prepaid per-person spend when they book: For example, dinner at Cote Korean Steakhouse might cost $125 per person on a weekday night at 5 p.m.; on a weekend at 9 p.m. that figure might be $175. The benefit is that, although the seats might cost more, the extra money goes to a diner’s food and drinks as opposed to a reseller’s pocket.

For now, the only solution for frustrated restaurateurs is “a lot of added time and effort,” says Don Angie’s Rito. She and her staff are currently reaching out to every customer on Don Angie’s waitlist one-by-one to ensure that they’re a real person who will walk through the door of the restaurant and into a seat.

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©2023 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Why spend the time and expense to get a second opinion if your doctor recommends surgery or they diagnose a serious disease? After all, you’ve been examined, tested and evaluated by an expert with many years of training.

But the harsh reality is that misdiagnosis happens a lot — and sometimes with the gravest consequences. Each year, approximately 371,000 people in the U.S. die because of diagnostic error, according to a July 2023 study in the medical journal BMJ Quality & Safety.

A medical second opinion can increase the chances that you get the correct treatment from the start, saving money, distress and maybe your life.

“Second opinions are probably the single fastest way to address diagnostic errors today,” says Dr. David Newman-Toker, director of Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Center for Diagnostic Excellence.

Seeing the right specialist or subspecialist can make all the difference. “We know [from research] that if a patient with sarcoma is seen at a sarcoma center, their survival is longer,” says Kristen Ganjoo, a medical oncologist who teaches at Stanford University’s School of Medicine.

What is a second opinion, and why is it valuable to you?

Second opinions — whether to review a surgery recommendation or a cancer diagnosis — typically require a step-by-step reexamination of a patient’s case.

The first step is to review the existing diagnosis, according to Ganjoo. For example, patients may need a pathology review at an institution that has experts in sarcomas, she says. “We have a hundred different types of sarcoma, and they’re all treated differently. If a pathologist is not familiar with sarcomas, they may make a mistake in diagnosing patients.”

Next, Ganjoo determines whether the patient needs more tests, such as a scan or an assessment of a tissue sample for genetic mutations.

Finally, she reviews the treatment plan and makes any necessary changes to it, based on all test results and her diagnosis.

But second opinions aren’t only about coming to the correct diagnosis. They can be about “what’s the best possible treatment for this particular patient at this point in their life,” says Caitlin Donovan, a senior director at the nonprofit Patient Advocate Foundation, which works to educate and empower health care consumers.

“How can you incorporate quality-of-life concerns and still get the result you want?” says Donovan. “Physicians may differ on that.”

What does a second opinion cost, and does insurance cover it?

Charges for a second opinion vary widely, as does insurance coverage.

Some major medical centers offer a second opinion service at a fixed price. A virtual second opinion at the Cleveland Clinic costs $1,850. Stanford Medicine charges $700 for an online second opinion. The package of services provided — and the medical staff’s knowledge of particular specialties — vary by institution.

If you are insured by an employer or through a state or federal health insurance marketplace, contact your insurer to ask about your coverage for second opinions for people with your diagnosis.

Medicare may pay at least some of the cost of a second opinion when surgery is recommended. Medicaid offers some coverage of second opinions; call your state’s Medicaid office for details.

You may be able to pay any out-of-pocket costs of a second opinion through your health savings account (HSA) or flexible spending account (FSA).

Financial assistance for second-opinion expenses for certain diagnoses may be available through a variety of organizations, including the Patient Advocate Foundation and the Sarcoma Alliance.

If you are shy about asking for a second opinion

Some patients are embarrassed to let their doctor know that they’d like to get a second opinion. But if you do encounter resistance, know that you’re pursuing a reasonable course of action.

“Any good physician is going to encourage you to explore your treatment options,” says Donovan.

“Sometimes you just have the wrong clinician,” says Newman-Toker. “They’re overconfident or they’re not interested in asking deeper questions or hearing your concerns as a patient. Then, you just need a new doctor.”

Avoiding misdiagnosis

Newman-Toker offers these tips:

• Come to your appointments prepared with a simple, printed summary of your timeline of symptoms and problems, to leave more time for discussion and questions.
• Ask hard questions, such as, “What’s the worst thing that this could be, and why is my condition not that,” says Newman-Toker. If the doctor bristles, consider going to another. “You have to rely on asking probing questions to see if your physician is committed to getting it right.”
• After treatment begins, remain vigilant, Newman-Toker says. “Don’t assume that if you don’t get a good result, your treatment needs to be adjusted, rather than your diagnosis reevaluated. Maybe it’s time for a second opinion.”

The article Getting a Second Opinion Can Help Ward Off Misdiagnosis originally appeared on NerdWallet.

When Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his presidential campaign in May, he proudly told the nation that Florida’s crime rate in 2021 had reached a 50-year low.

But really, DeSantis couldn’t say for sure.

That’s because fewer than 1 in 10 law enforcement agencies in his state had reported their crime statistics to the FBI. In fact, more than 40% of the Sunshine State’s population was unaccounted for in the data used by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in its 2021 statewide crime report.

In Wichita, Kansas, Democratic Mayor Brandon Whipple claimed in May that violent crime had decreased by half during his term. But Whipple’s source, the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer, missed half the violent crimes recorded by the Wichita Police Department, possibly because the agency couldn’t mesh its system with the FBI’s recently revamped system.

Across the country, law enforcement agencies’ inability — or refusal — to send their annual crime data to the FBI has resulted in a distorted picture of the United States’ crime trends, according to a new Stateline analysis of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program participation data.

“We have policymakers making policy based on completely incomplete data. We have political elections being determined based on vibes rather than actual data. It’s a mess,” said Jeff Asher, a data analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics, a data consulting firm.

Experts warn that some policymakers, knowingly or unknowingly, use those flawed statistics to tout promising crime trends — misleading voters. The inaccurate data also can affect efforts to improve public safety and criminal justice, potentially leading policymakers to miss the mark in addressing real community issues.

“The problem for voters is that they don’t have very good information about what levels of safety actually are,” said Anna Harvey, a politics, data science and law professor at New York University. Harvey also is the director of the university’s Public Safety Lab and the president of the Social Science Research Council.

“They’re a little bit vulnerable to politicians who are kind of throwing around allegations and claims about crime that may or may not be accurate,” she told Stateline.

DeSantis faced criticism for repeating the incomplete numbers, and NBC News this summer reported that law enforcement rank-and-file had warned that the statistics weren’t correct.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement defended the numbers to NBC News, saying, in part, that “criticism about FDLE’s robust data collection methods is unfounded.”

FBI’s switch to a new system

A year ago, when the FBI initially released its 2021 national crime data, there wasn’t enough information to tell whether crime went up, went down or stayed the same. The FBI had estimated results for areas that declined to submit data or were unable to do so.

That’s partly because the FBI had rolled out a new reporting system. The data collection system, called the National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, gathered more detail on individual incidents but also required training and tech upgrades by state and local policing agencies.

For the first time in two decades, the national law enforcement reporting rate fell below 70% in 2021, primarily due to the FBI’s transition. In 2022, many law enforcement agencies across the country were not NIBRS-certified in time to submit their 2021 crime data, which contributed to lower reporting rates.

Even before the new system launched, there was a gap in reporting nationwide. Prior to 2021, 23% of U.S. law enforcement agencies on average did not report any crime data to the FBI. In 2020, 24% of agencies did not report, and in 2021, it surged to 40%.

Inconsistent reporting not only hampers the ability to draw comparisons over time and across state lines, but also injects uncertainty into discussions about crime, said Ames Grawert, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice’s justice program. The Brennan Center is a left-leaning law and policy group.

“Issues like that are invariably going to lead to some people having a misunderstanding of crime data — makes it harder to talk about crime in some states, especially given the low participation rate in Florida, for example,” Grawert said in an interview with Stateline.

The FBI’s latest crime report, released earlier this month, offers a glimmer of progress toward transparency: Seventy-one percent of law enforcement agencies nationwide submitted data through NIBRS or the FBI’s previous reporting system, up 11 percentage points from last year. About 60% of participating law enforcement agencies submitted their data exclusively through NIBRS this year. The FBI accepted data through both NIBRS and the older system this year, a change from last year’s NIBRS-only approach.

According to the incomplete numbers, violent crime in the U.S. dropped last year, returning to pre-pandemic levels, while property crimes saw a significant increase.

While crime data reporting to the FBI is optional, some states, such as Illinois and Minnesota, have laws requiring their local law enforcement agencies to report crime data to their state law enforcement agencies. State law enforcement agencies often serve as clearinghouses for local crime data, and in some states, they are responsible for sharing this data with the feds. Some local agencies also may send their data directly to the FBI.

But some states lag.

Florida, Illinois, Louisiana and West Virginia, for example, all remain below the 50% reporting mark, which means less than half of the police departments in their states submitted 2022 crime data to the FBI. Despite these reporting rates, the data shows that greater shares of these state’s populations were represented in last year’s data than in 2021.

Florida has had the lowest reporting rate two years in a row — 6% in 2021 and 44% in 2022 — partly because of the state’s ongoing transition to NIBRS. For 2021, the FBI did not accept Florida’s data through the previous data collection system, which would have represented about 58% of the state’s population, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Public Information Office.

“It’s a problem in both red and blue states, it’s also a local issue,” Kylie Murdock, a policy adviser with Third Way, a left-leaning national think tank, said in an interview with Stateline.

“When people use this data to back up tough-on-crime approaches, and say, ‘Our approach in this state is working’ — when in reality, that’s not necessarily the truth because you don’t know the full scope of the problem,” said Murdock.

Roughly a quarter of the U.S. population was not represented in the 2022 federal crime data, according to a Stateline analysis. More than 6,000 of 22,116 law enforcement agencies did not submit data.

Major police departments, including those in big cities such as Los Angeles and New York, did not submit any data in 2021. NYPD said it couldn’t submit summary statistics in 2021 as it had previously because of the FBI’s change in requirements, but was NIBRS-certified this year. Both cities’ departments did submit summary data to the FBI in 2022 through the old reporting system.

The FBI’s 2021 agency participation data shows that the 10 states with the lowest reporting rates included a balanced mix of both blue and red states, while last year’s data shows more red states among the 10 states with the lowest reporting rates.

Political and social consequences

The gaps in the FBI’s crime data create significant challenges for researchers and policymakers attempting to make sense of crime trends. As elections draw near and crime has reclaimed the spotlight, these challenges become increasingly pressing.

During last year’s congressional elections, 61% of registered voters said violent crime would be very important when making their decision about whom to vote for, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

While the overall violent crime rate has steadily declined on average over the past 20 years, the Pew Research Center suggested that voters might be reacting to specific types of violent crime, such as homicide, which saw a 30% increase between 2019 and 2020 — one of the largest year-over-year increases on record.

A lack of accurate, real-time crime data leaves voters vulnerable to political manipulation, said Harvey, the New York University professor.

“Voters tend to not have that kind of access. Politicians then try to play on voters’ concerns about crime, but without giving voters the information that will actually be useful for them,” Harvey said.

Experts expect that the challenge of incomplete national crime data — and the incomplete picture it presents — will persist for years because many law enforcement agencies still are working to adopt the new reporting system.

That could affect how policymakers allocate money for law enforcement, crime prevention programs and other public safety initiatives. With crime data, it’s important to know what types of crimes are included and to avoid narrow timeframes when describing trends, said Ernesto Lopez, a research specialist for the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan research think tank.

“Oftentimes relying on the FBI data, which tends to be outdated, really allows politicians to sensationalize a few news stories. Without having more up-to-date data, it may not be accurate,” Lopez told Stateline.

“Politician or otherwise, when we talk about crime, it’s really important to have a larger context.”

Federal assistance

Law enforcement agencies nationwide have received over$180 million in federal funding to help with the transition since the FBI’s switch to its new NIBRS reporting system was announced in 2015. Many law enforcement agencies are still working to fully transition to the new system.

For example, in Louisiana, the agencies serving some of the state’s most populous cities, including Lafayette, New Orleans and Shreveport, did not report any data to the FBI last year because they were implementing new records management systems, according to Jim Craft, the executive director of the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement.

Louisiana’s low reporting rate may be due to smaller law enforcement agencies reporting crime statistics through their local sheriff’s office, which makes it look like fewer agencies are reporting, Craft wrote in an email.

In Hawaii, the police departments serving Maui and Hawaii counties were not certified in time to submit data through NIBRS to the FBI last year, according to Paul Perrone, the director of the Hawaii Uniform Crime Reporting program. Last month, Hawaii became one of the few states where all law enforcement agencies are NIBRS-certified, Perrone wrote in an email.

Meanwhile, even as more law enforcement agencies submit data in coming years, experts warn that the FBI’s database accounts only for crimes reported to the police. And according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 50% of violent crimes and about 70% of property crimes are never reported.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2023 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The return of federal student loan payments in October threatens to derail prospects for graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, a cohort already facing steep economic disadvantages.

Aid makes college possible for many HBCU students: 85% of their graduates in 2020 used federal loans, versus 59% of non-HBCU students, according to the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, with HBCU graduates and their parents on average holding almost $21,000 more in federal loan debt.

The nation’s more than 100 HBCUs, including Spelman College in Atlanta and Howard University in Washington, D.C., serve more low-income and first-generation students than traditional schools and aim to help close the wealth gap between Black households and their white counterparts.

Parents of HBCU students are also more likely to take on loans to support their kids, on average. With payments resuming amid high prices and mortgage rates, entire families are forced to cut back.

Jasmine Payne, a 2015 graduate of Spelman who took on $36,000 in federal undergraduate debt, said the pause allowed her to pay off her car. Now, she faces a $342 student loan bill each month — a burden she said has forced her to delay plans to buy a new car and house and rethink traveling.

Andre Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said the pause allowed Black borrowers like Payne to both invest in and save for their futures.

“When students have to repay these loans, it also throttles our ability to own homes, to purchase cars, to start businesses,” Perry said. “We’re also going to see those issues come about.”

Underfunded

From 2019 to 2022, the wealth of Black families grew faster than that of white families, according to the Federal Reserve, but that was thanks to temporary, pandemic-era government aid and lower interest rates. And while that helped narrow the ratio of Black wealth to white wealth, Black household wealth still lags far behind that of their white counterparts.

Helene Gayle, the president of Spelman, said that nearly half the school’s students in any given year are eligible for a Pell Grant, a need-based aid reward — meaning half the student body has high financial needs.

Despite all this, HBCUs do not receive the same levels of government aid and endowments that other institutions do. These funds would enable them to provide scholarships and grants. “We have to continue to do more with less,” Gayle said.

In one vivid example, non-HBCU land-grant schools have received $12 billion more in government aid than HBCU land-grant schools, according to letters sent by the Education Department to 16 governors that urged them to address the issue.

Despite the funding shortfall, HBCUs continue facilitating upward economic mobility for the Black community. HBCUs support more low-income students in earning their way into higher income categories later in life than the national average for colleges, according to a 2021 United Negro College Fund report.

“Even with all of those factors that work against us,” Gayle said, “we still are able to provide students with an economic foothold that they wouldn’t have otherwise.”

‘No extra money’

To help pay for her daughter’s tuition, Payne’s mother, a preschool teacher, took out about $15,000 in Parent PLUS loans, federal loans issued to parents of dependent undergraduate students.

The downside is these loans come with higher interest rates and origination fees than loans issued directly to the student. They’re also ineligible for repayment plans based on the size of one’s income, such as the Biden administration’s new SAVE plan.

Deanna Folefac, a graduate of Bowie State University, said she is focused on paying back the $8,000 Parent PLUS loan her mother took out before turning to her own $25,000 in loan debt.

While some 13% of all 2020 college graduate families took out Parent PLUS loans, HBCU graduates make up 42% of those borrowers. Of Spelman graduates who used these loans, the median size of the loan to fund their undergraduate career is almost $106,000 — among the highest in the nation, according to the Education Department.

Due to a lack of financial aid, Dyonne Diggs, a 2017 graduate of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, an HBCU, went on a two-year leave from her education. Ultimately, she took on $58,000 in debt. Her stepfather also took out an additional $3,000 in Parent PLUS loans.

She said she will utilize the Biden administration’s 12-month payment on-ramp and hold off on paying her $400 monthly student loan bill. “I’m an educator so there’s literally no extra money,” Diggs said.

‘We’re used’

In June, the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel as much as $20,000 in federal student loan debt per borrower for those making under $125,000 a year.

Though Biden will reportedly unveil a new forgiveness plan next year, his options to help student borrowers — and HBCU students, in particular — remain limited.

He could broaden his SAVE plan to help lower payments and make Parent PLUS loans eligible for this plan, Perry said, but the Supreme Court’s ruling likely spoils any further broad-based forgiveness.

Diggs said she voted for Biden in 2020 after he promised to forgive some student loan debt, but plans to sit out in 2024.

“Every four years, we’re used as a scapegoat,” she said. “We’re used as, you know, ‘vote for your lives and all of these things are going to happen.’ And they don’t happen.”

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©2023 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Skyrocketing U.S. childcare payments are already weighing on spending and the labor market, according to Bank of America Institute, and that’s even before the expiry of a national program that could make things worse.

The average household spends more than $700 a month on childcare across the country, 32% higher than 2019, and the largest increase was for those making $100,000 to $250,000 a year, the data show. That’s already hit spending: Families with childcare payments have been spending at a slower pace than the rest of households since May and are dipping into savings at a faster rate.

There are also fewer dual-income households this year, with an average 1.34 payrolls a month versus 1.39 in 2019, indicating that some workers likely dropped out of the labor market to care for their kids, according to the institute’s report published Friday. Women are more likely to leave their jobs to take on that role, and experts warn it could increasingly happen as about 70,000 child-care programs are at risk of closing.

The report is based on analysis of anonymized Bank of America customer accounts, and was gathered even before the expiry of the Child Care Stabilization program. The end to that $24 billion program, which subsidized a portion of care and made it accessible for many “could have a meaningful impact on consumers,” economist Anna Zhou wrote in the report.

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©2023 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

From peacocks and astronauts to artists and comic book characters, get a glimpse inside Heidi Klum’s 22nd annual Halloween Party presented by Patron El Alto at Marquee on Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023, in New York City.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hundreds of dual passport holders and dozens of seriously injured Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza on Wednesday after more than three weeks under siege, while Israeli airstrikes destroyed apartments in a densely populated area for the second straight day.

The group were the first people to leave Gaza — other than four hostages released by Hamas and another rescued by Israeli forces — even as bombings have driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, and food, water and fuel run low. It remained unclear whether more people would be allowed to leave Gaza in coming days.

Al-Jazeera television, one of the few media outlets still reporting from northern Gaza, aired footage of leveled apartments in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, and of several wounded people, including children, being brought to a nearby hospital. The Hamas-run government said airstrikes killed and wounded many people, but the exact toll was not yet known. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The Al-Jazeera footage showed nearly identical scenes as the day before; dozens of men dug through the gray rubble of demolished multistory buildings in search of survivors.

The toll from Tuesday’s strikes was also unknown, though the director of a nearby hospital said hundreds were killed or wounded. Israel said those strikes killed dozens of militants, including a senior Hamas commander who was involved in the terrorists’ bloody Oct. 7 rampage that ignited the war, and destroyed militant tunnels beneath the buildings.

In a sign of increasing alarm over the war among Arab countries, Jordan on Wednesday recalled its ambassador from Israel and told Israel’s ambassador to remain out of the country. Jordan, a key U.S. ally, signed a peace deal with Israel in 1994, the second Arab country after Egypt to do so.

Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Ayman al-Safadi, said the return of the ambassadors is linked to Israel “stopping its war on Gaza … and the humanitarian catastrophe it is causing.” He warned of the potential of the conflict to spread, threatening “the security of the entire region.”

ISRAELI ARMY ADVANCES DEEPER INTO GAZA

Israeli ground forces pushed to the outskirts of Gaza City, days after launching a new phase of the war that Israel’s leaders say will be long and difficult. Internet and phone service was cut for several hours Wednesday, a replay of the temporary communications blackout when Israeli ground troops first advanced in large numbers into Gaza over the weekend.

Over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and supplies of food, medicine, water and fuel are running low. A territory-wide blackout has left hospitals reliant on generators that could soon be forced to shut down.

The strikes in Jabaliya underline the anticipated surge in casualties on both sides as Israeli troops advance toward the outskirts of Gaza City and its dense residential neighborhoods. Israeli officials say Hamas’ military infrastructure, including hundreds of kilometers (miles) of underground tunnels, is concentrated in the city, which was home to some 650,000 people before the war.

BORDER OPENS TO ALLOW SOME PEOPLE OUT

Six buses carrying 335 foreign passport holders left Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt as of mid-afternoon Wednesday, according to Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority.

The authority said the plan was for more than 400 foreign passport holders to leave for Egypt. Egypt has said it will not accept an influx of Palestinian refugees because of fears Israel will not allow them to return to Gaza after the war.

Dozens of people could be seen entering the Rafah crossing — the only one currently operating — and ambulances carrying wounded Palestinians exited on the Egyptian side.

Egypt had earlier said that more than 80 Palestinians — out of many thousands wounded in the war — would also be brought in for treatment. But Dr. Mohamed Zaqout, a Health Ministry official in Gaza, told The Associated Press that 10 of the patients died before they could be evacuated to Egypt. The criteria for medical evacuation were not immediately clear.

LACK OF POWER, COMMUNICATIONS CAUSES HARM

Those who remain behind are contending with multiple crises, made worse Wednesday by the communications blackout. The Palestinian telecoms company Paltel said internet and mobile phone services were gradually being restored in Gaza following a “complete disruption” that lasted several hours.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said such blackouts make it harder for civilians to seek safety. “Even the potentially life-saving act of calling an ambulance becomes impossible,” said Jessica Moussan, an ICRC spokesperson.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, meanwhile, said that the Turkish-Palestinian Hospital, Gaza’s only facility offering specialized treatment for cancer patients, was forced to shut down because of lack of fuel, leaving 70 cancer patients in a critical situation.

DEATH TOLL KEEPS RISING

More than 8,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 22,000 people have been wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Wednesday, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants also abducted around 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.

Fifteen Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation.

Israel has been vague about its operations in Gaza, but residents and spokesmen for militant groups say troops appear to be trying to take control of the two main north-south roads.

An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south from Gaza City and other northern areas following Israeli orders to evacuate, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north.

Israel has allowed international aid groups to send more than 200 trucks carrying food and medicine to enter from Egypt over the past 10 days, but aid workers say it’s not nearly enough.

AFTER WAR IN GAZA, THEN WHAT?

Israel has vowed to crush Hamas’ ability to govern Gaza or threaten it, while also saying it does not plan to reoccupy the territory, from which it withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005. But it has said little about who would govern Gaza afterwards.

In congressional testimony on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested that “at some point, what would make the most sense is for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza.”

Hamas drove the authority’s forces out of Gaza in a week of heavy fighting in 2007, leaving it with limited control over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian support for the President Mahmoud Abbas has plunged since then, with many Palestinians dismissing the PA as little more than Israel’s police force because it helps suppress Hamas and other militant groups.

In other developments:

— In the West Bank, Israeli forces raided the Jenin refugee camp Wednesday morning, killing three Palestinians, local health officials said. The Israeli military said it carried out a drone strike in the camp, hitting several militants. Since the war began, 130 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, either by Israeli forces or by Jewish settlers.

— In northern Israel, mortars and anti-tank rockets were fired from Lebanon toward several Israeli communities, causing no injuries and prompting Israeli strikes on the launch sites, the military said. Hezbollah and Palestinian militants in Lebanon have exchanged fire with Israeli forces on a daily basis over the border.

___

This story has been updated to clarify that, in addition to four hostages released by Hamas, a fifth was rescued by Israeli forces.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Amy Teibel in Jerusalem, contributed to this report.

Full AP coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

You’ve probably heard of “workcations” that combine work travel with leisure trips, often in desirable locations. But there’s a new twist on this trend: The “hush trip,” in which employees don’t tell their bosses they’re actually working from vacation locales. These secret getaways by remote workers while on the clock seem to be gaining in popularity and frequency, although many companies frown upon this activity.

Thinking about taking a hush trip, especially during the upcoming holiday season? Read on to learn more about the benefits and risks of this practice, what employers think of hush trips and ways to pay for your next holiday trip.

Understanding the hush trip phenomenon

A hush trip can be defined as an excursion where an employee works remotely, usually in a vacation spot, without disclosing to their boss or colleagues where they’re temporarily located, according to Vicki Salemi, a career expert with Monster.

“Hush trips are growing more popular because more workers see opportunities to work remotely in places other than their homes,” she says. Salemi cites a recent Monster poll that reveals approximately one-third of workers didn’t think their managers needed to know that they were working from somewhere other than their home. A further one-fifth of respondents didn’t think their managers would approve of a “workcation,” and 16 percent believed their managers and colleagues would have a negative view of hush trips.

Joshua Bienstock, an associate professor at New York Institute of Technology’s School of Management and a practicing employment and labor lawyer, says he understands why hush trips have become more common.

“Employees are stressed out in a 24/7 world,” he explains. “As more workplaces recognize the utility of remote work, many employees can do their work in any place. So the thinking seems to be, ‘Why not combine my work and vacation by taking a hush trip?’”

Peter Strebel, president of RateGain, a provider of SaaS solutions for the travel and hospitality industry and former chairman of Omni Hotels & Resorts, isn’t surprised by the rise of hush trips.

“Many times, they occur when workers do not have vacation time to spare or are saving vacation days for a longer trip. Hush trips are in-demand among remote workers because they allow them to do their jobs during work hours and take advantage of amenities after work or on the weekends,” says Strebel. Given that 64% of full-time workers support fully remote work schedules, according to Bankrate data, there’s clear demand for the type of flexibility that enables hush getaways.

Pros and cons of taking a hush trip during the holidays

Thinking about taking a hush trip? It’s important to weigh the pluses and minuses of this decision.

“The pros of taking a hush trip during the upcoming holiday season are to combine the best of both worlds — being able to work from an enjoyable location and get paid for it,” Salemi notes. “As soon as you log off, you can quickly toggle to vacation mode, which may make you happier and more productive.” Further, she says, more than half of those surveyed by Monster report feeling less anxious when taking hush trips because they get a change of scenery without tapping into their paid time off.

Hush trips can also enable you to travel at non-peak times, such as flying mid-week on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, when rates are often cheaper.

“This allows you to avoid the peak vacation travel time of weekends and the higher rate of business travel on Mondays and Fridays,” Stebel points out. “For example, a person planning a hush trip from Boston to New York City for the holidays could take an early flight on Tuesday morning, work from the hotel lobby until the room is ready and plan to take in Rockefeller Center after work.”

On the other hand, it’s easy to get distracted during a hush trip. “The holiday season can feel more chaotic and stressful than non-holiday times of the year. Being in a new location and trying to concentrate on work with distractions at your fingertips may be challenging and could compound your stress,” cautions Salemi.

Strebel agrees, adding that traveling anywhere during the holiday season can be complicated. “A large number of travelers are on the move at this time of year, which increases the risks of flight delays or hotel overbookings,” he continues. “A delayed flight, for example, could force a remote worker to take calls from the airport, which is not an ideal scenario.”

Likely the biggest disadvantage of engaging in a hush trip is that your company could find out. This could land you in hot water with your employer — perhaps jeopardizing your job.

What do companies think of hush trips?

Hush trip acceptance and employer policies vary from company to company. But rest assured that most employers would like to know ahead of time if you expect to work in a different location than your home.

“The issue essentially comes down to whether you can effectively do your job with a host of distractions nearby. It’s up to you to ensure your work is done well and without disruption,” Strebel says. “I believe employers should consider flexibility with hush trips, as blanket policies condemning them can hurt morale. Similarly, an employee should tread carefully when on a hush trip, as it could cause tension with coworkers.”

Andrew Lokenauth, a personal finance expert and owner of BeFluentInFinance.com, says hush trips are discouraged by most businesses. “Employers have concerns about productivity, security and liability,” he says. “But some will tolerate a hush trip if it’s done discreetly and the work is completed to satisfaction.”

Ideally, employers would encourage workcations, creating cultures in which employees don’t need to keep secrets — including where they’re working from — from them.

“But other employers may have the mindset that everyone needs to be accountable and only work in the office or from a home office where they know your technology is reliable and where you can be easily reached,” Salemi explains. “Even though you may be doing an amazing job and can work well or even better while sitting on the beach, there may be a stigma around it.”

“A hush trip can positively impact employees who plan on traveling for the holidays,” adds Salemi. “For instance, maybe the trip involves staying with relatives who bring you immense joy. Rather than having to choose between working from home or seeing your relatives, you can do both.”

Paying for a holiday hush trip

If you’re expecting to travel this holiday season and make it a hush trip, think carefully about how you’ll fund this getaway. Cash always comes in handy, but using credit cards can make it safe, convenient and simple to pay for a flight, hotel stay, food and other transactions.

Consider that the majority of credit cards provide zero-liability fraud protection for unauthorized charges, as long as you report them within 30 days. Even if your card issuer doesn’t offer zero liability, the Fair Credit Billing Act limits your liability for unauthorized charges to a maximum of $50.

Moreover, if unauthorized charges occur on your credit card, you can often address the issue before your payment is due, preventing any actual loss of funds. That’s one reason using credit cards while traveling is preferred to using a debit card: If the latter is stolen or compromised, resolving the matter can be more time-consuming, as you’ll need to wait for the funds to be restored to your bank account.

With the right credit card in your wallet during a holiday hush trip, you can also earn cash back, points or miles on your typical expenditures. When you open a new rewards credit card, you may also qualify for a welcome bonus after reaching a specific spending threshold.

To maximize credit card rewards, it’s crucial to select a card that aligns with your spending patterns. For instance, frequent travelers might prefer a travel credit card, which earns points or miles for future travel and offers perks like lounge access and credits for traveler programs like TSA PreCheck. Alternatively, a cash back card with bonus rewards on everyday spending categories such as groceries and gas stations might provide more value for others.

Additional credit card perks can significantly enhance your experience, including travel protections, no foreign transaction fees, annual statement credits for specific purchases and discounts with partner brands.

Just remember to be careful when using credit cards during a hush trip. If, for instance, you use a credit card given to you by your employer, they may be able to track where your purchases were made. This could get you in trouble if your company doesn’t know where you’re working from.

The bottom line

Think carefully about taking a hush trip between now and New Year’s, rather than telling your employer you’re going on a “workcation.” The latter may prove less risky and stressful, but still allow you to enjoy some needed leisure time in a desirable spot.

“Do your research ahead of time to ease worries and anxiety,” recommends Salemi. “Your destination should have a dedicated workspace and fast Internet speed so you won’t miss a beat. Consider time zone differences, as well. If you are going overseas and it’s six hours earlier, ensure that you are working the same six hours that you would have been if you had remained at home.”

Lokenauth agrees. “Be discreet when taking a hush trip, and don’t publicize your actions on social media,” he advises. “Try to sync your schedule with your coworkers to avoid suspicions. And limit long or frequent hush trips to avoid getting caught.”

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(Visit Bankrate online at bankrate.com.)

©2023 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The 71-year-old scatters the walkway to her house on Denver’s Northside with the rich, orange petals of the cempasúchil — marigold — flowers. The blossoms, grown by Salazar, are synonymous with the traditional Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos as they are thought to be fragrant enough to attract the spirits of deceased loved ones to their family’s homes and altars.

On Thursday, Day of the Dead, Salazar’s family will pack the matriarch’s home and gather around a sacred altar overflowing with photos of the dead and ofrendas — offerings — made up of the departed’s favorite earthly delights. The day serves as a reunion between the living and the dead when the veil between realms is considered thinnest.

“It is really peaceful,” Salazar said. “I am happy to know that when you’re gone, there is a beyond, and that beyond is powerful. It is a nostalgic day to remember where you came from and who you came from.”

Lit candles guide the path to Salazar’s front door. Garlands of marigolds and papel picado — colorful, decorative paper cutouts — line Salazar’s porch, letting passersby in this realm and the next know that a celebration of life, death and remembrance is brewing inside.

Salazar — a storied artist and former director of Santa Fe Art District’s Latin American art museum Museo de las Americas —  helped popularize Day of the Dead in Denver during the burgeoning Chicano movement in the 1970s. Even though the celebration is more widely recognized today, Salazar still enjoys teaching new celebrants the ancient ways of Día de los Muertos — the rites and rituals her grandmother passed to her that she passed to her daughter who now teaches her granddaughter.

While Día de los Muertos iconography like sugar skulls can often be found alongside witch hats and fun-sized candy bars at the grocery store, Day of the Dead is not simply a Mexican version of Halloween, Salazar said. The holiday, a blend of Indigenous and Latino cultural traditions dating back thousands of years, focuses on honoring ancestry and commemorating death as a part of life by building altars that serve as shrines to memorialize lost loved ones.

“I want people to remember me when I am gone, so I remember those I have lost,” she said.

Loss is universal

The leaders of the Latino Cultural Arts Center know the value of passing traditions on to youth, which is why the center brought Día de los Muertos programming to three Denver schools this year.

The art classroom at Denver’s Valverde Elementary School hummed on Tuesday with an excitement only attainable by a group of children given craft supplies at 9:30 a.m. As the arts center’s Mandy Medrano and Valverde art teacher Kristina Barboza passed out light-up butterfly replicas, faux marigolds and miniature clay pan de muerto — a type of Mexican bread baked for Day of the Dead — the fourth-graders squealed with delight.

Barboza has been teaching Día de los Muertos for six years at Valverde, where a majority of the student body is Hispanic.

“It started off small,” Barboza said. “We’d put an altar together, but post-COVID, it turned into a bigger family celebration because of the needs of our community. Because there was so much loss. Our parents asked for this, and it’s brought our whole community together.”

The students make art to display at a big altar honoring the school community’s lost loved ones. With the help of Latino Cultural Arts Center funding, families will be welcomed on Thursday for food, drinks and mental health resources.

Melissa Roybal, a Denver Public Schools social worker and trauma-informed therapist, volunteers with the arts center to provide mental health services at its Day of the Dead programming.

“We’re trying to destigmatize talking about mental health in the Latino community,” Roybal said. “That’s why it’s so important to have practitioners who look like the communities they’re serving.”

Normalizing mental health can be as simple as word reframing, Roybal said. Instead of using words like “therapy,” Roybal tells people she’s there to help talk things out.

“Everyone has loss,” Medrano said. “It’s universal. I’m never afraid to talk to kids about loss. It’s better to not sugarcoat things and be real about it. It’s a part of who we are as a people.”

Yulissa Robles, 9, was happy to share as she glued pink ribbon to her altar, which she was making to honor her uncle and aunt who passed away.

“My favorite part has been making something that represents my family,” Yulissa said. “At home, we make our altar, too, because we like to represent our culture.”

“A beautiful tapestry”

On Thursday, Salazar prepped her altar-making supplies in her santos — saints — room, a striking part of her home with walls the color of butter and covered from top to bottom in artwork spanning various religions, from crosses to New Mexican saints to tapestries and her own woodwork.

She blessed the offerings before placing them on the altar, bathing them in incense from burning palo santo.

Her fingers brushed the frames and delicate edges of generations-old photographs awaiting their time on the altar. As the day gets closer and Salazar’s preparations head into overdrive, she said she begins dreaming of her deceased family members and knows they are close. She awaits their reunion at the altar with a soft smile.

“Life and death is with you constantly,” Salazar said. “If you ignore that, you only live but half your life.”

Renee Fajardo, coordinator of the Journey Through Our Heritage program at Metropolitan State University of Denver, described typical altar components as elements of the earth: fire in the form of candlelight, water and air represented by feathers or the paper cutouts. Altars often offer salt to protect the body from breaking down as it travels from the world of the dead to the world of the living, Fajardo said. The marigold flowers, pictures of the deceased and sugar skulls are key components, as well.

“It’s a beautiful tapestry — a weaving of people and communities and a particular area coming together to say, ‘This is the way we are going to love and honor our departed loved ones,’” Fajardo said. “It’s really about our humanity as a people that live on the same planet with each other, that we all have families we love and communities, and we all have departed loved ones.”

Family members also add personal touches to the altars reflecting the visitors’ personalities.

Salazar, for example, would like her family to leave her favorite molé at her altar when she dies.

Thanks to Colorado’s Latino and Chicano leaders throughout the years, Day of the Dead celebrations can be found throughout the state, from Westwood’s street festival to the parade along Santa Fe Drive to live dancing and music at the Longmont Museum.

Fajardo, a Denver native with Chicana and Native American roots, said when she thinks about Día de los Muertos, she imagines a future where the sacred remembrance of one’s ancestors lasts longer than the holiday.

“Once you have these pictures and stories of people and ancestors who built the community, we want to encourage people to begin a repository, a history telling,” Fajardo said. “We want it to be more than just looking at the parade and building of altars. How do we collect these stories and make sure the people who come after us recognize who we are in Colorado is a big, historic tradition of people weaving in and out of each other for hundreds of years.”

The best Halloween costumes are usually the ones that sparkle — or scare — with creativity and imagination.

The same can be said for the post-trick-or-treat finger foods served at a Fright Night party.

Sure, you could set the table with an array of chips and dips or offer a big bowl of pretzels for snacking. But if you really want something that’s scary good, take a few extra minutes and whip up a ghoulish treat that conjures up one of the holiday’s most popular monsters — a mummy?

It’s easier than you might think.

All you need is a wheel of brie, a sheet of frozen puff pastry, a half-cup or so of your favorite red jam and a sharp knife to cut the rolled-out dough into strips of “cloth” to wrap the cheese up with its telltale bandages.

This kid-friendly recipe only takes about a half-hour start to finish, and includes a seasonal and super-easy homemade cranberry jam. I brought it to life with candy eyes, but you also could use pecans or small slices of apple topped with raisins or craisins.

Be sure to brush the wrapped dough with egg wash; that’s what gives the finished dish its shiny, golden-brown color and helps as a binder.

It’s best served warm and gooey right out of the oven, with water crackers, apple wedges or slices, crostini, pretzel chips or anything else that’s sturdy and spreadable. If you have leftover jam, put that on the serving platter too, for a bright and zingy finish.

Mummy Baked Brie

PG tested

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 shallot, peeled and finely minced

1 cup fresh cranberries, rinsed

Juice and zest of 1 orange

3 tablespoons sugar

Pinch of sea salt

1 8-ounce wheel of French-style brie

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

Egg wash, for baking

Prepare cranberry jam: In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add minced shallot and cook until soft and fragrant, about 5 minutes.

Add cranberries to pan along with orange juice, sugar and a pinch of salt. Mix to combine, then bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook until cranberries explode and mixture gets jammy, about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Slice brie in half horizontally, and set the top half aside. Spread cranberry jam on the bottom half of the brie. Replace the top half of the brie so that the jam is covered.

Roll out puff pastry on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch square. Place brie in the center of the dough and make two cuts on both long sides of the dough, from the brie to the edges, to create even thirds. Fold the middle piece on each edge over the brie. (It will be mostly covered with dough.)

Now the fun part! Cut 1/2 -inch-wide strips into the short sides of the dough, from the brie to the edges. Gently stretch the strips over the top of the dough in a crisscross pattern so it looks like mummy wrappings. Tuck any loose ends under the pastry.

Transfer the wrapped brie to the parchment-covered baking tray. Brush the pastry with egg wash and place in hot oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until it’s golden brown.

Add large edible eyes, and serve warm (and gooey) with sliced apples, toasted baguette, crackers, dried fruit, nuts and any leftover cranberry jam.

Serves 6-8.

— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette

©2023 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s” isn’t half as scary as one or two of the parent-vs.-parent brawls I witnessed a few years ago at Chuck E. Cheese’s, but that’s another story, too intense for any storytelling medium.

Let’s talk about this story. Video game creator Scott Cawthon’s Chuck E.-inspired 2014 phenomenon takes place in a decrepit Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzajoint, with the requisite ball pit, wonky electrical wiring and smell of death, with a whiff of sheet cake. Its threatening animatronic creatures — a bear, a bunny, a one-pawed fox, a face-eating robo-bird — run the place at night, and are inhabited by the disintegrating bodies and tortured souls of children who … well, spoiler there, a little late on the warning, sorry, moving on.

In the game, you take the role of night security guard Mike. You monitor the barely functional surveillance cameras and, once the robot killers come for you, you try to stay alive. There’s a labyrinth of backstory, dripped out in dribs and drabs, but Cawthon’s simple setup begot many sequels and a welter of spinoffs and subreddits and fan theories. Now it’s a movie.

And? It’s an odd one, indecisive about its tone and intentions. Full-on R-rated sadism? Half the gaming world is already mad about the movie not going in that direction. Instead, the filmmakers and screenwriters chose to squeak by with a PG-13, leaning away from five nights of steadily mounting carnage and body parts and toward a thick layer of earnest new material devoted to Mike’s horrific childhood depicted in frequent flashbacks and nightmares. These take him back, like a dream-state detective, to the Nebraska campground where Mike’s brother was abducted, never to be found.

Mike’s current life feels much the same as his dream state: stuck, bereft and looking for answers. He’s doing all he can to retain custody of his younger sister. And here we run into what the film industry has referred to for more than a century as “story problems.”

Cawthon and fellow screenwriters Seth Cuddeback and Emma Tammi (who also directed) take an earnest interest in developing the central brother-sister relationship. It works, sometimes. As Mike, Josh Hutcherson (”The Hunger Games”) draws you into a character’s sullen state of mind, persuasively, by doing very little. But there’s a ton of complication and clutter in “Five Nights at Freddy’s.”

The adaptation veers from scenes of Mike’s dream state, to the hapless crew of young thugs employed by Mike’s evil aunt (Mary Stuart Masterson, who deserves better) to discredit Mike, so she can gain custody of her niece (Piper Rubio). A kindly police officer (Elizabeth Lail) knows more about the Fazbear emporium of pain than she’s telling. And there’s the unsettling job counselor (Matthew Lillard) who sets up Mike as Fazbear’s newest night watchman.

I don’t care much about neatness with most genre exercises, but this one’s pretty sludgy. I do care about, and resist, the film’s attempt to be a cuddly version of “Saw,” with faces getting sliced open by a robo-critter’s whirring saw blades. To keep the PG-13 rating intact, the camera and editor cut away just before the splurch, nearly every time. This means millions of 8-year-olds will likely be at the multiplexes this weekend, in a funk, alongside older kids and young adults steeped in nostalgia for the hours they spent at home being Mike. Current box office estimates suggest “Five Nights at Freddy’s” should make nearly double its $25 million production budget by Monday.

Cawthon has known great love and great hate online. Two years ago his political views and donations (he’s a Trump fan, in addition to being an anti-abortion Christian Republican) provoked some controversy and online blowback from former fans. In the movie, there’s a scene where Mike longs for the traditional God-fearing family taken away from him so cruelly. Hutcherson knows exactly how hard to stress this bit: just enough for it to register. The premise, meantime, of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is entirely about the cruelty, and very likely would’ve made more sense as a straight-up R-rated splatterfest.

Then again, would I have liked a more gratuitous take on the same material? Reader, I cannot say. This one’s shorter than the “It” movies, at least. Once a child-abduction horror premise exceeds the 2-hour mark, the EXIT sign to the left of the screen starts looking better than the screen itself.

———

‘FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S’

2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for strong violent content, bloody images, and language)

Running time: 1:50

How to watch: In theaters and streaming on Peacock Thursday

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©2023 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Cardiovascular-related deaths due to extreme heat are expected to nearly triple in the U.S. by mid-century as climate change raises the frequency of very hot days, according to a new study. Older and Black adults are likely to be the most affected.

The study, supported by the National Institutes of Health and published Monday in the journal Circulation, predicts that the number of heat-related cardiovascular deaths in the contiguous U.S. will increase from an annual average of 1,651 recorded in recent years to 4,320 by mid-century (defined as from 2036 to 2065).

Although extreme heat poses a universal threat to health, older and Black adults are expected to be disproportionately impacted because of chronic illness and socio-economic challenges, such as living without air conditioning.

Exposure to high temperatures stresses the cardiovascular system, forcing the heart to work harder. That, in turn, increases the odds of having a heart attack, stroke or other life-threatening episode, especially for people with heart disease.

“The health burdens from extreme heat will continue to grow within the next several decades,” Sameed Khatana, the study’s co-author and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “Due to the unequal impact of extreme heat on different populations, this is also a matter of health equity and could exacerbate health disparities that already exist.”

Khatana and his co-authors made their projection by first evaluating county-level data from the contiguous 48 U.S. states during summer months from 2008 to 2019 to set a baseline. They also examined the connection between extreme heat — days with a heat index of 90F (32.2C) or higher — and cardiovascular mortality. Humidity levels, which can influence body temperatures, were also taken into consideration, as well as projected population changes.

The team modeled how heat would increase using a middle-of-the-road climate emissions projection and calculated how that would affect mortality. The death toll could rise further to 5,491 people if emissions rise sharply, the authors note.

Khatana and his co-authors call for infrastructure upgrades to help communities adapt to a hotter future. Their paper is the latest of a series of warnings from medical professionals about how excessive heat can trigger a variety of health problems and amplify existing inequalities. Last summer, the record-breaking temperatures in Europe caused more than 60,000 premature deaths, according to a study published in July.

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©2023 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The world is entering a new era of vaccines. Following the success of COVID-19 mRNA shots, scientists have a far greater capacity to tailor shots to a virus’s structure, putting a host of new vaccines on the horizon.

The most recent arrivals — as anyone on the airwaves or social media knows — are several new immunizations against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

These shots are welcome since RSV can be dangerous, even deadly, in the very old and very young. But the shots are also expensive — about $300 for those directed at adults, and up to $1,000 for one of the shots, a monoclonal antibody rather than a traditional vaccine, intended for babies. Many older vaccines cost pennies.

So their advent is forcing the United States to face anew questions it has long sidestepped: How much should an immunization that will possibly be given — maybe yearly — to millions of Americans cost to be truly valuable? Also, given the U.S. is one of two countries that permit direct advertising to consumers: How can we ensure the shots get into the arms of people who will truly benefit and not be given, at great expense, to those who will not?

Already, ads on televisions and social media show active retirees playing pickleball or going to art galleries whose lives are “cut short by RSV.” This explains the lines for the shot at my local pharmacy.

But indiscriminate use of expensive shots could strain both public and private insurers’ already tight budgets.

Other developed countries have deliberate strategies for deciding which vulnerable groups need a particular vaccine and how much to pay for it. The U.S. does not, and as specialized vaccines proliferate, public programs and private insurers will need to grapple with how to use and finance shots that can be hugely beneficial for some but will waste precious health dollars if taken by all.

A seasonal viral illness, RSV can cause hospitalization or, in rare cases, death in babies and in people age 75 or older, as well as those with serious underlying medical conditions such as heart disease or cancer. For most people who get RSV, it plays out as a cold; you’ve likely had RSV without knowing it.

But RSV puts about 2% of babies under age 1 in the hospital and kills between 100 and 300 of those under 6 months, because their immune systems are immature and their airways too narrow to tolerate the inflammation. Merely having a bad case of RSV in young childhood increases the risk of long-term asthma.

That’s why Barney Graham, the scientist who spent decades at the government’s National Institutes for Health perfecting the basic science that led to the current shots, said: “The most obvious use is in infants,” not adults.

That’s also why European countries trying to figure out how best to use these vaccines without breaking the bank focused first on babies and determining a sensible price. Though more of the very old may die of RSV, the years of life lost are much greater for the very young. (Babies can get the monoclonal antibody shot or gain protection through a traditional vaccine given to the mother near the end of pregnancy, conferring immunity through the womb.)

A consortium of European experts led by Philippe Beutels, a professor in health economics at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, calculated that the shots would only be “worth it” in terms of the lives saved and hospitalizations averted in infants if the price were under about $80, he said in a phone interview. That’s because almost all babies make it through RSV with supportive care.

The calculation will be used by countries such as Belgium, England, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands to negotiate a set price for the two infant shots, followed by decisions on which version should be offered, depending partly on which is more affordable.

They have not yet considered how to distribute the vaccines to adults — considered less pressing — because studies show that RSV rarely causes severe disease in adults who live outside of care settings, such as a nursing home.

Why did the United States and Europe approach the problem from opposite directions?

In the U.S., there was a financial incentive: Roughly 3.7 million babies are born each year, while there are about 75 million Americans age 60 and older — the group for whom the two adult vaccines were approved. And about half of children get their vaccines through the Vaccines for Children program, which negotiates discounted prices.

Also, babies can get vaccinated only by their clinicians. Adults can walk into pharmacies for vaccinations, and pharmacies are only too happy to have the business.

But which older adults truly benefit from the shot? The two manufacturers of the adult vaccines, GSK and Pfizer, conducted their studies presented to the FDA for approval in a population of generally healthy people 60 and older, so that’s the group to whom they may be marketed. And marketed they are, even though the studies didn’t show the shots staved off hospitalization or death in people ages 60 to 75.

That led to what some have called a “narrow” endorsement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for people 60 to 75: Patients in that age range could get the shot after “shared clinical decision-making” with a health provider.

It is likely that because of this fuzzy recommendation, some Americans 60 and over with commercial insurance are finding that their insurers won’t cover it. Under Obamacare, insurers are generally required to cover at no cost vaccines that are recommended by the ACIP; however, if a provider recommends vaccination, then it must be covered by insurance.

(In late September, the ACIP recommended immunization of all babies with either the antibody or the maternal vaccine. Insurers have a year to commence coverage and many have been dragging their feet because of the high price.)

There are better and more equitable ways to steer the shots into the arms of those who need it, rather than simply administering it to those who have the “right” insurance or, swayed by advertising, can pay. For example, insurers, including Medicare, could be required to cover only those ages 60 to 75 who have a prescription from a doctor, indicating shared decision-making has occurred.

Finally, during the pandemic emergency, the federal government purchased all COVID-19 vaccines in bulk at a negotiated price, initially below $20 a shot, and distributed them nationally. If, to protect public health, we want vaccines to get into the arms of all who benefit, that’s a more cohesive strategy than the patchwork one used now.

Vaccines are miraculous, and it’s great news that they now exist to prevent serious illness and death from RSV. But using such novel vaccines wisely — directing them to the people who need them at a price they can afford — will be key. Otherwise, the cost to the health system, and to patients, could undermine this big medical win.

___

(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2023 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The results — whether the men are cured or not after the one-time intravenous infusions this year — have not yet been disclosed by the San Francisco biotech company that created the technology based on Nobel Prize-winning research by UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna.

But the potential treatment, called EBT-101, is safe and caused no major side effects, Excision BioTherapeutics reported at a meeting in Brussels.

Six more men will be treated, perhaps some at UC San Francisco, with higher doses. Participating in the research program is potentially risky: Participants stop their protective anti-HIV drugs for 12 weeks after gene-editing treatment to see if the virus is gone. Data will be presented at a medical conference next year, according to the company.

“We are opening the door for how this new drug will work and what potential it has for people living with HIV,” said Dr. William Kennedy, Excision senior vice president of clinical development. “Ultimately, we see this as a fundamentally new approach.”

The novel strategy could potentially treat other chronic infections where the virus hides latent, such as hepatitis and herpes, he said. It leaves human DNA intact.

“We were super excited about this, and to get the chance to be among the first to do human studies of gene editing for a cure,” said Dr. Priscilla Hsue, professor of medicine and principal investigator for the study’s clinical trial site at UCSF. “If we can permanently remove viral DNA, the thought is, people would get this infusion and then be done.”

EBT-101 is designed to find the specific viral sequences so that it doesn’t cut human DNA. The CRISPR-based therapy uses an empty virus to deliver the “guide RNA” that marks where to cut. An enzyme called Cas9 acts like scissors. The therapeutic solution is given intravenously.

It received the FDA’s “fast track” designation last July after experiments showed success in animals. A single injection safely and efficiently removed SIV, a virus related to HIV, from the genomes of rhesus monkeys. In earlier work, it removed HIV from nine of 23 mice.

But there is a big leap from promising results in mice to success in humans. In addition to UCSF, patients will be recruited at Quest Clinical Research in San Francisco, Washington University in St. Louis and Cooper University in Camden, New Jersey.

In the four decades since the AIDS virus was isolated, treatment has transformed its care. If taken every day, powerful antiretroviral drugs can suppress the virus, controlling illness. Medicine can also prevent infection.

But a cure is needed to end the pandemic. Worldwide, nearly 39 million people are living with HIV. About 77% of them are receiving treatment.

There have only been three known cases of an HIV cure so far. Two were men who received bone marrow transplants from donors who carried a mutation that blocks HIV infection. The third was a woman who received a transplant of umbilical cord blood. But all three treatments were targeting cancer, so this is not a practical option for the average HIV patient.

“The future of so many lives depends on another breakthrough,” said Mark S. King, an Atlanta-based HIV/AIDS activist and author of the book My Fabulous Disease who has lived with the virus for nearly 40 years.

“A lot of people think that this was all rectified when we got successful treatments,” he said. “But the difference between a treatment and a cure, or a vaccine, is profound.”

Excision BioTherapeutics was founded on work in the lab of Kamel Khalili, a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia and director of its Center for NeuroVirology and Gene Editing.

Its research is supported, in part, by the taxpayer-supported California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. The early results of its study were presented at the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy on Wednesday.

Scientists wondered: Could CRISPR cure HIV by cutting the virus’s DNA? Excision’s approach cuts the virus in two places, removing genes that are essential to replication.

“This is an exceptionally ambitious and important trial,” said Fyodor Urnov, professor of molecular and cell biology at UC-Berkeley and a gene editor at IGI, in an email. “It would be good to know sooner than later” if it works, he said, “including, potentially, no effect.”

Initial research in Khalili’s lab showed that CRISPR could find and destroy the HIV genes in cells.

The results were welcomed with caution by long-term survivors such as King. “Am I intrigued? Yes. Wary? Absolutely. We have been here before, many times. We’ve heard of a lot of promising developments over the years, only to have the rug pulled out from us — because of the vexing nature of how HIV operates in the body.”

The reason that HIV has been so tough to eradicate is that it hides in our cells, said Dr. Jyoti Gupta of the PACE Clinic at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, which specializes in HIV care.

“The virus is very smart,” she said. “It integrates into the host genome of our immune cells, which are supposed to protect us from infection. It just lies there, hiding.”

“As soon as someone stops the therapy, the latent virus starts replicating again, within days,” said Gupta. “Then there’s virus everywhere.”

Patients in Excision’s trials will be monitored for 15 years, said Kennedy.

Even if it just stops replication for awhile, that’s a benefit, said Gupta. “Less is more. So if a patient can come in for an infusion once a year, for instance, and the virus won’t resurface for a year, that’s reasonable.”

The hope is that Excision’s therapy could become a lifelong cure, freeing patients from daily pill-popping

“Scientists tell me that this is going to be part of a cure some day,” said Berkeley-based AIDS activist Matt Sharp, 68, who has lived with the virus for 38 years. “And I shrug my shoulders and say, ‘Here we go again.’ “

“Now we just have to get the research done,” he said.  “We’ve got to have hope, because the epidemic isn’t over.”

General Motors, Ford and Tesla have all warned of an electric vehicle slowdown because they say demand might drop.

Auto makers mainly say higher borrowing costs are the issue but some car dealerships say EVs are sitting longer than regular cars. They say consumers are concerned about the range of EVs and lack of infrastructure.

In a Cox Automotive survey, 53 percent of consumers said EVs will eventually replace internal combustion engines, but less than a third of dealers agreed. Several dealerships interviewed by CNBC said EVs were taking longer to sell and there was a supply and demand imbalance with the vehicles.

Ford said two weeks ago it would increase production on its hybrid F-150 pickup trucks because of waning demand for its all electric model.

EV advocates insist the demand is still there, but consumers are only temporarily shying away because of high interest rates that make EVs — typically more expensive than your average car — more difficult to purchase.

Q: Has enthusiasm for electric cars waned?

Phil Blair, Manpower

YES: But a momentary blip. As someone who has only bought all-electric cars for my last five purchases, they are the future of car transportation. Yes, it has hit a lull. Interest rates, concern over ample charging infrastructure and availability of lower price models are valid concerns. New houses coming with charging capabilities are a telling sign.

Gary London, London Moeder Advisors

NO: Technology breakthroughs often take decades to achieve market acceptance. Electric, and perhaps hydrogen, and other vehicle technologies are in their infancy. The issues of range anxiety, cost and even their actual contribution to reducing the overall carbon footprint, will all be solved over time. Personal perspective: I am now driving my second electric vehicle. They drive better, are simpler to manufacture and incorporate superior technology. And they are more fun to drive.

Alan Gin, University of San Diego

YES: One factor is higher interest rates, which makes buying the more expensive electric vehicles more difficult. Another is that gas prices have come down after a recent surge. But a big reason might be that early adopters of the technology may have already gone all in on EVs. Getting the next tier of customers might require a game changer such as Toyota’s solid-state battery technology, which could raise the range to 700 to 900 miles and reduce charging times to less than 10 minutes.

Bob Rauch, R.A. Rauch & Associates

YES: Enthusiasm for electric vehicles has waned, though EVs are still growing in number. GM is delaying the opening of a large electric-pickup-truck factory in Michigan and Ford is considering canceling a shift of factory production on its electric F-150 Lightning pickup. Tesla’s vehicle deliveries are still growing, but at a slowing rate, despite steep price cuts. There are concerns about charging vehicles on long drives, prices, and government subsidy requirements.

James Hamilton, UC San Diego

YES: Or at least the rate of growth of sales has slowed. The first wave of buyers of EVs were higher-income households with strong concerns about the environment. Adoption may be slower for other demographic groups. Higher interest rates historically depress all vehicle sales and disproportionately discourage sales of more expensive cars like EVs. The ultimate transition is inevitable but may come a little slower than some people thought 12 months ago.

Austin Neudecker, Weave Growth

NO: As with all new technologies, at first, enthusiastic technophiles and idealists purchased EVs. Today, the economics are positive for many consumers, especially those who own single-family homes. Higher interest rates, a recent buying binge, and unfamiliarity are causing a temporary weakening in demand. Fear of the unknown — range/charging/tech — and car replacement timing have deterred others thus far. In time, additional exposure, improved range, increased competition, gas price uncertainty, and environmental awareness will drive widespread adoption.

Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health

NO: I think the desire for EVs remains but as noted, high interest rates, the lack of needed infrastructure and the vehicles’ limited range will slow sales. When range capabilities, infrastructure and charging speeds increase and costs and interest rates decrease, sales will improve. Electric hybrids will continue to bridge the gap as drivers start testing EVs.

Norm Miller, University of San Diego

NO: EVs remain relatively more expensive cars, for now, albeit cheaper to own. When budgets are subject to higher interest rates, consumers shift to lower-priced substitutes. A gas Subaru Crosstrek starts at $24,995, a Subaru Solterra EV starts at $44,995. That is a huge difference for the average consumer. With higher interest rates we have seen higher-priced choices, EVs included, become less attractive. EVs are here to stay and eventually, with less expensive batteries, will become more affordable over time. It’s all I’ve driven since 2012.

Jamie Moraga, Franklin Revere

NO: Consumers are still interested in electric vehicles, and it will only grow over time as battery technology and long-distance supercharging networks improve. If cost has been a factor, car makers like Tesla have been cutting prices on some of their models recently and interest rate hikes are finally leveling out. With gas prices continuing to increase, an EV is still a good option for long-term fuel savings, lower maintenance costs, and EV tax incentives.

David Ely, San Diego State University

YES: Now that early adopters have purchased EVs, it is natural for enthusiasm to wane. Range anxiety and high interest rates are leading many shoppers to delay the switch to EVs. Sales of EVs are still rising, just at a slower pace. EV sales growth would be lower if not for significant price reductions by manufacturers. This suggests that demand is falling short of expectations and needs to be brought back into alignment with supply.

Ray Major, SANDAG

YES: Early EV adopters and tech enthusiasts are already driving EVs regardless of price. Concerns about range, accessible charging stations, charging time, cost and the lifespan of a vehicle, are some of the reasons why not everyone has jumped in. Nationally, customers in colder climates are experiencing significantly less battery life than those here in Southern California. Enthusiasm for EVs has slowed and full adoption will take decades, not years.

Caroline Freund, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy

NO: Despite waning enthusiasm for Tesla CEO Elon Musk, EVs are still hot commodities with heaps of new models becoming available. Adoption of new technologies tends to follow an S curve — slow at first, then speeds up, and eventually levels off. EV sales are no exception. Sales were pretty flat in the years through 2020, picked up in 2021, and will likely remain strong for some time before flattening.

Haney Hong, San Diego County Taxpayers Assoc.

NO: While it may be more expensive to finance a car purchase, gas prices have skyrocketed. Also, the federal and state tax incentives are hefty. I know anecdotally that plenty of people are still in the market for EVs, as there are a lot of reasons for someone to purchase one. Now if there’s any waning, it’s probably a smaller reduction than in the demand for gas-powered vehicles.

Kelly Cunningham, San Diego Institute for Economic Research

YES: Electric vehicles continue to have promising technological developments, but there are limits for potential uses that may not encompass all transportation needs. Costs and risks should not be imposed on less well-off citizens to the benefit of wealthy investors and buyers. Electric cars will continue to be a substantial endeavor for those capable and willing to take on inherent risks. Governments should not be imposing mandates or subsidizing developments that may prove counterproductive or ineffective.

Lynn Reaser, economist

YES: Several factors are slowing sales beyond early adopters. First, the limited range is of great concern. Second, the time to recharge takes a multiple of the few minutes to fuel an internal combustion-powered vehicle. Third, the limited number of charging stations is hampering sales. Fourth, the higher prices even with various subsidies are a problem. Fifth, battery inflammatory risk is cause for concern. Finally, the poorer performance in cold climates is a limiting factor.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A flurry of Israeli airstrikes Tuesday on a refugee camp near Gaza City leveled apartment buildings, leaving craters where they once stood, as ground troops battled Hamas across northern Gaza and attacked underground compounds.

The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said at least six airstrikes destroyed a number of apartment blocks in Jabaliya, and it reported a large number of casualties but did not immediately provide details. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it carried out a wide-scale strike in Jabaliya on Hamas infrastructure “that had taken over civilian buildings” and that tunnels under the buildings collapsed. It said the strikes killed a large number of Hamas terrorists, including Ibrahim Biari, who it said oversaw operations in the northern part of the strip.

Israel said two of its soldiers were killed in fighting in northern Gaza, the first military deaths reported since the ground offensive into the tiny Mediterranean territory accelerated late last week.

With several hundred thousand Palestinians still in the northern part of Gaza, Israeli troops and tanks reportedly have advanced on several sides of Gaza City, the sprawling urban center.

Casualties are expected to mount on both sides as the battle moves into dense, residential neighborhoods, even as overwhelmed hospitals in the north warn they are nearing collapse with supplies largely cut off and strikes hitting nearby. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected calls for a cease-fire and again vowed to crush Hamas’ ability to govern Gaza or threaten Israel following its bloody Oct. 7 rampage, which ignited the war.

In the Jabaliya refugee camp, a densely built-up area of small streets on Gaza City’s outskirts, footage of the scene from Al-Jazeera TV showed at least four large craters where buildings once stood, amid a large swath of rubble surrounded by partially collapsed structures.

Dozens of rescue workers and bystanders dug through the wreckage, searching for survivors beneath the pancaked buildings. Young men carried the limp forms of two children from the upper floors of a damaged apartment block’s crumbling frame while helping down another child and woman. It was unclear whether the children were alive or dead.

Also on Tuesday, the Israeli military said ground troops took control of a Hamas stronghold in west Jabaliya, killing 50 terrorists.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem denied the military’s claim, saying it was trying to justify “its heinous crime” against civilians.

More than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, the Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants also abducted around 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.

A day after Israel’s first successful rescue of a captive held by Hamas, the spokesman of the terrorist group’s armed wing said they plan to release some non-Israeli hostages they are holding in the coming days. Hamas has previously released four hostages, and has said it would let the others go in return for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which has dismissed the offer.

More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes, with hundreds of thousands sheltering in packed U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters or in hospitals alongside thousands of wounded patients.

The war has also threatened to ignite fighting on other fronts. Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group have traded fire daily along the border, and Israel and the U.S. have struck targets in Syria linked to Iran, which supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups in the region.

The military said it shot down what appeared to be a drone near the southernmost city of Eilat and intercepted a missile over the Red Sea on Tuesday, neither of which entered Israeli airspace.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen later claimed they fired ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, saying it was their third such operation and threatening more. Earlier this month, a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea intercepted missiles and drones launched toward Israel by the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen.

In the occupied West Bank, where Israeli-Palestinian violence has also surged, the army demolished the family home of Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas official exiled over a decade ago. An official in the village of Aroura said the home had been vacant for 15 years.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military was deploying forces “on a large scale, in the depths of Gaza.”

“Achievements on the battlefield have been very high. Unfortunately, in war there is also a price, and in the last day the price has been high,” he said, referring to the two soldiers’ deaths.

Israeli forces reportedly have advanced north and east of Gaza City. South of the city, Israeli troops were also trying to cut off the territory’s main highway and the parallel road along the Mediterranean coast, according to Dawood Shehab, a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group allied with Hamas.

The military said it struck some 300 targets over the past day, including compounds inside tunnels, and that troops had engaged in several battles with terrorists armed with antitank missiles and machine guns.

Video footage released by the military showed soldiers and a tank moving down a dirt road between two rows of demolished buildings, some of them three to four stories high. Israel says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that the group operates among civilians, putting them in danger.

Hamas released its own video showing what it said was a battle in northern Gaza on Sunday. A fighter wearing a GoPro-style camera emerged from a tunnel with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and ran across sand dunes and shrubs with other militants amid the clatter of gunfire.

It was not possible to independently confirm reports by either side.

Gaza’s humanitarian crisis continued to worsen.

The World Health Organization said two hospitals have been damaged and an ambulance destroyed in Gaza over the last two days. It said all 13 hospitals operating in the north have received Israeli evacuation orders in recent days. Medics have refused such orders, saying it would be a death sentence for patients on life support.

Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the largest in the territory, is on the verge of running out fuel, the Health Ministry said.

There has been no central electricity in Gaza for weeks, and Israel has barred the entry of fuel needed to power generators for hospitals and homes, saying it wants to prevent it from falling into Hamas’ hands.

It has allowed a limited amount of food, water, medicine and other supplies to enter from Egypt, though far less than what is needed, relief groups say. A convoy of 59 aid trucks entered through the Rafah Crossing with Egypt on Tuesday — the largest yet — bringing the total that have entered since Oct. 22 to 216, according to Wael Abu Omar, Hamas’ spokesperson for the crossing.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, says 64 of its staff have been killed since the start of the war, including a man killed alongside his wife and eight children in a strike late Monday.

“This is the highest number ever of U.N. aid workers killed in any conflict around the world in such a short time,” spokesperson Juliette Touma told The Associated Press. “UNRWA will never be the same without these colleagues.”

Some 800,000 people have heeded the Israeli military’s orders to flee from the northern part of the strip to the south, according to Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman. Northern Gaza was estimated to have a pre-war population of around 1.1 million.

The window to flee south may be closing, as Israeli forces reached Gaza’s main north-south highway this week. Video circulating Monday showed a tank opening fire on a car that had approached a sand berm but was turning around. Gaza’s Health Ministry said three people were killed.

Zaki Abdel-Hay, a Palestinian living a few minutes’ walk from the road south of Gaza City, said people are afraid to use it. “People are very scared. The Israeli tanks are still close,” he said over the phone, adding that “constant artillery fire” could be heard near the road.

Jeffrey and Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip; Samy Magdy in Cairo and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.

The delayed release of the 2024-25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) could make it more difficult for “early decision” applicants to accurately gauge the cost of their college education.

Early decision is a binding process, usually with a November application deadline and a December admissions decision. Students may apply to only one college via early decision, and if accepted, they typically must attend or risk having to sit out of school for a year. An early decision application can boost a student’s odds of getting into their dream school, but it also means they lose the chance to compare and negotiate financial aid offers from multiple schools.

Because the 2024-25 FAFSA will be simplified — and the release delayed from Oct. 1, 2023, until sometime in December — many colleges won’t be able to provide accurate financial aid estimates or final packages alongside early decision admissions, says Connie Livingston, head of college counselors with admissions counseling group Empowerly and a former admissions counselor at Brown University.

“In years prior, you knew what your package was when you knew your decision,” Livingston explains. “Now you’re getting an estimate, which is better than nothing, but it’s not a guarantee.”

If you’re thinking about applying early decision this fall, here are six tips to help you navigate the FAFSA overhaul and your college financial aid prospects.

1. Apply to CSS Profile schools

About 250 universities use the more detailed CSS Profile alongside the FAFSA to calculate institutional aid, like scholarships and grants. The 2024-25 CSS Profile opened on Oct. 1. At CSS Profile schools, prospective early decision applicants may have better luck getting an accurate financial aid estimate before they decide to apply, says Shannon Vasconcelos, senior director of college finance for Bright Horizons College Coach, an admissions and financial aid counseling company.

However, students who apply early to FAFSA-only schools likely won’t have a reliable financial aid estimate before applying, Vasconcelos says.

The vast majority of institutions that use the CSS Profile are private, although a handful of public schools like the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan also use it.

2. Estimate your financial aid

In past years, colleges’ online net price calculators have been the best way to estimate how much your education could cost at an institution — but with a lack of clarity around the new FAFSA, many of these calculators have not yet been updated, Vasconcelos says. Early decision applications should use other calculators.

The Education Department recently released a new Federal Student Aid Estimator to help students gauge their eligibility for aid like federal student loans and the need-based Pell Grant for the 2024-25 school year. The College Board’s Expected Family Contribution (EFC) calculator can estimate the aid you may get through the CSS Profile.

If your family has an income below a certain threshold — check the income cap with the early decision school to which you’re applying — it’s more likely that you’ll get enough aid to attend. Most early decision schools meet 100% of demonstrated financial need, but they don’t offer merit aid, Livingston says.

3. Read the fine print

Students have the option to back out of early decision agreements if they can’t afford to attend. Carefully read the agreement at your school of choice before applying.

“I think that we’re going to see more families take advantage of that fine print this year and pull out of that early decision agreement, because they didn’t understand what they were getting into financially, or they did not have an accurate estimate of financial aid eligibility upfront,” Vasconcelos says.

Backing out from an early decision acceptance is a process. For example, at Columbia University in New York, families must consult with a financial aid officer and explain their circumstances before a student can be released from an early decision agreement. The timing can also be risky: When students finally get their delayed financial aid packages for the 2024-25 school year, application deadlines at other schools may have passed.

Make sure to print out and save any financial aid estimates you’ve received from schools, Vasconcelos advises. These records can come in handy if you need to request more aid or get out of your binding admissions agreement.

4. Request your FSA ID now

Each person — including the student and parents — who fills out the 2024-25 FAFSA will need a unique FSA ID. It can take up to three days to receive an FSA ID after you request it.

Request your FSA ID ahead of time so you’ll be ready to fill out the FAFSA right away upon its December release and get your financial aid package as fast as possible.

Everyone should fill out the FAFSA, regardless of whether or not they think they’ll qualify for aid, says Livingston. Many colleges use the application to help determine eligibility for scholarships and merit aid in addition to need-based aid.

5. Consider early action or regular decision

Roughly 87% of U.S. undergraduates received financial aid in 2020-21, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. For these students, applying early action (which is nonbinding) or regular decision may be a safer bet than early decision.

If you get multiple admissions offers, you can compare financial packages and costs of each school, and even try to negotiate your aid offers.

“When you apply early action or regular decision, then you’re not making a commitment,” says Vasconcelos. “You can go back to schools and say, ‘Thanks for this nice $5,000 scholarship but this other school gave me $10,000; is there anything else you can do?’ and some schools are amenable to that.”

That type of negotiation is off the table if you apply early decision, Vasconcelos says, but you might still be able to appeal for more aid after an early decision acceptance if your financial situation changes.

6. Reach out to financial aid offices

If you need more help understanding how the FAFSA simplification and delay could affect your plans to apply early decision, reach out to the financial aid offices at your target schools.

“They are expecting a lot of questions, and maybe some confusion, so they’re ready to help students and families through this process,” says Livingston.

The article Applying to College Early Decision? 6 Tips for the FAFSA Delay originally appeared on NerdWallet.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees told a U.N. emergency meeting Monday “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire has become a matter of life and death for millions,” accusing Israel of “collective punishment” of Palestinians and the forced displacement of civilians.

Philippe Lazzarini warned that a further breakdown of civil order after the agency’s warehouses were broken into by Palestinians searching for food and other aid “will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the largest U.N. agency in Gaza to continue operating.”

Briefings to the Security Council by Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF and a senior U.N. humanitarian official painted a dire picture of the humanitarian situation in Gaza 23 days after Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, and its ongoing retaliatory military action aimed at “obliterating” the group, which controls Gaza. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

According to the latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 8,300 people have been killed — 66% of them women and children — and tens of thousands injured, the U.N. humanitarian office said.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell that toll includes over 3,400 children killed and more than 6,300 injured. “This means that more than 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza each day — a number which should shake each of us to our core,” she said.

Lazzarini said: “This surpasses the number of children killed annually across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.” And he stressed, “This cannot be ‘collateral damage.’”

Many speakers at the council meeting denounced Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attacks on Israel that killed over 1,400 people, and urged the release of some 230 hostages taken to Gaza by the terrorists. But virtually every speaker also stressed that Israel is obligated under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and their essentials for life including hospitals, schools and other infrastructure — and Israel was criticized for cutting off food, water, fuel and medicine to Gaza and cutting communications for several days.

Lazzarini said “the handful of convoys” allowed into Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt in recent days “is nothing compared to the needs of over 2 million people trapped in Gaza.”

“The system in place to allow aid into Gaza is geared to fail,” he said, “unless there is political will to make the flow of supplies meaningful, matching the unprecedented humanitarian needs.”

The commissioner-general of the U.N. agency known as UNRWA said there is no safe place anywhere in Gaza, warning that basic services are crumbling, medicine, food, water and fuel are running out, and the streets “have started overflowing with sewage, which will cause a massive health hazard very soon.”

UNICEF oversees water and sanitation issues for the U.N., and Russell warned that “the lack of clean water and safe sanitation is on the verge of becoming a catastrophe.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged the divided Security Council — which has rejected four resolutions that would have responded to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the ongoing war — to come together, saying “the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is growing more dire by the day.”

Stressing that all innocent civilians must be protected, she said the council must call “for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, address the immense humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, affirm Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism, and remind all actors that international humanitarian law must be respected.” She reiterated President Joe Biden’s calls for humanitarian pauses to get hostages out and allow aid in, and for safe passage for civilians.

“That means Hamas must not use Palestinians as human shields — an act of unthinkable cruelty and a violation of the law of war,” the U.S. ambassador said, “and that means Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians.”

In a sign of increasing U.S. concern at the escalating Palestinian death toll, Thomas-Greenfield told the council Biden reiterated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday “that while Israel has the right and responsibility to defend its citizens from terrorism, it must do so in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law.”

“The fact that Hamas operates within and under the cover of civilians areas creates an added burden for Israel, but it does not lessen its responsibility to distinguish between terrorists and innocent civilians,” she stressed.

Following the rejection of the four resolutions in the 15-member Security Council — one vetoed by the U.S., one vetoed by Russia and China, and two for failing to get the minimum nine “yes” votes — Arab nations went to the U.N. General Assembly last Friday where there are no vetoes.

The 193-member world body adopted a resolution calling for humanitarian truces leading to a cessation of hostilities by a vote of 120-14 with 45 abstentions. Now, the 10 elected members in the 15-member Security Council are trying again to negotiate a resolution that won’t be rejected. While council resolutions are legally binding, assembly resolutions are not though they are an important barometer of world opinion.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan was sharply critical of the council’s failure to condemn Hamas’ attacks and asked members: “Why are the humanitarian needs of Gazans, the sole issue, the sole issue you are focused on?”

Recalling his grandfather who survived Nazi death camps but whose his wife and seven children perished in the Auschwitz gas chamber, Erdan told the council he will wear a yellow star — just as Hitler made his grandfather and other Jews wear during World War II — “until you condemn the atrocities of Hamas and demand the immediate release of our hostages.”

The ambassador then put a large six-pointed yellow star of David saying “Never Again” on his suit jacket, as did other Israeli diplomats sitting behind him, and said: “We walk with the yellow star as a symbol of pride, a reminder that we swore to fight back to defend ourselves. Never again is now.”

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, also urged the Security Council to follow the General Assembly, end its paralysis, and demand “an end to this bloodshed, which constitutes an affront to humanity, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and a clear and imminent danger for regional and international peace and security.”

“Save those who still can be saved and bury in a dignified manner those who have perished,” Mansour said.

Clocks should go back an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 5. Cell phones and other smart devices update automatically, but analog and digital clocks not connected to the internet will have to be set back an hour manually.

When did Daylight Saving Time start?

Daylight Saving Time was established by Congress with the passage of the Uniform Time Act in 1966, according to the Baltimore Sun. The law standardized the length of daylight saving time from March to November in an effort to save energy.

What states observe Daylight Saving Time?

Most of the U.S. observes Daylight Saving Time, with the exception of Arizona and Hawaii — those states observe permanent standard time. Americans of all persuasions, however, revile the biannual practice of changing clocks, prompting several states to pass legislation that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent. Similar legislation has been introduced at the federal level, but no action has been taken on those bills.

How can I prepare for Daylight Saving Time?

The end of Daylight Saving Time means residents in the states that observe it will have more morning light — but feel as if the days get darker much earlier. At this time of year, the time change – or fall back – is more welcome because it gives people a perceived extra hour of sleep when Daylight Saving Time ends. When it’s time to spring forward, sleep experts recommend gradually adjusting sleep times in advance to prepare for the change, particularly for young children.

The biggest adjustment to “falling back” will be the earlier sunsets, which gives way to longer nights. The longer nights can trigger seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, a type of depression, according to the Mayo Clinic. The easiest ways to treat seasonal affective disorder include light therapy and exposure to sunlight — which is in abundance during the mornings after the end of Daylight Saving Time.

Admit it, you’re long overdue for a vacation. But saving money in the process makes the reward even sweeter.

As a frequent flyer out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport myself, I’m proud to say I’ve mastered the art of finding deals on travel.

From the best websites to catch flight-and-hotel-deals to taking advantage of mileage programs and more, here are three of my top tips for saving money on your next vacation.

Take advantage of flight deal websites

I first learned of flight deals a decade ago. A few of my social media friends posted a link to a website advertising flights from New York City to Dubai for $189 round trip. Of course, I thought it was too good to be true initially, but after doing my research — and biting the bullet to purchase the deal — I found that there were several websites solely created to post similar travel deals.

A few of my old faithfuls and most trusted websites for deals are:

—The Flight Deal

—Air Fare Spot

—Secret Flying

—Fare Deal Alert.

All of these websites are free to use, and you can get on their email lists, as well, without any paid subscriptions. Also, the sites all occasionally include hotel deals, as well — mostly for international destinations.

Going (previously known as Scott’s Cheap Flights ) is another favorite of many of my colleagues. This site has free options, as well as premium and elite level subscriptions, at $39 and $199 per year, respectively.

Airline mileage programs are your friend

Signing up is the hardest part of joining an airline mileage program, but after that, it’s smooth sailing — or, should I say, flying.

Most airlines have expanded their mileage programs to include additional ways to earn miles from purchases on everyday things. For instance, each time I use my linked debit card at Cuzzo’s Cuisine— the lobster mac has me in a chokehold — I am able to earn miles toward travel. Airlines also allow earnings at certain retail stores, as well as from using rideshare apps. Once you’ve stacked up miles, you can then use them to purchase flights, hotels and even rental cars.

Timing is important

The long-time airline industry rumor has been that fights are always cheapest on Tuesday afternoons and that it’s best to purchase a flight right around six weeks from the day you want to travel. While I can’t 100% vouch for those, I will say that timing does matter.

Luckily, as technology advances, so do the tools that AvGeeks (aviation geeks) conjure up to make our jobs easier.

Flight search engines like Google Flights and SkyScanner allow us to get a bird’s eye view on the best days, months and even times for us to fly to specific destinations.

You can even set fare alerts to let you know when the price of your potential flight increases or decreases. That way, you don’t have to worry about checking back daily, or even hourly, like I used to — especially since airfare can change by the literal second.

I hope that these tips come in handy and help you save on your next getaway!

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©2023 The Charlotte Observer. Visit at charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

LOS ANGELES — There are 63 national parks in the United States, but at the start of 2023, I’d made it to only one.

So when my partner, Reanna, bought us tickets to see Big Thief and Lucinda Williams at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre, we had an exciting (though surely unoriginal) idea: What if we made it a road trip?

As I began researching the best routes from Los Angeles to Denver, I found variations of what’s been called the Grand Circle road trip, a loop of national parks that typically spans Utah, Colorado and Arizona. It’s popular for its efficiency: If you plan well, you can hit the Southwest marvels of Zion, Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon in about two weeks. Because we’d be driving through California regardless, our own Grand Circle route expanded into an oblong shape — not quite an oval, but perhaps a seal balancing a ball on its nose.

Over the course of 12 days, we were able to fit in nearly a dozen national parks, 3,350 miles of driving, thousands of photos and a shameful amount of roadside hamburgers. (For scale, that distance is similar to driving from L.A.’s Santa Monica Pier to the easternmost point of the contiguous U.S. in Lubec, Maine.)

We would’ve happily spent an extra day in each place to break up the driving, as the quick pace of our trip made us feel absolutely loopy during the last few days when we spent hours in the car forcibly listening to every radio station play the Luke Combs version of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.”

This is an exhaustive recap of our 300-or-so hours on the road, chock-full of small joys, roadside eats and things we should’ve planned better.

To make your own trip as smooth as possible, here are a few crucial tips:

—Buy the America the Beautiful National Park Pass. It costs $80 for the year, and visiting all these national parks would’ve cost us $325 in individual fees.

—Write down essential addresses in advance. Some of these roads (and nearly all of these national parks) have spotty cell service, and you can’t ask for directions if you don’t know where you’re going.

—Bring along a cooler and (at least) one case of bottled water. Hopefully you’re not doing this trip during the peak of summer heat like we did, but it’s vital to have extra water with you in the more remote areas of this trip.

Off to a rocky start

After loading up my car and filling the gas tank, we found ourselves waiting for a tow truck by the Getty Center, just seven miles into our ambitious journey.

My beloved car Marshmallow had broken down on I-405, and though that would’ve sucked on a normal day, it was especially upsetting at the start of a huge road trip. But after crying, calling AAA, my mechanic and my editor, and then looking up rental cars with the help of my wonderful co-worker Chris, we decided it was too late to call it quits.

After picking up a rental, we agreed that heading to Death Valley — where it was 116 degrees — was probably not worth the extra hours on the road. Instead, we made up for lost time by driving straight to Las Vegas, with one bathroom break at EddieWorld.

Our first night on the road was spent at the Venetian in Las Vegas, not because we needed to see a Cirque du Soleil show and people-watch at the local Taco Bell Cantina, but because Vegas is only two hours from the south entrance to Zion National Park.

Exploring Utah’s red rocks, fruit pies, urgent care facilities

As we entered the Beehive State, dropped our car at Springdale’s Under the Eaves Inn and hopped on the town shuttle, Reanna gave me a crash course in Mormon history a la “Under the Banner of Heaven.” But as soon as we entered the park, our minds went virtually blank.

ZION

Zion is one of those places that’s so mind-bogglingly vivid that just riding on the park’s shuttle can be meditative and emotional.

“This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” Re said, gazing out the window. We spent the rest of the ride alternating between staring at the unfathomably large rocks and exchanging silly remarks.

“The dinosaurs saw this s— and now I’m seeing it — nuts!” Re mused.

And though there are a multitude of trails and opportunities for adventure in any national park, Reanna and I are more like lizards than mountain goats. By that, I mean we are not confident hikers, and would rather bask in a cozy place than reach new heights.

So instead of embarking on a challenging trek like Angels Landing or the Narrows, we decided to spend our day exploring the more leisurely Riverside Walk that leads to the start of the Narrows. About a two-mile round trip from the Temple of Sinawava shuttle stop, we were able to take in Zion’s bright orange rocks, admire the park’s lush greenery and take a dip in the electric blue Virgin River. (If you’re hoping to swim at Zion, I’d recommend bringing a dry change of clothes for your journey back to the park entrance, since there’s nothing worse than walking with chafing legs.)

Splashing around in such a picturesque place made me feel a deep sense of reverence, the kind of awe I only experience when I have a moment to appreciate how beautiful and vast the world can be when nature is left to its own devices.

Though we ended our long day before the last shuttle out of the park, we missed the last shuttle back into Springdale, since the two systems are, oddly, not aligned. As we walked back to the inn, we decided to get dinner at the Spotted Dog, where I devoured an ice cream-covered chocolate lava cake with such gusto that I probably scared our waiter.

At the recommendation of a reader named Kathy, who responded to my Essential California newsletter about things to do this summer, we planned our next morning around driving east on Zion’s Highway 9 to take in some of the park’s best red rock scenery. We were devastated to find that the Thunderbird Restaurant she recommended is closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays — meaning we couldn’t try any of its “ho-made” hot apple pies with buttered rum sauce — but we picked up snazzy bolo ties at the gas station across the street.

BRYCE CANYON AND CAPITOL REEF

By the time we made it to Bryce Canyon National Park, the temperatures picked up again and Reanna’s tonsils started battling an illness that we later dubbed “demon strep.” As we drove up the park’s southern scenic drive to Yovimpa and Rainbow Points to see the greatest concentration of hoodoos on Earth — tall, totem-pole-like rock pillars formed from weathering and erosion — it became increasingly clear that Re had to see a doctor. They sat in the passenger seat as we descended the scenic drive, and at each lookout point I ducked out of the car to take photos so Re could see the hoodoos we were passing.

Though we hustled through the park for Re’s sake, I found the hills of spindly hoodoo spires quite hypnotizing. It’s odd to encounter terrain that’s entirely different from anything you’ve ever seen before.

After a stop at the hospital — where the doctor looked at Re’s inflamed tonsils and said, “Oh, good heavens!” — we picked up some amoxicillin at the only pharmacy in town and got back on the road to Capitol Reef. On the way to Torrey, Utah, I got a call from my mechanic, who said my car was fixed and ready to go, and found some lovely open ranges where I got to greet herds of free-roaming cows. Our luck seemed to be turning around.

But the next morning, after sleeping in one of those underwhelming clear geodesic domes that are all over Airbnb, Re somehow felt worse. After they attempted to eat breakfast (and instead had a harrowing bathroom trip), I drove us over to Capitol Reef and we continued our routine: Re sat in the passenger seat like an Oregon Trail character with dysentery; I hopped out to take photos of the cool surroundings; I showed them the photos in the car; and we dutifully carried on.

And though the rocks were stunningly red, my favorite part of Capitol Reef was stopping at the park’s Gifford House, which sells thousands of fruit pies every year between Pi Day and November. While I picked up a phenomenal strawberry-rhubarb pie and an equally delicious apple pie, Re got to hang out with a beautiful horse who lives near the park’s homestead. (Utah has a ton of roadside cows and horses, if that tickles your fancy just as much as it did ours!)

On the way farther East, I was determined to find a small market called Mesa Farm in Caineville, Utah. Though it doesn’t come up properly on digital maps, we followed the mile markers on Highway 24, counting until we hit marker 102 and saw the hand-painted Mesa Farm Market sign with rudimentary illustrations of goats.

Mesa Farm Market isn’t a restaurant — you’ll likely get a cutting board with a few knives — but the atmosphere is absolutely lovely. We got to sample an array of five goat cheeses, which were so delicious that my soft-cheese-hating partner even gave them a taste, and talked with the young farmer who’s been living there (with no running water and limited Wi-Fi) and helping the farm and market this summer.

As Re and I sat on the porch with a loaf of bread, a few cheeses, a French salami, some fresh pesto and two cups of sun tea, we talked about how nice it would be to live in a more rural area like this for a little while.

“If I ever lose my job, maybe I’ll move to a place like this,” Re said.

“We could write books and live totally off the grid,” I said as I ripped another piece of bread. “Get a few cows and never look back.”

And though we entertain that fantasy of living off the land every once in a while, I know deep down that we are both divas who need access to warm showers and movie theaters, so we bid the farm dog Zig adieu and continued on our journey.

GOBLIN VALLEY, CANYONLANDS AND ARCHES

Though it’s not a national park, we wanted to check out Goblin Valley State Park, which is best known as the backdrop for the movie “GalaxyQuest.” On our way there, we made two stops: The first was an art project on the side of Highway 24 called Carl’s Critter Garden, which is filled with metal dinosaurs, tiny prisms and lots of musings about a creature called “zen dog.” And after paying our respects to zen dog and his friends, we filled up our tank at Hollow Mountain — a gas station carved into a big rock.

Goblin Valley is a bit out of the way but cool nonetheless (and for those who only know “goblins” as grotesque little creatures, the word doubles as a title for the park’s unique mushroom-shaped hoodoos). There, among these bobble-headed rocks, we visited the Three Sisters and learned about the odd landscape of hard sandstone and soft siltstone that created the many goblins inside the park. And on our way out, we realized we were driving alongside a galloping pronghorn, which easily kept up with the car since these animals can run at a pace of about 60 miles per hour.

By the time we made it to Monticello, Utah, Re’s throat was feeling worse, but the dysentery jokes got infinitely funnier when we checked into our Airbnb for the night: It was a covered pioneer wagon.

The next morning we rose early, since we were trying to fit two different entrances for Canyonlands and a trip to Arches into the same day. (Sometimes we must set ourselves up for failure and learn the hard way.)

As we made our way into the Needles district of Canyonlands, we realized every other car heading into this region was a Jeep with four-wheel drive. Most of the roads in that district are backcountry roads — meaning our little rental wouldn’t get us very far — but we visited Newspaper Rock, did a dutiful lap of the short scenic drive and hit the road as soon as Re thought their throat might be closing. Truly, what’s a worse place to have a medical emergency than inside a remote region of a national park?

When we finally got to an urgent care in Moab, we realized we probably wouldn’t have time to explore the park’s popular Island in the Sky district — so it goes.

At our second urgent care, Re got an unpleasant penicillin shot that’s often referred to as “the peanut butter shot” because the medication is so thick. But after spending several hours there, we decided to stop at Moab’s Thai Bella for a much-needed bowl of tom kah soup and a phenomenal sous vide duck. Finally, we bravely continued to our last Utah national park.

Arches National Park is a bit too small for the number of visitors it attracts, but that’s why they now use timed entry reservations. We decided to go after 4 p.m., since that’s late enough to forgo a reservation and miss the peak temperatures of the day, which meant the roads were fairly empty.

After seeing the rest of Utah’s parks, Arches’ popularity can be a bit mystifying. “Why is Delicate Arch the most famous?” I heard one child ask a park ranger, referring to the iconic structure that graces Utah’s license plates.

Perhaps it was just the end of a very long day, but we both felt like we had seen enough once we checked out the various roadside overlooks and visited one particularly gross bathroom. (I was admittedly warned that the park is a bit of a tourist trap, but I’m one of those stubborn people who likes to determine things firsthand.) The drive from Arches to our next abode in Fruita, Colorado, passed a lot of towns with no gas, restaurants or bathrooms, so I’d recommend getting your business in order before leaving Moab.

Cooling off with Colorado’s canyons, sand dunes and UFOs

Fruita is a small town about halfway between Moab and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park that’s best known as home to Mike, a local chicken that was able to survive without a head for 18 months in the 1940s. After a night of blissfully cool and quiet sleep there, we made a pit stop at Dinosaur Journey, where Re cried because they were so excited to see all the local fossils, and I bought a glow-in-the-dark T-rex shirt that was definitely meant for a child.

BLACK CANYON OF THE GUNNISON

By the time we made it to Black Canyon of the Gunnison, we were pretty excited to see something other than the hoodoos and arches that we were starting to take for granted. This park was like a full reset: The temperature dropped, the crowds thinned out and the rocks looked like nothing we had ever seen.

Though some people will understandably rank parks based on how challenging or expansive they are, I’d rather remember the way I felt when I visited. So, if you’ll humor me and indulge in that mindset, I can safely say Black Canyon of the Gunnison was one of my favorite parks on this trip, with soaring drop-offs and magnificent metamorphic rocks that made us feel tiny and inconsequential in the best possible way.

As we stood at the edge of the painted wall overlook, Reanna raised their arms to catch the wind as it moved through the canyon. We stayed there for at least half an hour, taking photos for strangers and returning to the edge several times to catch the air under our arms and inhale the crisp breeze.

We decided to grab dinner in the town of Gunnison at High Alpine Brewing Company, which made a great day even better. By the time we hit the road an hour later, I was happily stuffed with a beet and goat cheese salad, half a High Alpine pizza (with lemon-basil ricotta, veggies and garlic oil), and a smoked cherry old-fashioned that was presented in a dramatic glass cloche.

From there we were about two hours from Leadville, which claims the title of “highest incorporated city in North America” at 10,152 feet above sea level. After driving past lakes and through national forests, we made it to the Colorado Trail House, where we were able to snack on a few Twinkies, do a much-needed load of laundry and take a glorious bath in our room’s bright purple tub.

The next morning, after we stopped for breakfast at my aunt and uncle’s house on our way to Denver, Reanna spotted a sign for Rocky Mountain National Park and asked the toughest question of the trip: “Why aren’t we stopping at that park?”

And though I wish I had a better answer, the truth is that I was too distracted planning our visit to the nearby Red Rocks Park and Amphitheater. (And though I neglected the most popular park in Colorado, my colleague Chris was able to write a few of his best tips on our road trip map.)

We had just arrived in Denver before we had to drop our bags at the Queen Anne Bed & Breakfast and head to Red Rocks to claim a seat for the Big Thief and Lucinda Williams concert. And though a nasty thunderstorm nearby didn’t seem to be working in our favor, we endured a rainy two-hour wait for the venue’s doors to open.

The whole process felt a bit like a pilgrimage — driving over 1,000 miles to face thick sheets of rain and waves of thunder — but eventually the venue gave the OK to move inside. We bought some dry shirts and ponchos and settled on an open bench. As everyone watched the show, lightning bolts seemed to come down when the music would swell to a climax, underscoring Adrienne Lenker’s impassioned wails and giving the whole night a mystical feeling. After experiencing Red Rocks’ phenomenal acoustics, national park-worthy red sandstone rocks and an otherworldly performance, our elaborate journey to Colorado and back felt completely vindicated.

GREAT SAND DUNES AND MESA VERDE

In the morning we were back on the road, heading to the largest sand dunes in North America. This was an especially fruitful route for roadside attractions, so we stopped at the Sasquatch Outpost in Bailey and later the UFO Watchtower in Hooper. (If you couldn’t already tell, we are fascinated with otherworldly creatures.)

After leaving some snacks, pens and several hot sauce packets from my car at the UFO Watchtower garden (which is thought to overlap with two large vortexes of energy), we picked up sand sled rentals and hit the slopes.

As we approached the sand dunes it felt quite bizarre, like someone hastily dropped a randomly generated feature on Earth without wondering whether it actually belongs there. With another storm rolling in, we didn’t get to ascend any of the park’s tall peaks, but we had enough fun wandering around the lower planes of the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve. This area is an exercise in admiring the unusual, offering the chance to marvel at a landscape that’s equally simple (it’s basically a huge sandbox) and perplexing (scientists still don’t know how old these massive dunes are). On our way out, there was even a double rainbow, which only added to the enchanting and strange vibe of the surrounding San Luis Valley.

Once we realized our Airbnb was in a fairly remote town with few restaurants, we decided to head in the opposite direction for dinner at the Rubi Slipper, where we ordered two of the most satisfying diner hamburgers on our burger-heavy trip and Re contemplated trying Rocky Mountain oysters (though they chickened out).

As we drove back toward the park to drop our sand sleds and head to Crestone — which is one of the major spiritual centers of America — Re began feeling disconcerted by how dark and empty the surrounding area looks at night. Like being outside on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, there was virtually nothing around us but pitch-black roads, which are understandably freaky if you think about them for too long. If you’re afraid of wide open spaces, perhaps rural livin’ is not for you.

But after a night of sleep in our Crestone dome, we woke up to the quaint and strange little town, where the majority of residents were wearing mala beads and natural deodorant. As we left one of the few local coffee shops, we overheard people chatting about the full moon and passed a lone shirtless man strumming his guitar from the back of his parked pickup truck.

Colorado had already yielded a wonderful array of natural wonders, but our final stop in the state was Mesa Verde National Park, the nation’s largest archaeological preserve. The hottest commodities in the park are the ranger-led cliff dwelling tours, which include visits to balcony house and cliff palace, but we felt fine seeing cliff palace from the adjacent overlook. Though the dwellings are incredible, we spent the most time hanging out at the highest lookout in Mesa Verde: Park Point. Because most of the foot traffic is around the cliffs, we had the 8,572-foot-high area all to ourselves, so we stopped to feel the breeze, marvel at butterflies and admire the checkerboard of different greens that covers the surrounding area.

At this point you might be wondering: Can glamorous travelers like us sleep inside national parks without camping? The answer is a definite yes: Many of the national parks have rustic hotels and lodges within them, so we spent the night at Mesa Verde’s Far View Lodge, which had absolutely no cell service. Though it was too rainy to join the park’s nightly stargazing program, we decided to grab dinner and a few drinks at the Metate Room. The food was nothing to write home about, but our mediocre meal was supplemented by respectable cocktails and an even better view of the sunset.

The next morning we woke up to wild horses walking by our balcony. We did one last lap around the cliff dwelling lookout points before embarking on one of our longest driving days and heading toward Arizona.

Gazing at petrified wood, the Milky Way and the grandest canyon

The No. 1 tourist trap in the world is apparently the Four Corners Monument, but that didn’t stop us from paying $8 apiece to see where four states converge (and if you plan on going, bring cash since there’s a high likelihood that the card reader won’t work). Inside, we got some delicious Navajo frybread and took some silly photos at the point where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah come together.

PETRIFIED FOREST AND FLAGSTAFF

Our three-hour drive through New Mexico was simultaneously brief and exhausting, so by the time we got to Petrified Forest National Park we were feeling a bit restless.

But the best way to get through the Petrified Forest is in a vehicle, since the park spans 28 miles, and it made the most sense for us to enter one side and exit the other. So we relished every lookout point, wandered the Crystal Forest — which had some of the park’s most impressive fossilized wood — and then begrudgingly continued on our journey to Little America Hotel in Flagstaff.

By the time we reached Flagstaff, we had spent at least 10 hours in the car, which made our brains and bodies feel like absolute mush. After a week of eating burgers and various forms of gas station starch, we were also craving some kind of fresh, veggie-forward meal. This led us to Tinderbox Kitchen, where we had what was undoubtedly the best meal of our whole road trip. After downing a spring salad, a ponzu-brined chicken over miso potato puree, and a divine duck with Brussels sprouts, we rolled our way back to our room to watch a years-old ESPN mullet championship on cable TV and fall asleep.

After thousands of miles on the road, waking up just an hour and a half from the Grand Canyon felt like racing toward a finish line (even if we still had eight hours of driving and another national park to go). Once we picked up sandwiches at Proper Meats + Provisions we were back on the road, pumped to spend the whole day at one of the most spectacular places in the world.

GRAND CANYON

The Grand Canyon is overwhelming, with nearly 600 miles of paved and unpaved trails that get millions of visitors each year. So we started with something basic: following the Trail of Time along the South Rim to learn a bit about the canyon’s geologic timeline. Once that was completed, we were able to hop on a shuttle to explore a few different viewpoints in the park before returning to the El Tovar Hotel, where we were spending the night.

If there’s any time to splurge on a nice hotel, it’s when the hotel has been built right on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Even the second most visited national park empties out significantly by sunset, which meant we were able to sit by the rim and watch as the sky painted new hues on the canyon.

But after the sun went down, we realized how vast the sky really is when it’s uninterrupted by light pollution. Elusive stars began to emerge, dappling the stretches of sky that often look empty between streaks of red and green aircraft lights and astronomical divas like the North Star or Big Dipper. Like many national parks, the Grand Canyon is an international dark sky park, which meant we were able to see the Milky Way hanging over our heads before the moon rose. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, it brought me back to the elation of being at summer camp for the first time, where the air was filled with giddy crushes and late-night gossip. For the rest of the night, we earnestly reflected on our trip, which gave us so many magical opportunities to sample new lifestyles and states of being together.

To optimize our time gawking at the stars and cuddling on porch swings, we made a late-night dinner reservation at the El Tovar Dining Room, where the food was forgettable (like most national park fare). But we still had a silly time doing math problems on the children’s menu, ordering virgin prickly pear margaritas and sharing two delicious house-made desserts.

By this point, you could imagine the breakneck pace of driving from one rock-gazing spot to another — back to back to back — was proving to be a trial of the human spirit. But the next morning, we reluctantly got in the car to drive six more hours to Joshua Tree National Park, which was somehow our most exhausting day on the road. Though it wasn’t our longest stretch of driving, we were feeling extra tired, homesick and cramped by our rental car full of wares and stale snacks.

We broke up that stretch a bit by stopping in Seligman, Arizona, which was the birthplace of historic Route 66 and the inspiration for the Pixar movie “Cars.” After getting another burger at Delgadillo’s Snow Cap Drive-In — a restaurant where they’ll hand you a thimble-sized cup (with a straw cut to size) if you dare to order a small Coke — I paid a visit to Angel Delgadillo’s barber shop and bought a delightfully gaudy Route 66 button-down.

Back to California

Once we finally made it to the south entrance of Joshua Tree, we realized we should’ve booked a room closer to the north exit of the park instead of Palm Springs so we could enter one side and leave the other. (This is why I’d recommend you stay in Pioneertown if you chose to do this trip — don’t make the same mistakes I did!)

But after exploring Joshua Tree and paying visits to a few of our favorite jumbo rocks, we were more than excited to head to the Palm Springs Margaritaville, where we got to lounge in the pool, watch the movie “Cars” and order fish tacos and lava cake to our bed. If room service is a dying art, we are some of its most dedicated patrons.

The final day of driving (a mere three hours back to L.A.) felt like absolutely nothing compared to how far we had already traveled, and we relished having cell service and familiar roads at our disposal. After weeks of driving through different states at all hours of the day and night, Reanna even said that L.A. freeways felt like “driving on easy mode.”

And after throwing out a shameful amount of car trash, watering my plants and doing several loads of laundry, I was relieved to be home again. As some wise stranger on the internet once said, the best feelings in the world are always leaving L.A. and coming back to L.A.

©2023 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

LOS ANGLES — The youth of America have spoken, and when it comes to sex onscreen, they say “ewwwww.”

The new UCLA “Teens and Screens” study, conducted by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers, found that across 1,500 members of Gen Z, ages 10 to 24, young people wanted to see platonic relationships between onscreen characters, and many felt sex wasn’t necessary for story plot. (Only the respondents ages 13 to 24 were asked about sexual content.)

“While it’s true that teens want less sex on TV and in movies, what the survey is really saying is that teens want more and different kinds of relationships reflected in the media they watch,” said Yalda T. Uhls, founder and director of CSS, co-author of the study and adjunct professor in UCLA’s Department of Psychology.

The survey found that adolescents want to see “lives like (their) own” depicted onscreen and crave “authenticity.” Teens, plus the 18- to 24-year-old demographic predominantly desired by advertisers, think that sex and romance are too prominent in TV shows and movies.

Among those 13-24, 44.3% felt that romance is overused in media, and 47.5% agreed that sex isn’t needed for the plots of most TV shows and movies. More than half of Gen Z wants to see more content focused on friendships and platonic relationships, with 39% saying they’re especially interested in aromantic and/or asexual characters depicted in film and television.

On a list of stereotypes that irked Gen Z, romantic tropes ranked fourth. This included a dislike of relationships being necessary for happiness, male and female leads always having to end up together romantically, and love triangles.

“We know that young people are suffering an epidemic of loneliness and they’re seeking modeling in the art they consume. While some storytellers use sex and romance as a shortcut to character connection, it’s important for Hollywood to recognize that adolescents want stories that reflect the full spectrum of relationships,” Uhls said, adding that recent studies show young people are having less sex than their parents did at the same age and more are choosing to be single.

Survey results say that Gen Z’s values and desires “reach depths beyond what society has typically explored.” It suggests teens and young adults have grown tired of “stereotypical, heteronormative storytelling that valorizes romantic and/or sexual relationships,” particularly depictions of toxic romance.

While the survey’s findings might appear cut and dried, it can’t be ignored that sex-heavy shows often outperform the rest by staggering margins. According to HBO, “Euphoria” Season 2 episodes averaged 16.3 million viewers. That’s the highest viewership for any season of an HBO series over the last 18 years aside from “Game of Thrones,” which pulled in an average of 46 million viewers across its eighth and final season in 2019.

Both shows were known for their gratuitous sex scenes, and the sexual content often played a key role in the plot. (Spoiler examples: Tyrion Lannister kills his father Tywin with a crossbow for sleeping with his girlfriend. Also, would King Joffrey Baratheon have been such a monster had he not been conceived by two siblings?)

In “Euphoria,” one of the main antagonist characters (Nate Jacobs’ dad, Cal) is a sexual deviant. Entire plot points revolve around Cal, and his sexual proclivities create problems for several of the main characters.

And “Bridgerton,” the Regency-era high-society drama filled with angst, sexual tension and an increasingly risqué honeymoon? In 2021, Deadline reported that Season 1 of “Bridgerton” was watched (partially or in its entirety) by a record 82 million households around the world and at the time quickly became Netflix’s biggest series by a wide margin.

While UCLA’s “Teens and Screens” survey might have studios considering giving Gen Z what it wants, it may be hard to ignore the success of those steamy sex scenes saturating both the big and small screen.

©2023 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.