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    Doctor Who Gave Matthew Perry Ketamine Will Plead Guilty, U.S. Says

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    Dr. Salvador Plasencia, an urgent care clinic operator in the Los Angeles area, could face up to 40 years in prison in connection with the actor’s 2023 death.A doctor who illegally supplied the “Friends” actor Matthew Perry with the drug ketamine in the weeks leading up to Mr. Perry’s death in 2023 — traveling to his home and a parking lot to inject him — has agreed to plead guilty, according to court documents.The doctor, Salvador Plasencia, could face up to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine on four criminal counts of distributing of ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, under the agreement, which was filed on Monday in federal court in Los Angeles.Dr. Plasencia, 43, an urgent care clinic operator in Calabasas, Calif., will become the fourth person to plead guilty in connection to Mr. Perry’s death, which the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office determined was caused by the “acute effects” of ketamine. A court date has not been set.Mr. Perry, who publicly struggled with drinking and drug use for decades, was found floating face down in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home on Oct. 28, 2023. He was 54.An autopsy said that drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of an opioid, buprenorphine, had contributed to his death.Ketamine, which has psychedelic properties, has emerged as increasingly popular alternative therapy for anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues. It is also used recreationally.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Know About the Effects of Ketamine

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      Elon Musk has said that he used ketamine as a treatment in the past, but he denied reports that he was taking it frequently and recreationally.News reports detailing Elon Musk’s drug use have prompted renewed attention to ketamine, a powerful anesthetic that has become increasingly popular as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression and other mental health issues.Although Mr. Musk has acknowledged using ketamine in the past to treat depression, he has denied suggestions that he is currently using ketamine — or any other drug.“I am NOT taking drugs!” he wrote last week in a social media post following the publication of an article in The New York Times that described reports of his use of drugs on the campaign trail last year. Those drugs included ketamine and other psychedelic compounds, among them MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms.Mr. Musk left the White House last week. Since then, he and President Trump have traded barbs on social media over the president’s domestic policy bill and have mentioned government contracts with Mr. Musk’s companies and Mr. Musk’s relationship to the White House.Mr. Trump, who was briefed on the article in The Times, has been telling associates in the last day or so that Musk’s “crazy” behavior is linked to his drug use, according to a Times report citing two people with knowledge of Mr. Trump’s private conversations. But later on Friday, Mr. Trump told reporters he did not want to comment on Mr. Musk’s drug use.The very public feud between the two men has once again drawn unflattering attention to ketamine, a drug that has become increasingly available at legal clinics across the country. It is also used recreationally and can be dangerous when misused.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Minnesota’s Green Crew Is Helping Teens Fight Climate Anxiety

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      Early on a Saturday morning in Minnesota, a group of teenagers gathered at the edge of six acres of wooded, hilly land. Most were quiet, some blinking against the sun. They were robotics enthusiasts, aspiring marine scientists, artists, athletes and Scouts.What they shared was a desire for hands-on conservation work, a meaningful response for many of them to their worries about climate change.“Cool,” said Sophia Peterson, the group’s 18-year-old leader, who faced the crowd with a grin. “Let’s get started.”50 States, 50 Fixes is a series about local solutions to environmental problems. More to come this year.The students were organized by the Green Crew, an environmental group founded by a teenager in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro area. The organization seeks to help a generation that has grown up under the threat of climate change channel their fears into concrete action.Tell Us About Solutions Where You Live More

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      The Fear Factor and America’s Future

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      More from our inbox:Depression and AgingPaul Revere’s Legacy Robert Gumpert/ReduxTo the Editor:“I Have Never Been More Afraid for My Country’s Future,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, April 17), is an alarm we all need to hear. His main point couldn’t be clearer: The things that have made America strong — our rule of law, our global partnerships and our ability to lead in innovation — are being systematically undermined by a leader more focused on revenge than building a future.While other countries, like China, are investing in clean energy, advanced technology and long-term strategy, we’re clinging to the past and isolating ourselves in the process. If we don’t start paying attention, demanding accountability and thinking beyond the next news cycle, we will wake up in a country that’s poorer, more divided and left behind.We ignore Mr. Friedman’s warning at our own peril.Robert StewartChantilly, Va.To the Editor:Like Thomas L. Friedman, I have never been more afraid for my country’s future. But not because of the mistaken economic policies he focuses upon, dangerous as those may be. By far the most dangerous and repugnant reality of President Trump’s second term is his ongoing violation of constitutional guardrails and democratic norms so that he can assume a level of power never intended for any president.This threat is not simply an undesirable context for potentially fatal economic actions, as Mr. Friedman indicates. Rather, those guardrails are more fundamental to a strong economic future than any particular policy action. Even more important, they are absolutely essential to the decent society that economic activity and government are supposed to promote.Robert WardAlbany, N.Y.To the Editor:Thomas L. Friedman’s column captures, with characteristic urgency and clarity, the Trump administration’s surrealism and strategic incoherence.His critique of President Trump’s nostalgia-driven economic nationalism — especially the fetishization of coal at the expense of clean technology innovation — is timely and damning. Few writers can as effectively tie in the everyday absurdities of this administration to their long-term global implications.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kitty Dukakis, Wife of 1988 Presidential Nominee, Dies at 88

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      Married to Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, she became a proponent of electroshock therapy after unsuccessful treatments for alcoholism and depression.Kitty Dukakis, an activist first lady of Massachusetts and humanitarian who overcame alcoholism and depression with the help of electroconvulsive therapy, then became a proponent of the treatment with her husband, Michael S. Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor and the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, died on Friday night at her home in Brookline, Mass. She was 88. Her son, John, said the cause was complications of dementia. Mrs. Dukakis “lived a full life fighting to make the world a better place and sharing her vulnerabilities to help others face theirs,” her family said in a statement.Mrs. Dukakis was a longtime activist on behalf of underdogs and people who struggled. Among the subjects most important to her was continuing education on the Holocaust. She was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 to the first President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which sought to create a national memorial and museum; when that panel was replaced a decade later by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, she was appointed to the council by President George H.W. Bush.“Perhaps in the entire history of civilization, the Holocaust was the most important object lesson in man’s inhumanity to man,” she told the National Governors Association in 1983.Few political wives have been as forthright as Mrs. Dukakis in sharing the intimate details of their struggles with addiction and depression. She wrote two books that revealed in painful detail her early dependence on diet pills, how alcoholism later took over her life and how she turned, at age 64, to electroshock therapy to treat the crippling depression that she said had long been masked by her drinking.Her successful electroshock treatment led her and her husband to publicly advocate for the effectiveness of the procedure, and even to hold support groups at their home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Do You Have Healthy Brain Habits? Take This Quiz to Find Out.

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      What can I do to take good care of my brain and lower my risk for a neurological disease? That’s the No. 1 question neurologist Dr. Jonathan Rosand hears from his patients (and their family members) at the Massachusetts General Hospital McCance Center for Brain Health. To help answer it, he and his colleagues, with […] More

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      Former Miss Teen USA Contestant Rebukes Vance for Using Her Flub to Attack Harris

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      Caite Upton wrote on social media that “online bullying needs to stop,” after JD Vance posted a clip of her mangled answer from the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant to mock Kamala Harris.Senator JD Vance of Ohio, who since becoming former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate in July has been criticized on several occasions for comments demeaning women, found himself again embroiled in controversy this week when he used a viral clip of a beauty pageant contestant’s meltdown to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.On Thursday, Mr. Vance shared a video clip from the 2007 Miss Teen USA competition in which Caite Upton, who was representing South Carolina, gave a mangled answer to a question about why many Americans could not locate the United States on a map.“BREAKING: I have gotten ahold of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview,” Mr. Vance wrote on X.That evening, CNN was set to broadcast the first major interview with Ms. Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee. Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. quickly reposted Mr. Vance’s post, writing: “This is total Fake News from JD. We all know that Kamala isn’t that articulate.”In a social media post on Friday, Ms. Upton objected to Mr. Vance’s dredging up the 17-year-old clip of her pageant struggles, remarks that were reported by The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., and later deleted, after she appeared to have deactivated her account on X.“Regardless of political beliefs, one thing I do know is that social media and online bullying needs to stop,” she wrote, according to the newspaper.A representative for Ms. Upton, who competed in the pageant under the name Lauren Caitlin Upton, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.In 2015, Ms. Upton told New York magazine that the embarrassment she felt over the viral video had led to depression and thoughts of suicide.When Mr. Vance was asked whether he had been aware of Ms. Upton’s mental health challenges during an appearance on CNN on Friday, he said that he had not at the time he posted the clip.“My heart goes out to her, and I hope that she’s doing well,” he said.When asked whether he wanted to apologize, Mr. Vance said that he did not have regrets.“Politics has gotten way too lame,” he said, adding, “I’m not going to apologize for posting a joke, but I wish the best for Caitlin.” More

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      Sadness Among Teen Girls May Be Improving, C.D.C. Finds

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      A national survey found promising signs that key mental health measures for teens, especially girls, have improved since the depths of the pandemic.In 2021, a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on teen mental health focused on a stark crisis: Nearly three in five teenage girls reported feeling persistent sadness, the highest rate in a decade.But the newest iteration of the survey, distributed in 2023 to more than 20,000 high school students across the country, suggests that some of the despair seen at the height of the pandemic may be lessening.Fifty-three percent of girls reported extreme depressive symptoms in 2023, down from 57 percent in 2021. For comparison, just 28 percent of teenage boys felt persistent sadness, about the same as in 2021.Suicide risk among girls stayed roughly the same as the last survey. But Black students, who reported troubling increases in suicide attempts in 2021, reported significantly fewer attempts in 2023.Still, the number of teens reporting persistent sadness in 2023 remained higher than at any point in the last decade aside from 2021. And around 65 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender high school students reported persistent hopelessness, compared with 31 percent of their cisgender or heterosexual peers. One in five L.G.B.T.Q. students reported attempting suicide in the past year.“For young people, there is still a crisis in mental health,” said Kathleen Ethier, head of the C.D.C.’s adolescent and school health program. “But we’re also seeing some really important glimmers of hope.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How to Exercise to Improve Your Mood

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      Physical activity can brighten your outlook and calm your nerves — if you do it strategically.We’ve all encountered that person who comes back from the gym or a run seemingly high on life. In fact, scientists say that even a single bout of exercise can alter your neurochemistry in ways that create feelings of hope, calm, connection and a generally better mood.But for others, a workout just leaves them feeling worn out.“It’s normal not to find exercise rewarding,” said Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”While some people are simply more genetically or psychologically inclined to enjoy exercise, recent discoveries have helped experts understand why it can be such a high. And, they say, by making a few changes to your workout, you can train your body and mind to find exercise more pleasurable.It’s not just about endorphins.Scientists once thought the rush people felt from exercise came exclusively from endorphins, which act like natural opioids in the brain by relieving pain. But in recent decades, researchers have discovered a more complex cocktail of other key “feel-good” chemicals produced during movement.Each ingredient plays a distinct but complementary role, said Julia Basso, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech who runs a lab studying the effects of exercise on the brain. “These neurochemicals are really working in tandem,” she said.The most potent players appear to be endocannabinoids, which share similar molecular structure with THC, and bind to the same receptors in the brain — giving you that buzzy feeling that all is right in the world.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More