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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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      Investigadores de oposición hablan de una contundente derrota de Maduro en Venezuela

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      El organismo electoral anunció que Nicolás Maduro había obtenido una clara victoria. Sin embargo, las cifras facilitadas al Times por un grupo de investigadores de oposición ponen en entredicho ese resultado.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]El organismo electoral de Venezuela anunció el lunes que el presidente del país, Nicolás Maduro, había obtenido una cómoda victoria en las elecciones, ganando otros seis años en el cargo al superar a su principal oponente por siete puntos porcentuales en una votación que se vio empañada por irregularidades generalizadas.Sin embargo, los resultados parciales de las elecciones, facilitados a The New York Times por un grupo de investigadores asociados a la principal alianza opositora de Venezuela, aportan nuevas pruebas que ponen en entredicho el resultado oficial.Sus cifras sugieren que el candidato de la oposición, un diplomático jubilado llamado Edmundo González, en realidad venció a Maduro por más de 30 puntos porcentuales. La estimación de los investigadores del resultado —66 por ciento contra 31 por ciento— es similar al resultado obtenido por una encuesta de salida independiente realizada el día de las elecciones en todo el país.El Times no pudo verificar de manera independiente los conteos, que según los investigadores fueron tomados de los recuentos en papel impresos por unas 1000 máquinas de votación, alrededor del tres por ciento del total del país. El miércoles, la autoridad electoral venezolana, controlada por el gobierno, aún no había publicado los resultados detallados, a pesar de la creciente presión internacional.Pero varios analistas independientes de encuestas y elecciones revisaron el enfoque de los investigadores y dijeron que, basándose en los conteos compartidos en esa investigación, las estimaciones parecían creíbles. Partiendo de los recuentos parciales, el Times pudo replicar ampliamente las estimaciones de los investigadores sobre los resultados con una diferencia de dos puntos porcentuales. More

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      Elecciones en Venezuela: mandatarios del mundo exigen más transparencia a Maduro

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      Los manifestantes salieron a las calles de Caracas cuando Nicolás Maduro se proclamó vencedor, mientras que la oposición señaló que el recuento de votos mostraba que su candidato había ganado.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Las protestas estallaron el lunes en Caracas, la capital de Venezuela. Cientos de jóvenes marcharon por las calles indignados por los resultados de unas elecciones presidenciales en las que el presidente en funciones, Nicolás Maduro, se declaró ganador a pesar de las acusaciones generalizadas de fraude y proclamó de manera oficial que las elecciones estaban decididas sin hacer público el recuento completo de votos.Estados Unidos y países de todo el mundo denunciaron los resultados oficiales de la votación del domingo, que no parecían coincidir con las proyecciones estadísticas sustentados en recuentos parciales y otros datos que mostraban que el presidente perdía por un margen amplio.El lunes por la tarde, el gobierno venezolano anunció que había expulsado a las misiones diplomáticas de siete países latinoamericanos que habían condenado los resultados electorales oficiales.La líder de la oposición, María Corina Machado, anunció el lunes por la noche que su movimiento había recibido las actas del 73 por ciento de las mesas electorales del país y refutó las afirmaciones del gobierno. Estos resultados apuntaban a que el oponente de Maduro, Edmundo González, había recibido 3,5 millones de votos más que el presidente.González calificó el margen de “matemáticamente irreversible”.La decisión de la autoridad electoral de declarar la victoria pero no hacer públicos los resultados detallados de la votación, como había hecho habitualmente en elecciones anteriores, intensificó la sensación entre muchos venezolanos y observadores internacionales de que las elecciones habían sido, en efecto, robadas.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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      Hulk Hogan Is Not the Only Way to Be a Man

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      The Democratic Party must join the battle for the hearts and minds of young men. It matters not just for this election, though the vast and growing gender gap means that disaffected men could hand Donald Trump the presidency. It matters for how we mentor young men, and it matters for how we view masculinity itself.And yes, the Democrats can do it. Within the Kamala Harris coalition, there are men who can show a better way.If you ever wondered whether the Republican Party sees itself as the party of men, I’d invite you to rewatch the last night of the Republican National Convention. Prime time featured a rousing speech by the wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, a song by Kid Rock and a speech by Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship — all as warm-up acts before Trump delivered his acceptance speech. Republican manliness was the capstone of the convention.But what kind of men were featured? They’re all rich and powerful, and as a longtime fan of professional wrestling, I loved watching Hogan as a kid, but none of them are the kind of man I’d want my son to be. White was caught on video slapping his wife. Kid Rock has his own checkered past, including a sex tape and an assault charge related to a fight in a Nashville strip club. Hogan faced his own sex scandal after he had a bizarre sexual relationship with a woman who was married to one of his close friends, a radio host who goes by “Bubba the Love Sponge.”We know all about Trump, but it’s worth remembering some of his worst moments — including a jury finding that he was liable for sexual abuse, his defamation of his sex-abuse victim, the “Access Hollywood” tape and the countless examples of his cruelly insulting the women he so plainly hates.JD Vance is different. No one should denigrate his personal story. He has overcome great adversity, served his country honorably as a Marine and, by all accounts, is a good husband and father. But he now wears Trumpist masculinity like an ill-fitting suit. Last week, he was justifiably attacked for a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson in which he declared that the country is run, “via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies.” He identified Harris (who has two stepchildren) as just the kind of person he was talking about.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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      Democratic Elites Were Slow to See What Voters Already Knew

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      President Biden and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez agree on this much: It is the elites who are trying to take Biden down, ignoring the sentiments of legions of Democratic voters. But when I started arguing in February that his age would mortally wound his candidacy, it didn’t feel that way to me. I saw the elites propping him up, ignoring the sentiments of legions of Democratic voters.Who’s right?Maybe we both are. In any system, elites are most visible when they are fractured and factions are acting against each other. In July 2023 — before the primaries, before last month’s debate — a Times/Siena poll found that Democratic primary voters, by 50 to 45 percent, preferred that the party nominate someone other than Biden in 2024.But the Democratic Party’s elites were in lock step around Biden. They refused to listen to what their voters were saying. The fact that he was barely campaigning or giving unscripted interviews was rationalized rather than criticized. No major Democrats decided to challenge him for the nomination. Representative Dean Phillips’s effort to draft alternative candidates was rebuffed and his subsequent primary challenge ignored. Some of this reflected confidence in the president. Some of it reflected the consequences of challenging him.The White House and the Democratic Party apparatus it controls are powerful. Congressional Democrats will not get their bills prioritized or their amendments attached if they are too critical of the party leadership. Nonprofit leaders will stop getting their calls returned. Loyal party donors will abandon you if you’re branded a heretic. “I would be crucified by them if I spoke out of line,” an anonymous Democratic state party chair told NBC News early this month. “I know when you get out of line, they all of a sudden have a shift of priorities, and your races, your state is no longer on the map.” That was far truer a year ago, when Biden’s position in the party was unchallenged.These actions, decisions and calculations by Democratic Party elites were neither unusual nor conspiratorial. This is simply how parties work. But it meant that Democratic voters were given neither a real choice of candidates nor a demonstration of Biden’s fitness for the campaign. What they were given instead was signal after signal that every power broker in the party was behind Biden and confident in his ability to win re-election. Who were they to argue? Biden won the primary contest in a landslide.In February, after Biden skipped the Super Bowl interview and flubbed the news conference intended to defend his memory, I published a series of columns and interviews arguing that he should step aside and Democrats should choose a new ticket at the convention. My argument was that his age had become an insuperable problem — visible in every poll and appearance, omnipresent when you spoke to ordinary voters — and the way his team was insulating him from unscripted interviews reflected a recognition of his diminishment. Biden was trailing Donald Trump even then. He was not showing himself capable of the kind of campaign needed to close the gap. And the risk of frailty or illness causing a catastrophe across the long months of the campaign seemed unbearably high.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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      11 Days in July: Inside the All-Out Push to Save the Biden Campaign

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      President Biden has repeatedly tried to erase the concerns over his age and mental acuity. But nothing has changed the narrative.Nothing President Biden did seemed to work.He delivered an angry, defensive rant on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” He showed foreign policy chops at a news conference. He wrote a long letter to “fellow Democrats” demanding an end to the calls for him to step aside. He confronted lawmakers on a Zoom call that devolved into a tense, heated exchange about his age and mental competency.Eleven days ago, the president and his closest family members and advisers went on the offensive, determined to end what already had been nearly two weeks of hand-wringing over his listless performance at a debate on June 27. The result was a flurry of interviews, rallies, defiant meetings with his closest allies and impromptu campaign stops — all intended to rebut the premise that he was too old and frail to win a second term.But almost every step was undercut by his own fumbles and the steady drumbeat of calls from his friends and allies for him to step aside, even from loyalists like the actor George Clooney. Together, it was evidence that nothing he was doing was having much impact. Mr. Biden was racing from place to place, but nothing was changing.This story of the 11 days that Mr. Biden has spent trying to rescue his hopes for a second four years in the Oval Office is based on interviews with people close to him, including lawmakers, current and former aides, friends and others. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss one of the most difficult periods in Mr. Biden’s political life.At the end of two hectic days in the 110-degree heat of Las Vegas this week, it all seemed to catch up with him. Mr. Biden was coughing during interviews and seemed almost as tired and scattered as he did during the debate on June 27. At a campaign stop at a restaurant, he looked pale. He tested positive for Covid, canceled his final speech and flew back to his beach house in Delaware.By Thursday, Mr. Biden’s flashes of anger had given way to what allies perceived as the beginnings of acceptance that he might lose. People close to him began privately predicting that the end of the campaign was near, and that he might even drop out of the race within days.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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      The Reason People Aren’t Telling Joe Biden the Truth

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      They entered with courage and exited as cowards. In the past two weeks, several leaders have told me they arrived at meetings with President Biden planning to have serious discussions about whether he should withdraw from the 2024 election. They all chickened out.I don’t know whether Mr. Biden should drop out of the race. It’s impossible to predict the outcome with certainty. My concern is about the decision process. There’s a gap between what people say behind the president’s back and what they say to his face. Instead of dissent and debate, they’re falling victim to groupthink.According to the original theory, groupthink happens when people become so cohesive and close-knit that they put harmony above honesty. Extensive evidence has debunked that idea. The root causes of silence are not social solidarity but fear and futility. People bite their tongues when they doubt that it’s safe and worthwhile to speak up. Leaders who want to make informed decisions need to make it clear they value candid input.Mr. Biden has done the opposite, declaring first that only the Lord almighty could change his mind and then saying that he’ll drop out only if polls say there’s no way for him to win. That sends a strong message: If you’re not an immortal being or a time traveler from the future, it’s pointless to share any concerns about the viability of his candidacy.The president is in a tough spot. Even conceding privately that he might consider stepping aside could crush the confidence of his advisers and risk a leak to the press. But a little humility could go a long way: “I believe I’m the best qualified to govern, but I don’t know for sure. I think I can win, but I might be wrong.” Along with inviting dissent, these acts of receptiveness might make Mr. Biden more persuasive. People put more faith in a balanced argument and a leader who wants to learn.Showing openness can raise people’s confidence, but it’s not always enough to quell their fear. In our research, Constantinos Coutifaris and I found that it helps for leaders to criticize themselves out loud. That way, instead of just claiming that they want the truth, they can show that they can handle the truth. If he hasn’t already, Mr. Biden could do that by gathering his family and advisers to watch a video of the debate with him and then kicking off a candid discussion by talking about what he thought he did wrong. Reviewing the game tape together would demonstrate that he’s willing to take an honest look in the mirror.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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      A Female President? Big Deal.

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      In her concession speech to President-elect Donald Trump in November 2016, Hillary Clinton declared, “We have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but some day someone will — and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.”There was lots of talk about gender in politics then. Many of us thought that Clinton lost in part because of both hard-core misogyny and a softer unconscious bias that led just enough voters to think of presidents only as guys in suits.I’ve been thinking lately of that glass ceiling because of a conversation we’re not having — one about the gender of the Democratic nominee if Joe Biden takes advice from so many of us to drop out of the presidential race.If Biden withdraws, his most likely successor is a Black woman, Vice President Kamala Harris, who polls a bit better than Biden against Trump. Some of us have urged instead that Democrats nominate Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, believing that she would be the nominee most likely to defeat Trump. And a few of us have mentioned the talented Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a former governor and a star of the Biden cabinet.Our argument isn’t a feminist one about the significance of elevating women. It’s not even an argument that these politicians would perform better than Biden as president. Astonishingly given our history, it’s that they would also be more electable.Perhaps even more intriguing, gender has largely gone unmentioned. I’ve had people push back at my recommendation of Whitmer on the basis that she’s untested nationally, that choosing her over Harris would antagonize Black voters, that her name recognition is weak. All fair objections. But I haven’t heard anyone scoff: But Whitmer is a woman. We tried that in 2016, and it got us Trump.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