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    The Sunday Read: ‘What Happened When America Emptied Its Youth Prisons’

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    Listen and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioWhen David Muhammad was 15, his mother moved from Oakland, Calif., to Philadelphia with her boyfriend, leaving Muhammad in the care of his brothers, ages 20 and 21, both of whom were involved in the drug scene. Over the next two years, Muhammad was arrested three times — for selling drugs, attempted murder and illegal gun possession.For Muhammad, life turned around. He wound up graduating from Howard University, running a nonprofit in Oakland called the Mentoring Center and serving in the leadership of the District of Columbia’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. Then he returned to Oakland for a two-year stint as chief probation officer for Alameda County, in the same system that once supervised him.Muhammad’s unlikely elevation came during a remarkable, if largely overlooked, era in the history of America’s juvenile justice system. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of young people incarcerated in the United States declined by an astonishing 77 percent. Can that progress be sustained — or is America about to reverse course and embark on another juvenile incarceration binge?There are a lot of ways to listen to ‘The Daily.’ Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Frannie Carr Toth, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, and Krish Seenivasan. More

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      The MAGA Youth Remind Me of the 1980s and Not In a Good Way

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      When I was 7, I sent a birthday card to President Ronald Reagan. It was the 1980s. I lived in rural Alabama, and pretty much all the adults around me were loudly on board with what was then the Reagan revolution, which had swept Jimmy Carter and his timid liberal apologists for America’s greatness out of power and made the presidency, especially to my young eyes, a glamorous exemplar of everything good about the country. I remember the seductive appeal of the story he told about America as a global superpower, a “shining city on a hill” where anyone could be successful with enough elbow grease, so long as those meddlesome big-government liberals didn’t get in the way.Being young and preppy and rich back then looked cool to me. Within a few years I had a crush on Alex P. Keaton on “Family Ties,” who horrified his ex-hippie parents with his love of heartless capitalism and harebrained business schemes. I didn’t see that the show was making fun of him, too. The young conservatives of the ’80s were all molded in his image (and he in theirs).Now, in 2025, some young people (who were not yet born in the age of Reagan) are renouncing the progressive politics of their millennial elders and acting like it’s the ’80s again. There was a marked shift toward Donald Trump by voters under 30 according to exit polling in last November’s election, so maybe they are just dressing the part. But when I read about a group of younger MAGA supporters reveling in their victory at the member’s only Centurion New York (declaring, as one 27-year-old in attendance did, that Trump “is making it sexy to be Republican again. He’s making it glamorous to be a Republican again”) or see photos or watch videos of MAGA youth at, say, Turning Point USA events run by Charlie Kirk, a preppy right-wing influencer whose organization recruits high schoolers and college students to be soldiers in the culture war, or in Brock Colyar’s New York magazine cover story about the young right-wing elite at various inauguration parties — I get a very distinct feeling of déjà vu. It’s laced with nostalgia but grounded in dread.These young right-wingers have a slightly modernized late ’80s look. I doubt they use Aqua Net or Drakkar Noir, but I imagine their parties have the feel of a Brat Pack movie where almost everyone is or aspires to be a WASPy James Spader villain. Few of the people I’m talking about were even alive in the 1980s, and so they can’t understand what it means for Mr. Trump to be so stuck in that time, still fighting its battles. Now, instead of renouncing hippie counterculture, they’ve turned against whatever their generation considers to be woke. The incumbent liberal they detested was Joe Biden instead of Jimmy Carter. Instead of junk bonds, many of them plan to get rich by investing in crypto and trust that this administration will pursue or exceed Reagan levels of deregulation to facilitate it. After all, Project 2025 mentions Reagan 71 times.Mr. Trump’s ’80s were, until now, his glory years, when he built Trump Tower, published “The Art of the Deal” and called the tabloids on himself using a made-up name, John Barron. He was routinely flattered in the tabloids thanks to the excellent public relations skills of Mr. Barron, popped up regularly on TV and wrestling promotions and started making movie cameos. Urban elites looked down on him — Spy magazine called him a “short-fingered vulgarian” — but he embodied what many people who weren’t rich thought rich people looked like, lived like, and, in his shamelessness and selfishness, acted like.More important for us now, his formative understanding of politics seems to have been shaped by that era, when America, humbled by the Vietnam War, Watergate, crime and the oil crisis, was stuck with a cardigan-wearing president who suggested that we all turn down our thermostats for the collective good. Reagan told us to turn the thermostat way up, live large and swagger again. Hippies became yuppies, at least in the media’s imagination.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 Do You Say to a Young Person Who Admires the Unabomber?

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      I published a novel about the Unabomber this year, and during a book tour stop in Seattle, a high school teacher raised his hand and asked me what he could tell his students about Ted Kaczynski, because he was a hero to so many of them. The question stopped me cold, reminding me that Mr. Kaczynski’s influence is deeper and more widespread than most people realize.The same feeling of cold unease returned this week when I read news reports that Luigi Mangione, the suspect charged in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive, Brian Thompson, had posted a favorable review of the Unabomber’s manifesto online. The similarities didn’t end there. The meticulous planning and use of symbolism in the crime reminded me of Mr. Kaczynski, who spent years choosing his targets, designing disguises (even gluing false soles to the bottoms of his shoes) and leaving messages for investigators. The words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on the bullet casings found by Mr. Thompson’s body were an eerie echo of the “FC” for Freedom Club that Mr. Kaczynski carved into his bombs. The fact that Mr. Mangione allegedly made his own gun and carried a copy of his own manifesto reinforced the similarities.There is, of course, still much we don’t know about Mr. Mangione: a full picture of who he is, and what factors shaped him and motivated him. But the teacher’s suggestion that the Unabomber was a hero to some of his students pointed to a larger truth. To many young people living in a system of extreme economic disparity, in a world they believe is on the verge of ecological collapse, the Unabomber represents a dark, growing ideological desperation. To them, his ruthlessly intellectualized turn to violence can seem justified.But what is lost in this lionization of one of the most notorious terrorists in American history is that for Mr. Kaczynski, the desire to kill came first, and the ideological justifications followed. Lonely rage defined him, and he spent far more time tormenting his neighbors than he did on his grandiose plans to bring down industrial society. He killed dogs for their barking, strung razor wire across dirt bike paths and fantasized about murdering a neighboring toddler. The manifesto and its carefully constructed veneer of Luddite and anarchist philosophies were a con to lure others into his world of despair and hatred.Watching video of Mr. Mangione’s detention, and listening to the words he shouted to the media, I felt a profound sadness. I saw a young man with a promising start in life lost in naïve convictions, and poisoned by his newly formed and corrupt ideology.Violent men have always gained followers, but Mr. Kaczynski’s continued influence is mostly intellectual. He had a showman’s instinct for manipulating the crowd, and intuited that the advance of technology and collapse of the environment would be the two dominant crises of the 21st century. He callously identified the environmental movement as being the most socially acceptable justification for his crimes, even though he privately denigrated environmentalists in his journals, and proudly littered, poached and illegally logged on national forest land around his cabin.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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      Australia Bans Social Media for Everyone Under 16

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      The law sets a minimum age for users of platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X. How the restriction will be enforced online remains an open question.Australia has imposed a sweeping ban on social media for children under 16, one of the world’s most comprehensive measures aimed at safeguarding young people from potential hazards online. But many details were still unclear, such as how it will be enforced and what platforms will be covered.After sailing through Parliament’s lower house on Wednesday, the bill passed the Senate on Thursday with bipartisan support. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that it puts Australia at the vanguard of efforts to protect the mental health and well-being of children from detrimental effects of social media, such as online hate or bullying.The law, he has said, puts the onus on social media platforms to take “reasonable steps” to prevent anyone under 16 from having an account. Corporations could be fined up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about $32 million) for “systemic” failures to implement age requirements.Neither underage users nor their parents will face punishment for violations. And whether children find ways to get past the restrictions is beside the point, Mr. Albanese said.“We know some kids will find workarounds, but we’re sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act,” he said in a statement this month.As with many countries’ regulations on alcohol or tobacco, the law will create a new category of “age-restricted social media platforms” accessible only to those 16 and older. How that digital carding will happen, though, is a tricky question.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 Worries Me About Uruguay’s Elections This Year

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      In a year of landmark elections, my country’s presidential vote last month flew under the radar. And perhaps with good reason: Uruguay’s balloting was marked by unexciting candidates and their lackluster attempts to entice undecided voters to the polls. In the end, no candidate won a majority, leaving weary Uruguayans to brace for another round of unimpressive speeches leading up to a runoff on Sunday.It’s out of character for Uruguay to have such a boring political season. For as long as I can remember, elections here have been a spectacle, with balconies draped in political flags and spirited debates in the streets. Memories of life under a brutal dictatorship late last century have nourished our enthusiasm for democracy and the peaceful transfer of power between the right and left. Over four decades, this has been our superpower, rendering our nation of 3.4 million a politically stable oasis in a tumultuous part of the world. An uneventful vote seems preferable to the deep polarization that has surrounded presidential elections over the past year in countries like El Salvador, Argentina, Venezuela and even the United States.But underneath our staid election lies an urgent problem: Young people here feel increasingly left behind, despite Uruguay’s reputation as a beacon of economic and social success. That’s potentially bad news for one of the strongest democracies in Latin America: In a 2023 Latinobarómetro poll, 38 percent of the young people surveyed said they’d be fine giving up democracy for a government that could solve their problems.And young Uruguayans are afflicted by many problems. The country has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Latin America, at 26 percent in 2023, compared with Argentina’s 18 percent the same year. Uruguay has elevated high school dropout rates. Young people are disproportionately affected by food insecurity and high imprisonment rates, with one in five children and adolescents living in poverty and 45 percent of the prison population under 30. As it did in other countries, the Covid-19 pandemic left Uruguay in the grip of a mental-health crisis that hit this group hard. In recent years, suicide was one of the leading causes of death among young people.All of this has translated into political apathy among marginalized young voters. But older generations also show dissatisfaction, voicing considerable disappointment in the government’s handling of childhood poverty, the high cost of living, corruption and rising crime rates. Although the inflation rate has slowed, net public debt rose, and there have been high-profile cases of mismanagement of public funds and corruption in President Luis Lacalle Pou’s administration.Before the first round of elections, I spoke with a handful of undecided young voters in the capital, Montevideo, all of whom were casting ballots for the first or second time. Some said that the presidential candidates who made it to Sunday’s runoff — Yamandú Orsi of the leftist Broad Front, and Álvaro Delgado of President Lacalle Pou’s center-right National Party — seemed distant, out of touch and difficult to understand.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 Whole New Ballgame

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      What soccer, a recent foray into coaching and years of writing this newsletter taught our columnist about the game, and himself.A few weeks ago, the soccer team that occupies rather more of my thoughts than is healthy had a problem. Well, strictly speaking, it had several. One was that all of the players, including my son, were under the age of 7, which it turns out is something of a tactical limitation. Another was that I had been roped into being one of the coaches.More urgently, though, we kept conceding goals. Avoidable goals. Silly goals. Goals wrapped up in gift paper and presented to the opposition, accompanied by a heartfelt card.Technically, when children start playing formal soccer in England — at the age of 6 — the games are not competitive. There is no league table. The results are not even recorded. That arrangement is not quite the same, though, as nobody knowing what the results are. And it was apparent, to anyone who could count, that our results were not good.It was at this point that I hatched a plan to limit the damage. It seemed to me quite a good plan. We had spent two years encouraging the children to play soccer the way it is meant to be played. They pass out from the back. They take a touch. They rely on their technique to avert danger. They express themselves.But it had become very clear, very quickly, that this approach had not really survived first contact with reality. We were conceding goals in great bucket-loads because we kept creating problems for ourselves: dribbling across our own box, passing aimlessly into the middle of a congested field, turning not into space but into trouble. We kept losing games. And while winning or losing was not supposed to matter, we worried that, sooner or later, the children would start losing enthusiasm.What we needed, I thought, was just a dash of the ancient wisdom that had been passed down to me, when I was taking my first tentative steps in soccer. Geoff — my first and only youth coach, whose son took all the free kicks and corners — had given us two instructions, and only two: Play the way you are facing and, if in doubt, boot it out.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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      Chapo Wins Mozambique’s Presidency in Disputed Election

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      Daniel Chapo of the Frelimo party, which has governed the southern African nation for nearly 50 years, was declared the victor amid violence and widespread allegations of fraud.Daniel Chapo was declared the winner of Mozambique’s presidential election on Thursday after a process marred by violence and widespread accusations that his party, Frelimo, which has run the country for nearly five decades, committed fraud.The country’s electoral commission announced that Mr. Chapo won with nearly 71 percent of the vote in the election, which was held on Oct. 9. He will replace Filipe Nyusi, who has served his limit of two five-year terms.The announcement came amid deep upheaval in a southern African nation that has been battling a yearslong insurgency by Islamist extremists in its northern coastal region of Cabo Delgado. The conflict has only deepened the divisions between those who benefit from Mozambique’s trove of natural resources — including natural gas and precious stones — and those struggling with widespread poverty and unemployment.On Monday, tear gas and gunfire filled the streets of the capital, Maputo, as the police clashed with thousands of demonstrators, who accused the governing party of rigging the election and orchestrating the fatal shooting of two supporters of Mr. Chapo’s main rival.Frelimo has said it has not committed any fraud and was not involved in the killings.“Frelimo is confident that the results reflect the will of the people,” Ludmila Maguni, a party spokeswoman, wrote in an email to The New York Times.This month’s election and the sporadic protests around it may be one of the sharpest tests of Frelimo’s power since it led Mozambique to independence from Portugal in 1975 and weathered a civil war in the years after.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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      U.K. Plans Disposable Vape Ban in England

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      The measure, which echoes plans in Scotland and Wales, aims to protect young people’s health and reduce environmental damage.Disposable vapes will be banned in England starting in June under a government plan announced on Thursday, a move aimed at protecting young people’s health and reducing waste.Single-use vapes, which are often sold in brightly colored packaging, have become the “product of choice for the majority of kids vaping today,” Andrew Gwynne, the minister for public health and prevention, said in a government statement.An estimated five million disposable vapes are discarded each week in Britain, according to the government.The proposed ban — which requires the approval of Parliament, where the governing Labour Party holds a large majority — would prevent plastic, lead and mercury from single-use vapes leaching into the environment, the government said.It is also aimed at reducing problems caused by the disposal of lithium-ion batteries. Even when sent to recycling facilities, the government said, the products usually needed to be disassembled by hand, and the batteries posed a fire risk to workers in the waste industry.“Single-use vapes are extremely wasteful and blight our towns and cities,” Mary Creagh, an environment minister, said in the statement, adding that the initiative was part of an effort to combat Britain’s “throwaway culture.”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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      Teens Think Movies and TV Shows Have Too Much Sex, Study Finds

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      At least that is what they told researchers at U.C.L.A. The high popularity of romance plots in movies and shows suggests otherwise.Movies and television shows about rich people are the last thing we want to watch. And skip the sex: We prefer content that focuses on platonic relationships. (There’s enough porn online as it is.) We do like fantasy as a genre, increasingly so. But please, pretty please, fix how you incorporate social media into story lines. It’s cringe.That is what young people — ages 10 to 24 — think about movies, television shows, video games and social media, according to a study released Thursday.The study, Teens & Screens, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that 63.5 percent of participants said they wanted content that depicted platonic relationships, as opposed to romance and sex. That is up from 51.5 percent last year. (Questions involving romance and sex were not shown to participants ages 10 to 13.)Of course, what study participants say and what they actually do can vary wildly. There is ample evidence to the contrary among shows that are popular with younger audiences, including “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” a raunchy comedy; “Emily in Paris,” an impassioned romance; and “Tell Me Lies,” a steamy soap.Movies like “Poor Things,” which found an insatiable Emma Stone romping through a Paris brothel, and the sexually frank “All of Us Strangers” attracted a surprisingly large audience of people in their early 20s, according to box office analysts.This year’s study was conducted in August and included 1,644 young people.“We’re trying to shift the culture by giving storytellers better information,” said Yalda T. Uhls, the founder and chief executive of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers, which is based at U.C.L.A. “The problem is often that Hollywood storytellers use their own memories of their teenage years or what their children in Los Angeles are doing, and that does not remotely represent what young people really want.”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