After declining in 2019 and 2020, suicide deaths increased approximately 5% in the United States in 2021. The provisional estimates released today indicate that suicide deaths further increased in 2022, rising from 48,183 deaths in 2021 to an estimated 49,449 deaths in 2022, an increase of approximately 2.6%. However, two groups did see a decline in numbers, American Indian and Alaska Native people (down 6.1%) and people 10-24 years old (down 8.4%). (CDC)
Read MoreThe iTunes Christian music charts were crowned in late July by a historic sight: A drag queen in bubblegum pink Dolly Parton-esque curls and a dressing gown spilling over with chiffon ruffles. Everything, from her heavy eyelashes to her rainbow jewelry and bright blue guitar, insisted she would not be ignored. (Hyson, KPBS)
Read MoreThis year’s surge reflects a host of pressures around the U.S. such as rising housing costs, lack of affordable rental units and the nation’s continuing opioid crisis, according to reports from nonprofits and government agencies counting the homeless. (Kamp & Najmabadi, The Wall Street Journal)
Read MoreOn Sunday, from the makeshift pulpit inside Maui Coffee Attic in Wailuku, in a part of the island that dodged the fires, church member after church member recounted their narrow escapes. (Smith, The New York Times)
Read MoreThis year Ashura looked different. The mourners who gathered in Yazd last month and in many other cities across Iran diverged unexpectedly from the script to target the clerical rulers of Iran, turning religious ballads into protest songs about the suffering of Iranians. (Fassihi, The New York Times)
Read MoreEverything about “Sound of Freedom” that certain critics hated — its dramatic oversimplification of child trafficking, its moralizing overtones — was spun into gold by the well-oiled, whole-wheat marketing machinery at Angel Studios, a sort of anti-Hollywood the brothers founded in the foothills of Mormon country. (Scribner, Sommer & Rao, The Washington Post)
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