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The old world of classical or Newtonian physics presented us with a universe that could be described as working like clockwork in its behavior—but the universe turned out to be…
The post Miracles are Impossible—Right? appeared first on BahaiTeachings.org.
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MEXICO CITY — Few figures occupy as prominent a niche in U.S. lore as the American cowboy, that embodiment of rugged individualism celebrated in dime novels, vintage radio, TV and Hollywood blockbusters.
But recent musings from Secretary of State Marco Rubio have fueled a sometimes-acrimonious debate — mostly on social media — about the origins of the tall-hatted buckaroo who, with the help of a trusty steed and a six-gun, helped tame the West.
At the Munich Security Conference this month, Rubio stated that the “entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West” was “born in Spain.”
Hurling an indignant riposte was one of the Florida Republican’s ideological antagonists, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who declared: “I believe that Mexicans and the descendants of African enslaved peoples would like to have a word on that.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with Bloomberg Television at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Feb. 14.
(Alex Kraus / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On social media, respondents were not hesitant to take sides.
“That tradition was born in present-day Mexico and southern Texas, and it is not Spanish,” said one person on X.
Wrote another: “Andalusian cowboys prove Marco Rubio right and respond to Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Even roping cattle came from Spain.’”
In a sense, experts say, Rubio, Ocasio-Cortez and their defenders are all correct — though their accounts tell only a part of the story.
It was indeed the Spanish, and Portuguese, who, in the 16th century, introduced horses and cows, species then nonexistent in the Americas.
But the New York lawmaker is also on track: The cowboy tradition evolved in a direct line from the singular innovations of Mexican vaqueros. Their varied ranks included people of European, Indigenous and mixed-race origins.
Nonetheless, the Mexican vaquero is largely erased from popular U.S. depictions of the cowboy. Traditional western dramas were more likely to depict vaqueros as bandits than hard-working ranch hands whose contributions were fundamental to the American West.
“The American cowboy, our great national folk hero, is recognized around the world as a symbol of our country,” the late Jim Hoy, a renowned cowboy historian, told Texas Highways magazine. “Cowboys as we know them, however, would never have come into existence without the vaquero.”
But as Rubio said, cowboy lineage can be traced to the Iberian Peninsula — as far back as the late medieval era, before Spain as a nation even existed. Moorish horse breeds were crossed with native stock to create a sturdy and agile beast for managing cattle. The horse also proved indispensable in the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1521.
However, once Hernán Cortés triumphed, the conquistadors went from waging war — vanquishing the Aztecs — to the project of subjugating Indigenous holdouts and building a self-sustaining territory loyal to the crown. Among the many tasks: managing ever-multiplying multitudes of cattle.
Nonnative livestock — not just horses and cows but also donkeys, pigs and sheep — thrived in the vast grasslands, plains and deserts of the New World. The animals’ abrupt arrival transformed entire ecosystems, cultures and economies.
“You get to the Americas, and the place is giant,” said Eric D. Singleton, a curator at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. “You have a new environment, and you develop new techniques and new things within that environment to make it hospitable.”
The topography, weather, cultures and other factors were drastically distinct from Old World norms, so managing cattle required something beyond the skill sets of Andalusian herders.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
The job of refining techniques of riding and roping — while modifying gear and apparel — largely fell to the resourceful vaqueros, from the Spanish word vaca for cow.
“The vaquero had to reinvent techniques and strategies in a completely new context,” said Héctor Medina Miranda, a Mexican anthropologist and author. “This wasn’t just copying the Spanish. It involved a whole new approach.”
The Mexican cowboys became adept at everything from calving to branding to overseeing the kind of long-distance cattle drives that later became a staple of the western.
It was the vaquero who developed the initial incarnations of the so-called Western saddle, with its distinctive “horn,” used both as a grip and for securing ropes.
Centuries later, Spanish-origin terminology persists: words such as “corral,” “lasso,” “bronco,” “lariat” (la reata) and “chaps” (chaparreras). The term mesteño, meaning stray or wild, became, in cowboy-speak, mustang — that legendary, free-roaming denizen of the high plains.
Even “10-gallon hat” — hardly big enough to hold a gallon — probably had Mexican origins. One theory is that the moniker emerged from a cowpoke misinterpretation of the Spanish word galón, for braided hat-bands. A hat with a crown large enough to support 10 bands became a 10-gallon hat.
Bull-riding, still a staple on the U.S. rodeo circuit, originated in the vibrant vaquero tradition of charreadas — contests showcasing participants’ skills with horses, ropes and livestock. Charreadas remain a mainstay throughout Mexico and in Mexican American communities north of the border.
“The vaqueros didn’t cross the border,” said Medina Miranda. “The border crossed on top of them.”
El Charro, that indomitable expert horseman (or -woman) donning a wide-brimmed hat and embroidered jacket and trousers, still commands a pivotal role in Mexican culture. The charro is far from a modest vaquero, but a venerable caballero (gentleman) who has mastered the wrangling artistry of the frontier.
To this day, charrería is Mexico’s national sport. The charro figure, long celebrated in cinema and music, is as much an embodiment of manhood and culture in Mexico as the cowboy is in the United States. The late Vicente Fernández, the beloved actor and Grammy-winning maestro of the mariachi and ranchera genres, was affectionately known as “El Charro de Huentitán,” after his hometown in Jalisco.
Ocasio-Cortez was right about something else. African Americans and immigrants also helped create the cowboy tradition. Adding to the diverse mix were hired hands from tribes such as the Comanche, Cheyenne and Apache, who became unrivaled horse whisperers long before settlers arrived on their lands.
Like many illustrious figures, the cowboy turns out to be a more nuanced individual than the often one-dimensional representations of the silver screen. Before John Wayne and Gary Cooper, there were the noble vaqueros of Mexico, myth-makers in their own right.
“I equate the cowboy with what the medieval knight is to Europe, what the samurai is to Japan,” Singleton said. “It’s our mythology.”
Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
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SAN LEANDRO — A start-up recycling company has a message for its potential, environmentally conscious customers: Don’t send your problem garbage to the landfill; put it on your front porch.
The company is Ridwell, and if you drive the residential streets of the San Francisco Bay Area or Los Angeles, you’re likely to see the company’s signature white metal boxes on porches.
The boxes are for empty tortilla chip and plastic produce bags, used clothing, light bulbs and batteries. In some locations, polystyrene peanuts. All the things you’re not supposed to put in the blue recycle bin, but wish you could.
The Seattle-based waste service is geared toward people who worry their waste will end up in the landfill, or get exported to a developing country in Asia. They sort their waste into colorfully labeled canvas bags the company provides, and wait for a Ridwell pickup.
“Sorting is our special sauce,” said Gerrine Pan, the company’s vice president of partnerships. Part of the reason the company is successful at finding markets — or buyers — for its waste, she said, is that it’s sorted and pretty clean (unlike the food-contaminated jumble of waste that gets stuffed in many blue bins).
The company promises to distribute all that waste to specialty recyclers, manufacturers, even thrift shops.
Bagged recyclables sit in boxes at the Ridwell warehouse in San Leandro.
But critics say the boutique waste hauler is not accomplishing anything environmentally useful and is selling the public a myth: that these plastics — multilayer plastic film, plastic bags, polystyrene — can be taken care of responsibly. The service would be benign, they say, if it stuck to the delivery of materials, such as light bulbs and batteries, that can be recycled.
Most local waste haulers don’t accept batteries and light bulbs because they can pose a hazard to workers and equipment.
The base Ridwell membership is $20 a month. For that, a driver will come by every two weeks and take the presorted bags to a warehouse where they’re emptied, the contents stacked and collected, until there’s enough to deliver to a facility that will take it.
Sorted recyclable items await transport at the Ridwell central warehouse.
Company lore is that founder Ryan Metzger and his son were frustrated that so many things weren’t accepted by their local hauler for recycling. The two sat down and researched where to take the stuff, then decided to scale up and serve their neighbors.
The company has since expanded to Vancouver, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Denver; Austin, Texas; Minneapolis and Atlanta. It now boasts more than 130,000 customers nationwide.
Most of the waste is delivered locally. But some of it travels hundreds, if not thousands of miles.
For instance, multilayer plastic bags — those that hold snack chips, candy and coffee beans — are the scourge of municipal garbage haulers because they cannot be recycled, and if put in the blue bins, can damage mechanical sorting machines. Ridwell, however, found Hydroblox, a company that melts the multilayer films into hard, plastic bricks that can be used for drainage projects in landscaping and road construction.
But this arrangement highlights some of the limitations of the nascent industry. Hydroblox owner Ed Greiser said he can take only so many chip bags. The company is growing, but it’s still pretty small, and he’s typically maxed out on the bags.
Ridwell workers sift through recyclables.
“This article is going to be a nightmare for me,” he told a Times reporter, because it’s likely to attract a parade of unsolicited garbage trucks looking to dump their bags. “I’m not the solution.”
In addition, Greiser’s two facilities are in Pennsylvania, more than 2,700 miles from most West Coast pickup points, a steep transportation cost for a plastic bag that could instead go 20 miles to a local landfill.
Ridwell also has recently expanded to serve customers outside its pickup cities. It sends special plastic bags to these far-flung subscribers so they can sort their waste and ship it back.
Again, critics say the company’s decision to operate a service that is dependent on plastic bags and requires extensive transport undermines their environmental bona fides. And they worry that a narrative suggesting all waste can be dealt with responsibly is false and misleading. That misconception, they say, contributes to the glut of plastic piling up in our rivers and oceans, and inside our bodies.
“There is typically a reason why a given product isn’t being recycled through curbside collection, and it usually isn’t for lack of effort by cities and counties,” said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste. “Most of the material being collected by boutique collection services like Ridwell are either very difficult to manage or lack strong recycling markets.”
Manufacturers of plastic packaging, not consumers, should pay for recycling products and packaging at the end of their life, he said. For regular people, “having to pay an extra fee to handle the unrecyclable plastic packaging that is thrust upon us every day is antithetical to every concept of producer responsibility.”
Earlier this month, the anti-plastic group Beyond Plastics published a disparaging report on boutique waste haulers, including Ridwell, accusing them of providing cover for plastic and packaging manufacturers who want people to believe their waste is being recycled.
A Ridwell employee inserts a bag of recyclables into a bailer at the San Leandro warehouse.
Ridwell offered a visitor a tour of its Bay Area warehouse in San Leandro. The spacious facility behind a Home Depot and Walmart was crowded with steel drums filled with alternating layers of batteries and fire-retardant pellets, boxes of light bulbs and piles of used clothes, all destined for recyclers, upcyclers and thrift stores.
While the public may think of recycling as a largely physical process, it’s actually a market: a function of how well a material can be profitably turned into something else.
Boxes of clothing await transport.
Metzger, Ridwell’s chief executive, said some of the material his company collects can be sold. Some of it is given away, “and some we pay to have responsibly processed.” The more technically challenging the plastic, the more likely Ridwell will have to pay to deal with it, he said.
He said the company vets all the places it sends its waste, giving preference to those that use items a second time over those that melt them down or shred them to make them into something else. It also gives preference to partners that are local.
He said his company is “careful not to present plastic recycling as a cure-all,” and it turns away some materials, for example vinyl shower curtains, “because we don’t have a downstream partner we can stand behind.”
And while Metzger agrees with many of Beyond Plastic’s concerns, he has observed that “when customers actively sort and see which items require special handling, it often increases their awareness of where plastic waste is coming from in their own lives … [leading] them to change purchasing habits and avoid certain packaging altogether.”
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WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Kash Patel joined the American men’s hockey players in the locker room Sunday for a rowdy celebration of winning the gold medal in the Winter Olympics.
While he was in Milan, the U.S. Secret Service shot and killed an armed man who had driven into Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s resort in Florida. Hours later, around the time the game against Canada was headed into overtime, Patel posted on X that the FBI was “dedicating all necessary resources in the investigation.”
Videos shared on social media showed a pumped-up Patel drinking beer from a bottle and spraying the rest around the locker room. After one of the players draped his gold medal around Patel’s neck, he joined the players as they jumped up and down.
“There was a threat at the president’s residence at MAL, Americans in Mexico are facing major threats by cartel members, Nancy Guthrie is still missing, and our FBI Director thinks he’s a frat bro?!,” Xochitl Hinojosa, the spokeswoman for former Attorney General Merrick Garland said on X.
Patel responded to the criticism by posting that he was “extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys.”
The FBI director had defended his official trip to Italy by saying he was going to meet with Italian law enforcement officials and Americans helping to provide security at the Olympics. He posted pictures this week of his visit to the Milan Joint Operations Center, which he said was charged with protecting the security of American athletes and all those who traveled to Milan for the Winter Games. He also posted a photo of his meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Italy.
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By ELAINE KURTENBACH
BANGKOK (AP) — U.S. futures slipped and world markets were mixed on Monday after the Supreme Court struck down most of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
Despite the ruling, tariffs aren’t going away. Trump said Friday he would use other avenues to tax imports, such as an executive order imposing a 10% global tariff that he later raised to 15%. He said he’s looking at other tariffs, including ones that would require Commerce Department investigations.
Trump administration officials said they expect other countries to abide by trade agreements based on the tariffs that have been overturned. But the reaction to the latest developments has been tentative given uncertainty over what he will do.
The mixed reactions are “highlighting the winners-and-losers effect of shifts in tariff policy that has just delivered a boost to countries who previously had a comparatively bad deal,” Benjamin Picton of Rabobank said in a commentary.
“U.S. tariff policy will continue to be a source of uncertainty for markets as traders attempt to price in the implications of what is still a movable feast,” he wrote.
Bitcoin tumbled as much as 5% early Monday, dropping below $65,000, though it recovered about half of that decline later in the day. The sell-off has been driven by investors pulling out of speculative assets and concerns about future cryptocurrency regulation.
The original cryptocurrency, pitched as “digital gold,” has lost nearly half of its value since Oct. 6, when it hit a record high of $126,210.50.
Germany’s DAX fell 0.5% to 25,137.69 and the CAC 40 in Paris was unchanged at 8,515.65. Britain’s FTSE 100 was also nearly unchanged at 10,685.10.
The future for the S&P 500 lost 0.2% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.3%. The future for the Nasdaq composite index was down 0.3%.
Markets in Japan and mainland China were closed for holidays.
Hong Kong led regional gains as its Hang Seng index surged 2.5% to 27,081.91.
In South Korea, the Kospi gained 0.7% to 5,846.09.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.6% to 9,026.00.
Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.5% and the Sensex in India was up 0.6%. The SET in Bangkok ended nearly flat.
On Friday, Wall Street kept calm after the Supreme Court’s ruling against the tariffs, which had triggered panic in financial markets when they were announced last year. The S&P 500 rose 0.7%, while the Dow added 0.5% and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.9%.
Discouraging reports Friday showing slowing U.S. economic growth and accelerating inflation drew a relatively muted response.
The reports highlight the Federal Reserve’s dilemma over interest rates, but did not change traders’ expectations much for what the Fed will ultimately do. Traders are still betting that the Fed will lower rates at least twice this year, according to data from CME Group.
Lower interest rates would give the economy and investment prices a boost, but they also risk worsening inflation. Fed officials said at their last meeting that they want to see inflation fall further before they would support cutting rates further.
In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 33 cents to $66.15 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 34 cents to $70.96 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar slipped to 154.85 Japanese yen from 154.94 yen. The euro rose to $1.1799 from $1.1797.
The price of gold rose 1.8%, while the price of silver was up 5.2%.
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On a clear February morning at the Riverside Municipal Airport, Joshua Alvarez was prepping his California Baptist University plane for flight while he waited for his flight instructor.
Alvarez, 27, said he was close to being able to take a solo flight, and credited the university’s aviation program with bolstering his goal to become a pilot.
At 11:12 a.m., he took off into the sky — something that may be more common for Riverside students since the Riverside City Council agreed to create an aviation workforce training hub at the airport.
“It’s fun, you can go anywhere,” Alvarez said before he took off.
California Baptist University aviation student Sophie Vijayam prepares for her training flight with an instructor Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, at the Riverside Municipal Airport. The Riverside City Council recently approved an aviation workforce training initiative at the airport. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
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California Baptist University aviation student Sophie Vijayam prepares for her training flight with an instructor Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, at the Riverside Municipal Airport. The Riverside City Council recently approved an aviation workforce training initiative at the airport. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
The initiative will be a collaboration with the Riverside and Alvord unified school districts, Riverside City College, California Baptist University and UC Riverside. So far, only California Baptist has aviation courses — and its own planes — at the airport. The other schools are in the early stages of figuring out what courses they might offer and how they might fit into the program.
The city and the education institutions plan to create jobs and build the city’s aviation, aerospace and technology industries through the Learning Institute for Flight Technology, a city news release states.
Part of the initiative includes sharing assets and one option may include examining how the Riverside airport could be part of the effort, the release states.
California Baptist University has 22 airplanes at the Riverside airport, as well as several flight simulators and a new simulator on the horizon.
The university has 312 students in its aviation program and expects more next semester.
Cesar Portugal, assistant professor of aviation science and chair of the Aviation Science Department, said the university already has a steady foundation and is excited to see Riverside become an “aviation mecca” and to help its partners grow their own programs.
“CBU is just here to serve the community and to help expand the industry,” Portugal added. “If it helps us in any way, that’s phenomenal, but more importantly it’s going to help our community grow and have more experience in aviation.”
He added that the aviation field is in “dire” need of pilots, aircraft mechanics, dispatchers, airport managers and operation managers.
Riverside City College has no aviation program or courses, but being part of the initiative shows its commitment to preparing students for high-skill, high-demand and high-paying jobs, Interim President Eric Bishop said.
RCC officials don’t yet know what courses they might offer under the initiative, but Bishop said the program will benefit RCC in several ways.
“It is important that we are part of the community and not apart from it,” said Bishop, who added that the program could keep aviation jobs local and add a new sector the college can explore.
At UC Riverside, Christopher Lynch, dean of the Bourns College of Engineering, said the campus’ role is not yet defined. It’s considering the possibility of UCR students learning as interns and volunteers.
In the Riverside Unified School District, officials want to see how the district — which has no aviation or aerospace programs — might expose youths to career opportunities in aviation and strengthen connections with the aviation and aerospace industries, district spokesperson Andrew Shortall said.
“This is an opportunity to explore what’s possible for our students and thoughtfully consider how we can align education with emerging workforce opportunities in our region,” Superintendent Sonia Llamas said in an emailed statement.
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Both the K-pop girl group Blackpink and the funky pop star Bruno Mars returning with new music and a documentary about Paul McCartney after the Beatles are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.
Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: “Paradise” starring Sterling K. Brown returns for its second season, the freshly rebranded Actors Awards will be handed out live and there are bloodthirsty zombies to fight in Resident Evil Requiem.
— Andrew Stanton has directed some very memorable Pixar movies (“WALL-E,” “Finding Nemo”), but his live-action track record is more checkered. Following 2012’s poorly received “John Carter,” Stanton is back with “In the Blink of an Eye,” a film that brings together a handful of interconnected stories that explore the history of the world. Kate McKinnon, Rashida Jones and Daveed Diggs co-star. After a rocky reception at the Sundance Film Festival last month, “In the Blink of an Eye” debuts Friday, Feb. 27 on Hulu.
— The Actor Awards, formerly the SAG Awards will be handed out March 1 in a Netflix-livestreamed ceremony. Dished out by SAG-AFTRA, the actors guild, the awards are one of the most closely watched Oscar predictors. This year, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” comes in the lead nominee.
— For the Paul McCartney superfan comes a new documentary series from director Morgan Neville, who also helmed “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” and “Piece by Piece.” Not on the Beatles, but what came after. “Paul McCartney: Man on the Run,” which hits Amazon Prime Video on Friday, Feb. 27, chronicles the music man’s life in the 1970s — Wings and then some. It’s an intimate portrait worth spending time with.
— Also on Friday, Feb. 27: The return of Bruno Mars! “The Romantic” is Mars’ fourth full-length project and first solo album since 2016’s hit-making “24K Magic.” (That’s of course excluding his mega-popular collaborative project with Anderson .Paak, Silk Sonic, and their 2021 release “An Evening with Silk Sonic.”) Retro-pop is the name of the game and Mars remains one of the great, spirited nostalgists. That’s evident from the jump: “I Just Might” is feel-good disco-pop-soul; it’s clear Mars is making his return just when the world wants him most.
— All four members of K-pop girl group Blackpink have found incredible success as soloists, with ubiquitous pop hits like “APT.” and starring roles on “The White Lotus” among them. But now is the time for a comeback. On Friday, Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa will release “Deadline,” their latest EP. Details surrounding the five-track release have been scant but the bilingual “Jump” is bouncy europop that flirts with hardstyle, the ideal soundtrack to a Las Vegas day club. Clearly, they just want their listeners to have fun.
— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman
— Season 2 of “Paradise” starring Sterling K. Brown returns to Hulu on Monday. Brown plays Xavier, a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the President of the United States, played by James Marsden. In Season 1, we learned that Marsden’s character and a small number of privileged people escaped to an underground bunker just as an apocalypse was about to destroy everything. Xavier and his kids also made it to safety, but his wife got left behind. In Season 2, he sets out to find her. Shailene Woodley joins the cast and Julianne Nicholson and Marsden return.
— The 50th, yes 50th, season of “Survivor” streams live on Paramount+ on Wednesday as it airs on CBS. Make sure to have your whole night free though because the first episode is three hours long. Season 50 features all returning “Survivor” contestants including “The White Lotus” creator, Mike White.
— Sixteen years after it aired its series finale, Zach Braff’s “Scrubs,” has been resuscitated. The irreverent hospital begins streaming on Hulu on Thursday, with a returning cast Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke and Judy Reyes.
— Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman first worked together on the film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.” They’ve got a new collab as executive producers of a new Civil War series for Prime Video called “The Gray House.” Mary Louise Parker stars alongside Ben Vereen, Robert Knepper (“Prison Break”) and Paul Anderson of “Peaky Blinders.” All 8-episodes drop Thursday.
— A washed-up Broadway actor (played by Kevin Kline) returns to his hometown and ends up directing a local production of “Our Town” in the new series “American Classic.” He also butts heads with his former girlfriend-turned-mayor played by Laura Linney. MGM+ kicks off the series by releasing the first two episodes on Sunday, April 1.
— It’s been 30 years since Capcom introduced us to the world of Resident Evil, where a bioweapon has turned all sorts of creatures into bloodthirsty zombies. With the ninth main entry in the franchise, Resident Evil Requiem, the monsters show no sign of slowing down. The new protagonist is Grace Ashcroft, an FBI analyst who has only a few weapons and is just trying to get out alive. Fortunately, Leon Kennedy — who has been around since RE2 — is also on the case, and he has a much more versatile arsenal. The developers hope to appeal to fans of pure survival horror as well as gamers who love more explosive action. The nightmare resumes Friday, Feb. 27, on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Switch 2 and PC.
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Denis Maksimov’s bakery in suburban Moscow became famous overnight after he appeared on President Vladimir Putin’s annual call-in show in December.
Standing in front of the bakery — called Mashenka, after his oldest daughter -– he pleaded with Putin via video to look into new tax reforms that are significantly increasing the burden on small businesses like his.
“We understand very well that it’s not an easy situation for the country. We understand that raising taxes is necessary,” Maksimov said. “We’re looking ahead without optimism, frankly speaking. Many (businesses) will close down.”
As Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine marks four years, the mounting pressure on Russia’s economy is starting to show. Oil revenues are dwindling, the budget deficit is up, and military spending that fueled robust growth has leveled off.
The Kremlin is now tapping consumers and small businesses for funds. The value-added tax has been raised by 2% and revenue thresholds for requiring businesses to pay it have been lowered drastically.
Ordinary Russians appear to be feeling the pain. Business owners interviewed by The Associated Press described a steady decline in demand for their goods and services, a sudden increase in costs as suppliers adjust to the tax reform, and a tax burden that’s now tens of times higher. Some said they downsized to keep operating, while others closed.
A recent video on social media showed the economic fallout: Vacant commercial spaces on St. Petersburg’s main street, Nevsky Prospekt, where shop after shop went out of business.
“I’ve never felt so scared as this year, so unprotected, so anxious,” said Darya Demchenko, who owns a chain of beauty salons in Russia’s second largest city.
Maksimov’s plea to Putin failed to reverse the tax reform, which lowered the threshold for requiring businesses to pay VAT from 60 million rubles, or $783,000, in annual sales revenue, to 20 million rubles ($261,000) this year and to 10 million rubles ($130,500) by 2028.
The revenue threshold was similarly lowered for those using the “patent taxation system,” in which small businesses made fixed annual payments — usually only tens of thousands of rubles — instead of a percentage of their revenues or profits. This year, those whose revenues exceed 20 million rubles would need to pay at least a 6% tax on their revenues, and at least a 5% VAT.
In their televised exchange, Maksimov said he had been using the patent system for eight years, and Putin responded by underscoring the need for tax reform to tackle “uncontrolled” illegal imports but promised to look at what can be done.
Maksimov’s appearance attracted attention and new customers to Mashenka, which has three bakeries in the Moscow region. It had sent a basket of baked goods to the Kremlin and boasts on its website that Putin “tried our pies.”
Russian media quoted Maksimov as saying sales rose for a while, but without a change in tax policy, he contemplated closing.
Putin raised Mashenka’s case at a government meeting last month, and Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov proposed measures allowing Maksimov’s business to be exempt from paying VAT and lower his other taxes. Shortly after, the owner said he wasn’t considering closing down.
“I think we will grow, maybe slower than before, but no less confidently, I think,” Maksimov told AP this month. He admitted, however, that he’s still waiting for authorities to adopt the proposed measures. It’s unclear when that will happen.
Maksimov’s case caused an outcry among other small and medium entrepreneurs. In an online campaign “We Are Mashenka,” started by the Association of Beauty Industry Enterprises, business owners across Russia raised similar cases, noting that unlike Maksimov, who was lucky to get Putin’s ear, they had no one to bail them out.
Demchenko, who supported the campaign, told AP that of four family-oriented beauty salons in her chain — three of her own and one opened through a franchise -– she had to close one and sell another to stay afloat due to the dramatically increased taxes and other costs, as well as lagging demand.
The tax reforms meant she was no longer eligible for the patent system and was looking at paying much higher taxes, as well as having to hire a full-time accountant to handle the paperwork, she said. Her costs — such as rent, supplies, security and banking services — spiked 30%, she added, noting suppliers raised their prices well over the 2% VAT increase.
Demand for beauty services, meanwhile, has been falling for months.
Russia’s restrictions on social media and messaging platforms deprived her of cheap advertising and easy ways to reach clients, Demchenko said.
The beauty industry weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, with government support like tax breaks and deferments, as well as ways to negotiate with landlords to waive rent for a while.
“This year, we haven’t felt any support at all. We feel like they want to shut us down,” she said.
Lyalya Sadykova, president of the Association of Beauty Industry Enterprises, said about 10% of beauty industry businesses in St. Petersburg closed and another 10% sold their companies in December and January. She anticipates more closures this spring.
“People will do the math. The first deadline for taxes is in April, and people will see that they have nothing to pay with, and that’s when the collapse will begin,” she said. “I think there will be bankruptcies, and mass exodus from the market, because now it seems to me that not everyone has done the math and understood it.”
When the tax reforms were adopted last year, pastry shop owners Ilsiya Gizatullina and Railya Shayhieva and decided to shut down their business in Kazan. Like Demchenko, they cited the massive tax increases, rising costs and falling demand.
It was an incredibly hard decision, “like cutting off a body part. Because we lived there, it was our life, 24/7,” Gizatullina told AP.
They opened in 2020 and survived the pandemic, which Gizatullina noted was only temporary. The new tax system is here to stay.
“We understand very well that it won’t be abolished the day after tomorrow, and there will likely be an even higher tax burden in the future,” Gizatullina said.
As part of the reforms, more businesses will be paying increased taxes in 2027 and 2028, since changes will affect those with even lower revenues.
Small and medium enterprises account for just over 20% of Russia’s economy, but it’s still significant, says Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. Consultancy. Increasing the application of VAT to those businesses will mean “a meaningful amount” of money for the state budget.
It is “a deliberate strategy by the Finance Ministry to create more stable, predictable sources of income” at a time when oil revenues are down and the budget deficit is up, Weafer said.
Small and medium enterprises have been under pressure since 2014, when Russia faced sanctions over its illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, and the government directed most of its support to big companies. The new tax regulations add to the pressure, Weafer said, and while that’s unlikely to wreck the economy, it will impede growth when the war ends.
“The one engine of expansion and growth and innovation that you need in an economy is the sector that has suffered most in the last four years and is continuing to suffer today,” he said.
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BANGKOK — U.S. futures dropped and Asian shares were mostly higher on Monday after the Supreme Court struck down most of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
Bitcoin tumbled as much as 5% early Monday, dropping below $65,000. The sell-off has been driven by investors pulling out of speculative assets and concerns about future cryptocurrency regulation.
The original cryptocurrency, pitched as “digital gold,” has lost nearly half of its value since Oct. 6, when it hit a record high of $126,210.50,
Markets in Japan and mainland China were closed for holidays.
Hong Kong led regional gains as its Hang Seng index surged 2.2% to 26,980.22.
In South Korea, the Kospi gave back early gains, edging 0.1% lower to 5,809.53.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.6% to 9,024.40.
Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.5% and the Sensex in India was up 0.4%. The SET in Bangkok jumped 1.1%.
The mixed reactions are “highlighting the winners-and-losers effect of shifts in tariff policy that has just delivered a boost to countries who previously had a comparatively bad deal,” Benjamin Picton of Rabobank said in a commentary.
“U.S. tariff policy will continue to be a source of uncertainty for markets as traders attempt to price in the implications of what is still a movable feast,” he wrote.
The future for the S&P 500 lost 0.8% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.7%. The future for the Nasdaq composite index was down 1%.
On Friday, Wall Street kept calm after the Supreme Court’s ruling against Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which triggered panic in financial markets when they were announced last year.
The S&P 500 rose 0.7% to 6,909.51. It had been flipping between small gains and losses before the court’s ruling, following discouraging reports showing slowing growth for the U.S. economy and faster inflation.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5% to 49,625.97. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.9% to 22,886.07.
Tariffs aren’t going away, even with the Supreme Court’s ruling. Trump said Friday he would use other avenues to put taxes on imports from other countries after calling the court’s decision terrible.
Trump said he would sign an executive order to impose a 10% global tariff under a law that could limit it to 150 days. He later raised that to 15%. He said he’s exploring other tariffs through other avenues, ones that would require Commerce Department investigations.
The reaction has been tentative given persisting uncertainties over what he will do.
On Wall Street, Akamai Technologies dropped 14.1% for one of the market’s sharpest losses. The cybersecurity and cloud computing company reported stronger results for the end of 2025 than analysts expected, but it gave a profit forecast for the upcoming year that fell short of estimates.
Akamai plans to spend a bigger percentage of its revenue this upcoming year on equipment and other investments. It’s the latest potential indicator of how shortages of computer memory created by the AI boom are affecting customers throughout the economy.
Discouraging reports showing slowing U.S. economic growth and accelerating inflation drew a relatively muted response.
The reports highlight the Federal Reserve’s dilemma over interest rates, but did not change traders’ expectations much for what the Fed will ultimately do. Traders are still betting that the Fed will lower rates at least twice this year, according to data from CME Group.
Lower interest rates would give the economy and investment prices a boost, but they also risk worsening inflation. Fed officials said at their last meeting that they want to see inflation fall further before they would support cutting rates further.
In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 77 cents to $65.71 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 74 cents to $70.56 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar slipped to 154.40 Japanese yen f rom 154.94 yen. The euro rose to $1.1820 from $1.1797.
The price of gold rose 1.9%, while the price of silver was up 5.4%.
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KABUL, Afghanistan — The toddler cries as an oxygen mask is fitted to his face, its green elastic band stretched across his sunken cheeks. When he was first hospitalized a month ago, the 2 ½-year-old was fighting for his life.
Severely malnourished, Abu Bakar weighed just 6 kilograms (13 pounds), about half what he should. And yet, he is one of the lucky ones: His family got him to Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul, where doctors are providing life-saving care.
But for every malnourished child receiving treatment, there are many more who cannot get help.
“We have a catastrophic nutritional crisis on our hands with two-thirds of the country in a very serious or crisis level for acute malnutrition,” said John Aylieff, Afghanistan Country Director for the United Nations’ World Food Program. “This is the highest surge in malnutrition ever recorded in the country. And the lives of 4 million children are hanging in the balance.”
Devastated by four decades of conflict, Afghanistan has long relied on foreign aid. But the Taliban takeover in 2021 saw direct foreign aid halted almost overnight, driving millions into poverty and hunger. The situation is compounded by a moribund economy, a severe drought, two devastating earthquakes in late 2025 and the return of 5.3 million Afghans expelled mainly from neighboring Pakistan and Iran.
Now, funding cuts to humanitarian organizations, including the halting of U.S. aid to programs such as the WFP’s food distribution, have severed a lifeline for millions.
“The aid cuts have been devastating,” Aylieff told The Associated Press. Of the 4 million acutely malnourished children, “we are forced now to turn away three out of four of them because we simply don’t have the money.”
This, he said, “is unprecedented and I’ve never seen this in my more than 30-year-old career as a humanitarian.”
Of the 17.4 million people facing acute hunger, the organization can now only reach 2 million. And even for them, it is forced to provide less food.
Donor countries’ budgets are spread thin among humanitarian emergencies around the world, including famine in Sudan and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. In 2024, the WFP’s budget in Afghanistan was $600 million after “very generous” donor contributions, Aylieff said.
Last year, the amount fell by half and the organization expects to receive even less – about $200 million – this year. It’s not enough to tackle a hunger problem that “is spiraling out of control,” he added.
Abu Bakar’s family was among those who saw aid dry up.
“We once received assistance from an organization that helped us a lot with food,” said his mother, Latifa, 36, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. But that stopped three years ago. Since then, there’s been nothing.
Her husband, a construction worker, has been unemployed for a year. Now, at times, she has nothing at all to feed her five sons.
“I am trying to provide food for my kids,” Latifa said, cradling her emaciated toddler in her arms. She doesn’t care if she doesn’t eat, she says. “I can control my hunger. I will handle it. But my child can’t.”
Hunger is driving an increase in child mortality, Aylieff said, with the WFP logging more than 500 child deaths in recent months. The number, he noted, was “the tip of the iceberg” as many deaths during winter occur in villages blocked off by snow and are unregistered.
“How many more Afghan children will die here before the world wakes up and realizes that that’s enough? Aylieff asked. “Before the world says, ‘OK, we’ve crossed a threshold, we are not willing to stand by anymore, and we’re coming now to help.’ How many? What is the number? I really don’t know.”
Sharara, 21, is fighting to prevent her 6-month-old son Samir from becoming one of those children.
From the far northeastern province of Badakhshan, the young mother of two was bounced around hospitals there and in the northern city of Kunduz as doctors struggled to treat her gravely ill baby, suffering from a heart problem and severe pneumonia compounded by malnutrition.
Eventually, Sharara, who also goes by one name, made it to the malnutrition ward of Kabul’s Ataturk Hospital. But she is still desperately worried.
“Doctors say his condition is currently critical,” she said. In the 13 days Samir has been hospitalized, he hasn’t gained any weight.
Afghanistan’s government is well aware of the country’s hunger problem, and has expanded its malnutrition treatment facilities from 800 to about 3,200, Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman told the AP. In 2025, about 3 million malnourished children and mothers were treated, he added.
“Malnutrition is not a one-day problem. Malnutrition has been a problem in Afghanistan for decades due to poverty, war and other problems,” said Zaman, who is also a medical doctor.
The government has been speaking with aid agencies, he said, including those that have reduced funding or suspended projects.
“Health is separate from politics. Providing health services is an inalienable right for all people,” Zaman said.
Women are especially affected by rising hunger. Banned from nearly all jobs by the Taliban government’s draconian restrictions on women, widows with children are especially vulnerable.
Many are so desperate they say they want to die.
“As WFP, we’re getting more and more suicide calls from women because they just don’t know how to feed their children and they don’t know where to turn,” the WFP country director said.
WPF nutrition programs have seen a 30% increase in the number of acutely malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women, an increase Aylieff said nobody in the nutrition community had seen before.
“These are the women to whom the world pledged unwavering solidarity in the aftermath of the takeover of the country in 2021. … Those same women are asking us, where is the solidarity of the international community?” Aylieff said.
“If I had one plea, it’s to not walk away from Afghan women who are now facing abject misery, hunger, malnutrition and watching their children die.”
___
Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece.
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The man who authorities said breached the perimeter of Mar-a-Lago wielding a shotgun and a gas canister early Sunday had never shown an appetite for deadly weapons nor shown much interest in politics — in fact, quite the opposite, according to his cousin.
Austin Tucker Martin was “very quiet” and inexperienced with guns, his cousin Braeden Fields said. Martin did, however, like golf courses, and worked on one, his cousin said.
“He doesn’t even know how to use a gun. He’s never used a gun,” Fields told ABC station WTVD hours after Martin had been shot and killed while authorities say he was trying to enter President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump was in Washington, D.C., at the time of the incident.
Braeden Fields, Austin Tucker Martin’s cousin, speaks to reporters on Feb. 22, 2026, in Moore County, North Carolina.
Patrick Priest/WTVD
“I’m a big hunter, and I’ve, I’ve had him around guns all the time, and he’s never used one. He won’t, he don’t like them. He don’t like it, it hurts his ears,” Fields said of his cousin.
Though Martin has an older brother in the military, his interests were elsewhere, Fields said.
“We took him to shoot guns, but he won’t touch them,” Fields said. “The only gun he’s used is a BB gun.”
As federal agents raided the family’s woodsy property in North Carolina, Fields said there had been no indication Martin would ever venture 700 miles south on any kind of political crusade.
What’s more, the family are “big Trump supporters,” Fields said. “All of us. Everybody.”
Martin “never really talked about — he didn’t want to get into politics,” Fields said.
“We grew up together, practically,” Fields said. “I never, I wouldn’t believe that he would do something like this. Mind-blowing.”
Martin worked at a golf course getting it ready for the season, Fields said, and liked to send his paychecks to charity.
A website registered to Martin shows a fledgling penchant for watercolor and ink artwork of golf courses. The company describes its focus on “bringing to life the hopeful feeling of being on a golf course.”
Martin’s family had reported him missing early Sunday, according to authorities. It was almost exactly the timeframe in which police say Martin breached Mar-a-Lago’s perimeter.
“On February 22, 2026, at approximately 1:38 a.m., a relative of 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin approached a deputy at a local business and reported him missing,” according to the Moore County Sheriff’s Office.
Police in Florida said the incident began at 1:30 a.m. when Mar-a-Lago security “detected that a individual had made his way into the inner perimeter.” When they went to investigate “they confronted a white male that was carried a gas can and a shotgun.”
Martin was entered into a national missing person database when his family reported him missing, according to the sheriff’s office. They were then told by federal authorities they were “conducting an active investigation in Florida involving Martin. At their request, the missing person case information has been turned over to federal investigators.”
Fields said Martin’s mother is “torn apart” by what has happened, and that he’s already seen people “bashing” his cousin all over social media.
“If no one really knew him, you wouldn’t get him,” Fields said. “He’s a good kid.”
ABC News’ Chris Looft, Gaby Vinick and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
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TikTok — now in U.S. hands after the social media service split from China-based ByteDance earlier this year — is raising concerns among some users about its new privacy policy, prompting questions about the scope of its data collection.
TikTok on Jan. 22 confirmed that a new U.S.-based entity was in control of the app, with the venture formed to sidestep a federal law that forced ByteDance to either sell its stake in the platform or be cut off from the U.S. market. That same day, the company posted its new user terms and conditions and privacy policy.
Backlash to the new policies quickly spread on social media, with some users saying they deleted the app over privacy fears, while others flagged the changes for their followers. One complaint: a new provision stating that TikTok may collect “precise location information” from users’ devices if they enable location services in their device settings.
Some social media users attacked the new privacy policy as “beyond invasive and predatory,” while others decried the app’s “surveillance.”
TikTok’s new geolocation practices are a change from its previous policy under ByteDance, experts said.
“The change in location data is the most stark because the previous privacy policy had explicitly said that the current versions of the app do not collect precise GPS information,” Caitriona Fitzgerald, deputy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a public interest research center focused on data privacy.
She added, “Folks should be concerned about that. Your precise location data can be down to your address or even what floor you’re on in an apartment building.”
TikTok updated its privacy policy to include clearer language about location information, and plans to soon allow U.S. users to share their precise location with TikTok or opt out of that feature, according to a TikTok official. The company plans to use the precise location data to provide new services and features to users, the official noted.
TikTok’s new ownership includes software maker Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX, which will own a combined 45% of the company.
Another 35% stake in TikTok will be owned by eight other investors, including Dell CEO Michael Dell’s personal investment office. ByteDance will retain 19.9% of the business, just below the 20% ownership cap allowed under federal law.
Some TikTok users are also expressing concern about the types of personal information the app says it may collect, although its previous privacy policy disclosed that it might collect the same types of data. Under both the new and previous policies, TikTok said it may collect users:
• Racial or ethnic origin
• National origin
• Religious beliefs
• Mental health diagnosis
• Physical health diagnosis
• Sexual life
• Sexual orientation
• Status as transgender
• Status as nonbinary
• Citizenship status
• Immigration status
• Financial information
• Government-issued identification numbers, such as a driver’s license number
But the new policy also changes how TikTok describes its handling of sensitive data. The company now states that it “processes such sensitive personal information in accordance with applicable law.”
The earlier policy framed this more narrowly, saying it used sensitive information only when needed to run the service or to comply with legal requirements — for example, using payment details to process a purchase or a driver’s license to verify a user’s identity.
The new language mirrors that of the California Consumer Privacy Act, a law that requires businesses to disclose what types of information they collect, including race and ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, and their sex life.
The biggest change between TikTok’s current and previous privacy policies lies in their treatment of location tracking, which is now explicitly classified as sensitive data in the 2026 version.
“We may also collect precise location data, depending on your settings and as explained below,” the latest privacy policy states.
Both the older and newer versions note that TikTok may determine a user’s “approximate location” based on signals such as their SIM card region or IP address. But the new policy adds that TikTok is also allowed to collect a user’s “precise location” if the person has enabled location services for TikTok.
The new policy notes that users can “turn off location services from your device settings at any time.”
By contrast, the pre-2026 privacy policy explicitly stated that current versions of the app do “not collect precise or approximate GPS information from U.S. users.”
TikTok doesn’t yet have a toggle to allow people to switch off their precise location data because the company hasn’t yet added that tracking functionality to the app, the TikTok official said.
When the app rolls out the feature, users will see a prompt that asks whether they want to share their location, the TikTok official said.
Consumer advocates generally recommend that people turn off precise location tracking within the apps they use. For instance, X users can go to their “privacy and safety settings” and then click “location services” to see if they have enabled the app to track their exact location. It can be disabled by toggling the switch off.
However, even if precise location tracking is disabled, apps can still narrow down your general location through your IP address, according to Consumer Reports.
Since Jan. 22, when TikTok officially came under U.S. ownership, the app has presented users with a pop-up screen alerting them to the new terms of service and privacy policies. To continue to use the service, users must click “agree,” or else they are blocked from using TikTok.
Aimee Picchi 
“If the only choice is to accept the unnecessary collection and use of your location data, your citizenship data and other sensitive data, or not use the app at all, that’s not a real choice,” EPIC’s Fitzgerald told CBS News.
Other social media apps also track personal data, including Meta and X. The latter’s privacy policy specifies that users can “choose to share your current precise location or places where you’ve previously used X by enabling these settings in your account.”
Americans are notoriously lax about providing apps with access to their personal data, although about 8 in 10 say they’re concerned about how corporations use the data they collect about them, Pew Research Center found in a 2023 survey.
Still, more than half of consumers agree to companies’ privacy policies without reading them, the study found.
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More than 40 million people are under blizzard warnings as a winter storm bears down on the East Coast with heavy snow and fierce winds Sunday into Monday. For many areas in the Northeast, it’s forecast to be the biggest winter storm in nearly a decade, with 1 to 2 feet of snow possible.
Blizzard warnings have been issued for New York City, New Jersey and coastal communities along the East Coast from the Mid-Atlantic to southern New England. Winter storm warnings were in effect for another 19 million people from the central Appalachians to Maine.
Governors in multiple states declared a state of emergency for the storm, and bans on nonessential travel were announced for New Jersey and New York City beginning at 9 p.m. Sunday.
“While we do get plenty of these nor’easters that produce heavy snow and strong impacts, it’s been several years since we saw one of this magnitude across this large of a region in this very populated part of the country,” Cody Snell, a meteorologist at the service’s Weather Prediction Center, told The Associated Press.
The National Weather Service said 1 to 2 feet of snow could pile up in many areas, with lower snowfall totals in the Mid-Atlantic region. It warned flooding was also a risk in parts of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
New York City could be hit especially hard. Meteorologists forecast 12-18 inches of snow accumulation in the metro area, with more possible in some areas. This is the first time in nine years that a blizzard warning has been issued for the Big Apple.
According to the weather service, a storm meets the definition of a blizzard when there is “snow and/or blowing snow reducing visibility to 1/4 mile or less for 3 hours or longer” and also “sustained winds of 35 mph or greater or frequent gusts to 35 mph or greater.”
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged New Yorkers to stay inside and off the roads for the duration of the storm. He canceled schools for Monday and declared a state of emergency that includes a citywide travel ban from 9 p.m. Sunday through noon Monday, with streets, highways and bridges shut down to all traffic except essential and emergency services.
“New York City has not faced a storm of this scale in the last decade,” Mamdani said. “We are asking New Yorkers to avoid all nonessential travel.”
New York City was loading up more than 700 salt spreaders and turning more than 2,000 garbage trucks into snowplows, he said This is the new mayor’s second major snowstorm in the first two months of his administration. At least 19 people died during brutally cold weather that lasted more than three weeks.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency ahead of the nor’easter and activated about 100 members of the National Guard.
“This will be something the likes of which we’ve not seen in years,” Hochul said. “People will be in the dark. Long Island and New York City and lower Hudson are literally in the direct eye of the storm.”
CBS News 
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill also declared a state of emergency starting Sunday at noon, saying she expects “severe blizzard conditions across our state.”
She put a travel ban in place for New Jersey starting at 9 p.m. Sunday; it’s not clear yet when that will end. Light rail, Access Link and buses will stop service at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Sherrill said. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains will stop service at 9 p.m.
“I am urging you to make plans to stay off the roads Sunday through Monday,” Sherrill said in a news conference Saturday.
A blizzard warning was also issued for parts of southern New England — its first in four years. CBS News Boston reported the storm is forecast to dump up to 2 feet of snow on the city and surrounding areas Sunday night through Monday afternoon.
CBS News 
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency on Sunday and deployed 200 members of the National Guard.
“This is a serious storm. At the outset what I want to say to the public is this is one to take seriously,” Healey said, adding, “Unfortunately we do expect to see power outages and downed trees.”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said schools would be closed Monday and warned, “Boston is looking to face down yet another winter storm this season and one that is looking like it will be of historic proportions.”
CBS News meteorologist Andrew Kozak said that several major Northeast cities under blizzard warnings on Sunday, including New York City and Boston, “will have a combination of wind blowing snow, and reduced visibilities that are going to be very dangerous across the next 24 to 48 hours.”
He said conditions would take a turn for the worse beginning Sunday afternoon and continue into the Sunday evening hours.
“By Sunday afternoon, colder air rushes in, the snow starts to pile up, and very, very quickly,” Kozak said.
Snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour are expected by Sunday night, with higher rates, up to 2 to 3 inches per hour, possible from Philadelphia to New York City and into southern New England.
The weather service warned that the storm, with steady winds of 25 to 35 mph, would “make travel dangerous, if not impossible. Scattered downed tree limbs and power outages are possible due to snow load and strong winds.”
Stronger wind gusts, of 40 mph to 70 mph, could also produce drifting snow, hampering visibility and potentially causing whiteout conditions. Kozak said that travel along major corridors, including Interstates 95, 78, 80, 84, and the Massachusetts Turnpike, may become extremely dangerous or impossible during the height of the storm.
CBS News 
On Saturday, officials in Atlantic City, New Jersey, urged residents and casino visitors to stay off streets during the storm, especially in low-lying neighborhoods prone to flooding.
“I could go on and on probably with a good two dozen streets where we know we will get water and there will be snow on top of that, said Scott Evans, the city’s fire chief and emergency management coordinator. “So you won’t be able to see it until it’s too late, so therefore please stay at home.”
The storm approached just as the icy remains of a snowstorm that struck the region weeks earlier were finally melting away.
Thousands of flights have already been canceled or delayed due to the storm, and major airlines issued waivers allowing passengers to rebook without extra charge.
Delta announced Saturday that it has canceled flights for Sunday and Monday at New York’s LaGuardia and JFK airports and Boston. Customers headed to East Coast airports have flexible options to rebook.
American says it has teams across the airline working around the clock with the goal of resuming operations at the affected airports Tuesday, as soon as the conditions allow airlines to safely do so. It noted the severe winter weather conditions may impact airlines’ ability to operate at other airports in the region as well.
More than 3,300 U.S. flights have been canceled on Sunday, according to flight tracker FlightAware, with the largest numbers at airports in the New York City metro area, Boston, Philadelphia and the Washington, D.C., area. Republic Airlines, JetBlue, American Airlines, Delta. Southwest and United each canceled hundreds of flights.
For Monday, Flight Aware shows more than 5.000 cancellations, mostly affecting the same airports and airlines, and more than 1,100 flights were already canceled for Tuesday.
JetBlue said, “The safety of our customers and crewmembers is our first priority, and we will continue to track the storm to determine if additional operational adjustments will be required.”
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jaloni Cambridge scored 33 points, including 16 in the fourth quarter, and No. 10 Ohio State used a 15-0 run to rally for a 88-83 victory over USC in a Big Ten Conference women’s basketball game on Sunday.
It was Cambridge’s fifth 30-point game this season. The sophomore was 12 of 21 from the field and 8 of 9 from the line as the Buckeyes (23-5, 11-4) snapped a two-game losing streak.
Cambridge also had three steals and forced USC to commit a season-high 25 turnovers as the Trojans (17-10, 9-7 Big Ten) had their six-game winning streak come to a close.
USC’ freshman Jazzy Davidson scored a season-high 32 points, including six 3-pointers, before fouling out with 1.1 second left. The freshman also had six rebounds and four assists.
Ohio State’s Chance Gray had 16 points and Kennedy Cambridge scored 14 points and four steals before fouling out with 4:06 remaining.
Kennedy Smith had 18 points and Dayana Mendes 13 for the Trojans.
There were 13 lead changes and six ties before Ohio State took control.
The Buckeyes trailed 65-61 early in the fourth quarter before going on their decisive run. Jaloni Cambridge had seven points as Ohio State was 5 of 7 from the field while USC committed four turnovers.
The Trojans missed their first seven shots in the fourth quarter and had an 8:17 drought from the field. They made a late surge to get within 86-83 on a 3-pointer by Mendes with 2 seconds remaining, but Cambridge made a pair of free throws after being fouled by Davidson to make it a two-possession game.
Ohio State was 23 of 28 from the foul line. The attempts were a season-high while the makes were one off from tying it.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jaloni Cambridge scored 33 points, including 16 in the fourth quarter, and No. 10 Ohio State used a 15-0 run to rally for a 88-83 victory over USC in a Big Ten Conference women’s basketball game on Sunday.
It was Cambridge’s fifth 30-point game this season. The sophomore was 12 of 21 from the field and 8 of 9 from the line as the Buckeyes (23-5, 11-4) snapped a two-game losing streak.
Cambridge also had three steals and forced USC to commit a season-high 25 turnovers as the Trojans (17-10, 9-7 Big Ten) had their six-game winning streak come to a close.
USC’ freshman Jazzy Davidson scored a season-high 32 points, including six 3-pointers, before fouling out with 1.1 second left. The freshman also had six rebounds and four assists.
Ohio State’s Chance Gray had 16 points and Kennedy Cambridge scored 14 points and four steals before fouling out with 4:06 remaining.
Kennedy Smith had 18 points and Dayana Mendes 13 for the Trojans.
There were 13 lead changes and six ties before Ohio State took control.
The Buckeyes trailed 65-61 early in the fourth quarter before going on their decisive run. Jaloni Cambridge had seven points as Ohio State was 5 of 7 from the field while USC committed four turnovers.
The Trojans missed their first seven shots in the fourth quarter and had an 8:17 drought from the field. They made a late surge to get within 86-83 on a 3-pointer by Mendes with 2 seconds remaining, but Cambridge made a pair of free throws after being fouled by Davidson to make it a two-possession game.
Ohio State was 23 of 28 from the foul line. The attempts were a season-high while the makes were one off from tying it.
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MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities have killed one of the world’s most wanted drug-traffickers, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” founder and leader of the notorious Jalisco New Generation cartel, which controls drug trafficking, extortion, fuel theft and other rackets throughout Mexico.
The Mexican Defense Ministry confirmed the death, saying Oseguera was wounded during a Sunday morning operation in the town of Tapalpa, Jalisco state. Oseguera died while being transported via air with other cartel associates to Mexico City for treatment, the military said.
Oseguera’s death is the most significant take-down of a Mexican drug capo since the capture of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, then head of the Sinaloa cartel, who is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
In the past, the capture or death of a cartel leader has led to violence, as factions compete for control. On Sunday, chaos erupted across western Mexico.
A family sheltering in place in the state of Jalisco — who asked not to be identified because of safety concerns — said cartel members were pulling people out of vehicles in the street at setting them on fire. Cars, trucks and buses going up in flames and emitting plumes of dark smoke were visible on roads in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta, according to footage circulating on social media, as well as in the states of Nayarit and Michoacán.
The governor of Jalisco reported roadblocks and other disturbances throughout the western state and advised people to stay home. Flights were suspended at the airport in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco.
Authorities also reported blocked roads in other areas of Mexico where the cartel held sway. Criminal groups in Mexico often use roadblocks to protest enforcement actions.
The reported death of Oseguera is a major achievement for the government of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has been under intense pressure from the Trump administration to crack down on U.S.-bound drug trafficking. In the last year, Mexico has dispatched scores of cartel suspects to the United States to face justice.
U.S. authorities had offered a $15-million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Oseguera.
It was not immediately clear what role, if any, U.S. authorities had in the operation to take down Oseguera. Sheinbaum has pledged “cooperation and coordination” with U.S. officials, but has rejected any direct U.S. role on the ground in anti-cartel operations.
Oseguera is said to have begun his career as a small-time heroin dealer in San Francisco.
One of the world’s most wanted criminals, rumors about El Mencho’s death and capture have circulated in the past and turned out to be false. But in recent years, authorities have seemingly closed in, capturing several high-ranking associates and close family members.
Oseguera oversaw a military-like buildup of his cartel, which pioneered the use of armored vehicles, land mines, drones and other military hardware. Among other attacks, the Jalisco gang was blamed for the 2015 downing of a Mexican military helicopter, which resulted in the the death of nine Mexican law enforcement officials. The helicopter — reportedly hit with U.S.-made .50-caliber machine-gun rounds — was on a mission to capture the elusive cartel boss.
His son, Rubén Oseguera González, known as “El Menchito,” was captured and extradited from Mexico in February 2020. He was convicted in 2024 on an array of drug and weapons charges related to his leadership role in the cartel and is now serving a life sentence.
U.S. Bureau of Prisons records show he is housed at a maximum-security federal prison in Florence, Colo., know as the “Alcatraz of The Rockies,” that also houses the “El Chapo” and other high-profile criminals.
His daughter, Jessica Johanna Oseguera González, was arrested while visiting one of her brother’s court proceedings and eventually pleaded guilty to violations of the sop-called Kingpin Act related to money laundering. She reportedly spent just over two years in prison before her release in 2022.
Times staff writers McDonnell, Linthicum and Hamilton reported from Mexico City, New York and San Francisco, respectively. Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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Outside a hall where Southern California Edison was celebrating Black History Month on Friday, a group of Altadena residents stood on the sidewalk, waving signs and talking of the homes and family members they lost in last year’s Eaton fire.
“They’re in there celebrating Black history and they’ve destroyed a Black town,” said Nicole Vasquez of My Tribe Rise, which helped organize the protest.
The Jan. 7, 2025 fire destroyed thousands of homes, including the majority of homes in west Altadena, a historically Black community. All but one of the 19 people who died were in west Altadena.
“If Edison’s tower did not ignite the fire, Altadena would still be there,” said Trevor Howard Kelley, who lost his 83-year-old mother, Erliene, in the fire.
Kelley, his daughter and two granddaughters had been living with his mother before her home was destroyed, he said.
The Black Altadena residents are part of a larger coalition that is asking Edison to advance each family who lost their home $200,000 in emergency housing assistance. They say that more than a year after the blaze many wildfire survivors are running out of the funds they had received from insurers.
The group protesting Friday also called for transparency from Edison. The company has said it believes it is likely its equipment caused the fire but has continued to deny it did anything wrong.
“We just want the truth,” said Felicia Ford, who lost her house in the fire. “What’s wrong with saying, ‘We got this wrong.’”
Scott Johnson, an Edison spokesperson, said Friday that the company continued to believe its voluntary compensation program was the best way to help victims of the fire. Edison has promised to quickly review each victim’s claim and pay it swiftly if approved.
Families who lost their homes can receive hundreds of thousands of dollars under the program, while those with damaged homes receive lesser amounts.
But many survivors say they don’t believe the offered amounts fully compensate their losses. And to receive the money, victims must agree not to sue — which many are not willing to do.
“We recognize the incredible struggles the community has faced,” Johnson said. “The intent of the program is to reach final settlements to allow the community to rebuild and move on.”
The investigation into the cause of the fire has not yet been released. Edison has said a leading theory is that its century-old transmission line in Eaton Canyon, which had not carried electricity for 50 years, somehow became reenergized and sparked the fire.
Company executives said they did not remove the old line because they believed it would be used in the future.
Tru Williams said he just wants to get his parents back home.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
In December, state regulators ordered Edison to identify fire risks on its 355 miles of out-of service transmission lines located in areas of high fire risk and tell regulators how executives planned to use the lines in the future.
This week, Edison disclosed that the Los Angeles County district attorney was investigating whether Edison should be criminally prosecuted for its actions in the fire.
West Altadena became one of L.A.’s first middle-class Black neighborhoods in the 1960s, partly because discriminatory redlining practices for years kept Black homebuyers from settling east of Lake Avenue.
Heavenly Hughes, co-founder of My Tribe Rise, told the crowd she had lived in Altadena for 50 years.
“I was raised in a thriving working-class community and they have destroyed that community,” Hughes said, referring to Edison.
Added Ford, “The people making these decisions aren’t suffering at all. They’re still getting their paychecks, bonuses and stock options.”
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TEMPE, Ariz. — A year ago, in his first spring training as a professional, Christian Moore thought he knew what it took to be a major leaguer.
Now, he knows.
“Last year, you think you’re training for it,” the Angels’ infielder said. “At least this year having those 50 games of experience, now I understand what I’m going up against every day, the level of competition and where my mind and body needs to be. It was awesome having that experience and having that going into the offseason.”
Moore, 23, comes into camp as the strong candidate to be the everyday second baseman, but it’s still a job he has to win. There are veterans like Adam Frazier, Chris Taylor and Nick Madrigal, and even young players like Kyren Paris also in the mix.
The Angels are also experimenting with Moore at third base. When oft-injured third baseman Yoán Moncada is out, the Angels best lineup might be with Moore at third and a better defender at second.
The eighth pick in the 2024 draft, Moore has the prospect pedigree to handle the job. He needs to clean up some of the rough spots that were exposed during his 53-game rookie season in 2025.
Moore hit .198 with a .655 OPS. He hit seven homers. He also struck out 62 times, for a 34% strikeout rate. The major league average is 22%.
That’s why one of his points of emphasis in the winter was shortening his swing.
“Last year I got a little too big at times,” Moore said. “Not saying I was trying to leave the yard, but definitely trying to hit the ball hard. But these guys throw the ball hard enough, if I can just put the barrel on it, I’m a strong guy. Not saying it’ll jump over the wall, but I can put a good swing on it. Just trying to shorten up and see what can happen.”
Manager Kurt Suzuki pulled his answers directly from Player Development 101 when explaining that what Moore really needs is experience.
“It’s just being in big situations,” Suzuki said. “We see the talent. The talent is there. It’s just getting reps. The guy is working hard every day.”
Predictably, Suzuki also wouldn’t place a timetable on Moore becoming the player the organization thinks he can be.
“Players develop at their own pace,” Suzuki said. “With Christian being how talented he is, we’ll see how it goes this camp. See what he does.”
While Angels fans still haven’t seen what Moore can become, an opposing manager has a good idea.
New Giants manager Tony Vitello was Moore’s coach at the University of Tennessee, where they won a national championship in 2024.
“I think he can become a guy in the lineup that everybody else is game-planning around on the opposing team because he’s a thorn in their side,” Vitello said last week. “One of the reasons he is that is because he can really adjust. He thinks his way through at-bats. In the cage when he’s preparing, it’s not just to get swings or to feel good, it’s with a purpose and to put together a game plan on how he’s going to have success.”
Looking back at how Moore adjusted through his time at Tennessee, Vitello said he expects Moore to use last season’s experience to grow.
“It’s good for him to get his feet wet because it is a little bit more of a marathon in pro ball than it is a sprint in college,” Vitello said. “He’s someone that was really fun to watch grow up, and somebody we have no chance of winning a national championship without.”
Suzuki said right-handers Ben Joyce and Robert Stephenson each need to continue throwing in the bullpen before taking the next step, which would be facing hitters. He’s nonetheless optimistic about the progress that both are making in returning from their respective injuries. “Every time I talk to Ben and I talk to Stephenson, they are both chomping at the bit, ready to go,” Suzuki said. “That’s a good sign. They’re both feeling good. They’re both excited where they are. And that’s all we can ask right now.” …
Right-hander Caden Dana is still limited in his workouts because of an illness that has dogged him for the entire first two weeks of spring training. “He’s not doing the full strenuous workouts,” Suzuki said. “He’s coming in, playing catch and then going home.”
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MILAN — For much of Sunday’s gold medal final every time the chant of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” started it was quickly drowned out by “CAN-A-DA! CAN-A-DA! CAN-A-DA!” from largely Canadian crowd.
Jack Hughes would give the Americans the last word.
Hughes’ overtime goal gave Team USA a 2-1 victory and its first Olympic gold medal in nearly a half-century, igniting a chorus of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” that echoed through Canada’s stunned silence at Milano Cortina Ice Hockey Arena and across two countries on either side of the border.
Canada outshot the U.S. 41-26 during regulation but couldn’t find a second goal, and then had to survive a potentially fatal double minor on Sam Bennett late in the third period.
Bennett caught Hughes in the face during play along the boards behind the Canada goal. Team Canada would play two men down for four of the regulation’s final 6:49.
Canada withstood the U.S. power play for nearly 3 minutes when Hughes, himself, was called for high sticking with 3:23 remaining. After both teams played at full strength for 49 seconds.
Again Canada missed a series of chances. Sam Reinhart missed wide. So did Macklin Celebrini before regulation ran out.
The U.S. struck first Sunday.
Team USA forward Matt Boldy picked up the puck near his own blue line, flipped it between two defenders and bore down on Canada goalie Jordan Binnington, juking before flipping a backhand past him for a 1-0 lead with 14:00 remaining in the opening period.
Canada dominated the second period but missed two prime scoring opportunities. The first came with 14 minutes left in the period when Connor McDavid broke loose into the open with only U.S. goaltender Connor Hellebuyck to beat but couldn’t get a shot off before skating into Hellebuyck.
The second came when Team USA’s Charlie McAvoy was whistled for hooking at 10:33 and then Jake Guentzel was penalized for holding 28 seconds later.
But Canada couldn’t take advance of the two-man advantage and the U.S. continued to lead until Team Canada defender Cale Makar scored with 1:44 left in the second period. After a face off on the U.S. end the puck got tied up along the boards before Canada defender Devon Toews found Makar wide open at the top of the right face off circle where he flicked shot over Hellebuyck’s right shoulder inside the post.
Toews missed an opportunity to put Canada up early in the third period. On the edge of the crease, an open space in the goal right in front of him, Toews somehow sent a shot wide of the goal.
Canada missed another prime scoring chance at 15:40 when Celebrini hopped on a blocked shot deflection near his own blue line streaked toward the U.S., firing a low shot that struck Hellebuyck’s outstretched right pad. With just inside 11 minutes remaining, Canada’s Nathan MacKinnon hit the post.
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Gardening writer Jeanette Marantos died Feb. 7 at age 70 while on assignment in Riverside. She was born in Riverside, too, on March 13, 1955, and spent nearly half her life here.
Riverside was her native soil.
“We attended the same United Methodist Church in Riverside in our early days, both graduated from Poly High and then UC Riverside, and we both worked for The Press-Enterprise,” Kris Lovekin, a retired reporter and friend of Marantos’, tells me. “She was a great observer of life.”
Marantos joined the P-E in 1973 while in college. Among her unglamorous duties over the next six years: taking dictation from correspondents in the field, writing headlines for the bridge and advice columns and compiling weather data.
Yet all these years later, Bill Linehan, then a copy editor, remembers her vividly as “outgoing and effervescent,” saying, “She would enter the newsroom with good-natured energy.”
Marantos moved on in 1980 to Washington, where she reported for The Wenahatchee World and taught high school journalism, before returning to Riverside — everyone returns eventually — in 2014. Hired the next year by the Los Angeles Times, she had a grim assignment: the Homicide Report series.
The newspaper tracked every homicide in Los Angeles County and wrote profiles of each victim to humanize the death toll.
Marantos is said to have relished the work. But after three years of attending funerals and speaking with grieving or angry family members, all of this while living in Riverside, she contributed some change-of-pace stories about gardening, a lifelong passion.
“She was always a gardener and loved native plants,” a son, Dimitri Smith, tells me.
Reader interest was high. The Times gave her a new assignment, dubbed the plants beat.
Gardens, farmers markets and California native plants were regular topics of her stories and monthly newsletter. Expansively, she also covered topics like human composting, the Eaton and Palisades fire sites, and wildlife crossings.
In 2021, after her husband’s death, she left Riverside for Ventura, where she bought a house around the corner from Dimitri, his wife and their newborn son, and filled her garden with sunflowers, edibles and vegetables.
On Feb. 6, the plants beat brought her back to Riverside for a California Native Plant Society conference.
She was driving out of town afterward when she suffered a torn aorta. At Riverside Community Hospital, she underwent emergency surgery and, seven hours later, died.
“It could have happened anywhere. It just happened to occur near the hospital where she was born,” Dimitri says. “She was born and died in the same hospital.”
A writer of Marantos’ talents could really have done something with that.
Let me catch up on some other Riverside items, starting with my Feb. 1 column on the State of the City event, which was themed “Leveling Up.”
“I enjoyed your column this morning. Had more ‘meat’ than usual!! But could you possibly explain what the heck ‘leveling up’ means??” asks a puzzled Mary Sue Berkley.
Improving, in a word. “Leveling up” was originally a video game term that referred to players advancing to the next level and unlocking new abilities. Now it’s a buzzword applied to aspects of real life.
Rather than meat, reader Tracy Kahn found that column to be mostly gristle.
She calls it “a string of complaints, many baseless and superficial, such as having to go walk down from the parking lot and take an escalator.”
Advises Tracy: “You seem not to like Riverside so perhaps you should refrain from writing about Riverside in the future.”
Can I at least finish today’s column?
In that same column, I referenced a Riverside Raising Cane’s restaurant with oversized lemon sculptures and a lemon-themed mural facing the busy three-way corner of Magnolia, Central and Brockton avenues. I wondered: “Why do the Riverside-themed sculptures outside the restaurant depict lemons, not oranges?”
Reader Dan Meier believes the lemons are there as a tribute to the Palm Heights neighborhood’s history as a lemon-growing district. Cane’s is right across Central from the old boundary.
“So, the lemons are more historically correct for the location, even though the parent navel orange is only a few blocks down the road,” Meier says.
Superfan Tracy Kahn, meanwhile, informs me: “You don’t know a lot about Riverside since you think oranges were the only citrus that was grown here. The lemon sculptures outside Raising Cane’s are perfectly appropriate and very attractive.”
I asked historian and lifelong Riversider Steve Lech about all this.
“To my knowledge, lemons were never a large crop here in Riverside, but in Corona,” Lech replies. “I decided the lemons are there because Cane’s is known for their lemonade, which is their signature drink, not because of lemons being grown here.”
A representative of the city’s Planning Department, supplied with both theories, settles the matter.
“Cane’s presented the art installation to staff as part of the entitlement process,” the staffer writes. “They chose to include lemons as it aligned with their menu. Bingo!”
Newspaperman Ben Bradlee Jr. is best known for his investigative role at the Boston Globe, which made him part of the Oscar-winning newsroom drama “Spotlight.” He got his start in the 1970s at The Press-Enterprise, as I wrote here Feb. 8.
That column quoted one of his P-E editors, Marcia McQuern, who told me Bradlee Jr. had arrived in Riverside as “a green kid” who “became a very good reporter.”
Some retired P-E journos hadn’t known much about Bradlee Jr.’s time at the paper and thanked me for filling in the gaps.
Bradlee Jr. himself tells me the column brought back a lot of positive memories. He adds, “I’m glad Marcia McQuern thinks I finally got it together!”
In a first, my employers are organizing a public event around me, me, me. I’ll be reading, talking, meeting, greeting and answering questions between sips of coffee from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, March 1, at Back to the Grind, 3575 University Ave., in Riverside. You have to register in advance at scng.com/davidallen because of limited capacity. Hitting capacity has, uh, never been an issue with my previous talks, so this might be another first.
David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, his upper limit. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339 and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.
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Do you follow your intuition? We all have it, but many people fail to follow their innermost feelings. The dictionary defines intuition as “The ability to understand something immediately, without…
The post Believing in the Magic—and the Reality—of Intuition appeared first on BahaiTeachings.org.
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Social media addiction has been compared to casinos, opioids and cigarettes.
While there’s some debate among experts about the line between overuse and addiction, and whether social media can cause the latter, there is no doubt that many people feel like they can’t escape the pull of Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and other platforms.
The companies that designed your favorite apps have an incentive to keep you glued to them so they can serve up ads that make them billions of dollars in revenue. Resisting the pull of the endless scroll, the dopamine hits from short-form videos and the ego boost and validation that come from likes and positive interactions, can seem like an unfair fight. For some people, “rage-bait,” gloomy news and arguing with internet strangers also have an irresistible draw.
Much of the concern around social media addiction has focused on children. But adults are also susceptible to using social media so much that it starts affecting their day-to-day lives.
Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, defines addiction as “the continued compulsive use of a substance or behavior despite harm to self or others.”
During her testimony at a landmark social media harms trial in Los Angeles, Lembke said that what makes social media platforms so addictive is the “24/7, really limitless, frictionless access” people have to them.
Some researchers question whether addiction is the appropriate term to describe heavy use of social media, arguing that a person must be experiencing identifiable symptoms. These include strong, sometimes uncontrollable urges and withdrawal to qualify as addiction.
Social media addiction is not recognized as an official disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the standard reference psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners use to assess and treat patients. That’s partly because there is no widespread consensus on what constitutes social media addiction and whether underlying mental health issues contribute to problematic use.
But just because there is no official agreement on the issue doesn’t mean excessive social media use can’t be harmful, some experts say.
“For me, the biggest signpost is how does the person feel about the ‘amount,’ and how viewing it makes them feel,” said Dr. Laurel Williams, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. “If what they discover is they view it so much that they are missing out on other things they may enjoy or things that they need to attend to, this is problematic use. Additionally, if you leave feeling overwhelmed, drained, sad, anxious, angry regularly, this use is not good for you.”
In other words, is your use of social media affecting other parts of your life? Are you putting off chores, work, hobbies or time with friends and family? Have you tried to cut back your time but realized you were unable to? Do you feel bad about your social media use?
Ofir Turel, a professor of information systems management at the University of Melbourne who has studied social media use for years, said there was “no agreement” over the term social media addiction, and he doesn’t “expect agreement soon.”
“It’s obvious that we have an issue,” Turel said. “You don’t have to call it an addiction, but there is an issue and we need, as a society, to start thinking about it.”
Before setting limits on scrolling, it’s helpful to understand how social media feeds and advertising work to draw in users, Williams said.
“Think of social media as a company trying to get you to stay with them and buy something — have the mindset that this is information that I don’t need to act on and may not be true,” she added. “Get alternate sources of information. Always understand the more you see something, anyone can start to believe it is true.”
Ian A. Anderson, a postdoctoral scholar at California Institute of Technology, suggests making small, meaningful changes to stop you from opening your social media app of choice. Moving the app’s place on your phone or turning off notifications are “light touch interventions,” but more involved options, like not bringing your phone into the bedroom or other places where you tend to use it, could also help, Anderson said.
Tech tools can also help to cut back on tech overuse. Both iPhones and Android devices have onboard controls to help regulate screen time.
Apple’s Screen Time controls are found in the iPhone’s settings menu. Users can set overall Downtime, which shuts off all phone activity during a set period of their choice.
The controls also let users put a blanket restriction on certain categories of apps, such as social, games or entertainment or zero in on a specific app, by limiting the time that can be spent on it.
The downside is that the limits aren’t hard to get around. It’s more of a nudge than a red line that you can’t cross. If you try to open an app with a limit, you’ll get a screen menu offering one more minute, a reminder after 15 minutes, or to completely ignore it.
If a light touch isn’t working, more drastic steps might be necessary. Some users swear by turning their phones to gray-scale to make it less appealing to dopamine-seeking brains. On iPhones, adjust the color filter in your settings. For Android, turn on Bedtime Mode or tweak the color correction setting. Downgrading to a simpler phone, such as an old-school flip phone, could also help curb social media compulsions.
Some startups, figuring that people might prefer a tangible barrier, offer hardware solutions that introduce physical friction between you and an app. Unpluq, for instance, is a yellow tag that you have to hold up to your phone in order to access blocked apps. Brick and Blok are two different products that work along the same lines — they’re squarish pieces of plastic that you have to tap or scan with your phone to unlock an app.
If that’s not enough of an obstacle, you could stash away your phone entirely. There are various phone lockboxes and cases available, some of them designed so parents can lock up their teenagers’ phones when they’re supposed to be sleeping, but there’s no rule that says only teenagers can use them.
Yondr, which makes portable phone locking pouches used at concerts or in schools, also sells a home phone box.
If all else fails, it may be a good idea to look for deeper reasons for feeling addicted to social media. Maybe it’s a symptom of underlying problems like anxiety, stress, loneliness, depression or low self-esteem. If you think that’s the case, it could be worth exploring therapy that is becoming more widely available.
“For people struggling to stay away — see if you can get a friend group to collaborate with you on it. Make it a group effort. Just don’t post about it! The more spaces become phone free, the more we may see a lessened desire to be ‘on,’” Williams said.
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