Not very many television shows can claim that they have helped millions of children. But Sesame Street can. A study first written in 2015 but recently published in the American Economic Journal quantifies just how big a difference the show made, comparing the educational and professional achievements of children who had access to the show compared to those who didn’t.
On Wednesday (Feb. 13), the UK’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) announced it would no longer accept financial contributions from the baby formula industry. That decision will cost the group somewhere around £40,000 ($51,150) a year. The RCPCH was vague about the reasons behind its decision, focusing instead on its support for breastfeeding. But health advocates have celebrated this decision as part of a growing backlash against what is known as “Big Formula“—an industry worth $70 billion that produces and markets breast milk substitutes.
In 2010, Léa Lejeune was just starting out in journalism in Paris when she befriended a few members of the Facebook group called “Ligue du LOL.” The group’s mostly male participants worked in the media, and were impressive in their savvy use of the then-nascent social media platform.
This post has been updated.
The US medical system isn’t particularly good at preventing illness. Once someone is sick, doctors hopefully know how to treat them. But historically, there’s been far less focus on preventing people from needing treatment in the first place.
It’s been a rough few years for toy companies. Kids’ ever-increasing appetite for technological devices—including video-game consoles, laptops, and smartphones—has outpaced their desire for traditional toys, and some say toymakers have been slow to adapt to a changing retail landscape. Last year was particularly dire in the US after Toys R Us, a key retailer, filed for bankruptcy in September 2017 and shut down or sold all of its stores.
The European Commission has confirmed its previous assessment that the euro-zone’s short-lived economic recovery is over. And how!
It’s 11am on a Tuesday morning in Gurgaon, a bustling city southwest of New Delhi. Hundreds of construction workers are laying steel bars around what looks like a pile of rubble—a project that, in two years, will become a massive residential center.
When Nadine Burke Harris, a pediatrician recently appointed to serve as California’s first ever surgeon general, talks about her work, she invariably brings up Diego.
Political turmoil forced leaders of the US, France, and the UK to skip this year’s World Economic Forum. Meanwhile, Davos attendees considered how to stop that from turmoil reaching space.
French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Markel met today (Jan. 22) in Aachen, Germany, to sign a bilateral treaty outlining their two countries’ relationship on matters ranging from defense and diplomacy to culture and commerce.
On Saturday (Jan. 19), 84,000 yellow vests showed up for the movement’s 10th consecutive weekend of protests across France. One day later (Jan. 20), more than 7,000 people (link in French) joined the March for Life in Paris to protest “the trivialization of abortion.” As many journalists noted (link in French), some of the anti-abortion protesters also wore yellow vests.
In 2017, the European Union decided in an unusually dramatic vote to reauthorize the agricultural use of glyphosate, a controversial weedkiller believed by some to cause cancer in humans.
France’s “yellow vest” protests, now in their ninth week and showing no signs of stopping, have put president Emmanuel Macron in the unusual position of having to ask for help.
Stephen Uhlhorn teaches social studies to seventh- and eighth-graders at Western Hill High School in Ohio. And in every class, regardless of the historical period under discussion, there’s one person who’s always on his students’ minds.
Andre Poggenburg, a far-right politician in Germany, stirred controversy yesterday (Jan. 11) when he unveiled his new political party’s logo, which features a symbol used by Austrian Nazis in the 1930s.
If you are like pretty much everyone, you probably have a to-do list filled with seemingly simple tasks that somehow never get done. Instead of tackling the list, items linger and fill you with guilt.
When the family separation crisis began at the US-Mexico border in April 2018, experts warned that keeping children apart from their parents would have consequences on their physical and mental health for years to come. Since then, allegations of child abuse in migrant shelters and the death of two children in Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) custody suggests those concerns were justified.
In a survey conducted last year, the British Red Cross found that only 5% of UK adults would be willing to intervene, or would even know how to, if they saw someone having a potentially life-threatening first aid emergency. The British government is determined to change that.
Actress Angelina Jolie hinted in an interview with the BBC today (Dec. 28) that she might be considering a career in politics.
On June 6, 2019, and for much of the rest of the summer, people across Europe will celebrate the 75th anniversary of D-Day. On that date in 1944, tens of thousands of soldiers, many from the US, UK, and Canada, landed on beaches in Normandy to battle Nazi troops in France.
On the night of Jan. 20, people in North and South America, Greenland, Iceland, and parts of Europe and Africa will get a rare glimpse of a total lunar eclipse. While in ancient times, the moon’s discoloration or disappearance was a terrifying occurrence, today many people consider total lunar eclipses a rare treat. In fact this one, the first since July 2018, will be the last total lunar eclipse until May 2021.
More than 1.7 million people have signed a petition in favor of suing the French government, accusing it of inaction on climate change.
This has been a lackluster year for European Union economies. Amid rising oil prices, uncertainty tied to Brexit, the China-US trade war, and brewing economic crises in Turkey and Italy, the European Commission revised 2019 growth forecasts down (pdf) after very short economic recovery. Meanwhile, domestic protest movements in countries like France, Poland, or Hungary have cast a gloomy shadow.
