'The program long ago ceased to be temporary help'

'The case for fixing food stamps'

The Wall Street Journal editorial board

Food stamp "enrollment doesn't shrink any longer in a strong economy as it should, and the rolls include millions of adults who can work," says The Wall Street Journal editorial board. The "program is contributing to one of America's most pressing social ailments: Prime-age men attenuated from work and its attendant disciplines and contributions to society." Congress "can crack down on the waiver offenses and make work a centerpiece of the program." But the "food stamp dysfunction runs deeper."

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'Smartphones are finally getting expelled'

John Herrman at New York magazine

New York's school smartphone ban "marks a tipping point: Whatever you think of the broad, bipartisan, passionate, but also sort of disorganized and confused campaign to ban smartphones from classrooms, it's winning," says John Herrman. The "move toward full-day bans comes down to enforceability." Keeping "kids from messing around while their teachers are trying to teach is a no-brainer, and the sort of thing for which there's plenty of public support." But the "conversation has shifted away from educators' concerns."

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'What my two 98-year-old patients taught me about longevity'

Dr. Eric Topol at Time

Doctors "can accurately forecast heart disease as well as the other major diseases of aging in high-risk individuals many decades earlier and achieve primary prevention, or, at the very least, a marked delay," says Dr. Eric Topol. Doctors "can't promise to reverse or halt aging itself, but we can promise that the second half of our lives can be much healthier." This is the "type of health span extension that we will be seeing far more commonly in the future."

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'Harvard talks free speech but silences Palestine'

Lara Jirmanus at Al Jazeera

Harvard has "fashioned itself as a free-speech warrior on the national stage for refusing to negotiate with the Trump administration," but it has "capitulated to the demands of its billionaire donors in matters of student discipline, campus speech and academic freedom," says Lara Jirmanus. Harvard "adopted a one-sided conceptualisation of campus safety, in which speaking up against Israeli state violence towards Palestinians is considered threatening. Harvard's leaders "also routinely take action to erase Palestinian speech, scholarship, advocacy and views."

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