By Luke Ramseth @ SLTrib.com, July 1

[....] “Growing evidence, based on large data sets, suggests that altitude of residence is specifically associated with increased risk of suicide and depression,” conclude a trio of University of Utah researchers, who recently published their review of medical literature in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. They found altitude also may make popular antidepressants less effective.

Experts suggest many factors play into the state’s high suicide rate, from widespread gun ownership, to a stoic cowboy mentality that is common in some rural Western communities, to the influence of religion.

Last year, Utah hired a researcher, Michael Staley, to dig into what’s behind the problem, part of an effort to develop better prevention programs.But it appears at least one leading driver behind Utah’s suicide rate — which ranked fifth in the nation in 2016 — is simply the mountainous geography.

Low atmospheric pressure at altitude causes declining blood oxygen levels. This affects the body’s levels of serotonin [....]

By Deidre Fernandez & Laura Krantz @ BostonGlobe.com, July 1

Lawrence Bacow has a new vision for Harvard University and it will take him all the way to . . . Michigan.  Bacow, who becomes the Ivy League institution’s 29th president this month, is out to shed Harvard’s image as a Northeast enclave for the country’s elite, in the age of President Trump’s muscular populism.

In a bid to win over middle America, Bacow is venturing into Trump country and plans to visit Pontiac, Mich., a once-thriving automobile city that has fallen on hard times. Bacow, who grew up in Pontiac, plans to announce that Harvard will collaborate with schools and other institutions in that community.

“The world has changed,” Bacow said. “We are well-represented already along the coasts. I’m not sure people in the part of the country where I grew up appreciate as much what institutions like this contribute to their welfare as well.” In an interview last week, Bacow promised [....]

The hyperlocal social-media platform highlights small grievances—and proves that neighbors have more in common than they think.

By Ian Bogost for The Atlantic July/August issue, available now online without charge

[.....] Social networks connect people, but many of those connections degrade into vitriol. If Twitter is where you fight with strangers, and Facebook is where you vie with friends, then Nextdoor is where you get annoyed with neighbors—for sending “urgent alerts,” pushed late at night to mobile phones, about questionable emergencies; for trying to sell a tattered massage table or used carpet shampooer at near-retail price; for issuing nasty reprisals on matters large and small. But it can also foster connections among neighbors and help counter the social isolation brought about by technology [....]

Thanks to its popularity, the service offers a unique window into daily life around the country. Nextdoor’s virtual communities—which cover more than 180,000 U.S. neighborhoods, including more than 90 percent of those in the 25 largest cities—are becoming representative of the country’s actual populations [....]

By Emily Birnbaum @ TheHill.com, July 1

New York Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday said her self-identification as a democratic socialist is “part of what I am, it’s not all of what I am.”

Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" that while the public has been focused on her endorsement by the Democratic Socialists of America, she won by creating a “broad-based coalition of people.” [....]

with Video from Meet the Press, where she says this is not about labels, this is not about left vs. right divisiveness, this is about top and bottom and she notably mentions a lefty label for Trump derisively, as useless and counterproductive.

By Fiona Sturges @ FT.com, July 1

In 2015 the British journalist Alex Marshall came across a song online. Sung in French, it had a catchy melody and sounded, he thought, like a “Parisian Bieber”, though closer inspection revealed it to be far from a regular pop song: “We need to enter France,” went the lyrics. “It’s time for it to be humiliated. We want to see suffering and death by the thousand.” Eight months after it appeared online, a string of terrorist attacks occurred in Paris, the biggest of which saw 90 music fans murdered during a concert at the Bataclan theatre. In The Music of Isis, the first episode in the American podcast series Pitch, Marshall looks at the use of songs by Islamic militant groups to boost the jihadist cause. Music is usually meant to be joyful and unifying, though the songs by Isis, which usually forbids listening to or making music, are made to divide and destroy [....]

By Hannah Giorgis @ TheAtlantic.com, June 29

On Tuesday, Brooklyn Nine-Nine star and former NFL linebacker Terry Crews testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to advocate for H.R. 5578, the bill often referred to as the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights. In a stirring, vulnerable account, Crews detailed the profound impact of the sexual assault he first alleged last October in a series of tweets. [....]

Since the first few days after [....] watershed investigations into the alleged predations of Harvey Weinstein, Crews has lent his voice—and his stature—to the subsequent outpouring of #MeToo narratives. The actor is not new to addressing toxic masculinity; he has been advocating against men’s allegiance to harmful gender roles for years. His 2014 book, Manhood: How to Be a Better Man—or Just Live With One, traced the actor’s experiences with living alongside an alcoholic father, admitting to a pornography addiction, and slowly abandoning the “Marlboro Man” ideal of masculinity. But now he has named himself as an affected party rather than just an enthusiastic ally [....]

It is difficult to overstate the visceral impact—and rarity—of seeing a black man, one as statuesque and imposing as Crews, step forward to identify himself as a survivor of sexual assault and reject external demands that he bury his shame. Crews has spoken at length about the tenacity of shame, the way it embeds itself more deeply in survivors’ psyches with each dismissal of their accounts. He has acknowledged that his race and size render his story unbelievable to some, that those same factors kept him from responding to his alleged assailant with violence for fear of being stereotyped as a “thug”—or facing violence at the hands of police [....]

By Ed Pilkington @ TheGuardian.com, June 28 with videos & photos

Nearly 600 protesters, mostly women, were arrested on Thursday after they staged a non-violent action in the heart of a US Senate office building in Washington against Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy towards immigrants and separation of families at the border.

The mass protest was one of several demonstrations that erupted across the country, providing a taste of what are expected to be much larger demonstrations on Saturday called by the Women’s March and the Center for Popular Democracy Action. The rallies are likely to get a further boost as a result of the announcement on Wednesday by Anthony Kennedy that he is retiring from the US supreme court, providing Trump with the chance to make a second ultra-conservative appointment to the nation’s highest court and prompting fears of a rollback of liberal protections [....]

By Katie Bo Williams, Olivia Beavers & Morgan Chalfant @ TheHill.com, June 28, 5:57pm

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday faced a fierce grilling from House Republicans amid the escalating feud between the Justice Department and allies of President Trump on Capitol Hill.

The five-hour hearing before the House Judiciary Committee contained plenty of fireworks as that feud spilled over into public view.

By the time Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) gaveled out, it was clear the GOP was still deeply unsatisfied by the department’s response to their demands [.....]