Emergency Triad: The United States commits imperial suicide.
The Global Decline in the Mental Health of the Young
One of the major findings in wellbeing research until recently was that happiness was U-shaped by age and unhappiness hump-shaped by age. There was a midlife crisis — a finding reported in well over 600 published papers using data on 145 countries. It was present in both developing and developed countries. And it was persistent over time. The finding of a peak in ill-being in midlife was consistent with Anne Case and Angus Deaton’s work on mortality and the so-called “deaths of despair.”1 In the US in particular and to a lesser extent in other countries, White prime-aged individuals without a college degree had high death rates from suicide, drug overdoses, and cirrhosis of the liver. Drug overdose deaths in the US, for example, peaked at midlife ages. In 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that overdose death rates per 100,000 by age rose from 13.5 for 15-to-24-year-olds to 45.6 for 25-to-34-year-olds and 60.8 for 35-to-44-year-olds, and then declined to 53.3 for 45-to-54-year-olds, 49.2 for 55-to-64-year-olds, and 14.7 for those over the age of 65.2 The morbidity data matched the mortality data.
The Longest Suicide Note in American History
The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy targets liberal democracy itself.
United States: Year of Extrajudicial Killings at Sea
Today marks one year since the United States began an unlawful campaign of lethal military strikes targeting vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, claiming 227 lives. US officials should be urgently held to account for these killings, Human Rights Watch said today.
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United …
A pathbreaking history of the United States' overseas p…
The War on Terror Approaches Its Final Form
ICE executes the nonwhite while the White House and State Department look to declare the U.S. left a Foreign Terrorist Organization. We've been heading here since 9/11
Trump DoD Axed a Program Meant to Limit Civilian Casualties — ProPublica
The Pentagon dismantled its civilian protection mission as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made “lethality” a top priority and the Trump administration reorganized national security around two principles: more aggression, less accountability.
Why Do Americans Have Shorter Life Expectancy and Worse Health Than Do People in Other High-Income Countries?
Americans lead shorter and less healthy lives than do people in other high-income countries. We review the evidence and explanations for these variations in longevity and health. Our overview suggests that the US health disadvantage applies to multiple mortality and morbidity outcomes. The American health disadvantage begins at birth and extends across the life course, and it is particularly marked for American women and for regions in the US South and Midwest. Proposed explanations include differences in health care, individual behaviors, socioeconomic inequalities, and the built physical environment. Although these factors may contribute to poorer health in America, a focus on proximal causes fails to adequately account for the ubiquity of the US health disadvantage across the life course. We discuss the role of specific public policies and conclude that while multiple causes are implicated, crucial differences in social policy might underlie an important part of the US health disadvantage.
Mistakes, mistrust and misdirection: 25 years after 9/11, its dark legacy continues to unfold
The world’s most powerful country responded to the worst terrorist attack in its history by inflicting terror of its own – around the world, and at home
The Defense Reformation
Our nation is in an undeclared state of emergency, and must resurrect the American Industrial Base we depended on in the depths of the Cold War.
Has America Crossed the Asshole Threshold?
Civilizations can carry a surprising number of parasites and live. But there’s a line — Rome crossed it, the Gilded Age toed it, and for the first time in history, we can measure it.
That’s Not the Warsh of It: The End(ish) of Forward Guidance and the Rise(?) of Treasury Monetary Policy
This is a free piece of Notes on the Crises. Take out a paid subscription to support our work here. Publisher Note: I’ve been off for two weeks because of a family medical emergency. Everything is fine now, but as you are likely aware, medical emergencies take up an
Pluralistic: Making sense of Trump’s unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire (16 May 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
For generations, the American empire was the most powerful force on earth, and so we tended to assume that it was the most durable force on earth – surely anything so powerful must also be eternal?
What About the Rapists and Murderers?
Trigger warning: rape, sexual assault, murder, torture, ablelism, trauma.
'A very frightening time': US terror tag endangers UK Palestine Action activists, critics say
Washington's move to designate Palestine Action as a transnational terrorist organisation could place British activists associated with the group at heightened risk of surveillance and being frozen out of the financial system, campaigners warn.
