World’s richest 1% increased wealth by $33.9 trillion

…since 2015 (one decade). Yes, that’s “trillion” with a “T.” $33,900 billion. $33,900,000 millions.

That amount is “more than enough to eliminate annual poverty 22 times over” when calculating at the World Bank’s highest poverty line of $8.30 per day, the group said in a news release…
Billionaires alone — about 3,000 people worldwide, the overwhelming majority of whom are men — have gained $6.5 trillion since 2015.

I found this quote somewhere, and it’s sounding better and better:

No more billionaires. None. After you reach $999 million, every red cent goes to schools and healthcare. You get a trophy that says, “I won capitalism,” and we name a dog park after you. — Mikel Jollett

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/26/billionaires-wealth-inequality-trillion-oxfam / (700 words).

And good news from Fix the News:

Younger generations are less likely to have dementia. A huge study of over 150,000 people in Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States has found that people born in the mid-1940s are up to half as likely to have dementia as those born in the 1920s, with the biggest drop among women. Researchers think better schooling, cleaner air, and heart healthcare are pushing the disease back, which could ease the pressure on future nursing homes and carers. Guardian

Decriminalizing drugs: Portugal vs Oregon

It seems to me that decriminalizing many kinds of drug use reduces several problems (policing, health care, crimes to raise money for drugs) into fewer, better problems (treatment). Portugal is trying this: “Portugal saw a 75 percent drop in drug deaths since it adopted the same strategy in 2001 through 2022.”

Oregon tried this too, but is backing down since they didn’t see rapid results:

Portugal’s success, they point out, wasn’t achieved overnight or even in three years.

Oregon’s experiment “was not given the time that it needed,” said Tera Hurst, the executive director of Oregon’s Health Justice Recovery Alliance.”…

Hurst and other decriminalization advocates said the law didn’t succeed because of problems with implementation: a failure to fund new treatment services for 18 months after the law passed, a failure to train police on their new role in addressing addiction, and a failure to direct drug users to treatment.

Approx 2,000 words: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/28/oregon-drug-criminalization-portugal-00148872.

And good news from Fix the News:

British authorities are using hospital data, youth outreach, and city planning to prevent violence, with incredible results. To take one example, the number of men seeking treatment after Saturday night fights has dropped by 55% over the past decade, with 65% of the decline driven by fewer 18- to 30-year-olds getting into fights. A rise in teetotal 16- to 24-year-olds – from 18% to 28% – suggests changing drinking habits could be behind the shift, alongside preventative policing. The Economist 🗄️

FYI: abbreviating texts

People don’t like abbreviations in texts (and I won’t try to be funny by putting abbrevs here).

Abbreviations in text messages register as insincere to recipients, who then send shorter and fewer responses (if they bother to reply at all). “I was surprised at how significant the negative results were,” David Fang, a doctoral student in behavioral marketing at Stanford University, says. “Abbreviations are quite subtle—they’re not really a blatant transgression. But people can see you’re taking a shortcut and putting less effort into typing, and that triggers a negative perception.”

People described messages with abbreviations as being less sincere than those without any, and indicated that they weren’t inclined to reply.

Interestingly, the effects held true among different age groups—from savvy Gen-Z texters to those who probably didn’t know what half of the abbreviations meant. Though some might think of abbreviations as youthful or hip, young people don’t actually like them. “Younger people dislike abbreviations just as much as older people,” Fang says. “It’s equally negative.”

Link (1,100 words): https://time.com/7176277/text-abbreviations-insincere-texting/.

And good news from Fix the News:

Crime in the United States has plummeted. So why don’t Americans feel safe? In city after city, violent crime has declined so much that the murder rate in the United States in 2025 may drop to the lowest level since records began in 1960. If those were the good ol’ days, then so are these. NYT

Everyone’s obviously obsessing about Los Angeles right now, but for what it’s worth, here are this year’s murder rates in big US cities as of May 2025: