Your weekend must reads📰
👋Good morning! Welcome to The Short List weekend edition✨, where we look back at some of Paste BN's best stories from the past week. I'm John Riley, and I hope that whatever you're doing, you stay out of the swamp (unlike this unlucky golfer at the PGA Championship).👏
Now, here are your must-read stories.
School avoidance soars in COVID's wake
🏫Since the pandemic, more students are refusing to attend school or are having difficulty being in school for the entire day. Mental health experts told Paste BN that school-avoidant behavior has soared, with parents feeling hopeless and schools unequipped to find a solution. "Our waiting list is like 180 families right now," said Jonathan Dalton, a licensed psychologist who offers treatment to those affected in Maryland and Virginia. Read more
- Falling behind: K-12 students lost a year of learning during COVID-19
Bank fraud prevention: Whose job should it be?
💵When Janine Satterfield's uncle passed away, she asked a neighbor to go into his home for his documents. The neighbor instead sent photos of international wire transfers Larry Cook made in amounts as large as $49,500, most of them to Thailand. Satterfield discovered Cook had become a victim of a scam that led him to transfer over $3.6 million out of the country. After his death, his niece couldn't stop wondering: Why did the banks allow all of these large transfers to go through? Read more
When words hurt: A senator's 'vulgar and racist' comments
🟣GOP Sen. John Kennedy sparked a backlash this week with his comments at a recent hearing on drug trafficking. "Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback," the Louisiana lawmaker said. Paste BN's David Oliver followed up with a smart story on the effects of hateful rhetoric in politics. "By making attention-grabbing statements, politicians can increase their visibility, shape the narrative surrounding an issue, appeal to their base of supporters, or even provoke a reaction from opponents," said Brad Fulton, an associate professor at Indiana University-Bloomington. Read more
Mysterious disappearances in Florida: 'The Last Ride' podcast
🎙️The Last Ride is a true crime podcast about two young men of color who went missing in Naples, Florida, nearly two decades ago after they were last seen with the same white sheriff's deputy. The eight-episode podcast reveals painful truths about police accountability and media coverage of missing people. The final episode in the series dropped this week. Binge all the episodes now
There are more great reads below. 👇 I hope you have a great weekend. See you next Saturday!