For the first time in two decades, cigarette sales increased last year. Holy smokes! Stop lighting up, already. On top of all the well-established cancer and heart disease risks of tobacco, studies from early in the pandemic suggested that smokers who develop COVID-19 are 14 times more likely to need intensive treatment compared with nonsmokers.
Fear, despair, grief — these are all normal responses to our current climate crisis. Even if you haven't experienced direct, profound harm from the recent floods, wildfires or extreme weather changes aggravated by climate change you may still be feeling anxious and stressed. The good news is there are ways to deal with those feelings and (even better) channel them into useful action.
Not sure if you need a COVID vaccine booster? There's a quiz for that
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If you’re feeling a little lost in all the details about who is currently supposed to get a vaccine booster, take our quick quiz to understand what's advised in your situation.
Beyond using a good sunscreen, this editor can get pretty overwhelmed by all the lotions and potions many skin care companies swear we need (serum, toner, day cream, night cream, exfoliators ... aaagggh!). What really is the best, low-maintenance way to keep our skin glowing and healthy, whatever our age?
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Good Halloween morning. I’m Scott Simon, though I’m considering changing my name toMeta.
Danny Hensel and Ed McNulty have produced this NPR-style scholarly dissection of the Donald Glover-Tracy Morgan 2007 classic, Werewolf Bar Mitzvah. Some argue it’s the greatest Halloween song of all time, though we should note, the competition in that category is limited, isn’t it?
We spoke this week with Reggie Rock Bythewood, director of Swagger, a new Apple+ series set among youth basketball clubs. NBA superstar Kevin Durant is a co-executive producer, and several storylines are drawn from his experience. I found the series both exciting and unsettling with many scenes of great, convincing basketball. As Mr. Bythewood says, athletic and acting talent aren’t always in the same package. I mean, could Lord Laurence Olivier slam-dunk?
The most inspiring story I think I heard this week is about Dr. Dean McKenzie, a famed pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon. He had a slow-moving blood cancer for years and had accepted that death was near. But Dr. Eduardo Suarez heard that his former med school teacher was in trouble, and persuaded his mentor to let him proceed with a bi-lateral lung transplant. He’s doing fine. Stories like this don’t always make the news. But they can lift hearts.
Our daughters recently broke the news to me that I have always gotten more excited over Halloween than them. Costumes! Candy! Shrieks and cuteness at every doorbell ring! But this year, I wondered if we need any more frights in our lives and suggest ways trick-or-treaters might deck themselves out in these vexing times.
Scott Simon
Scott Simon is one of NPR's most renowned news anchors. He is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday and one of the hosts of the morning news podcast Up First. Be sure to listen to him every Saturday on your local NPR station, and follow him on Twitter.
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by Jill Hudson
Stories You May Have Missed
Joshua White/The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
There's an art face-off at the Huntington Museum of Art near Los Angeles. The contenders are Thomas Gainsborough's 18th-century painting Blue Boy and Kehinde Wiley's very 21st-century Portrait of a Young Gentleman. At the show's center is a story about race in the history of art.
Scientists now have an idea about what COVID-19's endgame will look like.Read more here.
Several organizations are offering toolkits, legal advice and other resources for parents with grievances against their local elected school boards. Click here to read the story.
Photographer/Source
National Geographic photographer David Doubilet first dove below the surface at age 8 and has spent a lifetime making underwater images.Click here to see more images from his new book: Two Worlds: Above and Below the Sea.
If you've not yet succumbed to the pleasures of opera, NPR's Tom Huizenga has a list of five scenes that will make you fall in love with the art form — from a crazy day at Mozart's diner to a trippy trip to China with Richard Nixon.
Podcasts Of The Week
Hokyoung Kim
Halloween has religious origins that spans more than two thousand years. The Catholic Church, pagan groups, and even the brewing company Coors have played a role in shape-shifting the holiday. How did it morph from a spiritual celebration to a multi-billion dollar industry? (Throughline)
Parents just don't understand the race thing — or do they? How do you create boundaries with immigrant parents? What dynamics might interracial couples bring to families? And why do so many Black parents want to prevent their kids from looking "too grown"? (Code Switch)
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