Check out these recent articles from around the web:

Without a College Degree, Life in America Is Staggeringly Shorter by Anne Case and Angus Deaton: “There is a deep and persistent national malcontent: In a recent NBC News poll, nearly three-quarters of Americans surveyed said the United States is on the wrong track, and Gallup reported that poor life ratings are at record highs.What the economic statistics obscure in the averages is that there is not one but two Americas — and a clear line demarcating the division is educational attainment. Americans with four-year college degrees are flourishing economically, while those without are struggling.”

An epidemic of chronic illness is killing us too soon by the Washington Post: “Sickness and death are scarring entire communities in much of the country. The geographical footprint of early death is vast: In a quarter of the nation’s counties, mostly in the South and Midwest, working-age people are dying at a higher rate than 40 years ago, The Post found. The trail of death is so prevalent that a person could go from Virginia to Louisiana, and then up to Kansas, by traveling entirely within counties where death rates are higher than they were when Jimmy Carter was president.”

Chug chug chug? Nah. Student desire for booze-free housing growing at local colleges. by Hilary Burns: “Substance-free housing is becoming a more popular choice for students wanting to live away from social pressures and the temptations of alcohol and drugs. Officials with the College of the Holy Cross, Tufts University, and Boston College report a recent uptick in interest from students looking for living environments without alcohol. The reasons range from personal or familial struggles with alcohol, a desire for a healthier lifestyle and deeper relationships, to an increased awareness of the dangers of alcohol.”

Vladimir Putin, like Stalin before him, is weaponizing food by David Bonior: “Now, Russian President Vladimir Putin is tracing Stalin’s footsteps, stealing Ukrainian grain from occupied lands, sabotaging the Nova Kakhovka Dam resulting in the destruction of agricultural lands, and ending the Black Sea Grain Initiative — which will make it impossible for Ukrainian food stocks to be shipped to Africa and Asian countries through the Black Sea. Removing Ukrainian grain from the market is forcing world food prices to escalate, exacerbating ongoing hunger issues in the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan and Yemen.”

To be truly pro-life, the GOP must fix the child care cliff by Kristen Day: “Life begins at conception, but it sure doesn’t end there. That’s why, on behalf of 21 million pro-life Democrats nationwide, I urge pro-life conservatives to join me in telling Congress to fix the child care cliff looming over American families and child care providers. The child care cliff is the term used for the abrupt end of pandemic-era grants that have kept thousands of child care programs afloat nationwide.”

Unions are back. Biden (and the Catholic Church) are right to join the picket lines. by MSW: “Seeing the second Catholic president stand with the workers outside the GM distribution center was a reminder of the once vibrant alliance between the Catholic Church and organized labor. That alliance was both a herald to and an epitomization of a healthy society in which solidarity was understood to be more important than profit. However disappointed Catholics are in Biden’s immigration and abortion policies, when it comes to unions, he does the teachings of his church proud.”

Civil libertarianism is wrong but helpful by MSW: “Keeping government out of the regulation of ideas is as essential to the functioning of a democracy as counting the ballots fairly.”

‘IDK what to do’: Thousands of teen boys are being extorted in sexting scams by Chris Moody: “Michael had fallen prey to what online safety and law enforcement experts call financial sextortion, in which predators befriend victims online under false pretenses, entice them to send incriminating photos and then demand payment under threat that they’ll expose the photos to family and friends.The number of sextortion cases targeting young people “has exploded in the past couple of years,” with teen boys being specific targets, said Lauren Coffren, executive director of the Exploited Children Division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).”

A record 6.9 million people have been displaced in Congo’s growing conflict, the U.N. says by the AP: “A record 6.9 million people have been displaced by conflict across Congo, the United Nations migration agency said, making it one of the world’s largest displacement and humanitarian crises.”

The world should pay attention to a humanitarian crisis in Africa, too by the Washington Post: “With so many other global crises demanding the Biden administration’s and the world’s attention, it might be tempting to write off Sudan and Niger as hopeless cases, defying easy resolution. That would be a mistake. Even a small change, the product of consistent sustained attention and diplomacy, could save lives.”