Check out these recent articles from around the web:

America Does Not Need the Death Penalty by the New York Times: “Mr. Biden was right to identify capital punishment as a moral affront, and he should help relegate this practice to history.”

Why Are Innocents Still Being Executed? by Elizabeth Bruenig: “America is currently experiencing an execution spree: One person was executed the week before last, four this past week, and three more are scheduled for October. Maybe all of the people being put to death now are guilty, but there’s more than a sliver of a chance that someone among them is or was innocent—that’s eight executions, after all. For some, that falls between a worthwhile risk and a necessary evil. For others, it’s just murder.”

Cultural Shifts Alone Won’t Persuade People to Have Kids by Stephanie H. Murray: “As long as the United States’ threadbare safety net gives people so far to fall, it may not be possible to temper the country’s intensive-parenting culture. As long as raising children comes at such tremendous personal expense, parents and partners may hesitate to reassure their loved ones that it’s a worthy undertaking. And attempts to convince people of the tremendous value of parenthood may ring hollow if they aren’t paired with material support. It is far, far easier to enact cultural change with the economic winds at your back.”

Surgeon General: Parents Are at Their Wits’ End. We Can Do Better. by Vivek Murthy: “My friend was right about the joy and the worry. Given the responsibility it entails, raising children is never going to be without worry. But reorienting our priorities in order to give parents and caregivers the support they need would do a lot to ensure the balance skews toward joy.”

Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids by Russell Shaw: “Yes, parenting can be stressful. But when we trust our children to navigate their own course—with us as steady and supportive guides—we lighten our own load and empower them to thrive.”

The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books by Rose Horowitch: “Whether through atrophy or apathy, a generation of students is reading fewer books. They might read more as they age—older adults are the most voracious readers—but the data are not encouraging. The American Time Use Survey shows that the overall pool of people who read books for pleasure has shrunk over the past two decades. A couple of professors told me that their students see reading books as akin to listening to vinyl records—something that a small subculture may still enjoy, but that’s mostly a relic of an earlier time.”

Delaware governor draws criticism from fellow Democrats for vetoing doctor-assisted suicide bill by the AP: “Democratic Gov. John Carney on Friday vetoed a bill allowing doctor-assisted suicide in Delaware, saying he is “fundamentally and morally opposed” to people killing themselves under the guidance of state law.”

Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake by Charles Fain Lehman: “For the dozen states, including Texas and California, where sports gambling is still illegal, the solution is simple: change nothing. For the other states, undoing the damage may be harder. But it is damage worth undoing. If the states are “laboratories of democracy,” then the results of their experiment with sports gambling are in, and they are uniformly negative. Better to end the study now than prolong the suffering.”

What Hurricane Helene’s 500-mile path of destruction looks like by Rachel Ramirez, Sharif Paget, Aaron Fisher and Curt Merrill: “Hurricane Helene laid waste to the southeastern United States. Its sheer wind force and deadly floods left behind a path of destruction stretching over 500 miles from Florida to the Southern Appalachians. In just 48 hours, vast swaths of the region became unrecognizable. The storm has caused at least 130 deaths, and officials fear the toll could rise as many people remain unaccounted for.”

Floods Wreak Havoc Across Four Continents by Austyn Gaffney and Somini Sengupta: “In very disparate regions of the world, extreme rainfall in recent weeks has killed thousands of people, submerged entire towns, set off landslides and left millions without power. It’s a harbinger of the wild weather events that are a hallmark of climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, and it is highlighting the need to urgently adapt, in rich and poor countries alike.”