Apartment Look

by Jean M. Twenge Jean M. Twenge has been writing about generational differences for 25 years, producing bestsellers like Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic . In her latest book, Twenge zeroes in on iGen, the kids born in 1995 and later who have grown up with smartphones, had an Instagram page before they started high school and do not remember a time before the internet. The average teen checks her phone more than 80 times a day. The oldest iGen-ers, as she calls them, were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced in 2007 and high school students when the iPad entered the market in 2010. Twenge argues the complete dominance of the smartphone among teens has had ripple effects across every area of iGen-er lives, from their social interactions to their mental health. Twenge draws on national surveys of 11 million Americans, conducted since 1960, to reach her conclusions. From about 2012, she started seeing "large, abrupt shifts in teens' behaviour and emoti...

CLOSE Not all scams are easy to spot. Scammers are getting more and more sophisticated. Defend yourself. USA TODAY Browsing Facebook and checking email? Beware of these online scams. (Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto) Many people laugh at scams. We see an email from a mysterious stranger. The note is full of odd phrases and terrible misspellings. We instantly share it on social media. “The Prince of Nigeria wants to send me bars and bars of gold!” we write, along with laughing emoji. “Should I take it?”  But not all scams are so easy to spot. Spammers get more sinister every day, and they use real- sounding email addresses , personal data, well-phrased letters, and actual corporate logos to lure their victims. The savviest con artists work remotely , coaxing money out of people they’ve never met in person.  Related: Learn more about a convincing tech support scam that people are falling for. In this era of rampant data theft and cyber-crime, it’s more important than ever to be aware...

Of all the reactions and criticisms to the fallout from the deadly rightwing rally in Charlottesville, Va., we’ve been most impressed by the thoughts of former Supreme Court chief justice and Republican attorney general Jim Jones . Writing for the Times-News , Jones recounted Idaho ’s dark history with white supremacists at Hayden Lake and the role conservative leaders played in driving neo-Nazis out of the state. The key, Jones said, were the Republican leaders who quickly and forcefully condemned white supremacy and the ideals of hatemongers. That’s why it’s so troubling now to see Idaho conservatives failing so spectacularly. Prime examples include Rep . Heather Scott of Blanchard and Rep. Bryan Zollinger of Idaho Falls. In a Facebook post last week, Zollinger posited it was “completely plausible” that Democrats staged the events in Charlottesville to smear President Donald Trump . The theory is not only disgusting but entirely not plausible, considering video of the event sh...

Bellingham is a college town, so Lindsay O’ Neal thought finding a place to live would be easy. However, four months after beginning her search, with her school start date looming , O’Neal is getting worried. The crux of her problem: she has pets. O’Neal, 35, has been looking for an apartment under $900 a month since April. She plans to study marine biology at Western Washington University in September, and like some students, she’s bringing her two cats with her to help with anxiety and stress. She’s now considering commuting 30 minutes to an hour each day from Blaine so she can still attend school in the fall. “I’ve never had this issue before. Usually I find a place and then get the place, but it’s been a nightmare. I don’t know what it is,” O’Neal said. “I can’t believe how difficult the whole thing has been. … People are looking for perfect tenants and that’s not realistic. You have to have a lot of money and no pets, it’s ridiculous.” O’Neal isn’t alone in feeling the pressure...

At the end of one sticky month during the summer of 2017, Elizabeth Bolles will have finished packing the contents of her Riverbend apartment. She, her partner, their two young sons and two dogs will then pile into her Subaru and drive 350 miles to Houston, where her partner will start a new job.   The move is the upshot of six years of frustration and disappointment for Bolles since she graduated from Tulane University's law school in 2011. Since then, she's struggled to find a well-paying job in New Orleans; she's been runner-up for several positions and has worked odd jobs and short-term gigs to make ends meet . She's in the same boat as many of her friends and acquaintances in the city — a one- time National Merit Scholar who's been waiting tables for a decade, a buddy with two doctorates who can't find a professional job .   "You hear one person's story," Bolles says, "and you think maybe there's something going on with them, maybe...

The advertisements are everywhere. On television, a sleek black sedan pulls up to a sprawling estate with a rolling green lawn as a mother recounts how Recovery Centers of America saved her child from drugs. On Facebook, radio, highway billboards, and commuter trains, people are urged to call the company’s instantly memorable hot line : 1-800-RECOVERY. The marketing blitz and an infusion of private equity money have helped make Recovery Centers of America into the self-described fastest- growing addiction treatment provider in the country. Launched less than three years ago by a high- end real estate developer , it’s part of a rush of entrepreneurs who see opportunity in the treatment business as the opioid crisis sweeps the country. Advertisement But an investigation by STAT and The Boston Globe has uncovered evidence of shoddy care and turmoil inside the walls of the company’s two Massachusetts treatment centers . This report is based on interviews with more than a dozen fo...