Archive for November 2024

Today, people in wealthy countries can scarcely imagine life without a refrigerator, television or washing machine, but prior to 1960 very few households owned these appliances. From that point on, however, things moved quickly: just fifteen years or so later these items could be found in pretty much every kitchen and living room in these countries. This development from a society in which households own hardly any of these kinds of items to one in which almost every household has them is what the researchers refer to as ‘the domestic transition’. In their paper, they describe what this transition means for emerging countries and what factors contribute to a faster transition.

In calling for a shift to much more direct contact, the group – which included representation from local government, Cafcass, the law, academia and the adoption sector – recommended significant practice changes for both adoption and child protection social workers.

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Social Development has laid bare its financial struggles emanating from “significant budget cuts”, limiting its capacity to fill essential posts. This was revealed in a written KZN Legislature reply by Social Development MEC Mbali Shinga (above) to the DA KZN Spokesperson on Social Development, Shontel de Boer.

So even as our hearts break, we go on living. For our part, as a publication invested in the power of books and literature, I think now is the moment to throw out lifelines, to do what we can to offer even the smallest antidote to the kind of despair that makes so much sense this week.

The clandestine sharing of gun buyers’ identities — without their knowledge and consent — marked a significant departure for an industry that has long prided itself on thwarting efforts to track who owns firearms in America. At least 10 gun industry businesses, including Glock, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Marlin and Mossberg, handed over names, addresses and other private data to the gun industry’s chief lobbying group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Americans now spend more time alone, have fewer close friendships and feel more socially detached from their communities than they did 20 years ago. One in two adults reports experiencing loneliness, the physiological distress that people endure from social isolation. The nation’s surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, declared loneliness an epidemic late last year.

The United States has almost 2 million people behind bars in prisons, jails and detention centers – the largest such population in any country. Although incarcerated people are locked away from the outside world, they are even more vulnerable to the impacts of disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires, than the rest of society. Above: Police watch over prisoners from Orleans Parish Prison who were evacuated to an overpass due to flooding after Hurricane Katrina