The U.S. is no longer one of the 20 happiest countries. If you’re young, you probably know why.
Yuliya Talmazan – March 20, 2024
Happiness is a relative concept, but an annual index that tracks it in countries around the world has found that the United States and some Western European countries are falling in overall well-being because younger people are feeling less and less happy.
The U.S., in particular, dropped out of the top 20 for the first time, falling to 23rd place from 15th last year, driven by a large drop in the well-being of Americans under 30. The age disparity is stark: The U.S. ranks in the top 10 for those over 60, but for those under 30, it ranks 62nd, pulling down the overall score.
This makes the U.S., along with a handful of other countries, such as Canada, Germany and France, the global outliers — the report found that in many regions of the world, the young are still happier than the old.
The findings, announced Wednesday to mark the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness, are part of the World Happiness Report, which has been tracking well-being ratings around the world for more than a decade. It’s based on data collected by the research company Gallup and analysis by well-being academics led by the University of Oxford in the U.K.
Tuska 2023 (Vesa Moilanen / Sipa USA via Reuters file)
For the first time this year, the report gave separate rankings by age group, which in many cases vary widely from the overall happiness rankings for different nations. The report found that Lithuania topped the list for people under 30, while Denmark is the world’s happiest country for those aged 60 and older.
“We had picked up in recent years from scattered sources of data that child and youth well-being, particularly so in the United States, had seen a drop,” said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, professor of economics and behavioral science at Oxford, who is one of the editors of the report. “That has pushed us for the first time to really slice and dice the data by these age categories, which we normally don’t do.”
The finding that in many but not all regions of the world, the young are still happier than the old, is consistent with the long-standing paradigm that people are the happiest in their younger years.
“To my surprise, youth well-being going off a cliff in the United States and North America, and to a lesser extent in Western Europe and Great Britain, is really explaining why the United States, Canada and the U.K. are getting lower and lower in the general population rankings,” De Neve said. “So that’s really explaining it because it’s not the case that the middle-aged or the people that are above 60 are dropping. If anything, the above 60s in the U.S. would be No. 10.”
Well-being for people under 30 in the U.S. ranks below the Dominican Republic, and is in line with countries such as Malaysia and Russia. Canada’s unhappy youth rank 58, four spots above the U.S.
When it comes to the tanking youth happiness in the U.S., De Neve said there is not a single smoking gun, but it is likely due to a combination of many factors ranging from political polarization to overuse of social media to uncertainty about the future and growing economic inequality between generations, with people under 30 struggling to get onto the real estate ladder.
“It’s a very complex time for youth, with lots of pressures and a lot of demands for their attention,” he added.
Meanwhile, the report also found that in countries of central and Eastern Europe, younger people are much happier than the old. But these countries have also seen the largest increases in happiness, for all ages. It was one of the biggest insights, De Neve said, that could be a big learning point.
“I think we can try and dig into why the U.S. is coming down in terms of wellbeing and mental health, but we should also try and learn from what, say, Lithuania is doing well,” he said.
The rankings are based on self-assessments by people in more than 140 countries, in which they rate their life on a scale from zero to 10, with the best possible life for them as a 10. Among the predictors of people’s happiness are not just economic well-being, the report says, but also other factors including freedom, life expectancy and social support.
This year, Finland remained on top of the list, and was followed by Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. The lowest happiness scores were registered in war-ravaged Afghanistan.
The consistently high performance of Scandinavian nations is likely down to “a high sense of contentment” and high levels of trust in the society, De Neve said.
“They are obviously wealthy nations,” he added. But more than the high gross domestic product per capita, he said, wealth is also equally distributed, “they are amongst the most equal societies, so everybody benefits from the wealth that also underpins a welfare state, which provides psychological stability.”
The report, created via a partnership involving Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the World Happiness Report’s editorial board, pointed to happiness decreasing in all age groups for the US. It also found a significant decline among young people, who are now the least happy age group.
“This is a big change from 2006-10, when the young were happier than those in the midlife groups, and about as happy as those aged 60 and over. For the young, the happiness drop was about three-quarters of a point, and greater for females than males,” the report said.
Among people below the age of 30 from 2021 to 2023, the US ranks 62nd in happiness. Meanwhile, among those who are 60 and above, the US ranks 10th.
“In comparing generations, those born before 1965 are, on average, happier than those born since 1980. Among millennials, evaluation of one’s own life drops with each year of age, while among boomers life satisfaction increases with age,” according to a summary of the report.
Finland, for the seventh straight year, has been ranked the world’s happiest country. It is followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Israel. The least happy country is Afghanistan, the report said, followed by Lebanon, Lesotho, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The report’s rankings are not based on any index of factors including GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption. Instead, the scores are based on individuals’ own assessments of their lives, according to researchers.
U.S. Falls Out of Top 20 Happiest Countries for the First Time Ever
Solcyré Burga – March 19, 2024
Credit – Illustration by TIME; Getty Images (2)
For the first time in the World Happiness Report’s dozen-year history, the U.S. did not rank in the top 20 of the world’s happiest countries.
Out of the more than 140 nations surveyed, the U.S. landed in 23rd place, compared to 15th place in 2023. While the U.S. is still in the top 10 happiest countries for those 60 years old and above, its overall ranking fell due to a significant decline in the reported well-being of Americans under 30.
Finland ranked at the top of the list for the seventh year in a row. Lithuania is the happiest country in the world if you only look at those under the age of 30, while Denmark is the happiest country for people who are 60 and older.
This was the first year the report, released March 20 to mark the UN’s International Day of Happiness, analyzed rates of happiness by age group. “We found some pretty striking results,” said John F. Helliwell, professor at the Vancouver School of Economics and founding editor of the World Happiness Report. “There is a great variety among countries in the relative happiness of the younger, older, and in-between populations. Hence the global happiness rankings are quite different for the young and the old, to an extent that has changed a lot over the last dozen years.”
The findings were developed through a partnership between Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the World Happiness Report’s editorial board, and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Countries are ranked based on a “three-year average of each population’s average assessment of their quality of life,” the press release said.
The most recent report relies on data that was collected after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with survey respondents answering questions from 2021-2023.
According to the report, people born before 1965 are, on average, happier than people born after 1980. Millennials report drops in their life satisfaction with every year they grow older, while boomers’ happiness increases the older they get.
Globally, people between the ages of 15 and 24 typically report greater life satisfaction than older adults. But the 2024 report finds that the gap is shrinking in Europe, and has reversed in North America. The data contrasts with reports of life satisfaction between 2006 and 2010, when the younger generation in North America were just as happy as older folks.
“Social connections could be one factor explaining the generational happiness differences,” says Ilana Ron Levey, Gallup Managing Director. “Different generations have different levels of social connections and we know social support and loneliness affect happiness. The quality of interpersonal relationships may affect the young and the old differently.”
In Central and Eastern Europe, Ron Levey notes, younger people tended to report higher levels of happiness than older people, in part because of social connection. But the data differs elsewhere in the world, including in the U.S. Last May, the U.S. Surgeon General brought attention to the public health crisis of loneliness and isolation, calling it an epidemic. A previous report by the American Psychological Association found that Gen Z adults reported higher stress levels than older generations, with health and finances cited as top concerns.
Across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, the wellbeing of 15-to-24-year-olds has also fallen since 2019.
“Piecing together the available data on the wellbeing of children and adolescents around the world, we documented disconcerting drops especially in North America and Western Europe,” said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, the director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre and an editor of the report. “To think that, in some parts of the world, children are already experiencing the equivalent of a mid-life crisis demands immediate policy action.”
“I would be forced to mortgage”: Trump melts down on Truth Social as lawyers admit he can’t get bond
Trump fears he may have to “sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices”
By Igor Derysh – March 19, 2024
Former President Donald Trump speaks as the court takes a lunch break during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on October 17, 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump lashed out at the judge who imposed a $450+ million penalty in his New York fraud case after his lawyers admitted he was unable to secure a bond to appeal the case.
Trump’s lawyers on Monday asked a New York appeals court to stay the enforcement of the judgment in his fraud case, saying it has been impossible to secure a bond necessary to appeal the judgment after approaching 30 different underwriters.
The former president lashed out at the judge on Truth Social after the filing.
“Engoron wants me to put up the ridiculous fine (I DID NOTHING WRONG!) before I get a chance to Appeal his crazed ruling – A first!” Trump falsely wrote. New York law requires a defendant to put up the full judgment amount with interest in order to appeal a civil judgment.
“Judge Engoron actually wants me to put up Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for the Right to Appeal his ridiculous decision. In other words, he is trying to take my Appellate Rights away,” Trump falsely claimed again in another post. “Nobody has ever heard of anything like this before. I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone. Does that make sense? WITCH HUNT. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”
Trump continued to lash out at the judge in a series of more than a half-dozen posts on Monday night and Tuesday morning, claiming that his Mar-a-Lago property is worth “50 to 100 times” more than what Judge Arthur Engoron valued it at — even though the valuation was based on estimates by local officials.
Trump further lashed out at Engoron as a “Crazed, Trump Hating, Rogue Judge.”
“The Corrupt Political Hacks in New York, Judge and AG, are asking me to put up massive amounts of money before I am allowed to appeal the ridiculous decision. Never done before. No jury, no victim, full disclaimer clause, happy banks,” Trump repeated, falsely, about the New York law the requires him to put up the money to appeal.
“I shouldn’t have to put up any money, being forced by the Corrupt Judge and AG, until the end of the appeal,” he complained. “That’s the way system works!”
Bolton says Trump wants to be treated like North Korean leader: ‘Get ready’
Lauren Irwin – March 20, 2024
Former national security adviser John Bolton said Tuesday that former President Trump wants to be treated like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and people should “get ready.”
“Donald Trump wants Americans to treat him like North Koreans treat Kim Jung Un. Get ready…..” Bolton posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Bolton, who served as the national security adviser under the Trump administration, posted a viral clip of Trump speaking with Fox News’s Steve Doocy in 2018, where the former president offered praise for the North Korean leader.
“He’s the head of a country, and I mean he’s the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention,” Trump said in the clip. “I want my people to do the same.”
Bolton joins a list of former Trump officials who are warning of his return to power, just after he clinched the Republican nomination for president and will face off against President Biden in the polls this fall.
The clip of Trump speaking highly of Kim follows a meeting between the former president and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump received sharp criticism for meeting with the Hungarian leader, who said he hopes to see Trump return to the White House.
After the meeting, Trump said Orbán is a “Great Leader” who is “respected all over the World.” The former president has also favorably commented about Adolf Hitler on multiple occasions.
In the past, Trump has said that he would not be a dictator if he were reelected, “Except for day one.”
Meet the wealthy boomer Americans fleeing to Portugal, Spain, and Italy out of fear of a Donald Trump presidency: ‘This country of mine has become intolerant’
Ryan Hogg – March 20, 2024
Fortune· Gabriel Mello—Getty Images
For years, aging Americans have looked south to Florida for their ideal retirement home to escape into retirement from their four-decade grinds in the U.S. workforce.
But wealthy citizens are increasingly considering a life across the Atlantic, with an unappealing showdown between Joe Biden and Donald Trump being labeled as the reason.
‘This country of mine has become intolerant’
David, a 65-year-old lawyer from Chicago, is going to Portugal on a scouting trip next month with a $500,000 budget in the hopes of finding a new second home on the Silver Coast, between Lisbon and Porto.
The lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous, citing concerns he might be harassed, said the political climate had turned so toxic that he was driven to seek peace across the Atlantic.
As the grandson of four immigrants who landed on Ellis Island, David has become particularly perturbed by debate in the U.S. around immigration.
“This country of mine has become intolerant,” David says.
“This country has always vilified people who are not like them. So we see these pictures of people on the south of the border, and they’re just people, but both sides use them for political reasons, and that’s just one example of the absolute intolerance, and it’s sad.”
The lawyer is also moving to escape the looming threat of gun violence.
“I told my wife about 15 years ago that I had made peace with the fact that I could be shot dead at any moment in time in this country,” David said.
David is hoping to close a deal before the U.S. elections in November, because he believes that if Trump secures a second term as President, demand for homes abroad could skyrocket.
Americans rushing abroad
The lawyer isn’t just going on a scouting trip for himself next month. He and his wife intend to earmark locations and properties for five of their other friends.
David’s and his friend’s politically motivated decision to start uncoupling themselves from their home country isn’t uncommon, according to Kylie Adamec, a real estate consultant for Casa Azul who is advising David and other Americans on their moves.
“People are not caring so much about the tax situation, they’re more concerned with what’s going to happen in the United States in the next couple of months. Come November with the election, people just want to have options set up,” Adamec told Fortune.
Last week, Donald Trump and Joe Biden were confirmed as the respective Republican and Democrat nominees for the U.S. presidency in a rematch of 2020.
If this year’s battle is anything like the last one, voters can expect an incredibly toxic election battle, something Adamec’s clients are well aware of.
“From what I can see, it’s, this is a first-time thing in terms of the decision of an election really being a determining factor in whether or not someone moves abroad, be it full-time or part-time.”
Adamec says it’s a mix of American buyers looking at property options in Portugal, but they are more left-leaning.
According to Marco Permunian, you can get a good sense of political instability in the U.S. simply by observing the number of people applying for Italian passports through his company, Italian Citizenship Assistance (ICA), at any given time.
Inquiries began to spike in 2016 following Trump’s election to the White House. They did so again in 2020 following the COVID-19 pandemic and instability stoked by protests and riots following the murder of George Floyd, as well as after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.
As the U.S. gears up for a second gruesome showdown between Trump and Biden, it’s no surprise that ICA has seen inquiries triple since the end of last year.
The latest spike, though, is attributable to exhaustion on both sides of the political spectrum, Permunian says.
The majority of his clients are from the East Coast areas of New York, Pennsylvania, and Boston, but there are more dotted across the country in places like California and Texas.
He says demand for passports is often the first move for many in a long-term plan to seek a new home in Italy or elsewhere in the European Union, rather than a sign of imminent emigration.
“The majority is still not ready to move but is getting ready, just in case,” Permunian told Fortune.
The company mainly works with people between the ages of 35 and 65 who are looking for extra citizenship options.
That chimes with the latest data. The latest USA Wealth Report found a record number of Americans were looking abroad for residency and citizenship options as the political environment frayed.
Christopher Willis, managing director of citizenship and residency advisor Latitude Consultancy, is experiencing a 300% increase in client inquiries.
It means the smart money is going toward getting exit plans in place now before demand jumps further later in the year. Portugal and Spain are proving to be particularly popular European locations for Willis’s clients.
“People are not waiting for November. They’re getting their affairs in order now,” Willis says.
“So if things go sideways, they’ve already got the option to act on it as opposed to scrambling once the election is completed.”
Steven, who is also is also using a pseudonym as he is awaiting visa approval, is a New Yorker making the move to Portugal through Casa Azul. Having grown sick of New York City, he and his Brazilian wife are giving up their $3,500 rent in the Big Apple for a $2,100 per month three-bedroom home in Lisbon.
“It’s a great city if you have to still have ambition and drive,” Steven says of New York. “But if you want to downshift a little, it will just steamroll you.”
While the political climate isn’t the main reason for his move, Steven acknowledged that the U.S. political system had become “crazy.”
“Being back here is horrifying,” Steven said.
Europe’s own political toxicity
Americans escaping the U.S. in the event of a Trump presidency may find the grass isn’t necessarily greener across the pond.
Europe may appear a haven for U.S. expats tired of their polarized climate and growing threats of violence, but the continent is no longer the safe or mild-mannered haven it has been for so much of the post-World War Two era.
Trump has threatened to pull out of NATO if he is re-elected if “delinquent” European nations don’t pay an agreed 2% of their GDP towards membership in the bloc.
That leaves Europe strategically exposed, as leading figures from the Airbus CEO to European Commission chief Christine Lagarde have warned.
It is also more complicated than it once was for Americans to buy their place on the continent.
Portugal scrapped its golden visa program last year, which allowed foreigners to acquire residency and eventually citizenship in the country through the purchase of property. This set off a scramble to secure visas in the country before the scheme closed.
A higher level of investment, crucially not in real estate, is now the best option for wealthy foreigners.
There are fears that the elevation of right-wing parties into the country’s parliament could further intensify harmful rhetoric against immigrants, aping the kind of polarization that has become commonplace in the U.S.
In Italy, the ruling far-right party has made sweeping changes to the country’s cultural landscape and clamped down on immigration.
Casa Azul’s Adamec, though, said despite expecting inquiries about residency in Portugal to nosedive following the closure of the golden visa program, applications have remained steady, probably fueled by the U.S. election.
As for Europe’s own political toxicity, David isn’t feeling anywhere near as anxious as events in the U.S. have made him.
“They’re all kind of like baby Trumps, so I’m not going to worry about it,” David says of Europe’s intensifying political cauldron.
“Portugal’s always been a pretty liberal place. I’m not overly concerned.”
The world’s 100 worst polluted cities are in Asia — and 83 of them are in just one country
By Helen Regan, CNN – March 19, 2024
Morning walkers seen during a cold and hazy morning at Kartavya Path near India Gate on December 9, 2023 in New Delhi, India. Arvind Yadav/Hindustan Times/Getty Images
All but one of the 100 cities with the world’s worst air pollution last year were in Asia, according to a new report, with the climate crisis playing a pivotal role in bad air quality that is risking the health of billions of people worldwide.
The study looked specifically at fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, which is the tiniest pollutant but also the most dangerous. Only 9% of more than 7,800 cities analyzed globally recorded air quality that met WHO’s standard, which says average annual levels of PM2.5 should not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic meter.
“We see that in every part of our lives that air pollution has an impact,” said IQAir Global CEO Frank Hammes. “And it typically, in some of the most polluted countries, is likely shaving off anywhere between three to six years of people’s lives. And then before that will lead to many years of suffering that are entirely preventable if there’s better air quality.”
When inhaled, PM2.5 travels deep into lung tissue where it can enter the bloodstream. It comes from sources like the combustion of fossil fuels, dust storms and wildfires, and has been linked to asthma, heart and lung disease, cancer, and other respiratory illnesses, as well as cognitive impairment in children.
Begusarai, a city of half a million people in northern India’s Bihar state, was the world’s most polluted city last year with an average annual PM2.5 concentration of 118.9 — 23 times the WHO guidelines. It was followed in the IQAir rankings by the Indian cities of Guwahati, Assam; Delhi; and Mullanpur, Punjab.
Asian countries top air pollution ranking for 2023
In 2023, the average air quality in Bangladesh exceeded the World Health Organization’s (WHO) safety guidelines by nearly 16 times, making it the country with the worst air quality globally. Pakistan and India followed closely behind, with India occupying nine of the top 10 spots for the most polluted cities.
Countries where avg. PM2.5 concentration (micrograms per cubic meter) exceeded WHO guideline seven to 10 times in 2023
A bar chart showing 15 most polluted countries on average in 2023, with Bangladesh at the top. Bangladesh 79.9 – Pakistan 73.7 – India 54.4- Tajikistan 49 – Burkina Faso 46.6 – Iraq 43.8 – United Arab Emirates 43 -Nepal 42.4 – Egypt 42.4 – DR Congo 48.8 – Kuwait 39.9 – Bahrain 39.2 -Qatar 37.6 – Indonesia 37.1 – Rwanda 36.8
Note: The concentration of small air particles called PM2.5 is used to compare air quality as they are responsible for most air pollution today.
Source: IQAirGraphic: Rosa de Acosta and Krystina Shveda, CNN
Across India, 1.3 billion people, or 96% of the population, live with air quality seven times higher than WHO guidelines, according to the report.
Central and South Asia were the worst performing regions globally, home to all four of the most polluted countries last year: Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Tajikistan.
South Asia is of particular concern, with 29 of the 30 most polluted cities in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. The report ranked the major population centers of Lahore in 5th, New Delhi in 6th and Dhaka in 24th place.
Hammes said no significant improvement in pollution levels in the region is likely without “major changes in terms of the energy infrastructure and agricultural practices.”
“What’s also worrisome in many parts of the world is that the things that are causing outdoor air pollution are also sometimes the things that are causing indoor air pollution,” he added. “So cooking with dirty fuel will create indoor exposures that could be many times what you’re seeing outdoors.”
Video Ad Feedback. This is what happens to your body when you breathe polluted air03:08 – Source: CNN
A global problem
IQAir found that 92.5% of the 7,812 locations in 134 countries, regions, and territories where it analyzed average air quality last year exceeded WHO’s PM2.5 guidelines.
Only 10 countries and territories had “healthy” air quality: Finland, Estonia, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius and French Polynesia.
Millions of people die each year from air pollution-related health issues. Air pollution from fossil fuels is killing 5.1 million people worldwide every year, according to a study published in the BMJ in November. Meanwhile, WHO says 6.7 million people die annually from the combined effects of ambient and household air pollution.
The human-caused climate crisis, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, plays a “pivotal” role in influencing air pollution levels, the IQAir report said.
The climate crisis is altering weather patterns, leading to changes in wind and rainfall, which affects the dispersion of pollutants. Climate change will only make pollution worse as extreme heat becomes more severe and frequent, it said.
The climate crisis is also leading to more severe wildfires in many regions and longer and more intense pollen seasons, both of which exacerbate health issues linked to air pollution.
“We have such a strong overlap of what’s causing our climate crisis and what’s causing air pollution,” Hammes said. “Anything that we can do to reduce air pollution will be tremendously impactful in the long term also for improving our climate gas emissions, and vice versa.”
Regional rankings
North America was badly affected by wildfires that raged in Canada from May to October last year. In May, the monthly average of air pollution in Alberta was nine times greater than the same month in 2022, the report found.
And for the first time, Canada surpassed the United States in the regional pollution rankings.
The wildfires also affected US cities such as Minneapolis and Detroit, where annual pollution averages rose by 30% to 50% compared to the previous year. The most polluted major US city in 2023 was Columbus, Ohio for the second year running. But major cities like Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles experienced significant drops in annual average pollution levels, the report said.
In Asia, however, pollution levels rebounded across much of the region.
China reversed a five-year trend of declining levels of pollution, the report found. Chinese cities used to dominate global rankings of the world’s worst air quality but a raft of clean air policies over the past decade has transformed things for the better.
A study last year had found the campaign meant the average Chinese citizen’s lifespan is now 2.2 years longer. But thick smog returned to Beijing last year, where citizens experienced a 14% increase in the annual average PM2.5 concentration, according to the IQAir report. China’s most polluted city, Hotan, was listed at 14 in the IQAir ranking.
In Southeast Asia, only the Philippines saw a drop in annual pollution levels compared to the previous year, the report found.
Indonesia was the most polluted country in the region, with a 20% increase compared to 2022. Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand all had cities that exceeded WHO PM2.5 guidelines by more than 10 times, according to the report.
Last month, Thai authorities ordered government employees to work from home due to unhealthy levels of pollution in the capital Bangkok and surrounding areas, according to Reuters. On Friday, tourism hot spot Chiang Mai was the world’s most polluted city as toxic smog brought by seasonal agricultural burning blanketed the northern city.
Inequality… and one bright spot
The report also highlighted a worrying inequality: the lack of monitoring stations in countries in Africa, South America and the Middle East, which results in a dearth of air quality data in those regions.
Although Africa saw an improvement in the number of countries included in this year’s report compared with previous years the continent largely remains the most underrepresented. According to IQAir, only 24 of 54 African countries had sufficient data available from their monitoring stations.
Seven African countries were among the new locations included in the 2023 rankings, including Burkina Faso, the world’s fifth most polluted country, and Rwanda, in 15th.
Several countries that ranked high on the most polluted list last year were not included for 2023 due to a lack of available data. They include Chad, which was the most polluted country in 2022.
“There is so much hidden air pollution still on the planet,” said Hammes.
One bright spot is increasing pressure and civic engagement from communities, NGOs, companies, and scientists to monitor air quality.
“Ultimately that’s great because it really shows governments that people do care,” Hammes said.
The ruling rebuffed a call by Trump’s legal team to exclude the pair’s testimony. Both Daniels and Cohen have claimed that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid ahead of the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she had with Trump.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up his reimbursing Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment. Trump repaid Cohen in 2017 through monthly checks that were disguised as payments for legal services and falsely documented at the Trump Organization, according to prosecutors.
Former President Donald Trump, disbarred attorney Michael Cohen and adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling on the testimony maps out the potential contours of the trial, which was previously slated to begin March 25 but has been delayed until at least mid-April after Trump’s legal team asked for more time to review new documents.
Merchan will instead hold a hearing March 25 to deal with what happened with the new documents and potentially set a new trial date. The trial is expected to last several weeks.
Why Trump said Cohen should be kept out
“Michael Cohen is a liar,” Trump’s legal team wrote in their request to exclude Cohen’s testimony. They said Cohen has a history of lying that ranged from minimizing his own criminal conduct to distorting his background.
The Trump team pointed specifically to Cohen’s statement at Trump’s New York civil fraud trial that he had previously lied to a federal judge when he pleaded guilty to tax evasion. Cohen said at the civil fraud trial that he engaged in “tax omission,” not tax evasion.
“The People’s desire to rush ahead with these proceedings rather than look into the ongoing criminal conduct of their star witness is troubling and violates the People’s ethical and constitutional obligations,” Trump’s team argued, referring to the DA’s office.
However, Merchan said he wasn’t aware of any perjured testimony from Cohen in the hush money case.
“Defendant provides examples of situations where Cohen’s credibility has been called into question. However, he offers no proof of perjury in the case at bar,” Merchan wrote.
Merchan said he wasn’t able to find any applicable law or court holding that blocked a prosecution witness because the witness’s credibility was previously called into question.
The 2024 Republican presumptive nominee’s hush money case will mark the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.
Why Trump said Daniels should be kept out
In trying to get Daniels’ testimony blocked, Trump’s legal team described her stories as “contrived” and “inflammatory,” and quoted her as having said, in the context of testifying, she has “been asked to kind of behave.”
Prosecutors “appear to have recognized the risks of presenting this irrelevant and untrue testimony by warning their witness,” Trump’s team said in their request to exclude her testimony.
In allowing Daniels’ testimony, Merchan said its value is “evident.”
“Locating and purchasing the information from Daniels not only completes the narrative of events that precipitated the falsification of business records but is also probative of the Defendant’s intent,” he wrote.
Merchan did grant Trump’s request to block the jury from hearing about the results of any polygraph test Daniels took.
Testimony but not video on Access Hollywood tape allowed
In a separate ruling Monday, Merchan also made several determinations about the government’s requests around evidence, including about the infamous Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump stated that he kisses women without consent.
“You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful (women) — I just start kissing them,” Trump said. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.” He added, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab them by the p—-y. You can do anything.”
Merchan said the tape “is relevant to the critical issues in this case,” noting the government’s argument that Trump and his campaign team were worried after the tape was released that it would hurt his candidacy.
“Thus, the tape helps establish Defendant’s intent and motive for making the payment to Daniels and then” trying to hide it, Merchan wrote.
Merchan said, however, that there should be a compromise to avoid undue prejudice against Trump.
“This Court rules that the proper balance lies in allowing the People to elicit testimony about a videotaped interview which surfaced on October 7, 2016, that contained comments of a sexual nature which Defendant feared could hurt his presidential aspirations,” Merchan wrote.
“However, it is not necessary that the tape itself be introduced into evidence or that it be played for the jury,” Merchan added.
Merchan said he may reconsider his ruling on the tape if Trump opens the door to more evidence about it at trial.
Merchan also said Trump won’t be allowed to offer any evidence that the Justice Department chose not to prosecute him for potential campaign finance law violations. The department’s decision didn’t prove anything for purposes of the hush money case, Merchan said.
MAGA Reps Suddenly Face an Existential Threat: Themselves
Sam Brodey, Reese Gorman – March 18, 2024
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
It would be hard to argue that Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL) is guilty of the worst sin in today’s GOP—being a dreaded RINO, or “Republican In Name Only.”
The Illinois congressman endorsed Donald Trump for president and voted with him 93 percent of the time during his administration. Bost voted to throw out the electoral votes of states Joe Biden won in 2020. And Trump has even endorsed his 2024 re-election bid, saying Bost is doing a “fantastic job.”
None of it has been enough to stop a far-right challenger from casting Bost as the epitome of a RINO—forcing the incumbent into a brutal political dogfight ahead of Tuesday’s primary election.
Darren Bailey, a far-right state senator who was the GOP nominee for governor in 2022, is arguing that Illinois’ most conservative district needs the most MAGA possible representative.
On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast last week, Bailey told the former Trump strategist that Bost “will not stick his neck out like you, and like Mike Lindell, because obviously these people are career politicians, they’re concerned about the next election cycle.” Bannon, for his part, hyped up his guest’s opponent as “one of the worst, as bad as they come,” calling Bost a “mini-McCarthy” and fixating on reports that he had threatened to punch “our own” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). (On top of regularly guest-hosting the War Room podcast, Gaetz has traveled to Bost’s district to campaign for Bailey.)
With his résumé, Bost would have been all but immune to a challenge from his right in years past. Since he was elected in 2014, in fact, he’s only faced one other primary challenge—in 2018, when he won by nearly 70 points.
But 2024 is poised to be a very different election year, one in which no House Republican is safe, no matter how MAGA they may be.
At least 21 House Republican incumbents are facing primary challenges from candidates who are seriously campaigning and raising at least some funds, according to a Daily Beast review of campaign filings and other materials.
Three lawmakers have already survived, but by slim margins. In March 5 primaries, Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Steve Womack (R-AR), and Jake Ellzey (R-TX) defeated underfunded MAGA challengers, but with less than 60 percent of the vote. Womack, a critic of hardline conservatives, won by just 7 points.
In a brief interview with The Daily Beast last week, Bost lamented what he saw as the driving factors behind many of these challenger campaigns: attention and purity tests.
“What that is is all about your own ego, and that’s the problem,” Bost said. “And they find like people that think like they do, and then try to drag them up against somebody that doesn’t think like they do.”
Some of the incumbents are familiar primary targets, like Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Don Bacon (R-NE), considered among the most centrist members of the GOP conference. Some are being challenged simply because they aren’t loud or combative enough—or even if they cast a vote in favor of funding the government, which is now a punishable offense in the MAGA base.
But many are as conservative and Trump-supporting as Bost, if not more so. Rep. William Timmons (R-SC), who has a 95 percent lifetime score from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, is facing an aggressive primary challenge.
Some archconservatives are being targeted because they backed Ron DeSantis for president, like Reps. Bob Good (R-VA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), while others are being challenged in part because they didn’t support Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in his bid for the House speakership last fall.
1920481347House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) speaks with reporters at the U.S. Capitol.Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
What nearly all of these incumbents have in common is that their opponents hail from the far-right fringes of the party. Where the incumbents are on Fox and Newsmax, the challengers are regulars on Bannon’s show, hoping to land endorsements from figures like Mike Lindell, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn.
One primary hopeful is a pro-gun YouTuber; another has based his campaign around having served prison time for participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Far-right troll Laura Loomer, who came within 7 points of defeating Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) in 2022, is running again. Often lost in the noise from these ultra-MAGA figures is that their beloved party leader has endorsed their opponent.
That’s what’s so different about this primary cycle, say Republicans and election analysts.
“The threshold of what it takes to offend Republican primary voters has fallen lower,” said Dave Wasserman, the election expert and senior editor for U.S. House races at the Cook Political Report.
At this point, GOP strategist Ken Spain said, “many of the Republicans in the House have taken on a Trump-like persona, where you either fight to the death, or you’re simply not committed to the cause—and that’s what we’re seeing play out.”
Like in every election year, at least one of these challenges will almost certainly be successful. It’s possible many could lose, or 2024 could be a better year for incumbents than 2022, when five lost primary challenges in non-redistricting related races.
But the more important upshot of any member having to worry about a primary threat, no matter how marginal, may not be who wins—it may be how members adjust their behavior to survive.
Pointing to weak incumbent performances on March 5, Wasserman said, “the combined impact of those three outcomes will be a chilling effect on other Republican members who have been willing to speak out against Trump or vote for things that Trump doesn’t like.”
While Trump often put Republicans in a difficult position when they had to defend his near-daily controversies, he offered many of them something they desperately desired: a cheat code to avoid primary challenges.
Republicans during the Trump era were largely measured by their support of Trump. Gone were the Heritage Action or Club for Growth scores to rank a Republican’s conservatism, or the need to collect endorsements from across the GOP spectrum, or even the need to spend considerable time in the district.
Republicans, by and large, only needed Trump’s endorsement to be considered sufficiently conservative and avoid a credible threat. That fealty of Republicans to Trump further reinforced his power in the party, and further exacerbated the transformation of the party into his image.
Even with Trump out of office for three years, his influence has been constant. What has changed, however, is just the number of anti-Trump—or, really, insufficiently pro-Trump—Republicans that are left in Congress.
With just about every Republican claiming the mantle of a ‘Trump Republican,’ being ‘pro-Trump’ might not be the same prophylactic that it once was against primary challengers. (If every Republican is pro-Trump, is anyone really pro-Trump?)
Combine it all with the dearth of successful challenges in recent years—which has just increased the internal tension in the party—and there’s a pressure cooker situation developing.
After a year that unleashed unprecedented internal animosity in the House GOP, members’ increased eagerness to campaign against their own colleagues is adding yet another layer of drama in a majority already ripped apart by it.
Gaetz, naturally, is a ringleader, having stumped for primary challengers to Bost and Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX). Timmons’ challenger, meanwhile, has been endorsed by a remarkable seven colleagues.
Many Republicans, of course, would rather see these members using their campaign time and resources working to protect and expand the House GOP’s increasingly slim majority instead of trying to replace conservative colleagues with even more conservative colleagues.
On the Democratic side of the aisle, the primary fever that helped put the left-wing “Squad” into office in 2018 and 2020 has abated. The most high-profile challenges to incumbents this cycle are from the center, not the left, targeting Squad-aligned Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO). Meanwhile, just two members of the party’s center and center-left wing are facing viable primaries from progressives.
Occasionally, this frustration has emanated from the top of the House GOP. During House Republicans’ annual retreat last week, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) privately—and showing real frustration—admonished members who were campaigning against each other, a source familiar with his remarks told The Daily Beast.
“I’ve asked them all to cool it,” Johnson told CNN on Sunday. “I am vehemently opposed to member-on-member action in primaries because it’s not productive… So I’m telling everyone who’s doing that to knock it off.”
In response to a question from The Daily Beast about primaries, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the fourth-ranking House Republican, declared her support for all GOP incumbents and urged members to work as a team.
“It’s a slim majority, and we need to make sure that everyone feels the support from their colleagues,” she said. “Even if you vote differently based upon your district, it’s important to know that we’ve all heard the support of our constituents to be here.”
Perhaps more than any other primary fight, the one in West Virginia’s 1st District illustrates the singular dynamics at this fraught moment within the Republican Party.
The incumbent, Rep. Carol Miller, has represented this district since 2019. Trump won it by over 40 points in 2020. Miller voted to throw out Biden’s Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 and has been a Trump ally. But in general, she has quietly gone about her business in Congress, and has cast votes to keep the government open and avoid defaults on the national debt.
Miller’s opponent is Derrick Evans, a former West Virginia state lawmaker who might be the purest expression of the MAGA id and political incentive structure on display anywhere in the country.
Now, the candidate’s feed on X is full of daily outrage bait. “White liberal women are the greatest threat to the future of our constitutional republic,” he posted recently. He has called for “arresting the people who stole the 2020 election.” He has been endorsed by QAnon favorite Michael Flynn and Trump acolyte Roger Stone. For some reason, he traveled to Delaware last Friday to give a speech about Joe Biden.
While he has dinged her for such offenses as appearing in a photo with Bill Gates, Evans has occasionally made a succinct case for his primary campaign. “My opponent,” Evans once tweeted, “is a total RINO representing an Ultra MAGA District.”
Evans has also raised real money: over $290,000 in 2023, according to his Federal Election Commission filings. (Miller has raised just over $560,000.)
In a brief interview with The Daily Beast at the House GOP retreat last week, which took place in her district, Miller demonstrated how starkly different she is from her opponent.
“My mama told me not to say anything if I can’t say anything nice,” Miller said. “I welcome people challenging me. His lack of experience is a little different to me. I’ve worked very hard the last six years. I represent my district well. I’ve listened to them, I’ve voted conservatively, and it’s been my honor to serve.” (Evans did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.)
There is another potent GOP primary dynamic adding to the 2024 chaos: incumbents who may face challenges stemming from their votes to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker last year. The furious deposed leader has taken verbal potshots at the eight GOP lawmakers who ousted him, and he and his powerful allies are moving to hamper their re-election campaigns.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is considered one of the top targets, along with Rep. Good in Virginia. One of the McCarthy Eight, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT), is not even seeking re-election, citing a personal smear campaign against him.
In Good’s 5th Congressional District of Virginia, all the strains of GOP drama converge. The chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, it’s hard to get more conservative than Good. But he earned establishment enemies with his support for removing McCarthy—and earned enemies in the MAGA movement for his support of DeSantis for president.
His opponent is John McGuire, a Virginia state senator who has touted his support for Trump at every turn possible. Ahead of the June 18 primary, Good’s standing among primary voters is so poor that he was thrown out of a pro-Trump store in his district that had hosted an event for McGuire.
Massie, the Kentucky Republican, also was a prominent DeSantis backer, and his opponent has touted that as his No. 1 reason to dump the incumbent. But Massie has been here before; in 2020, Trump backed his primary challenger. He won easily anyway.
“This would be the third person who’s tried to run to the Trump of me, and that’s the only direction you can go where I might not be 100 percent in terms of the MAGA scorecard,” Massie told The Daily Beast.
But Massie acknowledged that not all of his colleagues have cultivated as strong a brand that lets them survive getting crosswise with Trump.
“If you’re not known in your district,” Massie said, a Trump endorsement could “cost you 10 points in your primary.”
“If somebody gets endorsed on the other side they can go up 10 points, and the other person could go down 10 points if they’re not very well defined in their district,” he said.
How Massie fares in his own state’s primary could show how acute the party’s MAGA angst really is. But he’s not sweating the challenge.
“People would rather I support the Constitution,” he said, “than any particular president.”
Trump’s ‘blood bath’ threat wasn’t even the most dangerous thing he said all weekend
Rex Huppke, USA TODAY – March 18, 2024
You might have heard some controversy over former President Donald Trump’s use of “blood bath” this weekend.
Here’s a quick summary: At an Ohio rally on Saturday, Trump was talking about the auto industry and said if he doesn’t get elected in November “it’s going to be a blood bath for the country,” prompting a number of news outlets to report things along the lines of “Trump predicts ‘blood bath’ if not elected,” which seemed pretty on point, but then a bunch of MAGA types got bent out of shape and said, “No, he was talking about it being a blood bath for the auto industry,” which still seems kind of bad and unnecessarily apocalyptic but … you know … whatever, and so a bunch of news outlets started writing about the possibility that the “blood bath” comment was taken out of context and all sorts of hand-wringing ensued and it was, to borrow a phrase, a bit of a blood bath.
Here’s the full quote, which came on the heels of his comments about the auto industry: “Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country.”
Here’s what matters: A number of media outlets and President Joe Biden’s campaign pounced on one unhinged Trump comment that had questionable context when there were SO MANY OTHER absolutely despicable comments to choose from.
Trump’s ‘blood bath’ line overshadowed more dangerous comments
If the media erred, it was in focusing on the “blood bath” comment rather than – (please imagine me waving my hands in all directions) – everything else.
Of greater importance, I’d argue, was the fact that Trump’s Saturday rally in Dayton began with an announcer saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated Jan. 6 hostages.”
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee has taken to calling the charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned insurrectionist-lunkheads who attacked the U.S. Capitol in 2021 “hostages.” He referred to them as “unbelievable patriots.”
The fact that a former president of the United States is treating domestic terrorists as heroes – they are so horribly and unfairly treated! – is certainly as newsworthy as any “blood bath” comment.
Trump calling migrants ‘animals’ should alarm everyone
Trump also continued his dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric, painting a wildly inaccurate picture of “hardened criminals” by the “hundred of thousands” crossing the border and “destroying our country.”
“I don’t know if you call them people, in some cases they’re not people, in my opinion,” Trump said. “But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left say it’s a terrible thing to say.”
Former President Donald Trump campaigns at the Dayton International Airport on March 16, 2024, in Ohio. The state holds its Republican Senate primary on the following Tuesday.
On Saturday, Trump called them “animals.” That is vile rhetoric, though not at all surprising since he has previously echoed Adolf Hitler’s language by claiming immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
When you sound like Hitler, that’s a very bad thing
Asked about similarities between his words and Hitler’s on Fox News on Sunday, Trump said: “That’s what they say; I didn’t know that.”
Sure, buddy. He apparently missed the classes on World War II in high school history. And it seems worth noting that even “accidentally” saying something that sounds like Hitler is neither good nor normal.
Unfazed by his Fox News interviewer, Trump continued to repeat the same horrendous crap: “Our country is being poisoned.”
He mocked Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker: “You have this guy Pritzker … he’s too busy eating. He wants to eat all the time. Would you like a hamburger? How many do you want? Five. … Who the hell orders five burgers?”
Of Georgia district attorney Fani Willis, who’s prosecuting one of the many criminal cases against the former president, Trump said of her name: “It’s spelled ‘fanny,’ like your a–.”
Speaking of his former competitors in the GOP primary, Trump said advisers told him to to go easy on them: “They said, ‘Sir, please don’t talk about these people that way, they’re Republicans.’ … I don’t give a sh–, they’re terrible.”
To sum things up, the “blood bath” comment, whatever the context, was bad.
But beyond that, the man a majority of Republicans believe should be the next president spent the weekend: calling the sitting president a “numbskull”; calling former Republican primary candidates “terrible”; continuing to deny the results of a free-and-fair election; calling immigrants “animals” while continuing to embrace Hitlerian rhetoric, even after being reminded it’s Hitlerian rhetoric; swearing; crudely making fun of someone’s weight and another person’s name; and calling the people who quite literally attacked the U.S. Capitol and assaulted more than 100 police officers “unbelievable patriots.”
I’d say the real controversy is the media failed to point out that Trump’s “blood bath” comment, disturbing as it is, might have been the least-bad thing he said all weekend.
Former President Donald Trump speaks as the court takes a lunch break during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on October 17, 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
