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College students get emotional about climate change. Some are finding help in class
At Cornell University, one professor is helping students navigate their emotions about climate change by learning about food.
Rebecca Redelmeier/WSKG
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Rebecca Redelmeier/WSKG
More than 50% of youth in the United States are very or extremely worried about climate change, according to a recent survey in the scientific journal The Lancet.
The researchers, who surveyed over 15,000 people aged 16–25, also found that more than one in three young people said their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily lives.
The study adds to a growing area of research that finds that climate change, which is brought on primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, is making young people distressed. Yet experts say there are proven ways to help young people cope with those feelings — and college classrooms could play a key role.
“When any of us talk about climate with students, we can’t just talk about what’s happening in the atmosphere and oceans,” says Jennifer Atkinson, a professor at the University of Washington. “We have to acknowledge and make space for them to talk openly about what’s happening in their own lives and be sensitive and compassionate about that.”
Atkinson studies the emotional and psychological toll of climate change. She also teaches a class on climate grief and eco-anxiety, during which students examine the feelings they have around climate change with their peers. The first time the class was offered in 2017, registration filled overnight, Atkinson says.
While teaching, Atkinson says she keeps in mind that many of her students have lived through floods or escaped wildfires — disasters that have increased in intensity as the world warms — before they even start college, yet often have had few places to find support. In the classroom, students come together, frequently finding solace and understanding in one another, she says.
“Students repeatedly say that the most helpful aspect isn’t anything they hear me say,” says Atkinson. “But rather the experience of being in the room with other people who are experiencing similar feelings and realizing that their emotions are normal and really widespread.”
Students at Cornell University discuss how climate change threatens some of the foods they eat. They also learn what they can do about it during a class on climate change and food.
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Making climate change personal in class
Atkinson is one of several professors around the country who has opted to put emotions and solutions at the center of her climate teaching to help students learn how to address their worries about human-driven climate change.
At Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Michael Hoffmann, who directed the Cornell Institute for Climate Change Solutions and held other university leadership positions before becoming a professor emeritus, introduced a class on food and climate change last year. The point of focusing on food, Hoffmann says, is to teach students how to connect with climate change through their personal experiences.
“When you tell the climate change story, it has to be relevant to people,” says Hoffmann. “I’d argue there isn’t much more anything more relevant than food.”
In 2021, Hoffman co-wrote a book on how climate change could impact beloved foods like coffee, chocolate, and olive oil. He started the class in 2023 after students told him they were feeling dread about what climate change could mean for their futures.
Part of the goal, Hoffmann says, is to provide students with clear steps they can take to address climate change. Evidence suggests that approach could counteract students’ anxieties.
Since 2022, researchers at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication have published a biannual report on climate change’s influence on the American mind. In the most recent report, released in July, they found most people are able to cope with the stress of climate change. However, about one in 10 say they feel anxious or on edge about global warming several days per week.
Bringing students together to connect about climate change and learn about solutions could help curb that toll, according to lead researcher and program director Anthony Leiserowitz.
“The best antidote to anxiety is action,” says Leiserowitz. “Especially, I would make a plug for action with other people.”
Facing the problem
Students, too, welcome more creative and emotionally-minded climate classes. Three-quarters of those who responded to the recent Lancet survey endorsed climate education and opportunities for discussion and support in academic settings.
At Cornell University, dozens of students have taken Hoffmann’s class. They learn about the global risks to food brought on by warming temperatures and how personal food decisions can play a role in contributing to planet-warming pollution.
Freshman Andrea Kim, who enrolled in the class this semester, welcomes those lessons. For a recent class, students met in a campus dining hall to make their dinner selections. Then they headed to the seminar room next door, where they partnered up to tell each other how the foods on their plate would be impacted by climate change.
After inspecting a classmate’s dinner, Kim explained that the rice, fish, and salad the student had chosen would all be threatened as global temperatures rose. It’s the kind of assignment, she says, that has helped her better understand the dangers of climate change and steps she can take.
“I think it’s good that we’re not just, like, pushing away the problem,” says Kim. “Because it’s still going to be there, whether or not we address it.”
Kim says she sometimes feels stressed about climate change, especially while scrolling through the news on her phone. But she and several other students say the class has helped them navigate those feelings.
Jada Ebron, a senior at Cornell, says she began the class feeling like there wasn’t much she could do about climate change. She says she was frustrated that large companies and governments continue to pollute and that people who are low-income and non-white suffer more as a result.
The class doesn’t shy away from those truths, says Hoffmann. But it aims to show students that their actions aren’t futile either.
To Ebron, that framing resonates.
“It forces you to challenge your beliefs and your ideas about climate change,” says Ebron, who spent part of the summer before her senior year researching how climate change impacts communities of color. “There is something that you can do about it, whether it’s as small as educating yourself or as big as participating in social justice movements.”
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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks
President Trump announced a three-week extension of a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon that had been set to expire in a few days, after hosting a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese diplomats at the White House on Thursday.
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, did not have representatives at the meeting and did not immediately comment on the announcement. The prime minister of Israel and the president of Lebanon also did not comment.
A successful peace agreement would hinge upon Hezbollah halting attacks, which Lebanon’s government has little power to enforce because it does not control the militia. Lebanon’s military has mostly stayed out of the fighting and is not at war with Israel.
The cease-fire, which was scheduled to end on April 26, would last until May 17 if it takes effect as Mr. Trump described it. Before the cease-fire was brokered last week, nearly 2,300 people were killed in Lebanon and 13 in Israel. Since then, the number of Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks have been dramatically reduced, though the two sides have continued exchanging fire.
The Lebanese Ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh, credited Mr. Trump for extending the cease-fire, saying that “with your help and support, we can make Lebanon great again.” Mr. Trump replied, “I like that phrase, it’s a good phrase.”
Asked about the potential of a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, Mr. Trump said that “I think there’s a great chance. They are friends about the same things and they are enemies on the same things.”
But Lebanon and Israel have periodically been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948. Israel has invaded Lebanon for the fifth time since 1978, incursions that have destabilized the country and the delicate balance of power between Muslim, Christian and Druze communities.
In the hours before the president’s announcement on social media, Israel and Hezbollah were trading attacks in southern Lebanon, testing the existing cease-fire.
Mr. Trump said the meeting at the White House had been attended by high-ranking U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon.
Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh killed three people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Hezbollah claimed three separate attacks on Israeli troops who are occupying southern Lebanon, though none were wounded or killed.
Hezbollah set off the latest round of fighting last month by attacking Israel soon after the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran. Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks by launching airstrikes across Lebanon and widening a ground invasion of the country’s south.
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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid
Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira in Venezuela on Jan. 3, 2026 after U.S. forces seized the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
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Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment against a U.S. Army soldier, accusing him of using his insider knowledge of the clandestine military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January to reap more than $400,000 in profits on the popular prediction market site Polymarket.
The Justice Department says Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, was part of the team that planned and carried out the predawn raid in Caracas earlier this year that resulted in the apprehension of Maduro.
The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed the actions against Van Dyke, the first time U.S. officials have leveled criminal charges against someone over prediction market wagers.
According to the indictment, Van Dyke now faces counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, misusing non-public government information and other charges.
Trading under numerous usernames including “Burdensome-Mix,” Van Dyke allegedly traded about $32,000 on the arrest of Maduro, resulting in profits exceeding $400,000.
“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Those entrusted to safeguard our nation’s secrets have a duty to protect them and our armed service members, and not to use that information for personal financial gain.”
Van Dyke’s defense lawyer is not yet publicly known. Polymarket did not return a request for comment.
The charges against Van Dyke come at a sensitive time for the prediction market industry, which has been growing exponentially, despite calls in Washington and among state leaders for the sites to be reined in.
Van Dyke is the first to be charged in the U.S. for suspected Polymarket insider trading, but Israeli authorities in February arrested several people and charged two on suspicion of using classified information to place bets about military operations in Iran on Polymarket.
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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS
The Senate early Thursday morning adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement and the eventual reopening of the Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.
Republicans, who are using the budget plan to lay the groundwork to eventually push through a filibuster-proof bill providing a multiyear funding stream for President Trump’s immigration crackdown, used the all-night session to highlight their hard-line stance on border security, seeking to portray Democrats as unwilling to safeguard the country.
Democrats tried and failed to add a series of changes aimed at addressing cost-of-living issues, seizing the opportunity to hammer Republicans as out of touch with and unwilling to act on the concerns of everyday Americans.
Here’s what to know about the budget plan and the nocturnal ritual senators engaged in before adopting it.
Republicans are seeking a way around a filibuster on D.H.S. funding.
The budget blueprint is a crucial piece of Republicans’ plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end a shutdown that has lasted for more than two months. After Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without new restrictions on agents’ tactics and conduct, the G.O.P. struck a deal with them to pass a spending bill that would fund everything but ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans said they would fund those agencies through a special budget bill that Democrats could not block.
“We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the Budget Committee chairman. “Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril.”
In resorting to a new budget blueprint, Republicans laid the groundwork to deny Democrats a chance to stop the immigration enforcement funding. But they also submitted themselves to a vote-a-rama, in which any senator can propose unlimited changes to such a measure before it is adopted.
The budget measure now goes to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can draft the legislation funding immigration enforcement. That bill will provide yet another opportunity for a vote-a-rama even closer to the November election.
Democrats used the moment to hammer Republicans on affordability.
Democrats took to the floor to criticize Republicans for supercharging funding for federal immigration enforcement rather than moving legislation that would address Americans’ concerns over affordability.
“This is what Republicans are fighting for,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Democratic leader. “To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs.”
Democrats offered a host of amendments along those lines, all of which were defeated by Republicans — and that was the point. The proposals were meant to put the G.O.P. in a tough political spot, showcasing their opposition to helping Americans afford high living costs. Fewer than a handful of G.O.P. senators crossed party lines to support them.
Republicans blocked Democrats’ proposals to address high living costs.
The G.O.P. thwarted an effort by Mr. Schumer to require that the budget measure lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans. Two Republicans who are up for re-election this year, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, voted with Democrats, but the proposal was still defeated.
Republicans also squelched a move by Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, to create a fund that would lower grocery costs and reverse cuts to food aid programs that Republicans enacted last year. Ms. Collins and Mr. Sullivan again joined Democrats.
Also defeated by the G.O.P.: a proposal by Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, to address rising consumer prices brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran; one by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to require the budget measure to address rising electricity prices, and another by Mr. Markey to create a fund to bring down housing costs.
Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is up for re-election in Georgia, also sought to add language requiring the budget plan to address health insurance companies denying or delaying access to care, but that, too was blocked by Republicans.
Republicans sought to amplify their hard-line messages on immigration, voter I.D. and transgender care.
While Republicans had fewer proposals for changes to their own budget plan, they also sought to offer measures that would underscore their aggressive stance on immigration enforcement and dare Democrats to vote against them.
Mr. Graham offered an amendment to allocate funds toward a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the apprehension and deportation of adult immigrants convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor after illegally entering the United States. It passed unanimously.
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sought to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other services, and criticized the organization for providing transgender care to minors. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, also attempted to tack on the G.O.P. voter identification bill, known as the SAVE America Act. Both proposals were blocked when Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, voted to strike them as unrelated to the budget plan.
The Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose their own party’s proposals for new voting requirements were Ms. Collins along with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also opposed the effort to block payments to Planned Parenthood.
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