GBONEWS: $1,500 Reporting Fellowship Deadline, July 18; Don’t Reform Social Safety Now; NYT Reviews Blame Dem Insurance policies, Not Biden for 2024 Loss; 84 and Marching Once more; Caregiving in New Mexico, Puerto Rico; Research: Legos Could Ease Dementia; & MORE.

New Fellows will be part of the roster of 245 alumni journalists from mainstream, ethnic, senior press  or neighborhood media. Because the program’s begin, Fellows have produced greater than 850 tales in all sorts of media. Many have originated in non-English shops serving U.S. audiences, from El Tiempo Latino to Sing Tao Each day, in addition to in general-media shops, such because the Washington Put up, Science Journal, NPR Information, and quite a few native new media. 

Chosen fellows will attend GSA’s 2025 Annual Scientific Assembly, which is able to happen November 12-15, 2025, in Boston. The convention will result in 4,500 professionals in gerontology from world wide, lots of whom will current their analysis in a whole bunch of symposia, papers, and examine posters on almost each subject in growing older. Matters will vary from the newest organic discoveries to public coverage panels on federal cuts, in addition to how state and native providers are dealing with the brand new price range cuts. 

Don’t delay till the deadline is nigh! Candidates should submit proposals with an settlement by a information group’s editor or producer to just accept the mission if it receives a fellowship. (Candidates who double as their outlet’s editor/producer needn’t present a separate letter or e-mail, however they need to make their twin function clear within the proposal.) 

Additionally, GBONews readers, even in the event you don’t plan to use, we’d tremendously recognize your serving to to unfold the phrase to your mates, colleagues and networks. Please publish this fast blurb the place it’d convey one other reporter a superb flip:

16^th Journalists in Getting old Fellowship  utility deadline, July 18. Employees or freelance Journalists in mainstream and ethnic/neighborhood media obtain $1,500, plus bills to attend Fall coaching convention in Boston. Questions: Liz Seegert: liz@lizseegert.com; Todd Kluss at tkluss@geron.org; Paul Kleyman, pfkleyman@gmail.com. 

Presently supporting this system are grants from Silver Century Basis, The Commonwealth Fund, The John A. Hartford Basis, and Nationwide Institute for Well being Care Administration Basis (NIHCM). 

2. SOCIAL SECURITY WATCH

*** “What the Heck Is Taking place at Social Safety?” by Richard Eisenberg, PBS Subsequent Avenue (June 23, 2025):The Dek – “Amid the chaos on the Social Safety Administration [SSA], dance the 3-step to get the help you want.”The Lede: “Halloween could also be months away, however many older People are petrified by the specter of ghoulish customer support on the SSA and worries they gained’t get their promised retirement advantages. 

Harried: “ ‘Fearmongering has pushed folks to assert advantages earlier,’ the company’s appearing commissioner reportedly mentioned at a March assembly. Practically 18% extra folks have claimed Social Safety advantages since January than throughout an identical interval a 12 months in the past, in response to NPR.”

Scary: “In a latest DepositAccounts survey, 59% of nonretired folks anxious they gained’t obtain their Social Safety advantages. And that ballot was taken a month earlier than the discharge on June 18 of the 2025 Social Safety Trustees’ Report forecasted Social Safety recipients will get solely 81% of advantages in 2034 — one 12 months sooner than final 12 months’s estimate — until Congress and the President deal with this system’s solvency woes.”

Service Cuts, Not Advantages: “In April, . . . simply 52% of callers reached a consultant. Enrolling in Medicare — a course of dealt with by Social Safety — is taking longer too.”

“ ‘Lots of these getting fired are certainly the folks with probably the most information about Social Safety,’ mentioned Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston College economics professor and Social Safety specialist.

“Some staffers are being transferred to discipline workplaces, however with out a lot coaching. ‘The issue is that coaching takes a 12 months or two; it’s very intense,’ mentioned Nancy Altman, president of the Social Safety Works political advocacy group. “Persons are being compelled into coping with the general public earlier than they’re prepared.”

*** “This isn’t the second for Social Safety reform,” by Mark Miller, RetirementRevised.substack.com (June 27, 2025):

Who Can You Belief?: Assessing the latest of the Social Safety trustees’ annual studies, Miller clarifies a lot half-baked and falsely alarming reporting in main American media that implied a significant change since final 12 months. 

He explaines, “The monetary projections contained in these studies don’t differ a lot from 12 months to 12 months, which speaks to the excessive stage of competence of the Social Safety actuaries. The retirement fund nonetheless is projected to run dry in 2033 — at that time advantages can be reduce roughly 23% throughout the board until motion is taken earlier than that point.”

Miller emphasised, “However this isn’t the second to hurry into Social Safety reform, regardless of what it’s possible you’ll learn within the media commentary.”

Says Who: “The report triggered the same old panicked media protection; the Washington Put up led the cost with an opinion piece demanding appointment of a fee to develop options. That’s a helpful technique for politicians who need to hold their fingerprints off unpopular proposals to chop advantages, however not good for a public that ought to demand accountability from their elected officers. That is typical fare from the Put up.”

Dangerous Reporting: He goes on, “The [Post] has performed an excellent job protecting the disaster on the Social Safety Administration this 12 months however in any other case has had a depressing report protecting this system. The Put up has repeatedly (and incorrectly) tied this system to the nationwide debt, claimed it’s ‘operating out of cash’ and promoted false equivalency between the 2 political events on options.”

Editor’s word: Miller’s criticism of WaPo could appear to sound aggressive, since he’s a frequent contributor to the New York Instances. Nevertheless, his common “What I’m Studying” part additionally hyperlinks to related tales from different information shops.

What’s Subsequent: Miller counsels, “What’s wanted now isn’t panic or backroom commissions, however public strain, political braveness and a dedication to preserving probably the most profitable anti-poverty program in American historical past for the generations to return—together with, I hope, my grandchildren.”

3. AGE POLITICS MARCHES ON

*** “A 1,400-County Disaster for Democrats,”  New York Instances, “The Each day,” Michael Barbaro, interview with NYT political analyst Shane Goldmacher (June 3, 2025): The Dek—“A Instances evaluation of the final 4 presidential elections reveals how Donald Trump made strides all throughout the nation.” 

Context: The Nice Debate Debacle occurred precisely a 12 months in the past, possible with a decade or extra to return of penalties. President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.’s campaign-ending debate efficiency on June 27, 2025, was speedily met earlier than morning—because the Biden had already headed out to make the primary of a sequence of vigorous speeches within the fading hopes of recovering his quest for a second time period. 

Earlier than his script was within the Teleprompter, the New York Instances had double down on its almost yearlong effort, urging him to step apart due to – his age.

With Biden’s withdrawal and nod to Vice-President Kamala Harris on July 21, she soared in marketing campaign donations, though solely slowly inched up within the polls. Instantly, the president was hailed, particularly by his detractors, for conducting “probably the most consequential first time period” in a half-century.

However Harris, no matter her rock star marketing campaign type, would concede on election evening, considerably behind within the Electoral Faculty, whereas falling quick within the in style vote by a scant 1.5% (her 48.3% to Donald Trump’s 49.8%.)

Liberal commentators and Democratic politicos then whipped out the pointingest fingers East to West—sharply at Joe Biden. The blame was all his, mentioned main Democrats, apart from what painstaking knowledge reporting by one other NYT reporter would reveal this spring.

The information crunch (Could 24, 2025) by NYT political analyst Shane Goldmacher examined the final 4 presidential elections displaying how Donald Trump “made strides all throughout the nation.” 

Throughout the newspaper’s June 3 version of its “Each day” podcast, titled “A 1,400-County Disaster for Democrats,” Goldmacher defined, “I believe that lots of people have regarded on the 2024 election and mentioned this was an outlier for the Democrats, that the Democratic Occasion misplaced as a result of Joe Biden was too outdated, that he stayed within the race too lengthy, that Kamala Harris was a weaker candidate, that she didn’t have sufficient time to prosecute the case, and on and on. However the 2024 election outcomes weren’t a one off. They weren’t a one off in any respect.”

Inspecting presidential election leads to all 3,100 United States counties since 2012, Goldmacher discovered, “Of the 1,433 counties the place Trump has improved repeatedly, solely three had a median revenue of greater than $100,000, so means lower than 1 p.c.”

He added, “On the Democratic aspect, solely 57 counties have moved to the Democrats; 18 of them have an revenue of $100,000 per family on the county stage. So the Democrats are simply enhancing the place these rich enclaves are, and Republicans are enhancing nearly in every single place else.”

Moreover, he continued, “For years, the Democratic Occasion has principally recognized itself because the get together of the working class. It’s a core a part of the get together’s identification. And the outcomes present that working class voters now not see the get together that means. And on the similar time, the get together has banked on extra range serving to, {that a} extra various America was going to be a extra Democratic America. And each of these issues are now not essentially true.”

 *** Headlines, Books ( Jake Tapper, Robert Reich, Joan Williamson) and Wholesome Getting old 

With the GOP marching in step behind its 79-year-old commander-in-chief, political spectators can flip their consideration to the Democratic Occasion’s energy performs between its mainstream centrists and its progressive wing. Headlining this previous week, the progressives may bask within the shock win by Zohran Mamdani, 33, within the New York Metropolis Democratic mayoral major, with a hefty early endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders, 83. 

Extra broadly, squaring off between Dem hardcovers, are center-left pundits, corresponding to Unique Sin authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of CNN, whose e-book paperwork interviews with quite a few Washington observers, who instructed that Biden confirmed indicators of cognitive impairment. 

Most distinguished amongst progressive authors is former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich, now emeritus professor at UC Berkeley. His forthcoming memoir, Coming Up Brief (Penguin/Random Home, Aug. 5, 2025) argues that his get together’s greatest hope for contesting the MAGA opposition that reclaiming their misplaced voters is in supporting a greater and inexpensive residing for working-class People. That was the victorious enchantment of New York’s Mamdani. Additionally see Outclassed: How the Left Misplaced the Working Class and The right way to Win Them Again (St. Martin’s/McMillan, 2025) by authorized scholar Joan C. Williamson. 

In the meantime, what concerning the growing older of America? GBONews.org recommends a  fascinating podcast by The Atlantic (Could 5, 2025), headlined “The right way to Outline Outdated Age.” Atlantic employees author Yasmin Tayag realized amongst different issues, that in 2021 a division of the World Well being Group was about to formally designate “outdated age” as a illness. But in March of that 12 months, one other workplace of WHO issued a worldwide report geared toward combating ageism.

Tayag interviewed a number one geriatric psychiatrist at Canada’s College of Ottawa, who performed cautious discussions with the, resulting in their withdrawing the advice. The Atlantic’s podcast additionally covers features of longevity analysis, particularly the significance of wholesome growing older.

*** “Nonetheless marching in any case these years,” by Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Boston Globe (June 21, 2025): The Dek — “I’m 84. At demonstrations in opposition to the Trump administration, I see folks as outdated as I’m in every single place.”

Who: On this op-ed, Gullette, the creator most lately of American Eldercide: How It Occurred, The right way to Forestall It(College of Chicago Press, 2025) and a scholar at Brandeis College’s Girls’s Research Analysis Middle, writes of becoming a member of protests once more “amid America’s turmoil and woe.” Along with her late mother and father in thoughts, she surmised, “They’d be reassuring me and maintaining my spirits. They’d be carrying indicators on the rallies with all of us.” 

On the March: “On the demonstrations, I see folks as outdated as I’m in every single place. At a ‘No Kings’ demo in Waltham, [Mass.] they carried indicators saying ‘Save Social Safety,’ [and] ‘If a Parade, then Medicaid’ . . . One other signal learn, ‘I’m 90, with Parkinson’s, and I’m pissed.’ A girl in a wheelchair held an indication saying, ‘I’m 83, my first protest!’” 

Age Numerous: She concluded, “Intergenerational solidarity is valuable. . . . To all of us fortunate sufficient to have older folks in our lives, they consolation us by their presence. Repositories of household lore and legend, they dole out secrets and techniques and, for higher or worse, information us by their experiences. And typically by the power of their activism, proper now!”

4. STORYBOARD 

Following are latest tales from our 2024-25 “class” of Journalists in Getting old Fellows:

*** “Take Care: Former Well being Secretary, geriatrician David Scrase discusses New Mexico’s growing older inhabitants,”by Leah Romero, Supply NM, Could 16, 2025): 

The Lede: “David Scrase has labored as a geriatrician in New Mexico for almost 30 years, and beforehand served because the [New Mexico’s] Human Companies Secretary. . .  Scrase informed Supply NM, ‘I all the time inform folks. . . I by no means go right into a room the place at the very least 80% of the folks aren’t making an attempt to determine what to do with an older particular person of their household who’s going by way of one thing like this. It won’t be their quick household, however . . . everyone seems to be on the verge of, or in the course of, or simply previous having to make these sorts of choices about easy methods to present care.”

The Details: “There’s going to be a dramatic development of seniors and wish for look after seniors. There’s additionally the truth that we have now the primary poverty charge amongst folks 65 and older, so we have now the best poverty charge for seniors. And poverty creates sickness and complexity.” 

The Query: Dr. Scrase, mentioned, “Most individuals concentrate on the query of whether or not or not they need to go to a nursing house, sure or no. And . . . I believe the query is, ‘Do I need to go to a nursing house and settle for the professionals and cons of that alternative, or do I need to hold mother at house and settle for the professionals and cons of that alternative? . . . I attempt to work with households to say, ‘Hey, this isn’t one thing you have to determine to really feel responsible about. You would actually concentrate on the standard of the time you’re spending with the one you love.’”

*** “Dementia in Puerto Rico” investigative sequence, by Aiola Virella, Metro Puerto Rico (Could 15-16, 2025): 

* Half 1 — “El Alzheimer a Posicionarse Tercera Causa de Muerte en Puerto Rico/Alzheimer’s on Observe to Develop into the Third Main Reason behind Dying in Puerto Rico.” (Hyperlinks are in Spanish solely and behind paywall; English translations can be found on request to pfkleyman@gmail.com.) 

The Dek: “As Puerto Rico’s inhabitants ages quickly, the island is going through a rising public well being disaster linked to dementia-related situations. This two-part investigative sequence explores the info gaps, institutional challenges, and lack of coordinated care for people residing with dementia and their caregivers.” 

A Reality: “Dementia on the rise, however the figures lag behind preliminary 2024 knowledge suggesting that Alzheimer’s illness could change into the third main reason for loss of life in Puerto Rico—but solely 7% of registered dementia instances have been clinically validated. Regardless of a legally mandated registry and rising prevalence, the federal government lacks a complete nationwide plan, and key businesses just like the Division of Household stay excluded from planning efforts.” 

* Half 2 — “Emergencias sin Memoria: Hospitales no Tienen Protocolos para Pacientes con Demencia/Emergency Rooms With out Reminiscence: Puerto Rico’s Hospitals Lack Protocols for Sufferers with Dementia.” 

The Dek: “Hospitals are unprepared for dementia sufferers. Most hospitals in Puerto Rico lack protocols to deal with dementia sufferers in emergency settings; psychiatric hospitals usually reject them altogether.” 

* Half 3 — “Cuidadores en disaster: la salud de quienes atienden a pacientes con alzhéimer se deteriora en silencio/Caregivers in Disaster: The Silent Decline of These Caring for Alzheimer’s Sufferers.” The Dek: “New epidemiological report reveals excessive charges of persistent sickness, weight problems, and melancholy amongst caregivers in Puerto Rico.” 

The Analysis: “The Puerto Rico Division of Well being has launched a brand new bulletin providing, for the primary time from the company, an in depth profile of individuals caring for people with Alzheimer’s on the island. The evaluation—based mostly on knowledge from the Behavioral Danger Issue Surveillance System (BRFSS)—underscores a sobering actuality: caregiving also can make folks sick, particularly within the absence of structured help. 

The Stats: “Over 50,000 Caregivers—Extra Than 80% Are Girls — The examine estimates that 53,929 folks have been caring for relations with Alzheimer’s in Puerto Rico throughout 2021–2022, representing 16.9% of all caregivers on the island. Most are girls between the ages of 55 and 64, with a school training, employment, and simultaneous household tasks.”  

*** “Single folks had decrease dementia danger than married ones, examine finds,” by Monica Williams, New York & Michigan Options Journalism Collaborative (Could 2025): 

The Dek – “The entire single adults in a examine by Florida State College have been at the very least 50% much less more likely to develop dementia than their married counterparts, difficult beliefs that marriage protects in opposition to declines in cognitive operate.

Key Stats: “The examine assessed greater than 20,000 older adults for as much as 18 years, evaluating them yearly at specialised dementia clinics throughout the USA. . . The outcomes have been related no matter gender.” 

Who Knew?: “Older married people could have a smaller social community, are usually much less self-reliant, and will expertise disturbing situations corresponding to caregiving, which may contribute to the chance of dementia,” Selin Karakose of FSU defined.

“There’s some proof that divorce can result in higher happiness and life satisfaction, and widowed people could expertise a rise in shut community dimension within the years following widowhood, which may probably defend in opposition to dementia danger. One other vital doable rationalization is that the findings may counsel a delayed analysis amongst single people.” 

*** “Legos Can Be Extra Than Little one’s Play for Individuals With Dementia,” by Jeanette Beebe, AARP (Could 6, 2025): Entry Wall Alert – AARP supply at the very least preliminary free-article entry, however solely after on-line registration along with your e-mail deal with and a password.

The Lede: “We’re by no means too outdated to play, says Natalia Kasperovich, a gerontology researcher based mostly in Portland, Ore. She studied how Legos, these brightly coloured interlocking bricks, may supply some respite, even delight, to residents in two reminiscence care services. The individuals — 5 males and 15 girls ages 75 or older — had reasonable to extreme dementia.”

The Journalists in Getting old Fellowships are at present supported by grants from Silver Century Basis, The Commonwealth Fund, The John A. Hartford Basis, and Nationwide Institute for Well being Care Administration Basis (NIHCM). 

5. GOOD OLD SEX (AND MEMORY CAFES) 

*** Press Registrations for Kinsey’s Intercourse and Getting old Scientific Symposium: No have to “swipe proper” to request a comp media registration to attend the Kinsey Institute analysis conclave at Indiana College on October 4, 2025. Reporters could attend displays in particular person or nearly. Request a press cross from KInsey’s Strategic Communications Director Camilla Peterson. She famous, “I’m additionally blissful to discover potential alternatives for particular interviews with our consultants round this subject, too.”

*** New Reminiscence Café Alliance Updates Listing to Find Dementia-Pleasant Websites: McArthur Basis “genius” Anne Basting and colleagues have up to date and relaunched the nationwide listing of Reminiscence Cafes. The revamped web site now contains 500 locations (and counting) “the place folks experiencing cognitive challenges together with caring members of the family, associates {and professional} caregivers can discover significant programming, friendship, and acceptance,” she mentioned. 

Extra Correct: Basting, emerita professor on the College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, based the nonprofit TimeSlips.org, which has offered coaching and help to 1000’s of caregivers nationwide. She and her co-developers spent the previous 12 months revising the outdated listing to be extra correct and embody train-the-trainer modules for widening their community of native organizations and volunteers providing Reminiscence Café providers, freed from cost.

Clusters, Too: Past the listing’s particular person Reminiscence Café areas, Basting and her colleagues are figuring out “robust clusters,” she mentioned, corresponding to a gaggle of 21 libraries west of Milwaukee. Different examples she famous are The Reminiscence Hub in Seattle, the UPenn Reminiscence Middle, the Denver Public Library’s quite a few Reminiscence Cafés and  New York Metropolis’s Arts and Minds program. There’s additionally The Spark! Alliance, a gaggle of arts or tradition museums with 30 applications throughout six states, though don’t conflate it with The Spark Alliance that’s dedicated to increasing chargers for digital automobiles. 

Basting, additionally the creator most lately of Inventive Care: A Revolutionary Strategy to Dementia and Elder Care (Harper One, 2020), is reachable at anne@timeslips.org. 

6. GOOD SOURCES 

*** “Avoidable Mortality Throughout US States and Excessive-Earnings International locations,” by  Irene Papanicolas, PhD; Maecey Niksch, BA; Jose F. Figueroa, MD, MPH, JAMA Inside Drugs (March 24, 2025): This Journal of the American Medical Affiliation article, however authors affiliated with Brown and Harvard universities, discovered, “Between 2009 and 2021, avoidable mortality elevated in all U.S. states, primarily resulting from will increase in preventable deaths, whereas it decreased in comparable high-income nations.”

Life Expectancy: “Regardless of spending greater than any nation on this planet on well being care, life expectancy within the U.S. is comparably worse than that of most different high-income nations and declining each in absolute worth and relative rank. Nevertheless, life expectancy throughout U.S. states varies simply as markedly because it does throughout high-income nations, from 81.8 years in Hawaiʻi to 74.7 years in Mississippi in 2019—a divergence that has been rising over time.

The Upshot: “Regardless of variation in avoidable deaths throughout U.S. states, the examine reveals a rise in avoidable deaths—together with each treatable and preventable deaths—and throughout most causes of sickness all through the U.S. earlier than and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. That is in stark distinction to enhancing tendencies in EU and OECD nations.”