More teens are experiencing anxiety and depression, taking medication, and struggling with the fallout of drugs—problems that can carry into adulthood.
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| “The effort to strive for truth has to precede all other efforts.” |
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| Ivan Pentchoukov
National Editor |
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| Ivan Pentchoukov
National Editor |
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Good morning! It’s Wednesday. Here are today’s top stories: |
- Social media use is fueling an epidemic of anxiety and overmedication among teens. Here’s how one teenager made her way out of the pit of despair.
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The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional map that would eliminate two majority-black districts and could benefit Republicans in the midterms.
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The Chinese Consulate in New York played a role in raising the Chinese regime’s flag over Philadelphia City Hall, according to government records recently obtained by The Epoch Times.
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Iranian negotiators have shown increasing willingness to negotiate over aspects of their nation’s nuclear program, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told senators on Tuesday.
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🍵 Health: A new study suggests that mental health diagnoses may be less reliable than clinicians and patients assume.
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Sofia never really felt like she fit in as a preteen, so she turned to a place where she could get lost and go numb. She sat scrolling on her smartphone, hour after hour, day after day, searching for her identity. It was an easy distraction from the social isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine and the pain of her parents’ divorce. “I was so enraptured by what was going on in my phone,” Sofia, now 15, told The Epoch Times. Caught up in standards that she didn’t think she could achieve, she hated herself and was genuinely terrified by the thought of talking to peers.
“After quarantine, I would go out, I’d be profusely sweating,” she said. “I would be nervous, my face would be burning when I was talking to people.” Rather than discuss her feelings, she would let them build up inside until she exploded with emotion.
Sofia considered her options. She watched peers brag about anxiety medications on social media and saw them isolating further into unchecked phone scrolling. Like Sofia, today’s teens are prone to the trap of social media, which encourages anxiety and depression and grooms them to believe that medication is the only way to escape the uncomfortable—and sometimes normal—feelings that accompany adolescence.
Platforms such as TikTok have amplified a broad spectrum of voices around drugs for teen anxiety and depression. Those voices include psychiatrists educating about various medications, influencers creating sponsored content, pharmaceutical companies posting advertisements, and even teens boasting about their own anti-anxiety prescriptions. (More)
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A man holds a baby outside a coffee shop in Washington on March 11, 2026. (Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times) |
Birth rates have declined across most developed nations, raising concerns about the future of families, communities, and society itself. Economists point to rising housing and childcare costs. Others cite changing cultural values, declining marriage rates, loss of religious faith, growing uncertainty about the future, or a broader loss of meaning and purpose in modern life. The Epoch Times invites you to share your views on the forces shaping family formation, childbearing, and the future of society.
The results will be featured in an article published this Saturday. (Take the Survey)
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Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to The Epoch Times about his proposal for an AI bill of rights at the Florida Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee, Fla., on Jan. 16, 2026. (Natasha Holt for The Epoch Times) |
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is advancing a constitutional amendment to deliver sweeping property‑tax relief to Florida homeowners and establish a pathway toward the full elimination of property taxes. Here is what to know about the governor’s plan.
- The White House Correspondents’ Dinner will be held again on July 24 in Washington following the cancellation of a previous event at which an armed man allegedly attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump. The president said he will attend the rescheduled event.
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President Trump reacted to the news that Canada has entered a technical recession by once again calling for the country to join the United States as its “51st state.”
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The president signed an executive order intended to address cybersecurity threats posed by artificial intelligence. Signed in private, the order allows for optional government review of cutting-edge frontier models 30 days before a full public release.
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Fannie Mae Chairman William Pulte is going to be acting director of national intelligence. Pulte, 38, also directs the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He will keep those positions while acting as the national intelligence director, President Trump said.
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New York Democrats are moving to give state lawmakers the power to redraw the state’s congressional maps, entering the national fight over control of the U.S. House.
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The Trump administration has revoked the visa of a Chinese national working for Beijing’s state-run news agency Xinhua in the United States.
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President Donald Trump said that reports indicating an end to diplomatic negotiations between Iran and the United States are “false and erroneous,” adding that talks between the two nations are ongoing. Iranian media later signaled that indirect negotiations with the US remain on track.
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Authorities charged four suspects on June 1 with felony drug distribution violations after finding a hidden tunnel used by drug runners inside a retail store in San Diego County that led into Tijuana, Mexico.
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Prominent U.S. investor Andrew Left was convicted of securities fraud. Prosecutors charged in 2024 that the Citron Research founder manipulated stocks and misled investors about his positions in firms such as Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Tesla. Left denied the accusations and pleaded not guilty. He has been one of the best-known short sellers in financial markets for years.
- Alphabet, Google’s parent company, said that it will raise $80 billion through stock sales to fund its artificial intelligence spending.
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A satellite image shows military activity underway at the edge of the Xinjiang octagon-shaped installation, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, May 11, 2026. (Vantor/Handout via Reuters) |
- The Chinese communist regime seems to be expanding facilities near nuclear silos, forming a vast military network in the desert in northwestern China, according to recently published satellite images.
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Mette Frederiksen will serve a third term as Denmark’s prime minister of a coalition government, holding onto power despite her Social Democratic party losing its majority. In her third term in power, the Danish leader plans to resist U.S. pressure over Greenland, tackle domestic inflation, and expand the welfare state.
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British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has described footage of an 18-year-old student being handcuffed by police while he lay dying as “disturbing and tragic” after it emerged that his killer had falsely claimed that he had been the victim of a racist attack by the student.
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The number of possible cases in the Ebola outbreak in central Africa has dropped significantly from 1,000 to just 116 in recent days, with most suspected cases being ruled out.
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The UK is re-examining its attitude toward allowing autonomous drones to use lethal force. The current policy of Britain’s military, according to documents published in 2022, states that there would be “context-appropriate human involvement” in the selection and engagement of targets. However, in the wake of rapid advances in drone warfare, some officials are pushing to make human involvement in such decisions optional.
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As Japan moves to strengthen its military capabilities amid growing security concerns in the Indo-Pacific, the United States has signaled strong support for Tokyo’s defense buildup, backing plans that include the temporary deployment of U.S. missile systems on Japanese territory and expanded cooperation on missile development and production.
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The Economic Stalling Dates Far Back—by Jeffrey A. Tucker (Read)
- Record Highs, AI Mania, and the Fear Nobody Wants to Discuss—by Edward Chin (Read)
- The Legacy of the Declaration of Independence—by Rob Natelson (Read)
- Reflecting on America’s Necessary Faith in the Miraculous—by Dustin Bass (Read)
- The End of China’s Growth Miracle—by Antonio Graceffo (Read)
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Local residents sit next to the debris of buildings destroyed in an explosion in Kaung Tat village, Burma on June 2, 2026. (AFP via Getty Images) |
📸 Day in Photos: Protest on Alleged Police Mishandling, Genocide Remembrance Ceremony in Paris, and Cuba Hotel Pullback (Look)
🎙️ Podcast: Parents Get Prison Terms After Isolating Their 3 Kids for 4 Years Over COVID Fears—Facts Matter (Listen)
🍿 Film Review: The Breadwinner (Read)
💛 Inspiration: In this classical Chinese dance story, a group of monks face tests on the path to spiritual enlightenment. (Watch)
🎵 Music: Mozart - Sonata In B Flat (Listen)
👁️ (Sponsored) Still Using Eye Drops? 5 Reasons They’re Not Solving Your Dry Eye Problem — Eye drops may offer temporary relief, but they don’t always address the root cause. Discover 5 overlooked reasons symptoms return—and the simple shift people are making for longer-lasting comfort. * |
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) |
A mental health diagnosis can influence everything from the way people see themselves to new medications, insurance coverage, and even job opportunities. However, a new study, published in JAMA Network Open, suggests that psychiatry’s most trusted diagnostic interviews—often considered the gold standard—may be less reliable than many clinicians and patients assume. Researchers found that when adults completed the same interview twice, typically within one to two weeks, they did not always receive the same diagnosis.
“Many people assume these interviews give a definitive answer—that you either do or do not have a condition,” the study’s senior author Laura Duncan, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University, told The Epoch Times via email. “In reality, diagnosis may be more contextual.”
The analysis pooled data from 46 studies, covering more than 8,000 adults in 26 countries and 17 different structured diagnostic tools, including the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM, the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, and the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), used to assess mental and substance use disorders.
Yet, across the studies reviewed, overall agreement between the first and second interview was moderate. On a standard scale where “1” means perfect agreement, the interviews scored 0.69—falling short of the level of consistency many people might expect from a diagnostic tool often considered a gold standard.
“The more accurate takeaway is not that diagnoses are arbitrary,” Duncan said. “It’s that they are not perfectly reliable when measured using structured interviews.”
Diagnoses tied to more observable behaviors tended to be more consistent. For example, substance use disorders performed better than mental disorders as a group, with an agreement score of 0.72 compared with 0.65 for mental disorders. (More)
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Thanks for reading 🙏 Have a wonderful day! |
—Ivan Pentchoukov, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li. |
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