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Dear Abby advises a woman who feels like she's dating a married man, since his wife died two years ago.

It was hard for Emiliano Grillo to miss.

The United States has clinched first place in Group D and advanced to the 2026 FIFA World Cup Round of 32. Here's a ranking of every potential USMNT opponent, from Curacao and Bosnia to Japan and Senegal, ahead of July 1 at Levi's Stadium.

The Anne Arundel County Police Department said that patrol officers responded to an "unknown disturbance" at about 4:40 a.m.

“For Saturday & Sunday, the golf course will be prepared to play progressively firmer and the target green speed will be 11.0 on the USGA Stimpmeter.’’

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a close call between two commercial flights that were in danger of colliding Saturday morning at Boston Logan International Airport.

"First of all, we don't need that building to do that," Maher said. "That's in our hearts and minds. That already happened."

“I nearly f***ing fainted there. Would you mind if I sit down for this one?”

“I nearly f***ing fainted there. Would you mind if I sit down for this one?”

A deranged Florida man who believes he saw the anti-Christ is accused of trying to steal a medical helicopter at the scene of a car crash he reportedly caused.

Brewers skipper Pat Murphy might find himself on the injured list in the near future.

Scottie Scheffler is one of four players on the U.S. Open leaderboard standing at 1 under par and tied for second place chasing Wyndham Clark.

It was an offensive onslaught for the Phillies on Saturday.

Are iPhones Dialing Up The Birth Dearth?

Authored by Thaddeus G. McCotter via American Greatness,

When I call you up, your line’s engaged

I have had enough, so act your age

We have lost the time that was so hard to find

And I will lose my mind

If you won’t see me . . .

Time after time

You refuse to even listen

I wouldn’t mind

If I knew what I was missing

—The Beatles, “You Won’t See Me”

As one heads into senescence, the milestones begin to fade in the rearview mirror. Yet every now and again, something jars the memory to refocus your recognition of such milestones and on how time has truly flown.

Recently, I was reminded that nearly an entire generation of Americans has been born after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. As a Gen Xer born before the introduction of the answering machine, I felt the weight of my sixty years, along with a gnawing anxiety about the future.

No, not because I won’t be around all that much longer. Despite the myths of the ubiquitous cult of youth promoted by our callow commercial culture, the increasing aches and pains accompanying my journey into old age are an insistent reminder that no one lives forever. Rather, my concern is how few Americans will be born to replace me and the other older members of our aging nation.

As reported by Elise Winland in Zeale News, a new study suggests the 2007 introduction of the iPhone has played a significant role in the declining U.S. fertility rate.

Written by Caitlin K. Myers and Ezekiel Hooper and issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the title of the working paper says it all: “Is the iPhone Birth Control? Causal Evidence from AT&T’s 2007–2011 Carrier Monopoly.”

The study’s methodology is straightforward, as are its implications for our nation. As succinctly explained by Ms. Winland: “The paper draws on a natural experiment created by Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T. When the iPhone launched in June 2007, it was available only on AT&T’s network until February 2011, giving researchers a way to compare areas with different levels of early iPhone access.”

While this deal was fortuitous for the researchers, the consequences were disastrous for the nation’s birth rate. According to Myers and Hooper:

The diffusion of the iPhone deepened the decline in births among women under 30 while suppressing the rise in births among older women. Overall, the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33–52% of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15–44. National-survey evidence on time use and sexual behavior is consistent with the iPhone reducing in-person interactions, increasing pornography use, and reducing sexual frequency.

Importantly, Myers and Hooper are not asserting that the iPhone is the sole cause of the steep decline in America’s birth rate, which they cite as having dropped by 22 percent since 2007, again, the year of the iPhone’s introduction. For, as Winland notes, the researchers believe the nation’s record low birth rate of 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 “cannot be fully explained by the common explanations such as the Great Recession, increased access to contraception, rising housing and childcare costs, and delayed marriage.”

The researchers do argue that “studies imply that access to the iPhone reduced births by 4.5–8.0% at ages 15–19 and 3.2–6.6% at ages 20–24, with statistically significant but smaller declines among older cohorts.” (It is worth noting that the iPhone had a salubrious impact on reducing teen pregnancies; however, the enduring detrimental effects stemming from the loss of social interaction and its accompanying skills will be carried into the future by today’s teens.)

Anyone with a cursory acquaintance with Marshall McLuhan’s work will see his dictum, “the medium is the message,” at work here. Every new technology affects human beings, both in how they interact with that technology and in how they subsequently interact—or fail to interact—with other people by using it.

The math—specifically subtraction—is elementary: by spending more time in your virtual cocoon, you have less time for interacting with real human beings. One must therefore consider how much of the iPhone’s contribution to the birth dearth stems from the technology’s unconscious effects on its users. Indeed, unlike, say, birth control or a career choice, the iPhone is not being used deliberately to delay or prevent pregnancy. Rather, the birth dearth is exacerbated because the iPhone user is more rapt with the device and the stimulation it provides than by another person. After all, there are only so many hours in the day—and night.

Meanwhile, the birth rate continues its decline. It is an indicator of national health. An optimistic, future-oriented nation has at least a replacement birth rate, if not a growing one. A declining nation has a declining birth rate. In America today, the atomization of our citizenry and its accompanying anomie continue apace, as algorithmically personalized prison cells push us out of gen pop and into solitary confinement. Thus does the insidious, circular logic of the siren song of decline become the mantra: life is unfair, inequitable, and horrible, so it is better—in fact, virtuous—not to bring a new life into this morass of meaninglessness.

The result of this is the declining birth rate found in both the United States and Europe, where the apostles of postmodernism hold sway, filling the perceived vacuity of modernity with a creed that holds the most “tolerant” belief is to believe in nothing—including one’s inherited civilization. A postmodern generation taught to loathe itself does not care to procreate. For what better way to reject the meaningless future than by making sure there are no succeeding generations to perpetuate it?

While my bachelor’s degree is only in political science, and despite all the technological advances during my lifetime—including the internet, social media, AI, and the answering machine—I nonetheless feel confident in declaring, “You can only make a baby in the real world.”

A healthy nation prizes real life over a virtual world. It doesn’t have a birth dearth. And I’m inclined to believe it has more answering machines—or at least call waiting—and fewer smartphones.

I had to interrupt and stop this conversation

Your voice across the line gives me a strange sensation

I’d like to talk when I can show you my affection

Oh, I can’t control myself . . .

Don’t leave me hanging on the telephone

Hang up and run to me

Oh, hang up and run to me.

—Blondie, “Hanging on the Telephone”

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 23:20

'Syria & Turkey Represent Bigger Threat To Israel Than Iran': Israeli Minister

Via The Cradle

Late this week Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli declared in an interview with Israeli Army Radio that Tel Aviv "will be at war with Syria sooner or later," highlighting that the alliance between Damascus and Turkey poses a "strategic challenge" to his country.

The Likud official said, "There is no way that a jihadist regime rooted in ISIS and Al-Qaeda, whose aspiration is the unification of Jerusalem, can live in peace alongside the State of Israel."

In a separate interview with Kol Barama, a prominent Israeli ultra-Orthodox radio station, Chikli identified Syria as part of a "radical Sunni axis of evil" involving Qatar, Turkiye, and Pakistan, labeling it "far more troubling" than Iran, and claimed that these nations shaped a recent US–Iran memorandum of understanding (MoU) intended to end regional hostilities.

While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the memorandum as an “important development,” Chikli joined other Likud lawmakers in branding Turkiye an “enemy state.” 

He claimed that Turkiye holds “very clear ambitions” compromising Israeli interests, saying that Ankara and Damascus are “ten thousand times more concerning than Iran.”

Following the ousting of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, the Israeli military continues to occupy Syrian land and destroy military equipment, using the new government as a pretext for escalation and territorial expansion.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now demands total demilitarization from south Damascus to the 1973 demarcation line. Since December 2024, Israeli military violations in southern Syria have escalated beyond periodic airstrikes to a sustained campaign involving ground incursions, raids, and the establishment of checkpoints. 

According to a daily tracker launched by Levant24, Israeli forces have carried out approximately 1,128 ground incursions and 1,055 airstrikes, advancing more than 20 kilometers beyond the occupied Golan Heights. These actions have resulted in over 197 detentions and at least 36 fatalities.

This expansion also includes property destruction and the systematic mapping of military positions, reflecting a broader pattern of activity that extends deep into Syrian territory.

Self-appointed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa is reportedly resisting intense pressure from the US to launch a military incursion into Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. 

Despite a framework proposed by US President Donald Trump for the Syrian military to lead this offensive, Sharaa remained “unprepared and unwilling,” according to  Israel’s Broadcasting Corporation (KAN). He cited concerns that such an attack would damage his regional legitimacy by appearing to serve Israeli interests, especially while Israel continues to occupy Syrian territory. 

Although US envoy Tom Barrack has threatened Lebanon with a Syrian assault to dismantle Hezbollah, Sharaa has dismissed the reports as “rumors,” asserting his goal is to end the war rather than expand it. 

Israeli War Minister Israel Katz told Channel 14 that “We do not need Julani. Julani, the terrorist in a suit, does not need to come and help us. We know Syria well. He is not going to help us in Lebanon.” He added that Sharaa “should stay in Syria, not interfere with us, and not make us interfere with him.” 

“Do you know what really hurts the jihadists?” Katz said, going on to assert that killing them would not hurt them as much as “when you take territory from them and destroy their homes – and that's what we did.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 22:45

Freddy Peralta became Freddy Krueger on Saturday, mortifying anyone wearing a Mets uniform but scaring exactly nobody he faced.

Public health officials across several states have issued water quality advisories and beach closures as the summer swimming season continues.

Jose Alvarado is enjoying himself following the Knicks’ championship — perhaps a little too much.

Mitchell Robinson didn't forget those closest to him when celebrating the Knicks' NBA title.

Reliever Blake Treinen has been placed on the injured list with right elbow inflammation, the Dodgers announced before their game against the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday.