MINDFUL OR MINDLESS?

Our take on who’s paying attention and who’s not

by AMBER TUCKER

Do you take your tea with milk, sugar, or…plastic?

Silky teabags, often made from nylon, can leach “billions of nanoparticles” of plastics into your steeping tea, said researchers from Montreal’s McGill University. Any effects of ingestion are still unknown.

Taking effect in July 2022, a California law will bar middle and high schools from starting before 8:00 a.m., giving teens time for needed Zzzs. At many US schools, instituting a later start time has improved students’ mental health, attendance rates, and wakefulness in class.

From Alaska’s Katmai National Park comes “Fat Bear Week”: An annual public education campaign about how bears prepare for hibernation. It includes a “fattest bear champion” vote and a reminder: “Fat bears only exist because of clean water and healthy ecosystems.”

An avid runner (maybe TOO avid), Kade Lovell in St. Cloud, Minnesota, took a wrong turn on the racetrack. He’d set out to run the 5K. The nine-year-old and his parents were shocked to learn Kade not only ran the 10K by mistake, but won it, against grown-up competitors.

Before her plane left the tarmac, a passenger on Xiamen Airlines in China felt the plane was “too stuffy”—so she opened the emergency hatch to cool off, though others warned her not to. It got her arrested, and caused further flight delays. ●