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Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy accused Congress of failing “in its responsibility to protect our kids” from the harms of social media and called on lawmakers to “step up and act now” in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday.

Murthy, who served as surgeon general during the Obama and Biden administrations, said he would specifically like to see Congress pass legislation that would force social media apps to include warning labels about their harms to children and would allow for more data transparency from social media companies so that researchers can more accurately study the effects of the internet on kids.

The former surgeon general compared social media to cars, pointing to the introduction of safety features like seat belts, air bags and crash testing decades ago.

“Those have reduced the number of deaths,” Murthy told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. “We’ve got to do the same for social media, because what we’re doing now, Kristen, is we’re basically — it’s the equivalent of putting our kids in cars with no seat belts, with no air bags, and having them drive on roads with no speed limits and no traffic lights. And that is just morally unacceptable.”

Congress has tried in recent years to pass legislation to better regulate social media platforms and their interactions with children, with the Senate passing the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) last year with strong bipartisan support.

But both bills faced headwinds from civil liberties groups and social media companies. COPPA 2.0 faced criticism from advertising companies as it sought to update a 1998 law of the same name by raising the age at which companies are allowed to collect information about children from 12 to 17. It also included provisions that would place limits on how third-party companies can advertise to children under 17.

KOSA, meanwhile, would create a “duty of care” for social media companies, making them legally liable for feeding kids content that could be harmful to their mental health. Civil liberties groups warned that social media companies could overcompensate to reduce their legal liability, leading them to censor anything that could be deemed controversial.

Neither bill received a vote on the House floor last year.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., reintroduced KOSA in the Senate earlier this month.

Murthy, who is the author of the 2020 book “Together: Why Social Connection Holds the Key to Better Health, Higher Performance, and Greater Happiness,” linked the rise in social media use among children to the broader loneliness epidemic, warning that chronic loneliness can be detrimental to people’s health.

“That’s when it starts to increase inflammation in our body, increase our risk for heart disease, and other conditions that ultimately shorten our life,” the former surgeon general said.

Online connections, Murthy added, are not the same as connecting and sharing friendships and relationships with people in person.

“I worry about, for young people in particular, is the impact that technology is having on their social connection,” the former surgeon general said. “We tend to think, ‘Oh, kids are on social media. That’s great because they’re connected to one another.’ But no, we have to recognize there’s a difference between the connections you have online and the connections you have in person.”

Murphy warned that “more kids are struggling with this intense culture of self-comparison online, which is shredding their self-esteem.”

“A lot of them are trying to be somebody that they’re not online. And they actually don’t have as many friendships in person as we all need. So you put this all together and what you see is escalating loneliness and isolation,” he added.

Murthy also warned that kids are more at risk of experiencing the negative effects of social media simply because their brains are not fully developed.

“They are more susceptible to social comparison, to social suggestion, their impulse control is not as well developed. And that puts them more at risk of the negative effects of social media,” he said.

Former Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, D-R.I., who is now a mental health advocate, also joined “Meet the Press,” agreeing with Murthy’s assertion that the government was not doing enough to help children on this front.

“Our country is falling down on its own responsibility as stewards to our children’s future,” Kennedy told Welker.

One proposal he offered was to create a “prevention fund,” pointing to the lack of preventive care for mental health ailments.

“If we’re really serious about making a difference, we need to simplify the system. We need to change the reimbursement model. And, by the way, if we want good results, we have to invest in a — what I call a ‘prevention fund’ of sorts,” Kennedy said.

“What I would like is all the payers, the state, the Feds, to put in dollars based upon the actuarial impact of these illnesses. … Why aren’t we putting some of those dollars in a prevention fund where we can identify those people at highest risk and invest now?” he added.

Trailblazing journalist Lorena Hickok started working as a reporter in 1912, at a time when only about 1 in 5 women in the United States had jobs outside the home and their right to vote was still years away. It was that career that led Hickok to someone who would change her professional and personal life forever: Eleanor Roosevelt.

In the new biography “Hick,” the title an ode to its subject’s nickname, author Sarah Miller explores Hickok’s impoverished Midwestern upbringing, her illustrious professional career in the country’s largest cities and the relationship that would come to define her legacy.

Miller said she was inspired to write about Hickok and her association with Roosevelt after reading conflicting accounts about the nature of their decadeslong relationship. The women exchanged letters with each other, sometimes twice daily, from 1932 until Roosevelt’s death in 1962. Hickok donated thousands of these letters to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, and they were made public in 1978, a decade after her death. Their 30-year correspondence provided unique insight into their relationship, but those who read the letters and went on to write about them afterward interpreted them in vastly different ways — from strictly platonic to deeply romantic.

“So you read all those things, and if you’re a person like me, you’re like, ‘OK but who’s right? What is this relationship, really?’ And the best way to do that is to go and read the letters, all of them, with your own eyes,” Miller said.

During her research for “Hick,” which comes out Tuesday, Miller read about 3,500 letters between the two women. Her conclusion falls onto the romantic side of the spectrum, but a romance rooted in friendship.

“They loved each other. They were physically affectionate with each other. It was a romance, for sure. Whether that included sexual intimacy is probably something we can’t know,” Miller said. “It’s really tough to be completely objective, but there’s no question that they were lifelong, deeply intimate friends, and I think that is the bedrock of the relationship.”

In one letter quoted in the book, dated March 5, 1933, the day after her husband’s first inauguration, Roosevelt writes: “Hick my dearest, I cannot go to bed to-night without a word to you. I felt a little as though a part of me was leaving to-night. You have grown so much to be a part of my life that it is empty without you even though I’m busy every minute.”

The following day, Roosevelt tells Hickok: “I can’t kiss you so I kiss your picture good night & good morning.” And in another letter from that week, Roosevelt mentions the sapphire-and-diamond ring Hickok gave her and writes: “Your ring is a great comfort, I look at it & think she does love me, or I wouldn’t be wearing it!”

The women also appear to conceal their level of closeness from others, including how they communicate their love in French. In one 1933 letter, Roosevelt, mentioning her teenage son, writes: “Hick darling, Oh! how good it was to hear your voice, it was so inadequate to try & tell you what it meant, Jimmy was near & I couldn’t say ‘je t’aime et je t’adore’ as I longed to do but always remember I am saying it & that I go to sleep thinking of you & repeating our little saying.”

While there appears to be consensus among historians that Hickok was only romantically interested in women, some caution against interpreting her correspondence with Roosevelt through a contemporary lens.

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning 1994 book, “No Ordinary Time,” historian Doris Kearns Goodwin concedes that their letters contain an “emotional intensity” but appears skeptical that they had more than a deeply intimate friendship, noting that at least one study has shown women of Roosevelt’s era used romantic and even sensual rhetoric to communicate with female friends.

But history does have a way of “straight-washing” same-sex relationships of the past. This practice has even spawned a popular internet joke, “And historians will say they were just good friends.”

Palestinian doctor Alaa al-Najjar has spent her life caring for the Strip’s sick and wounded children as a pediatric specialist at al-Tahrir Hospital in Gaza.

On Friday, she lost nine of her own.

An Israeli airstrike struck her home in Khan Younis, killing nearly her entire family, another unbearable blow in a conflict where grief compounds daily, and where Israel’s declared intent to seize full control of Gaza marches forward amid the rising death toll.

Yahya, 12, Eve, 9, Rival, 5, Sadeen, 3, Rakan, 10, Ruslan, 7, Jibran, 8, Luqman, 2, and Sedar, not yet one year old, died in the strike on Najjar’s home, according to hospital officials.

Video from Gaza showed a tiny charred body zipped up inside a bag. Sedar’s remains were never found.

“We couldn’t find any trace of him,” a civil defense worker said.

One of Dr. Najjar’s children and her husband, also a physician, survived with injuries. Dr. Graeme Groom, a British surgeon working in the hospital, told the BBC on Saturday that he had operated on 11-year-old Adam.

“Our little boy could survive, but we don’t know about his father,” he said.

The Israeli military said its “aircraft struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure adjacent to IDF troops in the area of Khan Younis,” and that it evacuated civilians from the area.

“The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review,” it said.

The heartbreak encapsulated by one family’s loss underscores a conflict that does not appear to be heading toward resolution soon, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirms last week that the military is “moving toward full control” of the Gaza Strip.

According to the Times of Israel, Netanyahu told a press conference last week the only way the assault will end is if “Gaza is totally disarmed; and we carry out the Trump plan,” referring to President Donald Trump’s vision to redevelop the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

News of the deaths of al-Najjar’s family and warnings of starvation in Gaza have intensified domestic and international pressure on Israel for Netanyahu’s government to change course in the enclave, where 53,000 people have been killed and many more have been maimed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Inside Israel, thousands gathered across the country Saturday night at demonstrations, as relatives of the remaining captives begged the government to agree to a deal that would secure their return.

Fifty-eight hostages are thought to remain in Gaza after Hamas carried out its terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli counts.

The Israeli government has publicly confirmed the deaths of 35, leaving 23 hostages believed to still be alive.

Naama Levy, one of five IDF soldiers freed in the January ceasefire, addressed the crowd at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday, recalling the terror of Israeli airstrikes while she was in captivity.

“I was convinced every single time that I was finished, and it’s also what put me in the greatest danger,” she said, recalling the moment a bomb collapsed part of the house she was being held in. “The wall I was leaning on didn’t collapse, and that’s what saved me.”

The United Kingdom, France, and Canada called Israel’s latest escalation in Gaza as “wholly disproportionate,” referring to the renewed offensive.

They also condemned “the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate.”

Netanyahu lashed out on X at the joint statement from his Western allies, calling it “a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel,” referring to the October 7 attacks.

Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said there was a “direct line” between those speaking against Israel’s actions in Gaza, which he calls “blood libels,” and the killings of two Israeli embassy officials in Washington D.C. last week

“This incitement is also done by leaders and officials of many countries and international organizations, especially from Europe,” he said.

Israel allowed humanitarian aid into Gaza last week, citing “practical and diplomatic” reasons. But United Nations General Secretary Antonio Guterres said last week that so far Israel had only authorized for Gaza what “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required.”

“Without rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access, more people will die — and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound,” he told reporters.

When Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton hit what he thought was a game-winning 3-pointer against the New York Knicks at the end of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals — a replay review changed the shot to a two — he immediately looked over to the broadcast booth.

Locking eyes with TNT commentator and former Pacers legend Reggie Miller courtside at Madison Square Garden, Haliburton brought his hands to his neck and mimicked the famous choke gesture Miller made in the same building 31 years ago.

“Everybody wanted me to do it like last year at some different point, but it’s got to feel right and it felt right at the time,” Haliburton said after Wednesday’s game. “If I would have known it was a two, I would not have done it. So I might have wasted it.”

Whether or not Haliburton wasted the celebration too early, the series between the Pacers and the Knicks is off to a thrilling start. Game 1 alone (which Indiana won 138-135 in overtime) featured a never-before-seen comeback, absurd shotmaking, physical play and a thrilling finish, all while stars delivered signature moments.

The instant classic immediately became the latest entry in the New York-Indiana rivalry, which reached a fever pitch in the 1990s. It’s now seeing a new generation add its own chapters to the story.

“I don’t know why we keep running up against the Pacers,” Knicks legend Latrell Sprewell told NBC News ahead of Game 1. “But it’s fun. It’s good for basketball. There’s a lot of history involved. It’s fun to see it repeat itself.”

There is indeed quite a bit of history between the two clubs. Between 1993 and 2000, New York and the Pacers squared off in the postseason six times. The Knicks won two of the first three matchups, from 1993-95, while Indy won two of three between 1998 and 2000.

The hard-fought battles featured numerous iconic moments.

In 1993, New York guard John Starks headbutted Miller in Game 3 of the first round after he and Miller had exchanged trash talk for much of the series up to that point. (The Knicks would advance to the next round with a win in Game 4.)

In 1994, Miller made the infamous choke sign in the direction of director Spike Lee after scoring 25 points in the fourth quarter of a Pacers win at Madison Square Garden in Game 5, though Indiana would lose the next two to be eliminated in seven games.

In 1995, Miller famously scored 8 points in nine seconds to help Indiana steal Game 1 in a series it would eventually win in seven.

In 1999, an eighth-seeded New York team upset the Pacers, thanks in large part to a 4-point play by Larry Johnson in Game 3. (The Knicks would win in six despite an Achilles injury to center Patrick Ewing.)

Three times (1994, 1999, 2000), the teams played in the conference finals, with New York winning the first two times before the Pacers broke through.

The teams did not meet again in the playoffs until 2013, and then not again until last year, when the current iteration of the rivalry started percolating once again.

“It’s just a very intense matchup. That’s really the simple truth about it,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle — who was also an assistant with the Pacers from 1997-2000 — said ahead of Game 1. “It’s always great competition.”

Indiana won last year’s semifinal series in seven games, though several important Knicks players were injured for much of it. The 2024 meeting still had flashpoint moments, including a game-winning three by Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard in Game 3, or the New York crowd chanting “F— you, Reggie” at Miller at the end of Game 2 — punctuated by Josh Hart letting Miller know that’s what the fans were saying in case he couldn’t hear.

“This is why I can’t stand the Knicks,” Miller said about that moment on a podcast last June. “They’re front-runners. They think they’re God’s gift to basketball. Now that you guys know you’re going to win the game, the chant’s OK.”

“They should have left it at that. When gasoline was poured on it was when Josh came up to me. … I think he was trying to be funny.”

Haliburton and the Knicks’ Jalen Brunson continued the feud (albeit in a lighthearted manner) in the summer, nearly squaring off in a ring at the Garden during a taping of “WWE Smackdown,” with Brunson at one point threatening Haliburton with a steel chair.

“He’s a great player. I love competing against him,” Haliburton said of Brunson after Game 1. “I know maybe I’m not supposed to say that we’re friends. I love competing against that guy.”

The 2020s versions of the Knicks and Pacers still have a few more series to go to match the scale of the rivalry from the ’90s. At the very least, if Haliburton keeps hitting shots like he did in Game 1, he’ll quickly become as much of a villain as Miller was.

“I think the storied rivalry between the Pacers and Knicks is really cool, but I think where we are right now, we’re writing our own stories,” Haliburton said Wednesday. “I think where we are is a special time, and something that’s going to be remembered by fans of the Pacers, fans of the Knicks moving forward.”

Before Floyd’s murder, she was known as the first Black, openly transgender woman elected to public office in America. Elected in 2018, she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a year earlier. But that did not stop Jenkins from tending to her neighborhood on foot, shopping at Cup Foods, frequenting local businesses and greeting her constituents on the street. 

After Floyd was killed, she found herself in the center of a political and social maelstrom that led to a decline in her health, she said. Because the president of the city council was out of town on May 25, 2020, and unreachable, Jenkins, the vice president, was thrust onto the response leadership team. 

During the protests, she took calls every two hours nightly — 1 a.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m. — with members of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department, Minnesota State Patrol, the FBI and other agencies. Because of construction, siren-blaring ambulances headed to the local hospital were rerouted through her neighborhood, adding to the noise. 

“It was so chaotic,” Jenkins recalled. “Not only the calls and the traffic, but there were helicopters whirling above. There was gunfire. And this happened virtually all night.” 

Five years later, Jenkins said she routinely stays up until 4 a.m. 

“My sleep habits have been deeply challenged. It’s part of my PTSD,” she said. “Even though it got quiet after a while, I still haven’t been able to get back to my old sleeping pattern.” 

Before Floyd’s death, she did not move about the community on a motorized scooter as she does now. “I do have multiple sclerosis, but it’s exacerbated by the stress,” Jenkins said. “It’s all added up.” 

KYIV, Ukraine — A massive Russian drone-and-missile attack targeted the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and other regions in the country for a second consecutive night, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens, officials said early Sunday.

The scale of the onslaught was stunning — Russia hit Ukraine with 367 drones and missiles, making this the largest single attack of the more than three-years-long war, saccording to Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force.

In all, Russia used 69 missiles of various types and 298 drones, including Iranian-designed Shahed drones, he told The Associated Press. It was “the most massive strike in terms of the number of air attack weapons on the territory of Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022,” Ihnat said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian missiles and drones struck more than 30 cities and villages across Ukraine and urged Western partners to ramp up sanctions on Russia.

That has been a long-standing demand of the Ukrainian leader but one that — despite warnings to Moscow by the United States and Europe — have not materialized in ways to deter Russia.

Zelenskyy wrote on X that Sunday’s targets included Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil, Chernihiv, Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Cherkasy regions.

“These were deliberate strikes on ordinary cities. Ordinary residential buildings were destroyed and damaged,” he said.

“Without truly strong pressure on the Russian leadership, this brutality cannot be stopped. Sanctions will certainly help,” Zelenskyy said. “Determination matters now — the determination of the United States, of European countries, and of all those around the world who seek peace.”

The attack came on the third day of a planned prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine, the only tangible outcome from peace talks in Istanbul earlier this month that have so far failed to produce a ceasefire. The exchange amounted to a rare moment of cooperation between the warring sides.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 110 Ukrainian drones overnight.

‘Massive’ attack

Sounds of explosions boomed throughout the night in Kyiv and the surrounding area as Ukrainian air defense forces persisted for hours in efforts to shoot down enemy drones and missiles. At least four people were killed and 16 were injured in the capital itself, according to Ukraine’s security service.

“A difficult Sunday morning in Ukraine after a sleepless night. The most massive Russian air attack in many weeks lasted all night,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.

Fires broke out in homes and businesses, set off by falling drone debris.

In the region of Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv, three children were killed, aged 8, 12 and 17, according to the emergency service. Twelve were injured in the attacks, the service said. At least four people were killed in the Khmelnytskyi region, in western Ukraine. One man was killed in Mykolaiv region, in southern Ukraine.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a student dormitory in Holosiivskyi district was hit by a drone and one of the building’s walls was on fire. In Dniprovskyi district, a private house was destroyed and in Shevchenkivskyi district, windows in a residential building were smashed.

The attacks over the past 48 hours were among the most intense Russian aerial strikes on Ukraine since the February 2022 full-scale invasion. The last in a three-day prisoner swap was expected to take place later on Sunday.

No letup

Zelenskyy and Russia’s defense ministry said each side brought home 307 more soldiers the previous day, on Saturday, a day after each side released a total of 390 combatants and civilians. Once completed, the swap will amount to the largest exchange of prisoners in more than three years of war.

“We expect more to come tomorrow,” Zelenskyy said on his official Telegram channel on Saturday. Russia’s defense ministry also said it expected the exchange to be continued, though it did not give details.

The previous night, explosions and anti-aircraft fire were heard throughout Kyiv as many sought shelter in subway stations as Russian drones and missiles targeted the Ukrainian capital.

The ongoing POW exchange, the latest of dozens of swaps since the war began and the biggest involving Ukrainian civilians so far did not herald a halt in the fighting.

Battles have continued along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed, and neither country has relented in its deep strikes.

Four of the six Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa and four in Minnesota will shut down in a year, the Midwestern affiliate operating them said Friday, blaming a freeze in federal funds, budget cuts proposed in Congress and state restrictions on abortion.

The clinics closing in Iowa include the only Planned Parenthood facility in the state that provides abortion procedures, in Ames, home to Iowa State University. The others are in Cedar Rapids, Sioux City and the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale.

Two of the clinics being shut down by Planned Parenthood North Central States are in the Minneapolis area, in Apple Valley and Richfield. The others are in central Minnesota in Alexandria and Bemidji. Of the four, the Richfield clinic provides abortion procedures.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate said it would lay off 66 employees and ask 37 additional employees to move to different clinics. The organization also said it plans to keep investing in telemedicine services and sees 20,000 patients a year virtually. The affiliate serves five states — Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

“We have been fighting to hold together an unsustainable infrastructure as the landscape shifts around us and an onslaught of attacks continues,” Ruth Richardson, the affiliate’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

Of the remaining 15 clinics operated by Planned Parenthood North Central States, six will provide abortion procedures — five of them in Minnesota, including three in the Minneapolis area. The other clinic is in Omaha, Nebraska.

The affiliate said that in April, President Donald Trump’s administration froze $2.8 million in federal funds for Minnesota to provide birth control and other services, such as cervical cancer screenings and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

While federal funds can’t be used for most abortions, abortion opponents have long argued that Planned Parenthood affiliates should not receive any taxpayer dollars, saying the money still indirectly underwrites abortion services.

Planned Parenthood North Central States also cited proposed cuts in Medicaid, which provides health coverage for low-income Americans, as well as a Trump administration proposal to eliminate funding for teenage pregnancy prevention programs.

In addition, Republican-led Iowa last year banned most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant, causing the number performed there to drop 60% in the first six months the law was in effect and dramatically increasing the number of patients traveling to Minnesota and Nebraska.

After the closings, Planned Parenthood North Central States will operate 10 brick-and-mortar clinics in Minnesota, two in Iowa, two in Nebraska, and one in South Dakota. It operates none in North Dakota, though its Moorhead, Minnesota, clinic is across the Red River from Fargo, North Dakota.

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