The Im retiring announcement requires a lot of pre-planning that goes way beyond thinking about the financial piece of your future. No matter their financial stability or other factors, respondents to the longitudinal Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe all displayed accelerated memory decline after retirement. But there are ways to slow cognitive decline as you age.

While Callahan has summer figured out, she knows that winters in her home city of Alexandria, Va., arent as friendly to her favorite hobbies. Since she lives alone, she knows she has to plan ahead for those months. As many people learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, isolation can be harsh on cognitive abilities in older adults. So Callahan has already started thinking about volunteering and other social activities she can do throughout the cooler months to keep isolationand its associated cognitive declinesat bay. 

I cant help but notice all of my declines. You know, the knees. And I cant remember names. But I just choose to proceed nonetheless, says Callahan. It helps that she has good retiree role models. I sail with a guy who is in his nineties, and I go hear jazz with a couple who are [both] 93 and sharp as can be.

Stayor getconnected

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has made it his mission to help Americans find and maintain social connections. Spending too much time isolated and disconnected from other people can really wallop a persons health, including an increase of 50% in the risk of developing dementia for older adults. A 2020 report said about one-quarter of adults over the age of 65 are socially isolated. With work hours freed up, you have time to take classes in everything from art to philosophy. Do some volunteering. Or call that friend youve been meaning to catch up with and turn your talks into a weekly walk, class, or other event. And, of course, theres always pickleball, one of the most social sports around.

Dont stop moving

One of the essential ways to keep your brain working its best as you age is, with apologies to songwriter will.i.am, to move it move it. Your body, that is. Even if exercise wasnt always (or ever) a must-do while you were working, its not too late. No matter your age, making exercise a prioritywhether thats working out at the gym or hiking or swimming or whatever activity you chooseyoull achieve a higher later-life cognitive state, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry. (Yes, an ongoing history of exercise is even better for the brain but until time travel is invented, starting now is the best way to go.) 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend getting at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity weekly. If you need a walking buddy and can afford the costs associated with pup upkeep, get a dog. Along with the, on average, 22 minutes more youll walk per day, pet ownership can also protect against cognitive declines, according to the Health and Retirement Study. 

Send stress packing

Along with, possibly, adding minutes to your fitness count, sex increases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that impacts memory, and reduces cortisol, a hormone thats released when youre stressed out. Those are, quite simply, the exact directions you want those chemicals to go, as theres evidence that both lead to improved cognition. Researchers back in 2017 knew something good was going on with the sexual activity-brain connection though, at the time, they werent sure of the why. But research participants results made it clear that weekly sexual activity was linked to improved brain function in adults 50-83. 

Both sex with a partner and masturbation can help people sleep better, and sleep has long been proven as a protective measure against cognitive decline. But not too much sleep, which, surprisingly, can lead to a raft of health issues, including depression. Shoot for seven to nine hours of sleep per night, according to the National Institute on Aging. (If you find yourself unable to sleep or sleeping too much, talk to your doctor. You may need to undergo a sleep study to find the root cause of your sleep issues.)

But sex isnt the only way to put your body to work to reduce stress levels. Study after study has made it clear that yoga provides a powerful balm against stress. If getting started feels intimidating, find a local yoga class and just let the instructor know youre new to the practice. Most will help you get set up and offer extra attention to help you learn yoga poses. Or consider starting with online classes. One of YouTubes most popular yoga channels, Yoga with Adriene, is 12 million subscribers strong and offers hundreds of free classes for every experience level.

Not only is it important to cut back on stress, but also avoid creating new stressors for yourself. Keep to the retirement budget you set. With 72% of Americans feeling stressed about money, as documented in the American Psychological Associations Stress in America report, its best to keep your finances in control. Didnt set up a budget yet? Its never too late. If possible, work with a professional financial advisor who can help you understand how much money youll really need versus how much you think youll need. Then, stick to that budget.

Find a new way to work

For some people, retirement isnt so much a choice as a feeling that theyre being pushed out. That their retirement announcement ultimately stems more from a perception that coworkers think theyve aged out of being useful or that theyre too slow or forgetful.

Researchers call this driver of retirement as the the worn-out syndrome. Sound familiar? Dont let ageism determine how you live. Staying busy with meaningful work (that includes volunteering) keeps the brain active. Theres no reason you have to stay retired. If you enjoy your work, find a place that will appreciate your contributions at every age. Or consider a part-time job. After all, youve got a busy schedule: Youve got hobbies to take up and a dog to walk.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is demanding that ARC Automotive Inc. of Knoxville recall 67 million inflators in the U.S. because they could explode and hurl shrapnel. At least two people have been killed in the U.S. and Canada, and seven others have been hurt as a result of defective ARC inflators, the agency said.

The recall would cover a large portion of the 284 million vehicles now on U.S. roads, but the percentage is difficult to determine. Some have ARC inflators for both the driver and front passenger.

In a letter posted Friday, the agency told ARC that it has tentatively concluded after an eight-year investigation that ARC front driver and passenger inflators have a safety defect.

Air bag inflators that project metal fragments into vehicle occupants, rather than properly inflating the attached air bag, create an unreasonable risk of death and injury, Stephen Ridella, director of NHTSAs Office of Defects Investigation, wrote in a letter to ARC.

But ARC responded that it no defect exists in the inflators, and that any problems are related to isolated manufacturing issues.

The next step in the process is for NHTSA to schedule a public hearing. It could then take the company to court to force a recall.

We disagree with NHTSAs new sweeping request when extensive field testing has found no inherent defect, ARC said in a statement Friday night.

Also Friday, NHTSA posted documents showing that General Motors is recalling nearly 1 million vehicles equipped with ARC inflators. The recall covers certain 2014-2017 Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, and GMC Acadia SUVs.

The automaker says an inflator explosion may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants, resulting in serious injury or death.

Owners will be notified by letter starting June 25, but no fix is available yet. Theyll get another letter when one is ready.

GM says it will offer courtesy transportation on a case-by-case basis to owners who fear driving vehicles that are part of the recall.

The company said that its doing the recall, which expands previous actions, out of an abundance of caution and with the safety of our customers as our highest priority.

One of the two deaths was a mother of 10 who was killed in what appeared to be an otherwise minor crash in Michigans Upper Peninsula in the summer of 2021. Police reports show that a metal inflator fragment hit her neck in a crash involving a 2015 Chevrolet Traverse SUV.

At least a dozen automakers have the allegedly faulty inflators in use, including Volkswagen, Ford, BMW and GM, NHTSA said.

The agency contends that welding debris from the manufacturing process can block an exit orifice for gas that is released to fill the air bag in a crash. Any blockage can cause pressure to build in the inflator, blowing it apart and hurling metal fragments, Ridellas letter says.

But in a response to Ridella dated May 11, ARC Vice President of Product Integrity Steve Gold wrote that NHTSAs position is not based on any objective technical or engineering conclusion about a defect, but rather conclusory statements regarding hypothesized blockage of the inflator orifice from weld slag.

He wrote that welding debris has not been confirmed as the cause in any of the seven inflator ruptures in the U.S. ARC contends that only five have ruptured while in use, and that does not support a finding that a systemic and prevalent defect exists in this population.

Gold also writes that manufacturers must do recalls, not equipment manufacturers like ARC. NHTSAs recall demand, he wrote, exceeds the agencys legal authority.

In a federal lawsuit filed last year, plaintiffs alleged that ARCs inflators use ammonium nitrate as a secondary propellant to inflate the air bags. The propellant is pressed into tablets that can expand and develop microscopic holes if exposed to moisture. Degraded tablets have a larger surface area, causing them to burn too fast and ignite too big of an explosion, according to the lawsuit.

The explosion can blow apart a metal canister housing the chemical, sending metal shards into the cabin. Ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizer and as a cheap explosive, is so dangerous that it can burn too fast even without moisture present, the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs allege that ARC inflators have blown apart seven times on U.S. roads and two other times in testing by ARC. There have so far been five limited recalls of the inflators that totaled about 5,000 vehicles, including three recalls by GM.

Part of the problem was that coverage of Trump was a ratings boon for the struggling news industrywith the Trump bump sending record numbers of viewers and readers to newspapers, online publications, and TV shows. It was intoxicating for the industry. News channels were captivated by Trumps roadshow, famously airing empty podiums as they waited for him to arrive, instead of going live to his opponent Hillary Clinton giving a speech about her plans to raise incomes for working families. Newspaper journalists spent countless hours in red state diners trying to probe the psyche of Trump voters as if they were unknowable mysteries, instead of people who regularly expressed exactly who they were and what they were about. 

Even so, the American media establishment was blindsided by Trumps 2016 victory, and vastly underestimated his ability to carry out his far-right agenda as president. While he was in the White House, many in the press fell back upon euphemisms and false equivalencies, as Perry Bacon, Jr. wrote recently in the Washington Post: They played down Trumps radicalism to appear neutral and objective, to get access to Trump and his top aides or to appeal to Republican officials and consumers. And even now, they continue to curry favor with Trump and traffic in the rhetoric of both sidesas if there is more than one side to bigotry. 

After Trump lost the 2020 election, fomented an insurrection, and has continued, to this day, to promote the big lie, that he was robbed of a second term as president, I dared hope that the media had learned its lesson about how to cover Trump on the campaign trail.

In these early days of the 2024 election cycle, though, it would seem that nothing was learned at all.

Trump looked tired when he strolled onto the New Hampshire stage for CNNs town hall on Wednesday, visibly wearing every one of his 76 years. The day before, a federal jury had found him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s, and then defaming her. Still, CNN opted to move forward with the televised event, moderated by This Morning anchor and chief correspondent Kaitlan Collins in front of an audience of Republicans and Independent voters inclined to vote for hima curious choice, at best. 

From the very first moment to the abrupt last, Trump was exactly who he has long revealed himself to be.

The candidate was bombastic, arrogant, and rude. He lied time and time again. When Collins, who came across as well-prepared and well-versed in all the political issues, corrected his lies in real time, he spoke over her, smirking as he declared his warped version of the truth to be the final word on everything from election fraud to the Jan. 6 insurrection to the debt ceiling. He continued to denigrate Carroll (who now says shes considering suing him again). And save for the final minutes of the town hall, Collins ended up looking helpless in the face of the former presidents performanceexactly as he and his camp wanted it.

At times, Trump looked like a lunatic, babbling incoherent nonsense. At opportune moments, he threw out the words sure to rile up his base. Radical. Border. Patriot. Nasty person. Rarely did he answer the question being asked, instead using each one as an invitation to continue discussing whatever he wanted. The audience applauded and laughed and applauded and laughed. That was, perhaps, the most disappointing aspect of the prime time TV event, watched by 3.3 million people.

But the morning after this debacle was even more disappointing, perhaps, when CNNs chairman, Chris Licht, congratulated Collins on a masterful performance and himself on his bravery in airing it. I absolutely, unequivocally believe America was served very well by what we did last night, he declared on the networks morning editorial call. He went on to say that Kaitlan pressed him again and again, and made news, made a lot of news.

Lets be clear: Media organizations are, mostly, businesses. They are struggling businesses in the midst of a downward spiral, making it harder to walk away from a spectacle that will bring them a big audience, even if the spectacle is destructive, corrosive to democracy, and criminal. Any one of CNNs rival networks would likely have jumped at the opportunity to air the town hall. I would like to believe, however, that they would have done so with slightly more integrity. 

Most media enterprises employ great journalists who know how to call out liars and criminalsseveral did so at CNN, criticizing their own employers. But those people, doing the right thing and holding power to account, cant compete with the spectacle. Trump and people like him know this, which is why they rarely face the press without bringing their own circus to town.

This town hall will consume peoples attention until we move on to the next garish spectacle. But there are far more critical issues we should be discussing: That Trump remains the frontrunner to represent his party by a wide margin; that the GOP considers him a viable candidate despite everything that has happened; that his base remains unrelentingly loyal to him. These are real problems. In the face of all that, the fact that CNN gave him a primetime platform for monologuing lies and misinformation, thereby conferring legitimacy on his ideological viewpoints, is a real problem. 

In the discourse cycle following the town hall, some pundits have raised the specter of ideological silosadmonishing those who criticize Wednesdays farce that we shouldnt only surround ourselves with people who reflect our values and beliefs. But those of us who find Trump odious are not living in a silo. We absolutely see and understand that half the country is fine with who Trump is and what he stands for.

Bigotry is not merely a different opinion that we should expose ourselves to. It isnt an intellectual exercise or a useful contribution to a range of diverse viewpoints. It is an evil that must be eradicated. It must be identified as unacceptable, as often as necessary. And it should be denied the oxygen of the media. Freedom of speech does not guarantee unfettered access to media coverage.

Time and again, journalists say they just dont know how to cover Trump, that he is impossible to cover. But he is only impossible to cover because he receives an inordinate amount of the media attention he so desperately craves. He is impossible to cover because he does whatever he wants, and no one truly challenges him. He is impossible to cover because we continue to let him dictate the terms of engagement. 

Its time to stop. If journalism is really about truth, there is nothing newsworthy about giving free airtime to the prime minister of mendacity. Trump has been found guilty of crimes and faces several other criminal investigations. He disdains democracy and openly embraces autocracy. 

There should be standards for people seeking to lead the United States. Donald Trump does not meet those standards, by any measure. We should stop using euphemisms when it comes to his words and deeds. We should stop pretending that because he is the leading candidate, what he has to say is automatically newsworthy. When he refuses to speak truthfully or acknowledge election results, we should simply stop the interview and walk away. Enough is enough; too much is at stake. We should protect, at all costs, the many vulnerable populations that will be made less safe in a second Trump presidency. No matter what we believe or which party we are aligned with, we should want better for this country, for our communities, for the world we are a part of.