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The Center Cannot Hold

Jessica Lehrman captures the gravity of human discontent in volatile urban spaces.

 Tasbeeh Herwees
03.22.16

In the last decade, the U.S. has seen a groundswell of rebellious discontent, culminating in movements for social, political, and economic justice. It’s one of the most promising and vigorous eras for change since the 1960s. Brooklyn-based photographer Jessica Lehrman has spent the last few years documenting activist movements in New York, from the Occupy Wall Street encampment to Black Lives Matter protests to climate change rallies. She’s one of hundreds of photographers attempting to capture these uprisings, but her photos possess a rawness that others fail to reproduce: the vibrant energy of demonstrators flooding city streets, hands raised as fists and open palms, mouths open wide in dissent.

Lehrman explores the throngs of protesters—the physicality of human bodies reclaiming spaces and the timbre of voices chanting challenges to power—with a sensitivity that never defers to the demands of sensationalism. In her images, we see the resilience of people who’ve been beaten down but aren’t dispossessed of their spirit, and the communities that coalesce around the promise of change.

activism human rights race social change
Features

The cost of having a baby even with insurance equals average the monthly income of a woman

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Childbirth is the number one reason American women visit the hospital, and it ain't cheap. In fact, it's getting more and more expensive. A new study published in Health Affairs found that the cost of having a baby with employer-sponsored health insurance increased by almost 50% in the past seven years.

The study evaluated "trends in cost-sharing for maternity care for women with employer-based health insurance plans, before and after the Affordable Care Act," which was signed into law in 2010. The study looked at over 657,061 women enrolled in large employer-sponsored health insurance plans who delivered babies between 2008 and 2015, as these plans tend to cover more than plans purchased by small businesses or individuals.

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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Cancer is still the second leading cause of death after heart disease for both men and women. The American Cancer Society predicts that 2020 will bring almost 1.8 million new cancer cases and 600,000 cancer deaths, but there's also some good news. The American Cancer Society recently published a report in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians stating the U.S. cancer death rates experienced the largest-single year decline ever reported.

Between 2016 and 2017, cancer death rates fell by 2.2%. While cancer death rates have been steadily falling over the past three decades, it's normally by 1.5% a year. Cancer death rates have dropped by 29% since 1991, which means that there have been 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths in the past three decades than there would have been if the mortality rate had remained constant.

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Health

The most checked-out book at the New York Public Library is a diverse children's book

In order to celebrate the New York Public Library's 125th anniversary, the library announced a list of the top 10 most checked out books in the library's history. The list, which took six months to compile, was determined by a team of experts who looked at the "historic checkout and circulation data" for all formats of the book. Ezra Jack Keats's "The Snow Day" tops the list, having been checked out 485,583 times through June 2019. While many children's books topped the top 10 list, the number one choice is significant because the main character of the story is black. "It's even more amazing that the top-ranked book is a book that has that element of diversity," New York Public Library President Anthony W. Marx said.

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