内容摘要：The prep work should not be how you’re going to say the lines, the prep work should be — well, for me, anyway — a kind of absurdly prolonged in-depth marinade like a piece of old meat that you leave soaking for weeks and months in sauce until it’s full of flavor. So my marinade takes the form of very, very painstaking, minute examination of the script: Why do I say this? Why do I do this? What happened in childhood for this person to behave like this? What was his mother like? What was his father like?

The prep work should not be how you’re going to say the lines, the prep work should be — well, for me, anyway — a kind of absurdly prolonged in-depth marinade like a piece of old meat that you leave soaking for weeks and months in sauce until it’s full of flavor. So my marinade takes the form of very, very painstaking, minute examination of the script: Why do I say this? Why do I do this? What happened in childhood for this person to behave like this? What was his mother like? What was his father like?

The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.NEW YORK (AP) — Tens of millions of older Americans will see an increase in benefits this January when a

is added to Social Security payments.The 2.5% raise is intended to help meet higher prices for food, fuel, and other goods and services. The average recipient will see an increase of about $50 per month, according to agency officials. Social Security recipients received a 3.2% increase in their benefits in 2024, and some retirees are concerned that this year’s increase is not big enough to meet their needs.The Social Security Administration will begin notifying recipients about their new benefit amount by mail starting in early December. Adjusted payments to nearly 7.5 million people receiving Supplemental Security Income will begin on December 31. Supplemental Security Income provides monthly payments to adults and children who have income below specific financial limits and qualify to receive Social Security benefits.

Here’s what to keep in mind:About 72.5 million people, including retirees, disabled people and children, get Social Security benefits.

The program is funded by taxes on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes. The government uses taxes from working people to pay benefits to people who have already retired, people who are disabled, the survivors of workers who have died, and

. In 2025, the Social Security payroll tax will be assessed on the first $176,100 of income, up from $168,600 this yearOne way to show humans caused the warming “is by eliminating everything else,” said Princeton University climate scientist Gabe Vecchi.

Scientists can calculate how much heat different suspects trap, using a complex understanding of chemistry and physics and feeding that into computer simulations that have been generally accurate in portraying climate, past and future. They measure what they call radiative forcing in watts per meter squared.The first and most frequent natural suspect is the sun. The sun is what warms Earth in general providing about 1,361 watts per meter squared of heat, year in year out. That’s the baseline, the delicate balance that makes Earth livable. Changes in energy coming from the sun have been minimal, about one-tenth of a watt per meter squared, scientists calculate.

But carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is now trapping heat to the level of 2.07 watts per meter squared, more than 20 times that of the changes in the sun, according to the U.S.Methane, another powerful heat-trapping gas, is at 0.5 watts per meter square.