Today’s Big Story

Delicious Danger

We always knew Lunchables were trouble, but watchdog groups are now calling for their removal

Did you mess with Lunchables as a kid? Those little yellow meal kits were a fixture of the ‘90s school cafeteria. Some kids went crazy for the version with the geometrically perfect squares of American cheese and rounds of ham, while others went for the strangely raw pizza version. But both offered kids something we lacked, especially in the confines of school: Control. We loved the ability to assemble the pieces however we liked. Who cares if it was essentially just a couple of cheese and crackers? For all I know, it’s what kickstarted my love of charcuterie …

Of course, they were never a font of nutrition. But now, Consumer Reports is calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove Lunchables and similar lunch kits from the National School Lunch Program. Lunchables apparently developed two new versions of the snack kit specifically to be available nationally as part of school lunch programs for the first time last year.

But Consumer Reports said sodium levels in the store-bought lunch and snack kits it tested ranged from 460 to 740 milligrams per serving, or “nearly half of a child’s daily recommended limit for sodium.” The organization said it tested 12 store-bought kits and also found lead, cadmium, or both in all, although none of the kits exceeded any federal limit. Additionally, all but one of the kits contained harmful phthalates, a group of chemicals found in plastics that the National Institute of Health states is “detrimental to human health” and can lead to reproductive problems, diabetes, obesity, certain types of cancer and more.

Then again, what did we expect. As one of the most successful food products ever released in America, Lunchables owe that longevity to cigarette company Philip Morris. Turns out, those beloved kits were developed not to fill some hole in the market—or appeal to a younger demographic—but to satisfy a problem in Oscar Mayer's production. In his book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Michael Moss writes that bologna had started to fall out of favor as a lunch meat in the ’80s, and Oscar Mayer tasked a small marketing team with figuring out a way to squeeze profitability from existing stockpiles.

The design they landed on was, in essence, an iteration on the famous TV dinner from the 1960s: A small tray with eight pieces of bologna, eight pieces of cheese, and eight butter crackers carefully cordoned off from each other. They chose processed cheese rather than natural Cheddar to save costs, and selected butter crackers because they took longer to go stale—basically electing the least healthy option at every turn.

Arizona’s Bombshell Abortion Ban

The Arizona Supreme Court rules state must adhere to century-old law banning nearly all abortions

Arizona’s highest court on Tuesday reinstated an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions—a surprising and significant ruling that will make a Civil War-era law enforceable in the state. Many are now saying the decision could have far-reaching consequences both for women’s health care and election-year politics in a critical battleground state.

Interestingly, numerous Arizona Republicans who previously celebrated the end of federal protections for the procedure sought political cover by distancing themselves from the ruling, reports NBC News. While the Trump administration ushered in the end of Roe vs. Wade and its national protection of abortion rights, the GOP is now suffering a massive voter backlash. Abortion rights have yet to lose since the end of Roe when the decision has been up to voters instead of legislators or courts.

So what happens now? The court put its ruling on hold for 14 days, and sent the case back to a lower court to hear additional arguments about the law’s constitutionality. Because of this 14-day pause, and an additional 45-day delay before enforcement, it will very likely be weeks before the law goes into effect. Meanwhile, President Biden has repeatedly said that if re-elected, he would make Roe v. Wade protections the law of the land. But in reality, Biden and Democrats nationally would have to defy a litany of challenges to make that happen.

Just How Expensive Can Stamps Get?

Three months after the last increase, the Postal Service is asking for another price hike

The United States Postal Service on Tuesday proposed an overall increase of nearly 8% on the price of postage. If approved, the increase would result in the cost of a Forever Stamp going from 68 cents to 73 cents—and tie the record as the highest stamp hike ever.

If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because the last price increase was just back at the start of the year. This would be the 19th stamp rate change since 2000, and comes as Americans continue to reduce what they send via snail mail. It’s part of the Post Office’s 10-year plan to raise prices and slow some deliveries, among other measures, to try to recoup $160 billion in projected losses over a decade.

According to the New York Times, the Postal Service has faced financial issues for years because it is required to fund retiree health care benefits for its employees in advance. Its operations are generally not funded by tax revenues. The price hikes proposed on Tuesday would need to be approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent agency in Washington that oversees the Postal Service. If it is, the new prices would go into effect in July.

Did Social Media Kill the Pop Song?

A new study found that song lyrics are now angrier, more repetitive, and vain

Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” landed with the force of an atomic bomb. Released last month, the thumping diss track hit the Billboard Hot 100 in a flash but went dynamite across X, Instagram, and TikTok thanks to a surprise verse from Kendrick Lamar. But WIRED says the song reverberated not just because of Lamar’s lyricism but because of who the lyrics were calling out: his friends turned frenemies, Drake and J Cole.

According to new research, “Like That” is indicative of a recent trend in music. A study published in Scientific Reports found that lyrics across the genres of rap, rock, country, R&B, and pop have exhibited a “decline in vocabulary richness.” Did I mention that the phrase “like that” is repeated more than 30 times in the song? Researchers surveyed 353,320 English-language song lyrics from the past 50 years to gauge songwriting’s “temporal evolution over the last decades, and genre-specific variations.”

Years ago, everything from war to heartbreak influenced the music of the moment. That's still true, but now social media drives the conversation as much as anything else. WIRED asks, “Are less positive song lyrics actually on the rise, or is the popularity of a certain kind of song simply a reflection of what we think the algorithm wants to hear?” In any case, the result is often more of the same kinds of sounds, easily quoteable hooks and verses that feed into the theatrics of online socializing—which is essentially defined by joy and camaraderie between users as much as heated confrontation.

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