News Headlines: April 18, 2025
EDUCATION
Head Start funding lags by nearly $1B this year, causing some preschool closures
https://tinyurl.com/2hksnbed
The Texas House gave initial approval to a bill that would create a $1B private school voucher program
https://tinyurl.com/4ke7f4f8
Missouri governor’s plan for $50M for private schools axed by Senate committee
https://tinyurl.com/248rcmtp
South Carolina House and Senate reach compromise on K-12 vouchers
https://tinyurl.com/3rmjub8a
A coalition of plaintiffs that sued New Jersey for its failure to fix deeply-rooted de facto segregation in its public school system has asked a higher court to reverse a trial court decision that denied a clear ruling in their favor
https://tinyurl.com/ye24hz2r
Colorado lawmakers rejected a bill that initially set out to ban seclusion in schools, which is the practice of shutting a student in a room alone
https://tinyurl.com/4cca8pvn
How to use PE to build confidence and leadership skills; Pairing reluctant students with gym partners who can encourage and build them up is one strategy educators can use
https://tinyurl.com/2pb6jc5u
Schools turn to VR to develop a ‘future-ready’ neuro-divergent workforce; The tech can help neurodiverse students prepare for entering the workforce amid government programs aimed at fostering more inclusive workplaces
https://tinyurl.com/mrkk29xe
Tennessee’s GOP leads the fight to deny public education to children without documents
https://tinyurl.com/5xycpnky
Los Angeles schools superintendent says he'll protect undocumented students 'to the very end'
https://tinyurl.com/2fdewfne
How an early alert system raised one college’s FAFSA completion; Letting students know about missing documents makes all the difference
https://tinyurl.com/bdhn8tmf
As ‘Bot’ Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond; Community colleges have been dealing with an unprecedented phenomenon: fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds
https://tinyurl.com/m8ar5uey
This ‘College Protester’ Isn’t Real. It’s an AI-Powered Undercover Bot for Cops; Massive Blue is helping cops deploy AI-powered social media bots to talk to people they suspect are anything from violent sex criminals all the way to vaguely defined “protesters”
https://tinyurl.com/ys9p3336
More than 1,000 international students have had their visas or legal status revoked in recent weeks, and several have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, arguing the government denied them due process when it suddenly took away their permission to be in the U.S.
https://tinyurl.com/4f9r67h3
Universities Get Schooled on Federal Funding; The idea that elite colleges can gobble up taxpayer funds while maintaining total autonomy has always been a fantasy
https://tinyurl.com/fztsmny7
The Ivy League resistance is just getting started; The nascent pushback, showcased by Harvard’s decision to reject several proposals from Trump this week, is a notable turnaround from a year ago
https://tinyurl.com/3azxhnmy
Universities Are Hiding Behind “Due Process”; Princeton president Eisgruber seeks to distract from his university’s tolerance of anti-Semitism
https://tinyurl.com/ywx3dfer
The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Department of Defense’s school system for children of military families, asserting that the removal of race- and gender-related books and curricula violated students’ First Amendment protections against government censorship
https://tinyurl.com/2hb82e4n
North Carolina House Education panel advances bill removing school library books with s. content; The bill would require school districts to establish parent-teacher committees to determine which media should be removed from school libraries
https://tinyurl.com/mrfw4etu
Judge rules against dads who wore pink wristbands to protest trans high school athletes
https://tinyurl.com/33vthjkm
‘Many, many’ other states next: DOJ sues Maine over t-gender athlete policies
https://tinyurl.com/y79t9jap
Trump kept his promise to order a ban on t-gender female athletes. Court fights have arrived
https://tinyurl.com/mcje64nh
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
President Trump again called for the Federal Reserve to lower rates and even hinted at the “termination” of Chairman Powell
https://tinyurl.com/5t37cfdm
Trump Says Fed Chairman’s Termination ‘Cannot Come Soon Enough’ After Powell’s Tariff Warnings
https://tinyurl.com/4m435vx4
Treasury Secretary Bessent has repeatedly cautioned White House officials that any attempt to fire Federal Reserve Chair Powell would risk destabilizing financial markets
https://tinyurl.com/7evrd3t9
Trump Has for Months Privately Discussed Firing Fed Chair Powell; The president hasn’t made a decision on whether to try to oust Powell, and some of his advisers have warned against the move
https://tinyurl.com/yt659r86
European Central Bank cuts interest rates for the seventh time
https://tinyurl.com/3s9h3ckb
U.S. bond giant PIMCO said protectionism in U.S. trade policy strengthened the case for dialing down exposure to the U.S. dollar and long-dated Treasury bonds, while greater reliance on foreign bond markets had become more attractive
https://tinyurl.com/yc2p7v5k
It'll Take More than Trump's Trade War to Break the World's Affection for Dollars; The U.S. dollar index is still about 9 percent higher than its lows in 2021 and about 20 percent higher than its value prior to its big surge in 2015
https://tinyurl.com/mr3bumse
Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims Decrease to 215,000
https://tinyurl.com/yuyew5h6
Mortgage rates roar higher as uncertainty batters housing market; In the week ending April 17, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.83%
https://tinyurl.com/57hjchy8
Zillow turns full-blown housing market bear; Projects that U.S. home prices will fall 1.7% between March 2025 and March 2026
https://tinyurl.com/3n6dyacf
Connecticut Towns Are Losing $Ms to Parking Minimums. Will Lawmakers Act? Using aerial maps, they analyzed downtowns and mixed-use areas in 191 districts. What they found was striking: nearly a third of the land in these areas is dedicated to off-street parking
https://tinyurl.com/4yhm9x7n
Lowe's makes $B acquisition to take on Home Depot
https://tinyurl.com/83jmwyzm
Healthcare construction bucks broader building slowdown; Flexible design, early planning and resiliency are driving steady momentum in the space
https://tinyurl.com/22cvcpzy
Poll: An aggressive U.S. tariff policy will trigger a significant slowdown in the U.S. economy this year and next, with the median probability of recession in the next 12 months approaching 50%
https://tinyurl.com/29zjm847
Trump predicts trade agreement with China, vows '100%' chance of EU agreement
https://tinyurl.com/vp7fhy9f
Trump confident he can strike China deal
https://tinyurl.com/5yz774uj
President Trump said he expects to make a trade deal with China, though he offered no specifics or indications of how talks would get underway with the two superpowers at an apparent impasse
https://tinyurl.com/mr3n42n4
U.S.-China trade war threatens to upend not only the American economy but the global order
https://tinyurl.com/5av8ttbu
Analysis: Trump tariffs ironically cast spotlight on Beijing-led free trade; The U.S. trades places and now advocates for 1990s Chinese-style protectionism
https://tinyurl.com/28smmhjt
China is taking the trade war to a new battleground: America’s TikTok feeds. Chinese suppliers have been flooding American social media this week, urging users to outflank President Donald Trump’s 145% tariffs on Beijing by buying directly from their factories
https://tinyurl.com/p8w3rys6
Trump joins tariff talks with Japan as US seeks deals amid trade wars
https://tinyurl.com/4xdfhk4p
Japan reports a $63B trade surplus with the US as it talks with Trump on tariffs
https://tinyurl.com/murnwra3
The tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea and Japan appear set to be part of President Trump's tariff negotiations, despite efforts by both countries to separate security talks from trade
https://tinyurl.com/yf8ed97p
President Trump and Italian Prime Minister Meloni said they’re confident a fair tariff agreement can be hammered out between the U.S. and the European Union
https://tinyurl.com/5n6cfbh6
President Trump and Italian Prime Minister Meloni both expressed optimism during a White House meeting about an eventual trade agreement between the United States and Europe
https://tinyurl.com/4cwtepxm
Trump’s talks with Italy steam ahead after progress on trade agreements with Mexico, Japan
https://tinyurl.com/4ksbcbp6
14 reasons why Trump’s tariffs won’t bring manufacturing back; Trump administration grossly underestimates difficulty of their stated task
https://tinyurl.com/ykhxzevj
What’s Really Going On with U.S. Manufacturing; There’s a lot of doom and gloom about U.S. manufacturing
https://tinyurl.com/5afa6nzh
Blame Regulators for Holding Back U.S. Manufacturing - Not Tariffs; America’s manufacturing decline is the result of a bloated regulatory state that punishes producers and stifles growth
https://tinyurl.com/djrd7s2b
North America’s Auto Supply Chain Took Decades to Build. Trump’s Tariffs Could Crush It; Car parts crisscross North America on their way to assembly. Under Trump’s plan, they’ll be hit with tariffs at every border crossing
https://tinyurl.com/3ybw24rb
We Know How the German Manufacturing Model Turned Out; Sacrificing growth in exchange for manufacturing jobs would make the U.S. less safe, and copying Germany is a fool’s errand
https://tinyurl.com/yc7hf7jh
Self-repairing buildings? Engineers make living concrete in construction breakthrough; The fungus species Neurospora shows potential in creating building materials with intricate internal structures and diverse architectural forms
https://tinyurl.com/4t3ndsjc
In 12 Years, This $40B High-Speed Rail Line in Texas Has Not Laid a Single Foot of Track; The budget for the project has quadrupled, and private property owners have opposed the use of eminent domain along the proposed 240-mile route
https://tinyurl.com/4mu4kvnx
Trump has California’s high-speed rail in his sights, but so do Democrats; While Trump and Musk are attacking the $100B plan, it’s Democrats who hold the real power over its fate - and they’re not fully on board
https://tinyurl.com/3beskf49
Firms nab $997M LA light rail job; The new 14.5-mile, double track light rail line is expected to cost at least $8.6B and will include nine new stations
https://tinyurl.com/3zryesh7
Archer Aviation outlines plans for New York air taxi network; The eVTOL manufacturer, working with United Airlines, looks to link Manhattan with the region’s major airports
https://tinyurl.com/uewmwryd
The U.S. electric system is under more pressure than ever before. In order to meet the challenges of unprecedented growth in electricity demand from data centers, re-shoring and other uses, the U.S. electricity grid will have to expand more than five times faster than in the previous two decades
https://tinyurl.com/wv756ybk
The Trump administration issued an order to stop construction on a major offshore wind project to power more than 500,000 New York homes, the latest in a series of moves targeting the industry
https://tinyurl.com/229dsydj
The U.S. Department of the Interior has directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to order the 810-MW Empire Wind 1 project to cease all construction until further review
https://tinyurl.com/2s4c5erh
The cost of the green transition’s mineral rush; What if the race to save the planet is harming the people who protect it?
https://tinyurl.com/2s3m5sea
Rare earth minerals aren't rare, but the U.S. is having a hard time getting them
https://tinyurl.com/36xzsd5p
The next computer? Your glasses; A glimpse of the future of “extended reality” (XR) devices - smart, seamless and right before your eyes
https://tinyurl.com/2r4zuevs
‘AI is not the future; it is current’: Lawmakers examine how to make Pennsylvania an AI powerhouse
https://tinyurl.com/w3p7vaxc
Popular AIs head-to-head: OpenAI beats DeepSeek on sentence-level reasoning
https://tinyurl.com/bdfjc54w
OpenAI launches o3 and o4-mini, AI models that ‘think with images’ and use tools autonomously
https://tinyurl.com/tdy4j6h2
OpenAI's new o3 and o4-mini models are all about 'thinking with images'; This capability allows o3 and o4-mini solve challenging, multi-step problems more effectively, and "take real steps toward acting independently"
https://tinyurl.com/mr3vcxsc
OpenAI says o3 and o4-mini represent a significant breakthrough in visual perception by reasoning with images in their chain of thought
https://tinyurl.com/27h83fyx
PUBLIC SAFETY
RFK Jr. Slams Media for Ignoring ‘Tragedy’ of Autism ‘Epidemic’
https://tinyurl.com/bdds8h9p
RFK Jr. lays out new studies on autism, shuts down 'better diagnoses' as a cause
https://tinyurl.com/mr4ymyja
Michigan reports first confirmed measles outbreak since 2019; Seven cases have been confirmed in Michigan this year, say health officials
https://tinyurl.com/ykudynms
Oklahoma lawmakers consider requiring ‘scientific evidence’ to close businesses in a pandemic
https://tinyurl.com/327j3m3z
Mark Cuban Optimistic New Trump Order Could Save 'Hundreds of $Bs'; Curbing the power of benefit managers (PBMs), the often-opaque intermediaries in the pharmaceutical supply chain
https://tinyurl.com/29nnjvvc
Draft budget plan proposes deep cuts across federal health programs
https://tinyurl.com/2923zfh5
Toothpaste widely contaminated with lead and other metals, US research finds; Most of 51 brands tested, including those for children, contained dangerous heavy metal
https://tinyurl.com/3z9uud2w
Believers say microdosing psychedelics helps them. Scientists are trying to measure the claims
https://tinyurl.com/ms63a33t
Taking a mental health leave from work is an option most people don’t know about
https://tinyurl.com/2h87cdbf
More than 9,000 Catholic employers do not need to abide by federal regulations requiring accommodations for workers who seek abortions and fertility treatments, according to a ruling issued this week by a federal judge in North Dakota.
https://tinyurl.com/syys544a
Colorado Bill Would Force Judges To Consider 'Misgendering' a Form of 'Coercive Control' in Custody Cases
https://tinyurl.com/2h82t929
FEMA: The Federal Agency We Don’t Like Until We Need It; It’s appealing to say that disaster relief should be left to states and localities. The less appealing reality is that they aren’t up to the job
https://tinyurl.com/2msvjr8d
AmeriCorps members who respond to disasters and help nonprofits are let go in DOGE cuts
https://tinyurl.com/4f45h2th
‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday; Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known rightwing counterparts - as do their methods
https://tinyurl.com/578f4ae5
How AI is transforming state and local investigations; The technology can help process data quicker and sift through what can be distressing evidence. But agencies must tread carefully and have the right policies and training in place to be successful
https://tinyurl.com/yw7yptfh
Criminals Are Outpacing the Police in the Tech Arms Race; Disruptive technologies like AI are empowering bad actors faster than law enforcement can respond
https://tinyurl.com/ye2yubrp
Virtual reality program aims to help rehabilitate California prisoners
https://tinyurl.com/2e93yvad
Behavior science, data could provide low-cost solutions to gun violence; The University of Chicago’s Crime Lab director outlined resource-efficient strategies to enhance public safety
https://tinyurl.com/bdenkyf8
Washington Senate passes bill to require speed limiting devices for habitual speeders
https://tinyurl.com/2nkve3wd
The Man Who Fought Chicago for His Cadillac - and Never Got It Back; Spencer Byrd's case helped spark reforms and a federal lawsuit, but he died before seeing justice
https://tinyurl.com/5n6u833r
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
These Mayors Say Climate Is a Kitchen-Table Issue; A working group of mayors believes climate resilience and economic security go hand in hand
https://tinyurl.com/vaae6a53
‘Book brigade’: US town forms human chain to move 9,100 books one-by-one; A small Michigan community banded together to help a beloved local bookstore move its stock to a new storefront
https://tinyurl.com/54cj78n8
Don’t Just Tell Your Team What to Do - Tell Them Why; Giving a reason boosts performance and reduces resistance - here’s how
https://tinyurl.com/ycxsrwwm
How to Tell Your Boss They’re Wrong - Tactfully; There are ways to speak up without risking your relationship or standing
https://tinyurl.com/5253nvu5
Report finds that by 2027, organizations will use task-specific AI models three times more than general-purpose large language models
https://tinyurl.com/ws8hfzyj
What Is Agentic AI? A Look at New Tech Reshaping Government; As agentic artificial intelligence and other tools become more automated - and frequently used - experts say that human oversight and appropriate guardrails will remain foundational
https://tinyurl.com/bddzryjk
Popular AIs head-to-head: OpenAI beats DeepSeek on sentence-level reasoning; Large language model AIs can ingest long documents and answer questions about them, but a key question is how well they ‘understand’ individual sentences in the documents
https://tinyurl.com/3xhv3ckk
Docusign embeds AI at every step of the contract management process; New tools for contract creation and management use dynamic templates that pull in data automatically; Automated risk assessment compares vendor risk scores to see if they’ve changed since the initial the relationship and finds existing agreements with the vendor
https://tinyurl.com/26e8f5ef
STATE & FEDERAL
Senate Minority Leader Schumer urged the Justice Department to pursue an investigation into whether the arson of Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro’s home was an antisemitic hate crime
https://tinyurl.com/2s3kabtn
States that enshrined Medicaid expansion in their constitutions could be in a bind; Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota will have to pick up the slack if the feds cut funding for the program
https://tinyurl.com/2u236wwn
Tariffs Won’t Solve Washington’s Biggest Problem: Overspending
https://tinyurl.com/mrypnvzt
Elon Musk installed his top lieutenants at a federal agency you probably haven’t heard of; GSA oversees many of Uncle Sam’s real estate transactions, collecting and paying rent on behalf of almost every federal agency. It helps manage $Bs in federal contracts. And it assists other agencies in building better websites and digital tools for citizens
https://tinyurl.com/m8vuvy3h
Trump Team Eyes Politically Connected Startup to Overhaul $700B Government Payments Program
https://tinyurl.com/3h3tkdya
Even by Elon Musk's Own Demonstrably Unreliable Estimation, DOGE Will Fall Far Short of His Target; The cost cutter's current projection of annual "savings" is 85 percent lower than the goal he set two months ago—and even that number can't be trusted
https://tinyurl.com/msuzw5jr
Supreme Court expected to consider giving Trump more firing power, overruling 90-year-old precedent
https://tinyurl.com/rknrx5wj
Are Public Broadcasters About To Lose Their Subsidies?
https://tinyurl.com/4ft57sue
The Iowa Senate unanimously passed a bill that would provide protection against lawsuits aimed at limiting constitutional freedoms of speech and press
https://tinyurl.com/55c98umd
China's growing pile of cryptocurrencies seized from illegal transactions is prompting local governments to find ways to dispose of the hoard and spurring calls from courts and the financial industry for better regulation
https://tinyurl.com/yck7e7y9
What to know about the House bill that could punish nonprofits over alleged ‘terrorist’ ties
https://tinyurl.com/25vnztez
Trump brushes aside courts’ attempts to limit his power; Trump has also moved to rule through executive action, signing more than 120 executive orders in less than three months in office
https://tinyurl.com/2p8y45xs
US Supreme Court to hear Trump bid to enforce birthright citizenship order
https://tinyurl.com/4rspxuny
House panels set to meet on GOP border security, deportation proposals; Three committees are planning late April markups as they prep proposals for GOP mega-bill
https://tinyurl.com/ydedemzz
The Trump Administration's Increasing Hostility to Basic Due Process; Vice President Vance is only the latest to indicate he sees due process, as guaranteed in the Constitution, as an unnecessary impediment to the administration's goals
https://tinyurl.com/ykwmdytm
Capitol Hill goes to war over Kilmar Abrego Garcia; Both parties see a political advantage in the fight over the Trump deportee; “If the rights of non-citizens are not secure, then the rights of citizens are not secure”
https://tinyurl.com/2w2xx8j5
Attorney General Releases Police Records Detailing Abrego Garcia’s Criminal History; The “Maryland man” who was deported to his native El Salvador by the Trump administration was a member of MS-13 and was in the United States illegally
https://tinyurl.com/2ytjer6p
Kilmar Ábrego García’s wife rejects Trump officials’ depictions of him as ‘violent’; Criticizes DHS’s attempt to smear her wrongly deported husband over 2021 civil protective order
https://tinyurl.com/5n63pyzr
Rights groups are increasingly worried that El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison is becoming a "black hole" for the United States to rid itself of expelled migrants or other unwanted people with no legal consequences
https://tinyurl.com/t7c4fxk5
Chicago Cancels Cinco de Mayo Parade Over Fears of ICE Deportations; The Windy City has been the target of ICE’s ire since President Trump took office
https://tinyurl.com/bdhfujsj
Tennessee bill to hold charities liable for providing housing to certain immigrants heads to governor’s desk
https://tinyurl.com/5n8yebap
Vermont Senate looks to bolster protections for kids whose parents face immigration enforcement
https://tinyurl.com/48aewakv
How Far Will the Trump Administration Go Against Mexican Cartels? Using the military to wage war in Mexico raises practical and constitutional issues
https://tinyurl.com/2rks3dzm
To Understand Global Migration, You Have to See It First; New estimates based on location data from Meta reveal a picture of humanity in motion
https://tinyurl.com/ykxm849y
NATO is coming to town in Ohio and it’s not just Trump who has mixed feelings; Dayton will host the alliance’s parliamentary assembly 30 years after the Bosnian peace accords were signed there
https://tinyurl.com/5kca47cu
Trump says mineral agreement with Ukraine to be signed next week
https://tinyurl.com/5ahny7zu
Ukraine, US make 'substantial progress' on minerals agreement, Kyiv says
https://tinyurl.com/yk7mt3pz
US Mideast allies face ‘worst-case scenario’ with Trump aid cuts and tariff whiplash; The withdrawal of aid by the U.S. and Europe could feed extremism and lead to a surge in emigration, experts warn
https://tinyurl.com/mwur9ntc
Gazans survive among unexploded bombs; “Uninhabitable” according to the U.S. government, the Gaza Strip is strewn with undetonated explosives. Clean-up efforts have stalled
https://tinyurl.com/dfc5pvu3
Aid groups warn of 'dire' conditions in Gaza as Israel says there is no shortage of aid
https://tinyurl.com/58m3ntpn
Defense Secretary Hegseth believes the Chinese military’s hypersonic missiles could sink all U.S. aircraft carriers within the first minutes of a potential conflict
https://tinyurl.com/59twn4p7
A critical avenue of U.S.-China competition has slipped under the public's radar despite its potential outsize impacts on economies, militaries and weaponry: biotechnology; Better body armor, dynamic camouflage, foods synthesized in trenches, super soldiers, landmine-detecting bacteria and sabotaged materials shipped to the enemy are all promises of this field
https://tinyurl.com/9ksy88yy
The Pentagon is working to make Trump’s vision of a U.S. 'Iron Dome' a reality; The Defense Department will soon brief the president on possible options for a planned missile defense system that could cost up to hundreds of $Bs
https://tinyurl.com/4bntna25
SpaceX is the top contender to build Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield; According to sources, Elon Musk is partnering with Palantir and drone maker Anduril on a bid to build parts of Trump’s missile defense shield
https://tinyurl.com/ync4tpwb
Trump Looks Willing to Write Off an Entire Continent; Administration officials say African countries can’t just invoke “China” and get aid
https://tinyurl.com/mr424u3e
Trump’s Unholy Alliance with Saudi Arabia; The president plans to again make the tyrannical state his first foreign trip
https://tinyurl.com/4jx3yptm
The Trump administration plans to eliminate habitat protections for endangered and threatened species in a move environmentalists say would lead to the extinction of critically endangered species because of logging, mining, development and other activities
https://tinyurl.com/msay7k75
The Bees Are Disappearing Again; For beekeepers, the problem isn’t just climate change and extreme weather: It’s also DOGE, the trade war and the immigration crackdown
https://tinyurl.com/muyzyarf
About 15% of world’s cropland polluted with toxic metals, say researchers; Scientists sound the alarm over substances such as arsenic and lead contaminating soils and entering food systems
https://tinyurl.com/t92czr2e
Climate change will make rice toxic, say researchers; Warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide will boost arsenic levels in rice
https://tinyurl.com/ycxf6m6d
NASA rover finds fresh evidence of the warm and wet past of Mars
https://tinyurl.com/2s3bxmta
Astronomers claim strongest evidence of alien life yet; On a faraway planet, James Webb Space Telescope has picked up signs of molecules that, on Earth, are produced only by living organisms - but researchers say we must interpret the results cautiously
https://tinyurl.com/hzebs6r6
Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have obtained what they call the strongest signs yet of possible life beyond our solar system, detecting in an alien planet's atmosphere the chemical fingerprints of gases that on Earth are produced only by biological processes
https://tinyurl.com/4h2jthkt
Skepticism greets claims of a possible biosignature on a distant world; It's really difficult to get a clear sign of life on an exoplanet
https://tinyurl.com/ahz5hhuk
Are there signs of life on alien planet K2-18b, or is it just a lot of hot air?
https://tinyurl.com/4rza2zzt
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Understand: your mind is weaker than your emotions. But you become aware of this weakness only in moments of adversity - precisely the time when you need strength. What best equips you to cope with the heat of battle is neither more knowledge nor more intellect. What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness. No one can teach you this skill; you cannot learn it by reading about it. Like any discipline, it can come only through practice, experience, even a little suffering. The first step in building up presence of mind is to see the need for it - to want it badly enough to be willing to work for it.”
--Robert Greene