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Pollution responsible for 1 in 6 deaths worldwide: study

Pollution was responsible for about 9 million deaths across the world in 2019 — equivalent to 1 in 6 deaths — with little improvement from previous years, a new report has found.

Although the number of deaths from pollution sources associated with extreme poverty has decreased, these achievements have been offset by an increase in deaths attributable to modern industrial pollution, according to The Lancet’s Commission on Pollution Health.

The report, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, compared the number of deaths attributable to air pollution in 2019 to the number of deaths attributable to air pollution in 2015 — and determined that this figure remained largely unchanged.

“Despite its enormous health, social and economic impacts, pollution prevention is largely overlooked in the international development agenda,” lead author Richard Fuller, co-chairman of the Commission on Pollution and Health, said in a statement.

“Attention and funding has only minimally increased since 2015, despite well-documented increases in public concern about pollution and its health effects,” he added.

The Commission on Pollution and Health is a joint initiative of The Lancet, the Geneva-based Global Alliance on Health and Pollution, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Air pollution was the specific culprit responsible for 6.67 million — or nearly 75 percent — of the 9 million pollution-related deaths in 2019, according to the report.

Water pollution was responsible for 1.36 million premature deaths, lead pollution contributed to 900,000 such deaths and toxic occupational hazards were behind 870,000 deaths.

The decrease in deaths from traditional pollution sources — such as household air pollution from solid fuels and unsafe water — was most evident in Africa, the authors explained. They attributed these reductions to improvements in water supply and sanitation, antibiotics, treatments and cleaner fuels.

But this decrease in mortality was canceled out by a global surge in deaths related to industrial pollution in the past 20 years, the authors noted. This rise was particularly apparent in Southeast Asia, where the combination of increased industrial population and aging populations has left greater numbers of people exposed, according to the study. 

Deaths caused by modern pollution sources — such as ambient air pollution, hazardous chemical pollutants and lead — have increased by 66 percent in the past two decades, the authors found.

The number of deaths related to chemical exposures is likely to be an underestimate, the authors warned, noting that only a small percentage of manufactured chemicals have been sufficiently tested for safety or toxicity.

Excess deaths caused by pollution in 2019 led to economic losses equivalent to $4 trillion to $6 trillion that year — or about 6.2 percent of the global economic output, according to the report.

Meanwhile, 92 percent of these pollution-related deaths occurred in low-income and middle-income countries, the authors added.

Given these findings, the authors presented a variety of recommendations to international organizations and national governments — calling for the inclusion of pollution as a key driver in policy and investment decisions.

Impacted countries should focus more resources on targeting air pollution, lead pollution and chemical pollution, they said, noting that the global transition to wind and solar energy will help reduce ambient air pollution.

The authors also suggested that private and government donors allocate funding for pollution management.

“Pollution is still the largest existential threat to human and planetary health and jeopardizes the sustainability of modern societies,” co-author Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Public Health Program and Global Pollution Observatory at Boston College, said in a statement.

“Preventing pollution can also slow climate change — achieving a double benefit for planetary health — and our report calls for a massive, rapid transition away from all fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy,” Landrigan added.

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Rapper Travis Scott's foundation awards $1 million to 100 Black college students

Rapper Travis Scott’s foundation, the Cactus Jack Foundation, has announced it will grant $1 million in scholarship funds to 100 college students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). 

In a statement on Tuesday, the foundation said the Waymon Webster Scholarship Fund will grant up to $10,000 in scholarships to students who are maintaining an average GPA of 3.5 and face financial hardships in college. 

This year’s recipients include graduating seniors from 38 HBCUs such as Florida A&M University Pharmacy major Nisha Encarnacion, Fisk University computer science major Chisom Okwor, and North Carolina Central University mass communications major Jordan Massey. 

The announcement comes after Scott’s first performance since a stampede killed ten people and indured hundreds during his performance at Astroworld music festival in Houston last November. The victims were between the ages of 9 and 27.

In March, the ‘Sicko Mode” singer launched a $5 million initiative called “Project HEAL,” aiming to work toward solutions to help those in marginalized and at-risk communities.

His new scholarship fund is named after Waymon Webster, a former dean of Prairie View A&M‘s graduate school.

“Excellence abounds in every Black household, but too often opportunity does not – and Black students are left behind or counted out. So that’s what my family and I set out to change,” Travis Scott said in a statement, adding “we are already looking forward to increasing our work next year.” 

​​“Black students are less than half as likely to graduate from college as white students, and financial pressure is the primary reason,” National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial said of the donation.

“We applaud Travis Scott and the Cactus Jack Foundation for investing in the next generation and congratulate the 100 Waymon Webster Scholarship recipients on their graduation.”

Concertgoers and families of the deceased at Astroworld have filed hundreds of lawsuits against Scott and event organizers, alleging they didn’t take the necessary steps to prevent the stampede and didn’t immediately stop the performance despite knowing there was a problem in the crowd. 

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform to launched their own investigation into the matter.

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The Supreme Court’s text mess

As long as the muscle-flexing current Supreme Court majority purports to be bound by the constitutional language adopted in the first years of our Republic, honesty and consistency should compel them actually to look to that text.

Here is the Ninth Amendment (1791) in full: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The justices may not like the Ninth Amendment, but it directly demonstrates how deeply rooted and explicit was the Framers’ intention to include rights not specifically mentioned.

Roe v. Wade identified such a right, but that decision hardly stood alone. Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft is disingenuous at best in its search for a particular word in the Constitution.

In Marbury v. Madison (1803), for instance, Chief Justice John Marshall and a unanimous Court established the Court’s power to declare government actions unconstitutional. This judicial review power cannot be found anywhere within the constitutional text. Indeed, the Marbury court also proclaimed — again without any textual anchor — that William Marbury had a vested individual right to his judicial commission.

Similarly, no constitutional text applies equal protection to the federal government. When the court unanimously held in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that state public schools segregated by race were unconstitutional, the justices applied that holding to a companion federal case, Bolling v. Sharpe (1954). It was “unthinkable,” Chief Justice Earl Warren’s opinion held that this constitutional right might not apply to the District of Columbia schools. Perhaps Justice Alito would have to concede that the unanimous Bolling decision was not grounded in specific language in the Constitution.

Nor has creative judicial interpolation only been the bailiwick of liberal Justices. For example, the Eleventh Amendment’s text protected states from lawsuits brought “against one of the United States by citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.” The Court simply ignored this textual limitation when it shielded railroads — and the towns that sold bonds to attract them — from suits brought by citizens of their home states. Indeed, state governments and state officials continue to enjoy a kind of defensive superpower shield; it is entirely judicial innovation that enables local police officers to defeat federal civil rights claims through the judge-made doctrine of “qualified immunity.”

In addition, there is growing judicial receptivity to claims by local property owners that state regulations “take” their property without compensation. Beginning in the 1890s, the court established a purported Fourteenth Amendment basis for such claims by invoking “natural equity.” This overcame a major textual problem: the early court had held that the Fifth Amendment’s textual protection applied only to federal takings, and not to those done by states. Nonetheless, after the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment omitted the Fifth Amendment “takings” language entirely as it otherwise directly quoted the rest of the Fifth Amendment’s due process language. The Court itself later plugged this textual hole through the vagaries of what it termed “due protection,” and this takings doctrine addition continues to expand.

With luck, Justice Alito may turn out to be writing a concurrence. As a matter of constitutional text and history, his draft surely is unworthy of a majority vote. Recent New York Times columns by Linda Greenhouse and Emily Bazelon underscore how completely Alito’s draft ignores the actual impact his decision would have on women’s lives. Yet it also bizarrely assumes that, because of progress since 1973, a woman’s right to choose an abortion somehow is no longer salient.

Unfortunately, Alito’s extremely selective brand of textualism makes it now seem realistic to fear that Loving v. Virginia (1967) — which struck down state laws against interracial marriage — could be on the chopping block; certainly it makes same-sex marriage seem shaky at best. In fact, one vainly searches the Constitution for words such as “marriage,” and “privacy.” Missing also are references to “contraception” or “parental authority.” Nor is there any mention of “campaign funding,” for that matter.

The current court’s blatant manipulation of its shadow docket indicates no principled limits regarding which precedents will fall away. But the Constitution’s structure and the longstanding recognition of implicit constitutional rights should matter much more than any narrow word search seeking a desired result. There is great wisdom in the idea that the past has a vote, but it does not have a veto.

Aviam Soifer served 17 years as dean of the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai’i, after five years as dean of the Boston College Law School. He has been teaching and writing about constitutional law and legal history for over 40 years, often focusing on the post-Civil War period.

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Pelosi floats indictments for baby formula deaths as Dems unveil emergency funding

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Tuesday suggested there could be indictments for the people found to be responsible for the deaths of two infants who consumed baby formula that may have been contaminated.  

Speaking at a press conference to unveil Democrats’ $28 million aid bill to help put formula back on store shelves, Pelosi said the possibility that contaminated formula killed at least two babies is “sinful.” 

“When it comes to babies, it’s the here and now and in this moment…I think that when all of this is done…I think there might be a need for indictment,” Pelosi said.

The infant deaths are part of a series of events that has contributed to a nationwide shortage of infant formula. A manufacturing plant operated by Abbott Nutrition has been shut down since February, after four infants who consumed formula made there were hospitalized with a rare bacterial infection. 

Abbott is one of the largest formula manufacturers in the country. The shutdown has exacerbated existing supply chain pressures, leading to bare shelves in stores across the country.

The emergency funding legislation is one piece of a broader push to address the formula shortages. Pelosi said the House intends to pass the bill this week, as well as a related measure to expand access to formula for vulnerable families from Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.).

The bill would allow people who participate in the low-income program known as WIC, for women, infant and children, to access more sources for formula. WIC benefits restrict the types of formulas that recipients can buy.

Democrats are vowing to investigate the shortages, which have been months in the making. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is holding a hearing next week with top Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials as well as executives from formula manufacturers. 

The House Oversight and Reform Committee has also launched an inquiry into the shortages.

“It is a very serious problem in this country. Parents are struggling. People today live paycheck to paycheck. They are now scrambling to find a formula to feed their babies in what is the wealthiest nation in the world,” said Rep. Rose DeLauro (D-Conn.), chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee 

DeLauro said the emergency funding bill would provide new money for the Food and Drug Administration to use for new product reviews and safety inspections, and to ensure that fraudulent products do not enter the U.S. from abroad.

During the press conference, DeLauro accused Abbott of a coverup.

“Recalls happen, but this company has lied, it’s cut corners and falsified records to cover up misdoing at the sake of infant health,” she said. “That’s wrong. Just plain wrong.”

DeLauro said FDA needs more resources, but she also slammed the agency for “dragging your feet” after officials were made aware about concerns at the plant as far back as October.

“Consolidation is a problem, there were problems with COVID, but dragging your feet for five months… there’s lots of culpability,” DeLauro told The Hill. 

Abbott maintains the FDA has not been able to definitively link its formula to the illnesses. The company said it has been making corrective improvements to address the agency’s concerns. 

FDA and Abbott announced Monday they had entered into an agreement on how to reopen the shuttered plant, but there was no specific timetable.

But even if the funding bill passes the House, Senate Republicans were already pouring cold water on the possibility of spending more money on legislation that won’t have an immediate impact.

“Whether it’s $28 million or $228 million, it won’t make any difference tomorrow. It probably won’t make any difference probably a week from tomorrow,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). 

Retail supply of formula has been spotty for months because of supply chain pressures and labor shortages, but many lawmakers have only recently begun to press FDA and the companies for answers.  

The White House has come under pressure in recent days from parents and lawmakers who are demanding action. 

Republicans are largely centering their political attacks on the Biden administration. But both Democrats and Republicans are asking tough questions of FDA and raising concerns about the thoroughness of the agency’s food safety inspections. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Live AP results: Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania primaries

The Associated Press is following the elections in Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

Follow the live results below.

Idaho

Kentucky

North Carolina

Oregon

Pennsylvania

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Live AP results: Kentucky primary

The Associated Press is following the election in Kentucky.

Follow the live results below.

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Trump spokesperson says she'll stop using Twitter

Liz Harrington, a spokesperson for former President Trump, said on Tuesday she would stop using Twitter, a platform she has used to deliver messages from the former president, who is banned from the site.

“I will soon no longer be posting on Twitter. This is a terrible website that is beyond fixing. TRUTH will soon be available to everyone when its web application launches,” she wrote.

“Be sure to follow me there @realLizUSA,” she added, along with a screenshot from Trump’s Truth Social account, where he says “Leave Twitter and get the TRUTH!!!”

Trump, who was banned from Twitter and other social media platforms in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, has issued statements primarily through his Save America PAC. Those statements have often been shared through Harrington on Twitter.

Trump started his own social media company, Truth Social, to communicate with the public, but it is off to a shaky start, with little engagement and lengthy wait times for new users.

Earlier this month, a lawsuit waged by the former president over his Twitter ban was tossed out by a judge, who said Trump was unable to demonstrate that his right to free speech had been violated by Twitter.

Elon Musk has signaled if his deal to acquire Twitter goes through, he would reverse Twitter’s ban on Trump, though the former president has said he will continue to remain on Truth Social. 

Harrington is not the first GOP figure to swear off the platform. Other lawmakers and high-profile pundits have previously signaled they would leave the platform, only to rejoin it again later.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), whose personal account was permanently suspended by Twitter in January over COVID-19 misinformation, said at the time that “Twitter is an enemy to America and can’t handle the truth.”

“That’s fine, I’ll show America we don’t need them and it’s time to defeat our enemies,” she said, though she has since been actively using her congressional account. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Taking care of veterans means getting justice for Camp Lejeune

In 1986, Audrey Williams Pride laid her infant son to rest. She blamed herself for his death—but it was actually the government’s fault. The authorities at Camp Lejeune, the North Carolina Marine Corps base Audrey called home, had contaminated the drinking water.

Audrey is not alone. From 1953 to 1987, more than a million men, women, and children bathed in and ingested Camp Lejeune’s toxic water. Hundreds of babies died, so many filling a stretch of a nearby cemetery that it received the grim title “Baby Heaven.” And children were not the only victims of the poisoning. Tens of thousands of Marines, military family members, and civilian staff have since developed severe illnesses, from cancer to Parkinson’s, linked to the contamination. 

For years, government officials covered up their crime. Then, when the truth came out, they relied on legal loopholes to escape the consequences. North Carolina’s strict 10-year statute of repose, which has been altered by the state legislature but still applies to past cases, denies most families the ability to sue in court. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has refused care to those in need on the basis of “insufficient evidence of causation.” 

Former residents of Camp Lejeune served their country in the belief that their government would take care of them. Yet, like members of the military exposed to toxic burn pits on tours of duty, they have received nothing but excuses. They deserve justice—the time for delays is over. 

Fortunately, change is just over the horizon. 

I know change is possible, because I’ve helped make it happen before. Not too long ago, the VA was a cesspool of bureaucratic negligence and outright abuse. VA officials denied much-needed care to wounded veterans and overlooked outrageous conditions at VA medical facilities. That began to change in 2017 when Congress passed my VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, a law that empowered VA administrators to fire employees and established robust protections for whistleblowers. 

While this bill made a real difference, there are still problems in the VA. Transforming the culture of government is hard work. But our veterans and their families never shied away from hard work, and neither should we. 

That is why I am committed to supporting the Camp Lejeune Justice Act. That bill was introduced by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to help victims of water contamination at Camp Lejeune work around North Carolina’s statute of repose and take their cases to court. Sen. Tillis has the solution—now we just need to implement it. 

The Camp Lejeune Justice Act was included in the House-passed Honoring Our PACT Act, which also addresses the needs of burn pits victims. These bills are critical to doing right by our nation’s veterans. We can and should pass both. 

The Camp Lejeune Justice Act is not without its detractors. Some members of Congress worry that allowing sick veterans and their families to seek restitution for Camp Lejeune will take too much money away from the federal budget. To those members, I say this problem was created by the government, and the government must solve it. There is simply no choice in the matter. 

Other members assert committee jurisdictional reasons to argue that Camp Lejeune cannot be included in the PACT Act. To those members, I say committee jurisdiction shouldn’t stand in the way of helping Americans suffering from toxic exposure. One way or the other, we can’t let any more excuses delay justice. 

As a Floridian, I hear from veterans and their families all the time. I know that no amount of money can make up for the loss of a loved one or the cost of a life-changing injury. But recognition of and compensation for the government’s wrong actions is the least we can do to honor those who have made such great sacrifices on our behalf. 

Until we get justice for Camp Lejeune, its former residents—the babies who died in stillbirth, the Marines suffering from cancer, the women sterilized by toxic chemicals—will be a living witness to government negligence and incompetence. I call on my colleagues in Congress to do the right thing and pass the Camp Lejeune Justice Act. 

Marco Rubio is the senior senator from Florida. 

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GOP state senator in New Jersey introduces ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill

A state Senator in New Jersey this week introduced a bill prohibiting kindergarten through sixth-grade teachers from engaging in classroom instruction related to sexual orientation or gender identity. Seventh- through twelfth-grade students may only be educated on either topic if consent is given by a parent or guardian.

“Any student whose parent or guardian does not provide prior written consent shall be excused from that portion of the course where such instruction is provided and no penalties as to credit or graduation shall result therefrom,” reads a portion of the bill introduced Monday by state Sen. Edward Durr Jr., a Republican and former commercial truck driver who made headlines last year when he defeated former New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney (D) – at that time one of the most powerful elected officials in the state.

Under the bill, a parent or guardian may take legal action against their child’s school if their child has been taught about sexual orientation or gender identity without their consent. If a school district or employee “knowingly violates” the proposed law, the state Office of the Attorney General may seek an injunction.

New Jersey’s Education Commission may also withhold state funds from any school district found to be in violation of the law, which if passed would apply to the first full school year following its enactment.

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Durr’s office did not immediately respond to Changing America’s request for comment.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) office declined to comment on the legislation, but Murphy has recently pushed back against other efforts to limit discussions related to sexual orientation and gender identity in the state’s classrooms, making the bill’s passage unlikely.

“I don’t like the fact that some are using this as an opportunity to score political points and to further divide us,” Murphy said earlier this month in response to pushback on new social and sexual health education standards that are set to take effect this fall. “I say that on behalf of the LGBTQIA+ communities. Let’s everybody not use this to divide us.”

Legislators in dozens of states this year have argued that lessons related to sexual orientation and gender identity don’t belong in the classroom and are “inappropriate” topics that are too mature for children. Laws barring educators from addressing either sexual orientation or gender identity in a manner that is not “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate” for their students have already been passed in Florida and Alabama.

LGBTQ+ advocates have pushed back on those arguments, warning that restrictive curriculum bills will harm LGBTQ+ youth, who already experience higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicidality.

Source: TEST FEED1