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Who Will Win The Remote VS Office War?

There’s long been a disconnect between employers and employees regarding work-life balance. Well before WFH became an acronym we no longer needed to spell out, countless studies found that the lack of personal time was a major concern for the average worker.

One particular study in 2015 – so, BC-19 (Before Covid-19) – found 67% of HR professionals thought their employees had work-life balance, while nearly half (47%) of employees felt they didn’t have enough time each work day to do personal activities.

These days, post-pandemic, that disconnect has grown even wider as the office versus WFH debate rages on. Except this time around, the divide might be because people aren’t spending enough time in the office. One recent study revealed 65% of workers feel lonelier and less connected to their employees and their co-workers than ever before.

Lonely employees equate to lower productivity, more missed days at work, lower quality of work, and a higher risk of turnover, with the latter costing US companies $406 billion a year.

Return to office

There are as many people espousing the benefits of returning to the office as there are those who vehemently oppose it. In one corner, you have companies, like Google and Apple, attempting to return to a pre-pandemic “normal” with many corporate leaders still putting a premium on “face time” in the office.

Elon Musk told his employees at Tesla and SpaceX that he expects them to spend at least 40 hours per week in the office, and in a recent company-wide email penned by Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy, he explained that this return to the office will be mandatory, and that the company will “respect the choice” of anyone who chooses to leave as a result.

Bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell recently lectured the American workforce on the perils of working from home. Working from home is not, he said on the podcast Diary of a CEO, in people’s best interest. “If you’re just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you wanna live? We want you to have a feeling of belonging, and to feel necessary. And if you’re not here, it’s really hard to do that.”

However, in the other corner, there are about 92 million people who do want to work remotely, at least part of the time. Companies such as Spotify, Atlassian, and Twitter are continuing to let their employees ‘work from anywhere’.

What the pandemic did was deliver a realistic alternative to the daily commute to the office, and now many people aren’t willing to go back to the status quo. A large survey taken in late 2021 of workers in 17 countries found that 71% of 18-to-24-year-olds said that, “if my employer insisted on me returning to my workplace full-time, I would consider looking for another job.”

And they can do just that, at least for now. There are around 125 million full-time jobs in America and researchers at Gallup say that half of these jobs — mostly office or “white collar” jobs — can be done remotely. The question is, what will these fully-remote workers be missing out on?

The value of actually being in a room with co-workers cannot be underestimated: the shared experience, the serendipity of talking to people in roles not directly related to what you do; the exposure to a diversity of ideas and perspectives; the chance to look up and say, “I never thought about it that way.”

Americans often spend a third to more than half of their waking hours working, so work is inevitably where many of our bonds and friendships are formed. And they’re incredibly important to us. A 2019 report by The Institute of Leadership and Management found that building close relationships with colleagues was the most important factor in determining job satisfaction by 77% of respondents.

If workers want the best of both worlds, then flexibility might just be the answer. One thing is becoming clear about the future of work, at least in the near term. Hybrid work arrangements are going to be the norm for many organizations, in industries ranging from tech to pharmaceuticals to academia. Here are three exceptional US companies offering just that – and you can discover plenty more on The Hill Jobs Board.

PayPal

PayPal is committed to helping employees maintain balance between the demands of work life and personal life. It offers telecommuting (which allows staff to work from home instead of the office) and flexi-work arrangements (My Balance), where they have control over their start and end work times within the scope of regular office hours. If this sounds like a company you’d like to work for, the Strategic Finance & Pricing Manager is a great career role based in Washington that you should check out.

Microsoft

Microsoft has long prided itself on making the wellbeing and safety of its people a number one priority. It values and supports flexibility as part of its “hybrid workplace” (a mix of workstyles across three dimensions: work site, work location, and work hours) where every employee can do their best work. Across 190 countries and with over 180,000 passionate people, Microsoft is a global community of curious, purpose-minded individuals. Interested in a #MicrosoftLife? The company is currently looking for a Surface Partner Technology Strategist.

Mastercard

Mastercard is committed to supporting its diverse and inclusive workforce across the globe. As part of that commitment, it offers generous benefits programs that are designed using global standards to ensure the financial, emotional, and medical safety of all its employees and their loved ones. From new parent leave to tuition assistance, there’s a whole host of benefits for employees, including Flex Work, which is flexibility to get the job done where and when you work best. Employees can find balance with the opportunity to work remotely, have a flexible start time, or a combination of the two. Like the sound of that? This hybrid remote, full-time position as Director of Product Management could be just what you’re looking for.

To discover millions of career opportunities, browse The Hill Jobs Board

Source: TEST FEED1

What’s our plan to stop China’s acquisition of America?

As I drove to baseball practice last week, the radio announced that President Biden may meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping this fall, but not before Xi is reportedly welcomed with open arms by our increasingly estranged ally Saudi Arabia. 

At practice, my first basemen complained that his new baseball bat, though bearing the logo of a revered American baseball bat manufacturer, had been manufactured in China with a bamboo center. My glove, bat, spikes and baseballs all said, “Made in China,” as did my jersey, baseball pants, hat, sunglasses and wrist bands.

We explain this away as basic economics — workers in China are paid little, so products can be manufactured there must cheaper. But this situation is getting substantially more dangerous as China’s financial and technological capabilities grow.  It makes me wonder, what’s our plan?

The economic contest between the United States and China is like the second coming of the Bretton Woods meetings, which established the financial standards for the reconstructed post-war world in 1944. As it was then, the privilege of determining the rules that support global trade in the 21st century always belongs to the country with preeminent economic, military and technological leadership and stability. China wants to be that country.

Michael Schuman recently wrote about what’s at stake. Western democracies broadly adhere to a “rule of law” that is intended to be impartial and applied evenly to all, while Chinese society is “ruled by law” that is intended to ensure continued Communist Party dominance. 

Sure, China’s immediate economic future is not without serious challenges given significant missteps related to population control, over building and new rules on domestic corporations. Its relations with the European Union have dramatically deteriorated, emphasizing its obligation to address the world’s lack of trust in it if it is serious about becoming a financial leader.

But China has been achieving its long-term business goals over the last 50 years and is now on a trajectory to have the world’s largest economy by 2030.

America is more and more resembling an economic subsidiary of China. Chinese companies are acquiring American businesses, buildings and land at will, with the government currently holding almost $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury notes. Coupled with the U.S. corporate debt that Chinese interests hold, China possesses potent political and economic power that it has not been shy about using.

Not surprisingly, U.S. companies are prohibited from enjoying those same investment opportunities in China, making it an economic one-way-street. A Chinese company recently acquired 300 acres of land near Grand Forks, N.D., which just happens to be about 20 minutes’ drive from the Grand Forks Air Force Base. Who’s watching the store?

China is furiously financing the sale of products, such as 5G technology, to countries around the world, hoping to make them economically and technologically reliant. In the corporate world, it equates to making a controlling equity investment in a company and placing your friends on the board of directors.

Meanwhile, the United States and China are engaged in a curious Kabuki dance as companies from both countries enthusiastically welcome each other as significant trading and investment partners while fretting about ongoing economic espionage and the existence of embedded chips collecting intelligence. The U.S. government has blacklisted dozens of Chinese technology companies like Huawei, limiting their operations and preventing investment by U.S. entities in them because of the security threats they pose. But it has been approving nearly every application to export semiconductors, aerospace components and artificial-intelligence technology to China.

China has no doubt seen what Russia has done in addicting Europe to its energy resources to neutralize those countries to it military aggressions. If it uses a similar script and attacks or occupies Taiwan, it could control more than 90 percent of the world’s semiconductor chip manufacturing capabilities. It is also intent on dominating the fields of artificial intelligence and quantum computing by 2030 and 2035, respectively, greatly outspending the United State to achieve those goals using a “catch-up ethos” that Kai-Fu Lee describes in “AI Superpowers” as making Silicon Valley look “lethargic.”

What will it mean to America if China can build trust in its state-controlled economy, use its market power to continue to erode the status of the dollar as the global reserve currency and convince the world to accept a digital yuan issued by its central bank as it achieves technological superiority? At a minimum, the cost of capital, liquidity and borrowings would necessarily increase in the U.S. But social ramifications may also follow.

In “We Have Been Harmonized,” Kai Strittmatter describes a frightening behavioral dystopia and police state where the Chinese government controls everything that can be seen or communicated. The internet is censored through control of the three digital pipelines that enter and leave the country, and approximately 300 million facial recognition cameras funnel data to the government every moment. Apps on mobile phones digitally monitor and transmit endless behavioral information about citizens, resulting in their receiving a social score from the government. If that score is too low, they may lose mass transportation or educational privileges, or ultimately be assigned to “reeducation camps.” Such technological repression can very easily become permanent, making change impossible.

Dealing with these threats will require financial, political and technological leadership supported by democratic countries around the world. It will also take enormous courage for countries to accept the short-term economic pain that will accompany reordering their financial and technological choices. I don’t know if my baseball glove will ever be made in America again. But I sure hope we have a plan to deal with all this.

Thomas P. Vartanian is the author of “200 Years of American Financial Panics: Crashes, Recessions, Depressions and the Technology that Will Change it All” and executive director of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center.

Source: TEST FEED1

Texas mom reunites with kids after being hospitalized more than a year with COVID-19

Relaxed COVID-19 guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month may signal a new, less acute phase of the pandemic is underway for some. 

But for one family in Texas, the toll of the novel coronavirus hit close to home this week when a mother who had been hospitalized for over a year was discharged.

The woman, 34-year-old Jazmin Kirkland, spent over 180 days on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine — which pumps blood outside the body and reintroduces oxygen-filled blood back to tissues — before being reunited with her three children on August 9, 2022. 

According to Kirkland, her two-year-old son didn’t recognize her when she walked through the door as he had never seen her outside a hospital setting.

“He was 1 when I went into the hospital and he sees the hospital as, that’s mom’s house,” she said in an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America.

“He was confused. He didn’t recognize me because I wasn’t in my PJs or my hospital gown.”  Kirkland’s other children are ages 7 and 10. 

In August 2021, Kirkland, her husband, and their two youngest tested positive for COVID-19 on a vacation to South Carolina. At the time of infection, the couple had not been vaccinated.

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For a portion of time in the hospital, Kirkland was in a medically-induced coma and was under consideration for a lung transplant, but then was no longer eligible for one after doctors thought her antibodies would reject the organ. 

Over time on the ECMO machine, her lungs improved and after eight months she was removed from the device. Typically, patients are hooked up to ECMO for just two to four weeks. A few months later she was removed from a ventilator.

“Even if it’s just one person that can find her story to say like, hey, someone overcame this to give them hope that they can do it too then that’s what I was hoping others would take away from this as well,” Kirkland’s husband Kody told a Texas NBC affiliate station. 

“I don’t care if I wake up and I don’t have an arm or leg. As long as I’m here and I’m able to be with my kids, just please let me live,” Jazmin recounted thinking. 

The relaxed CDC guidance comes as COVID-19 cases in the United States have been steadily falling throughout the month of August. 

However, Kirkland’s story illustrates the dire toll the disease can still take, as she described herself as a healthy individual with no pre-existing conditions at the time of infection. 

Throughout her illness, Kirkland was transferred to multiple hospitals and acute care centers, with most of her time spent at Texoma Medical Center in Denison where she was placed on ECMO. 

“It’s hard on the body because a lot of times when you’re looking at patients going on ECMO, they’re the sickest of the sick,” Brandon Davis, the cardiovascular intensive care unit manager at Texoma Medical Center told ABC. “A lot of times, they have to be fully sedated for an extended period of time which, in that time, you get muscle degeneration, so you’re having to work to build their muscles, not only the injured organs.”

After her ordeal, Kirkland had to re-learn how to eat and walk. “So for someone to come as far as she did, it’s really amazing,” Davis added.

After witnessing the hard work of nurses and therapists throughout his wife’s time in the hospital, Kody Kirkland said the professionals are not paid enough. At one point, Kody even refused to sign a “Do not resuscitate” order because he kept believing his wife would overcome the illness.

Jazmin still receives oxygen and therapy now at home, but is expected to completely recover.

Source: TEST FEED1

What is DeSantis's 'Stop WOKE Act'?

A federal judge on Thursday issued a temporary injunction that partially blocks officials in Florida from enforcing the state’s law against mandatory workplace trainings about race or sex that could make some people feel “guilt” or “anguish.”

The law, known as the “Stop Woke Act,” where woke is used as an acronym for “Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees,” was designed to combat “woke indoctrination” in Florida businesses and schools by prohibiting instruction that could make some parties feel they bear “personal responsibility” for historic wrongdoings because of their race, sex or national origin.

Only the private employer provision of the law is blocked by Thursday’s ruling.

“Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely,” District Court Judge Mark Walker wrote Thursday. “But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.”

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The measure, which lists eight concepts that would constitute “unlawful employment practices” should their instruction be required by employers, had been backed by the DeSantis administration even before the official start of the state’s legislative session in January.

DeSantis in a December statement said the proposal would build on prior efforts to ban from Florida classrooms the New York Times’ 1619 project and critical race theory, which he called “state-sanctioned racism.”

“We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other,” he said. “We also have a responsibility to ensure that parents have the means to vindicate their rights when it comes to enforcing state standards.”

Florida’s Board of Education last year banned critical race theory, which addresses systemic racism in the U.S., from being taught in schools, grouping it in the same category as Holocaust denial and other “theories that distort historical events.”

DeSantis in December said workers in the state should also be protected against “hostile” environments that are created when employers mandate implicit bias or sexual harassment training.

Florida business owners with more than 15 employees under the law could face legal challenges from workers who feel they have been targeted by mandatory trainings or discriminated against.

Companies also have an expectation under federal law to create inclusive workplace environments, meaning they could face legal woes whether they conduct diversity or inclusion training or not.

DeSantis’ office has said it plans to appeal Walker’s decision.

“Judge Walker has effectively ruled that companies have a First Amendment right to instruct their employees in white supremacy,” Taryn Feske, DeSantis’ communications director, told The Hill. “We disagree and will be appealing his decision.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Study shows almost half of fatal cancer cases linked to avoidable risk factors

Almost half of all cancers that lead to death can be attributed to risk factors that are avoidable, a new study found, with researchers advising that governments invest in supporting environments that minimize exposure to certain cancer risk factors.

The study, which looked at cancer cases from 2019 and was published in The Lancet, found that 44 percent of cancer deaths were what researchers referred to as risk-attributable cancer deaths, meaning cancers that could be linked to higher exposure to certain risk factors for the disease.

On a global scale, the leading risk factors were smoking, alcohol and high BMI in descending order. These risk factors were the same for both male and female patients.

The same study found that 42 percent of cancer-related disability-adjusted life-years — the number of years lost to not living at full health or with a disability — could be attributed to risk factors.

The burden of risk-attributable cancers varied across regions, with smoking, unsafe sex and alcohol being the leading risk factors in lower-income, socially disadvantaged countries. Higher-income countries tended to reflect the global risk factors, according to researchers.

“Although some cancer cases are not preventable, governments can work on a population level to support an environment that minimises exposure to known cancer risk factors,” researchers said.

“Primary prevention, or the prevention of a cancer developing, is a particularly cost-effective strategy, although it must be paired with more comprehensive efforts to address cancer burden, including secondary prevention initiatives, such as screening programmes, and ensuring effective capacity to diagnose and treat those with cancer.”

Researchers noted that “substantial progress” has been made in reducing tobacco exposure, particularly through interventions like taxation, regulations and smoke-free policies globally. Similar efforts have been made to address risks such as alcohol use and unsafe sex.

“Behavioural risk factors are strongly influenced by the environment in which people live and individuals with cancer should not be blamed for their disease,” said researchers.

Source: TEST FEED1

An equity point of view on the Inflation Reduction Act

The United States has crossed a threshold after decades of intrepid attempts to build political will for climate action. While it is important to recognize the shift in momentum, and its value, we can’t dismiss that it prioritizes investments in projects over people, again.

The movement for people and planet has taken shape since the era of industrialization as Indigenous, enslaved and colonized peoples transformed these lands through their labor, warning of extraction, pollution and degradation over generations. Modern movements marked the struggle with the formation of the environmental justice movement, the development of the 17 principles in 1991, the Jemez principles in 1996 and the emergence of whole organizations focused on conservation and the nonprofit industrial complex.

All of it, the blood, tears and the emergence of an environmental lobby led to the possibility of the historic compromise, the Inflation Reduction Act. As the new law is enacted it will move billions of dollars into the marketplace and send a signal across the globe that America is committed to fighting the climate crisis as a part of a multinational duty to future generations.

At a minimum we can agree that the bargain puts money on the table for clean energy research and development, heavy duty and car transportation, as well as drought mitigation in the West. And most importantly, it adds certainty to renewable energy development through extension of investment tax and production credits that can support deployment of wind and solar that can translate to accessible energy for people and planet.

Unfortunately, the impact of this legislation cannot strictly be measured in dollars and cents. As the world judges the value of legislative action in the U.S., the movement that delivered it, over decades, is struggling to hold onto thepeople, networks and relational infrastructure that could best advocate to realize the potential of the bargain. Whether the advocates are students, parishioners, parents or protestors putting their bodies on the line, the power of people is the real hero.

As news of the compromise that led to new law spread faster than the details within the legislation, communities voiced concerns about the opaqueness of dealmaking and demanded protection of vulnerable places and people. The release of the final text confirmed those fears and about the closed-door nature of the negotiation in contravention to community practice of participatory coalitions. And all that trust-building practice is how we collectively determine our trajectory for emissions, conditions of survival, loss and damage.

The next step to realizing any benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act is understanding the forewarnings of our movement partners. The work of the environmental movement is actually multitudes of strategy, tactics and agendas that come together for as an expansive a vision that has ever existed because it includes all of us. And that kind of power needs to be tended, coordinated, and mended in moments like these. We cannot do the work of people and planet without deferential commitments to the most vulnerable, that include resource redistribution and a non-negotiable practice of racial equity that is sensitive to the reality that the ways are as important as the means. It matters that Black, Indigenous, and all people of color, the chronically poor and people who live in regions where energy extraction threatens their lives are raising concerns. And it matters right now.

Now is the time when the connections between environmental degradation in the U.S. South and global south matter. Now is the time when race-based discrimination and systemic exclusion should sharpen our focus on the  priority, sequence and scale of investments for innovation. It is only by widening the lens of our policy and practice that we reach the scale the environmental crisis requires, and restore public lands, watersheds, coastal communities, rural and urban communities with sustainable, replicable and life-sustaining energy. A win in this moment is one that aligns with the principles of just transition which require a just redistribution of resources that meet the litmus test of community benefits, not just market demands.

As the conversation about this landmark legislation shifts to a staid pace of regulatory, state, local, community and territorial forums the true impact of the legislation will be borne out. In the meantime, the whole movement should be making plans to undergird the people and places that the bargain leaves vulnerable for deep extraction, incumbent permits, pipelines and bureaucratic process. Because despite the global calls for racial equity we haven’t made it a political reality here at home. And until the work of communities of color is seen as essential and not optional for climate, our work remains unfinished. Until the work of justice for racialized peoples is irrevocable in environment and climate wins, we should not dare to declare victory.

Tamara Toles O’Laughlin is president and CEO of Environmental Grantmakers Association.

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Pentagon announces extra $775M in weapons to Ukraine

The United States will send another $775 million in missiles, drones, vehicles and mine clearing equipment to Ukraine to help in its war with Russia as the conflict enters a near standstill, the Pentagon announced Friday.  

The new assistance package will include 16 Howitzers and ammunition, AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM), ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 15 Scan Eagle reconnaissance drones, and armored vehicles, among other armaments, a senior Defense official told reporters. 

The package comes at a critical time as Ukraine and Russia battle for control of the eastern part of the country.  

Nearly six months into the war, the two sides are locked in a near operational standstill, with neither Kyiv nor Moscow able to drum up enough ground troops and weapons to turn the course of the conflict, Western officials assess.  

The extra shot of lethal aid could help Ukrainian forces gain the upper hand as Kremlin troops struggle with losses inflicted by U.S.-made missile systems.  

“I would say that you are seeing a complete and total lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield,” the senior Defense official said, adding that it’s important to both sustain Ukrainian battlefield successes and enable them to be make gains as the conflict shifts.   

“We want to make sure that Ukraine has a steady stream of ammunition to meet its needs, and that’s what we’re doing with this package.” 

The latest lethal aid follows the $1 billion in weapons and equipment given to the embattled country earlier this month, the largest such tranche pledged since Russia attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24. 

The package also pushes the United States past the $10 billion mark for military assistance for Ukraine under the Biden administration, spread out over 19 packages since August 2021. 

Standouts in the latest lethal aid tranche are the HARM missiles, which can be fired from Ukrainian aircraft, have a range of at least 30 miles and are designed to find and destroy radar-equipped air defense systems. The missiles have been credited with taking out some of Russia’s most dangerous weapons systems in Ukraine in recent weeks. 

Also included are the Scan Eagle unmanned aerial systems – the first time the U.S. has provided the drone to Kyiv – which will give Ukrainians “better reconnaissance around the front lines,” the official said.  

In addition, the package will consist of 1,000 Javelins, 36,000 105 mm artillery rounds, mine clearing equipment, 40 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) to allow Ukrainian troops to travel through areas rigged with mines, 1,500 tube-launched optically-tracked wire-guided (TOW) missiles, 2000 anti-armor rounds, 50 Humvees, tactical secure communication systems, night vision devices, thermal imagery systems, and optics and laser range finders. 

Source: TEST FEED1

One year later, Afghans struggle with broken US promises

One year ago in Kabul, the U.S. military launched the largest wartime evacuation since the Fall of Saigon in 1975. The hurried withdrawal served as the impetus for Operation Allies Welcome — a historic mission to resettle approximately 80,000 Afghan evacuees in the United States. These newcomers served American interests throughout our nation’s longest war as combat interpreters, diplomats, NGO workers, women’s rights activists, journalists and in other vital supporting roles.

Across the country and across the political spectrum, compassionate Americans have embraced these allies as their newest neighbors in a truly inspiring fashion. But while the airlift brought them to safety on our shores, this first anniversary should serve as a sobering reminder of the enduring challenges they face — and the hundreds of thousands more the U.S. left behind in its hasty exit.

The grim reality is that U.S. policymakers cannot pat themselves on the back for a mission yet to be accomplished, and a promise yet to be fulfilled. This once-in-a-generation effort has largely faded from the daily headlines, but tens of thousands of our newest Afghan neighbors continue to face daily struggles with securing affordable housing, employment and permanent legal status in the U.S. — all while separated from family back in Afghanistan, whom our government swore to bring to safety.

The organization I lead, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, has witnessed the fallout of these failures firsthand in welcoming more than 13,500 Afghan men, women and children in the past year alone.

We worked around the clock to secure temporary, then permanent housing for them, mobilizing a makeshift army of volunteers to set up homes with all their basic needs. We enrolled thousands of refugee children in public schools and helped families access community resources. We launched new resettlement offices and hosted hiring fairs to help Afghan job seekers take their first steps to self-sufficiency. Beyond meeting their most urgent needs, we have organized legal clinics, cultural orientations, financial literacy classes and mental health workshops to help our new neighbors better adjust to life in the U.S. amid unimaginable trauma.

And yet, after all these efforts, the challenges Afghans face are far from over. Among many, two questions loom largest in our clients’ minds: How can I bring my family here and how can I stay in the U.S.? Regrettably, the federal government’s response has been equivocal on both fronts.

In terms of reunification, all of our Afghan clients have family members among the 160,000 that the U.S. Department of State estimates were left behind, whether they are extended relatives, spouses, or even their children. That heartbreaking absence is a major source of stress and anxiety, and it has undoubtedly compounded all the usual challenges of starting over in a new country, culture and language.

Afghans have begun to lose hope in the face of such little progress in reuniting families. The technical pathways available to them — humanitarian parole, special immigrant visas and the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program — are extremely burdensome, and have proven to bear little fruit in relocating those in harm’s way.

For example, approximately 49,000 Afghans have applied for humanitarian parole as of July 28, but the Biden administration has only adjudicated 8,500 applications — and a jaw-dropping 96 percent have been denied. Only 5,631 Afghans have been admitted to the U.S. through the special immigrant visa program, and only 971 through the refugee program this fiscal year ending Sept. 30. These figures amount to a glacial pace that, if unchanged, would require more than two decades to relocate all those who are thought to be eligible for protection in the U.S.

Afghan evacuees have painstakingly watched a year go by and 100,000 Ukrainians admitted to the U.S., all the while desperate to reunite with their loved ones. The Biden administration must recommit itself to relocating Afghan allies at a meaningful scale; and it would do well to address inequities by applying lessons learned from its bold, innovative and swift response to Ukrainians seeking safety in the U.S.

Meanwhile, Congress has failed to address the legal limbo weighing heavily on Afghans already in the U.S. Their tenuous humanitarian parole status offers no pathway to permanent U.S. residency, nor does the Biden administration’s temporary protected status designation for Afghanistan. These are two short-term band-aids for a population that needs and deserves long-term protection.

The solution is the same legislative fix that refugee advocates, veterans and faith leaders have been calling for since last year. It is incumbent upon Congress to honor our nation’s promise of lasting protection by passing the bipartisan Afghan Adjustment Act, newly introduced in both chambers last week.

This legislation would offer much-needed stability to tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees by allowing them to apply for lawful permanent residency after their first year here. From a practical standpoint, it would divert an unnecessary burden on the asylum system, which is already buckling under the weight of a massive 430,000 case backlog. It would similarly ease the strain on special immigrant visa processing, which already takes years to complete, and whose backlog has grown from approximately 17,000 to more than 74,000 principal applicants in just a year.

The Afghan Adjustment Act is how we stand by those who stood with us. This is a moral imperative with overwhelming bipartisan support, rooted in well-established historical precedent. Congress must swiftly pass it.

Our nation is stronger for having welcomed these allies of America’s longest war, and we will be stronger still when we keep our promise — not just to our newest neighbors — but to those left behind as well. The choice between redemption and betrayal is clear.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah is president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden proposes restoring chemical safety standards weakened by Trump

The Biden administration is proposing to restore chemical safety regulations that were loosened under the Trump administration. 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will reimpose certain safety requirements that apply to facilities including agricultural supply distributors, chemical manufacturers and distributors, food and beverage manufacturers and oil refineries. 

In 2019, the Trump administration got rid of requirements to assess potentially safer technologies and processes that may limit hazards. Those requirements included conducting “root cause” analyses after accidents, hiring third parties to audit the facilities after accidents and providing the public with information about chemical hazards upon request.

These requirements were imposed under the Obama administration following a 2013 explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas killed 15 people. 

In restoring these requirements, EPA administrator Michael Regan argued that they will protect the health and safety of people who live near such industrial facilities. 

“This rule will better protect communities from chemical accidents, and advance environmental justice for communities that have been disproportionately impacted by these facilities,” he said in a written statement. 

Former EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler, who worked under Trump, had argued that doing away with the requirements eliminated burdens on companies and addressed homeland security concerns. The EPA specifically claimed at the time that providing public information could give terrorists and criminals access to information about hazardous substances.

“Accident prevention is a top priority of the EPA and this rule promotes improved coordination between chemical facilities and emergency responders, reduces unnecessary regulatory burdens, and addresses security risks associated with previous amendments to the RMP rule,” Wheeler said at the time.  

In its new rule, the Biden administration sought to address this security concern by limiting information availability to people who live within six miles of a facility. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Life-saving opioid treatment out of reach for uninsured

Soaring prices for the life-saving opioid treatment naloxone are keeping out it out of the hands of uninsured Americans, even as the cost has dropped for those with medical insurance. 

A study released Friday by the RAND Corporation found that the average out-of-pocket cost of naloxone for uninsured patients has increased by 500 percent from 2014 to 2018. Yet for those with insurance, the cost decreased by 26 percent.  

The average out-of-pocket cost among those without insurance jumped from $27 in 2014 to $250 in 2018, the study found. 

Around one-fifth of Americans with opioid-use disorder do not have medical insurance. 

“The price of naloxone is almost certainly an impediment to more widespread adoption among the uninsured,” Evan Peet, the study’s lead author and an economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization, said in a media release. 

“Policymakers who want to further expand access to naloxone — particularly among the uninsured and vulnerable — need to pay greater attention to the out of-pocket costs,” Peet added.  

For the study, researchers from RAND and the University of Southern California looked at trends in out-of-pocket costs for naloxone by examining more than 700,00 prescription records from 2010 to 2018. 

The team found a drastic increase in the number of prescriptions, which increased from 11,432 to more than 386,000 in 2018. 

Study authors said policy makers could increase the flow of the life-saving treatment in part by offering subsidies for naloxone purchases, issuing rebates to the uninsured, and by regulating co-pays for those with medical insurance.

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A separate study published earlier in August found that nearly 90 percent of people in the U.S. living with opioid use disorder are not receiving lifesaving medications.  

The study, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, examined the prevalence of opioid use disorder and the use of medications such as buprenorphine and extended-release naltrexone to treat it between 2010 and 2019. Researchers found that 86.6 percent of people are not getting the treatment they need.  

A record number of Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021 with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing an estimated 107,622 deaths. Overdose deaths involving opioids increased from an estimated 70,029 in 2020 to 80,816 in 2021.

Source: TEST FEED1