John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. International visitors to the United States declined by close to 700,000 in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the previous year.
Credit: Christopher Gregory/The New York Times
Fewer international travelers came to the United States during the first few months of this year than over the same period last year, confirming concerns of some in the travel industry.
New figures released by the U.S. Department of Commerce show a drop in international visitors to the United States by close to 700,000 in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the previous year. European countries were down 10.1 percent, and Mexico was off 7.1 percent in the quarter. The largest drops were from the Middle East and Africa, though they represent a much smaller percentage of overall travel to the United States.
Overall, 697,791 fewer foreigners visited the United States in the first three months of the year, down 4.2 percent to 15.8 million. According […]
Being surrounded by family and friends is a key element to living a thriving life.
Recent research published in the journal European Psychologist reviews the literature available on the concept of human thriving and outlines key elements that may lead to a thriving life.
In certain situations, some individuals flourish and thrive, whereas others merely survive, sometimes giving up in the face of adversity.
However, these scholars do not seem to have been able to reach a consensus on the matter. This prompted Dr. Daniel Brown, a sport and exercise scientist at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, to review the existing literature on the topic in an attempt to achieve three aims.
Firstly, Dr. Brown and colleagues wanted to come up with an all-encompassing concept of thriving that covers various population groups, from babies to adult professionals.
Secondly, they wanted to put forth a set of key principles that we can all apply if […]
American climate deniers
From my vantage point outside the glass doors, the sea of grey hair and balding pates had the appearance of a golf society event or an active retirement group. Instead, it was the inaugural meeting of Ireland’s first climate denial group, the self-styled Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF) in Dublin in May. All media were barred from attending.
Its guest speaker was the retired physicist and noted US climate contrarian, Richard Lindzen. His jeremiad against the “narrative of hysteria” on climate change was lapped up by an audience largely composed of male engineers and meteorologists – mostly retired. This demographic profile of attendees at climate denier meetings has been replicated in London, Washington and elsewhere.
How many people in the room had children or indeed grandchildren, I wondered. Could an audience of experienced, intelligent people really be this blithely indifferent to the devastating […]
Credit: Shutterstock
Quintero Jones was an inmate at the McConnell Unit in Beeville, Texas. One day, when the outdoor temperature had reached 98 degrees and humidity made it feel like 110, the 36-year-old collapsed in his cell and lay on the floor gasping for breath. According to a federal lawsuit filed by his family members in July, by the time help arrived, it was too late. His autopsy revealed that his death was caused by an asthma attack.
“Everybody knows high temperatures can be lethal, particularly to those who can’t take steps to cool themselves,” says David Fathi, the director of the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Whenever there’s an extreme heatwave, people die — prisoners and non-prisoners alike.”
All across the country, prisons and jails are not equipped with air conditioning, and when temperatures soar, inmates are often trapped in unbearable, life-threatening conditions. The southern United States faces the greatest risk of extreme heat in the future, and cities in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas are projected to see the greatest increase […]
The Flint Water Plant tower is seen, Friday, Feb. 5, 2016 in Flint, Mich. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday defended how his office responded to an email flagging a potential link between a surge in Legionnaires’ disease and Flint’s water, saying an aide asked for further investigation but a state agency did not bring forward the issue again. Credit: AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
The fertility rate in Flint, Mich., dropped precipitously after the city decided to switch to lead-poisoned Flint River water in 2014, according to a new working paper.
That decline was primarily driven by what the authors call a “culling of the least healthy fetuses” resulting in a “horrifyingly large” increase in fetal deaths and miscarriages. The paper estimates that among the babies conceived from November 2013 through March 2015, “between 198 and 276 more children would have been born had Flint not enacted the switch in water,” write health economists Daniel Grossman of West Virginia University and David Slusky of Kansas University.
In April 2014, Flint decided to draw its public water supply from the Flint River, a temporary measure […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
