In the richest nation in the world one in seven children faces food insecurity, one in six in Minnesota. It is one of the country's greatest shames, and the MAGAt Republicans in Congress are trying to cut back on child hunger funding. So this is lovely good news about dealing with child hunger. And let us hope they feed Minnesota children decent healthy food.
Students hug Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after he signed a universal free school meal bill into law on March 17, 2023. Credit: More Perfect Union / Twitter
“Let this serve as a reminder that poverty is a policy choice,” said one advocate. “In the richest country in the world, it is absolutely inexcusable that millions of our children go to school hungry because they are living in poverty.”
Surrounded by students, teachers, and advocates, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Friday afternoon signed into law a bill to provide breakfast and lunch at no cost to all of the state’s roughly 820,000 K-12 pupils regardless of their household income.
The move to make Minnesota the fourth U.S. state to guarantee universal free school meals—joining California, Maine, and Colorado—elicited praise from progressives.
“Beautiful,” tweeted Stephanie Kelton, a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University.
UC-Berkeley professor and former U.S. labor secretary Robert Reich wrote on social media: “Let this serve as a reminder that poverty is a policy choice. In the […]
I have been telling you for years that Florida faces a multi-billion real estate nightmare coming as a result of sea rise and climate change. (See SR archive) Well, as this report describes, that disaster is almost here. Ron DeSantis who, as far as I can see, is a vulgar racist christofascist incompetent as governor is more focused on drag queens than climate change and his administration is grossly failing to prepare his state for what is about to happen to its citizens. Still, they voted him into office with large margins twice, so they have no one to blame but themselves.
American homes in flood zones are overvalued by hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a study published in February in the journal Nature Climate Change. Low-income homeowners in states controlled by Republicans are especially at risk of seeing their home values deflate as global warming accelerates.
Flooding is a costly and deadly natural hazard across the United States. For decades, the Federal Emergency Management Agency offered flood insurance at discounted rates, incentivizing developers to build houses in flood-prone areas. The agency’s flood maps are also notoriously outdated. That has led to a dangerous situation for homeowners as they grapple with year after year of debilitating floods.
The study, published by a group of academic, nonprofit, and government organizations that include the Environmental Defense Fund and the Federal Reserve, revealed that homes in flood zones are overvalued by as much as $237 billion.
Batya Swift Yasgur, MA, LSW, Contributing Writer - Medscape
Stephan:
Like the additives in food, the toxins that pollute the homes of most Americans, such as Trichloroethylene, are a source of serious illness. It's all very profitable, but these products do not foster wellbeing. Stop using them. Read the labels. Make all your soaps and cleansers organic. Stop using air-fresheners of any kind. Take the trouble to see if an organic wellbeing fostering product can do the job. Yes, I know it is often the more expensive option. What is your life worth, and include the life of your partner, and anyone else in your home?
A common chemical that is used in correction fluid, paint removers, gun cleaners, aerosol cleaning products, and dry cleaning may be the key culprit behind the dramatic increase in Parkinson’s disease (PD), researchers say.
An international team of researchers reviewed previous research and cited data that suggest the chemical trichloroethylene (TCE) is associated with as much as a 500% increased risk for Parkinson’s disease (PD).
Lead investigator Ray Dorsey, MD, professor of neurology, University of Rochester, New York, called PD “the world’s fastest-growing brain disease,” and told Medscape Medical News that it “may be largely preventable.”
“Countless people have died over generations from cancer and other disease linked to TCE [and] Parkinson’s may be the latest,” he said. “Banning these chemicals, containing contaminated sites, and protecting homes, schools, and buildings at risk may all create a world where Parkinson’s is increasingly rare, not common.”
Invisible, Ubiquitous
TCE was first synthesized in a lab in 1864, with commercial production beginning in 1920, the researchers note.
“Because of its unique properties, TCE has had countless industrial, commercial, military, and medical applications,” including producing refrigerants, cleaning […]
KELCIE MOSELEY-MORRIS, Reporter - Idaho Capital Sun
Stephan:
The MAGAt Republican hysterical obsession with controlling women, as I have told you over and over, is having all manner of consequences in American healthcare, far beyond a woman being able to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy. I have published in SR reports about how this is affecting medical school training, and the fact that OB/GYN physicians are leaving Red states, making healthcare for women more problematic. Now here is a factual account of a hospital simply ending pregnancy delivery services altogether. In Sandpoint, Oklahoma the only hospital in the city will no longer offer obstetrical services, period.
As long as I am on this subject let me give you my view of abortion. The whole abortion argument is founded on materialism. When a woman aborts a fetus no one is killed. Rather the woman is deciding that she chooses not to be the channel for that eternal self to incarnate its particular personality manifestation through her uterus. Thus, the eternal self must find another route into spacetime. I actually know of a case in which a 25-year-old woman miscarried, and shortly afterwards her 28-year-old sister became pregnant. When the little girl who came through that birth was about four years old, and first met her now aunt she said, "I tried to come through you but it didn't work, so I chose my mom."
Bonner General Health, the only hospital in Sandpoint, Idaho, announced Friday afternoon that it will no longer provide obstetrical services to the city of more than 9,000 people, meaning patients will have to drive 46 miles for labor and delivery care moving forward. Credit: Getty
Idaho’s Bonner General Health, the only hospital in Sandpoint, announced Friday afternoon that it will no longer provide obstetrical services to the city of more than 9,000 people, meaning patients will have to drive 46 miles for labor and delivery care moving forward.
“We have made every effort to avoid eliminating these services,” said Ford Elsaesser, the hospital’s board president, in a news release. “We hoped to be the exception, but our challenges are impossible to overcome now.”
The hospital said it will continue to provide women’s health services at Sandpoint Women’s Health and collaborate with Kootenai Health in Coeur d’Alene, which is about an hour from Sandpoint, to provide obstetrical care.
Sandpoint Women’s Health will not accept new obstetrics patients effective immediately and offered a referral list for patients to use […]
Dan Whitcomb and Steve Gorman, Reporters - Reuters
Stephan:
I think Wyoming is only the beginning of this trend. I think we are going to see women, particularly younger fertile women moving out of Red MAGAt Republican-controlled states. Also, young women from any state choosing not to attend colleges or universities in Red states. This decision to control women is going to have all kinds of unanticipated negative consequences in Red states.
A patient prepares to take mifepristone, the first pill given in a medical abortion, at Women’s Reproductive Clinic of New Mexico in Santa Teresa, U.S., January 13, 2023. Credit: Evelyn Hockstein / Reuters
Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon on Friday signed into law a bill outlawing the use or prescription of medication abortion pills that was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature earlier this month.
Gordon, a Republican, signed the law as a federal judge in Texas considers ordering a nationwide ban on the abortion pill mifepristone in response to a lawsuit by anti-abortion groups.
The crux of the two-page Wyoming bill is a provision making it illegal to “prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell or use any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion.”
So-called “morning-after” pills, prescription contraceptive medication used after sex but before a pregnancy can be confirmed, are exempted from the ban.
The measure also includes an exemption for any treatment necessary to protect a woman “from an imminent peril that substantially endangers her life or health,” as well as any treatment of a “natural miscarriage […]
