Today’s collection of headlines from the realms of politics, economics, human behavior, and the environment begins with a reminder that Big Pharma all too often rushes too soon to market. From the McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Convicted of murder, soldier blames anti-smoking drug
While his homicidal claim is rare — [Army Pfc. George D.B] MacDonald may be the first, and so far only, murder defendant to go all the way to trial with a Chantix defense — questions about the drug’s safety are not.
Others have blamed the prescription pill for suicides, suicidal thoughts or other psychiatric problems. More than 2,000 joined in lawsuits against Pfizer, the drug’s manufacturer. Most have largely since been settled, at a cost to Pfizer of at least $299 million.
Chantix sales, meanwhile, totaled $486 million during the first nine months of 2013.
On May 13, MacDonald will get one more chance to plead his case when the nation’s top military appeals court will decide whether the trial judge erred when he quashed a wide-ranging subpoena for Pfizer documents. The documents, MacDonald’s lawyers say, might have helped prove the potential dangers of Chantix.
We’ll add an older headline to impart context. From Al Jazeera, 21 November 2013:
FDA: Anti-smoking drug Chantix linked to more than 500 suicides
Another military medical scandal from United Press International:
Phoenix VA officials on leave after ‘secret list’ scandal that let vets die waiting for care
Official: “These allegations, if true, are absolutely unacceptable and if the Inspector General’s investigation substantiates these claims, swift and appropriate action will be taken.”
The director and two other officials of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Healthcare System (PVAHS) have been placed on administrative leave in light of the recently revealed scandal that allowed over forty veterans to die while waiting for medical care and falsified records to hide the lengthy wait times from the federal government.
In an exclusive interview with CNN Investigative, Dr. Same Foote, a veteran doctor just retired after 24 years with the VA system in Phoenix, blew the whistle on PVAHS maintaining two separate records of waiting lists — one fake list to convince Washington they were providing timely appointments (14-30 days is the expected turnaround standard for timely care required by the VA) and another real but secret list where veterans’ wait for an appointment could last over a year.
On Monday, President Barack Obama called on U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki to investigate. As well, several members of Congress have called for hearings on the matter, at least three representatives publicly calling for PVAHS Director Sharon Helman’s resignation.
More from International Business Times:
Phoenix VA Scandal: New Charges And A Second Whistleblower
It’s getting even hotter in Phoenix, where government officials are investigating a scandal at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care System. At least 40 U.S. veterans allegedly died at the Phoenix VA waiting for appointments, and many of them were placed on a secret waiting list to hide the long wait times, according to Dr. Sam Foote, a physician at the Phoenix VA for 24 years who retired in December.
A second whistleblower, Dr. Katherine Mitchell, also a longtime physician at the Phoenix VA, came forward this week with more incendiary charges of poor treatment of veterans in Phoenix and accusations that officials shredded documents related to the investigation.
The controversy remains focused on the secret list, which was part of an elaborate scheme designed by VA managers in Phoenix to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor, according to Foote.
From MarketWatch, irrational exuberance:
Stocks are riding optimism, not earnings, to records
Pfizer, Disney, Tesla earnings on tap; Yellen scheduled for two-day testimony
Stocks are trading near record highs, and some say that’s more due to cautious optimism than solid fundamentals.
Stocks finished higher last week, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.28% set its first record close of the year. The S&P 500 index SPX -0.13% passed into record close territory but couldn’t finish there. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP -0.09% closed up 1.2% on the week, though it’s still down 1.3% for the year.
The workings of the Dow suggest hope is driving prices rather than the bottom line. Sales and profit trends aren’t looking so hot, nor are corporate outlooks.
The Miami Herald notes a phenomenon much covered previously in this blog:
A Lopsided comeback: How the housing recovery favors the rich
An analysis of 11 years of home sales in South Florida, parsed by ZIP code, shows the boom, bust and recovery left a wider gap between the rich and the poor.
South Florida’s housing rebound has been remarkable.
Lured by Miami’s cachet as an emerging international gateway and luxury getaway, foreign investors ranging from Russian oligarchs to Brazilian supermodels to anonymous Channel Islands companies have rushed in with mounds of cash.
Along Miami Beach’s North Bay Drive and Sunset Islands, Key Biscayne and Gables Estates, the elite are shelling out millions of dollars to buy teardowns to make room for new Gatsby-esque spreads.
Developers are hawking one new pre-construction condominium tower after another. They feature gilded amenities fit for Dubai or Hong Kong (one will be topped with a private helipad; another, equipped with private automobile elevators). Glass-walled penthouses tout 360-degree views of the city, the ocean and Biscayne Bay.
And from Salon, some of the reasons for that growing divide:
How the rich stole our money — and made us think they were doing us a favor
Pushing people toward stocks, real estate and credit cards have all come at a cost — and with one goal in mind
If you’ve paid attention to the economy over the last few years, you’ve doubtless seen the charts and figures showing the decline of the American middle class in concert with the explosion of wealth for the super-rich. Wages have stagnated over the last 40 years even as productivity has increased, which is another way of saying that Americans are working harder but getting paid less. Unemployment remains stubbornly high even though corporate profits and the stock market are at or near record highs. Passive assets in the form of stocks and real estate, in other words, are doing very well. Wages for working people are not. Unfortunately for the middle class, however, the top 1 percent of incomes own almost 50 percent of asset wealth, and the top 10 percent own over 85 percent of it. When assets do well but wages don’t, the middle class suffers.
This ominous trend is particularly prominent in the United States. That shouldn’t surprise us: study after study shows that American policymakers operate almost purely on behalf of wealthy interests. Recent polling also proves that the American rich want policies that encourage the growth of asset values while lowering their own tax rates, and are especially keen on outcomes that favor themselves at the expense of the poor and middle class.
So why isn’t the 99 percent in open revolt? The answer lies in part because the top 1 percent have done an excellent job disguising the upward transfer of wealth by making the rest of us feel better off than we actually are while enriching themselves in the process.
From My Budget 360, job numbers in deeper context:
The disappearing labor force: Over 800K Americans drop out of labor force.
Since end of recession, those not in the labor force has grown from 80 million to 92 million. Workers younger than 55 lost jobs in April.
It might have come as a surprise to many that the pumped up stock market had no rally from the big employment report last week. Why? The unemployment rate fell from 6.7 to 6.3 percent. One survey showed a big jump in jobs added. As is usually the case, the devil is in the details. The unemployment rate fell dramatically because more than 800K Americans dropped out of the labor force. That is right, nearly 1 million people dropped out of the labor force. So of course this will make the rate look better than expected. In fact, since the recession ended we have added 12 million Americans to the category of “not in the labor force” which trumps even demographic changes. We have discussed that many Americans have no economic means to even retire. What was also interesting in the report is that workers younger than 55 actually lost jobs in the April report. So it is no surprise that the stock market actually turned lower with the whopping jobs report after people dug into the data.
From the neoliberal London Telegraph, thinly veiled exultation:
Shocking US jobs data impugns recovery, Fed tapering
Friday’s figures are a warning that the US recovery may be losing momentum
The US economy has delivered two minor shocks in a week, prompting concerns that bond tapering by the Federal Reserve may be doing more damage than expected.
Non-Farm Payrolls data released on Friday shows that the workforce shed 806,000 jobs in April, a stunning drop that cannot plausibly be blamed on the weather. Wage growth and hours worked were both flat and the manufacturing hours per week fell.
This follows news earlier in the week that the economy to a halt in the first quarter. Growth plummeted to 0.1pc and is now well below the Fed’s “stall speed” indicator. Analysts blamed this on the freezing polar vortex over the winter.
Yet the jobs data confirm a disturbingly weak picture. The headline unemployment rate fell to 6.3pc but that was only because the labour “participation rate” plummeted back to a modern-era low of 62.8pc, last seen in 1978 when there were far fewer women in the workforce. The rate for males is the lowest ever recorded at 69.1pc.
ABC News adds to the sense of things amiss:
Aging Baby Boomers Becoming the Roommate Generation
Rachel Caraviello, vice president of Affordable Living for the Aging (ALA), says that nationally there are about 130,000 households where the cohabiters are aged 50 or older, and where they have no familial relationship or romantic connection.
Caraviello views these arrangements as one more manifestation of the “sharing economy”: Here, one party typically is house-rich but cash-poor; and the other has money or services to contribute.
Rodney Harrell, PhD, a specialist on housing with the AARP’s Public Policy Institute, tells ABC News the range of agreements struck can include one party’s helping the other with shopping, transportation, cooking or informal care-giving. He believes there will be more demand for roommate and other sharing programs as the Baby Boom ages.
By 2030, according to the Federal Administration on Aging, one out of every five Americans will be 65 or older. The sheer size of the Boomer cohort, says Harrell, plus its declared desire to age “in place,” rather than in a nursing home, means having a roommate will be what he calls a growing niche option. “Few do it now,” he tells ABC, “but more could, or would, if that option were made more easily available.”
From Associated Press, it’s nice to be a rich city:
California city looks to sea for water in drought
With California in a drought, the coastal city of Santa Barbara is thinking about firing up a desalination plant that has been in storage for more than two decades.
The city built the plant in the 1990s during the last drought but turned it on for only three months after heavy rains eliminated the need for extra water.
Desalination involves removing salt from ocean water or groundwater, but it’s not a quick drought-relief option. It takes years of planning and overcoming red tape to launch a project.
And from United Press International, another enhancement for California’s Sterling [snicker] reputation:
San Jose State expels three students charged with hate crimes
Students referred to their black roommate as “three-fifths,” put bike lock around his neck, wrote racial slurs on surfaces and flaunted the Confederate flag.
Three white San Jose State students have been expelled after being charged with misdemeanor battery and hate crimes for racist treatment of their only black housemate. A fourth has been put on probation for the remainder of his time at the university.
All four students pled not guilty to the charges, brought about after their roommate’s parents first noticed a Confederate flag in the living room and racial slurs scrawled on the walls. Campus officials were notified and an investigation was held.
Among the findings in the investigation were numerous racially charged incidents directed at the victim, Donald Williams Jr. Among the offenses were nicknaming the victim “three-fifths,” a reference to the nineteenth century legislation that only counted a black votes as three-fifths the value of whites, and an incident where Williams was wrested to the ground while a bike lock was forced around his neck.
For our final U.S. post, irony from Raw Story:
Anti-gay NC GOP candidate outed as former female impersonator ‘Miss Mona Sinclair’
A GOP candidate for North Carolina State Senate — who supports the state’s ban on same-sex marriage — has been revealed as a former female impersonator and drag show emcee by the co-owner of the club where he once worked.
Steve Wiles, 34, of Kernersville, NC, worked at Club Odyssey until 2010 under the name ‘Mona Sinclair,’ former club owner Randy Duggins told the Winston-Salem Journal.
According to Duggins, Wiles was a frequent patron in the late 1990s at his nightclub where gay, lesbian and straight clientele gathered for weekly shows featuring female impersonators. Around 2001 and 2002, Wiles began working for Duggins as the show director and performance booker, while emceeing the show as Miss Mona Sinclair.
EUobserver takes us to Europe and fuelish anxieties:
Russian gas supplies ‘not guaranteed’, EU commissioner warns
A first mediation attempt by the EU between Russia and Ukraine on their gas price dispute on Friday (2 May) in Warsaw ended with no results other than the willingness to meet again.
“It is with concern that we see the security of supply for end consumers in EU and non-EU states like Ukraine is not guaranteed,” EU energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger told press after the meeting.
The energy ministers of Ukraine and Russia, for the first time at a table since the annexation of Crimea and the Russia-backed separatist movements in eastern Ukraine, decided to hold separate press points rather than join Oettinger in a common press conference.
On to Britain with the Observer and more hints of tough times ahead for the marginalized:
Two thirds of self-employed are not paying into pensions, report finds
Resolution Foundation finds majority of Britain’s 4.5m self-employed people are not making any retirement provision
Two-thirds of the growing number of self-employed workers are failing to pay anything into a pension policy, leaving themselves at risk of financial insecurity later in life, a report will warn this week.
The study on the changing nature of employment by the Resolution Foundation thinktank will paint a picture of a growing army of self-employed people who are mostly at ease with being their own bosses.
One in three self-employed people describe themselves as “entrepreneurs”, while three-quarters say that, rather than being forced into this type of employment because there was no alternative, they chose it from a range of options. But while there is a level of contentment among the self-employed, polling for the report by Ipsos MORI found that only 34% of them were paying into a pension and laying proper plans for life after work.
From Reuters, another instance of wretched excess, Old Blighty style:
$237 million apartment sale sets record
London’s red-hot property market has struck a new record with the sale of a 140 million pound ($237 million) unfurnished apartment, but even the developer of the opulent building warned that some asking prices in Britain were unsustainable.
Buoyed by the wealth of Russian oligarchs, Chinese tycoons and Arab sheikhs, London has become one of the most expensive markets on earth, raising concerns ahead of parliamentary elections in 2015 that locals are being squeezed out of the market.
“We’re in boom-time prices, more expensive than we’ve ever been in the history of mankind,” Nick Candy, one of the developers of London’s One Hyde Park luxury apartments, at the pinnacle of the capital’s super-prime residential sector, told Reuters.
A London Telegraph cartoon gives a sense of the high end bubble in the city:
From Europe Online, speech no longer so free:
Belgian police disperse hundreds at “anti-Semitic” congress
Belgian police dispersed a crowd of around 400 people on Sunday who had gathered for a congress condemned by Jewish groups as being anti-Semitic, according to Belga news agency.
Mayor Eric Tomas of Anderlecht – the Brussels suburb where the rally took place – had banned the gathering earlier Sunday citing risks to security and public order. The event organizers challenged the ban and said they would stay put while awaiting a court decision.
Attendees at the “First European Congress of Dissidence” were expected to include controversial French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, who has previously been fined for anti-Semitic remarks.
Event organiser, MP Laurent Louis, denied the accusations of anti-semitism surrounding the event.
On to Paris with TheLocal.fr and a French retreat:
France’s Carrefour to quit India: reports
Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer, is working on a plan to exit India, media reports said Saturday, amid political uncertainty about the future of multi-brand retail in the South Asian giant.
The reports in the Times of India and Business Standard and other dailies come as the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), tipped to win India’s marathon general election which winds up in mid-May, declared it opposes allowing foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail.
Indian newspapers quoted unnamed sources in the France-based company as saying Carrefour had been working on an exit strategy for two weeks.
And from France 24, electioneering ahoy:
Will Anti-EU parties dominate upcoming European elections?
Last Thursday, [hard right National Front party leader Marine] Le Pen addressed thousands of supporters at a May Day rally in Paris, where she made a passionate appeal for a show of strength at the polls.
“On May 25, put an end to this system that despises you … turn your back on the dishonour and capitulation,” she told her supporters.
“No to Brussels, yes to France. Do not fall into the trap of abstention. Do not disappoint me, go and vote!”
According to a April 25 poll by CSA on behalf of the BFM-TV channel and French regional daily Nice-Matin, the FN will be battling it out with the centre-right UMP to come out on top among French voters, leaving the ruling Socialists in third place.
After the jump, the latest from Greece, Ukraine turmoil, Thai troubles, Taiwanese protests, Chinese puritanism, Japanese demographic decline, environmental anxieties, a celestial near-miss, antibiotic overdoses, and a world from the WTO — the World Toilet Organization — and more. . .
Next up with ANA/MPA, call it a free-for-all, with a Greek twist:
Forty-six political formations apply to participate in European elections at deadline expiry
A total of 46 parties and party coalitions as well as one independent sole candidate, had submitted applications to the Supreme Court to participate in the May 25 European Parliament elections by the end of the official deadline on Friday.
All nominations approved by the Supreme Court – its approval being a prerequisite for participation in the elections – will be announced on May 11th, 2014.
Among the 46 parties and party coalitions which filed applications for their participation in the elections are the senior partner in the government coalition New Democracy (ND), main opposition Radical Left Coalition SYRIZA party, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), Democratic Left (DIMAR), Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi), Potami and many others.
More from Kathimerini English:
Conservatives boosted by polls ahead of May vote
Thirteen days ahead of local elections and 20 days ahead of European Parliament elections, coalition partners New Democracy and PASOK are seeking to galvanize their party base to secure results that will dampen leftist opposition SYRIZA’s calls for a snap national vote.
The coalition is set to complete its term in June 2016, but SYRIZA has threatened to trigger an early vote by blocking the election of a new president early next year.
Over the weekend, ND welcomed two new opinion polls that gave the conservatives a narrow lead over SYRIZA ahead of the Europe-wide ballot.
An MRB poll for Star TV showed ND to have inched forward to 21.9 percent, pushing SYRIZA into second place at 21.3 percent. PASOK’s grouping with other center-left parties, known as Elia, or the Olive Tree, alliance, scored 5.1 percent.
And Greek Reporter tugs at the purse strings:
Greek Party Funding Rules Challenged
The Greek government’s decision to give itself the lion’s share of the state funding to campaign for the May 25 European Parliament election has raised objections from the main opposition party Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and the marginal Democratic Left (DIMAR) that had served in the coalition administration.
The Interior Ministry decided that 50 percent of the funding should be allocated according to the share of the vote that parties gained in the 2009 European vote and only 10 percent based on the last general elections in June 2012. There was no explanation why elections five years ago were being used as a barometer for funding allocation.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ New Democracy conservatives and his coalition partner, the PASOK socialists, will now get most of the money.
Making bad news sound like good with ANA/MPA:
Unregistered work declined further in March
Unregistered work significantly declined in March, according to data released from the Labour, Social Security and Welfare Ministry.
According to checks conducted under the special operational project “Artemis” – set up to curb unregistered work – uninsured work declined to 23.61 pct of the workers checked in 2,112 companies in March, down from 38.50 pct of unregistered work uncovered during checks conducted in the same period last year.
Unregistered work is moving downward since September 2013, when the new operational project started and high fines of up to 10,550 euros per unregistered worker have been imposed following on-site workplace checks.
Greek Reporter adds the needed detail:
Data Shows Black Hole For Greeks With Neither Job Nor Income
Greece’s state-run labor agency OAED has released data for the period 2010-2014 showing a 45% increase in unemployment registrations but 47% fewer recipients of the relevant benefit, which means that despite the dole queue getting 328,208 people longer, somehow 138,824 fewer receive unemployment benefit.
Unemployment is turning into a major social problem as more and more unemployed are left without an income. The Greek government has already decided to proceed with the distribution of a social dividend of 60 million euros to the long-term unemployed in the second half of 2014. Furthermore the government will review the criteria concerning the granting of a long-term unemployment benefit.
Apart from the recession preventing the reintegration of the unemployed into the labor market, the decline in the number of unemployment benefit recipients owes much to the peculiarities of the Greek welfare system.
Greek Reporter again, this time look at things from the catbird seat:
Minister Launches Mediterranean Yacht Show in Nafplio
Crowds of people in Nafplio, southern Greece, turned out to the city’s port to admire the floating palaces on parade at the opening ceremony of the inaugral Mediterranean Yacht Show, launched Sunday by Greece’s Minister of Shipping Miltiadis Varvitsiotis.
The exhibition showcases more than 60 yachts, the largest 60 meters long with a capacity of 12 passengers. The yacht Aqua was rented by the Princess of Morocco Lala Salma for her journey around Greece, while Alexandra and Dragon were rented two years ago by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in which to tour the Aegean and Ionian seas.
On to the Ukraine and the latest from National Post:
Ukraine releases 67 pro-Russian demonstrators after hundreds storm police headquarters in Odessa
Hundreds of pro-Russian demonstrators stormed police headquarters in Odessa on Sunday and won the release of 67 people detained after deadly clashes in the Ukrainian port city.
More than 40 people died in the riots two days earlier, some from gunshot wounds, but most in a horrific fire that tore through a trade union building.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who hinted strongly that he saw Moscow’s hand in the unrest spreading through southeastern Ukraine, visited Odessa on Sunday to try to defuse the mounting tensions.
International Business Times states the obvious:
Ukraine Crisis Could Have Economic Impact Far Beyond The Region
The unrest could have consequences far beyond the region. “We’re going to have to take some pain for this,” said Robert Kahn, an international economist at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“These are very, very hard events to quantify,” he said.
If the situation escalates further, which he expects it will, global markets will react. “Until now, markets have been sanguine about the standoff between Russia and the U.S., and seem to believe that the effects for the most part will be localized,” Kahn said.
Off to Asia with the Financial Express and that old class thing again:
Global citizenship catching fancy of super rich in India, China
China and India both already have some of the largest populations based abroad.
Global citizenship is becoming popular among the world’s ultra wealthy and an increasing number of super-rich from Asia’s two giants China and India are likely to trend this path in the coming years, says a Wealth-X report.
China and India both already have some of the largest populations based abroad.
Moreover, coupled with current residents of China and India, the two countries have a total UHNW [ultra high net worth — esnl] population of 26,925, accounting for one in every seven UHNW individuals in the world.
“It is highly likely that we will see an increasing number of UHNW individuals from Asia’s two giants, China and India, seeking global citizenship in the coming years,” Wealth-X, a UHNW prospecting and intelligence firm, said in a research report.
New Europe sets the stage for Thai turmoil:
Former Thai premier’s call for suspended election “too late”
The proposals raised Saturday by former Thai Premier Abhisit Vejjajiva that an election be suspended for a six-month period was obviously”too late,” according to Election Commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn.
The fresh call for the suspension of the nationwide polls, scheduled for July 20, to give way for “national reforms” which might last five to six months as suggested by Abhisit would not be taken into account by the Election Commission, Somchai said.
The polling agency had already consulted with the caretaker government under acting Premier Yingluck Shinawatra and agreed to hold the election for which a royal decree will likely be submitted to the Thai monarch for approval next week, the commissioner said.
Channel NewsAsia Singapore takes us to Taiwan and turmoil resurgent:
Thousands rally in Taipei to counter anti-government protests
Thousands of Taiwanese calling for peace and the rule of law rallied in Taipei on Sunday to counter a recent series of demonstrations that turned violent and led to clashes with police.
Police estimated that about 1,500 people from the ruling Kuomintang party and their supporters rallied in the downtown area, ending up with a march to police headquarters. Demonstrators voiced gratitude to police for maintaining peace in the demonstrations since March.
Police estimated 15,000 turned out for a separate gathering organised by the right-wing New Party, which is friendly to the Kuomintang.
Channel NewsAsia Singapore takes us to China and another crackdown, Puritanical in nature:
China fines Sina over “indecent” content
Chinese authorities have slapped Internet giant Sina Corp. with a fine of more than US$815,000 over “unhealthy and indecent content”, the company announced.
The “administrative fine” of 5.1 million yuan (US$815,038) was imposed by the Beijing Municipal Cultural Market Administrative Law Enforcement Unit, Sina said in a release Friday.
Sina also said that the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television had notified it that the company’s “Internet Publication License and License for Online Transmission of Audio-Visual Programs would be revoked due to certain unhealthy and indecent content from third-parties or by users” on its online reading channel and website.
On to Japan and yet more waffling on the Obama/Wall Street trade agenda with the Mainichi:
Japan, U.S. yet to reach broad TPP pact, but make major progress: Abe
Japan and the United States have yet to reach a broad agreement in bilateral talks on the envisioned Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, but the two nations have made significant progress, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Saturday.
“We have made major progress. I think it will have been a crucial turning point,” Abe told reporters in reference to a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama in late April in Tokyo.
“Whatever the definitions of words are, we have yet to reach a broad agreement,” said Abe, who is on a six-nation tour of Europe.
Kyodo News tracks demographic collapse:
Number of children in Japan declines for 33rd year in a row
The number of children aged 14 and under in Japan fell for the 33rd straight year, to a record-low 16.33 million as of April 1, the government said Sunday, reflecting the continued downward trend in the nation’s birthrate.
The number was down 160,000 from a year earlier, and by more than 13 million since 1950 when the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications started compiling such data.
The figures were contained in a ministry report released ahead of the Children’s Day national holiday on Monday.
While JapanToday covers troubles for some of those who are born:
Thousands languishing in children’s homes in Japan: Human Rights Watch
Almost 90% of children taken from their families in Japan end up in institutions rather than foster care, a rights group says, expressing shock at the rate—the highest among developed nations.
Just 12% of children who have been removed from their natural parents are placed with foster families, leaving tens of thousands of other youngsters to languish in understaffed children’s homes, Human Rights Watch said.
That figure is the lowest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a club of rich nations, and is just a fraction of that in Australia, where 93.5% of these children live in a family home.
On to environmental news, starting with agricultural worries from Ars Technica:
US corn yields are growing, but so is sensitivity to drought
Change in planting density seems to be increasing stress of drought.
Stanford’s David Lobell and a group of collaborators set out to examine recent harvests for evidence of changing drought sensitivity. They took advantage of a detailed US Department of Agriculture database that started tracking yields by field (rather than state or national totals) in 1995, and focused on Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. They found that the amount of moisture available to plants in July was the best predictor of each year’s harvest. They broke down yields at each location according to that July moisture and averaged them together to get yield trends at various levels of wetness or drought.
Even for the driest conditions, corn yields increased over that time period. However, they increased significantly less than yields in wet conditions. That is, the difference between yields in wet and dry areas is now greater than it was in 1995. Repeating the same analysis for rain-reliant fields in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas—where drought tolerant strains are likely a higher priority for farmers—showed a similar, but even larger, disparity.
Soybean yields displayed no such pattern; yields have increased just as fast in dry years.
Talking Points Memo uncovers a major judicial goof:
Justice Scalia Makes Epic Blunder In Supreme Court Opinion
Legal experts say Justice Antonin Scalia erred in his dissent in the 6-2 decision Tuesday to uphold the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate coal pollution that moves across state lines. The Reagan-appointed jurist argued that the majority’s decision was inconsistent with a unanimous 2001 ruling which he mistakenly said shot down EPA efforts to consider costs when setting regulations.
“This is not the first time EPA has sought to convert the Clean Air Act into a mandate for cost-effective regulation. Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457 (2001), confronted EPA’s contention that it could consider costs in setting [National Ambient Air Quality Standards],” Scalia wrote in his dissent, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.
The problem: the EPA’s position in the 2001 case was exactly the opposite. The agency was defending its refusal to consider cost as a counter-weight to health benefits when setting certain air quality standards. It was the trucking industry that wanted the EPA to factor in cost. The 9-0 ruling sided with the EPA. The author of the ruling that Scalia mischaracterized? Scalia himself.
From Discovery, a belated discovery:
Bus-Size Asteroid Buzzes Earth, Comes Closer Than the Moon
A small asteroid about the size of a city bus zipped by Earth at a range closer than the moon early Saturday (May 3), but posed no threat to our planet.
The newly discovered asteroid 2014 HL129 came within 186,000 miles (299,338 kilometers) of Earth when it made its closest approach on Saturday morning, which is close enough to pass between the planet and the orbit of the moon. The average distance between the Earth and moon is about 238,855 miles (384,400 km).
Saturday’s close shave by asteroid 2014 HL129 came just days after its discovery on Wednesday, April 28, by astronomers with the Mt. Lemmon Survey team, according to an alert by the Minor Planet Center, an arm of the International Astronomical Union that chronicles asteroid discoveries. The Mt. Lemmon Survey team scans the night sky with a telescope at the Steward Observatory atop Mt. Lemmon in Arizona’s Catalina Mountains.
And from Ars Technica, another foreseeable consequence, too long ignored, rears its ugly head:
The other downside of antibiotics: Killing the useful bacteria
Author Martin Blaser looks at how antibiotics are reshaping our inner ecosystem.
Everyone has a pet theory to explain the rise of modern scourges, things that our forbears rarely had to contend with during their short, brutish lives: obesity, diabetes, celiac disease, autism, asthma, allergies, esophageal cancer, etc. Plastics, pesticides, and genetically modified crops are perennial favorites; wheat seems to be the darling of the moment.
Martin Blaser, the director of the Human Microbiome Program at NYU, thinks that these ills are due to the overuse of antibiotics. He uses his new book, Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues, to argue that the broad spectrum of antibiotics that is relied upon by modern medicine disrupt the microbiome, the diverse bacterial ecosystem that has been residing in human bodies ever since there were human bodies. The timeline corresponds; many of these disorders have exploded in prominence in the past few decades just as antibiotics began being prescribed almost indiscriminately because they always worked and “couldn’t hurt.”
The idea holds up scientifically too, as Blaser demonstrates. For example, the bacterial species we harbor help train our immune cells to recognize and combat pathogens, so disrupting this balance could account for the inflated rates of immune disorders we are experiencing. Further evidence for the connection is that antibiotic exposure has been positively associated with developing both asthma and celiac disease.
And we close on a somewhat lighter note, as the WTO strikes again, via South China Morning Post, and they’re really pissed:
World Toilet Organisation steps into public urination row
