A protester shakes hands with a security officer in Quito, Ecuador, on Sunday, 13 October 2019, as they celebrate the government’s announcement that it has cancelled an austerity package and restored fuel subsidies. The package had triggered violent protests that paralyzed the economy and left seven people dead. Photo: Dolores Ochoa / AP

Ecuador reaches fuel subsidy deal to end violent protests

By Chris Arnold 14 October 2019 (NPR) – Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno and leaders of the country’s indigenous peoples have reached a deal to cancel a disputed austerity package. The move follows nearly two weeks of violent, widespread protests. The unrest began after Moreno ended government subsidies that have helped keep fuel prices low in […]

Total U.S. Tax Rate (Federal, State and Local), 1950-2018, by income decile. Graphic: The New York Times

For the first time in history, U.S. billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class in 2018

By Christopher Ingraham 8 October 2019 (The Washington Post) – A new book-length study on the tax burden of the ultrarich begins with a startling finding: In 2018, for the first time in history, America’s richest billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than the working class. The Triumph of Injustice, by economists Emmanuel Saez […]

The community center in Altha, Florida after Hurricane Michael, shown on 12 February 2019 (top) and 11 September 2019 (bottom). Photo: Tallahassee Democrat

Hurricane Michael survivors hanging on one year later – Thousands of Panhandle residents still live in tents, trailers, and hotel rooms – “Collectively we’ve forgotten them”

By Nada Hassanein 12 October 2019 SNEADS, Florida (Tallahassee Democrat) – Rodney and Tonya Hewett remember gazing outside the window of their farmhouse during Hurricane Michael. They saw their pool fence flying in the forceful winds, the wooden poles like swords. A deer that tried to run for safety went airborne. The Hewetts have been […]

Alcohol, drug, and suicide deaths among young adults (ages 20–34), 1999–2017. Data: Trust for America’s Health and Well Being / Trust analysis of National Center for Health Statistics data, CDC. Graphic: TFAH

U.S. millennials and Gen X are both stressed, broke, and in debt – “Deaths of despair” on the rise with millennials

By Hillary Hoffower 10 October 2019 (Business Insider) – Finances are looking a bit bleak for some Americans. Insider recently teamed up with Morning Consult to survey 2,096 Americans about their financial health, debt, and earnings for its new series, “The State of Our Money.” Findings largely didn’t paint a pretty picture, particularly for millennials and Gen […]

People block a road amid clashes with soldiers in Lasso, Ecuador, during protests after Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno’s government ended four-decade-old fuel subsidies, 6 October 2019. Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS

Ecuador declares state of emergency as fuel protesters battle police

By Alexandra Valencia 6 October 2019 QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuadorean authorities began arresting shopkeepers for raising food prices as indigenous groups clashed with security forces on Sunday in a fourth day of protests against President Lenin Moreno’s austerity measures. One man died in central Azuay province when roadblocks blocked an ambulance from reaching him after […]

People walk home in the dark due to power shortages in Harare, on Monday, 30 September 2019. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa presented a State of the Nation address on 1 October 2019, at a time the southern African nation is reeling from its worst economic crisis in more than a decade. Zimbabweans are enduring shortages of everything from medicines, fuel, cash and water, bringing a weariness and disgust that has often flared into streets protests. Opposition lawmakers walk out of president’s speech. Photo: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Associated Press

Surviving the extreme water shortage in Zimbabwe’s capital – Doctors on strike over “appalling and disgraceful” conditions in hospitals – Opposition lawmakers walk out of president’s speech

By Morgan Passi and John McGill 2 October 2019 (CBC Radio) – Think of it as a cash and flow problem. Last month, city councillors in Harare, Zimbabwe shut off their main water plant, blaming a lack of foreign currency needed to import treatment chemicals. The water is back on now — after the national government stepped in. […]

Greg Wood, a Fairfax County, Virginia firefighter supporting USAID, sits in the dining tent of the camp set up on the tarmac at the Marsh Harbour Airport on 25 September 2019. The outfit has been on the ground since the hurricane, providing support to the Bahamian government. Photo: Andrew West / The USA Today Network-Florida

Bahamas struggles to right itself a month after Category 5 Hurricane Dorian brutalized islands – “Our very existence as a country of many low-lying islands and over 2,400 cays is under grave threat”

By Amy Bennett Williams 1 October 2019 NASSAU, Bahamas (Fort Myers News-Press) – Stooped and heavily laden, Keri Pierre trudged slowly uphill under blazing Bahamian sunshine. She was running out of time. As the days of her free temporary stay at Paradise Island’s Sunrise Beach Club dwindled, Pierre mounted an increasingly frantic search through Nassau for […]

Zimbabweans sit and pray on top of a large rock on the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe, 8 September 2019. Photo: Themba Hadebe / AP Photo

Zimbabwe’s capital runs dry as taps cut off for 2 million people – “It is a desperate situation”

By Farai Mutsaka 24 September 2019 HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) – Tempers flared on Tuesday as more than 2 million residents of Zimbabwe’s capital and surrounding towns found themselves without water after authorities shut down the main treatment plant, raising new fears about disease after a cholera outbreak while the economy crumbles even more. Officials in Harare have struggled to […]

A montage of photos that were submitted to the Environmental Photographer of the Year 2019 award. “Journey by Launch” by Azim Khan Ronnie; “Polluted New Year” by Eliud Gil Samaniego, “Remains of the Forest” by J Henry Fair, “Tuvalu Beneath the Rising Tide” by Sean Gallagher, “My Climate Future” by Souray Karmakar, “Looking Beyond What is There” by Graham Earnshaw, “Where the City Ends and the Ships Begin” by Azim Khan Ronnie, and “Tuvalu Beneath the Rising Tide” by Sean Gallagher (second entry). Photo: CIWEM

Photo gallery: Striking images from the 2019 Environmental Photographer of the Year competition – “Climate change is the defining issue of our time and now is the time to act”

23 September 2019 (CIWEM) – The CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year exposes the terrible impacts being wrought on our planet by humans, but also celebrates humanity’s innate ability to survive and innovate, lending hope to us all that we can overcome challenges to live sustainably. [See all of the submissions: Environmental Photographer of the […]

Homes lay in ruin in The Mudd neighborhood in the Marsh Harbour area of Abaco, Bahamas, on Monday, 9 September 2019, one week after Hurricane Dorian hit. Photo: Fernando Llano / AP Photo

Hurricane Dorian left 1.5 billion pounds of debris in Marsh Harbour, Bahamas – Total losses estimated at $7 billion – “We acknowledge that we are in a national climate crisis and the country is facing a national climate emergency”

By Jan Wesner Childs 21 September 2019 (The Weather Channel) – Officials are grappling with how to deal with 1.5 billion pounds of debris left behind in Marsh Harbour after Hurricane Dorian decimated the community in Abaco, Bahamas. The landscape was littered after Dorian with splintered homes and buildings, boats, cars and every sort of […]

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