By Karen Attiah 5 March 2021 DALLAS, Texas (The Washington Post) – As spring makes inroads down here in North Texas, the impending reopening of the state feels ominously like a death trap. At a Mexican restaurant in Lubbock this week, Gov. Greg Abbott (R)proclaimed that he would issue an executive order to open Texas up “100 […]
By Kim Bellware 7 March 2021 (The Washington Post) – Cheering parents watched as children tossed surgical masks into a fire outside the Idaho Capitol in Boise on Saturday as more than 100 people gathered to protest mask mandates as an affront to their civil liberties. The rally was one of several held statewide in […]
By Niv Elis 4 March 2021 (The Hill) – The nation’s debt burden is on track to surpass its historic high point in a decade, reaching 107 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2031, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (pdf). The debt surpassed 100 percent of GDP last year […]
By Manuela Andreoni, Ernesto Londoño, and Letícia Casado 3 March 2021 RIO DE JANEIRO (The New York Times) – Covid-19 has already left a trail of death and despair in Brazil, one of the worst in the world. Now, a year into the pandemic, the country is setting another wrenching record. No other nation that […]
By Colleen Zitt 3 February 2021 (Zurich) – As Chief Risk Officer for Zurich North America, I eagerly await the annual release of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Risks Report. This year’s 2021 edition is no exception. Its thoughtful, laser-sharp analysis of short- and long-term global risks — dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change — […]
By Roosa Tikkanen and Katharine Fields 25 February 2021 (The Commonwealth Fund) – International comparisons of health care systems offer valuable tools to health ministers, policymakers, and academics wishing to evaluate the performance of their country’s system. In this chartbook [ppt, pdf], we use data collected by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) […]
By Sabrina Tavernise and Abby Goodnough 18 February 2021 (The New York Times) – Life expectancy in the United States fell by a full year in the first six months of 2020, the federal government reported on Thursday, the largest drop since World War II and a grim measure of the deadly consequences of the coronavirus […]
By Ari Kahan 3 February 2021 (EIA) – The United States will likely take years to return to 2019 levels of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions following the impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. economy and global energy sector, according to projections in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Annual Energy Outlook 2021 (AEO2021). […]
CHICAGO, 25 January 2021 (Aon) – Aon plc (NYSE: AON), a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement, and health solutions, today launches its global Weather, Climate & Catastrophe Insight: 2020 Annual Report. The report evaluates the impact of global natural disaster events to identify trends, manage volatility and enhance resilience. The report reveals […]
By James Temple 1 January 2021 (Technology Review) – There’s a case to be made that 2020, for all the sacrifices it demanded and tragedies it inflicted, could at least mark a turning point on climate change. It’s now possible that global oil demand and greenhouse-gas emissions may have already peaked in 2019, since the pandemic could slow economic […]
