Muriel E. Bowser, Mayor of Washington, D.C. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press

Opioid deaths are surging again in Washington, D.C., reversing previous year’s decline – 2019 was second-deadliest year for drug users since the District’s opioid crisis began in 2015

By Peter Jamison 31 January 2020 (The Washington Post) – Fatal opioid overdoses are on the rise again in the nation’s capital, an alarming development for public health officials who had celebrated what previously appeared to be a downward trend in the city’s drug deaths. Preliminary data indicates that 220 people died of opioid overdoses […]

The Global Risks Report’s top 10 risks for 2019, ranked by likelihood and impact, shed light on significant trends that may shape global development over the next 10 years. Graphic: World Economic Forum

These are the biggest risks facing our world in 2019 – “Of all risks, it is in relation to the environment that the world is most clearly sleepwalking into catastrophe”

By Joe Myers and Kate Whiting 16 January 2019 (WEF) – What keeps you up at night? For leaders surveyed for the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, environmental threats dominate the list for the third year in row – both in terms of impact and likelihood. “Of all risks, it is […]

Danielle and Jacob Stenger are raising their two children — Colten and Delaney — on a farm near Milford Lake outside Junction City, Kansas. Danielle is a proud ambassador for farming in the state and applauds the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s efforts to help farmers in mental health distress. Photo: Danielle Stenger

Kansas state steps in as farmers die by suicide – “The increase in suicide rates among farmers and ranchers is alarming”

By Lisa Gutierrez 28 December 2019 KANSAS CITY, Missouri (The Kansas City Star) – He fought it as long as he could. Mick Rausch didn’t know what was wrong until he finally hit a wall he could no longer climb on his own. It was 10 years ago. His brother — younger by just a […]

Orthodox Jewish women mourn during the funeral service of Mindel Ferencz who was killed in a kosher market that was the site of a gun battle in Jersey City, N.J., Wednesday, 11 December 2019. Ferencz, 31, and her husband owned the grocery store. The Ferencz family had moved to Jersey City from Brooklyn. Photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AP Photo

Number of U.S. mass killings hit new high in 2019, most were shootings – “This seems to be the age of mass shootings”

By Lisa Marie Pane 28 December 2019 (AP News) – The first one occurred 19 days into the new year when a man used an ax to kill four family members including his infant daughter. Five months later, 12 people were killed in a workplace shooting in Virginia. Twenty-two more died at a Walmart in El Paso […]

Obesity rates in the United States by state, 2000-2019 and projected to 2030. Data: Ward, et al., 2019. NEJM Graphic: Elijah Wolfson / TIME

Close to half of U.S. population projected to have obesity by 2030 – “The prevalence of adult obesity and severe obesity will continue to increase nationwide, with large disparities across states and demographic subgroups”

BOSTON, 18 December 2019 (Harvard Chan School) – About half of the adult U.S. population will have obesity and about a quarter will have severe obesity by 2030, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study also predicts that in 29 states, more than half of the […]

Life expectancy for United States and 50 States, grouped by census region, 1959-2016. Graphic: Woolf and Schoomaker, 2019 / JAMA

U.S. life expectancy continues to decline – Working-age Americans dying at higher rates, especially in economically hard-hit states – “This is a distinctly American phenomenon”

By Mary Kate Brogan 26 November 2019 (Virginia Commonwealth University) – Mortality rates among working-age Americans continue to climb, causing a decrease in U.S. life expectancy that is severely impacting certain regions of the United States, according to a Virginia Commonwealth University study set to publish Tuesday in JAMA. The report, “Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in […]

Cover of the album, “From the Mourning of the World”, produced by Marmaduke Dando and released by the Dark Mountain Project. Graphic: Rima Staines

Eco anxiety and grief: It’s real, and there are ways to cope

By Neo Chai Chin 20 November 2019 (Eco-Business) – When about 50 tertiary students and members of the public gathered last month for a workshop in Singapore on next month’s United Nations climate change conference, they talked first about expectations and the ground to be covered at the conference. Then, they discussed feelings of anxiety and fear […]

Photo of an oxygen bar in Delhi, India on 15 November 2019. A 15-minute session costs $7.00. Photo: Reuters

More than half of India coal-fired power plants set to miss pollution deadline – Less than 2 percent currently in compliance

By Sudarshan Varadhan 15 November 2019 NEW DELHI (Reuters) – More than half of India’s coal-fired power plants ordered to retrofit equipment to curb air pollution are set to miss the deadline, private industry estimates and a Reuters analysis show, as millions in the country wake up to toxic air each day. Thermal power companies, […]

Smog blankets India’s capital Delhi, 14 November 2019. Photo: Arshad R. Zargar / CBS

Dangerous air pollution in India forces Delhi schools to close for 2nd time in 2 weeks – “I cannot play outside because the air is too toxic to breathe”

DELHI, 15 November 2019 (CBS News) – The air pollution in India’s capital got so bad again this week that the government was forced to close schools. It was the second time in two weeks. The air has been choked with a concentration of noxious pollutants about 10-times higher than what’s considered safe by the […]

Shell’s “cracker” plant under construction in Pennsylvania. Photo: Keith Srakocic / AP

Will a push for plastics turn Appalachia into next “Cancer Alley”? – “It’s so obvious that they are trying to lock us into fossil fuels”

By Emily Holden 11 October 2019 MONACA, Pennsylvania (The Guardian) – Construction cranes climb into the sky and sprawl across the massive petrochemical facility that will turn a byproduct of fracked gas into plastic on the banks of the Ohio River, just outside Pittsburgh. Even at a distance, from the car park of a cancer […]

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