U.S. on grim pace for gun violence, mass killings in 2023: “The bad year continues”

Number of mass killings in the United States in 2023 compared with previous years. Data are current to 4 July 2023. Graphic: USA TODAY

July 15, 2023

U.S. on grim pace for gun violence, mass killings in 2023: “The bad year continues”

By Grace Hauck 15 July 2023 (USA TODAY) – An acceleration of mass shootings. More public mass killings. More than 200 people across the nation shot on the Fourth of July. The United States frequently reaches horrific new highs of the gun violence epidemic. The latest way: A deadly six months in what figures to be the […]

Global Negative Experience Index, 2006-2022. As it does every year, Gallup asked adults in 142 countries and areas in 2022 if they had five different negative experiences on the day before the survey -- and then compiled the results into an index. Higher scores on the Negative Experience Index indicate that more of the population is experiencing these negative emotions. In 2022, about four in 10 adults worldwide said they experienced a lot of worry (41%) or stress (40%), and nearly one in three experienced a lot of physical pain (32%). More than one in four experienced sadness (27%), and slightly fewer experienced anger (23%). Worry, stress and sadness remained near their record highs set in 2021, although each declined one percentage point in 2022. The percentage of adults worldwide who experienced physical pain increased one point, while the percentage who experienced anger remained at 23% for the second year in a row. Graphic: Gallup

July 2, 2023

Global rise in unhappiness leveled off in 2022 – Worry, stress, and sadness remained near their record highs set in 2021

By Julie Ray 27 June 2023 WASHINGTON, D.C. (Gallup) – Emotionally, the world was no worse off in 2022 than it was in 2021, but it is still in a heightened negative state, according to Gallup’s latest annual global update on the negative and positive experiences that people have daily. The well-documented global rise in negative emotions such as […]

Composite image of Bruno Araújo Pereira, a renowned defender of the rights of Brazil’s Indigenous peoples, and Guardian reporter Dom Phillips. Both were murdered on 5 June 2022 for exposing organized crime committing acts of deforestation in Brazil. Graphic: Guardian Design / WWF / Getty Images / AP / AFP

June 3, 2023

One year after they were murdered, their work must go on – Forest defender Bruno Araújo Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips were assassinated in Brazil on 5 June 2022

By Katharine Viner 1 June 2023 (The Guardian) – Forest defenders should not be killed for exposing crimes. Journalists should not be killed for reporting facts. But, one year ago, the Guardian was devastated by the awful news that in the Amazon rainforest, two lives had been taken on the frontline of the battle to protect the […]

Map showing early warning hunger hotspots, June-November 2023. Hunger was set to worsen in 18 “hotspots” worldwide including Sudan, where fighting put people at risk of starvation, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a report published on Monday, 29 May 2023. Sudan, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Mali were elevated to the highest alert level, joining Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Graphic: UN FAO

June 3, 2023

UN agencies warn of rising hunger risk in 18 “hotspots” – “Not only are more people in more places around the world going hungry, but the severity of the hunger they face is worse than ever”

29 May 2023 (UN News) – Hunger is set to worsen in 18 “hotspots” worldwide including Sudan, where fighting is putting people at risk of starvation, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a report published on Monday. Sudan, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Mali have been elevated to the highest alert level, joining Afghanistan, Nigeria, […]

a–f, Fraction of population (%; a–c) and absolute population (billion people; d–f) exposed to unprecedented temperatures (MAT ≥29 °C; a,d), left outside the niche due to temperature change only (b,e,) and left outside the niche due to temperature change and demographic change (c,f) for different SSPs. Calculations are based on MAT averaged over the 20-year intervals and population density distribution at the centre year of the corresponding intervals. Data are presented as mean values with the shaded regions corresponding to the 5th–95th percentiles. Graphic: Lenton, et al., 2023 / Nature Sustainability

May 27, 2023

Current climate policies will leave more than a fifth of humanity exposed to dangerously hot temperatures by 2100 – “For every 0.1°C of warming above present levels, about 140 million more people will be exposed to dangerous heat”

By Alex Morrison 22 May 2023 (University of Exeter) – Current climate policies will leave more than a fifth of humanity exposed to dangerously hot temperatures by 2100, new research suggests. Despite the Paris Agreement pledge to keep global warming well below 2°C (compared to pre-industrial levels), current policies are projected to result in 2.7°C warming by the […]

People jostle each other to buy subsidized sacks of wheat flour in Quetta, Pakistan, Thursday, 12 January 2023, after a recent price hike of flour in the country. An Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted to China - including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia and Laos - found the debt is consuming an ever-greater amount of tax revenue needed to keep schools open, provide electricity and pay for food and fuel. Photo: Arshad Butt / AP Photo

May 21, 2023

China’s loans pushing world’s poorest countries to brink of collapse – “In a lot of the world, the clock has hit midnight”

By Bernard Condon 18 May 2023 (AP News) – A dozen poor countries are facing economic instability and even collapse under the weight of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign loans, much of them from the world’s biggest and most unforgiving government lender, China. An Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted […]

Mass killings in the United States by day of year, 2006-2023. 2023 data as of April 29. The year 2023 saw more mass killings than any other year except 2009 since data collection started in 2006. A mass killing is defined as an incident in which four or more victims, not counting the assailant, are killed. Data: The AP/USA TODAY/Northeastern University mass killings database. Graphic: AP

April 30, 2023

Frequent shootings in 2023 put US mass killings on a record pace – “Nobody should be shocked. I visit my daughter in a cemetery. Outrage doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.”

By Stefanie Dazio and Larry Fenn 21 April 2023 LOS ANGELES (AP) – The U.S. is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror on a loop roughly once a week so far this year. The carnage has taken 88 lives in 17 mass killings over 111 days. Each time, the […]

Rough rice prices from the Chicago Board of Trade, 19 April 2018 - 19 April 2023. Graphic: CNBC

April 19, 2023

Global rice shortage in 2023 is set to be the biggest in 20 years – “At the global level, the most evident impact of the global rice deficit has been, and still is, decade-high rice prices”

By Lee Ying Shan 18 April 2023 (CNBC) – From China to the U.S. to the European Union, rice production is falling and driving up prices for more than 3.5 billion people across the globe, particularly in Asia-Pacific – which consumes 90% of the world’s rice. The global rice market is set to log its largest […]

Gun deaths among U.S. children and teens under 18, 1999-2021. The number of children and teens killed by gunfire in the United States increased 50 percent between 2019 and 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the latest annual mortality statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Graphic: Pew Research Center

April 15, 2023

Gun deaths among U.S. children and teens rose 50 percent in two years – Homicide was the largest single category of gun deaths among children and teens in 2021, accounting for 60 percent, followed by suicide at 32 percent and accidents at 5 percent

By John Gramlich 6 April 2023 (Pew Research Center) – The number of children and teens killed by gunfire in the United States increased 50% between 2019 and 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the latest annual mortality statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2019, before the coronavirus […]

Domestic extremist-related killing incidents in the U.S. by decade. The recent surge of extremist-related mass killings is immediately obvious. From the 1970s through the 2000s, extremist mass killing incidents consistently occurred at a relatively low level—from two to seven incidents a decade (although, it should be noted that, because of the difficulty in determining which left-wing extremist bomb attacks in the 1970s and 1980s were intended to cause mass casualties—many were actually aimed at property and warnings were telephoned to targets beforehand—it is possible that the number of such incidents may be undercounted here). Graphic: ADL

February 27, 2023

U.S. mass killings linked to extremism spiked over last decade – “It is not an exaggeration to say that we live in an age of extremist mass killings”

By Lindsay Whitehurst 23 February 2023 WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of U.S. mass killings linked to extremism over the past decade was at least three times higher than the total from any other 10-year period since the 1970s, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League. The report, provided to The Associated Press ahead of […]

Desdemona Despair

Tag: conflict