The Flint water crisis is a shadow on Obama’s legacy

4536In the final months of the Obama administration, the president’s legacy is the subject of much speculation. The president admitted last week that the lack of planning for post-Libya intervention was the administration’s biggest mistake. While historians will debate this question, I beg to disagree. I believe history will judge that the “biggest mistake” of the Obama presidency was the lack of leadership in the poisoning of Flint, Michigan.

No question, the poisoning rises to the level of criminal negligence involving gross mismanagement and cover-ups. Hundreds of young people will, as a result, never achieve their intellectual promise. How different the reaction of the Obama administration would have been if Isis had claimed responsibility for poisoning Flint.  Source

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Mexico City declares 3rd day of traffic cuts over high smog

09a92d3b498ac516970f6a706700d5b0MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico City is ordering 40 percent of cars and trucks to stay off the streets Thursday, extending for a third day a traffic cutback aimed at lessening pollution.

Under a rule in effect through June, one-fifth of the city’s vehicles normally must stay at home on a weekday, with the day determined by license plate numbers. But on Wednesday, smog stayed above 1½ times acceptable limits for a third straight day, meaning an additional 20 percent of vehicles can’t be used Thursday.

Ozone, a key component of smog, reached 1.9 times acceptable limits. The metropolitan environmental commission blamed Mexico City’s typical spring weather: hot, dry weather, a lack of wind and sunny days that favor the creation of ozone.  Source

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L.A. sees another sharp rise in homelessness and outdoor tents

la-me-ln-homeless-count-20160504-001Homelessness rose 11% in the city of Los Angeles and 5.7% in the county last year despite an intensive federal push that slashed the county ranks of homeless veterans by nearly a third, according to a report released Wednesday.

The increase marks the fourth consecutive year of rising homelessness in L.A., as local officials struggle to identify funding for billion-dollar plans they approved to solve the nation’s most intractable homeless problem.

Countywide, nearly 47,000 homeless people were counted in 2016, up from 44,000 in 2015 and 39,000 in 2013, the homeless report said. Nearly two-thirds — 28,000 — were in the city of Los Angeles.  Source

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Michigan man sprayed poison on food in several Ann Arbor grocery stores, FBI says

poison5n-1-webThe FBI said Tuesday the serial spray suspect is in custody, but his identity has not been revealed. No criminal charges have been announced and no motive has been specified.

The suspect was caught on camera spraying a sickening mixture of alcohol-based hand sanitizer, water and Tomcat-brand mouse killer on prepared food and produce in the past two weeks, the FBI said. Authorities said he contaminated food at three Ann Arbor locations, including a Whole Foods.  Source

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Transgender politician poised for historic win in Catholic Philippines

337fde547de7676eb73a753c37fda30142bd8e89Geraldine Roman blows kisses to curious crowds and serenades them with a love song as she proudly campaigns to be the first transgender lawmaker in the mainly Catholic Philippines.

The 49-year-old member of a powerful political family has a strong chance to win a seat in the nation’s lower house in Monday’s elections, in what would be a remarkable breakthrough for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

Conservative church dogma is a dominant force in Philippine politics: divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage are illegal, while there are no openly gay politicians at the national level and an LGBT party has long struggled for influence.  Source

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Scientists reveal likely cause of recent southeast U.S. earthquakes

scientists-reveal-likely-cause-of-recent-southeast-us-earthquakesCHAPEL HILL, N.C., May 3 (UPI) — The southeastern United States isn’t known for its seismic activity, but the region does experience the odd earthquake.

A new study — published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth — offers an explanation for the phenomenon.

Most earthquakes occur near plate boundaries and major fault lines. The southeastern corner of the United States lies in the middle of the North American Plate, far from the seismically active margins.

However, new analysis suggests the plate’s interior continues to lose bits and pieces of its mantle. As fragments break off and sink toward Earth’s interior, the mantle is left thinner and more brittle — and more susceptible to the fault slipping that triggers earthquakes.  Source

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1 in 3 antibiotics prescribed in U.S. are unnecessary, major study finds

imrs.phpNearly a third of antibiotics prescribed in doctors’ offices, emergency rooms and hospital-based clinics in the United States are not needed, according to the most in-depth study yet to examine the use and misuse of these life-saving drugs.

The finding, which has implications for antibiotics’ diminished efficacy, translates to about 47 million unnecessary prescriptions given out each year across the country to children and adults. Most of these are for conditions that don’t respond to antibiotics, such as colds, sore throats, bronchitis, flu and other viral illnesses.

Although health officials have been warning for decades about the overuse of antibiotics and its contribution to the development of drug-resistant bacteria, the research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pew Charitable Trust is the first to quantify the depth of the problem.

“We’ve all been hearing, ‘This is a problem, this is problem,’ and we all understood the general concept that there is a lot of antibiotic use,” said David Hyun, a senior officer with Pew’s antibiotic resistance project and one of the authors of the report published Tuesday in JAMA. Pew also published a companion report using the same data.  Source

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Medical Errors Are No. 3 Cause Of U.S Deaths, Researchers Say

doctor-failure_custom-0640e06948eeb7143273ab9f2902979b128f7c08-s800-c85A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine says medical errors should rank as the third leading cause of death in the United States — and highlights how shortcomings in tracking vital statistics may hinder research and keep the problem out of the public eye.

The authors, led by Johns Hopkins surgeon Dr. Martin Makary, call for changes in death certificates to better tabulate fatal lapses in care. In an open letter, they urge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to immediately add medical errors to its annual list reporting the top causes of death.  Source

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In N.Y., White House poised to create first monument to gay rights struggle

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President Obama is poised to declare the first-ever national monument recognizing the struggle for gay rights, singling out a sliver of green space and part of the surrounding Greenwich Village neighborhood as the birthplace of America’s modern gay liberation movement.

While most national monuments have highlighted iconic wild landscapes or historic sites from centuries ago, this reflects the country’s diversity of terrain and peoples in a different vein: It would be the first national monument anchored by a dive bar and surrounded by a warren of narrow streets that long has been regarded the historic center of gay cultural life in New York City. Source

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German couple tortured two women to death, police say

89550128_1d3ef764-edbd-4b29-896a-5b35042f24c1Police in Germany investigating the deaths of two women say they were the victims of a couple who held them hostage and tortured them.

They say a man and his ex-wife placed dating advertisements to lure the women to their home.

The suspects – Wilfried W, 46, and Angelika B, 47 – were arrested last Wednesday and charged with manslaughter.

The man denies any wrongdoing but his partner is reported to have confessed. Source

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