News Digest

  Colorectal cancer rates are rapidly rising among adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s, and the most common warning sign for the disease is passing blood in the stool, according to a new scientific review. Rectal bleeding is associated with a fivefold increased risk of colorectal cancer, according to the new analysis, which looked at 81 studies that included nearly 25 million adults under 50 from around the world. Abdominal pain, changes in bowel habits and anemia are other common warning signs of the disease and should not be ignored, said the researchers, who published the paper on Thursday in the journal  JAMA Network Open . Colon and rectal cancer rates have risen among younger adults as rates have declined among older people, who are far more likely to get colonoscopies that can catch cancers and precancerous lesions called polyps. But though millennials born around 1990 are at almost twice the risk of colon cancer compared with people born in the 1950s, and have a risk of r...

  Over the past year of record-shattering warmth, the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures than they otherwise would have, were it not for human-induced climate change, scientists said Tuesday. The past 12 months have been the planet’s hottest ever measured, and the burning of fossil fuels, which has added huge amounts of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, is a major reason. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s population experienced at least 31 days of atypical warmth since last May as a result of human-caused warming, the researchers’ analysis found. Hypothetically, had we not  heated the globe to its current state , the number of unusually warm days would have been far fewer, the scientists estimated, using mathematical modeling of the global climate. The precise difference varies place to place. In some countries, it is just two or three weeks, the researchers found. In others, including Colombia, Indonesia and Rwanda, the differ...

  Teaching math in middle school is a challenge for educators in part because that is when the material becomes more complex, with students moving from multiplication tables to equations and abstract concepts. Students who have not mastered the basic skills can quickly become lost, and it can be difficult for them to catch up. Many school districts have traditionally responded to divergent achievement levels by simply separating children into distinct pathways, placing some in general math classes while offering others algebra as an accelerated option. Such sorting, known as tracking, appeals to parents who want their children to reach advanced math as quickly as possible. But tracking has cast an uncomfortable spotlight on inequality.  Around a quarter  of all students in the United States take algebra in middle school. But only about 12 percent of Black and Latino eighth graders do, compared with roughly 24 percent of white pupils,  a federal report found . The Alg...

  In the aftermath of the tragic murder of George Floyd, President Biden signed a historic   Executive Order   (EO 14074) affirming the Administration’s commitment to ensuring that each person is treated with dignity by our criminal justice system. The Executive Order delivered a clear message: public safety requires public trust. In the two years since, the federal government and its law enforcement agencies have acted to enshrine dignity, accountability, and trust in their work. Through collaboration and engagement with state and local law enforcement, civil rights groups, labor organizations, families impacted by police violence, and community leaders, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken important steps to improve public trust and advance public safety. Federal policing is leading by example to become the gold standard of effectiveness and accountability. Pursuant to the Executive Order, federal agencies have improved the investigation and documentation of miscon...

  The President’s Investing in America agenda has crowded in a historic surge of private capital to take advantage of the generational investments in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. High-integrity VCMs have the power to further crowd in private capital and reliably fund diverse organizations at home and abroad –whether climate technology companies, small businesses, farmers, or entrepreneurs –that are developing and deploying projects to reduce carbon emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere. However, further steps are needed to strengthen this market and enable VCMs to deliver on their potential. Observers have found evidence that several popular crediting methodologies do not reliably produce the decarbonization outcomes they claim. In too many instances, credits do not live up to the high standards necessary for market participants to transact transparently and with certainty that credit purchases will deliver verifiable decarbonization. As ...

  More Americans are falling behind on their credit card bills. About 8.9% of credit card balances fell into delinquency over the last year, according to the  Federal Reserve Bank of New York  — a sign that a growing number of borrowers are feeling the strain of rising prices and high interest rates. "Everything is more expensive. Debt is more expensive. Rent is more expensive. Food, gas, everything," says Charlie Wise, senior vice president at TransUnion, the credit reporting firm. "Even with relatively healthy wage gains we've seen over last several years, many consumers just aren't keeping up with the price pressures." Maxed-out borrowers are a big concern The New York Fed's report shows the pain is not evenly spread. While many households are on solid financial footing, almost 1 in 5 cardholders is "maxed out," using at least 90% of their credit card limit. That's worrisome, the report says, because maxed-out borrowers are much more lik...

  Several years ago, the world’s top climate scientists made a frightening prediction: If the planet warms by 1.5 degrees Celsius, relative to preindustrial times,   70 to 90 percent   of coral reefs globally would die off. At an increase of   2°C, that number jumps to more than 99 percent. These researchers were essentially describing the global collapse of an entire ecosystem driven by  climate change . Warm ocean water causes corals — large colonies of tiny animals called polyps   — to “bleach,” meaning they lose a kind of beneficial algae that lives within their bodies. That algae gives coral its color and much of its food, so bleached corals are not only white but also starving. And starved coral is more likely to die. In not so great news, the planet is now approaching that 1.5°C mark. In 2023, the hottest year ever measured, the average global temperature was 1.52°C above the preindustrial average, as my colleague Umair Irfan   reported . That d...

  Overdose deaths in the United States declined slightly last year, the first decrease in five years, according to   preliminary federal data   released Wednesday. The rare good news in the decades-old addiction crisis was attributable mostly to a drop in deaths from synthetic opioids, chiefly fentanyl, said researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics, who compiled the numbers. But the full portrait of the death toll from street drugs remains grim. Even as opioid deaths fell, deaths from stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine rose. And some states, including Oregon and Washington, continued to experience sharp rises in overall overdose fatalities. Drug overdoses overall in 2023 were estimated at 107,543, down from 111,029 in 2022, a 3 percent drop. Opioid deaths fell 3.7 percent while deaths from cocaine rose 5 percent and deaths from meth rose 2 percent. The report from the health statistics agency, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Preve...

  The bird flu virus that is spreading through American dairy cows can probably   be traced back   to a   single spillover   event. Late last year, scientists believe, the virus jumped from wild birds into cattle in the Texas panhandle. By this spring, the virus, known as H5N1, had traveled hundreds of miles or more, appearing on farms in Idaho, North Carolina and Michigan. The virus did not traverse those distances on its own. Instead, it hitched a ride with its hosts, the cows, moving into new states as cattle were transported from the outbreak’s epicenter to farms across the country. Live animal transport is essential to industrial animal agriculture, which has become increasingly specialized. Many facilities focus on just one step in the production process — producing new young, for instance, or fattening adults for slaughter — and then send the animals on. The exact number of chickens, cows and pigs being transported on trucks, ships, planes and trains with...

  Through President Biden’s historic Investing in America agenda, the Biden-Harris Administration is cutting costs for hardworking American families in every corner of the country. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the largest-ever investment in clean energy and climate action, is already helping lower both the upfront cost of installing clean energy technologies and reducing housing costs by lowering monthly energy bills and increasing efficiency after installation. Tax credits that save families up to 30% off home energy technologies like heat pumps, rooftop solar, and energy efficiency improvements like insulation are currently available—and Americans were able to claim those enhanced tax credits for the first time on Tax Day in April: Families who install an efficient electric heat pump for heating and cooling can  receive  a  tax credit  of up to $2,000 and save  an average of $500  per year on energy bills. Families who make other e...

  The Biden-Harris Administration is also announcing over $671 million in new investments to strengthen rural infrastructure across the country. These investments will improve access to reliable electricity and clean drinking water for more than one million people and create good-paying jobs in rural communities. Today’s  Rural Communities in Action  event builds on the  Investing in Rural America Regional Event Series . Throughout this year, Senior Administration Officials are traveling to rural communities across the country to highlight how the Biden-Harris Administration is investing in rural America to create opportunity for farmers, families, and communities. These investments include: Investing in Rural American Infrastructure Delivering Clean, Reliable Water to Rural America Lowering Energy Costs and Strengthening the Grid Improving Access to Health Care and Lowering Health Care Costs for Rural Communities Supporting Veterans in Rural Communities Creating New...

  The U.S. rate of chronic absenteeism reached about 31% in the 2021-2022 school year. There have been improvements in the 2022-2023 school year, with some American schools and school systems demonstrating significant progress based on proven strategies.    But absenteeism remains a challenge for many schools, both in the United States and around the world. Students who are chronically absent are  much less likely  to read at grade level and to graduate high school. According to the  Council of Economic Advisers , absenteeism can account for up to 27% and 45% of the post-pandemic test score declines in math and reading, respectively.   Eliminating as few as 10 absences per year could have  significant impacts  on the probability of students graduating high school and enrolling in college. A  new brief  released today shows that some districts are improving a lot and others much less. That is consistent with  other   resear...