News Digest

 After years of relentless rises in overdose deaths, the United States has seen a remarkable reversal. For seven straight months, according to federal data, drug fatalities have been declining. Expanded treatment, prevention and education efforts are playing a role, but drug policy experts believe there is another, surprising reason: changes in the drug supply itself, which are, in turn, influencing how people are using drugs. The fentanyl on the street is starting to become weaker. Anne Milgram, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration, announced last week that for the first time since 2021, the agency was seeing a decline in fentanyl potency, a development she attributed to the government’s crackdown on Mexican cartels and international supply chains. Last year, seven out of 10 counterfeit pills tested in D.E.A. labs contained a life-threatening amount of fentanyl, she said, but that number has dropped to five out of 10. Addiction experts say that other interventions contrib...

 A rule proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday could better protect communities against pollution from natural gas plants. For the first time in almost two decades, the rule would update emission limits of nitrogen oxides, a group of gases that are harmful air pollutants produced from burning fossil fuels. The emissions can contribute to asthma and respiratory infections, especially in children, older people and those who are immunocompromised. “These stronger standards are necessary to better protect nearby communities’ health, and the power sector has already shown that the additional pollution controls can affordably and reliably do the job,” said Joseph Goffman, the E.P.A.’s assistant administrator for air and radiation, in a statement. The proposal was created to limit nitrogen oxide emissions from all new turbines built at power plants and industrial facilities, along with any existing turbines that are modified or reconstructed after the proposal takes eff...

 The number of deaths caused by alcohol-related diseases more than doubled among Americans between 1999 and 2020, according to new research. Alcohol was involved in nearly 50,000 deaths among adults ages 25 to 85 in 2020, up from just under 20,000 in 1999. The increases were in all age groups. The biggest spike was observed among adults ages 25 to 34, whose fatality rate increased nearly fourfold between 1999 and 2020. Women are still far less likely than men to die of an illness caused by alcohol, but they also experienced a steep surge, with rates rising 2.5-fold over 20 years. The new study, published in The American Journal of Medicine, drew on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths related to alcohol included those caused by certain forms of heart disease, liver disease, nerve damage, muscle damage, pancreatitis and alcohol poisoning, as well as related mental and behavioral disorders. The study did not include other deaths influenced by alcohol, such...

Every year since 2019, Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank and polling organization, has asked nearly 10,000 American adults how they feel about science. In 2019, the vast majority of people surveyed across the political spectrum were confident that scientists act in the public’s best interest. In fact, Americans placed more confidence in scientists than nearly anyone else, including elected officials, journalists, business leaders, and even schoolteachers. Then the Covid-19 pandemic happened. Democrats doubled down in their confidence while Republicans lost theirs. During the height of the pandemic, this partisan divide in science skepticism manifested as culture wars between those who wore masks and lined up for vaccines, and those who did not. Related:The Covid mask wars have left us unprepared for the next pandemic The public’s trust — or lack thereof — in science shapes political decisions around climate change, research funding, and food and drug regulation. As Donald T...

 One year after world leaders made a splashy promise to shift away from fossil fuels, countries are burning more oil, natural gas and coal than ever before, researchers said this week. Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are on track to reach a record 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024, a 0.8 percent increase over 2023 levels, according to new data from the Global Carbon Project. It’s a trend that puts countries farther from their goal of stopping global warming. The increase was not uniform across the globe. Emissions will most likely decline this year in the United States and Europe, and fossil fuel use in China slowed. Yet that was offset by a surge in carbon dioxide from India and the rest of the world. The findings were made public early on Wednesday at the United Nations climate change summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where diplomats and world leaders have gathered to discuss how to raise trillions of dollars to cope with rising global temperatures. Those talks have al...

 Americans started drinking more as the Covid-19 pandemic got underway. They were stressed, isolated, uncertain — the world as they had known it had changed overnight. Two years into the disaster, the trend had not abated, researchers reported on Monday. The percentage of Americans who consumed alcohol, which had already risen from 2018 to 2020, inched up further in 2021 and 2022. And more people reported heavy or binge drinking, “Early on in the pandemic, we were seeing an enormous surge of people coming in to the clinic and the hospital with alcohol-related problems,” said Dr. Brian P. Lee, a hepatologist at Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California and the principal investigator of the study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine. “People assumed this was caused by acute stress, like what we saw with 9/11 and Katrina, and typically it goes back to normal after these stressful events are over,” he added. “But that’s not what we’re seeing.” Alcohol can be addictive...

 After decades of unrelenting increases, rates of sexually transmitted infections in the United States are showing hints of a downturn. Diagnoses of gonorrhea dipped in nearly all age groups last year, compared with 2022, and new cases of syphilis and chlamydia remained about the same, according to data released on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The results are not yet cause for celebration. Overall, more than 2.4 million new S.T.I.s were diagnosed last year, about a million more than the figure 20 years ago. Nearly 4,000 babies were diagnosed with congenital syphilis last year, and 279 of them were stillborn or died soon after. Still, experts said they were cautiously optimistic that a resurgent tide of infections was beginning to turn. “It’s been a long time since I have felt that way about the S.T.I. epidemic,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the National Center for H.I.V., Viral Hepatitis, S.T.D. and TB Prevention at the C.D.C. The drop in case...

 Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. The findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases. The study, published on Thursday in The Lancet, reveals the striking rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990 — when just over half of adults were overweight or obese — and shows how more people are becoming overweight or obese at younger ages than in the past. Both conditions can raise the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and shorten life expectancy. The study’s authors documented increases in the rates of overweight and obesity across ages. They were particularly alarmed by the steep rise among children, more than one in three of whom are now overweight or obese. Without aggressive intervention, they forecast, the number of overweight and obese people will continue to go up — reaching nearly 260 million people in 20...

 As part of this historic Investing in America agenda, today the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing new climate investments that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, invest in clean energy manufacturing, and lower home energy costs for families and businesses. These domestic climate announcements come ahead of President Biden’s historic trip to the Amazon to engage with local and Indigenous leaders and other stakeholders working to preserve and protect this critical ecosystem. He will also travel to Lima, Peru, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he will continue to highlight the economic opportunities afforded by accelerating climate action at home and abroad. These investments come on the heels of the 29th U.N. Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the Administration continued to rally other countries to accelerate their climate ambition in this decisive decade and announced new initiatives to galvanize global efforts to keep a resilient, 1.5°C future within ...

 Since President Biden and Vice President Harris took office, American entrepreneurs have filed over 20 million new business applications, the most in any single Presidential term in history. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, we have had the first, second, and third strongest years of new business applications on record, and are on track for a fourth. This is happening in communities across the country—with the most new business applications in a single Presidential term in every state. Each new business is an act of hope and confidence in the economy, and each of these applications marks the first step in that journey. Over the last four years, entrepreneurs have filed an average of over 440,000 applications every month, a rate over 90% faster than pre-pandemic averages. The Biden-Harris Administration has powered a small business boom across the country. Business ownership has doubled among Black households and hit a 30-year high for Hispanic households; new business creatio...

 More than 80 percent of emergency departments in United States hospitals are not fully prepared for pediatric cases, a new study finds, despite the fact that children make up about 20 percent of visits each year. The new analysis, published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open, estimated that if every emergency department in the United States had the core features of “pediatric readiness,” more than a quarter of the child deaths that follow E.R. visits could be prevented, a figure that equates to thousands of young lives each year. Even in the most ill-prepared states, the cost to ready every emergency room would be less than $12 per child living there, the researchers found. “You can now find your state and see: How many children who would otherwise die could we expect to save if we implemented universal pediatric readiness at a high level?” said Dr. Craig Newgard, who was the lead author on the paper, and is the director of the Center for Policy and Research in Emergency Medi...

 The report finds that progress in adaptation financing is not fast enough to close the enormous gap between needs and flows, which contributes to a continued lag in adaptation planning and implementation efforts.  International public adaptation finance flows to developing countries increased from US$22 billion in 2021 to US$28 billion in 2022: the largest absolute and relative year-on-year increase since the Paris Agreement. This reflects progress towards the Glasgow Climate Pact, which urged developed nations to at least double adaptation finance to developing countries from US$19 billion (2019 levels) by 2025. However, even achieving the Glasgow Climate Pact goal would only reduce the adaptation finance gap, which is estimated at US$187-359 billion per year, by about 5 per cent.  The report calls for nations to step up by adopting a strong new collective quantified goal for climate finance and including stronger adaptation components in their next round of climate ple...

Today, President Biden will travel to the Port of Baltimore to announce a $3 billion investment from his Inflation Reduction Act to improve and electrify port infrastructure, support an estimated 40,000 good-paying and union jobs, reduce pollution, and combat the climate crisis.  The announcement includes $147 million in awards for the Maryland Port Administration, which will support over 2,000 good-paying and union jobs by enabling the purchase and installation of zero-emission port equipment, charging infrastructure, and power improvements. During the visit, President Biden will highlight how his Investing in America agenda is making an historic impact on communities and workers in Baltimore and across the country. $3 Billion Investment to Strengthen Port Infrastructure Today, President Biden is announcing $3 billion in Environmental Protection Agency Clean Ports grants, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, to 55 selectees across 27 states and territories, including $147 millio...

 One year ago, President Biden issued a landmark Executive Order to ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence (AI). The Executive Order directed sweeping actions to manage AI’s safety and security risks, protect Americans’ privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers and workers, promote innovation and competition, advance American leadership around the world, and more. Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing that Federal agencies have completed on schedule each action that the Executive Order tasked for this past year—more than one hundred in all. Below are some of the Administration’s most significant accomplishments on managing AI’s risks and seizing its promise in the year since President Biden signed his Executive Order. Managing Risks to Safety and Security: The Executive Order directed the boldest actions ever taken to protect Americans from a broad range of AI’s safety and secu...

 Today, President Biden will ceremonially sign Executive Order (EO) 14124, establishing the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity Through Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), alongside nearly two dozen champions for these institutions and Latino communities. President Biden and Vice President Harris will also announce nearly $19 million in transformational investments for five HSIs in Florida, Illinois, Texas, and Puerto Rico to build research infrastructure. These efforts build on the Administration’s historic investment of over $16 billion in more than 500 HSIs across 30 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico that educate more than 4.7 million students annually. Over the past three years, President Biden and Vice President Harris have taken historic actions to expand opportunity for Latino families and communities, including: creating more than 15 million jobs – with 5 million created for Latinos, helping Latino e...