News Digest

 Too many Americans have lost their lives to suicide.  Last year, nearly 50,000 Americans died by suicide, and in 2022, over 10 million seriously considered suicide.  In 2022, suicide was the second leading cause of death for young people aged 10 to 14 and 25 to 34, and the suicide rate for veterans was 50 percent higher than for anyone else.  Suicide is also a leading cause of maternal death.  Though there is no single cause or solution for suicide, we know that access to treatment and support can save lives.  However, getting care in a crisis can be hard to access or afford.  In 2021, less than half of all adults with mental illness received the care they needed.  And nearly 70 percent of children who seek mental health care cannot find it. A key part of my Unity Agenda is to connect more Americans to affordable, quality mental health care and strengthen our mental health care system — which will help address many of the risk factors associated ...

  Today, President Biden will deliver remarks at the White House to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), landmark bipartisan legislation that he wrote and championed as a U.S. Senator and has worked across the aisle to strengthen ever since. He will reflect on the significant progress we have made in reducing violence and supporting survivors as well as the work ahead to realize VAWA’s promise of a nation where every woman and girl can live free from fear, free from violence, and free from abuse. ... To mark the 30th anniversary of VAWA, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing the following new actions: Providing new funds to address gender-based violence and support survivors. The Department of Justice—the lead agency in VAWA implementation—will announce more than $690 million in FY 2024 grant funding to support survivors of gender-based violence. This includes more than $40 million to implement new grant programs establis...

 To accelerate public-private collaboration in advancing U.S. leadership in AI, the Administration is announcing several new actions following today’s convening:   The White House is launching a new Task Force on AI Datacenter Infrastructure to coordinate policy across government. Led by the National Economic Council, National Security Council, and the White House Deputy Chief of Staff’s office, the interagency Task Force will provide streamlined coordination on policies to advance datacenter development operations in line with economic, national security, and environmental goals. The Task Force will work with AI infrastructure leaders to identify opportunities and work with agencies to ensure adequate resourcing, designate agency single points of contact, and properly prioritize AI datacenter development to reflect the importance of these projects to American national security and economic interests. Finally, the Task Force will build on recent work to identify existing autho...

 Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking new actions to enforce our laws and protect American consumers, workers, and businesses by addressing the significant increased abuse of the de minimis exemption, in particular China-founded e-commerce platforms, and strengthening efforts to target and block shipments that violate U.S. laws.   Over the last ten years, the number of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption has increased significantly, from approximately 140 million a year to over one billion a year. This exponential increase in de minimis shipments makes it more challenging to enforce U.S. trade laws, health and safety requirements, intellectual property rights, consumer protection rules, and to block illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and synthetic drug raw materials and machinery from entering the country.   The majority of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption originate from several Chi...

   America’s farmers, farmworkers, and ranchers work around the clock to nourish our Nation and power our economy, allowing us to feed our communities and compete in markets worldwide.  They also steward lands and provide meaningful jobs in our rural and Tribal communities.  During National Farm Safety and Health Week, we recognize the incredible contributions of everyone working on farms, and we recommit to improving their safety and well-being.       Our Nation’s farms are a source of prosperity, but working on them can be exhausting and hazardous.  The agriculture sector is one of America’s most dangerous industries.  Climate change and intensifying extreme heat puts the lives of agricultural workers at risk and decrease productivity and profits.  Uncertainty in the industry heightens stress and takes a toll on our farmworkers’ mental health.  And unfortunately, many rural communities lack accessible health care, as nearly 2...

 From worker heat exhaustion to bridge failures, extreme heat is increasingly placing strain on lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure. Earlier this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the United States just experienced its fourth-hottest summer on record.  Globally, August 2024 was the warmest August in the agency’s 175-year record. Recognizing that extreme heat is the deadliest type of disaster among all weather-related hazards, the Biden-Harris Administration hosted the first-ever White House Summit on Extreme Heat, bringing together over 100 participants from around the country and across the government. The Summit, announced by President Biden earlier in the summer, convened federal agencies and White House senior staff alongside leaders – including workers exposed to extreme heat, healthcare professionals, emergency responders, and researchers and innovators – who represent many of the communities that are fighting on the front lines ...

 By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 706(1) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003 (Public Law 107-228) (FRAA), I hereby identify the following countries as major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries (including countries that are a significant direct source of precursor chemicals used in the production of certain drugs and substances significantly affecting the United States):  Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Burma, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela. A country’s presence on the foregoing list is not necessarily a reflection of its government’s counterdrug efforts or level of cooperation with the United States.  The list is not a sanction or penalty.  Consistent w...

 Florida had more job openings listed online than there were people unemployed in the state for July. Florida has witnessed a long streak of lower unemployment than the national figure. However, small business employers in the Sunshine State and other states say they are having a tough time filling open positions at their businesses. The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) reports that in August, business owners across the U.S. said they could not fill about 40% of all the job openings they have listed. That’s up two points from the July figure. NFIB officials said they have no breakout information for each state and they are using information provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). But even in an age of relatively low unemployment rates, employers struggle to fill jobs that have remained open for a while. “Job openings on Main Street remain historically high as small business owners continue to lament the lack of qualified applicants for their open ...

 Ultra-processed foods, or UPFs for short, are those prepackaged foods that can be forgotten in your pantry seemingly forever and still taste great when you happen upon them. UPFs are your sodas, potato chips, granola bars, protein bars, protein powders, instant noodles, candy, and even most types of store-bought bread. These foods are already innately familiar to anyone who has ever stepped foot into a grocery store, a gas station mini-mart, or a fast food restaurant. Today, the average American consumes some 60 percent of their calories from ultra-processed foods; some studies found that number to be higher among children. UPFs tend to be calorie-dense, high in fat and sugar, and easy to overconsume, so it’s not surprising that eating more of these foods has long been linked with increasing prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. But emerging research has also linked UPF consumption to other diseases and disorders, including depression, anxiety, inflammatory bow...

 There are a number of well-known ways to keep babies healthy — wash your hands often, get them vaccinated, don’t smoke inside, and so on. But there’s one thing you probably haven’t heard of: protecting bats. Like literal flying bats. That’s one takeaway from a remarkable new study, published in the journal Science, that links the decline of bats to a rise in newborn deaths in the United States. By compiling and analyzing a huge amount of government data, environmental economist Eyal Frank, the study’s sole author, discovered that in regions with outbreaks of white nose syndrome, a wildlife disease that kills bats, the rate of infant mortality increased by nearly 8 percent relative to areas without the disease. There’s a clear reason for this, according to the paper. Most North American bats eat insects, including pests like moths that damage crops. Without bats flying about, farmers spray more insecticides on their fields, the study shows, and exposure to insecticides is known to ...