Newswise — Washington, D.C., (May 2, 2023) – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and former Senator Robert Portman (R-OH) have been awarded the 2023 Madison Prize for Constitutional Excellence, American University School of Public Affairs announced today. The award recognizes lawmakers who strive for legislative compromise in the spirit outlined by James Madison in the Federalist Papers and draws attention to legislators’ efforts to work across the aisle in an era of extreme political polarization.
“With a focus on the substantive issues that matter to our country and a dedication to making meaningful progress, Senators Klobuchar and Portman have achieved common ground and common sense solutions for the American people,” said AU President Sylvia Burwell. “We salute their changemaking spirit with the Madison Prize.”
The Madison Prize, which was endowed in 2018 by former Rep. David Skaggs (D-Colo.) and his wife Laura Skaggs. It is awarded after each biennial Congress to recognize one Member (U.S. Representative or Senator) from each major political party.
Senators Klobuchar and Senator Portman’s service to American people exemplifies how Madison envisioned the responsibility of elected representatives to respect the public interest and seek greater good. They served together from 2011 until Portman’s retirement from the Senate in January 2023. Last August, they traveled together to Ukraine, continuing a record of cross-aisle cooperation that included work on affordable housing, combating the importation of Fentanyl by mail, and the protection of fish and wildlife in the Great Lakes region.
The School of Public Affairs manages the Madison Prize and its selection process. Members of the Selection Committee include former Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-OK); former Rep. Connie Morella (R-MD); Ron Elving, executive in residence at AU’s School of Public Affairs; James Thurber, Distinguished Professor Emeritus and founder of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at AU’s School of Public Affairs; Gina Adams, senior vice president of government affairs, FedEx Corporation; Sarah Binder, professor of political science, George Washington University; and SPA Dean Vicky Wilkins (ex officio).
“The School of Public Affairs is committed to protecting democratic institutions by promoting and recognizing legislative compromise, bipartisanship, and civil discourse,” said SPA Dean Vicky Wilkins. “Senators Klobuchar and Portman have a long track record of upholding these values in the Senate. We are pleased to recognize their efforts and note that their continued commitment to this cause is necessary and critical.”
The Madison Prize was presented to Senators Klobuchar and Portman during a special event that featured a conversation between the awardees and AU President Sylvia Burwell.
Newswise — As recent survey results from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago reinforce Fed economists predicting a mild recession from the recent banking crisis, finance professor Albert “Pete” Kyle at the University of Maryland agrees a recession looms –- but more likely as severe.
The crisis, fueled by SVB’s fast collapse, indicates a costly failure – “likely to show up as a recession which is severe, not mild,” says Kyle, Charles E Smith Chair in Finance and Distinguished University Professor for UMD’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Regulatory Failure
Kyle says SVB’s failure resulted from bank supervision. “The Dodd-Frank Act focused more on heavy-handed regulation than on higher capital requirements to make banks financially healthy. Bank regulators must have known about the unrealized losses on mortgage and Treasury securities which crippled SVB’s balance sheet. These are transparently obvious from cursory oversight. They apparently did not do enough to force SVB to recapitalize until it was too late. As a result of this regulatory forbearance, the FDIC, which ultimately uses the money of taxpayers to take over failed banks, faces billions of dollars in losses.
The regulatory failure was not the result of exempting banks like SVB from stress tests. Ordinary bank regulatory oversight, operating independently from stress tests, certainly picked up the problems at SVB well before it collapsed.
The idea that uninsured depositors will monitor banks adequately is known not to work well. Its mechanism of enforcement is bank runs, which—once started—spread to the entire banking system and rapidly send an economy into a recession. The government knows that steep recessions are an absurdly high price to pay for bank monitoring. The entire purpose of the Dodd-Frank Act was to provide a regulatory system which would prevent bank failures without causing recessions. Therefore, it is surprising that the government even thought about wiping out uninsured depositors of SVB as a mechanism of maintaining financial discipline in the banking sector.
Commercial Real Estate Disaster
The commercial real estate sector of the U.S. economy is facing a disaster, Kyle says, as office space lease rates are falling, commercial real estate debt is coming due, and many commercial real estate ventures will likely be insolvent when loans fall due. “This disaster is unfolding slowly because leases and loans typically last five to 10 years,” he explains. “It becomes apparent when leases do not roll over and loans cannot be repaid.”
Much of the risk has probably found its way into the banking system, especially into the portfolios of medium-sized banks, he says. “Since regulators failed to force SVB to fix obvious problems with SVB’s balance sheet, investors and bankers alike are likely to infer that regulators will also fail to force banks burdened with less obvious bad commercial real estate debt to recapitalize promptly.”
Perspective from Previous Crises
As the 2008 financial crisis was largely triggered by bad residential mortgage loans, the bad commercial real estate loans will potentially drive another crisis, Kyle says. “I expect a recession to unfold if and when it becomes apparent that banks are too undercapitalized to function properly. This recession might resemble the recession in the early 90s, which was a delayed response to banking problems within the savings and loan industry.”
Whether this recession unfolds sooner or later depends on the speed with which the government acts to force banks to recapitalize, he adds. “The Fed’s prediction of a mild recession this year suggests they will do too little, too late. Immediate action might trigger a more severe recession now, which would be a small price to pay for a healthy economy a few years later.”
Why ‘Sooner Rather Than Later’
In addition to weakly capitalized banks, the Fed’s commitment to bring the inflation rate down to two percent annually “will exacerbate the debt burden of commercial real estate borrowers because the value of their collateral will fall faster with a lower rate of inflation and high interest rates needed to bring inflation down will make rolling over debt more costly,” Kyle says. However, the Fed’s action is inevitable because (unlike government regulators’ commitments to require banks to be well-capitalized) “if the Fed is unable to rid the economy of inflation, the Fed itself will become obviously insolvent and lose so much credibility that the independence of the Fed will be threatened.”
Underlying Problem
Heavy-handed government regulation leading to regulatory capture represents the underlying problem, Kyle says. “The more that is at stake, the more resources regulated entities devote to influencing government policy. The Dodd-Frank Act, rather than creating a healthy banking industry, has created a noncompetitive, undercapitalized banking system, which has captured its regulators and is prone to collapse.” If governments subsidize risk-taking by allowing banks or other companies to function as if things are normal when they are inadequately capitalized, he adds, “the banks or other companies will embrace poor capitalization because they believe they can keep their gains but dump their losses on taxpayers.”
Warnings from History
Ultimately, many banks and other companies will fail because their bets did not work out, Kyle says, and these failed companies will be nationalized by the FDIC or other government agencies. “During the past financial crisis, the government quickly sold off nationalized companies like General Motors and AIG. It gave banks generous bailouts to avoid formally nationalizing them. When banks and other firms start failing again, we do not know whether the government will hold the failed firms as nationalized companies or let them go public again.”
He adds: “In my opinion, the government allowed banks to remain in the private sector last time because bailing out banks (with cheap equity from the TARP program) did not cost taxpayers too much out of pocket: Bank stocks rebounded quickly from their depressed prices. By contrast, in the savings and loan debacle, getting out from under government ownership took more than a decade because the industry did not rebound as a whole. If regulators allow the banking system to become too undercapitalized, the hole to dig out of will become so big that nationalization may not be followed by quick privatization. The road to socialism is paved with debt.”
Finally, Kyle warns that the collapse of the commercial real estate sector may be accompanied by the collapse of the finances of some big cities. “As the politics of many cities–such as Chicago, San Francisco, and New York–moves to the left, many high-income taxpayers are migrating from these cities to other cities with lower taxes and more business-friendly environments. Some of these cities may face major financial stress in coming years, and this will exacerbate their commercial real estate problems.”
University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business
If elected, Joe Biden would be 82 on inauguration day in 2025, and 86 on leaving the White House in January 2029.
POLITICO took a look around the globe and back through history to meet some other elected world leaders who continued well into their octogenarian years, at a time when most people have settled for their dressing gown and slippers, some light gardening, and complaining about young people.
Here are seven of the oldest — and yes, they’re all men.
Paul Biya
President of Cameroon Paul Biya | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The world’s oldest serving leader, Cameroon’s president has been in power since 1982, winning his (latest) reelection at the age of 85 with a North Korea-esque 71.28 percent of the vote.
Spanning more than four decades and seven consecutive terms — in 2008, a constitutional reform lifted term limits — Biya’s largely undisputed reign has not come without controversy.
His opponents have regularlyaccused him of election fraud, claiming he successfully built a state apparatus designed to keep him in power.
Notorious for his lavish trips to a plush palace on the banks of Lake Geneva, which he’s visited more than 50 times, Biya keeps stretching the limits of retirement. Although he has not formally announced a bid for the next presidential elections in 2025, his party has called on him to run again in spite of his declining health.
Last February, celebrations were organized throughout the country for the president’s 90th birthday. According to the government, young people spontaneously came out on the streets to show their love for Biya.
Konrad Adenauer
Former Chancellor of West Germany Konrad Adenauer | Keystone/Getty Images
West Germany’s iconic first chancellor was elected for his inaugural term at the tender age of 73, but competed and won a third and final term at the age of 85.
In his 14-year chancellorship (1949-1963), Adenauer shaped Germany’s postwar years with a strong focus on integrating the young democracy into the West. Big milestones such as the integration of Germany into the European Economic Community and joining the NATO alliance just a few years after World War II happened under his leadership.
If his nickname “der Alte” (“the old man”) is one day bestowed upon Biden, the U.S. president would share it with a true friend of America.
Ali Khamenei
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | AFP via Getty Images
84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the last word on all strategic issues in Iran, and his rule has been marked by murderous brutality against opponents.
That violence has only escalated in recent years, with mass arrests and the imposition of the death penalty against those protesting his dictatorial rule. A mere middle-ranking cleric in the 1980s, few expected Khamenei to succeed Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, and he took the top job in hurried, constitutionally dubious circumstances in 1989.
A pipe-smoker and player of the tar, a traditional stringed instrument, he was president during the attritional Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and survived a bomb attack against him in 1981 that crippled his arm.
Thankfully for Khamenei, he doesn’t have the stress of facing elections to wear him down.
Robert Mugabe
President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe | Michael Nagle/Getty Images
You’ve heard the saying “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” — well, here’s a classic case study.
Robert Mugabe’s political career reached soaring heights before crashing to depressing lows, during his nearly four decades ruling over Zimbabwe. He came to power as a champion of the anti-colonial struggle, but his rule descended into authoritarianism — while he oversaw the collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy and society.
Though Mugabe’s final election win was marred by allegations of vote-rigging and intimidation, the longtime leader chalked up a thumping, landslide victory in 2013, aged 89.
He was finally, permanently, removed as leader well into his nineties, during a coup d’etat in 2017. He died two years later.
Giorgio Napolitano
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano | Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images
The former Italian president took his largely symbolic role to new heights when, aged 86, he successfully steered the country through a perilous transition of power in 2011 — closing that particular chapter of Silvio Berlusconi’s story.
Operating mostly behind the scenes, Napolitano saw five PMs come and go during his eight-and-a-half years in office, at a time when Italian politics were rife with instability (but hey, what’s new?).
Reelected against his will in 2013 at 87 — he had wanted to step down, but gave in after a visit from party leaders desperate to put Italy’s political landscape back on an even keel — Napolitano won the nickname “Re Giorgio” (King George) for his statesmanship.
When he resigned two years later, he said: “Here [in the presidential palace], it’s all very beautiful, but it’s a bit like jail. At home, I’ll be ok, I can go out for a walk.”
Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“It has been a very good day,” Javier Solana, the then European Union foreign policy chief, exclaimed when Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005.
As a tireless advocate of a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Abbas has enjoyed strong backing from the international community.
But three EU policy chiefs later and with lasting peace no closer, Abbas is still in power, despite most polls showing that Palestinians want him to step aside.
His solution for political survival: No presidential elections have been held in the Palestinian Territories since that historic ballot in 2005, with the Palestinian leadership blaming either Israel or the prospect of rising Hamas influence for the postponement of elections.
While Abbas seems to have found a solution for political survival, the physical survival of the 87-year-old chain smoker is now being called into question.
William Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone | Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Queen Victoria reportedly described Gladstone as a “half-mad firebrand” — and you’d have to be to chase a fourth term as prime minister aged 82.
At that point Gladstone had already outlived Britain’s life expectancy at the time by decades.
During his career, Gladstone expanded the vote for men — but failed to pass a system of home rule in Ireland, and he was slammed for alleged inaction to help British soldiers who were slaughtered in the Siege of Khartoum.
Gladstone was Britain’s oldest-ever prime minister when he eventually stepped down at 84 — and no one has beaten that record since. Similarly, no one has served more than his four (nonconsecutive) terms.
But should the Tories remain addicted to chaos, who’d bet against Boris Johnson starting his fifth stint as PM in 2049?
Ali Walker and Christian Oliver contributed reporting.
Newswise — KINGSTON, R.I. – April 25, 2023 – Land conservation projects do more than preserve open space and natural ecosystems. They can also boost property values for homeowners living nearby. But a new study finds that those financial benefits are unequally distributed among demographic groups in the U.S.
The study, by researchers from the University of Rhode Island and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, found that new housing wealth associated with land conservation goes disproportionately to people who are wealthy and white. In the state of Massachusetts, for example, white households in the top wealth quartile received 43% of the roughly $63 million housing wealth generated by new conservation from 1998 to 2016. That’s 140% more than would be expected under an equal demographic distribution, the researchers found. The trends found in Massachusetts hold generally over the rest of the U.S., the study showed.
“There’s a lot of economic inequality in the U.S. and we show that, unfortunately, conservation is adding to that,” said Corey Lang, a professor of environmental and natural resource economics at URI and a study coauthor. “That’s not to say that conservation is bad, or that we shouldn’t do it. Our primary purpose with this study was to document these disparities, and hopefully spark some debate about it.”
The findings are published in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences.
The U.S. Forest Service estimates that about 6,000 acres of open space in the U.S. are cleared for development each day. But across the nation, organizations like municipal land trusts are working to set aside land, protecting it from future development in perpetuity. Over the past 35 years, over $80 billion in conservation funding have been approved by municipal referenda across the U.S., the researcher say.
Those conservation efforts produce amenities that are attractive to homeowners. Conserved land provides peace and quiet, beautiful views, and recreation opportunities that are guaranteed for the foreseeable future. The value of those amenities is reflected in higher property values for people living in the vicinity.
“Economists have studied this for a long time as a means of understanding how people value land conservation efforts, which can be fed into a cost-benefit analysis to see if new conservation efforts are justified,” Lang said. “We take a different approach in that we look at which homeowners are more likely to receive that bump in equity.”
To do that, the researchers looked at detailed conservation records and anonymized demographic data for homeowners in Massachusetts. The team used an econometric model to estimate the extent to which land conserved between 1998 to 2016 added to the value of properties within a quarter mile of conservation areas. They found that each acre of conserved land increases the value of nearby homes by 0.018%. That means that a median-priced Massachusetts home located near 10 acres of conserved land gets a bump in value of around $659. That translates into roughly $62 million in conservation-related property wealth gains over the study period.
Looking at the demographic breakdown of the homeowners who received that new wealth, the researchers found that 91% went to white homeowners, and 40% went to households in the highest wealth quartile. Roughly 43% went to households that were both white and in the highest wealth category—140% more than would be expected under an equal demographic distribution. In stark contrast, Black and Hispanic households in the lowest wealth quartile received only 6% of the benefits that would be expected under an equal distribution.
The results aren’t necessarily attributable to any active or implicit discrimination on the part of conservation groups, the researchers say. The results can be shaped, for example, by several factors that yield patterns in where people live—with Black, Hispanic, and Asian households being less likely to own homes near conservation areas. Those patterns can emerge from racial and ethnic patterns of urban versus rural living in the state, and a paucity of conservable land in urban areas. There are also longstanding racial gaps in overall home ownership.
Though the highly detailed data available for Massachusetts simply isn’t available for the rest of the U.S., the team performed an additional study to see if the Massachusetts trends likely hold across the country. They found that of the $9.8 billion in property wealth generated by conservation from 2001 to 2009 nationwide, 89% went to white households, 9% to Black and Hispanic households and 2% to Asian households.
“Economists have done a lot to document disparities in exposure to pollution, but we know much less about equity in the distribution of the benefits from investments in valuable nature conservation,” said Amy Ando, a study coauthor who is a professor of environmental and natural resource economics at UIUC and University Fellow at the non-profit Resources for the Future. “These findings make clear there can be large environmental justice issues in who gains from the environmental goods we provide and protect, and may serve as a call for more research identifying other such inequities.”
Taken together, the researchers say, the results show that land conservation plays a role in maintaining wealth disparities across the U.S. While the researchers say they firmly advocate for land conservation efforts to continue, they don’t advocate any particular policy interventions to address the resulting inequity. They hope that the findings will broaden the conversation about land preservation to include issues related to distributional concerns.
“I think more can be done to bring different groups to the table when decisions are made,” Lang said. “Making sure there’s a diversity of voices involved in these decisions is at least a start in addressing the problem that we’ve been able to document in this study.”
The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (2018-67024-27695).
BELFAST — He fought for peace in Northern Ireland — and now George Mitchell is fighting for his life.
The former U.S. Senate majority leader from Maine, who became a diplomatic superhero in Northern Ireland after leading years of painstaking talks to produce the Good Friday Agreement, may be visiting his adopted homeland for the final time.
He hopes not. But, as Mitchell reflected in an interview with POLITICO, he simply cannot know.
Welcomed by well-wishers young and old this week as he returned to Belfast and to Queen’s University, where he served as chancellor for a decade following his peacemaking triumph in 1998, Mitchell opened a conference marking the accord’s 25th anniversary.
For nearly 45 minutes, Mitchell argued passionately for the power of compromise, his message leavened with well-timed jokes poking fun at the entrenched attitudes — and tough-to-decipher vowels — that tested him in Northern Ireland.
You’d never have known that Mitchell, 89, was making his first public speech in three years — nor that he had only recently ended years of chemotherapy in a battle with leukemia that came close to killing him.
“This is a gift by the grace of God to be able to come back here. I’ve had a rough couple of years,” he said.
“I retired from my law firm at the end of 2019, planning with my wife a life of travel and doing a lot of things that we hadn’t done. Then COVID hit and I was almost immediately diagnosed with acute leukemia. So I’ve been pretty sick. I haven’t been able to do very much.
“Initially I underwent intensive chemotherapy, which was very severe. I didn’t read a newspaper, I didn’t watch a minute of television. I was bedridden and very, very sick for about three months. Then I was on chemo for about two-and-a-half years,” he said. “The doctors said to me: ‘There’s a limit to how much chemotherapy you can take. We have to take you off.’ The disease may return. It may be six months, it may be two years — or who knows.”
‘Nothing in politics is impossible’
Mitchell now describes himself as pain-free and in remission.
He spoke in a Queen’s office overlooking the university’s entrance, where a bronze bust honoring him has just been unveiled by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and the former British and Irish prime ministers, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern. In April 1998, the two premiers joined Mitchell for the intensive final days of the talks in Belfast, while Clinton cajoled Northern Ireland’s polarized politicians by phone from the White House.
Several other figures who helped deliver that breakthrough are no longer alive, including Northern Ireland’s joint Nobel Peace Prize laureates from 1998, John Hume and David Trimble, both of whom have died since the last Good Friday commemorations five years ago.
George Mitchell (C) attends a gala marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement | Pool photo by Charles McQuillan/AFP via Getty Images
In his speech, Mitchell paid equal tribute to Hume, the moderate Irish nationalist leader who opposed Irish Republican Army violence and laid the intellectual architecture for the Good Friday deal; and Trimble, the prickly legal scholar who risked splitting his Ulster Unionist Party by accepting a deal that allowed IRA prisoners to walk free and ex-IRA chiefs to join a new cross-community government without clear-cut guarantees the outlawed group would disarm.
“Without John Hume, there would not have been a peace process. Without David Trimble, there would not have been a peace agreement,” Mitchell said to thunderous applause from the crowd, among them most of today’s crop of British unionist, Irish nationalist and middle-ground leaders.
Left unsaid was that others wanted to see Mitchell himself share that same Nobel prize, given his central role in sustaining hope in the talks after what U.S. President Joe Biden last week described as “700 days of failure.”
Indeed, it has been a common refrain this week among those now seeking to revive Northern Ireland’s shuttered regional government — the centerpiece of a much broader Good Friday package that included police reform, prisoner releases and paramilitary disarmament — that they wish Mitchell was still in the market for one more Belfast mission.
Mitchell offered only raised eyebrows and a wry smile when asked if he’d like to lead one more round of talks at Stormont, the government complex overlooking Belfast.
But he expressed unreserved optimism that the Democratic Unionists — the party that physically tried to block him from taking his chair when the talks began in June 1996, and spent years condemning the peace process as a sellout to IRA terror — will find a way to return to a cross-community government with the Irish republicans of Sinn Féin.
The DUP has refused to revive the coalition government since May 2022 elections, citing its opposition to post-Brexit trade rules that treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the U.K.
Mitchell thinks Northern Ireland’s political fundamentals have evolved since he wrote, in his 1999 book “Making Peace,” that the Good Friday Agreement became possible only because the DUP had abandoned the talks the year before.
“Times and circumstances change,” he said. “Nothing in politics is impossible.
“Political parties change and evolve. Does the Republican Party in the United States today reflect the views of the Republican Party of 20 or even 10 years ago? Does the Democratic Party? The challenge of leadership is to recognize that and to deal with change, all in the broader public interest.”
He also rejected any notion that blame for the current Stormont impasse lies entirely with the DUP. “There isn’t any one villain,” he said. “Everybody’s trying to do what they think is best. The question is: What is best?”
Mitchell stressed that “100 percenters” — people who see “any compromise as weakness” — exist in pretty much every political party on earth, including his own Democrats. And he said no American politician should criticize the depth of political division in Northern Ireland given that, today, the divide in U.S. politics has grown arguably even more noxious.
Former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and George Mitchell shake hands during a photocall at the BBC studios, in Belfast in 2008 | Peter Muhly/AFP via Getty Images
Leaders in any democracy, he said, must be ready to absorb criticism from within their own ranks and keep striving for common ground.
“You can’t let the first ‘no’ be the final answer,” he said. “Or the second ‘no,’ or the seventh ‘no.’ You just have to treat everyone with respect and keep at it.”
A final goodbye
Mitchell came face to face with his own mortality during Monday’s unveiling of his bronze bust, drawing big laughs from the crowd as he observed: “When you’re looking at a statue of yourself, you know the end is near.”
But the reality of living with leukemia, which makes him more vulnerable to infections and other threats, draws his mind back to one of his great regrets from the Stormont talks.
“We were at a critical early moment in the talks in the summer of 1996. I was trying to get them going, to adopt a set of rules. It was very complicated, unnecessarily complicated,” he recalled.
With a vote on the rules due that coming Monday, he received an unexpected phone call from Maine. His brother Robbie, who had been fighting leukemia for five years, was close to death. If Mitchell hopped on to the next flight, he might make it back to his hometown of Waterville by Friday night — but he’d risk having the talks fall at their first hurdle.
Mitchell called his brother’s doctor, oncologist Richard Stone at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, to be told that although Robbie’s health was deteriorating and it was impossible to be certain, he might well survive for several weeks longer. Wanting to get the first step of the peace talks banked before negotiations broke for the summer, Mitchell chose to stay in the U.K. over the weekend.
That Saturday night, another call from Waterville confirmed that his older brother had just died.
“I came back to Belfast on Monday and we got those rules adopted. I made it home in time to speak at Robbie’s funeral. But I didn’t see him before he passed away. That’s one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made,” Mitchell said.
A quarter-century later, the same Dr. Stone is now treating the younger Mitchell brother for the same disease. Mitchell has been told that if the cancer returns, his advanced age means chemotherapy must be kept to a bare minimum.
“Medical science has advanced very rapidly in the curing of leukemia. But as the doctors explained to me, chemotherapy is poison and if you take enough of that, that will kill you,” he said. “The doctor also explained to me that, on the other hand, I might go a few years and die of something else.”
Bill Clinton shakes hands with George Mitchell in the Oval Office at the White House after naming the retiring senator to be a special advisor for economic initiatives in Ireland | Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images
Mitchell estimates he’s already flown back and forth to Belfast at least 100 times since 1995. He and his wife, Heather, have approached this trip as if it could be his last — that this week might represent his final goodbye to a vexatious land he’s come to love.
“I honestly don’t know if this is the last time I’ll ever be in Northern Ireland. But my wife and I accept the possibility that it is,” he said. “I told Heather on the way over, we’ve really got to enjoy this and take in the sights and sounds of this beautiful place and the people. My fervent hope is that I’ll be able to come back again.”
Labor strikes and protests by Israeli military officers have decried moves by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu to overhaul the judiciary system, potentially reducing the power of the country’s Supreme Court. After firing a defense minister who opposed the overhaul last week, Netanyahu agreed to delay the judicial review for now. While calls for judiciary reform have been long standing, critics say the Prime Minister aims to protect himself from the outcome of his corruption trial.
Ariel Ahram, chair of Virginia Tech’s government and international affairs program, offers his perspective on what the controversy means for the country and the Middle East.
Q: Are the calls for reforming the power of the judiciary in Israel something new?
“There have been discussions for decades about reforming the judiciary in Israel. Israel does not have a written constitution like the United States, so the status of the supreme court was always up for question. In the last twenty years, the Israeli Supreme Court has taken on a more assertive role, following the example of the U.S. It has tried to position itself as the final arbiter on issues like civil liberties and individual rights. Secular Israelis and Israeli Arabs have often look to the court to defend their status (although often with disappointment). But critics say that the court is overreaching. An unelected judicial body shouldn’t stop measures that are approved by the elected parliament.”
Q: What has prompted this current push for judicial reform in Israel?
“Netanyahu has a personal interest in weakening the court because he is under investigation for corruption and does not want the Supreme Court to disqualify him from office. There are other members in his coalition who are similarly under indictment or even have even been convicted for corruption and so could be disqualified. But many others in Israel, especially conservative and Jewish ethnonationalist groups, want to weaken or bypass the court because it stands in the way of their efforts to enforce their interpretation of Jewish law and encode Jewish supremacy in Israeli law.”
Q: What’s the significance of the national protests against judiciary reform?
“The labor protests are part of wider rebellion in Israeli society. Even more important than the labor disruptions, hundreds of Israeli Army, Air Force, and Navy officers are refusing to serve in reserve duty. These protests have really exposed deep divides among Israel’s Jewish majority. Israeli Arabs — perhaps 20% of the population — are largely on the sidelines so far.”
Q: Should the reforms go through, what will that mean for the Middle East?
“It’s unclear. Netanyahu is Israel’s longest serving prime minister, so he has a lot of experience in Middle Eastern politics. While always on the right, Netanyahu usually been pragmatic. He has blocked some of the more aggressive measures favored by his coalition partners. Now, however, Netanyahu has very little leeway. He needs the coalition to survive. Netanyahu could thus take more aggressive postures toward the Palestinian territories, including annexation of lands and possible forced deportation of the Arab population, in order to maintain his coalition.”
About Ariel Ahram Ariel Ahram is professor and chair of the government and international affairs program at the Virginia Tech School of Public and International Affairs located in the Washington, D.C., metro area. He is the author of War and Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa (Polity, 2020) that explores the causes and consequences of wars and conflicts in this troubled region, including in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Israel/Palestine, and Lebanon. More on his background here.
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Newswise — Given the U.S.-China trade conflict and concerns over trade disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, regionalizing supply chains is at the center of the discussion in North America. Now, a new working group spearheaded by the University of California San Diego is using this opportunity to propose policy recommendations for the relocation of global production chains in North America where it’s economically advantageous.
“U.S. and China decoupling has prompted renewed interest in integrated North American trade and investment as well as considerations of a broader economic community that could include Central American nations,” said Caroline Freund, dean of the School of Global Policy and Strategy and working group member. “Our group is poised to propose policy approaches to ensure that the current opportunities strengthen North American economic integration, boosting the productivity, prosperity and competitiveness of the U.S., Mexico, Canada and neighboring countries.”
The group hopes U.S. economic leadership can launch a new era of North American competitiveness. They cite President Joe Biden’s two signature legislative accomplishments, the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS Act) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which are aimed at strengthening the U.S. industrial base, particularly regarding the manufacturing of semiconductors, electric vehicles and products related to clean energy and the decarbonization of the U.S. economy.
The consensus in Washington, D.C., that China represents a strategic rival to the U.S. also calls for exploration of stronger supply chains in North America, according to Rafael Fernández de Castro, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies and member of the group’s steering committee.
“These regional opportunities are rare events in a century — North America cannot waste this opportunity,” Fernández de Castro said. “Our working group is developing a road map so that nearshoring becomes a reality for the region.”
The timing is bolstered by North American alliances. Both Canada and Mexico have proved their worth as essential partners for U.S. supply chains because of their geographical location as neighboring countries, reliability as partners, complementary economic strengths and the framework provided by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
Although Central America has a narrower industrial base, it also presents cost and access advantages that make it a strong potential link in North American supply chains.
Members of the working group have backgrounds in government, academia, non-governmental organizations and private sector. They include the former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Anne McLellan, former Undersecretary of Foreign Trade in Mexico Juan Carlos Baker, as well individuals from the Mexican firm Deacero and Harvard Kennedy School.
“We have assembled a fantastic brain trust led by three women with very distinguished careers in public service and think tanks in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to chair the working group: Louise Blais of the Business Council in Canada, Luz María de la Mora of the Atlantic Council and Shannon K. O’Neil of the Council on Foreign Relations,” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, head of research at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies and steering committee member. “Under their leadership, we are convinced the group will produce clear, implementable recommendations for the benefit of the North American region.”
The working group will meet virtually during 2023 and will issue a series of policy recommendations in early 2024 — a key year for North America, since both Mexico and the U.S. will hold presidential elections.
For information on the working group, go to this website.
Newswise — Even after 27 years of reunification, East Germans are still more likely to be pro-state support than their Western counterparts, a new study published in the De Gruyter journalGerman Economic Reviewfinds. Of the sample studied, 48% of respondents from the East said it was the government’s duty to support the family compared to 35% from the West.
The study led by Prof. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln of Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany builds on her earlier work which evaluated results from the German Socio-Economic Panel, a regular survey of around 15,000 households. The survey has been running in the federal states that made up West Germany since 1984 and in those of the former East Germany since 1990.
In 1997 and 2002, respondents were asked who they thought should provide financial protection for groups such as families, the elderly, the sick and disabled, and so on, using a scale from one (only the state) to five (only private forces). This question was asked again in 2017, allowing Fuchs-Schündeln and the paper’s co-author Mariia Bondar to see how preferences were further changing over time.
West and East Germans have been moving towards a common level of preference for state support over the years. However, the extra results from 2017 indicate this rate of convergence is slowing. “In our original study, we concluded that if the convergence continued at its original pace we wouldn’t see any differences in one or two generations,” said Fuchs-Schündeln. “However, that wasn’t the case.”
Interestingly, East German preferences for more state support appear to be passed on to the next generation. The researchers found that people born between 1990 and 1999 (that is, after reunification) who had at least one parent from the former GDR were significantly more likely to think that it was the state’s responsibility to provide financial security for families and the elderly. “That means that living under different systems can have really long-lasting effects on preferences, which are passed down from one generation to the next,” said Fuchs-Schündeln.
These results highlight that even though unification happened in 1990, key differences still survive. “It’s a bit of a call for action on how we can generate a more unified Germany,” said Fuchs-Schündeln. “It tells us we shouldn’t take it for granted that separation is not a topic anymore.”
Newswise — Arlington, VA – Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have reintroduced legislation to increase access to Medicare-covered services provided by doctors of chiropractic. The Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act (H.R. 1610 / S. 799) would bring Medicare’s coverage of chiropractic into alignment with most other federal programs and private health plans, giving seniors improved coverage of non-drug treatments to alleviate pain and improve function.
The legislation was introduced March 14 by Reps. Gregory Steube (R-Fla.), Brian Higgins (D-N.Y), Mark Alford (R-Mo.) and John Larson (D-Conn.) in the House and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) in the Senate. Both bills were introduced with a number of bipartisan original cosponsors. An identical bill that expired last year in Congress achieved more than 150 cosponsors in the House, split almost evenly between Democrats and Republications, and six cosponsors in the Senate.
“The level of bipartisan support we achieved with the last bill tells us that this is an issue that resonates and has the momentum to go all the way,” noted John Falardeau, ACA senior vice president of public policy and advocacy. “We thank Sens. Blumenthal and Cramer and Reps. Steube, Higgins, Alford and Larson for their leadership in reintroducing this important legislation, which will benefit America’s seniors.”
“Giving Medicare beneficiaries more options for non-drug services to treat common musculoskeletal conditions such as back pain is critical in ongoing efforts to reduce opioid overuse,” noted ACA President Michael Martin, DC. “Chiropractic care is a part of the solution for many patients who seek to avoid or reduce their reliance on prescription pain medications.”
H.R. 1610/S. 799 would update the Medicare statute that has limited beneficiary access to chiropractic services for over 50 years. The bill adds no new benefits; it simply allows Medicare beneficiaries access to the profession’s broad-based, non-drug approach to pain management and musculoskeletal health. This includes manual manipulation of the spine (the only chiropractic service now covered), as well as services such as manual manipulation of the extremities and numerous other non-drug treatments, evaluation and management services, and diagnostic imaging. The range of services available to beneficiaries would be determined by a chiropractor’s state licensure.
Chiropractic services and other nonpharmacologic approaches to pain management have become an important part of national efforts to reduce the overuse and abuse of prescription opioid pain medications. The opioid crisis has taken its toll among seniors and other Medicare beneficiaries as it has in communities nationwide.
The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) is the largest professional chiropractic organization in the United States. ACA attracts the most principled and accomplished chiropractors, who understand that it takes more to be called an ACA chiropractor. We are leading our profession in the most constructive and far-reaching ways—by working hand in hand with other health care professionals, by lobbying for pro-chiropractic legislation and policies, by supporting meaningful research and by using that research to inform our treatment practices. We also provide professional and educational opportunities for all our members and are committed to being a positive and unifying force for the practice of modern chiropractic. To learn more, visit www.acatoday.org.
Newswise — Daylight saving time begins this weekend, meaning clocks will move ahead one hour this Sunday. This means while you will gain more hours of daylight for the spring and summer, people will initially lose an hour of sleep, and this can have big health impacts.
Sleep experts say patients can prepare for the loss of sleep, by slowly shifting their bed time incrementally in the days leading up to daylight saving time on Sunday.
Adjusting your body to the time change will not fully blunt the impact of daylight saving time. Sleep experts believe it’s not just the loss of an hour of sleep but the long term impact of being on daylight saving time accounts for additional absences from work, increased incidence of atrial fibrillation and even car accidents. Daylight saving time disrupts the natural circadian rhythms of the body. Circadian rhythms not only control a person’s sleep schedule but it also impacts bodily hormones including thyroid and cortisol levels.
There is legislation in Congress to make Daylight Saving Time permanent, meaning the clocks would remain on spring and summer time and not fall back for the fall and winter. While it may seem desirable to have more daylight hours while most Americans are awake, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine advocates we permanently stay on standard time, because it is more in line with a person’s natural bio-rhymes and produces less negative health outcomes.
Hackensack Meridian Health’s Director of Sleep Medicine, Adrian Pristas, M.D. is available for interviews on the dangers of Daylight Saving Time and how to prepare for it.
Zero US warming in 18 years, per US Climate Reference Network temp stations. That’s no US warming despite 30% of total manmade CO2. Emissions-driven warming is a hoax.
Claim Publisher and Date:Steve Milloy on 2023-02-26
A tweet shared by thousands by Steve Milloy, founder of Junk Science and former member of the EPA transition team under the Trump Administration, says, “Zero US warming in 18 years, per US Climate Reference Network temp stations. That’s no US warming despite 30% of total manmade CO2.” This claim is similar to ones in the past where skeptics of human-caused climate change cherry-pick data (using a fraction of the data to prop up claims that are false globally) to suit their ideology. It is simply false to claim that data from the Climate Reference Network show no warming over the last 18 years. There is a warming trend. Even if it was true, the US represents only 1.9 % of the Earth’s surface. It’s hard to extrapolate much about global temperature change from an 18-year period in 2% of the globe.
According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), nine of the top 10 warmest years on record for the contiguous 48 states have occurred since 1998, and 2012 and 2016 were the two warmest years on record. Some parts of the United States have experienced more warming than others. According to NOAA, the North, the West, and Alaska have seen temperatures increase the most, while some parts of the Southeast have experienced little change. This warming trend is consistent with the long-term trend of global warming, primarily driven by human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Chris Cappa, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis has this to say…
As usual, Steve Milloy is contributing to a disinformation campaign about the reality and seriousness of climate change through selective cherry picking of information. He conveniently ignores the undeniable global trend in surface temperatures to mention only the continental US, which is only 2% of the total Earth surface area. He misleads the public here by spinning a tale that is the equivalent of someone living in Chicago and saying they don’t believe that hurricanes are real because they’ve never seen one. Milloy peddles this same nonsense year after year and refuses to engage with the actual science.
Note to Journalists/Editors: The expert quotes are free to use in your relevant articles on this topic. Please attribute them to their proper sources.
Newswise — Any attempts to build peace in Syria must address the factors which led to the country being a failed state before civil war began, research says.
There must be more inclusive governance practices and structures to allow meaningful popular participation in the running of the country’s affairs, according to the study. Citizens should be allowed to air their grievances and have a new “social contract” with their leaders.
The analysis shows how state failure was a factor in the uprising but has become more clearly apparent in the ongoing civil war. The Syrian state has ‘failed’ because it cannot meet its citizens’ economic, political and social needs and requirements.
The study, published in the journal Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies , was carried out by Samer Bakkour, from the University of Exeter, and Rama Sahtout.
Dr Bakkour said: “The outbreak of the civil war was not due to the sudden deterioration of state capacity or the abrupt collapse of state institutions. Instead, it was more clearly due to the regime’s attempts to crush a peaceful uprising by using force. This strength was superficial, rested on shallow foundations and lacked popular support.
“Any governance was distinctively ‘sectarian’ and state structures were ‘hollowed out’ by pervasive corruption. Even efforts to ‘modernize’ or ‘reform’ functioned to reinforce and perpetuate this.
“State failure and weakness were established parts of the country’s political arrangement, and the appearance of state strength could hardly conceal the fact that the state was vulnerable to a broad-based uprising.”
The study says repression pre-war was an inadvertent and implicit acknowledgement that it lacked both legitimacy and more subtle means through which to assert its authority. There was no social contract and the heavy-handed governance that served as an implicit acknowledgement of this would ultimately contribute to the outbreak of the civil war. Sectarian policies were deliberately planned to create divides and animosities between different groups.
Involvement of other nations in the civil war has further underlined the weakness of the Syrian state.
Dr Bakkour said: “The extent of the displacement of the country’s population, both internally and externally, is a further confirmation of state failure. Minority groups forced to leave their homes were the worst affected in terms of reported deaths, sexual violence, and poverty and malnutrition.
“Rapid economic decline, huge demographic decreases and growing food insecurity are now long-established trends in the country, and clearly have the potential to ‘feedback’ into conflict and instability. Basic food items such as bread are still rationed and foreign sanctions have inflicted billions of dollars of damage on the country’s economy.”
Newswise — Several West Virginia University faculty and staff members with a range of ties to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter cite his work in service and education as keys to his lasting legacy.
After earning her doctoral degree at WVU, Estep spent one year teaching at a college in Tennessee where she and her then-fiancé Paul took a group of students on a trip to The Carter Center in Atlanta. Inspired by the work there, she and her husband would go on to name their first child William Carter Estep in honor of the former president. She has pictures of her son square dancing with President Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
“President Carter’s most impressive achievements are his accomplishments through The Carter Center. His post-presidency work was focused on the Center’s two-fold mission of peace and health programs. The health programs focus on neglected, yet preventable diseases, most notably the Guinea worm eradication program. The peace programs promote democracy in several ways, but mainly through helping to ensure elections represent the will of the people. It was my honor to serve as a short-term election observer for The Carter Center for the first presidential and parliamentary election in Tunisia after the Arab Spring. I don’t doubt that The Carter Center will continue to ‘wage peace, fight disease, and build hope’ to honor the legacy of President Carter.” — Crissy Estep, director, WVU International Studies Program, director, WVU Honors Experiential and Community Engaged Learning Program
Jay Cole, who now serves as senior advisor to WVU President Gordon Gee, wrote his application for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship about Carter’s creation of a federal Department of Education.
Cole has studied Carter’s presidency, particularly his education policy reforms and their long-term effects, at length.
“By championing the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, President Carter affirmed the fundamental importance of education to our society. He also said that the federal government should be a ‘junior partner,’ not a ‘silent partner,’ with state and local governments on education. The creation of the Department of Education was controversial, and its continued existence remains a topic of political debate today. It is a valuable debate because it compels us to think about how we organize our educational system and also about how we calibrate the relationship between levels of government. I consider that ongoing debate to be one of President Carter’s most significant legacies.” — Jay Cole, senior advisor to WVU President Gordon Gee, Truman faculty advisor
Jorge Atiles, dean of WVU Extension and Engagement, oversees efforts to support and advance the comprehensive land-grant mission of WVU in West Virginia’s 55 counties.
WVU Extension includes the WVU Center for Community Engagement and AmeriCorps VISTA, which is integral to Energy Express, along with community development, engagement and service programs throughout the state.
“President Jimmy Carter was instrumental to the success and widespread efforts of Habitat for Humanity. Extension housing and resource management specialists across the nation partnered with Habitat to help families access affordable housing in their communities.
“President Carter also exemplified civic engagement and showed the world how to promote democratic elections while serving as an international electoral observer for many nations.” — Jorge Atiles, dean of WVU Extension and Engagement
February 24 will mark one year since Russian tanks rolled over the border into Ukraine. As it stands there is still no end in sight and the U.S. is facing increasing pressure to provide military aid in the form of high tech equipment such as F-16 fighters and M1 Abrams tanks.
David Silbey is an associate professor of history at Cornell University where he specializes in military history, defense policy and battlefield analysis. He says the war in Ukraine is starting to resemble the kind of proxy conflicts we saw during the Cold War.
Silbey says:
“The United States is gaining a substantial geopolitical advantage at low cost to itself while the Russians are bleeding themselves dry against a defiant enemy.
“For 2023, I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. eventually sends fighter jets, though like tanks, it’s going to take them a while to get there and then train Ukrainians on them. They would be a substantial military help but also a challenging logistics burden for Ukraine.
“I seriously doubt American forces will get sent to Ukraine. I suspect there may already be U.S. special forces in-country, (though I have no evidence). It would escalate the war massively if regular troops were sent in, which is something the U.S. doesn’t need to do at the moment.”
Cristina Floreais an assistant professor and historian of Central and Eastern Europe.
She says the Russian-Ukrainian war has become a war of attrition, where a Ukrainian victory is far from guaranteed.
Florea says:
“Despite Ukrainians’ unwavering will to fight, the fact of the matter remains that over one fifth of Ukraine’s territory is currently in Russian hands. What worries me is that after one year of fighting, the conflict will gradually recede into the background, and concern will give way to complacency.
“The war’s end will be decided on the battlefield. Since there are no signs that Russian support for the war is any weaker today, it is imperative that the U.S. and NATO throw their weight fully behind Ukraine. Halfway measures will simply prolong the conflict and put Ukraine at risk of running out of military equipment before Russia does.”
Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews.
Newswise — Governments could help millions of people and save a lot of money with targeted energy subsidies. Different kinds of households around the world suffer in various ways from the exorbitant energy prices and need different kinds of support, says Klaus Hubacek from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, in a new study that was published on 16 February in Nature Energy.
All around the world, households are affected by soaring energy prices due to the war in Ukraine. But these households are affected in different ways: ‘This depends on their income level, how they spend their money, and how and where the products that they are using are being produced,’ explains Hubacek, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society.
Poverty
‘Our study is one of the very first that quantifies—at an unprecedented level of detail—the impacts of the energy crisis, including its impact on households, within many countries and with a global reach,’ says Hubacek. ‘Without such detailed knowledge, it is impossible to know who to help and how. If the governments were to use this as a guide, they could save a lot of money.’
The increased fossil fuel prices potentially push millions of people into poverty, or even extreme poverty. Government measures to subsidize towering energy bills for households are inefficient because they do not take enough details into account. ‘If you look at the responses of governments, for example in Germany, the UK, the US, or the Netherlands, they have been using policies that do not sufficiently help those who need it most,’ states Hubacek. ‘Meanwhile they spend lots of money on people who don’t need it. That really frustrates me.’
Food
Energy prices affect households in two ways. Directly, through high energy bills, and indirectly, through the goods and services that became more expensive due to fossil fuel use in their supply chains. ‘So, for example, if you use a cell phone in the Netherlands you need direct energy, which is not a lot,’ explains Hubacek. ‘But a cell phone is made of many different components that come from Japan, China, Austria, the US, and so on.’ Therefore higher energy prices effect the price of a new smart phone indirectly.
The same is true for food: energy prices push up costs for fertilizer, transport, etcetera. Energy inputs are required in production and transportation all the way to the final product. The rising costs of energy are passed on to the consumer through the price of the product, thus indirectly increasing the burden on households.
Straw
Because different households spend their money on different things, the kind of burden that the energy price shock imposes varies as well. ‘We show this in detail in our paper,’ says Hubacek. ‘For example, in some countries it is the increase in food prices that affects households most, in other cases it’s mobility, and so on. Knowing what causes the increased costs exactly allows you to really subsidize the products and services that put the highest pressure on households.’
For both high- and low-income countries, the indirect energy costs impose the biggest burden, whereas for middle-income countries, direct energy costs have the biggest impact. A possible explanation is that in high- and low-income countries, households’ direct energy availability is uniform, according to Yuru Guan, one of Hubacek’s PhD students and first author of the paper. Therefore, they are affected more by consumption patterns of other goods. ‘For example, Dutch people basically use natural gas for heating, so when energy prices increase, everyone suffers from the same rate of increase in direct energy costs,’ explains Guan.
In middle-income countries, households show larger disparities when it comes to the availability of energy. ‘In China, the rich have access to natural gas for heating, while the poorest burn coal or even straw,’ continues Guan. Therefore, the total burden on household expenditure is dominated by direct energy costs.
Windfall tax
Hubacek makes another point. He suspects that the increase of energy prices due to the Russian invasion in Ukraine wouldn’t have been as extreme if better policies had been made before. ‘Governments could have saved money by helping people with lower incomes to insulate their houses instead of digging for coal and investing in LNG terminals that are hugely inefficient,’ says Hubacek. ‘Now they invest in a very expensive infrastructure that we shouldn’t have in the first place if we take climate change seriously.’
Governments could moreover increase their income relatively easy. ‘Energy companies’ profits have increased considerably since the onset of the war,’ according to Hubacek. ‘And many other sectors benefited as well. They increase their prices more than required to cover the extra energy costs, thus increasing their profits.’ Special windfall and carbon taxes could help enormously in the fight against poverty. ‘It’s all linked,’ says Hubacek. ‘Polluting sectors could be taxed and the money could be used to help poor households. It’s simple. It’s just politically difficult.’
It is up to policy makers to make decisions that take the bigger picture into account, and to not just stick plasters. ‘However, there is no free lunch,’ as Hubacek puts it. ‘Renewable energy contributes to climate change as well. So the focus should be on policies that fight poverty and energy use in the long term.
Reference: Yuru Guan, Jin Yan, Yuli Shan, Yannan Zhou, Ye Hang, Ruoqi Li, Yu Liu, Binyuan Liu, Qingyun Nie, Benedikt Bruckner, Kuishuang Feng en Klaus Hubacek. Burden of the global energy price crisis on households, Nature Energy, 16 February 2023
Newswise — The United States, the largest importer of wildlife in the world, is not prepared for future spread of animal-borne, or zoonotic, diseases due to gaps among governmental agencies designed to combat these threats, concludes a new analysis by researchers at Harvard Law School and New York University. The authors call for a “One Health” approach, integrating multiple agencies in order to better govern human-animal interactions.
The editorial, “Blind spots in biodefense,” which appears in the journal Science, is authored by Ann Linder, a research fellow at Harvard Law School’s Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program, and Dale Jamieson, a professor at New York University’s Center for Environmental and Animal Protection in the Department of Environmental Studies.
Linder and Jamieson note that the Biden administration’s recent release of its National Biodefense Strategy (NBS-22), the first update since the COVID-19 pandemic began, frames threats as largely external to the United States.
“NBS-22 focuses primarily on bioterrorism and laboratory accidents, neglecting threats posed by routine practices of animal use and production inside the United States,” they write.
This oversight is significant, Linder and Jamieson observe, given the United States’ past and present when it comes to human-animal interface:
More zoonotic diseases originated in the United States than in any other country during the second half of the 20th century.
In 2022, the U.S. processed more than 10 billion livestock, the largest number ever recorded and an increase of 204 million over 2021.
The ongoing H5N1 avian influenza outbreak has left 58 million animals dead in backyard chicken coops and industrial farms in the U.S.
Since 2011, the U.S. has recorded more swine-origin influenza infections than any other country. Most occurred at state and county fairs, which attract 150 million visitors each year and where an estimated 18% of swine have tested positive.
Moreover, they add, the current patchwork of siloed agencies and authorities is marked by a lack of coordination, leaving significant gaps and areas of underregulation. In fact, of the many agencies that govern food animal production, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is the most important, but it has no authority to regulate on-farm animal production.
The authors call for rebuilding from the ground up the U.S. regulatory system in order to combat zoonotic disease risk.
“What is needed is not simply for agencies to do their jobs better or to paper over the gaps, but a fundamental restructuring of the way that human–animal interfaces are governed,” Linder and Jamieson urge. “A One Health approach, which NBS-22 claims as its guiding principle, would take the health of other living things not merely as the occasional means or obstacles to human health, but as continuous with it. The first step in implementing such an approach would be to create a high-level process for integrating the broken mosaic of multiple agencies, with their unclear and sometimes competing mandates, into an effective, comprehensive regime.”
The editorial is based on research from the Live Animal Markets Project, which is examining global policy responses to animal markets and their role in zoonotic disease transmission. The project includes 15 individual country case studies involving local collaborators, partner institutions, and members of the core research team. The project aims to provide a comprehensive assessment that will aid policymakers, contribute to public education about zoonotic risks, and support the human health and animal protection communities. The project is led by researchers from Harvard Law School’s Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program, and New York University’s Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, and involves researchers and institutions from around the world. Kristen Stilt, Arthur Caplan, Chris Green, Bonnie Nadzam, and Valerie Wilson McCarthy contributed to this editorial.
Five days after a Norfolk Southern train carrying vinyl chloride derailed and exploded near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, crews ignited a controlled burn of toxic chemicals to prevent a much more dangerous explosion. Local residents of East Palestine, Ohio are wondering whether returning to the area is really safe. In a report from television station WXBN in Youngstown, Ohio, it was disclosed that additional toxic chemicals have been discovered in the area. A comment made by Sil Caggiano, a hazardous materials specialist, was included in the WXBN report. Caggiano said that “We basically nuked a town with chemicals so we could get a railroad open.” The quote has been shared by thousands on social media. Christopher M. Reddy, a Senior Scientist at the Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution cautions that this statement may be hyperbole.
“Do not let the ‘doom and gloom’ overwhelm you,” says Reddy. In response to the Caggiano’s “nuked a town” statement, Reddy says it is “totally irresponsible. A very different situation when perceived by the public.”
Reddy’s comment on the reporting of the incident:
I would caution that the outcomes and scenarios available on Wikipedia are often overgeneralized and lack nuance. I don’t wish to downplay this accident at all. Very different situation. It is very hard to predict the short and long-term impacts of any chemical release with great certainty, but I don’t foresee with the knowledge in hand, significant long-term impacts. All of these chemicals are relatively short-lived and unlikely to persist for many months, and they have a low affinity to bioaccumulate in human and animal tissue.”
Reddy recommends the following for local residents:
Remain cautious
Do not let the “doom and gloom” overwhelm you.
Ask for the sampling plans. Have samples been collected? When? Where? What is the detection limit?
Ask for laboratory results for the chemicals that were released and their breakdown products. (Key point—the actual chemicals.) I cannot speak for the level of analyses being performed, but these are complex measurements. Certainly not the equivalent of pH paper.
Seek information from reputable sources.
Mark Jones, a retired industrial chemist has this to say…
The chemicals, now four, are all dangerous in multiple ways. They can be acutely toxic, chronically toxic and they are all flammable. The controlled burn takes flammable materials to more benign materials. In the case of vinyl chloride, a product of combustion is hydrochloric acid, itself dangerous but not flammable.
The comment about a “more dangerous explosion” is a bit misleading. There is a risk to those attempting to clean up the site if there is a reservoir of flammable material. Reducing that risk is one of the reasons to do a controlled burn. There are many ways to do a controlled burn and I don’t know exactly what was done here.
Two of the materials, vinyl chloride and isobutylene, are quite volatile. Isobutylene handles approximately like butane, the stuff in a lighter. It is a liquid under just a little bit of pressure. Release the pressure and it becomes a gas. Vinyl chloride is similar. When released, both become a gas. They should not persist on the site. They should be swept away in the air.
The other two materials, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether and ethylhexyl acrylate, are higher boiling liquids. Both are flammable. The controlled burn of these materials should destroy them and make only carbon dioxide and water.
Note to Journalists/Editors: The expert quotes are free to use in your relevant articles on this topic. Please attribute them to their proper sources.
Rutgers University–New Brunswick faculty experts are available before, during and after President Biden’s State of the Union address on Feb. 7. For interviews, please reach out to the listed contacts.
Expert on U.S. political and cultural history, including the presidency, campaigns and elections, political parties, political ideas, public policy, and a contributing editor to Politico. Greenberg can discuss past States of the Union, presidential history and rhetoric, and the impact Biden’s speech may have on current divisions in the United States. Professor of history and of journalism and media Studies.
Expert in U.S. government, legislative politics, Congressional issues and the presidency. Baker can discuss coronavirus relief, bipartisanship and polarization in the House and Senate, and passing legislation. Distinguished Professor in political science.
Expert on U.S. politics, redistricting, law, security and community protection for vulnerable populations. Farmer can discuss the U.S. Capitol riots, national security and how President Biden is working to bridge the partisan divide. Director of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers’ Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience, and University professor of law.
Expert on U.S. public opinion, survey design, polling trends and mass political behavior. Koning can discuss President Biden’s approval rating and public opinion on COVID-19, the vaccination rollout and coronavirus relief, and the national political dynamic and polarization. Director of Rutgers’ Eagleton Center for Public Polling and Eagleton assistant research professor.
Expert on race and U.S. politics, the president and American governors. Eagleton associate professor of political science, senior scholar at the Eagleton Center on the American Governor.
Expert on U.S. politics and government, including history of relevant past elections, and the administrative functioning and inclusion of the public in government operations. Associate director of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics and director of the Eagleton Center on the American Governor.
Shields researches and analyzes the office of the governor in a national context. He is an Eagleton Assistant Research Professor and Historian at the Eagleton Center on the American Governor.
Debbie Walsh, @DebbieWalsh58 Expert on the modern history of women in politics, progress in political representation, women and the political parties, and campaign messaging for women candidates. Director of the Center for American Women and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers.
Jean Sinzdak Expert on milestones in women’s political history, candidate recruitment and training, and state legislatures. Associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers.
Kelly Dittmar, @kdittmar Expert on gender and campaigning, women and institutions of government, current data and analysis on women’s representation, and women voters. Director of Research and Scholar of the Center for American Women and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers.
Kira Sanbonmatsu Sanbonmatsu’s research interests include gender, race/ethnicity, parties, public opinion, and state politics. Professor of political science and senior scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics.
Newswise — In the past two decades, many state governments have enacted voter identification requirements for constituents voting in their state, requiring a photo ID or other significant proof to access a ballot. These laws were intended to prevent voter fraud and increase election security, but they also sparked national debate over whether they disenfranchised disadvantaged groups such as people living in poverty or people of color, who may not have a valid ID nor be able to obtain one.
Many argued that implementing the ID requirements gave Republicans the electoral advantage while harming Democrats, whose supporters were more likely to be affected by the laws. Up until now, the extent to which these laws provided electoral benefits for Republican candidates and/or disadvantages for Democratic ones had not been considered.
In a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jeffrey Harden, the Andrew J. McKenna Family Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and concurrent associate professor in the Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics, and Alejandra Campos, a third-year graduate student in the political science doctorate program, both at the University of Notre Dame, found that voter ID requirements motivated supporters of both parties equally to comply and participate, but had little overall effect on the actual outcomes of the elections.
“We addressed a very simple question of whether or not these laws actually have the sort of electoral effects that people seem to think they do,” Harden said. “It was surprising to us to see that no one had really addressed that question yet.”
The two researchers examined the effect of voter ID laws on the electoral results for significant political races at the state level (state legislatures and governorships) and federal level (U.S. Congress and president) from 2003 to 2020. The framework of the study was to find out whether a voter ID requirement affected the vote share advantage of Republican or Democratic candidates in these races. The assumption, Harden explained, is that because Democratic voters tend to be the ones who are more impacted by voter ID requirements, it is in the Democratic Party’s interest to push back against these laws and in the Republican Party’s interest to advocate for them.
“This suggests that one party’s candidates would benefit more, and one party’s candidates would be penalized more, by these laws,” Harden theorized. “But that’s not really what’s going on here — the long-term implications of voter ID are more nuanced than that.”
Rather, the researchers speculated, voter ID laws had a countermobilization effect by creating a complex series of events, happening over the course of the campaign, that resulted in supporters of both parties getting motivated and mobilized, which ultimately diminished the laws’ anticipated effects on the actual election results.
“The parties had to take additional steps to counteract these laws,” Campos explained. “The Democratic Party, for example, mobilized their constituents to meet the ID requirements so the laws would not impact their electoral fortunes.”
Other implications include the idea that ID requirements frustrated Democrats and enthused Republicans — motivating both groups’ supporters to vote. In addition, the researchers wrote, voters may have become accustomed to adhering to the laws, thus softening their controversial stigma in the public’s opinion and eventually reducing their effects.
“Any impact these laws exert on voter access occurs concurrently with their effects on other elements of the electoral process,” the researchers pointed out. “What we find out, in the end, is that the results get washed out to the point where these voter ID laws don’t have much of an impact on the actual electoral outcomes.”
With existing research pointing to the fact that voter ID laws don’t necessarily impact voter fraud or voter turnout, and Harden’s and Campos’ research indicating that they don’t have much of an effect on election results, Harden suggested we ask ourselves: “How difficult should it be in a democratic society for a person to vote?”
“We think this should be a part of the discussion,” both researchers said. “Future election policy may benefit from a shift in the debate.” Instead of focusing on which is more important — voting security or access — lawmakers should consider what is the minimum amount of voter responsibility required to vote, the researchers said, rather than setting up barriers to voting not supported by evidence.
“We need to ask ourselves: Why are we doing this?” Campos noted. “We need to think seriously about the consequences of these laws and whether or not there’s any benefit to them at all.”
Harden noted the importance of studying democratic institutions and the way in which democracy can ebb and flow within a country — and how this practice fits in ideally with the mission of Notre Dame.
“What we’re talking about here are reforms that make a fundamentally democratic practice (i.e., voting) more or less difficult for people,” Harden said. “Being at a university committed to truth and the common good, we need to understand if this significant reform is doing what people expect it to when they enact that reform.”
Newswise — Toronto — Nasty remarks by politicians against their critics are so common that we may not pay them much mind. That’s the problem of political incivility, say a pair of researchers who’ve studied the phenomenon among U.S. politicians.
“The results are pretty clear,” says Matthew Feinberg, an associate professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. “Incivility may grab attention, but the ultimate result is less interest in what you have to say.”
Prof. Feinberg and fellow researcher Jeremy A. Frimer from the University of Winnipeg already knew from their past work that incivility has been on the rise, especially online. In this most recent research, their analysis of rude and demeaning language in former U.S. president Donald Trump’s and current U.S. president Joe Biden’s social media posts revealed that the two gained fewer additional followers in the days after they made particularly uncivil comments.
The researchers analyzed more than 32,000 tweets issued from Trump’s Twitter account between mid-2015 and Jan. 8, 2021, when he was permanently suspended from the platform. Over that time, Trump’s followers rose from 3 million to about 89 million. However, his biggest gains were made in the days after his tweets were particularly civil – about 43,000 new followers versus only 16,000 new followers after he was especially rude.
The researchers used a machine-learning program that detects toxic speech and phrases to identify and classify the most uncivil tweets.
In Biden’s case, the researchers analyzed just over 7,000 tweets between 2012 and June 2021. His followers rose from 5 million to 32 million over that time. He gained an average of 45,000 new followers when his tweets were very civil but only 11,000 in the days after they were not.
Prof. Feinberg said the steeper drop in new followers for Biden may be due to people expecting more civil behaviour from him than Trump. However, the researchers estimated that Trump’s incivility cost him more than 6.3 million followers.
Two additional experimental studies that formed part of the research, with a total of about 2,000 participants confirmed the finding that political incivility breeds longer-term disinterest. That was true even when the participant identified with the same political party, something Prof. Feinberg called “surprising.” As well, the third study showed that moral disapproval of what a politician said had a stronger influence on a person’s ongoing interest than whether the politician’s words were attention-grabbing.
So given the results, how come politicians continue to lob rhetorical grenades at one another? It’s possible they do it because they may inflict greater damage on their opponents’ reputations or even turn voters off so much that they don’t even bother going to the polls, the researchers suggest. Or, says Prof. Feinberg, “maybe it’s just that they’re wrong.”
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University of Toronto, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management
