The average life expectancy in the United States fell again in 2021, leading to what the New York Times called the “sharpest two-year decline in nearly 100 years”. Jim Kahn at Health Justice Monitor says that single payer would have made a “huge difference… What’s the role of health insurance? The [New York Times] doesn’t…

The Real News reports: “…an overwhelming number of surveyed workers seem prepared to reject the PEB’s recommendations, and if the current contract dispute isn’t resolved the US could be headed towards its largest rail strike in decades.”

David M. Kotz, coauthor of Russia’s Path from Gorbachev to Putin, said today: “Democracy and individual rights cannot survive in a country with an oligarchic capitalism and extreme inequality.”

“That Alaska pulled this election off without a hitch — even when they had to implement RCV much faster than expected following the passing of Don Young — speaks to just how straightforward RCV is,” says FairVote president Rob Richie.

Analysis shows that an extensive fall booster vaccination campaign could save 160,000 lives and avert $109 billion in medical costs. Yet public health experts say we will be lucky if we can get 25 to 30 percent of the U.S. population boosted.

The FDA has authorized new booster shots targeting Omicron subvariants, which will be available to the public in the United States as early as next week. 

Experts are available for interviews in the wake of Gorbachev’s death. Says Katrina vanden Heuvel: “Gorbachev was perhaps the most radical thinker about security to ever lead a major world power — and to ever lead a nuclear weapons state. As Soviet president, he reversed generations of military buildup and democratized the Soviet Union and…

After her daughter, Taylor, was diagnosed with cancer, Susan’s investigative skill set exposed a dirty secret in her town — coal ash from the local Duke Energy power plant was sold and used as structural fill as a substitute for soil to build communities throughout North Carolina. “No one told us, no one helped us,”…

Ramzy Mardini writes in a new piece: “”Needless to say, Putin started an illegal and unjustified war. Yet, to enable a course correction toward a diplomatic solution, it’s the Western-based narrative about the war that requires a repudiation. … Today, the narrative of an unprovoked and maximum-aim war persists and dominates the public discourse in…

Steven Thrasher’s book, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, was published earlier this month. Thrasher spoke with the Institute for Public Accuracy this week about how the current spread of monkeypox is relevant to the book’s themes.