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Water problems in Jackson, Mississippi, go deeper than pipes, experts say

September 21, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(JACKSON, Miss.) — When Jackson, Mississippi, residents lost access to clean water late last month, federal, state and local officials scrambled to fix an infrastructure problem deeper than just money could solve.

In August, historic flooding in Mississippi damaged a major pump at the O.B. Curtis Water Plant, the main water treatment facility in Jackson, which left around 150,000 of the city’s mostly Black residents without drinkable water.

Residents were forced to line up on streets and highways throughout the city to pick up water at distribution sites because of the shortage.

The most recent water crisis highlighted residents’ yearslong plight with the city’s ongoing water issues, and raised questions about how the city came to be in this situation and what the long-term plans are to fix the issue.

How did Jackson get here

While water pressure did return to Jackson about a week after the shortage, the city’s mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, at a press conference earlier this month, attributed the crisis to staffing shortages, system issues and multiple equipment failures.

“This is due to decades, decades and decades, of possibly 30 years or more of deferred maintenance, a lack of capital improvements made to the system, a lack of a human capital, a workforce plan that accounted for the challenges that our water treatment facility suffers from,” Lumumba told “ABC News Prime” last month.

Over the last 40 years, Jackson’s population has shrunk as more of the city’s white residents left and moved to the suburbs, a practice known as “white flight,” resulting in not as many taxes coming into the city, policy experts told ABC News.

“Infrastructure is crumbling in a lot of different places, not just Black places,” Andre M. Perry, Ph.D., a senior fellow at Brookings Metro, a policy arm of the Brookings Institution, told ABC News. “However, in Jackson, there was a direct link to a loss of revenue to white and middle-class flight, which were facilitated by investments in the ’60s and ’70s that led to the building up of the suburbs.”

Black people make up 82.5% of Jackson’s population, while white people make up 16.2%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The most recent census data also showed that Jackson’s population went from slightly more than 173,000 people in 2010 to around 149,000 people as of July 2021.

That “white flight” cost the city of Jackson the opportunity to build its infrastructure, according to Perry.

“In its highest form, infrastructure lays the foundation for economic and community development across regions,” he said.

Here are the issues experts and officials say Jackson needs to address to move forward and tackle its water crisis:

Show me the money

Mississippi is one of the most dependent states on the federal government, currently ranking third in federal funding, behind West Virginia and New Mexico, according to a 2022 study from financial tech company SmartAsset.

For every $1 it pays in income tax, the state receives $2.53 in federal funding, according to SmartAsset.

Government officials have discussed how much it will cost to fix Jackson’s water issue, and the figures have varied.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Eagan met with Lumumba and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves earlier this month to discuss the water crisis and said the state has already received millions of dollars to solve the water issue.

Mississippi is set to receive more than $26 million in State Revolving Funds (SRF) this year, which is on top of the $30 million it received in 2021 for Jackson, Eagan said during a Sept. 7 press conference. Around $13 million is currently being spent, he said.

The state funds help public water systems bankroll the costs of infrastructure projects needed to reach or maintain compliance set under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

In December, the EPA announced that Mississippi would get nearly $75 million for water infrastructure projects, as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which was signed by President Joe Biden in November 2021; in the next five years, Mississippi is expected to receive $400 million through the law, Eagan said.

Lumumba estimated it would cost at least $1 billion to fix the water distribution system and billions more to resolve the issue altogether.

During a Sept. 7 press conference, Reeves said that one of the solutions is to fix the water billing system so that people who get water are being billed for it.

City residents have long complained about a malfunctioning water meter system, preventing them from receiving their bills, according to Jackson ABC affiliate WAPT-TV.

“Within that funding structure and the rate structure, we have to make sure we have adequate dollars in there so as to fund routine maintenance on a regular basis. Those are areas that have been a challenge in the immediate past,” Reeves said.

How Jackson’s water system works

The city of Jackson runs its own water, making it harder to fix the system because not enough taxes are being collected due to shifting demographics, according to Perry, who believes there is a shared responsibility to fix the issue.

“We need a regional approach to managing water, in which taxes for infrastructures are collected on a regional level and dispersed equitably based on need,” he said.

Jackson’s water system only serves the city’s residents, which is detrimental to Jacksonians, according to experts.

“If [we] drink from the same water source, even if [we] don’t like one another, we’re sort of handcuffed, whether we like each other or not, we’re drinking from the same water, so we both have an interest in making sure that it’s good,” Manny Teodoro, an associate professor at the LaFollette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told ABC News.

No easy solution

Jackson City Councilman Aaron Banks told ABC News that there needs to be an in-depth analysis of all the conditions and system components impacting Jackson’s water system, as well as policy in addressing how much it would cost.

“I think all options are on the table when it comes to oversight,” Banks said. “We as the council need to know what it costs so we can begin working with our partners to invest money, whether federally or state, and begin prioritizing our budget.”

However, throwing money at the problem isn’t going to immediately solve Jackson’s long-stemming water issues, which are more systemic and structural, Teodoro said.

”The disaster is a legacy of racial hatred, but also the work of leaders who found it politically expedient to ignore the city’s water problems for decades instead of solving them,” Teodoro wrote in a blog post on his website.

This week, Jackson residents filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the city; past and current city officials, including Lumumba and former mayor Tony Yarber, and infrastructure engineering companies for their purported roles in the water crisis. Spokespersons for Lumumba, Powell, Miller, and Siemens declined to comment when reached by ABC News. Yarber, Smash, and Trilogy Engineering did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.

Some suggestions in handling Jackson’s water issues include the state creating a regional water authority to operate the system, creation of a state commission to take control of the system and privatizing the city’s system, according to Teodoro.

“Even if somebody could wave a magic wand and Congress, by some miracle, were to pass a bill that would give Jackson $1 billion to completely overhaul its infrastructure for water and sewer, we’d be right back in this situation five, 10, 20 years down the road because we haven’t fixed those underlying structural problems,” Teodoro said.

October the best time to get COVID boosters, flu shots, experts say

September 21, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — With doctor’s offices and pharmacies now offering seasonal flu shots and updated COVID-19 boosters, experts are urging Americans to get both, with many saying October is the best time.

While experts say October may be an ideal window to boost immunity, they are also emphasizing the importance of getting vaccinated, period — whenever you are able. It’s safe for people to get both shots during the same visit for added convenience, experts say.

White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told ABC News the best time to get a newly updated COVID-19 booster is “no later than the end of October for maximum protection,” which aligns with flu shot timing recommendations.

The “Goldilocks moment” for the flu shot is also October, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. However, anyone who gets the shot in September should still expect protection during the flu season, which typically lasts until spring.

“I think my general advice is, get it [when] it’s convenient,” Chin-Hong said.

Experts also say not to worry if you can’t get your flu shot before Halloween.

“If you for whatever reason cannot get a flu shot by the end of October, it’s not too late,” said Dr. Alok Patel, a pediatrician at Stanford Children’s Health and an ABC News medical contributor.

Bad flu season on the horizon?

Some experts predict that the seasonal influenza virus — following two years of mild activity during the COVID-19 pandemic — is expected to be back in full force this season.

A typical pre-pandemic year would see around 8% of the U.S. population sick from flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths can exceed more than 50,000, as they did most recently in the 2017-2018 season.

Those most at risk of severe illness from influenza are the elderly and immunocompromised.

“What we’re concerned about, of course, are people who are older, over age 65. They account for about 15-17% of the population but 80% of the [flu] deaths and hospitalizations,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

But even young, otherwise healthy people benefit from the flu shot, which also lowers the risk of spreading the virus to others.

“A lower risk does not mean no risk. By getting vaccinated, you really do reduce the likelihood that you will be the dreaded spreader,” Schaffner said.

Meanwhile, becoming ill with the flu can not only put a damper on holiday plans, but it also often leads to unwanted symptoms that last for multiple days.

“For anybody who’s gotten the flu, it’s definitely not a walk in the park,” Chin-Hong said.

Getting vaccinated in October or early November is ideal because “[you want] your annual vaccination to extend throughout the winter, well through February into March, and even into April,” Schaffner said.

“The only other sort of change with the timing might be for people who are pregnant,” Chin-Hong said.

He explained that pregnant women may want to try and have a flu shot before delivery, which allows the newborn to benefit from the mother’s antibodies, especially given that infants under 6 months old cannot be vaccinated.

Experts say flu shots may be especially important for children this year given concerns about how the relaxation of pandemic-era restrictions may impact children.

“Given the fact that schools are back open, COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, and kids are back to their normal rambunctious selves [they] are at risk of catching influenza this year,” Patel said. “Parents should not generalize influenza as a common cold. Thousands of kids are hospitalized every year from influenza with young infants and kids with underlying medical conditions being at highest risk.”

Updated COVID-19 boosters may also become annual shots

The Food and Drug Administration recently authorized the first updated COVID-19 booster shots — the first major upgrade to COVID-19 vaccines. Because protection from COVID-19 fades slowly over time, the White House has previously stated that variant-specific COVID shots may also become an annual reality, similar to seasonal flu shots.

The new COVID-19 boosters are designed to be a better match against currently circulating COVID-19 variants, and are currently authorized for everyone 12 and older who had their last COVID-19 shot at least two months ago. People previously infected with COVID may also consider waiting 90 days before receiving their booster shot, according to the CDC. The authorization of updated boosters for younger children is expected in “a matter of weeks,” according to Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the group within the FDA responsible for assuring the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

Although it is not clear if there will be another COVID-19 surge this fall, more than 350 people still die every day of COVID-19. Compared to young adults, those over the age of 65 are 60 times more likely to die from COVID-19, according to the CDC. The death rate is 340 times higher for those over the age of 85.

Is it safe to get the COVID booster and flu shot at the same time?

Experts say that getting both your COVID booster and flu shot at the same time won’t weaken your body’s immune capacity to fight either virus.

“If you give the body two signals, it’s not going to make less [immunity] because it’s concentrating on another signal,” Chin-Hong said.

Although children under 12 are not yet eligible for the new booster shots, many are still getting their original COVID-19 vaccines, which are authorized for children 6 months and older.

Similar to the guidance for adults, pediatricians say it’s safe to give young children COVID-19 shots and flu shots in the same doctor’s visit.

“This may even be a more convenient option for busy parents,” Patel added.

How rapidly rising mortgage rates are squeezing prospective homebuyers

September 21, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — For Emily and Michael Brown, the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes hit close to home.

The Browns had been renting a two-bedroom apartment in Washington, D.C., when their now-6-month-old daughter was born. Eager to upgrade to a bigger space, the couple wanted to put their savings to use buying their first home.

But as they looked for a place to live this year — and watched mortgage rates, and their potential monthly payments, steadily climb — the couple lowered their budget from $500,000 to $400,000 and decided to put an offer on a home farther away from the city, with less space and fewer amenities.

“As the rates kept going up, we had to really bring down our budget and also be a little bit more realistic about what we were going to get for that budget,” Emily Brown, a high school math teacher, told ABC News.

Mortgage rates have more than doubled since January, lenders and real estate companies say, spurred by aggressive interest rate increases as the Fed attempts to curb high inflation. Many Americans searching for homes are lowering their budgets and making trade-offs — as they face higher monthly mortgage payments.

“Many homebuyers have dropped out of the housing market entirely because they can’t afford any home that fits their needs,” Daryl Fairweather, the chief economist at real-estate brokerage company Redfin, told ABC News.

As the Fed keeps hiking interest rates to try to tame historic inflation, mortgage rates have spiked to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis. And with the central bank expected to increase rates again on Wednesday — as inflation remains stubbornly high — some aspiring homeowners find themselves stuck on the sidelines altogether.

“The price of homes has jumped so much in the past year. Then you take into account the high interest rates, it’s really a tough position to be in as a first-time homebuyer,” Emily Brown said.

Mortgage rates hit 14-year high

For the first time since 2008, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is now above 6%, Freddie Mac said last week. The financial services company Bankrate estimates that a borrower taking out a $300,000 loan at that rate is paying about $500 more every month than they were before the Fed increases, which began in March.

“Since interest rates have risen, I’ve had to reduce the amount that I can afford each month, depending on my down payment and what a monthly mortgage would be,” Simone Jacobs, a therapist in Silver Spring, Maryland, told ABC News.

After renting for seven years, Jacobs had hoped to buy a property as a longer-term investment. But rising rates and still-high home prices have kept her out of the market.

“If nothing comes up or there’s nothing that sort of is affordable, then, you know, I will just wait,” she said.

‘It did kind of put us in a pickle’

Rapidly rising mortgage rates have also squeezed buyers building new homes.

Wesley and Kimberly Robinson, both elementary school teachers, started building a new home for themselves and their two daughters in Rogers, Arkansas, last year, when interest rates were close to 3%.

“With the low interest rates, we thought, Hey, if we’re going to ever upgrade, now’s the time,” Wesley Robinson told ABC News.

But as the COVID-19 pandemic stalled construction and the Fed continued to raise interest, their mortgage rate ended up to 5% when they finally locked it in this summer — adding about $300 to $400 to their monthly mortgage payment, according to Wesley Robinson.

“It did kind of put us in a pickle,” he said.

And now he fears higher mortgage rates might scare off buyers for their old home, which they have yet to sell.

“If now rates are like 6% or higher, do we need to like discount our home a little bit?” he asked. “We don’t want our home to sit there for weeks and weeks unsold. We kind of need the money.”

Fewer bidding wars as markets cool, particularly in the West

Real estate agents told ABC News that they are seeing homebuyers who had locked in low rates on their initial mortgages waiting to sell, amid the prospective of taking on costlier loans, which is keeping housing inventory low in much of the country.

“What we’re seeing now as a result of the rising interest rates is that you’re not getting as many offers as before,” said Jay Nix, a realtor in Washington, D.C., who worked with the Browns.

Less competition is leading to fewer bidding wars for those who are able to afford to buy, multiple real estate agents said.

“The good news is that you can get your offer accepted much more easily now because you’re not facing as much competition,” Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist, said. “But the bad news is that the mortgage is going to be much more expensive.”

There are signs the housing market is beginning to cool in some parts of the country.

Redfin said Wednesday in a new report, provided first to ABC News, that Seattle’s housing market is slowing faster than any other in the United States, followed by Las Vegas and San Jose, California. The firm looked at changes from February to August, comparing metrics ranging from home prices and the number of pending sales to the total supply and the speed of sales.

The top 10 markets cooling the quickest were “almost all either West Coast markets that have long been expensive, or places that became significantly less affordable during the pandemic because they attracted scores of relocating homebuyers,” according to Redfin.

Rents on the rise

Hoping to buy someday, many prospective homebuyers remain stuck on the sidelines — grappling with high increases in rent.

Rent costs increased 6.7% in August from a year before, the biggest spike in nearly 40 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“If you wait a couple more years, your rent keeps going up,” said Redfin’s Fairweather. “And then you have to deal with the expense of higher prices and more competition in the housing market.”

For the Browns in Washington, that calculation convinced them to put in a winning bid on a home. They are set to close next month.

“We really just thought about if we continue to rent, you know, that money could go toward the mortgage,” said Emily Brown, whose husband is an Army veteran.

“It’s a big life decision,” she added. “So — you do the math.”

Internal FDA report on infant formula crisis details shortfalls in response

September 21, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — An internal review of the Food and Drug Administration’s actions leading up to the infant formula crisis finds a combination of human error, antiquated technology, and poor communication and accountability amongst an already threadbare food workforce all contributed to a perfect storm of problems which exacerbated the supply shortage.

The issue was only worsened by the FDA’s lack of a robust mandate to strong-arm industry players’ compliance, the review found.

During more than 40 interviews with over 60 FDA staff and leadership “directly involved with the events that transpired” the review found “inadequate processes and lack of clarity” may have delayed the agency’s response to contamination concerns at at infant formula maker Abbott’s facility in Sturgis, Michigan; and that at several junctures, critical information slipped through the cracks of agency awareness.

In a statement, FDA Chief Robert Califf said the agency didn’t have the power to force the industry’s hand.

“The situation at the Abbott Sturgis facility has highlighted just how little authority the FDA has to compel many companies to ‘do the right thing’ without intervention,” Califf said.

The internal review echoed that sentiment: “a confluence of systemic vulnerabilities” here demonstrated the need for more investment in modern tools and tech to prepare for future public health challenges.

FDA’s limited mandate and resources prevent them from managing “supply chain issues and shortages of critical food products,” the review said, especially when it comes to a supply chain like that of baby formula, which had already been strained by the Covid pandemic — and which Abbott’s recall and pause in production further stressed.

The review also noted that the contaminant and illness at the heart of Abbott’s massive shutdown, Cronobacter sakazakii, is “poorly understood” and lacks thorough federal oversight — and that those “scientific gaps” in understanding Cronobacter “hindered the FDA’s response throughout the incident.”

The discovery of Cronobacter inside Abbott’s Sturgis plant prompted a massive voluntary formula recall in February, after four babies who had consumed Abbott’s formula contracted a Cronobacter infection. Two of the infants subsequently died, although Abbott maintains there has not been conclusive evidence that its formula caused the infant illnesses, since none of the Cronobacter strains found at their plant matched the two samples genetically sequenced from the sickened infants.

Ultimately, it was the combined findings of Cronobacter inside Abbott’s plant — along with a pattern of serious operational deficiencies and consumer complaints — which led to its closure.

In a statement to ABC News regarding the internal review, an Abbott spokesperson said, in part, they “will continue raising the bar” on their formula’s regulatory requirements “by working with FDA and industry partners to further advance infant formula safety and processes.”

Abbott’s shutdown ricocheted across the country, exacerbating the supply shortage and forcing families to scramble for alternatives in the hyper-concentrated formula market.

FDA’s Califf has previously noted some of the points outlined in the report released Tuesday: that the response was “too slow,” with “decisions that were suboptimal along the way,” while warning that FDA’s workforce is “very tired, overworked,” and the agency’s food safety arm is underfunded.

Califf has also previously underscored FDA’s lack of authority to “compel companies to give us information,” and has pointed the finger instead at Abbott’s failure to be upfront about the issues at their plant.

Critics of FDA’s response have previously pointed out that there was a brewing problem in the formula market before Abbott’s shutdown — and that the administration had plenty of warning signs both about the pandemic supply chain issues and about Abbott’s quality control problems long before things reached a boiling point this spring.

But this report contains several new details about repeated fumbles in the response, including crucial delivery system errors and a need for better staff communication at the FDA.

The review says FDA found that some samples taken from Abbott’s Sturgis plant after their contamination concerns came to light “were delayed in transit by third party delivery companies.”

The review comes after FDA leadership revealed this spring that a whistleblower complaint from a former Abbott employee detailing a “litany of violations” at the Sturgis plant had remained in limbo for months. That complaint had been sent to the FDA last October, but was not delivered, seen or escalated until four months later — because of, what the FDA has said, was “an isolated failure in FDA’s mailroom, likely due to COVID-19 staffing issues.”

The new internal review now says that such gaps in coordination between systems (though here, punting accountability to a “third party,”) “makes it difficult for the agency to connect related submissions and rapidly identify emerging safety and quality issues.”

“The FDA should evaluate procedures for shipping and testing samples sent to regulatory laboratories and consider whether changes should be made to analytical capability and capacity, and ways to enable immediate notification and escalation of analytical results for significant public health threats,” the review says.

The review adds that the agency is “collecting an inventory of every entry point for consumers, whistleblowers, other government agencies, clinicians, and other members of the public to facilitate notification to the FDA of their concerns about product safety and quality,” which will help “streamline” safety concerns to “rapidly assess emerging safety signals.”

The internal review ultimately identified five major findings for FDA to improve upon, including the need for more modern data technology which “allows for the access and exchange of data in real time to all the people involved in response.”

“The lack of coordination between systems makes it difficult for the agency to connect related submissions and rapidly identify emerging safety and quality issues,” the report says, and “inadequate processes and lack of clarity related to whistleblower complaints may have delayed the FDA’s response to those complaints.”

The review also underscores the need for FDA to optimize its emergency response capabilities to handle multiple concurrent public emergencies. FDA “lacks procedures for facilitating this complex coordination of staff on response activities that expand beyond the established foodborne outbreak response policies and procedures,” the review found.

The review also blames Covid infections at the manufacturing facility which “delayed the FDA’s in-person response to complaints raised” regarding Abbott’s Sturgis plant, and underscores the need to strengthen FDA’s food workforce including more training, staffing, equipment, funding and regulatory authorities “to fulfill the FDA’s mission.”

It also emphasizes the importance of closing knowledge and oversight gaps on Cronobacter and translating that knowledge into “appropriate control measures.”

Those gaps in understanding “hindered the FDA’s response throughout the incident,” the review said.

It also noted, FDA oversight should focus on accountability within the infant formula industry, which employs “dated technology and record keeping practices that can cause delays in collecting critical information needed to perform and define the scope of recalls.”

Moreover, the FDA lacks robust enforcement teeth to make sure companies are adhering to best practices of strong food safety culture, the review said; manufacturers aren’t required to make Cronobacter isolates available to the FDA for sequencing and uploading into the national database, which “limits the data available to help identify clusters of illness and potential sources of contamination.” Without further authority “it will be difficult for the FDA to identify early signals of potential safety issues and work with manufacturers to mitigate these hazards.”

FDA’s Califf had asked for this review to be done; the agency will “form working groups charged with implementing the recommendations,” and a year from now, FDA’s progress on the above recommendations will be assessed, the review said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General has also launched its own audit into how the FDA responded leading up to the recall and closure of Abbott’s Sturgis plant — and whether they followed proper recall protocol once deadly bacteria had been detected inside the plant. Findings from OIG’s audit are expected sometime in FY 2023.

The FDA says they are working with the OIG and “looks forward” to their “findings and recommendations.”

Toddler found dead in stolen car hours after deadly shooting, police say

September 21, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(HOUSTON) — A toddler was found dead inside a car that was stolen after the child’s father was shot and killed in Houston on Tuesday, police said.

“We are asking for a lot of things from the public right now,” Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite told reporters during a press conference Tuesday night. “First and foremost, to pray for this family. A mother lost her husband and she lost her 2-year-old child today. We are also asking the public’s help in identifying the suspect. He is still at large.”

The Houston Police Department received a 911 call about a shooting in the area of El Camino Rey Del Rey Street and Chimney Rock Road at around 1:46 p.m. local time on Tuesday. Upon arrival, officers found a 38-year-old man who had been shot to death, according to Satterwhite.

Investigators believe the victim was meeting with another man at the location when possibly an argument ensued. The other man took out a gun and shot the victim multiple times before stealing his black SUV and fleeing the scene, Satterwhite said.

That evening, at approximately 6:36 p.m. local time, a woman called 911 to report her husband and 2-year-old son missing. The information she provided was specific enough that police soon realized the shooting victim was her husband, according to Satterwhite.

“We never knew about the child until she called,” he told reporters.

The stolen SUV with the little boy inside was found on Elm Street, more than 10 miles away from the shooting scene. Officers shattered the windows of the locked vehicle to get to the child, then immediately tried to render aid and called for an ambulance, according to Satterwhite.

“Sadly, it was too late. The chid had passed in the car,” he said. “At this time, we don’t know why or how or what the cause of death will be. It could be something like heat exhaustion, we just don’t know. That will be determined later through autopsy.”

Investigators believe the suspect had left the car there, locked up and turned off, with the child in the backseat, according to Satterwhite.

“It’s the hardest thing we do,” he told reporters. “Children are innocent.”

The unidentified suspect, who remains on the loose, is described as a Black man wearing a white t-shirt, black shorts and a black Oakland Raiders cap.

When asked if he had a message for the suspect, Satterwhite said: “Turn yourself in. Turn yourself in now.”

Biden to push for even broader support for Ukraine at UN General Assembly

September 21, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — When he steps up to podium to deliver an address on Wednesday at the United Nation General Assembly, President Joe Biden is expected to cast the defining conflict facing global leaders as a duel between democracy and autocracy, and one with implications for every nation across the world.

The speech will be Biden’s first at the forum since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, offering him the opportunity to condemn the Kremlin in front of an audience of fellow heads of state.

“He’ll offer a firm rebuke of Russia’s unjust war in Ukraine and make a call to the world to continue to stand against the naked aggression that we’ve seen these past several months,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said.

“Countries cannot conquer their neighbors by force, cannot seize an acquired territory by force,” he said. “He will speak to every country in the world — those that have joined our broad-based coalition to support Ukraine and those who so far have stood on the sidelines that now is a moment to stand behind the foundational principles of the [UN] charter.”

Thanks to the so-far unshakeable coalition of NATO allies standing behind Kyiv, Sullivan said the president was heading into summit with “the wind at his back,” and would demonstrate the administration’s commitment to offsetting the collateral impacts of the war by pledging more than $100 million to food-security efforts.

As Biden grapples with a series of complicated global issues, the high-stakes summit presents a range of challenges for the administration.

The no shows

Although U.N. General Assembly meetings offer an abundance of opportunity for face-to-face diplomacy — something the president prides himself on — two key players won’t be in attendance: the leaders of Russia and China.

“Our competitors are facing increasingly strong headwinds, and neither President Xi nor President Putin are even showing up for this global gathering,” said Sullivan.

In Russian President Vladimir Putin’s case, the most pressing of those headwinds are losses on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to administration officials.

Ahead of an engagement with his counterpart from the U.K., Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced reports that Moscow plans to hold sham referenda in occupied territories in Ukraine to pave the way to annex the territory and that Putin may move to surge additional troops to help the war effort.

“I think this is also not a surprise this is happening now. We have seen in the last weeks significant gains by Ukraine,” Blinken said. “It’s a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of Russian failure.”

But as a number of other heads of state push for negotiations for peace, the gathering won’t offer a robust opportunity for Biden to pursue that path with the leaders of the countries involved in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in New York, but there are no plans for a meeting with U.S. officials on the books.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will also give a speech on Wednesday, but he will do so remotely as the only leader allowed to appear virtually this year.

China’s Xi Jinping’s absence means there’s no chance of an in-person meeting with the president, something that hasn’t happened since Biden took office. And the two have an ever-growing list of differences to discuss.

The past months have seen multiple escalations, with China responding to any step perceived as the U.S. moving towards recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign state with shows of force, a strategy a senior State Department official described as an attempt to normalize military pressure.

While the administration says Washington’s long-standing One China policy remains in effect, Biden also said U.S. troops would defend Taiwan if it were attacked.

The impermanent 5?

Russia’s exalted position as one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council has thrown a significant wrench in the body’s efforts to check its aggression, prompting calls that it should be removed all together.

Biden won’t go quite that far, Sullivan said.

“It is not something that he is going to raise tomorrow, although I think the world can see that when a permanent member acts in this way it strikes at the heart of the U.N. Security Council and so that should lead everyone collectively to put pressure on Moscow to change course,” he said.

But U.S. officials appear to be aligning behind a plan. Instead of subtracting Russia from the permanent members of the council, they may seek to make additions.

A senior State Department official said that Biden would attempt to “reenergize” the push for reform by arguing the arm needs to be “more representative of the world’s population, and filled with countries that are ready to work together.”

The odds of expanding the council appear slim. Reforming its makeup would require amending the U.N. charter, a step that Russia or any other permanent member could veto.

The rest of the agenda

While the war in Ukraine is shaping up to dominate the General Assembly, administration officials have stressed they want to take on other global issues as well.

One pressing matter facing the White House is its push to return to an Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran. Indirect negotiations appear to have stalled again, and officials from both countries appear increasingly pessimistic that the pact can be renewed.

Sullivan said Biden plans to reiterate that the U.S. is open to returning to an agreement, but that he isn’t anticipating any major breakthroughs.

Even a meeting with one of the U.S.’s closest allies has its thorns. Biden will hold his first meeting with the U.K.’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, as the differences between the two’s economic policies become ever apparent.

Recently, Truss said completing a long-awaited trade deal with the U.S. was not a key priority and unlikely to happen anytime soon. But Sullivan said it would be on the president’s list.

“I do think that they will talk about the economic relationship between the U.S. and the U.K.,” Sullivan said, adding they would also hit other areas where Truss and Biden have more in common, such as support for Ukraine and addressing Europe’s energy crisis.

Deep sea mining, solution to tech world’s mineral demand or potential ecological disaster?

September 21, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — It’s the size of the continental U.S., more than 10,000 feet deep and its recently become the center point in the debate over what’s the best way to build green products without making the environment worse off.

There is still much that is unknown about the Clarion-Clipperton Zone off Mexico’s Pacific coast, but scientists have said that the Pacific abyss is rich in minerals that are critical for renewable batteries and other green technologies.

Even though international regulators are still hammering out the rules and regulations for conducting deep sea mining, one mining executive contended to ABC News that they can extract the critical minerals from the depths of the abyss without harming the seabed.

“I mean, why on Earth shouldn’t we explore new frontiers? We need to mix it up,” Gerard Barron, the CEO of The Metals Company, a Canadian-based firm that is one of 16 companies exploring ways to mine the CCZ, told ABC News.

“The question is, what’s this impact? How can we mitigate those impacts? And how does that compare to the known impacts of land-based activity? And I think that’s a decision that society is going to have to face,” he added.

Oceanography experts, however, warn that we still know little about the ecology this deep under the sea. Even though potential mining could benefit necessary green projects, it could have unforeseen negative effects down the road.

“The worst case scenario for the environment would be driving species extinct before we even know they exist,” Matt Gianni, the co-founder, and the political and policy advisor of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, told ABC News.

The zone is between 12,000 and 18,000 feet deep and is still not fully explored, but scientists have found polymetallic nodules that are millions of years old on the ocean floor and contain nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese. These are key minerals used in rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles, storage units and other major devices.

The U.S. government has deemed cobalt as an essential mineral because of its importance in electric vehicles and many western countries are pushing for a supply chain that relies less on minerals produced by countries like China and Russia.

Barron said that the move to more electric vehicles and non-fossil fuel energy means that the country needs to act immediately to meet the growing demand.

“People haven’t given a lot of thought to where these metals come from and what we’ve woken up to is the fact that getting new mines permanent is really challenging because of the environmental impacts,” he said.

“So, if you want to build an ecosystem that can make American batteries with secure supplies of battery raw materials, then it’s not so easy [to] just imagine up a new mine because all the good ones have been discovered and getting anything permanent is really hard,” he said.

Currently, there is no active mining project within the CCZ, as the International Seabed Authority, an intergovernmental body that oversees “mineral-resources-related activity” in seaboards has not yet signed off on deep sea mining in the zone.

In the meantime, the ISA, which doesn’t yet formally include the U.S., awarded 17 exploration contracts to state sponsors and contractors which are meant to assess mining opportunities in the CCZ seabed.

The Metals Company has three licenses and has already conducted research using sophisticated unmanned underwater tools, such as an automated underwater vehicle.

“They’re actually like rockets that fly on the ocean floor and take really detailed imagery and measurements of everything,” Barron explained.

The company also received approval from the ISA to collect 3,600 tons of nodules while an independent team of scientists studies the potential impact it would have on the surrounding systems.

Barron said his teams have identified 1.6 billion tons of polymetallic nodules in two of its three license areas in the CCZ, which is enough to produce materials for 280 million mid-sized heavy batteries.

He estimated that it would take 30 years to mine the material in CCZ. He said based on his team’s analysis there would be a minor impact on the ecosystem, because they’ve found very little life down there.

“It’s a very low-energy area,” Barron claimed.

Environmental experts, however, argue that the companies looking to mine the seabed are premature in their ecological assessments and they need to reconsider their goals.

Craig Smith, a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii, told ABC News that no one will really know what the mining impacts on the CCZ will be until at least one mine has been operating for a decade.

“Because the ecosystems will take millions of years to recover, no site that’s mined will recover before the last site that’s mined,” he told ABC News. “These nodule habitats will not recover.”

One possible effect would be chronic stressors to the ecosystems in the area, according to Smith who compared the issue to a loud concert.

“Many humans enjoy going to a rock concert for an hour but if they were in that noise environment 24/7, they would go deaf,” he explained.

Gianni refuted claims by mining companies the CCZ is a low-energy area with little life. He said the seabed is home to many underwater fauna and flora and there are many more species that haven’t been discovered.

He said there is concern that the mining operations would push sediment into the water and affect the food chain from the smallest fish right up to whales.

“Scientists are saying [the CCZ is] teeming with life…We’re still discovering them,” Gianni said.

He added that because of how the gradual flow of the deep sea’s ecosystem, many of those changes won’t be noticed until many decades later.

“We hope that we should learn by now from our past mistakes,” Gianni said. “There’s a lot of value to keeping it natural, exploring it, understanding what the deep ocean is…rather than just going in blind, extracting metals until we can’t get any more build cars. And then, oops, in 30, 50, [or] 100 years, future generations will say that was a big mistake.”

The concerns about deep sea mining have already prompted companies such as Google and Microsoft to make pledges that they would not use minerals from those kinds of operations.

Gianni’s group is one of many environmental organizations that have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, contending that the environmental risks outweigh the ecological rewards.

Barron defended his company’s plans from the criticism and contended that their latest processes will not have long-term negative impacts on the seabed.

In addition, he said his company is taking a hard look at how their presence will affect the CCZ and are willing to amend its plan.

“We’ve always said if the scientific evidence points to the fact that we shouldn’t be doing this, then we stop. That’s part of exploration,” Barron said.

Gianni contended that mining companies are rushing the process because of the increase in demand for rechargeable batteries but said that recycling older minerals will play a key role in reducing the amount of mining in the future.

He argued that more patience would go a long way to solving both environmental issues.

“We need the foresight to say let’s prevent this problem from happening before it starts taking place,” Gianni said.

Washington Monument closed after being vandalized with obscenities, red paint

September 21, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Washington Monument has been temporarily closed after a man vandalized the national landmark with profanities and red paint.

The incident occurred on Tuesday evening when the unnamed male suspect splashed the base of the historical monument with red paint and wrote an obscene message across the side of the structure.

“The United States Park Police has an adult male in custody for vandalizing the base of the Washington Monument with paint,” the United States Park Police said in a statement obtained by ABC News. “The area at the base of the monument will be temporarily closed.”

It is currently unclear what the motivation behind the vandalism was or if the message scrawled on the base of the monument was targeting anybody specific.

“National Park Service conservators will work on the restoration process,” said the United States Park Police.

Authorities did not say how long the restoration process would take or how long the tourist attraction is expected to be closed to the public.

The investigation is currently ongoing and authorities will not be releasing any more information at this time.

The Washington Monument, completed in 1884, stands at 555 feet tall and was once the tallest structure in the world from 1884 to 1889 before it was overtaken in height by the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The historical obelisk is named after the first president of the United States and attracts over 600,000 visitors a year.

UN chief warns of ‘colossal global dysfunction’ but urges world to unite on sweeping solutions

September 20, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As global leaders descend on New York City for the annual U.N. General Assembly, the body’s Secretary-General António Guterres issued a dire warning in an opening speech on Tuesday: “Our world is in big trouble.”

“Divides are growing deeper. Inequalities are growing wider,” he said. “And challenges are spreading farther.”

The annual gathering of high-level diplomats in the General Assembly is the first to happen in a fully in-person format since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s the first to take place since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — an international conflict that has drawn deep divides between the organization’s most powerful members, sparking calls for the U.N. to be reformed and prompting questions about whether it can still serve its stated purpose “to maintain international peace and security.”

Guterres alluded to these fractures in his address Tuesday, arguing they undercut the organization’s work.

“We are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction,” he said. “The international community is not ready or willing to tackle the big dramatic challenges of our age. These crises threaten the very future of humanity and the fate of our planet. Our world is in peril — and paralyzed.”

Overcoming those major challenges, he said, depended on cooperation.

“Let’s work as one, as a coalition of the world, as united nations,” he urged.

Hunger on the horizon

While much of Guterres’ speech was devoted to outlining the problems facing the planet, he sought to remind the audience that the U.N. was still capable of finding solutions.

Large projectors in the room displayed a picture of a ship called Brave Commander that Guterres called “an image of promise and hope.” Laden with grain and flying the blue-and-white flag of the U.N., the vessel was the first to leave Ukrainian ports since the outbreak of Russia’s invasion, navigating Black Sea trade routes to bring its badly needed cargo to the Horn of Africa thanks to an agreement Guterres played a pivotal part in brokering.

“Some might call it a miracle at sea. In truth, it is multilateral diplomacy in action,” he said, calling the dozens of ships that have followed in Brave Commander’s path a testament to what can be accomplished through cooperation.

But while that safe passage deal is allowing grain exports to ameliorate the global food crisis, Guterres warned there was another on the horizon due to a shortage in fertilizer — saying that while the current problems can be chalked up to distribution issues, the world’s hunger may soon be the result of not having enough to go around at all.

“Without action now, the global fertilizer shortage will quickly morph into a global food shortage,” he said.

The secretary-general then alluded to the U.N.’s next major initiative: a proposal to export Russian fertilizer components through Ukraine.

“It is essential to continue removing all remaining obstacles to the export of Russian fertilizers and their ingredients, including ammonia. These products are not subject to sanctions, and we are making progress in eliminating indirect effects,” Guterres said.

The U.N. separately says it is “pursuing all efforts” to maximize fertilizer output, but the clock is ticking. The body’s trade negotiator advises that shortages need to be addressed in October and November before the window for the northern hemisphere’s planting season closes.

Dire problems, drastic plans

The secretary-general on Tuesday also spoke to the even broader-sweeping challenges of the day, and advocated for even more ambitious — or, to some, radical — plans to address them. “We need action across the board. Let’s have no illusions,” he said. “Our planet is burning,”

Guterres called not only for initiatives to address the root causes of damage to the environment but also to compensate developing countries that bear the brunt of those problems.

“Polluters must pay,” he said. “Today, I am calling on all developed economies to tax the ‘windfall’ profits of fossil fuel companies. Those funds should be re-directed in two ways: to countries suffering loss and damage caused by the climate crisis, and to people struggling with rising food and energy prices.”

Guterres argued that the climate crisis was fueling “a once-in-a-generation global cost-of-living crisis” that could only be remedied through radical change.

“Today’s global financial system was created by rich countries to serve their interests. It expands and entrenches inequalities. It requires deep structural reform,” he said. “The divergence between developed and developing countries — between North and South, between the privileged and the rest — is becoming more dangerous by the day. It is at the root of the geopolitical tensions.”

The U.S. agenda

While President Joe Biden isn’t scheduled to take part in the summit until Wednesday, Guterres’ speech mentioned a number of other items that coincide with the White House’s priority list.

On nonproliferation, the secretary-general noted that “a nuclear deal with Iran remains elusive.”

The Biden administration, with help from the European Union, has been embroiled in months of indirect negotiations with Tehran over returning to an Obama-era nuclear pact that then-President Donald Trump scrapped in 2018. But talks appear to have stalled again. Although a high-level delegation from Iran will participate in the General Assembly, there are no planned meetings with any U.S. officials.

While addressing women’s rights, Guterres also hit on a domestic matter: the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The U.N. women’s rights committee has previously denounced the landmark ruling which reversed the national access to abortion in the U.S., calling “access to reproductive rights is at the core of women and girls’ autonomy and ability to make their own choices about their bodies and lives, free of discrimination, violence and coercion.”

More broadly, Guterres said that gender inequality is “going backwards” and “women’s lives are getting worse, from poverty, to choices around sexual and reproductive health, to their personal security.”

Jackson, Mississippi, residents sue officials over water crisis

September 20, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(JACKSON, Miss.) — As Jackson, Mississippi, continues efforts to recover from the city’s water crisis this summer, residents have filed a class action lawsuit against former and current city officials, as well as infrastructure engineering companies, for their alleged role in neglecting or worsening a “foreseeable” public health crisis, according to the filed complaint.

Raine Becker, one of four named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told ABC News she was unaware of the ongoing water issues in Jackson when she moved there two years ago. Becker says her first experience with these problems came in 2021 when winter storms left her without water for two weeks.

After a failing water treatment plant led to low water pressure and the contamination of Jackson’s water supply last month, Becker says she was left wondering how she would pay her bills and care for her seven-year-old son Shylar, who is terminally ill.

“I pick up people’s laundry…bring it to my house, wash it, dry it, fold it, and bring it back. Two days without water meant two days without a paycheck,” she said. “So now I’m being hit professionally and personally.”

Becker told ABC News that Shylar, who she says was born with a heart defect and developed terminal liver disease, has a feeding tube that requires sanitary water to flush it. Using contaminated water could have fatal consequences, she says.

“If I had been flushing with the water we were given through the tap, we might be in a whole different predicament right now. Like that would hospitalize him, potentially kill him,” she said. “It’s important and imperative that we have clean, safe water. I mean for everybody, not just because I have a sick child. This is a human right.”

Becker said that while she does not want to minimize the impact of officials’ efforts to mitigate the crisis, including offering state-run water distribution sites, residents should not have to rely on them.

“I feel like they were reactive instead of proactive,” she said. “And the second they knew there was a problem–the second they knew there was an issue whether it was with the plant or the pipes, they should have looked into fixing it then and they didn’t and they failed to protect us.”

Mississippi ended its boil water notice for all of Jackson’s residents on Sept. 15, nearly two weeks after water pressure returned to the state capital’s residents after days of a water shortage crisis that impacted thousands of Jacksonians.

The complaint names the City of Jackson; Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba; former mayor Tony Yarber; former public works directors Kishia Powell, Robert Miller and Jerriot Smash; Siemens Corporation, Siemens Industry and Trilogy Engineering Services as defendants.

Spokespersons for Lumumba, Powell, Miller, and Siemens declined to comment when reached by ABC News.

Yarber, Smash, and Trilogy Engineering did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.

Lumumba spoke with “ABC News Prime” last month about the roots of this water crisis, which he said has been unfolding over several years.

Mark Chalos, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, is one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He told ABC News that the water system’s failure last month “is not a surprise and shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone in connection with running the Jackson water system.”

Plaintiffs are seeking damages and relief including regular water testing, removal of contaminated pipes, cancellation of bills and debts for contaminated or undelivered water and community health centers for those affected by contaminated water, according to the complaint.

Chalos says he and his clients ultimately hope that the lawsuit pushes officials to resolve the water system’s issues entirely and immediately.

Becker says she hopes officials have a structured plan to prevent this from happening again.

“I have faith and I believe that hopefully they will actually fix this,” Becker said. “I hope nobody else ever has to go through this. This has been horrible. It’s been costly. It’s had a lot of bad effects. And so I hope that they can learn from this and grow from this.”

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