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Just a one-hour plane flight from Miami, the Haitian government is collapsing. Gangs rule virtually every corner and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres says kidnappings happen every day. The future of the country’s presidency and parliament are in doubt, and now there is a cholera outbreak unfolding.
Guterres said this week it is time to send an international specialized armed force to Haiti. He also called on governments, including the U.S., to consider halting deportations of Haitian migrants fleeing the violence.
A U.N. Security Council briefing this week reported:
- 2,100 murders and some 1,300 kidnappings were reported in 2022, and gang violence overall reached levels not seen in decades.
- Dozens of women and children as young as 10 years old have also been brutally raped as a tactic to spread fear and destroy the social fabric of communities under the control of rival gangs.
- In addition, she said, gangs are besieging and displacing whole populations who already live in extreme poverty, by intentionally blocking access to food, water and — amidst a cholera outbreak — health services.
- Nearly five million people face conditions of acute hunger across Haiti, and while most schools are now operating, thousands of children, especially those living in gang affected areas, have yet to start their school year.
Also this week, 20 Republican-led states sued the Biden administration over President Joe Biden’s plans to allow up to 360,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua to enter the United States each year. The state filing the lawsuit are Texas, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Nearly every day, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepts boats loaded with Haitian refugees who are trying to make it the 700 miles to Florida. Often, hundreds of people pack onto 50-foot boats to make the trip.
The counties with the greatest number of Haitians are Miami-Dade County, Broward County and Palm Beach County, all in Florida, and Kings County, New York. Together, these four counties account for 43% of the total Haitian immigrant population in the United States.
(Migration Policy Institute)
Haitians have faced disaster upon tragedy in recent years. Almost a third of the Haitian economy is funded by people living in the U.S. sending aid back to their country of origin. That so-called “remittance” has grown six-fold in the last two decades after the island was hit by earthquakes, hurricanes and political and gang upheaval.
How we misunderstand the best ways to cut our electric bills
The Washington Post comes to the rescue of everyone trying to save on their energy bill without resorting to wearing a winter coat in their living room. The Post’s climate advice columnist, Michael J. Coren, starts by asking whether the old wisdom of our parents still holds true. He found some does … and some does not.
For example, stop prewashing dishes you put in the dishwasher:
The most efficient dishwashers now use close to 2 gallons to clean a load of unrinsed plates. Modern dishwashers are designed to remove dried food on plates, allowing you to wait until the machine is full to run it. Scraping is enough. Just leave room for water sprayers to reach every dish.
What if you only have a few dishes to wash? You might think doing them by hand is less wasteful, but that’s not what research shows, even if you run a half-empty dishwasher, according to Gregory Keoleian, the director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems.
Coren says today’s refrigerators are very efficient and, by some estimates, use a lot less energy even though they got much bigger. In your parents’ day, they were one of the biggest users of power. (My mother used to yell, “Don’t just stand there with your head in the fridge.”) Today’s advice is to set the refrigerator at 37 to 40 degrees and leave it alone. If you have an old inefficient refrigerator in the garage as additional storage, get rid of it. It is sucking up a lot of power. A quarter of U.S. households has a second fridge.
Coren points to new efficiency standards as a key factor in cutting energy use:
After the Trump administration attempted to allow certain models of dishwashers, washing machines and shower heads to use unlimited energy and water, the Biden administration reversed those measures and imposed even stricter ones. Efficiency efforts like these have shaved $500 off the average household’s annual utility bill, and about 7 percent off projected U.S. energy consumption, estimates the Appliance Standards Awareness Project.
On average, the most efficient modern refrigerators use less energy per hour than an old 60-watt incandescent lightbulb. Instead, focus on the half of your home energy that goes to heating or cooling your living spaces and the other 20 percent that runs appliances that pump and heat water, such as dishwashers and water heaters.
Researchers have calculated what Americans believe saves them the most energy. This is the chart they produced:
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
The researchers discovered that the things we think save the most energy really don’t.
For example, turning out lights when leaving the room is often suggested as a way to save energy, but it actually saves very little. Which is not to say it is a bad idea to turn out lights when you are not using them, but with today’s efficient LED lights, that is not the energy sinkhole it might have been in your parents’ day.
Here are some other misconceptions about how we use, misuse and misunderstand energy conservation. Harvard researchers say:
For example, the energy saved by reducing one’s highway speed from 70 to 60 miles per hour on a 60-mile trip was overestimated, consistent with the relatively small amount of energy saved (0.4 gallons of gasoline).
Transporting goods via airplanes consumes more energy than using other modes of transportation, and that the energy difference between trains and ships is small. However, they incorrectly reported that trucks consume approximately as much energy as trains and ships, even though trucks actually consume 10 times more energy per ton-mile.
Participants correctly reported that making a can or bottle from virgin aluminum or glass requires more energy than making the same container from recycled materials. However, they incorrectly reported that making a glass bottle requires less energy than making an aluminum can. In fact, the reverse is true: A glass bottle requires 1.4 times as much energy as an aluminum can when virgin materials are used and 20 times as much energy when recycled materials are used. In part because glass is so heavy, making a recycled glass bottle actually requires more energy than making a virgin aluminum can.
Energy Star says smart thermostats are a significant money saver, maybe saving $100 a year, paying for themselves in 18 months. Front-loading washing machines that do not require hot water are also big energy savers. The big point, Coren reports, is to replace old inefficient appliances. The cost will be offset by the savings if you are using a big appliance that is 15 years old.
When you are laid off from a job you did virtually
Here is an interesting piece from The New York Times that explores the surreal experience of being laid off from a job you did from your living room. For some workers, the experience of losing their job is buffered some by sharing the moment with colleagues, but who do you turn to when you barely know your coworkers because you worked with them virtually?
Americans’ patience with health care is growing thin
A new Gallup poll that measures satisfaction with the entire health care system finds that is at its lowest point in two decades.
(Gallup)
As is often the case with these kinds of polls, the people who use health care services the most, seniors, are the happiest with their care. And, in general, people give very high ratings to their own providers while ranking the system overall much lower.
Journalists who explore the public’s attitude toward health care might zero in on the hottest point of the survey, which is cost. Gallup reports:
Public satisfaction with the total cost of healthcare in the U.S. is fairly typical of what it has been over the past two decades, with just 24% satisfied and 76% dissatisfied.
Perhaps reflecting their increasing concerns about healthcare quality, Americans’ perception that the U.S. healthcare system is in a state of crisis has grown to 20%, the highest since 2013. However, the 68% overall saying it is in crisis or has major problems is similar to the figure in most years from 2002 to 2021.
The only woman on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list
Of the top 529 most wanted fugitives that the FBI listed since 1950, 11 women have made the list. Of the top 10 most wanted on the current FBI list, one is a woman, and I bet you can’t name her.
(FBI)
Some call her the Cryptoqueen. The FBI says she defrauded people out of billions of dollars in investments before disappearing years ago, likely to Eastern Europe.
