Why Most Gun Laws Aren’t Backed Up By Evidence

“The Dickey Amendment, first attached to the 1996 omnibus spending bill, for example, famously prevented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from funding gun violence studies for decades. A new interpretation of that amendment in 2018 changed that, but Dickey wasn’t the only thing making it hard to study gun violence.
Instead, the researchers told me, the biggest impediment to demonstrating whether gun control policies work is the way politicians have intentionally blocked access to the data that would be necessary to do that research.”

Who Is Nikki Haley, Trump’s First Major Challenger?

“A Pew Research Center report published in 2021 found that the share of American adults ages 25 to 54 who are married fell by almost 15 percentage points between 1990 and 2019, from 67 percent to 53 percent. The rising share of unmarried

Who’s feeding the world? We are, say both Ukraine and Russia, as war rages on

“In peacetime, Ukraine’s food exports were enough to feed 400 million people. Its farmers supplied a tenth of the wheat and half the sunflower oil sold on world markets. Its shipments of grains and oilseeds through the Black Sea fell to zero last March, from 5.7 million metric tons in February.
For net importers the impact was immediate and direct. Egypt and Libya had imported two-thirds of their cereals from Russia and Ukraine, for instance. Other countries were hit by the fallout: Prices shot up, first in response to the invasion, and again as countries like India imposed bans on grain exports.

“One of the cruelest ways in which Putin has used the weapons of war to impose costs on people around the world is the ways in which his early blockade of Black Sea ports raised prices for hungry people in dozens of countries around the world,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a close ally of President Joe Biden and who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview.

Coons noted the U.N., Turkey and Ukraine’s work to forge the Black Sea grain deal has reduced some of the overwhelming strain on global food prices, “but not enough yet.”

In Ukraine, farmers could not sell their crops after a bumper harvest before the war left grain stores brimming. The next harvest, already in the ground, had nowhere to go, said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The standstill to exports also endangered the home front. Before the war, almost half of the country’s budget stemmed from exports, and nearly half of those exports were agricultural, according to Dmytro Los of the Ukrainian Business and Trade Association. “So don’t forget that, during the war, we lost almost 45-50 percent of GDP,” Los said.

To stave off starvation abroad and rescue Ukrainian farmers, the EU set up overland “solidarity lanes” to help bring food exports out through Eastern Europe. And, in July, the U.N. and Turkey mediated the deal to allow safe passage for Ukrainian food shipments through the Black Sea.

Some 21.5 million tons of Ukrainian produce have been transported under the initiative, enabling the World Food Programme to deliver valuable aid to countries like Ethiopia and Afghanistan.

This has helped ease some of the pressure on global food prices — although they remain high — while ensuring Ukraine’s agriculture sector, a leading driver of its economy, doesn’t collapse.

“It’s very important for Ukraine, but it is even more important for the world,” said Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian MP who represents Odesa — one of the few ports covered under the current agreement.

As talks resume this week, the fate of the grain deal hangs in the balance. Both sides have plenty of gripes.”

Biden to replace Trump migration policy with Trump-esque asylum policy

“As the White House gears up for the end of one Trump-era border policy this spring, it has its sights set on resurrecting a version of another much-maligned immigration program put in place under the previous administration.
The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice on Tuesday announced a proposed rule that will bar some migrants from applying for asylum in the U.S. if they cross the border illegally or fail to first apply for safe harbor in another country. The rule was previewed by President Joe Biden in January. Following a 30-day public comment period, it will be implemented upon the May 11 end of the Covid public health emergency, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters.

May 11 is also the end date of the Title 42 public health order currently being used to bar entry to most migrants at the southern border. The rule announced on Tuesday would stay in place for two years following its effective date.”

“Administration officials also used Tuesday’s announcement to criticize Congress, arguing that the White House has been left to roll out new policies to fill the “void” left by inaction on the Hill.

“To be clear, this was not our first preference or even our second. From day one, President Biden has urged Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures to ensure orderly, safe and humane processing of migrants at our border,” a senior administration official said.”

The Importance and Misuse of the Labor Force Participation Rate: Bibliography

What Lower Labor Force Participation Rates Tell Us about Work Opportunities and Incentives Joint Economic Committee. 2015 7 15. What’s Happening with Today’s Labor Force? California Workforce Development Board. 2022. What’s behind the US labour shortage? | The Bottom Line Al Jazeera

Why So Many States Want to Ban China From Owning Farmland

“foreign investors hold just 3.1 percent of all privately owned agricultural land in the United States, according to the most recent USDA report, which covers through the end of 2021. The numbers vary by state, but overall, investors from Canada own the most, and foreign-owned land was most often timber or forest.”

“Chinese investors own less than 1 percent of foreign-owned acreage nationwide. The total share of acreage owned by foreign investors and entities has been growing rapidly over the past few decades, but the overall numbers remain small.”