“in 2022, the death rate for American infants increased for the first time in 20 years.”
…
“rates of congenital syphilis — that is, syphilis infections acquired in the womb — have risen tenfold over the past decade.
Although a lot of different risk factors drive each of these trends, there’s an important one they have in common: bad — and worsening — health care access for mothers and babies.
In the US, the obstacles mothers face in accessing health care are too often insurmountable — and as this latest data shows, the consequences to American children are dire. Things might only get worse, some experts fear, as financial, political, and social pressures drive providers further from many of the places where they’re needed most.
“We only are hearing about more [obstetricians] leaving and more maternity wards closing,” said Tracey Wilkinson, a pediatrician who specializes in reproductive health issues at Indiana University’s medical school. “I am terrified about what the data is going to look like next year.””
“Biden administration officials are increasingly at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over how it is conducting its military assault on Hamas and how the two countries envision the political future of Gaza, current and former U.S. officials say.
Amid dire scenes from hospitals in Gaza and a rising civilian death toll, frustration is building among administration officials who have repeatedly appealed to Netanyahu and his government to take more action to protect Palestinian civilians and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“We are concerned that they aren’t doing everything possible to reduce civilian casualties,” said one administration official. The comments came as Israeli forces moved in on Gaza City’s main hospital, where they said Hamas militants have been operating from an underground command center.
The friction between the two governments is over crucial long-term questions about who will govern the Palestinian enclave after Israel completes its military offensive. That includes the role of the Palestinian Authority — which currently governs the West Bank — and reviving diplomatic efforts for a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state, current and former officials said.
“There’s a looming gap between the U.S. and Israel on where we’re going to be in a month or two,” one former U.S. official said.
Although the U.S. and Israel have tried to present a united front publicly, the divide was exposed after Netanyahu last week said that Israel would have a security role in Gaza for an indefinite period.
Less than 24 hours later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed back, making it clear the U.S. would not accept any suggestion of a reoccupation of the Gaza Strip or a blockade of the enclave.
The U.S. believes there can be “no reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict, hence, no attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza,” and “no reduction in the territory of Gaza,” Blinken said during a visit to Tokyo.
Blinken also laid out his most detailed vision yet for the future of Gaza, saying it “must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
The Palestinian Authority, which was pushed out of Gaza by its rivals in Hamas, administers semiautonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The U.S. and other world powers view the Palestinian Authority, which is internationally recognized but lacks strong popular support, as the only realistic alternative to Hamas, which the U.S. and other Western nations considers a terrorist organization.
Netanyahu, in turn, brushed off Blinken’s proposal, telling NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that Gaza needed to be demilitarized and deradicalized and any Palestinian force including the Palestinian Authority was not up to the job.”
Rationale for the Iraq War Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War Why did Bush go to war in Iraq? Ashan Butt. 2019 3 20. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/3/20/why-did-bush-go-to-war-in-iraq Why did the United States Invade Iraq in 2003? Ashan Butt. 2019. Security Studies. https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/89641191/09636412.2019.155156720220814-1-uz8wfd-libre.pdf?1660496228=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DWhy_did_the_United_States_Invade_Iraq_in.pdf&Expires=1693797172&Signature=BfD8JRrPuARntWjOy87ELopJBqw6XpZOTSgqNcTcXRzsMj2VGJ5GF3UzLDQLBkNH10u8BbyyYP68FPIRlEUoGBmNy8DU5Vj59NgDkusa2DNN44CQ1~9wFiQuD~8uv-utf5NLDliM0GYyDZ8r3mjYxyDUYnVAcq3KGMLzoJY-NcDlPAy65sWcMH05fVfkmCtnsSiSkC-~2bwkl8vmJ8UT0ATyC10SxHlSu6YAMKCQjOUODnK2lXq~EKGejeNg2y4R33rhlVzzUMGbl97JJ6B7Pb5TfTNC7q2AycwInP8V7qTg4hFBQaJU0gk-LMOAqxW2GkDp09Uu-FGGsYyEy1w5Ng__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA The Idea of an
“The Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah has obtained Russian anti-ship missiles capable of targeting US carrier groups posted near Israel, Reuters reported.
In a speech last week Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah issued a veiled threat to the US, saying that the militant group had weapons capable of striking US warships in the region to deter attacks on Israel.
Reuters, citing unnamed sources, said that Nasrallah was talking about Russian Yakhont missiles which Hezbollah obtained while fighting alongside Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the Syrian civil war.
The missiles have a range of around 186 miles, and can be launched from ground, sea or air.
Speaking about the possibility that Hezbollah had acquired the weapons, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters: “This is news without any confirmation at all. We do not know if it is true or not.”
A US official told the outlet: “We’re obviously paying a lot of attention to that… and we’re taking what capabilities they have seriously.””
“The U.S. conducted a high-explosive experiment at a nuclear test site in Nevada hours after Russia revoked a ban on atomic-weapons testing, which Moscow said would put it on par with the United States.
Wednesday’s test used chemicals and radioisotopes to “validate new predictive explosion models” that can help detect atomic blasts in other countries, Bloomberg reported, citing the Department of Energy.
“These experiments advance our efforts to develop new technology in support of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation goals,” Corey Hinderstein, Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in a statement. “They will help reduce global nuclear threats by improving the detection of underground nuclear explosive tests.”
“U.S. fighter jets launched airstrikes early Friday on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pentagon said, in retaliation for a slew of drone and missile attacks against U.S. bases and personnel in the region that began early last week.
The U.S. strikes reflect the Biden administration’s determination to maintain a delicate balance. The U.S. wants to hit Iranian-backed groups suspected of targeting the U.S. as strongly as possible to deter future aggression, possibly fueled by Israel’s war against Hamas, while also working to avoid inflaming the region and provoking a wider conflict.
According to a senior U.S. military official, the precision strikes were carried out near Boukamal by two F-16 fighter jets, and they struck weapons and ammunition storage areas that were connected to the IRGC. The official said there had been Iranian-aligned militia and IRGC personnel on the base and no civilians, but the U.S. does not have any information yet on casualties or an assessment of damage.”