While cases of malnutrition doubled in the four years to 2014, there
has been a rise in diseases that were rife in the Victorian era such as
scurvy, scarlet fever, cholera and whooping cough Corbis
Cases
of malnutrition and other “Victorian” diseases are soaring in England,
in what campaigners said was a result of cuts to social services and
rising food poverty.
NHS statistics show that 7,366 people were
admitted to hospital with a primary or secondary diagnosis of
malnutrition between August 2014 and July this year, compared with 4,883
cases in the same period from 2010 to 2011 – a rise of more than 50 per
cent in just four years.
Cases of other diseases rife in the
Victorian era including scurvy, scarlet fever, cholera and whooping
cough have also increased since 2010, although cases of TB, measles,
typhoid and rickets have fallen.
Chris Mould, chairman of the
Trussell Trust, which runs a nationwide network of foodbanks, said they
saw “tens of thousands of people who have been going hungry, missing
meals and cutting back on the quality of the food they buy”.
The shocking impact of recession and austerity on England’s poorest
people has come to light again in figures showing the number of
malnutrition cases treated at NHS hospitals has nearly doubled since the
economic downturn Rex
The
shocking impact of recession and austerity on England’s poorest people
has come to light again in figures showing the number of malnutrition
cases treated at NHS hospitals has nearly doubled since the economic
downturn.
Primary and secondary diagnoses of malnutrition – caused
by lack of food or very poor diet – rose from 3,161 in 2008/09 to 5,499
last year, according to figures released by the health minister Norman
Lamb.
While the data does not include information on the
circumstances of each diagnosis, the rise coincides with a dramatic
increase in the cost of living, and a spike in demand for charity food
hand-outs.
The figures, broken down by region, reveal the heaviest
burden of hunger is being felt in rural areas. Hospitals in Somerset
saw the most cases, with 215 diagnoses, followed by Cornwall and Scilly
Isles.
Hopes are dimming that Congress will intervene to block a hugeMedicare
premium increase of over 50 percent for nearly a third of the 50
million elderly Americans who receive their physician care and other
health services through Medicare Part D.
Republicans and Democrats
are deadlocked over how to come up with roughly $10.5 billion to
prevent Medicare premiums from skyrocketing for millions of seniors
beginning next January. The looming increase is the result of a quirk in
the law that drives up premiums for wealthier Americans and poor people
with chronic medical problems in years when the Social Security
Administration doesn’t approve a cost-of-living adjustment for
beneficiaries.
Related: Millions Face a 50 % Medicare Premium Hike If Obama and Congress Don’t Act
While
both parties are interested in doing something to reduce or avert the
premium hikes, Republicans are demanding that the cost of any bailout be
offset by cuts in other areas of the Medicare program, while Democrats
are resisting that approach. Moreover, there is a division between House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) – a major champion of a bailout –
and some Senate Democratic leaders who are less enthusiastic about the
effort and how to pay for it.
“It’s a big mess,” said one Washington health care expert who is following the negotiations closely.
Negotiations
may pick up later this month once the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services formally releases its official 2016 premium rates, according
to a report on Thursday by the Morning Consult.
No
need to get shirty! Air France executive is forced to climb a fence
after staff attack him and rip off his shirt when he announces 2,900 job
losses
Air France executives attacked after staff stormed company headquarters
Company plans to cut 2,900 jobs and 14 aircraft from its long-haul fleet
HR vice president and long-haul flights deputy had their shirts torn off
Published: 08:46 EST, 5 October 2015 | Updated: 13:17 EST, 5 October 2015
Air
France managers have been forced to flee the company's headquarters
after being attacked by a baying mob of workers that tore their clothes
off.
Hundreds of angry staff stormed
the Air France building at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport
in Roissy, near Paris, after the company announced plans to cut 2,900
jobs on Monday.
Two senior executives,
Xavier Broseta, Vice President for Human Resources, and Pierre
Plissonnier, deputy of Air France long-haul flights, both had their
shirts ripped off their backs as they were evacuated through the crowds.
Under
attack: A shirtless Xavier Broseta, Executive Vice President for Human
Resources at Air France, is evacuated by security after employees
interrupted a meeting with representatives staff at the Air France
headquarters building at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in
Roissy, near Paris
Shortly before
the attack, Mr Broseta and Air France Chief Executive Frederic Gagey
had outlined a drastic cost cutting plan, which would see 2,900 jobs cut
by 2017.
The cuts include 1,700 ground staff, 900 cabin crew and 300 pilots, as part of efforts to lower costs, two union sources said.
Air
France also confirmed in the meeting that it plans to shed 14 aircraft
from its long-haul fleet, reducing the business by ten per cent, and
that it wants to cancel its order for Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
This
outraged staff, who are already at loggerheads with the company, and
hundreds stormed the building, interrupting the meeting.
Mr Broseta and Mr Plissonnier were aided by security as they tried to escape the baying mob
Oshkosh Corp. announced it would lay off 700 hourly positions starting in June and 60 salaried jobs by July in its defense segment.
Most
of the salaried positions are temporary employees and people who are
retiring. Following the cuts, Oshkosh Defense will have about 1,850
employees. The cuts reflect the reduction in defense spending by the
U.S., which is returning to peacetime operations, said John Urias, executive vice president and president of Oshkosh Defense.
“We
have gone to great lengths to minimize and delay the impact of the
reduced spending on our Defense workforce," Urias said. "We explored and
implemented a range of alternatives from not filling open positions to
bringing in outside contracted work as promised in earlier discussions
with the UAW, which represents our production employees, as well as
continuing to pursue relevant international opportunities.”
Posted Tuesday, April 9, 2013 --- 1:40 p.m.
OSHKOSH,
Wis. (AP) -- Defense contractor Oshkosh Corp. plans to lay off 900
people this summer as military vehicle orders decline.
The
Oshkosh-based company says it will begin laying off 700 hourly employees
in mid-June, with 200 salaried employees to be laid off by the end of
July.
Company leaders say production is declining as the military continues to wind down from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Originally Published: April 01, 2014 3:17 PM Modified: April 03, 2014 11:09 AM
Two
defense ground vehicle manufacturers with a Michigan footprint have
received production awards worth more than $120 million combined, to
build several hundred new vehicles or vehicle components by late 2015.
Sterling Heights-based General Dynamics Land Systems reported today it has received a $74.7 million contract from the U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va. for “egress upgrade kits” to improve its fleet of Cougar infantry vehicles.
The company’s Force Protection subsidiary, created when GDLS acquired Ladson, S.C.-based Force Protection Inc. in 2011, will develop and produce 916 egress kits for the Cougar by September 2015 under that contract.
Republican lawmakers cried foul Friday night over an Obama administration proposal to cut payment rates to private insurers who administer Medicare Advantage, a popular alternative to the government-run health program for seniors.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a proposed cut of 3.55 percent to insurers like Humana Inc. and United HealthGroup Inc., although the reductions would not become final until spring.
Although not a
surprise, the proposed cuts come after an intense lobbying effort by
the insurance industry against slashing rates, citing the potential for
higher costs to seniors, and GOP lawmakers this year are sure to use the cuts as further ammo against the Affordable Care Act and its Democratic supporters.
“The health law cut more than $300 billion from the popular Medicare
Advantage program, potentially forcing hundreds of thousands of
beneficiaries to find new health care plans, despite the president’s
promise,” said Rep. Joe Pitts,
Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of a House panel on health. “The
cuts announced today will only exacerbate the effect this will have
on the health care of millions of our nation’s seniors, leaving them
with higher costs and fewer choices.”
About 15 million people, or slightly less than a third of all Medicare recipients, are enrolled Medicare Advantage plans, while the rest rely on the government’s fee-for-service model to reimburse doctors. CMS officials insisted late Friday that the program is on the right course. It said Medicare
Advantage premiums have fallen by 10 percent since the Affordable
Care Act passed in 2010, while enrollment has increased to an all-time
high 15 million enrollees.
“We believe that plans will continue their strong participation in the Medicare
Advantage program in 2015 and beneficiaries will continue to have a
wide array of high quality, high value, low cost options available to
them while at the same time we are making certain that plans are
providing value to Medicare and taxpayers,” said Jonathan Blum, CMS’s principal deputy administrator.
On
Sunday, members of the Machinists Union District 837 in St. Louis will
vote on a new seven-and-a-half-year contract extension, similar to what
Machinists in Washington state barely approved on January 3 to win
production of the 777X airliner.
One thing in common is that the
St. Louis Machinists are also being asked to move away from a
traditional pension plan to a 401k style “defined contribution plan.”
In those plans employee contributions into a retirement fund are matched
by the company, with the money invested in things like stocks and
bonds. That move has been met with anger and resistance in the Puget
Sound.
The St. Louis labor agreement was announced Wednesday night
and is being recommended by the leadership for passage. Unlike the
Puget Sound region of Washington, which is seeing a booming business in
airliner production, St. Louis factories are focused on fighter jets and
military hardware and are struggling with tighter defense budgets.
Right
now production of the F-18 Super Hornet is slated to end in just two
years in 2016 unless more orders can be found. Boeing is expected to
make the case to the Pentagon that by lowering the relative price of the
jets with a new labor deal it can bring in more business and secure
jobs. The plant also makes big parts for the C-17 cargo jet for the U.S.
Air Force that is slated to shut down in late 2015. Boeing assembles
the C-17 in Long Beach, California. Read More Here
Our
aging infrastructure earned a D+ overall in the American Society of
Civil Engineers' annual report card. Here are the main culprits.
1 of 12
Pressing problems
All
things being equal, it would be better for the country to have less
debt. Nobody seriously disputes this, but the fact is that all things
are not now, and are never really, equal. Today there is a strong
argument that it is a wise time to make a strategic investment in U.S.
infrastructure by adding to the country's debt while interest rates
remain extremely low.
The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report
for 2013-2014 ranked the United States a respectable No. 5 in term of
overall competitiveness. But our prospects for the future are clouded by
an infrastructure ranking that barely cracks the top 20.
On
multiple ratings, the U.S. came out on top in exactly one category: the
availability of airline travel. Other than that, rankings on the quality
of roads (18th), rail (17th), ports (16th) and other measures show it
trailing many of its international competitors.
Earlier this year, the American Society of Civil Engineers issued its annual infrastructure report card,
and awarded the U.S. a D+ for infrastructure. You can discount the
ASCE's findings as you please, considering the fact that civil
engineers, as a whole, benefit from increased infrastructure spending,
but the numbers are hard to argue with.
A few highlights from the report:
One
in four bridges in the U.S. today are either structurally deficient,
meaning that their condition has deteriorated to the point that they
require annual safety inspections to remain open, or functionally
obsolete, which means that they were built to such a low standard that
they would be illegal to build today.
"Almost half of America's
public school buildings were built to educate the baby boomers – a
generation that is now retiring from the workforce," the report found.
Meanwhile, annual spending on school construction fell to $10 billion in
2012, down 50 percent from pre-recession levels.
Congestion alone on U.S. highways costs the economy $101 billion in fuel and lost productivity every year.
The scene of a bridge collapse on Interstate 5 on May 23, 2013, near
Mt. Vernon, Wash. The interstate connects Seattle to Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada.
| Stephen Brashear via Getty Images
WASHINGTON -- Bridgegate has been a nightmare for New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie (R), but it could have one upside for the rest of
America: The scandal has refocused desperately needed attention on the
New York metropolitan area's traffic bottlenecks and, more generally,
the perilous state of America's bridges.
For years, leading transportation experts have been sounding the
alarm over the country's aging infrastructure, warning that many bridges
-- primarily those built during or before the Eisenhower administration
-- struggle to handle today's traffic demands.
The George Washington Bridge at the center of the Christie scandal is not on the most endangered list, although it is undergoing some major work.
But the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has identified
thousands of other bridges in poor condition that could present dangers
to commuters.
In recent years, two highway bridges have actually collapsed. A bridge along Interstate 5 in Washington state
failed in 2013 after it was struck by a truck. No fatalities were
reported, but traffic between Seattle and Vancouver was redirected for
nearly four months. In 2007, a bridge along Interstate 35 in Minnesota collapsed, killing 13 people. It was more than a year before a new bridge opened.
The state of New Jersey, Christie's domain, has 6,554 bridges in all,
and 651 of them are considered structurally deficient -- meaning they
are either deteriorating or severely damaged. More than one-quarter of
them are considered functionally obsolete, meaning they no longer meet
current standards, according to the ASCE. In New York state, 2,168
bridges out of 17,420 have been found to be structurally deficient, and
4,718 bridges are functionally obsolete.
The ASCE estimates that more than 200 million trips are taken across
structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges every day in 102
metropolitan regions nationwide. One in nine of the nation’s 607,380
bridges are rated as structurally deficient, while the average age of
bridges nationwide is 42 years, according to an analysis by the ASCE. In
its authoritative report card for 2013, the group gave the country's bridges an overall C+ grade.
As
Congress wrangles with whether to restore long-term unemployment
benefits, North Carolina is already experiencing the hardship likely to
unfold unless the program is restored
Theresa Whidbee-Walker first found the Food
Bank of the Albemarle as a customer and returns now to volunteer.
Photograph: James Robinson
Eight hours may seem a long time to wait for a meal. But the line of
cars that formed in a derelict parking lot in Hertford, North Carolina,
early last Thursday morning, full of people waiting for a few cans of
soup and some pasta from a local food bank, was nothing unusual. Almost
every morning now, there is a line like that somewhere in North
Carolina.
From a distance, the rows of cars look innocuous enough. But they are
a symbol of the desperation that has gotten worse in North Carolina
since July, when a swathe of cuts to unemployment benefits made it
arguably the worst state in the US to be out of work.
The cars appeared in Hertford shortly before 8am, though the truck
bringing the food was not scheduled to arrive until 4pm. Volunteers who
hand out the food said it is not uncommon for cars to start lining up
before dawn.
“I had a man the other day who said: ‘All I want is a bar of soap,’”
said Laura Williams, a volunteer at the storage depot in nearby
Elizabeth City. “Another man came in here and said: ‘Can you get me some
toilet paper? I’ve been having to use coffee filters.’”
She added: “We get that a lot – people asking for toilet paper. But
we can’t stock too much of that as we’ve got to concentrate on canned
food.”
Washington has this month been dominated by a political fight over
whether to restore a federal benefits program for the long-term
unemployed, which was allowed to expire on 28 December, cutting off a
lifeline to more than 1.4 million Americans. The White House and
Democrats want to reinstate the benefits. Republicans are reluctant.
What North Carolina is currently experiencing is a foretaste of the
economic story likely to unfold across the country unless the federal
benefits are restored.
The people in line on Thursday constituted a cross-section of
America’s poor. Of those who wound down their windows and agreed to
talk, the eldest was 77, the youngest 19. They included pensioners,
students, people working for minimum wage and some who had recently been
laid off. They were there so early, and willing to wait so long,
because they wanted to increase their chances of receiving perishable
items rather than just canned goods. Get a spot near the front of the
line, and you might get some fresh vegetables, bread, or even some
frozen chicken.
Charles Christman has been volunteering at
the Food Bank of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City, North Carolina for the
past three years. Photograph: James Robinson
By 4pm, there were more than 100 cars in the dilapidated parking lot
– once a bustling shopping mall. At the very front were Floyd Liston,
59, and his friend, Bobby Bass, 65. Their story was not atypical.
Bass is retired after years working in a cotton mill. Liston, a
diabetic, worked all his life but had to give up in 2011 after a routine
blister on his foot deteriorated. Married with two daughters, Liston
didn’t have health insurance and did not visit a doctor until it was too
late. “The infection had eaten all the bone. They told me to go to the
hospital and that night they took my leg off,” he said.
In February, in an attempt to address a $2bn debt that it owed the
federal government, North Carolina passed a law that slashed both the
number of weeks for which a job-seeker can receive state benefits and
reduced the amount that it pays out in unemployment, from $535 a week to
$350.
In doing so, North Carolina knowingly violated a contract with the
federal government, resulting in the automatic cutting off of federal
assistance for the long-term unemployed. The changes, which came into
effect in July, therefore didn’t just cut the amount of support that
people who lost their jobs received from their government by a third, it
also meant the maximum length of time they could receive such benefits
plummeted from 99 weeks to just 19.
“What happened in North Carolina was one the harshest cuts in
unemployment benefits we’ve ever seen in this country,” said Mike
Evangelist, a policy director at the National Employment Law Project.
"Nothing I know of compares to it."
The precise impact of the benefits reduction in North Carolina is
difficult to discern, said Larry Katz, a Harvard professor. But he and
other economists have recently been pointing to figures that hint at an
alarming phenomena: people have been dropping out of an already bleak
labor market, and in record numbers.
Since July, when the cuts came into force, North Carolina has
experienced the largest contraction in its labor force since
record-keeping began in 1977. Remarkably, the sharp decline in the
workforce in North Carolina, which has a population of 9.75 million, has
even altered the national picture.
Timothy Littke, 55, from Lumberton, gave up looking for work in North
Carolina in October. He was laid off from his job building hog feeders
in June, a month before the benefits cuts kicked in.
He has since relocated to live with his daughter in Pittsburgh. The
story of Littke’s departure says much about about deprivation in his old
home of Lumberton – a small city in the south of the state which, by
one measure, is the poorest in America.
Shown is a home destroyed in
the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, in which one side of the San Fernando fault
moved as much as 8 feet. About 80% of the buildings along the fault
suffered moderate to severe damage, illustrating the risks of building
atop faults.
(Los Angeles Times)
By Rong-Gong Lin II and Rosanna Xia
January 9, 2014, 3:17 p.m.
Gov. Jerry Brown
is proposing a sharp increase in the state budget to map earthquake
faults in California, after months of reports about how the state’s
effort has been hobbled by budget cuts over the last two decades. Brown is seeking
enough money from lawmakers to increase the number of scientists who
find earthquake faults from one to four -- a staffing number not seen in
20 years. Brown’s plan calls for $1.49 million in new funding
specifically for fault mapping for the next fiscal year. It also asks
for $1.3 million in annual dedicated funding, which would be paid for
with increased building permit fees.
The slow pace of mapping
affects public safety. State law bans new construction on top of
fissures because previous quakes have shown that buildings can be
severely damaged during violent shaking.
Because the state has not finished placing zones around about 2,000
miles of earthquake faults, many communities across the state have had
limited information about the seismic risks of new development. Among
them are the San Diego Bay area, the San Gabriel Valley, Hollywood and
Los Angeles' Westside.
