‘Raise the age’ gun bill passes Texas committee after months of advocacy by Uvalde families
Niki Griswold, USA TODAY NETWORK – May 9, 2023
In a shocking and last-minute turn of events in Texas, a bill that would raise the minimum age to purchase AR-15 style semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21 passed out of a House committee Monday, advancing the measure hours before a key deadline.
Several Uvalde victims’ relatives burst into sobs and cheers in the Capitol hearing room when two Republicans joined all the Democrats on the committee to advance the bill by an 8-5 vote.
“I’m feeling very overwhelmed, very emotional,” Kimberly Garcia said through tears after the committee vote. Her 10-year-old daughter, Amerie Jo Garza, was one of the 19 fourth graders and two teachers killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24, 2022.
“I was super worried, but I feel like my daughter did this, and I feel like she’s making a difference, and I’m proud of her. I hate that it’s come down to this, but I know that she’s always with me, and I know that I’m not going to let anyone ever forget her,” Garcia said.
Uvalde victims’ relatives have been advocating for lawmakers to pass House Bill 2744 for months, coming to the Capitol nearly every week during the legislative session to demand its passage and even waiting more than 13 hours to testify in support of the bill in a committee hearing in April.
Their unrelenting push for lawmakers to pass gun control legislation has been an uphill battle in a Republican-dominated Legislature that has loosened gun restrictions in recent sessions. Monday’s vote, however, was a significant victory for the families.
As recently as 10 a.m. Monday, Rio Grande City Republican Rep. Ryan Guillen, who chairs the committee where the bill was pending, had said he was not planning to bring the bill up for a vote because he didn’t believe it had the votes to pass in the full House.
But by 11 a.m., after an emotional protest and news conference by the Uvalde families and gun control activists Monday, Guillen changed course.
The Uvalde gunman purchased his AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle legally just days after his 18th birthday, having unsuccessfully tried to acquire one before he was legally old enough to do so under state law.
While Monday’s progress was a major, and unexpected, step forward, the future of the bill remains uncertain. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan previously said he would be willing to let a debate on the bill play out on the House floor but cautioned that he doesn’t believe it has the votes to pass the House.
Gov. Greg Abbott has said he believes the measure to be unconstitutional. A spokesperson for the speaker’s office declined to comment on the bill’s progress Monday, and a representative for the governor did not immediately return a request for comment.
Family members of Uvalde victims Julissa Rizo and Javier Cazarez hug after the House Select Committee on Community Safety votes HB2744 out of committee at the Texas Capitol Monday, May 8, 2023. HB2744 would raise the age to purchase assault weapons.
A Colorado school board was taken over by Trump-loving conservatives. Now nearly half its high-school teachers are bailing.
Grace Eliza Goodwin – May 9, 2023
Desks and chairs arranged in classroom at high schoolMaskot / Getty Images
A newly elected conservative school board in Colorado is enraging many residents and teachers.
About 40% of the district’s high-school teachers have said they’re leaving next year, NBC News said.
The board has adopted a conservative teaching standard and argued against mental-health resources.
A Colorado school district’s board was taken over by conservatives aiming to emulate former President Donald Trump — and its new policies are set to drive off nearly half the district’s high-school teachers, NBC News reported.
At the end of 2021, a group of conservatives won control of the school district in Woodland Park, Colorado.
Since then, it has enacted a number of conservative policies that have infuriated many teachers, residents, and even staunch Republicans in the town of just 8,000 people, NBC News reported.
Nearly 40% of the district’s high-school teachers have decided to leave at the end of this school year, a district administrator told NBC News.
At least four higher-ups in the district have quit over the new board’s policies, according to interviews and emails viewed by NBC News.
“This is the flood the zone tactic, and the idea is if you advance on many fronts at the same time, then the enemy cannot fortify, defend, effectively counter-attack at any one front,” David Illingworth, a new member of the school board, wrote to another member shortly after being elected, NBC News reported.
“Divide, scatter, conquer,” he wrote. “Trump was great at this in his first 100 days.”
Among its most controversial new policies is the board’s decision to adopt the American Birthright social-studies standard. The curriculum standard, created by a conservative advocacy group, emphasizes patriotism, discourages civic engagement, and criticizes the federal government’s control of public schools, NBC News said.
The board also pushed against mental-health resources for students, with the superintendent musing how a school social worker didn’t help stop a student’s killing off campus, the NBC News report said.
A Refugee From Another Time Gets an Eviction Notice
Dan Barry – May 8, 2023
William Mackiw
NEW YORK — The travails of many can be lucrative for a few. Take the old Stewart Hotel in Manhattan, which is being used as temporary housing for some of the tens of thousands of migrants who have come north to New York in search of sanctuary.
The city is paying a $200 nightly rate for 611 rooms in the nearly century-old hotel. This comes to roughly $6,000 a month for each room, or about $3.66 million a month for the hotel’s owners.
While they collect favorable rates for their fully booked hotel, the owners are also suing to evict the wisp of a man paying $865 a month for Room 1810: William Mackiw, who has lived there for so long that no one knows when he first appeared. It has been decades.
At some point, he moved in with the rent-stabilized room’s tenant, his aunt Louise. At some point, she died. Again, it has been decades.
And he just kept paying the modest rent with what he earned as a waiter in restaurants of casual fare. Your Howard Johnson’s. Your Beefsteak Charlie’s. Month after month, year after year.
Mackiw, 82 and retired, lives among the relics of a solitary life rooted in the past. Piles of old movies on VHS and DVD. Threadbare shirts hanging above the discolored bathtub. A broken TV. A dust-covered rotary phone. Four pairs of black shoes gathered on the floor like a flock of crows.
Within his confined world, the tight boundaries of which include a church and a market, he lived mostly unseen. Until a few months ago, that is, when someone knocked on his door and handed him a document. Its message:
“Time for you to leave,” Mackiw recalled.
In 10 days.
With that, the economic, societal and geopolitical pressures of the larger world combined to upend his tiny speck of it, and not for the first time. Mackiw was also an immigrant refugee, once. He needed sanctuary then, and may soon need it again.
In November 1949, the General C.C. Ballou, a reconfigured Army transport ship whose amenities included a children’s playroom, departed the German port of Bremerhaven. Aboard were 1,265 of the many millions of Europeans displaced by the upheaval of World War II.
According to records kept by the Center for Migration Studies of New York, the passengers included Celestyn and Sofia Mackiw and their two sons, Zygfryd, 12, and Wilhelm, 9. The Ukrainian family had most recently been living in a displacement camp in Aschaffenburg, Germany, where the uprooted, persecuted and traumatized received food, clothing and medical care.
Asked why his family left Europe, Mackiw said, simply, “Because of the war.” His failing memory recalls only flashes of his disrupted boyhood: being terrified by the bombs; bringing food to Jews harbored by his mother; living in camps.
Once in the United States, the Mackiws settled into a walk-up building in an East Village neighborhood sometimes called Little Ukraine. He remembers his mother as “an incredible woman” and his father as a daring window cleaner who “didn’t bother with the belts.”
The family later moved to Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. Mackiw attended the city’s Machine and Metal Trades High School, became an American citizen in 1959 and held a series of blue-collar jobs before waiting on tables full time.
“I worked in the restaurants,” he said.
Among them was Joe Franklin’s Memory Lane, a Theater District hangout for entertainers either well known or yet to be discovered. They all gravitated toward Franklin, a longtime radio and television host known for his command of entertainment history.
“The King of Nostalgia,” proclaimed his business cards, one of which sits amid the Room 1810 clutter. He died in 2015.
As Franklin held court with the likes of Soupy Sales and “Professor” Irwin Corey — you should look them up — his waiter of choice was Mackiw.
“Joe specifically sat in the section where William would be serving,” recalled Arnold Wachtel, a Joe Franklin’s customer who once ran Times Square gift and novelty shops such as the Fun Emporium and the Funny Store. “They used to reminisce about old movies and swap copies of movies on videos and DVDs.”
At shift’s end, the diminutive waiter would place a hat on his bald head and go back to the Stewart at Seventh Avenue and 31st Street, back to Room 1810.
The 31-story hotel opened in 1929 as the Hotel Governor Clinton — a lesser version of its grand neighbor, the Hotel Pennsylvania — and experienced the typical ups, downs and changes of the hospitality industry. But some aspects seemed permanent, from the art deco touches in the lobby to a few tenants in the rooms above.
Specifics are murky, but a few decades ago, perhaps as early as the 1970s, a retired seamstress named Louise Hirschfeld moved into 1810, a one-room apartment with a bathroom and kitchenette. She was a sister of Mackiw’s mother, Sofia.
The date of Mackiw’s arrival has been lost in the Manhattan blur of time. He slept on the couch while his aunt slept in the bed. Then she left for France, where her son and grandchildren lived and where she died at 81. In 1995.
Mackiw continued to pay the monthly rent with cash or a money order, and to collect receipts bearing the name of his dead aunt. When he wasn’t lingering in the lobby, shopping for food on Ninth Avenue or praying at St. Francis of Assisi Church around the corner, he was in his room, watching movies from the extensive Mackiw collection.
These portals of escape are scattered by the dozens on the floor. “King Kong.” “Broken Arrow.” “It Came From Outer Space.” “To Have and Have Not.” And his favorite: “Gone With the Wind.”
His routine did not change as time passed, as the city evolved, as the hotel came under new ownership. In 2016, the building was bought by a limited liability corporation whose partners declined through their lawyer last week to identify themselves. City records identify two of them as Isaac Chetrit, who with his brother, Eli, owns the AB & Sons investment group, and Ray Yadidi, who with his brother, Jack, owns the Sioni Group real estate firm.
The first threat to Mackiw’s insular world came early last year, when the owners informed the half-dozen permanent residents that they would be providing relocation assistance while the building underwent extensive renovations. The plan was to close the hotel and spend up to three years converting it into a 625-unit apartment building.
This, apparently, was when the owners discovered that Mackiw, not the late Louise Hirschfeld, was occupying Room 1810. Even though he had personally handed over the rent every month for years.
After this revelation, Mackiw said, hotel representatives came to his door more than once to tell him in a forceful and threatening manner that he had to vacate the room. The hotel denies ever harassing him.
At the same time, a humanitarian crisis was unfolding in New York, as thousands of migrants from Central and South America came to escape crime and economic uncertainty. Many arrived by bus, courtesy of the Republican governors of Arizona and Texas, who wanted to give the Northeast a taste of everyday life along the southern border.
The hotel’s owners set aside their conversion plans and, in mid-September, agreed to allow the city to rent half the building, including 300 rooms, for use as an intake center and refuge for asylum-seekers.
It wasn’t enough. In mid-December, the city signed a new contract to take effective control of the entire hotel, including the lobby, the ballroom and 611 rooms (at $200 a night). The agreement, which gave temporary housing to about 2,000 migrants, did not include the several units occupied by permanent residents.
The same week in September that the hotel began renting rooms to the city at market rates, a process server handed a 10-day eviction notice to the man who answered a knock on the door of Room 1810. The server described Mackiw this way:
Height: 5-foot-5.
Weight: 110 pounds.
Approximate age: 83.
Hair: Hat.
By this point, a distressed Mackiw had reached out to Wachtel, his old Joe Franklin’s customer, who had not heard from him in more than a dozen years. But as the son of a Holocaust survivor, Wachtel was moved by the older man’s ordeal — “The man is terrified” — and family memories of harboring Jews during the war.
“He’s a nice guy,” Wachtel said. “He prays for me and my family.”
Wachtel made phone calls, sent emails and arranged to become Mackiw’s power of attorney. He also contacted the Goddard Riverside Law Project, which specializes in the rights of single-room-occupancy (SRO) tenants. It agreed to take the Housing Court case of CYH Manhattan LLC against William Mackiw aka Bill Mackiw.
Daniel Evans, a lawyer with Goddard Riverside, said that under the city’s rent-stabilization codes, Mackiw acquired the rights and protections of a permanent SRO resident once he had spent six months in the apartment. There is no dispute that his stay has been much longer than six months — much, much longer.
“It’s outrageous that they would bring this type of case after 40 years of Mr. Mackiw living there,” Evans said. “Especially when he’s paying the rent himself at the front desk. They know he’s there.”
In a telephone interview, Lisa Faham-Selzer, a lawyer representing the owners, declined to answer a series of questions, including how long Mackiw had lived in the hotel and why the hotel had accepted payment from him for decades.
“This is a strong case with very, very clear allegations,” she said.
A hint of those allegations is contained in a recent court filing, in which the owners contend that Mackiw “has been posing as Louise Hirschfeld for decades.” By doing so, they argue, he “has been perpetrating a fraud.”
The case is pending. Court records do not indicate eviction proceedings brought against any of the hotel’s other permanent tenants, although one moved out after receiving a $10,000 buyout.
For now, Mackiw, a refugee from another time, continues to live among the refugees of today, fretting to the point of tears about his future.
He stays mostly in Room 1810, his longtime home. There, during a recent visit, the only food seemed to be milk, some cheese slices, peanut butter, a box of Cheerios, a pack of vanilla Oreos and a few Hershey chocolate bars.
Climate change is bad for everyone. But this is where it’s expected to be worst in the US.
Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY – May 7, 2023
If you’re thinking about a long-term real estate investment or shopping for a place to settle down for 20 or 30 years, you might be wondering which cities or states could fare better than others in a changing climate.
The impacts vary widely over time and space, so it’s difficult to make a definitive ranking that says “buy here, not there,” but a growing body of evidence helps highlight some general trends.
USA TODAY looked at data from First Street and Moody’s Analytics – two organizations examining future climate risk – to see what areas of the country are most at risk from these climate impacts over the next 30 years.
Insurers and mortgage companies are asking the same kinds of questions, Kamins said. Banks are being asked to “stress test their portfolios in preparation for the impact of climate change.”
While locations with the greatest risks seem obvious – think Florida – others might surprise you.
Here’s your guide to what, when and where you can expect climate change impacts to be the worst in the U.S.
Each region sees risks
Climate change will have uneven impacts on the U.S. in coming decades. Some areas may experience more heat, more flooding, more extreme storms, or more intense wildfires – or all of the above.
The U.S. won’t see any locations underwater or wiped off the map over the next 30 years, Kamins said, but access to fresh water and insurance premiums will become bigger challenges.
“Every year it becomes increasingly crystal clear, just the amount of risk that we face, whether it’s increasingly severe natural disasters or droughts and heat risk,” he said. “In some cases it’s creating renewed momentum or brand new momentum for governments and businesses that hadn’t been thinking seriously about the impact of climate change before.”
East Coast: Wind, flooding and sea level rise stack the deck against many counties and states, especially Florida and the Carolinas, Kamins said. Bustling economies and distance to the beach still attract people in droves, but at some point the tide literally will turn against communities along beaches and coastal rivers.
Southwest: Heat and fire bring increasing risks, particularly in Arizona, he said, even without factoring in the perils of a dwindling water supply.
Interior: Intense heat may affect these states the most in runaway warming scenarios, Mann said. Sudden downpours with unprecedented rain also are occurring more often, even though these states aren’t in hurricane-prone coastal areas. One study he co-authored showed some of the greatest risk of heat stress could be in urban areas in the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes.
Idaho to Minnesota: A swath of states across the northern U.S. look better than most, with less-pronounced risks, Kamins said. Recent statistics on an influx of newcomers to Idaho and its burgeoning tech hub in Boise show people may be figuring that out. He expects Montana may be the next frontier within 10-20 years.
States that may face more climate change risk sooner
Texas – Its sheer size and geography means Texas has a lot of risk. First Street’s data shows some of its counties are at great risk of wildfire, some face higher potential losses from tropical cyclone winds and some have greater flood risks. The Lone Star State leads the nation in billion-dollar disasters, according to information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It averages 5.3 such events a year, double the number it experienced in the previous 20, even adjusted for inflation.
Florida – 8,346 miles of shoreline, surrounded on three sides by water. Need we say more? Rising sea levels and extreme rainfall fueled by warming oceans, with the potential for more intense hurricanes while more people crowd into densely populated areas, increase the risks. Florida has the most top spots on First Street’s list of counties that could see the biggest increases in the number of days with the very warmest temperatures they experience today.
California – Over the past three years, the state has seen its largest wildfire season in history, its worst drought in 1,200 years and a string of record-setting atmospheric rivers. Golden State residents need no reminder of the risks they face, but First Street’s data shows some California counties high on its lists for most extreme fire risk and some cities with the greatest percentage of residential properties at risk of flooding.
Which states did Moody’s Analytics find face the greatest physical risks?
When it comes to weather-related events, hurricanes are literally the heavy hitters when accounting for acute physical risk. Climate change already is cranking up the rain in some tropical storms and hurricanes and could be slowing them down over land but that research is still underway, scientists say. Floods and wildfires also figured into Kamins’ assessment of physical risks. Here’s his list:
Florida
Louisiana
South Carolina
North Carolina
Delaware
Rhode Island
New Jersey
Virginia
Massachusetts
Connecticut
Other locations suffer from change happening over time rather than in single headline-grabbing events. Think the creep of rising sea levels or warmer nights and higher average temperatures.
San Francisco faces above average risk across these categories and more, and is the nation’s most exposed large city, Kamins said.
Brown pelicans fly in front of the San Francisco skyline on August 17, 2018 in San Francisco, California.
It’s one of those urban areas where residents aren’t used to temperature extremes and many homes don’t have air conditioning, he said. In a world where temperatures rise 5-10 degrees, unlike Floridians, San Francisco residents are ill-equipped for dealing with heat and it could be economically damaging.
Other cities with more gradually increasing risk on the Moody’s Analytics list are:
Southeastern metropolitan areas are particularly risky because they’re experiencing rising sea levels and higher temperatures, in addition to a parade of cyclones that could be growing more intense, according to Kamins’ study. The top 10:
Jacksonville, NC
New Bern, NC
Myrtle Beach, SC
Wilmington, NC
Greenville, NC
Charleston, SC
Punta Gorda, FL
Deltona, FL
San Juan, PR
Palm Bay, FL
Goldsboro, NC
Billion dollar disaster data helps point to states already paying the price as the climate changes.
At least 37 states suffered twice the number of billion dollar disasters this century than during the previous 20-years.
Tornado activity appears to be expanding in the Mid-South, with more frequent outbreaks, and a USA TODAY investigation showed extreme rainfall events are occurring more often along the Mississippi River Valley. Scientists say both trends may be linked to the warming Gulf of Mexico.
But it’s not just weather events causing the disaster toll to rise, NOAA said. More extreme weather events take a greater toll when population and development increase in vulnerable areas.
Billion dollar disaster events per year since 2001 (More than 3):
Texas – 5.3
Illinois – 3.9
Georgia – 3.7
Oklahoma – 3.6
Missouri – 3.5
North Carolina – 3.4
Alabama – 3.3
Tennessee – 3.3
Virginia – 3.2
Kansas – 3.1
Mississippi – 3.1
More than 300% increase in billion dollar disaster events per year since 2000:
Arizona – 500%
Wyoming – 450%
Utah – 400%
New Mexico – 367%
Nevada – 335%
Nebraska – 320%
Colorado – 300%
Wisconsin – 300%
When considering future scenarios, it’s important to note much remains within the world’s control, Mann said.
With substantial action to hold warming below 3 degrees F, “we can limit the worsening of extreme weather events,” although sea level increases would already be locked in, he said. A lack of action would mean “impacts in the interior of our continent could be every bit as bad.”
The nonprofit insurance associations were already a backstop measure, stepping in after 2022’s Hurricane Ian drove insurance companies in the Gulf Coast into failure, causing the cancellation of tens of thousands of homeowners’ policies and leaving millions in unpaid claims.
But those unpaid claims were so high that the associations have had to turn to emergency borrowing of hundreds of millions of dollars at significant interest rates. “We’re currently in the midst of an insurance crisis,” Jim Donelon, Louisiana’s insurance commissioner, said in a news briefing. The crisis is “largely…a result of hurricane activity in our state the last couple of years.”
A home destroyed by Hurricane Delta in Louisiana.
Climate change is making insurance more expensive along the US Gulf Coast
The increased burden of debt, including the high borrowing costs, will be shouldered by Florida and Louisiana residents in the form of higher premiums for homeowners’ insurance as well as higher costs for auto and theft insurance.
A study published in April confirmed that climate change is making hurricanes stronger, and will cause more catastrophic storms to hit the US East and Gulf Coasts in the coming decades.
“This is an extraordinary event for us,” John Wells, executive director of the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association, the state-chartered association, said of the emergency borrowing. “What everybody has to come to terms with is how much it takes to cover catastrophic losses.”
Climate change is causing property insurance markets to collapse
Insurance companies are built on their ability to predict loss. But worsening disasters are injecting more uncertainty into calculations, and insurers in the most climate-affected areas are struggling to cope with it.
Reinsurance companies, which help insurers deal with catastrophes, have been fleeing high-risk areas, particularly those prone to wildfires or flooding.
“Just as the US economy was overexposed to mortgage risk in 2008, the economy today is overexposed to climate risk,” Eric Andersen, president of Aon PLC, one of the world’s largest insurance brokers, said during a Senate hearing in March.
California’s wildfires are also driving an insurance crisis, causing higher premiums and lower coverage limits—if property owners can get coverage at all—as insurers withdraw from the market.
In the Gulf Coast, analysts are warning that more insurers could become insolvent before hurricane season starts again on June 1.
GOP Lawmaker’s Wild Claim About Those Who ‘Hate Homosexuals’ Causes Literal Jaw-Drop
Ed Mazza – May 3, 2023
Fox News Flips Over ‘Woke’ Legos
The right-wing network has added another new enemy to its list — the Lego toy company.
There was a jaw-dropping moment on the floor of the Florida House of Representatives this week after a Republican lawmaker’s comment about who really hates the LGBTQ+ community.
“ISIS, the Taliban and al Qaeda. Those are the folks who discriminate,” state Rep. Jeff Holcomb said Monday. “Our terrorist enemies hate homosexuals more than we do.”
It’s not clear if he misspoke or intended to say it like that, but he was speaking in support of a bill that urges Congress to prohibit “woke social engineering and experimentation” that are “eroding” the military.
The implication that Republicans hate the gay community ― but terrorists hate them even more ― led to gasps in the audience, while Democratic Rep. Kelly Skidmore’s jaw literally dropped:
Florida GOP Representative Jeff Holcomb says the quiet part out loud on the House floor today.
“Our terrorist enemies hate homosexuals MORE THAN WE DO.”
The warning is in effect for Northeast and Central Florida from noon to 7 p.m. In some locations, the warning is in effect until 8 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.
Low humidity, breezy winds and critically dry conditions prompted the warning.
Winds of 15 mph are expected to be out of the west today, with gusts up to 25 mph. Relative humidity is forecast to be 20 percent to 30 percent.
Much of Florida is under a red flag warning May 3, 2023.
A red flag warning means warm temperatures, very low humidity, and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger, according to the National Weather Service.
Conditions also can cause reignition of any smoldering fires started by recent lightning strikes.
What are the dangers with a red flag warning?
Wildfires can grow quickly under these conditions.
What Florida counties are under a burn ban?
Conditions in Florida prompted a red flag warning for much of the state May 3, 2023. Burn bans in effect.
The Florida Forest Service reports the following counties are under a burn ban as of May 1:
Citrus
Collier
Desoto
Glades
Hendry
Hernando
Highlands
Lee
Pasco
Polk
Burning of yard debris is prohibited year-round under county ordinance in these locations:
Duval
Hillsborough
Pinellas
Sarasota
How dry is it in Florida?
Florida rainfall around the state from Jan. 1 through March 31, 2023.
As La Niña continues to make itself felt, for the southeastern U.S., that includes a dry and warm winter and a potentially active wildfire season for Florida, according to the Florida Forest Service.
A combination of above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation was in the forecast throughout all North Florida through March.
There may be good news on the horizon: The drought coverage and intensity may have peaked across Florida in recent past weeks, according to the Climate Prediction Center.
What should you do when under a red flag warning?
If you are allowed to burn in your area, all burn barrels must be covered with a weighted metal cover, with holes no larger than 3/4 of an inch.
Do not throw cigarettes or matches out of a moving vehicle. They may ignite dry grass on the side of the road and become a wildfire.
Extinguish all outdoor fires properly. Drown fires with plenty of water and stir to make sure everything is cold to the touch. Dunk charcoal in water until cold. Do not throw live charcoal on the ground and leave it.
Never leave a fire unattended. Sparks or embers can blow into leaves or grass, ignite a fire, and quickly spread.
Where are active wildfires in Florida?
There are 42 active fires covering more than 5,000 acres currently across the state. The Florida Forest Service maintains a map showing the location, size and percentage contained of current wildfires.
‘Poor people are not stupid’: I grew up in poverty, earned $14 an hour, and inherited $150,000. Here’s what I have learned from my windfall.
Quentin Fottrell – May 3, 2023
‘When I open my accounts and see how they are growing it really fills me with a sense of pride and determination.’
‘My tiny house has been one of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made, and has truly changed my whole mindset on what makes me happy.’ MARKETWATCH
In September 2018, this woman from Texas, then 36, wrote to the Moneyist to ask how she should invest her windfall — over $150,000. It was small by some people’s standards, but it was life-changing to her. She didn’t have a college degree, said she would never earn more than $30,000 a year, and worked full-time for $15 an hour, in addition to a part-time job at $10 an hour. She paid $1,050 a month in rent.
She paid off her car, and bought a “tiny home,” which she owns free and clear, she wrote in an update a year later. She deposited $70,000 in a high-yield online savings account. She topped up her retirement portfolio and invested $30,000 into emerging markets. She maxed out her IRA and invested $10,000 between very safe dividend stocks and ETFs. She also spent $7,000 on dental work in Mexico.
And today? Five years after her first letter, she has updated MarketWatch readers on her progress, and what she learned from this experience:
Dear Moneyist,
There are a lot more Americans making less than $50,000 a year than there are those who make more. I feel like we aren’t really represented in the financial-advice world. I’d love to see more columns helping people to invest $25-$100 when they can. It’s empowering to invest. I might never be a Warren Buffet, but when I open my accounts and see how they are growing it really fills me with a sense of pride and determination.
As to how I’m doing? Beautifully. I hate to say it but the pandemic was a blessing to me personally. I feel terrible saying that because of the loss and devastation so many others suffered and are still suffering because of it, but for me, the pandemic opened up a world of possibilities. A job opportunity landed in my lap because of the shutdown, and I’m making almost $4,000 a month now after taxes.
Yes, me! I’ve never made so much money before (outside of the inheritance I received). I am still frugal and live off of about $1,800 a month, and that includes health insurance, long-term disability insurance, full-coverage car insurance, and pet insurance! Everything else goes to savings and investments. I won’t say what it is I’m doing because it might identify me, but I will say it is a job that allows me to be happy every second I’m “working.”
My tiny house has been one of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made, and has truly changed my whole mindset on what makes me happy. As I’ve lived in it I’ve altered certain parts of the design to be more efficient, and I can honestly say I intend to live tiny until some mobility issue — hopefully age-related and not an accident of some kind! — forces me back into a more conventional dwelling. Tiny living forces you to be mindful. Not only of your space, but also of yourself, and how you live in your space. It might sound strange to hear, but living tiny has truly made me a better person and improved my quality of life in ways other than financial.
I would like to address some of the comments I read in response to your previous article on my letter. While most were truly supportive others were coming from a place of judgment and condescension. I’d like to thank everyone who wished me well, and for them to know that their words meant a lot to me. That people took time out of their day to read about me and wish me well was uplifting. I send them all virtual hugs and hope each and everyone is happy and healthy.
However, I’d also like to address some of the comments that were less encouraging. Several people insisted that my letter was obviously fake because of how well I wrote, and that someone with my education level could not possibly be in the financial situation I’m in. I was less hurt by this attitude as I was utterly astounded by it. That people genuinely believe the educated cannot struggle financially just floored me.
‘There are more ‘poor’ Americans than there are ‘rich’ Americans, and we are not stupid or lazy. We’re trying to make it work.’
Poor people are not stupid. We’re not illiterate country bumpkins struggling to figure out how to work a computer. We’re the nurse that lives down the street with two roommates to be able to afford rent. We’re the teachers still living with their parents because they can’t find enough roommates to qualify for an apartment. We’re the cops working at Home Depot on the side trying to save up for a baby. We’re the lawyers doing Uber just to afford student-loan payments. There are more “poor” Americans than there are “rich” Americans, and we are not stupid or lazy. We’re trying to make it work — usually by having 2-3 jobs.
There is a financial crisis in this country. I believe it comes from unchecked capitalism. When corporations are allowed to buy up single-dwelling homes and drastically raise rents, and banks/lending institutions are allowed to prey on people with obscenely high interest rates, you foster an environment of exploitation. Our society allows for the targeting of young people before they even graduate high school. Credit-card companies and college-loan institutions begin preying on people as soon as they hit 18. If their parents are financially illiterate, and considering most public schools rarely teach financial literacy, too many young people start out life with insane amounts of debt. Additionally, wages have not kept pace with the cost of living in this country, and you have a lot of educated “poor” people.
I just could not believe those comments that insisted this story was fake because I was too educated to be poor. Then I was mad. Mad because that stereotype is what prevents a lot of change from taking place. Nothing is ever going to get better if we keep thinking the worst of each other.
Anyway, I again want to thank you for thinking of me and sharing my story. Hopefully it helped more people. As I said before, investing is truly empowering. I didn’t know that before, but I know it now, and I wish it for many more Americans.
Sincerely,
Not Quite As Low Income, But I’m Still A Couponing Lady
Dear Not Quite As Low Income,
Thank you for your insightful and eloquent letter. Your words and story continue to inspire me, and I hope will inspire many others out there in America who never had a head start in life and/or continue to face financial struggles. I wish you the best of everything in your life, and I hope more good things continue to happen to you.
Lilly drug slows Alzheimer’s by 35%, bolstering treatment approach
Julie Steenhuysen and Deena Beasley – May 3, 2023
Evidence of Alzheimer’s disease on PET scans at the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment in Boston
CHICAGO (Reuters) -An experimental Alzheimer’s drug developed by Eli Lilly and Co slowed cognitive decline by 35% in a late-stage trial, the company said on Wednesday, providing what experts say is the strongest evidence yet that removing sticky amyloid plaques from the brain benefits patients with the fatal disease.
Lilly’s drug, donanemab, met all goals of the trial, the company said. It slowed progression of Alzheimer’s by 35% compared to a placebo in 1,182 people with early-stage disease whose brains had deposits of two key Alzheimer’s proteins, beta amyloid as well as intermediate levels of tau, a protein linked with disease progression and brain cell death.
The study also evaluated the drug in 552 patients with high levels of tau and found that when both groups were combined, donanemab slowed progression by 29% based on a commonly used scale of dementia progression known as the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR-SB).
Using that scale, experts said Lilly’s findings were roughly on par with Eisai Co Ltd and Biogen Inc’s lecanemab, sold under the brand name Leqembi, which reduced cognitive decline by 27% in patients with early Alzheimer’s in a study published last year.
The results drove Lilly’s shares to a record high, up more than 6% at $429.85.
Dr. Ronald Petersen, an Alzheimer’s researcher at Mayo Clinic, said Lilly’s trial is the third to show removing amyloid from the brain slows progression of the disease, which could put to rest some lingering doubts about the benefits of drugs in the class and the amyloid-lowering theory.
“It’s modest, but I think it’s real,” he said of the benefit, “and I think it’s clinically meaningful.”
Dr. Erik Musiek, a Washington University neurologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, said the efficacy looks as good or better than lecanemab.
“The evidence is really starting to build up that these drugs do work,” he said.
Musiek said the findings also offer some of the first evidence for the benefit of earlier treatment. “It really does suggest that you need to remove these plaques early, before the tau really gets going,” he said.
‘RISK THAT NEEDS TO BE CONSIDERED’
In the donanemab treatment group, Lilly said brain swelling, a known side effect of drugs of this type, occurred in 24% of participants, with 6.1% experiencing symptoms. Brain bleeding occurred in 31.4% of the donanemab group and 13.6% of the placebo group.
In the Leqembi Phase 3 trial, the drug was associated with brain swelling in nearly 13% of its study participants.
Lilly said the incidence of serious brain swelling in the donanemab study was 1.6%, including two deaths attributed to the condition, and a third, after an incident of serious brain swelling.
A research note by SVB Securities analyst David Risinger was headlined: “Donanemab Succeeds, But Safety Remains a Concern”.
“Clearly, one saw benefits here, but there is some risk that needs to be considered,” said Dr. Eric Reiman, executive director of the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute, which is running a study of donanemab in presymptomatic patients.
Lilly said it plans to file for traditional U.S. approval by the end of June, and with regulators from other countries shortly thereafter. A company spokesman said a U.S. approval decision should come by year-end or early 2024.
Alzheimer’s experts said they were eager to see full results of the study, including data on how the drug performs in people who carry an Alzheimer’s risk gene known as APOE4, who have been prone to increased risk of side effects in prior trials.
Those results are set to be presented at an Alzheimer’s meeting in Amsterdam this summer.
Study participants received a monthly intravenous infusion of donanemab. At 12 months, half had no evidence of amyloid plaques, the company said.
It also said 47% of donanemab patients in the 18-month trial had no disease progression at 12 months, compared with 29% of the placebo group.
Lilly’s drug is poised to become the third in its class on the market following U.S. approval of two similar medicines developed by partners Eisai and Biogen – Leqembi as well as Aduhelm, which failed to gain traction with doctors or insurers after showing little evidence that it slowed cognitive decline.
Both were approved under the FDA’s accelerated review program, based on their ability to remove amyloid plaques.
Leqembi is currently undergoing the FDA’s standard reviewprocess, with a decision due by July 6.
Lilly is still working on finalizing the price for donanemab, and plans for it to be in the same range as other similar therapies, CEO David Ricks told CNBC.
More than 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s,and that number is projected to rise to nearly 13 million by 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Deena Beasley in Los Angeles, additional reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
How is your REM sleep? If you’re feeling tired you might not be getting enough.
Daryl Austin – May 2, 2023
A 2021 phone poll revealed that only 34% of Americans “sometimes” remember their dreams. About 1 in 10 say they “almost always” can, and the same percentage say they “never” do. Explanations for such varied recall abilities come down to the quality of one’s sleep, the number of hours one spends sleeping and during what stage of sleep one wakes up.
REM sleep is the stage in which one dreams and it gets a lot of attention, often from those looking to improve their sleep. But experts say all stages of sleep are important for getting proper rest, rejuvenation and development.
What is REM sleep?
REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is a stage of semi-deep sleep, often referred to as “paradoxical sleep,” and is “a state of sleep when brain activity shows similar patterns as being awake,” says Wendy Troxel, PhD, a sleep expert at the RAND Corporation and author of “Sharing the Covers: Every Couple’s Guide to Better Sleep.”
According to the National Institute of Health, the initial stages of REM sleep occur about 90 minutes after falling asleep and come and go throughout the night.
What Happens During REM Sleep
During REM sleep, one’s brain is very active, “but the body is essentially paralyzed,” or in a state of sleep paralysis, says Troxel. That state of being is important, because REM sleep is also the sleep stage in which most dreams occur, so one’s muscle paralysis is believed to be the body’s way of protecting itself from acting out one’s dream. “Dreams do occur in other stages of sleep,” explains Troxel, “but the most vivid and often bizarre types of dreams tend to occur in REM.”
Indeed, people who wake up during other sleep stages can rarely recall what their dreams were about. But one study found that a whopping 80% of people who wake during the REM phase of their sleep can remember their dreams well.
The REM stage of sleeping is also when other vital functions occur. “REM sleep is particularly important for memory consolidation, emotional processing and brain development,” says Troxel.
During a full night’s rest, most people experience five stages of sleep: Stages 1 and 2 are considered lighter sleep phases where one drifts between being asleep and being awake. Stages 3 and 4 are where the deepest levels of sleep occur; they are considered the “healing” stages of sleep as that’s when breathing, body temperature, and one’s heart rate are at their lowest levels and one’s muscles are relaxed enough for tissue growth and repair to occur. REM sleep is Stage 5, and exists somewhere between the body’s deepest levels of sleep and wakefulness.
“We enter sleep in the lighter stages of non-REM sleep and slowly descend into the deeper stages of non-REM sleep, followed by an episode of REM, and the cycle repeats several times throughout the night,” explains Troxel.
And just as a healthy eating diet is not comprised of any one food group alone, “healthy sleep is comprised of all stages of sleep, including REM,” explains Troxel. “It’s a myth that REM sleep is more or less important than any other stage of sleep, including light or deep non-REM sleep.”
The amount of REM sleep one needs varies with age. While brains are developing, such as in children and infants, more REM sleep is needed. Newborn babies are thought to spend about 8 hours in REM sleep every night. But people require less REM sleep as they age and most adults average only about 2 hours of REM sleep each night.
What’s more, just because some people who wake during a REM stage of sleeping often remember their dreams, doesn’t mean that failing to recall one’s dream is any indication that you aren’t getting enough REM sleep – you may have simply woken up during a less dreamy stage of sleeping.
“Rather than getting too hung up on whether you are getting enough REM sleep or deep sleep,” advises Troxel, “the best strategy is to follow some basic healthy sleep habits which promote overall good sleep quality during all sleep stages.”
Such healthy habits include adhering to a consistent sleep schedule, following a familiar wind-down routine every night before bed, keeping the lights low in the evening and avoiding alcohol, caffeine or exposure to the blue light of technology too close to bedtime. “Our bodies and brains function optimally when we achieve adequate sleep duration,” Troxel says. “That’s sleep that is appropriately timed, relatively consistent and is of good quality.”
