The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy reports that between 1990 and 2009, pregnancy rates have fallen by 51 percent for Black teens in the U.S.
“The decline has been fueled by three factors: more teens are waiting to have sex; they also report fewer sexual partners and better use of contraception,” said Sarah Brown, CEO of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
Since its peak in 1990, teen pregnancy has declined 52 percent among 15-17 year-olds and by 36 percent for 18-19 year-olds among all races. Most adults are not aware of the progress in this area.
“In short, the credit for this remarkable national success story goes to teens themselves,” said Brown. “Unfortunately, precious few adults are aware of the good news. In fact nearly half of Americans incorrectly believe the teen pregnancy rate in the U.S has increased over the past two decades.”
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy is a private, non-profit organization. For more information on the report or the NCHS please visit www.TheNationalCampaign.org.
article by Dominique Hobdy via essence.com
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Amidst the dark skies of the Healthcare.gov launch, some daylight may finally be emerging with respect to one of the critical goals of the Affordable Care Act—bending the cost curve of America’s expensive healthcare system.
According to a New York Times report out Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office has quietly removed hundreds of billions of dollars from the projected costs of Obamacare, primarily the result of an anticipated decrease in the federal government’s contribution to the Medicaid expansion program along with the projected cost of the subsidy payments to those buying private insurance policies on the healthcare exchanges.
Why the good news?
The more favorable projections are the direct result of the slowing trend in the growth of healthcare spending over the past five years leading to a slowdown in rising costs. While, ten years ago, per-capita spending on healthcare had been growing by an average annual rate of 5 percent, that number was dramatically cut to 1.8 percent during the 2007-2010 period and reduced even further to 1.3 percent in the years following 2010.
Do we have Obamacare to thank for this highly successful “bending” of the cost curve? Naturally, the answer depends upon who you ask as there simply is no definitive way of knowing—yet.
While most economist believe that the lion’s share of the reduction is due to the sluggish economy—making Americans far more careful when it comes to making decisions regarding when or if to spend money on medical care—others believe that some of the plans built into the ACA designed to get people to spend less may actually be working.
Among Obamacare inventions that do appear to be paying off in lower healthcare costs is the government’s refusal to pay hospitals more when patients are re-admitted within 30 days of their initial discharge. Additionally, new plan designs engineered to reward providers for quality of care rather than for quantity of care may well be paying off in terms of lowering the overall cost of care.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation—widely regarded as an honest, non-partisan broker when it comes to healthcare issues and analysis—the declining increases in the cost of healthcare is 75 percent the result of economic factors and 25 percent a benefit of the cost cutting measures in the ACA that do, in fact, appear to be working.
- President Barack Obama speaking at a World AIDS Day event. (EVAN VUCCI/AP)
President Barack Obama has announced a new initiative at the National Institutes of Health in pursuit of a cure for HIV. Obama says his administration is redirecting $100 million into the project to find a new generation of therapies. He said the United States should be at the forefront of discoveries to eliminate HIV or put it into remission without requiring lifelong therapy. Obama made the announcement Monday at a White House event marking World AIDS Day, which was Sunday.
The president also announced that the U.S. passed the ambitious goal he set last year to support 6 million people around the globe in getting access to anti-retroviral drugs. Obama said the U.S. helped 6.7 million people receive life-saving treatment.
Looks like Oprah Winfrey‘s “biggest yard sale ever,” which was held on Saturday, Nov. 2, was a huge success for both the fans and the media mogul. The OWN founder’s auction, dubbed “The Oprah Winfrey Collection” and featuring hundreds of her personal items, netted more than $600,000, according to the Los Angeles Times. The sale, which was held at the Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club, included “antiques, contemporary furnishings, and fine art” from the TV star’s homes in Indiana, Hawaii, Chicago, Santa Barbara and her “La Quinta” estate. Kaminski Auctions ran the event. A few items from her trainer and longtime pal Bob Greene were also put up for auction.
“Had so much fun at the auction which is still going on,” Lee Daniels’ The Butler actress tweeted on Saturday. Oprah’s BFF, Gayle King, shared a photo on her Instagram account, which shows Oprah holding one of her adorable dogs and prepping for the big day. “Auction day for @oprah getting ready,” King captioned the snapshot.
The biggest selling item(s)? Six 18th century Louis XVI armchairs with hand-embroidered details sold for $60,000, reported by the Times. Certain objects and things exceeded price expectations, like a teapot that sold for $1,000 but was worth less than $100. Sounds like her many admirers just wanted to get a piece of the icon.
Here are a some highlights and their final pricetags:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9l2TaLb9Xs&w=560&h=315]
Darnell Barton, a bus driver in Buffalo, New York, was driving across a Buffalo highway express with 20 high school students in his bus when he spotted a woman who had crossed the guard rail and was leaning over the passing traffic below. Against his training as a bus driver, Barton stopped the bus and quickly phoned dispatch to send someone to help, then got out of the bus and approached the woman. The woman turned her head, then looked back down at the traffic below the bridge. Barton then quickly put her in a bear hug and asked her if she would like to come over the guard rail. The woman, who had up until this point been silent, said yes.
A corrections officer and female driver sat with the woman, along with Barton, until an ambulance arrived to take her for help. Barton then got back on the bus and continued his route. He received a standing ovation from the students aboard the bus, as well as other passengers who’d been watching the ordeal. He finished the day and wrote up the report.
“Being the humble individual that Darnell is, he didn’t write it in a way that was going to call attention to himself,” said C. Douglas Hartmayer, spokesman for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. “It was: I did it, got back on my bus and continued. That speaks volumes about his demeanor and character.”
Thanks to one man for taking the time out of his day to help someone who truly needed it. For more information about suicide prevention, visit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. If you are in crisis, please call (800) 273-TALK (8255).
article via dailyoftheday.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker was sworn in as a Democratic senator from New Jersey on Thursday, taking the oath of office, exchanging hugs with Vice President Joe Biden and acknowledging the applause of friends and family members seated in the visitor’s gallery that rings the chamber. Booker became the second African American in the Senate, alongside Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Booker, 44, was elected to fill out the term of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died earlier this year. His first day in office was a busy one. Before taking the oath of office, he and his mother met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Minutes after being sworn in, he participated in his first roll call vote, supporting an attempt by Democrats to advance the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C. to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Booker also was to meet later in the day with President Barack Obama at the White House. Booker placed his hand on his own Bible as Biden led him in reciting the oath of office. His oath-taking gave Democrats control of 55 Senate seats, counting two held by independents. Republicans hold 45.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press via thegrio.com
On November 4, the Advancement Project, a multicultural civil rights organization, will team with pro bono legal counsel Arnold & Porter to challenge Wisconsin’s voter ID law for the first time in court since the controversial measure went into effect in 2011. Hearing the case will be U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, and looming heavily is the controversial Supreme Court decision in June that struck down the pre-clearance protections of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
“As the leading democracy of the world, the U.S. should work to keep our voting system free, fair, and accessible to all Americans,” said Advancement Project Co-Director Penda Hair. “Yet we are witnessing the greatest assault on voting rights in decades.” From Advancement Project’s press release regarding the impending court case, the group alleges that Wisconsin is blatantly disenfranchising voters.
According to figures provided by the Advancement Project, a staggering 28,000 African-Americans and 12,000 Hispanic voters nationwide do not possess a driver’s license or state-issued ID. Those numbers show 16 percent are African-Americans and 24.8 percent are Hispanics; the disparity is especially troubling when comparing those percentage numbers to just 9.5 percent Whites who lack identification.
- Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, told a Senate panel Tuesday that states must clarify their ‘stand your ground’ self-defense laws after the man who fatally shot her son was acquitted of manslaughter. (Matt Rourke/AP)
WASHINGTON — The mother of Travyon Martin, the Florida teen killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, told a Senate panel today that stand your ground self-defense laws should be changed. Sybrina Fulton offered the tragic case of her son as Exhibit A of why she said such laws do not work. “He was simply going to the store to get snacks, nothing more, nothing less,” Fulton said of her son, who was shot dead by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., in early 2012.
“He was minding his own business, he was not looking for any kind of trouble, he was not committing any kind of crime.” She added, “The person who shot and killed my son is walking the streets today. … The Law is not working.” Martin’s killing ignited a national debate about stand your ground laws and racial profiling. The debate grew even louder after Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges. More than two dozen states have some version of stand your ground laws, which let individuals use lethal force instead of retreating if they feel threatened with death or serious injury in public by another person.
Senate Democrats convened the hearing, which triggered a clash with Republicans on the Judiciary subcommittee who favor stand your ground laws. Sen. Dick Durban (D-Ill.) cited research that suggests about 600 homicides a year can be traced to such laws, with no apparent impact on overall crime deterrence. His view that such laws have done little else but accentuate a “shoot first” mentality among citizens was quickly disputed by the firebrand freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
WASHINGTON (AP) — With website woes ongoing, the Obama administration Monday granted a six-week extension until March 31 for Americans to sign up for coverage next year and avoid new tax penalties under the president’s health care overhaul law. The move had been expected since White House spokesman Jay Carney promised quick action last week to resolve a “disconnect” in the implementation of the law. It comes as technical problems continue to trouble the website designed as the main enrollment portal for people who don’t get health care at work.
As a consequence, Republican lawmakers, and some Democrats as well, are calling for a one-year delay in the penalties most Americans will face starting next year if they remain uninsured. Monday’s action by the administration stops well short of that, and amounts only to a limited adjustment. Under the latest policy change, people who sign up by the end of open enrollment season March 31 will not face a penalty. That means procrastinators get a grace period.
Previously you had to sign up by the middle of February, guaranteeing that your coverage would take effect March 1, in order to avoid fines for being uninsured. The extension – granted for 2014 only – addresses confusion that was created when the administration set the first open enrollment period under the law from Oct. 1-March 31. The problem was that health insurance coverage typically starts on the first day of a given month, and it takes up to 15 days to process applications. So somebody signing up March 16 – well within the open enrollment period – wouldn’t get coverage until April 1, thereby risking a penalty for being uninsured part of the year.
California’s oldest university just named its first black homecoming king and queen. Seniors Daniel Harris-Lucas and Diana Busaka were crowned Thursday night at San Jose State University, beating out 22 other applicants who all submitted a nomination, two letters of recommendation, a personal statement, a resumé and news clips about them. “It’s a great accomplishment,” Harris-Lucas told NBC Bay Area. “But it’s probably overdue. I’m glad to be part of history. But this probably should have happened years ago.”
SJSU first caught national attention at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, when two of its students, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, placed in the 200 meter race and raised their black-gloved fists in the iconic black power salute. A statue of them stands on the SJSU campus today. While the homecoming judging panel noted that there has been an black queen before, this is the first year there has been a couple. Occupational therapy major Busaka was born in Kenya and public relations major Harris-Lucas grew up in foster care and has mentored youth in Oakland.
article by Lydia O’Connor via huffingtonpost.com
SJSU first caught national attention at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, when two of its students, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, placed in the 200 meter race and raised their black-gloved fists in the iconic black power salute. A statue of them stands on the SJSU campus today. While the homecoming judging panel noted that there has been an black queen before, this is the first year there has been a couple. Occupational therapy major Busaka was born in Kenya and public relations major Harris-Lucas grew up in foster care and has mentored youth in Oakland.
article by Lydia O’Connor via huffingtonpost.com