US, China Spar Over Trade at WTO

The United States and China blamed each other for the crisis in the world trading system during a two-day “trade policy review” of the United States at the World Trade Organization.

The Chinese representative to the WTO, Hu Yingzhi, accused the United States of deforming the rules of world trade, which is having a detrimental impact on the economy and on American workers.

U.S. Ambassador to the WTO Dennis Shea retorted that the crisis was caused by China’s trade-distorting practices. He disputed the charge that the United States is the center of the crisis, saying instead that the U.S. is the epicenter of the solution.

WTO Trade Policy Review Division Director Willy Alfaro described the two-day debate as lively and engaged. He told VOA that member states expressed a number of concerns, including worry about a shift of focus in the U.S. trade policy, which is based on five pillars.

“The first one is the adoption of trade policies supporting the national security policy,” Alfaro said. “The second one is building a stronger U.S. economy and [third is] negotiating better trade deals, [fourth is] vigorous enforcement of domestic trade laws and rights under existing trade agreements, and finally reform of the multilateral trading system.” 

Alfaro said the U.S. has received a lot of support from member countries on the need to reform the multilateral trading system and to make it more transparent.

However, WTO officials said members also raised concerns regarding the introduction of new “Buy American” provisions, which could result in unnecessary trade barriers and increased protectionism. 

They also criticized U.S. agricultural policy, particularly the limited market access for certain commodities, high tariffs, and the continued use of trade distorting support.

FDA Panel Backs Prescribing Overdose Reversal Drug With Opioids

An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday narrowly recommended prescribing the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone, along with addictive painkillers.

The panel voted 12-11 in favor of labeling changes for opioids that recommend co-prescribing the overdose antidote, concluding a two-day discussion on ways to make the potentially life-saving drug readily available.

The recommendation underscores concerns about the growing opioid overdose epidemic that claimed more than 49,000 American lives last year.

When administered quickly, naloxone helps reverse the effects of an overdose and saves lives.

The prescription of naloxone could facilitate a healthy dialog between patients and the healthcare provider, Maryann Amirshahi, a panel member who voted in favor, said.

But co-prescribing naloxone to all patients who are prescribed painkillers could increase annual healthcare costs by $63.9 billion to $580.8 billion, according to FDA studies.

“I think co-prescribing is an expensive way to saturate the population with naloxone. The at-risk population is not necessarily the ones that are being prescribed new narcotics,” said Mary Ellen McCann, associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, a panelist who voted against the decision.

“I’m concerned about a person going in with a broken arm and ending up with $30 of a codeine product and a [naloxone] autoinjector at $4,000 plus.”

Branded versions for treating opioid overdose include Adapt Pharma’s Narcan nasal spray and Kaleo Inc’s Evzio autoinjector.

Robert Kramer, chief operating officer of Emergent BioSolutions Inc, which bought Adapt Pharma this year, said the FDA’s cost estimates were “inflated,” adding the number includes the price of Narcan and Kaleo’s Evzio, which has a list price of over $4,000.

The list price is not necessarily what patients actually pay and “out-of-pocket” costs vary depending on the duration of the treatment and individual healthcare plans.

A pack of Narcan containing two doses lists at a price of $125, while generic naloxone retails at around $40 per dose. “A fully implemented co-prescription program targeting opioid prescription associated with the highest risk of opioid overdose would cost an estimated $115 million per year as opposed to the $64 billion number,” Kramer said.

Kaleo announced last week an authorized generic of Evzio, which will be available at a list price of $178 for a pack of two doses.

Naloxone is currently made available through distribution and prescription programs in pain clinics and opioid treatment centers, as well as “take-home” programs among high-risk patients.

Poland Signs 20-Year Deal to Buy Natural Gas From the US

Poland has signed a long-term deal with a U.S. company for supplies of liquefied natural gas as part of an effort to reduce its dependence on Russian energy, the two sides announced on Wednesday.

Port Arthur LNG, a subsidiary of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, and Poland’s state gas company PGNiG jointly announced the agreement for the sale of 2.7 billion cubic meters per year of gas to Poland over a 20-year period.

Their statement said that is enough to meet about 15 percent of Poland’s daily gas needs.

“This agreement marks an important step toward Poland’s energy independence and security,” the U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said.

Sempra Energy’s CEO Jeffrey Martin said the deal helps his company “advance our vision to become North America’s premier energy infrastructure company.”

No financial details were disclosed, in line with the secretive nature of gas deals, which are sensitive politically given Russia’s dominance of Europe’s energy market.

In recent weeks Poland also signed long-term deals for gas with American suppliers Cheniere and Venture Global Calcasieu Pass and Venture Global Plaquemines LNG.

These deals have been sealed as both Poland and the United States have been trying to stop Nord Stream 2, a pipeline under construction that, when finished, would transport gas from Russia to energy-hungry Germany.

Poland, along with several other European countries, see Nord Stream 2, which bypasses Ukraine, as a political project meant to weaken that country and gain leverage over Europe by making it more dependent on Russian gas.

Officials for the Nord Stream 2 dispute that view, saying it is merely a commercial project and would not cut off Ukraine, pointing to diversification of Europe’s gas market.

Also Wednesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan met with Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz in Warsaw, the last stop in a visit to several countries in the region.

Ahead of his visit the State Department said he would meet with Polish leaders to discuss shared concerns over Nord Stream 2, among other issues.

Czaputowicz told reporters in Warsaw that Nord Stream 2 is “harmful to the security of all of the European Union.”

He called Germany’s support for the project “anti-European” and also faulted Austria for using its six-month EU presidency, which ends this month, to keep the issue off Europe’s agenda.

 

European Officials Agree on Ban of Some Single-use Plastics

Plastic knives just won’t cut it any longer, if the European Union has its way.

The 28-nation bloc moved closer to banning single-use straws, plates, cutlery and cotton swabs, after officials from EU member states and the European Parliament on Wednesday backed recommendations by its executive branch designed to reduce marine pollution.

Environmental campaigners have been calling for curbs on throwaway plastic that’s accumulating in the oceans because, unlike organic materials, it doesn’t decompose but simply breaks down into ever smaller pieces.

Scientific studies have found minuscule particles known as microplastics are being consumed by animals throughout the food chain, though the impact on human health is unclear.

“When we have a situation where one year you can bring your fish home in a plastic bag, and the next year you are bringing that bag home in a fish, we have to work hard and work fast,” said Karmenu Vella, the European commissioner for environment, maritime affairs and fisheries.

The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, estimates that almost 60 percent of the 25.8 million metric tons (28.4 million tons) of plastic waste produced in the bloc each year comes from packaging, with much of it exported to third countries rather than recycled.

German environmental group NABU claims that about 350,000 metric tons of plastic waste could be prevented in Germany alone with the ban.

Once the ban is formally approved, countries will have two years to restrict the use of single-use plastic products, which will also include drink stirrers, balloon sticks, and polystyrene food and beverage containers, though plastic cups are exempt for now.

PET bottles sold in the EU will have to contain at least 25 percent recycled plastic from 2025, rising to 30 percent by 2030.

The EU also wants to work with manufacturers to inform consumers of the presence of plastic in wet wipes and cigarette filters.

The move comes a day after the EU executive, member states and the European Parliament agreed to lower emissions limits for new vehicles from 2030. According to the plan, automakers’ fleet-wide emissions of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — will need to be cut by 37.5 percent compared to 2021.

Facebook Defends Data Sharing After New Report on Partner Deals

Facebook defended its data sharing practices Wednesday after a report revealing that certain partners of the social network had access to a range of personal information about users and their friends.

The New York Times late Tuesday reported that some 150 companies — including powerful partners like Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify — could access detailed information about Facebook users, including data about their friends.

The report marked yet another potential embarrassment for Facebook, which has been roiled by a series of scandals on data protection and privacy and has been scrutinized over the hijacking of user data in the 2016 US election campaign.

Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook’s head of developer platforms and programs, said in a blog post early Wednesday that the Times report was about “integration partners” which enabled “social experiences — like seeing recommendations from their Facebook friends — on other popular apps and websites.”

Papamiltiadis added that “none of these partnerships or features gave companies access to information without people’s permission,” and maintained that the deals did not violate a 2012 privacy settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission.

According to documents seen by the Times, Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see names of Facebook users’ friends without consent and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read private messages.”

The report said Amazon was able to obtain user names and contact information through their friends, and Yahoo could view streams of friends’ posts.

While some of the deals date back as far as 2010, the Times said they remained active as late as 2017 and some were still in effect this year.

‘We’ve been public’

Papamiltiadis said however that “we’ve been public about these features and partnerships over the years because we wanted people to actually use them.”

“They were discussed, reviewed, and scrutinized by a wide variety of journalists and privacy advocates,” he said.

But he said most of the features are now gone.

“Still, we recognize that we’ve needed tighter management over how partners and developers can access information,” he added.

Netflix said in a statement the feature was used to make the streaming service “more social” by allowing users to make recommendations to friends, but that it stopped using it in 2015.

“At no time did we access people’s private messages on Facebook or ask for the ability to do so,” Netflix said in an emailed statement.

Spotify offered a similar response, indicating the music service “cannot read users’ private Facebook inbox messages across any of our current integrations.”

The Canadian bank RBC, also cited in the New York Times, said the deal with Facebook “was limited to the development of a service that enabled clients to facilitate payment transactions to their Facebook friends,” and that it was discontinued in 2015.

Facebook has already been called before lawmakers in the US and elsewhere to defend its data policies since news broke this year on the misuse of personal data in 2016 by Cambridge Analytica, a British consultancy working on Donald Trump’s campaign.

A report prepared for US lawmakers revealed this week showed detailed information on how Russian entities manipulated Facebook and other social networks to support the Trump effort.

Senator Brian Schatz said the latest revelations highlight a need for tougher controls on how tech companies handle user data.

“It has never been more clear,” Schatz tweeted. “We need a federal privacy law. They are never going to volunteer to do the right thing.”

White House, Congress Appear Headed Toward Funding Extension

The White House and Congress appeared headed toward agreement Wednesday on a stopgap spending plan to avert a partial government shutdown at midnight Friday, but it does not include the $5 billion President Donald Trump wanted for construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would vote later in the day on the measure funding operations for a quarter of the U.S. government until Feb. 8, when Trump and lawmakers could again face the possibility of a partial closure.

Democratic leader Charles Schumer said Democrats would support the temporary spending plan, with the remainder of the U.S. government already funded through the end of next September.

Trump made a pledge during his 2016 campaign to build a border wall to thwart illegal immigration and make Mexico pay for it. The president, however, has not been able to secure U.S. taxpayer funding for it even though both houses of Congress currently are under the control of his Republican Party.

He faces an even more daunting political challenge in the new year, when Democrats, who are adamantly opposed to the wall, take control of the House of Representatives, while Republicans retain their Senate majority.

On Twitter, Trump said, “One way or the other, we will win on the Wall!”

Trump aide Kellyanne Conway told reporters that the U.S. leader would “take a look at” the stopgap funding plan, “certainly.”

Trump last week said he would “proudly” own a shutdown in order to get $5 billion in funding for construction of a wall along the 3,200-kilometer border with Mexico; but, without enough votes in Congress, Trump retreated Tuesday, with the White House saying it would look for “other ways” to secure funding by trying to tap unused money from several federal agencies.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “It’s too early to say. We need border security.”

Democrats have proposed keeping 2019 funding at $1.3 billion for border security fencing and other improvements, but not specifically for the wall.

In a pair of tweets, Trump blamed opposition Democrats for the spending impasse, although some Republicans also oppose construction of the wall.

“In our Country, so much money has been poured down the drain, for so many years, but when it comes to Border Security and the Military, the Democrats fight to the death,” he said.

Trump wrongly claimed that “Mexico is paying (indirectly) for the Wall” through the new U.S. trade deal with Mexico and Canada, with “far more money coming to the U.S.” But the pact has yet to be ratified by Congress and has not taken effect.

Congress has approved funding for three-quarters of U.S. government operations through Sept. 30, but the remaining quarter left without a 2019 spending plan includes the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border control operations, and the State Department handling U.S. diplomatic operations.

If a deal is not reached to avert the partial government shutdown, the affected agencies would start winding down nonessential operations Friday, with more than 800,000 federal workers furloughed or working for no pay.

On Tuesday, McConnell proposed $1.6 billion for border fencing — money already agreed upon in a bipartisan Homeland Security bill — and an additional $1 billion Trump could use to spend on the border.

McConnell called the offer “reasonable.” Democratic leaders said no.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said she and Schumer could “not support the offer they made of a billion-dollar slush fund for the president to implement his very wrong immigration policies.”

Uber Loses Lastest UK Legal Bid to Block Worker Rights for Drivers

Uber lost its latest court bid Wednesday to stop British drivers from being classified as workers, entitling them to rights such as the minimum wage, in a decision which jeopardizes the taxi app’s business model.

Two drivers successfully argued at a tribunal in 2016 that the Silicon Valley firm exerted significant control over them to provide an on-demand service and that they should cease to be considered self-employed, which gives few protections in law.

An employment appeal tribunal upheld that decision last year prompting Uber to go to the Court of Appeal, which ruled against the firm in a decision handed down Wednesday.

EU Gives US Two Months to Name Data Privacy Ombudsman

The European Union on Wednesday gave U.S. President Donald Trump two months to name an ombudsman to tackle EU citizens’ complaints under a data protection deal sealed by predecessor Barack Obama’s team.

Brussels has previously sought assurances the Trump administration is committed to the deal to protect Europeans’ personal data held in the United States by internet giants like Google and Facebook.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said an annual review found that Washington “continues to ensure an adequate level of protection for personal data” under the 2016 Privacy Shield.

But it said the United States should “nominate a permanent ombudsperson by February 28, 2019 to replace the one that is currently acting.”

If this does not happen, the commission warned it could take “appropriate measures” under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was adopted in May.

The privacy shield came into force in August 2016 to replace a previous arrangement that the EU’s top court struck down over concerns about U.S. intelligence snooping.

“Today’s review shows that the Privacy Shield is generally a success,” said Andrus Ansip, the Commission vice president for the digital single market.

More than 3,850 companies have been certified, including giants Google, Microsoft and IBM, creating “operational ground” to improve how the deal works, he said.

During the first review more than a year ago, the Commission said more than 2,400 companies had been certified.

“We now expect our American partners to nominate the ombudsperson on a permanent basis, so we can make sure that our EU-US relations in data protection are fully trustworthy,” Ansip said in a statement.

After the first review, the Commission said the Trump administration had dispelled initial EU doubts about its commitment to the privacy deal despite its “America First” policy.

Officials say the Privacy Shield lays down tough rules to prevent U.S. intelligence agencies accessing European data. Companies face penalties if they do not meet EU standards of protection.

The European Court of Justice threw out the earlier Safe Harbour arrangement after Austrian activist Max Schrems sued Facebook in Ireland, citing U.S. snooping practices exposed by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

As US-China Tensions Build, Silicon Valley Rethinks Bonds

In recent years, the tech industry has looked to China as a key partner to help build and sell cutting-edge devices and services.

But rising tensions between Washington and Beijing have Silicon Valley worried it will be caught in the middle of a growing trade war.

Over the summer, President Donald Trump slapped $250 million of tariffs on Chinese goods sold in the U.S. and claimed that China offers U.S. businesses an uneven playing field as Beijing seeks to make China into a tech super power.

The detention in Canada earlier this month of a Huawei executive for allegedly breaking U.S. sanctions on Iran has made tech executives feel even more vulnerable.

China, for its part, denies the U.S. claims and has taken steps to pursue a formal inquiry about the tariffs at the World Trade Organization.

A delicate line

For the tech industry, the increasing tensions come as it was already walking a delicate line. Tech executives complain about intellectual property theft in China and what they see as unfair conditions for doing business. But the two regions have strengthened their bonds through investment, trade and partnerships in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous cars.

The tensions have left tech executives questioning what they can share about their work, said Stanley Kwong, adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco.

“All of these people are worried if they traveled back and forth, they might be arrested because of the IP, something they know and they talk about in both China, and in the USA,” he said.

Silicon Valley firms have complained the relationship “isn’t as reciprocal as it needs to be,” said Sean Randolph, senior director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

The relationship, from some tech firms’ point of view, is about “the extraction of technologies involuntarily from foreign companies to accelerate China’s technology leadership,” he said.

Critical technologies

Chinese money that has helped fuel the current tech boom in Silicon Valley may start drying up. One reason — a new U.S. law, the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), beefed up oversight of foreign investment and acquisitions of critical technology that are deemed strategically important. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. has expanded powers to block foreign purchases of U.S. firms.

“Silicon Valley people have been optimistic for a long time,” said Xiaohua Yang, professor of international business at the University of San Francisco. “But now, they have begun to worry … about the lack of Chinese investment coming to support Silicon Valley technology development.”

Lawmakers are concerned that U.S. tech companies, as they pursue the Chinese market or seek Chinese investment, might hand over core technology to the Chinese government, a competitor and sometime adversary on the global stage. The tech industry waits, as what constitutes “critical technologies” under FIRRMA is still being developed.

For U.S. entrepreneurs, the changing climate may mean they will become more cautious, said Kwong, who advises startups.

“If you want to do business in China, if you’re doing consumer products, I say, that’s probably fine,” he said. “But let’s presume you’re doing AI. You better find out exactly what you’re doing. You can have AI in a coffee machine, and I don’t think that’s much to do with defense. If you’re doing facial recognition that may be something that’s going to have a major problem.”

Randolph said that the tech industry has long had an “open market, open platform” approach, with the idea that anyone can come and “we’re moving innovation forward globally.”

But if tensions between Washington and Beijing continue to escalate, experts say, the very openness of Silicon Valley may be a casualty — even if tech firms stand to benefit if China becomes more open for doing business.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company Set to Unveil Its First Los Angeles-Area Tunnel

The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s underground transit venture, planned an unveiling of its first tunnel Tuesday, two years after the billionaire entrepreneur complained about Los Angeles traffic and vowed to “just start digging” as a remedy.

Musk has advertised his 2-mile (3.2 km) tunnel as the first step toward developing a high-speed subterranean network for whisking vehicles and pedestrians below the congested streets of the second-largest city in the United States.

The tunnel, an initial proof-of-concept, has been excavated along a path that runs not through Los Angeles but beneath the tiny adjacent municipality of Hawthorne, where Musk’s Boring Company and his SpaceX rocket firm are headquartered.

In a tweet earlier this month, Musk said the big reveal would include “autonomous transport cars & ground to tunnel elevator cars.”

Boring’s website describes a system of passenger- and automobile-carrying “skates” that can zip through the tunnels by way of electric power once they are lowered underground from street level.

Musk, best known as head of the Tesla Inc electric car manufacturer and energy company, launched his foray into public transit after complaining in December 2016 that L.A.’s traffic was “driving me nuts,” promising then to “build a boring machine and just start digging.”

In May, the company gave the world a preview of the first tunnel, posting a fast-forward video of the interior shot by a camera traveling the length of the cylindrical passageway, which measures about 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter.

Musk also created a stir by promising free trips through the tunnel once it opened — “like a weird little Disney ride in L.A.” — to get public feedback before proceeding with a larger system.

It remained doubtful, however, whether permits Musk received to dig what was then billed as an experimental tunnel would allow the public inside.

“There will be no cars or people in the research tunnel,” according to the minutes of a special Hawthorne City Council meeting in August 2017 to review an easement for the project.

On its website, the Boring company said that “due to unbelievably high demand, tours through the Hawthorne test tunnel are by invitation only.”

If successful, the Hawthorne tunnel is envisioned as eventually connecting to a network of other tunnels, yet to be approved or built.

Last month, the Boring Company scrapped plans for a slightly longer 2.7-mile segment under a West Los Angeles neighborhood, settling litigation brought by community groups opposed to that project.

But Musk’s company announced it was moving ahead with a proposed tunnel across town to connect Dodger Stadium, home of the city’s Major League Baseball team, to the existing subway line.

In June, Boring was selected by the city of Chicago to build a 17-mile underground transit system linking that city’s downtown to O’Hare International Airport. The company also has proposed an East Coast Loop that would run from Washington, D.C., out to the Maryland suburbs.

French Pair Invent Plastic-to-fuel Recycler Fit for African Bush

A French actor and a self-taught inventor have designed a low-tech machine that converts plastic waste into diesel and petrol, which they say could help fight pollution and provide fuel for remote communities in developing countries.

Proponents of plastics-to-fuel technology say the sector could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the next five years, and that by melting plastics into fuel they are providing a solution to the planet’s plastic waste crisis.

Opponents worry that the process creates harmful fumes.

“The idea is to encourage the collection of waste before it ends up in the oceans with a machine that fits in a shipping container and can create an income,” said Samuel Le Bihan, who has starred in French movies such as “Disco” and “Mesrine.”

For three-and-a-half years Le Bihan has bankrolled the development of the crude machine — dubbed Chrysalis — in a hangar in Puget-Theniers in the hills behind the Riviera city of Nice. Its designer is a 35-year-old self-taught scientist.

Plastic pellets are fed into a closed reactor where they are broken down at 450 degrees centigrade to produce diesel, gasoline and a carbon residue that can be used in crayons.

“A kilo of plastic gives a liter of liquid. It’s separated between diesel and petrol,” said creator Cristofer Costes.

With 50,000 euro additional financing from the local authority, the two men plan to create a larger prototype capable of converting 50 kilograms of plastic into fuel every 80 minutes.

Simple in design, it will be reparable even in the depths of the African bush, said Costes.

Every year about 260 million tons of plastic is produced.

U.N. data shows eight million tons of plastic — bottles, packaging and other waste — enters the ocean each year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain.

Conservationists have warned that plastic pollution in the oceans could outweigh fish by 2050.

Similar technologies to the Chrysalis have already been developed by companies looking to help solve one of the greatest environmental problems facing humanity.

British firm Recycling Technologies says their machine — the RT7000 — can transform hard-to-recycle waste plastic into a novel raw material, called Plaxx, which can then be re-used by the plastics industry.

“If people see that plastic waste has a value they won’t chuck it away,” said Le Bihan. “I can’t imagine how many tons of plastic waste there is lying around that we could treat.”

Nine In 10 Babies Born With A Cleft Condition Could Die Without Corrective Surgery

One of the most common birth defects in the world is a cleft lip. It’s essentially a gap in the upper lip where the skin didn’t grow together. Babies with cleft lips may also have a cleft palates, where the roof of the mouth is split. Both can be repaired surgically. But unless that’s done, this birth defect can cause significant disability or even death. More from VOA’s Carol Pearson.

NASA’s 1st Flight to Moon, Apollo 8, Marks 50th Anniversary

Fifty years ago on Christmas Eve, a tumultuous year of assassinations, riots and war drew to a close in heroic and hopeful fashion with the three Apollo 8 astronauts reading from the Book of Genesis on live TV as they orbited the moon.

To this day, that 1968 mission is considered to be NASA’s boldest and perhaps most dangerous undertaking. That first voyage by humans to another world set the stage for the still grander Apollo 11 moon landing seven months later.

There was unprecedented and unfathomable risk to putting three men atop a monstrous new rocket for the first time and sending them all the way to the moon. The mission was whipped together in just four months in order to reach the moon by year’s end, before the Soviet Union.

There was the Old Testament reading by commander Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders.

Lastly, there was the photo named “Earthrise,” showing our blue and white ball — humanity’s home — rising above the bleak, gray lunar landscape and 240,000 miles (386 million kilometers) in the distance.

Humans had never set eyes on the far side of the moon, or on our planet as a cosmic oasis, surrounded completely by the black void of space. A half-century later, only 24 U.S. astronauts who flew to the moon have witnessed these wondrous sights in person.

The Apollo 8 crew is still around: Borman and Lovell are 90, Anders is 85.

To Lovell, the journey had the thrill and romance of true exploration, and provided an uplifting cap for Americans to a painful, contentious year marked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, nationwide riots and protests of the Vietnam War.

The mission’s impact was perhaps best summed up in a four-word telegram received by Borman. “Thanks, you saved 1968.”

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine — who at age 43 missed Apollo — marvels over the gutsy decision in August that year to launch astronauts to the moon in four months’ time. He’s pushing for a return to the moon, but with real sustainability this next go-around.

50-50 chances

The space agency flipped missions and decided that instead of orbiting Earth, Borman and his crew would fly to the moon to beat the Soviets and pave the way for the lunar landings to come. And that was despite on its previous test flight, the Saturn V rocket lost parts and engines failed.

“Even more worrisome than all of this,” Bridenstine noted earlier this month, Apollo 8 would be in orbit around the moon on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. “In other words, if there was a failure here, it would wreck Christmas not only for everybody in the United States, but for everybody in the world.”

As that first moon shot neared, Borman’s wife, Susan, demanded to know the crew’s chances. A NASA director answered: 50-50.

Borman wanted to get to the moon and get back fast. In his mind, a single lap around the moon would suffice. His bosses insisted on more.

“My main concern in this whole flight was to get there ahead of the Russians and get home. That was a significant achievement in my eyes,” Borman explained at the Chicago launch of the book Rocket Men last spring.

Everyone eventually agreed: Ten orbits it would be.

Liftoff of the Saturn V occurred on the morning of Saturday, Dec. 21, 1968.

On Christmas Eve, the spaceship successfully slipped into orbit around the moon. Before bedtime, the first envoys to another world took turns reading the first 10 verses from Genesis. It had been left to Borman, before the flight, to find “something appropriate” to say for what was expected to be the biggest broadcast audience to date.

“We all tried for quite a while to figure out something, and it all came up trite or foolish,” Borman recalled. Finally, the wife of a friend of a friend came up with the idea of Genesis.

“In the beginning,” Anders read, “God created the heaven and the Earth …”

Borman ended the broadcast with, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”

On Christmas morning, their spacecraft went around the moon for the final time. The engine firing needed to shoot them back to Earth occurred while the capsule was out of communication with Mission Control in Houston. Lovell broke the nervous silence as the ship reappeared: “Please be informed there is a Santa Claus.”

Back in Houston, meanwhile, a limousine driver knocked on Marilyn Lovell’s door and handed her a gift-wrapped mink stole with a card that read: “To Marilyn, Merry Christmas from the man in the moon.” Lovell bought the coat for his wife and arranged its fancy delivery before liftoff.

Splashdown occurred in the pre-dawn darkness on Dec. 27, bringing the incredible six-day journey to a close. Time magazine named the three astronauts “Men of the Year.”

Earthrise

It wasn’t until after the astronauts were back that the significance of their Earth pictures sank in.

Anders snapped the iconic Earthrise photo during the crew’s fourth orbit of the moon, frantically switching from black-and-white to color film to capture the planet’s exquisite, fragile beauty.

“Oh my God, look at that picture over there!” Anders said. “There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!”

Before the flight, no one had thought about photographing Earth, according to Anders. The astronauts were under orders to get pictures for potential lunar landing sites while orbiting 70 miles (112 kilometers) above the moon.

“We came to explore the moon and what we discovered was the Earth,” Anders is fond of saying.

His Earthrise photo is a pillar of today’s environmental movement. It remains a legacy of Apollo and humanity’s achievement, said professor emeritus John Logsdon of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, forever underscoring the absence of political borders as seen from space.

Anders wondered then — and now — “This is not a very big place, why can’t we get along?”

Lovell remains awestruck by the fact he could hide all of Earth behind his thumb.

“Over 3 billion people, mountains, oceans, deserts, everything I ever knew was behind my thumb,” he recalled at a recent anniversary celebration at Washington’s National Cathedral.

Astronaut-artist Nicole Stott said the golden anniversary provides an opportunity to reintroduce the world to Earthrise. She and three other former space travelers are holding a celebration Friday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, 50 years to the day Apollo 8 launched.

“That one image, I think, it just gives us the who and where we are in the universe so beautifully,” she said.

By July 1969, Apollo 8 was overshadowed by Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin moon landing. But without Apollo 8, noted George Washington’s Logsdon, NASA likely would not have met President John F. Kennedy’s deadline of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

Borman and Anders never flew in space again, and Soviet cosmonauts never made it to the moon.

Lovell went on to command the ill-fated Apollo 13 — “but that’s another story.” That flight was the most demanding, he said, “But Apollo 8 was the one of exploration, the one of repeating the Lewis and Clark expedition … finding the new Earth.”

New Brazilian Minister: Even Military Must Compromise on Pensions

Every Brazilian, including current and former members of the armed forces, will have to compromise under the next administration’s pension reform plan, a former general set to become government minister said in an interview.

Retired General Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz told Reuters in Brasilia last week that it was “inadmissible” in today’s world for some Brazilians employed in the public sector to retire in their 40s or 50s.

On December 4, right-wing President-elect Jair Bolsonaro said he planned to tackle the overhaul of Brazil’s fiscally burdensome pension system with piecemeal reforms that can pass Congress, starting with an increase in the minimum age of retirement.

Many economists say cuts to Brazil’s social security system are essential to controlling a huge federal deficit and regaining Brazil’s investment-grade rating.

“There are some professions that will need to cede some things, as is the case with the justice system workers, the prosecutor’s office, and all public sector employment,” Santos Cruz said. “The military is in the same situation. The idea of retirement, for example, is going to have to be tweaked.”

One of a group of former army generals who have become close advisers to Bolsonaro, Santos Cruz will be Bolsonaro’s main liaison with Congress, state and local governments, when he takes office on January 1.

Brazil would have to take a long hard look at the age people stop working in order to protect public finances, said Santos Cruz, who is 66.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain and staunch defender of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, had pledged to protect military pensions and retirement rights, but the realization that they are responsible for nearly half of the pensions deficit led his economic advisers to push him to rethink that stance. In recent comments, Bolsonaro has said he is willing to countenance a minimum age for military retirement.

Santos Cruz also said any austerity measures should be leveled against top-earning public workers, for whom the pain is relatively less, rather than lower paid employees.

Greek Lawmakers Approve New Budget — With More Austerity

Greek lawmakers approved the heavily indebted country’s budget for 2019 late Tuesday, the first since Greece exited an eight-year bailout program.

The budget lawmakers passed with a 154-143 vote still is heavy on austerity measures to ensure Greece registers a hefty surplus, in compliance with its debt relief deal with international creditors.

Earlier Tuesday, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said the proposed budget was Greece’s first in 10 years to be drafted “under circumstances of relative financial and political freedom” from bailout creditors.

“Today we have the opportunity to vote for a budget that now reflects the priorities of the Greek government, and not of [its] supervising institutions,” he said during a parliamentary debate.

As the debate drew to a close, more than 2,000 people demonstrated peacefully outside parliament in two separate protests called by labor unions.

The budget submitted by the left-led government foresees Greece’s battered economy growing 2.1 percent in 2018 and 2.5 percent in 2019. The debt load is set to decline from 180.4 percent of output this year to 167.8 percent next year.

Greece owes most of that debt to European partners and the International Monetary Fund. The debt relief deal secured favorable repayment terms, but in return the country must achieve budget surpluses for decades to come.

The country also secured a cash buffer from creditors so it would not have to tap bond markets until the rates demanded by investors to buy Greek government bonds drop.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told lawmakers Tuesday that the country is not locked out of bond markets by high borrowing costs — even though his government has so far shelved stated plans to issue bonds shortly after the end of Greece’s last bailout, in August.

“[It] is a myth” that Greece can’t tap bond markets, Tsipras said. “You can be certain that we will again make a market exit, with a very good rate.”

Greece depended on bailout loans from 2010 until August 2018, and imposed crippling cutbacks to secure the money. Its finances are still subject to creditor scrutiny, albeit less intense than before.

Tsipras’ government is playing up citizen assistance programs that are intended to bring some 900 million euros in tax cuts and welfare benefits to less well-off Greeks. The money for the relief measures is supposed to come from a surplus generated by high taxes and constrained public spending.

However, labor unions say that’s not enough.

“Funding in the budget both for education and for health is much lower than our expectations,” Giannis Paidas, head of the Adedy civil servants’ union, said during the smaller of Tuesday’s two central Athens protests.

“It is the same and worse as during previous bailout-era years,” Paidas added. “There will be a 1 billion-euro increase in taxation. As you understand, this increase will burden working Greeks.”

World-Famous T.Rex Sue Gets New Lair in Chicago

Sue, the largest, most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever unearthed, gets to show off its new lair this week at the Field Museum in Chicago.

The museum on Friday will unveil the 40-1/2-foot-long (12.3-meter) Sue, one of the world’s best-known dinosaur fossils, in the giant meat-eater’s new permanent exhibition space after 10 months of work moving and remounting the huge bones. Sue’s bones were mounted in a way that reflects new understanding about the species acquired over the past two decades.

One major change was the addition of gastralia, bones resembling an additional set of ribs spanning the belly that may have provided structural support to help the dinosaur breathe.

“The gastralia form a basket of bones in the abdominal wall and really help us visualize the size and girth of Sue. We also adjusted the shoulder blades to fit with what we now consider to be the correct wishbone, and this had the effect of bringing the arms lower and closer to the midline. Sue can now clap,” said paleontologist Pete Makovicky, the museum’s associate curator of dinosaurs.

Sue is named for the woman who discovered the fossils in South Dakota in 1990. It is not clear whether the actual dinosaur was female or male. The museum bought the fossils at auction for $8.4 million and put Sue on display in 2000.

“Adjustments were also made to the ribcage and the right leg is less flexed. Finally, we gave the mount a slightly wider gape for dramatic effect,” Makovicky added. “The new exhibit is a smaller, more intimate space, so the sheer size of the skeleton comes across in a much more visceral way.”

T. rex, one of the largest land predators ever, roamed western North America during the twilight of the age of dinosaurs during the Cretaceous Period, alongside horned dinosaurs, armored dinosaurs, duckbilled dinosaurs, flying reptiles called pterosaurs, birds with and without teeth and other creatures.

An asteroid impact off the coast of Mexico 66 million years ago doomed the dinosaurs and many other land and sea creatures, though mammals survived the calamity and later became dominant.

Mexico Budget Plan Races Past First Congressional Hurdle

The finance committee of Mexico’s lower house of Congress on Tuesday rapidly approved the revenue section of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s 2019 draft budget, auguring speedy passage in the legislature his party controls.

Lopez Obrador’s leftist government only unveiled the budget proposal on Saturday night. It met with a positive initial response from financial markets, with investors warming to his commitment to keep a lid on spending.

The president’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) and its allies dominate Congress, having won the first outright majority in more than two decades.

Having been approved by the finance committee without changes, the revenue section is expected to go to the floor of the lower house on Tuesday afternoon. Once approved, the revenue budget proposal moves to the Senate.

The budget is a major test of Lopez Obrador’s credibility, which was shaken when he said on Oct. 29 he was scrapping a partly built $13 billion new Mexico City airport on the basis of a referendum that was widely panned as illegitimate.

With Click of Button, Britain’s Homeless Crowdfund Their Way to Work

When Hana fled to Britain with her son from East Africa, she was grateful to have found safety from persecution and a roof over her head in her sister’s tiny London apartment.

It should have been a stop-gap, but a year on, the four still live together in cramped conditions, with Hana sharing a bed with her young son, and her sister doing the same with her toddler.

“When I came to Britain, I struggled with everything. It’s very hard to be a single mum and homeless,” said Hana, who did not share her full name for fear of repercussions.

With no job prospects, she had no chance of finding her own home in London, where rents are among the highest in the world.

Homelessness has been rising in England for nearly a decade, with over 82,000 families in temporary accommodation, including more than 123,000 children, government data shows.

But 32-year-old Hana is hoping to buck that trend, after a crowdfunding campaign by social enterprise Beam paid for her to study beauty therapy.

“It’s been a dramatic change, now I will be a professional beauty therapist. Straight away I want to start a job, the day I finish my studies,” Hana said in a phone interview.

She is one of about 50 homeless people who secured employment training through Beam, which it says is the world’s first purpose-built platform that helps homeless people crowdfund donations through their online profile.

The participants, who are referred to Beam by homelessness charities, are also supported by caseworkers throughout their studies and job hunt.

“We really want to return people to a stage of independence. They should never be defined by their homelessness,” said Beam founder Alex Stephany, who launched the platform last year.

He said each crowdfunding campaign is fully funded before a new one is launched to ensure each person has the chance to take a training course of their choice, be it accounting, dental nursing or carpentry.

“There are lots of people who need help, and also lots of people who want to help, and technology has a really important part to play in making it safe and easy for people to do that,” Stephany said in an interview.

‘Housing emergency’

Homelessness charity Shelter, which partners with Beam, blames rising private rents, a freeze on benefits and a shortage of social housing for the sharp increase in homelessness.

“We see destitution every day and desperation from people. People who are being priced out of the rental market. We’re calling it a housing emergency, it’s atrocious,” said Alison Mohammed, Shelter’s director of services.

Discrimination against homeless people has also made it difficult for them to secure rental properties, she said.

A hotel in the northern English city of Hull was criticized this week after it canceled paid bookings made by a local charity to give rough sleepers a bed for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

‘Message from heaven’

Mohammed said initiatives like Beam can harness the public’s goodwill to help homeless people, but it is just “one piece of the puzzle.”

“Anything that can tap into the public’s wish to do something about homelessness is a good idea,” she said in a phone interview.

“It’s not going to solve the lack of social housing, but it is going to help people who have got to a position in their life where they can take that step,” Mohammed said.

Beam said a dozen people had so far gained employment and the group hopes to expand beyond London and roll out the initiative across the country.

For Hana, who will finish her beauty therapy studies next year, knowing that hundreds of strangers care about her well-being and future in Britain has been a source of comfort.

She is confident she will find her own place to live too.

“I don’t know these people and I don’t even see their faces, but they encourage me very much. It’s like a message from heaven,” she said.

SpaceX Halts US Satellite Launch for National Security Mission

Elon Musk’s SpaceX halted Tuesday’s launch of a long-delayed navigation satellite for the U.S. military, postponing for at least a day the space transportation company’s first designated national security mission for the United States.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a roughly $500 million global positioning system (GPS) satellite built by Lockheed Martin Corp, was due to take off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral shortly after 9:30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT), but was stopped minutes before takeoff.

“This abort was triggered by the onboard Falcon 9 flight computer,” a SpaceX official narrating the launch sequence said without providing additional details. He said SpaceX would attempt the launch on Wednesday morning.

If the mission is successful it will mark a victory for Musk, a billionaire entrepreneur who has tried for years to break into the market for lucrative military space launches, long dominated by Lockheed and Boeing Co.

SpaceX sued the U.S. Air Force in 2014 in protest over the military’s award of a multibillion-dollar, non-compete contract for 36 rocket launches to United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed.

SpaceX dropped the lawsuit in 2015 after the Air Force agreed to open up competition, according to SpaceX’s website.

The next year, SpaceX won a $83 million Air Force contract to launch the GPS III satellite, which will have a lifespan of 15 years, Air Force spokesman William Russell said by phone.

Tuesday’s launch was to be the first of 32 satellites in production by Lockheed under contracts worth a combined $12.6 billion for the Air Force’s GPS III program, Lockheed spokesman Chip Eschenfelder said.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Florida to attend the launch, which he called “an important step forward as we seek to secure American leadership in space.”

“Once fully operational, this latest generation of GPS satellites will bring new capabilities to users, including three times greater accuracy and up to eight times the anti-jamming capabilities,” said Russell.

The GPS satellite launch was originally scheduled for 2014 but has been hobbled by production delays, the Air Force said. The next GPS III satellite will launch in mid-2019, Eschenfelder said, while subsequent satellites undergo testing in the company’s Colorado processing facility.

The launch marks SpaceX’s first so-called National Security Space mission as defined by the U.S. military, SpaceX said. The Hawthorne, California-based company has previously launched payloads for the Department of Defense in 2017 that were not designated as a National Security Space missions.

As US Life Expectancy Falls, West Virginia Offers Lessons

If you want to understand why U.S. life expectancy is declining, West Virginia is a good place to start.

The state is a bellwether of bad health, portending major problems years before they became severe nationally.

“It seems that the worst outcomes happen here first,” said Dr. Michael Brumage, a West Virginia University public health expert who formerly ran the health department in Charleston. “We’re the canary in the coal mine.”

The drug overdose death rate for all Americans today is where West Virginia’s rate was 10 years ago. The nation’s suicide rate is where West Virginia’s was nearly 20 years ago.

Obesity was common in West Virginia before it became widespread in the rest of the country. And life expectancy started tumbling in the Mountain State before it began falling across the U.S.

Maggie Hill has lived in the state for all of her 67 years. Sitting in her cabin in the town of Madison recently, she ticked off the many deaths that have befallen her family: An older brother drowned in a flood in 1977. A sister died in a house fire. Two siblings, both smokers, died of lung cancer. Two others were stillborn. Her first husband died of congestive heart failure.

Then there were the suicides. Two of her three sons shot themselves to death, one of them after losing his job. Her second husband died the same way, using a gun in their bedroom closet one Sunday morning while she was still in bed.

“I don’t think people have a lot to live for,” she said. “I really and truly don’t see things getting better.”

Life expectancy

After decades of steady increases, U.S. life expectancy has been declining since 2014. A government report released last month said the trend continued last year, driven in part by suicides and drug overdoses — the so-called diseases of despair.

What else is driving the decline? Experts say America’s obesity problem has worsened the diabetes death rate and helped stall progress against the nation’s leading killer, heart disease.West Virginia eclipses most other states in the percentage of people affected by diabetes, heart disease and obesity. It has had the nation’s highest rate of drug overdose deaths for years running. It also has the highest obesity rate and the highest rates of diabetes and high blood pressure. Adding to those woes is the highest suicide rate among states east of the Mississippi River.

Earlier this fall, U.S. health officials released for the first time life expectancy predictions at a neighborhood level. An Associated Press analysis of the data found wide disparities in cities and towns. Among states, the AP found, Hawaii had the highest life expectancy. West Virginia was the second lowest, behind Mississippi.

Mississippi, Oklahoma and a few other states suffer death and disease rates that are about as bad — or sometimes worse. But those places have unusually large populations of low-income black or Native American people, who suffer a disproportionate share of disability, disease and death.

West Virginia is 94 percent white. That makes it a telling indicator. Nearly 80 percent of the Americans who die each year are white people, and death rates rose in white men and women last year but were flat or falling in blacks and Hispanics.

So white deaths — particularly those of people who are not elderly — are mainly responsible for the nation’s declining life expectancy.

Widespread attention

Ten years ago, The Associated Press described Huntington, West Virginia, and its environs as the unhealthiest place in America , based on health survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that put it at the bottom of the charts in more than a half-dozen measures, including the highest proportions of people who were obese, had diabetes and had heart disease.

The AP report, and others like it, drew widespread attention that peaked in 2010, when celebrity chef Jamie Oliver staged a reality TV show in Huntington to teach people how to eat better.

The attention was not entirely welcomed. It felt like outsiders coming in to criticize and perpetuate “hillbilly” stereotypes, said Steve Williams, who was elected Huntington’s mayor in 2012.

But Williams said it also was motivating, prompting changes in school food and even improvements to parks and sidewalks.

“We get slammed all the time with obesity,” said Andy Fischer, a financial adviser who organized a 2,500-person community walking program. “We’ve got to get better.”

These days, the Huntington area looks somewhat better in government health surveys. For example, the region’s obesity rate is only a few percentage points above the national median — instead of 10 or 20 points.

That said, it’s clear the Huntington area still has some big problems. It ranks among the worst metro areas in measures like the percentage of adults who smoke, have high blood pressure and have had a stroke.

Opioids and obesity

About the time Huntington was trying to tackle its weight problem, it was rocked by a new crisis — opioid addiction.

A recently-closed crisis and detox center in downtown Logan, W.Va. (AP Photo/Tyler Evert)

West Virginia now has the distinction of having the nation’s highest drug overdose death rate. Last year, for the first time, the state’s body count surpassed 1,000. The epidemic also produced ripple effects such as a spike in the number of children taken into foster care because of dead or addicted parents.

In the last two years, no West Virginia county has seen more overdose deaths than Cabell County, which includes Huntington.

One of the grimmest spots has been Huntington’s West End — some locals call it “the Worst End.” The AP analysis of neighborhood-level death data found the area had a life expectancy at birth of only 62 years, 16 years shorter than national life expectancy.

Huntington’s reputation crystalized on a chaotic Monday in August 2016, when emergency responders saw 28 overdoses over six hours — including two deaths.

The city soon became known as America’s overdose capital. As documentary crews descended, Huntington tried to confront the problem. Among the efforts were quick-response teams charged with finding people days after they were treated for an overdose. The teams include a police officer, a clergy member, a paramedic and a treatment counselor who hand out overdose-reversing naloxone and provide information about treatment. They also direct people to a needle-exchange program run by the Cabell-Huntington Health Department.

Thommy Hill stands outside the Cabell County/Huntington Health Department, where he works in the harm reduction program, in Huntington, West Virginia, on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Tyler Evert)

One of the key figures in the program is Thommy Hill, a former drug dealer who has become its gatekeeper and central cog. He knows every drug user who visits and constantly tries to persuade them to try treatment — arranging immediate transportation and handing them a backpack full of clothes if they agree.

One morning in late October, bantering with a man who had come in for fresh needles, Hill lit up when the visitor mentioned a past vacation. Hill pitched him a one-week stay at a treatment hospital, joking that “people will wait on you hand and foot.”

A few minutes later, he explained: “It’s all about treating them like people. They don’t get a lot of that.”

Something seems to be working. Non-fatal overdoses in Huntington have fallen and are on track to be 40 percent lower than 2017, city officials said. They are optimistic deaths will be down this year, too.

“If we can turn around overdose numbers here, we can do it anywhere,” Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said in May at a health summit in Huntington.

Politicians including President Donald Trump have decried the opioid epidemic, prioritizing it over other health crises. But obesity still presents a towering threat.

West Virginians exercise less than other Americans. They eat fruits and vegetables less often. Only Mississippi has a larger proportion of adults drinking soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages each day.

In some cases, state policies are not helping.

For example, bariatric surgery can help certain obese people for whom conventional diet and exercise programs have no lasting effect. But West Virginia’s Medicaid program has unusually harsh cost-control barriers that make it difficult for severely obese people to get approved for surgery, according to a recent analysis by George Washington University.

Then there’s the soda tax, which health advocates say can give consumers second thoughts about choosing those drinks. Last year, Gov. Jim Justice proposed raising it from 1 cent per 16.9-ounce bottle to a penny per ounce. It failed in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Signs of change

There are some signs of hope in West Virginia. In October, health advocates held a conference on obesity in the South in West Virginia’s capital city. It was a surprisingly upbeat meeting.

The South has long had the highest obesity rates in the country, and nowhere has adult obesity been more common than in West Virginia. But future-focused projects are popping up all over the state, aimed at getting kids to embrace exercise and healthy eating.

“We want to give people hope that we can be knocked off the unhealthiest list” of states, said Kayla Wright, director of an organization called Try This West Virginia that’s funding many of them.

One grant paid for high school students to build a 5K trail and explore creating a teen cross-country running group. Another grant went toward restoring a greenhouse and helping people learn to garden.

Many of the projects are baby steps, but conference participants cited a few places where progress seems broader. Huntington is one, they say.

Another is Mingo County, in the southwest corner of the state, deep in the heart of coal country. Life expectancy there has never been high. Jobs in the lumber and coal industries were notoriously dangerous. Doctors could be hard to find. And there was violence: The deadly Hatfield-McCoy feud played out in those hills, as did bloody labor battles between miners and coal companies.

The largest municipality in the county, Williamson, became known in the last decade as a center for the abuse of prescription opioid painkillers. (Some called the 3,000-person town “Pilliamson.”)

But while the drug crisis was playing out, some local leaders — led by a young doctor named C. Donovan “Dino” Beckett — built a series of programs aimed at creating a culture of health. It started seven years ago with the opening of a free clinic that later became the Williams Health and Wellness Center. That spawned a community garden and a vegetable delivery service, a running club and once-a-month 5K races that draw a few hundred runners. Also in the works, for next year, is a federally funded treatment program for people addicted to drugs.

So far, perhaps the most successful program is one that sends health workers to the homes of diabetics.

Jamie Muncy is one success story.

The 48-year-old lost his job three years ago when the mine he was working in shut down. Last fall, he had just pulled out of a long-term habit of pain pills and other drugs when he bizarrely tore a tendon in his foot while picking up a piece of paper at a post office.

It was so painful he rarely walked, but he continued to eat terribly. Out of a job and with his marriage in ruins, “I had no motivation” to be healthy, he said. “I didn’t care.”

By January, the 5-foot-3 former mine foreman ballooned from 165 pounds to 196. “I was round as I was tall,” he said.

A visit to the Williamson health center revealed he had alarming, diabetes-qualifying blood sugar levels. He’d had mini-strokes in the past, and his physician said a much bigger one was probably on its way if Muncy did not take drastic steps.

The doctor put him on a tight carb-cutting diet, connected him to physical therapy and put him in the home-visit diabetes program.

Now Muncy walks 5 miles a day and is a regular at the farmer’s market. His weight is down to about 145 pounds, he said in a recent interview. He still smokes, though.

An uncertain future

University of Washington researchers recently calculated something called “healthy life expectancy” — the period someone born today could expect to live in relative health. West Virginia, at 62½ years, was the lowest among states.

Clearly, health problems abound.

Black lung disease rates and coal mine injury rates appear to be up.

West Virginia has been at the top of the charts in hepatitis B and C infection rates. Adding to that, the state saw an HIV outbreak last year, and it is still weathering a hepatitis A outbreak — both associated with injection drug users

Maggie Hill, the lifelong West Virginian, has little hope for the future. But she does have Charity.

Charity is a 10-year-old girl Hill adopted about five years ago. Hill’s son had been raising her but lost custody during his ongoing struggle with drug addiction, Hill said.

Hill and Charity live in a small wooded valley with a creek in it — a holler, as they say in West Virginia. Her house is a cabin that from the outside resembles a small, tidy barn. Charity has given her life a purpose, she said.

“I taught her how to survive when I’m gone,” she said. “I have to. She’s going to need to know how to cook. … She needs to know how to keep house. She needs to know how to mow grass, so if she ain’t got a man, she can keep the yard clean. I teach her every bit of this.”

Charity is a good student (“Four A’s and a B on her last report card,” Hill said). And there’s hope that she will do well enough to go to college. Hill is saving for it. “She wants to be a doctor,” Hill said.

If Charity does go to college, some place away from Boone County, Hill says she will move there with her. “If I’m alive,” she said.

 

 

US Surgeon General Warns of Teen Risks From e-Cigarettes

The government’s top doctor is taking aim at the best-selling electronic cigarette brand in the U.S., urging swift action to prevent Juul and similar vaping brands from addicting millions of teenagers.

In an advisory Tuesday, Surgeon General Jerome Adams said parents, teachers, health professionals and government officials must take “aggressive steps” to keep children from using e-cigarettes. Federal law bars the sale of e-cigarettes to those under 18.

For young people, “nicotine is dangerous and it can have negative health effects,” Adams said in an interview. “It can impact learning, attention and memory, and it can prime the youth brain for addiction.”

Federal officials are scrambling to reverse a recent explosion in teen vaping that public health officials fear could undermine decades of declines in tobacco use. An estimated 3.6 million U.S. teens are now using e-cigarettes, representing 1 in 5 high school students and 1 in 20 middle schoolers, according to the latest federal figures.

Separate survey results released Monday showed twice as many high school students used e-cigarettes this year compared to last year.

E-cigarettes and other vaping devices have been sold in the U.S. since 2007, growing into a $6.6 billion business. Most devices heat a flavored nicotine solution into an inhalable vapor. They have been pitched to adult smokers as a less-harmful alternative to cigarettes, though there’s been little research on the long-term health effects or on whether they help people quit. Even more worrisome, a growing body of research suggests that teens who vape are more likely to try regular cigarettes.

Adams singled out Silicon Valley startup Juul. The company leapfrogged over its larger competitors with online promotions portraying their small device as the latest high-tech gadget for hip, attractive young people. Analysts now estimate the company controls more than 75 percent of the U.S. e-cigarette market.

The surgeon general’s advisory notes that each Juul cartridge, or pod, contains as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. Additionally, Adams states that Juul’s liquid nicotine mixture is specially formulated to give a smoother, more potent nicotine buzz. That effect poses special risks for young people, Adams says.

“We do know that these newer products, such as Juul, can promote dependence in just a few uses,” Adams said.

Juul said in a statement that it shares the surgeon general’s goal: “We are committed to preventing youth access of Juul products.”

Last month, San Francisco-based Juul shut down its Facebook and Instagram accounts and halted in-store sales of its flavored pods. The flavors remain available via age-restricted online sales. That voluntary action came days before the Food and Drug Administration proposed industrywide restrictions on online and convenience store sales of e-cigarettes to deter use by kids.

Adams recommends parents, teachers and health professionals learn about e-cigarettes, talk to children about the risks and set an example by not using tobacco products.

Grocery Store Using Unmanned Vehicles for Delivery

U.S. supermarket chain Kroger Co said on Tuesday it has started using unmanned autonomous vehicles to deliver groceries Scottsdale, Arizona in partnership with Silicon Valley startup Nuro.

The delivery service follows a pilot program started by the companies in Scottsdale in August and involved Nuro’s R1, a custom unmanned vehicle.

The R1 uses public roads and has no driver and is used to only transport goods.

Kroger’s deal with Nuro underscores the stiff competition in the U.S. grocery delivery market with supermarket chains angling for a bigger share of consumer spending.

Peers Walmart Inc and Amazon.com Inc have also invested heavily in their delivery operations by expanding their offerings and shortening delivery times.

Walmart, Ford Motor Co and delivery service Postmates Inc said last month they would collaborate to deliver groceries and other goods to Walmart customers and that could someday use autonomous vehicles.

Kroger said the service would be available in Scottsdale at its unit Fry’s Food Stores for $5.95 with no minimum order requirement for same-day or next-day deliveries.

Moon Outlines S. Korean Economic Plan as Think Tanks Point to Continued Slowing

The economic outlook in South Korea is not good, according to the Hyundai Research Institute, which stated in a report this week that the economy “reached its peak in May 2017” and may bottom out in 2020.

The bad economic news continues to contribute to President Moon Jae-in’s plummeting approval rating, which now stands at 45 percent, his lowest evaluation according to Gallup Korea. The latest poll indicates 53 percent of businesses gave Moon a negative rating, compared to only 41 approving of his administration.

The Hyundai Research Institute forecasts South Korea’s economic growth rate at 2.5 percent for the coming year, a rate matched by the LG Economic Research Institute. The state-run Korean Development Institute and the International Monetary Fund estimate a 0.1 percent higher growth rate. However, the Bank of Korea is an outlier and holds on to the most optimist view of a 2.8 to 2.9 percent growth rate through 2020.

Kim So Young, an economics professor at Seoul National University said Asia’s fourth-largest economy is slowing down, “but at this moment, it’s not at it’s worst.”

Research Fellow Chung Min, at the Hyundai Research Institute, said data it collected predicts things will approach the economy’s lowest point during the second half of 2019.

The 2018 third-quarter data led Seoul to cut its upcoming economic outlook, citing weak investments and global trade disputes.

“The economy is faced with downward risks such as deepening trade disputes, spreading financial instability in emerging markets amid the normalizing monetary policy by the major countries,” according to the government outlook. 

Experts agreed with that assessment, but had more to add.

Kim So Young said rising household debt is another factor, and Yonsei University professor of economics Taeyoon Sung cited two other potential causes.

One, he said, is major businesses have lost their competitiveness in global markets. The other is the Moon administration’s mandate to increase the minimum wage. Sung asserted higher wage costs have had a huge impact on the market economy.

Hansung University assistant professor Kim Sang Bong specifically identifies potential hardships the South Korean semiconductor sector may face because of increased competition from China and potential for the United States economy to “bottom out” in 2020 as well because of its own trade issues.

Hopes of a turnaround

Monday, Moon unveiled his plan to stave off South Korea’s stagnant economy and reverse course from his administration’s income-led growth policy, dubbed “J-nomics” (a combination of the president’s name (Jae-in) and economics).

Moon said in a ministers meeting that “we have to put policies that would vitalize the economy through innovation in regulation and encourage investment and, at the same time, lift regional economies and balanced development.”

Moon acknowledged that “it’s difficult to radically change an economy in a five-year term… In the process of changing the economic policy direction [to income-led growth], there could be some controversy and doubts, but we need to take an attitude to see [the changes] bear fruit with patience.”

Taeyoon Sung finds it hard to be optimistic about South Korea’s economy, predicting a continued downward trend for the country and calling the global situation “out of control.”

Hyundai Research Institute’s Chung Min said, “In the short-term, the administration needs to encourage investment and regulatory reform is required for that (reform) to take place, particularly in the SOC (Social Overhead Capital, a term referring infrastructure needs of a society).”

“Because investment in the construction sector is decreasing, it is necessary to have early execution of SOC [projects],” he added. “In the long-term, economic restructuring should take place, leading to a more active economy.”

The Hyundai Research Institute recommends the government carry out more flexible economic policies and consider an interest rate cut, “also, they should pursue expansionary fiscal policies and front load 2019 budget in the first half.”

Kim So Young agrees that altering South Korea’s current economic policies is a wise course of action, because the nation cannot control external conditions like the tariff dispute between Washington and Beijing.

Moon’s announcement “patches” things, said Kim Sang Bong, “but it offers no consistent policy.”

Leading Sung to mention that whatever changes are implemented, it will be difficult to forecast any type of recovery time should the economy “bottom out” as the Hyundai Research Institute predicts.

Chung Min noted that continued and careful monitoring of the economy is needed.

Lee Ju-hyun contributed to this report.