Failure to Pass a UN Declaration on Noncommunicable Diseases is Not an Excuse for Inaction
Near the end of the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly last week, Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and mental health took center stage in a Fourth High-Level Meeting focused on common ground and solutions. I was optimistic that there would be real momentum to act, as NCDs remain a leading cause of death and disability across the world and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to reduce premature mortality from NCDs is off track by a third.
At Brookline event, Attorney General Campbell, organizers urge community action against immigration enforcement
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and leaders of Greater Boston organizations fighting federal immigration crackdowns are calling on Brookline for collective action and solidarity.
The cities where buying a house is most and least affordable as mortgage rates change
When mortgage rates dropped to historic lows in 2021, below 3 percent, Britt Vaughan met with a real estate agent and tried to buy a home in Altadena, California, where he and his wife have lived for more than a decade. Vaughan, who works for a Los Angeles city agency, and his wife, a marriage and family therapist, had a budget and knew what they could afford. Month after month, he scrolled through real estate sites and fell into the gloomy habit of looking up the price of every house he passed with a “for sale” sign. But with student loans, and such unexpected events as a car crash and wildfire damage eating into their savings, they never felt ready to buy. All the while, home prices and mortgage rates kept climbing.
Gregory Wellenius Receives Beverly A. Brown Professorship
Gregory Wellenius has been named the Beverly A. Brown Professor for the Improvement of Urban Health. Endowed in 2012 through a $4 million donation from Boston University trustee emeritus Richard Shipley (SMG’68, GSM’72), the professorship honors and supports the work of a highly distinguished professor whose research, teaching, and service advance the condition of the more than half the world’s population who live in urban areas. The professorship is named for Beverly A. Brown, the long-time development director of the former Center for Global Health and Development and the wife of BU president emeritus Robert A. Brown.
Every day it’s something new’: Insiders claim Trump obsessed with remaking Washington
President Donald Trump’s laser focus on remodeling the White House and greater Washington, D.C. has reached unprecedented levels when compared with past administrations, according to several White House insiders and officials that spoke with Politico.
Historical Trial to Test Limits of Military Power in US Law Enforcement
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a post-Reconstruction law that bars the use of military troops for domestic law enforcement, will head to a bench trial Monday for the first time in American history to determine if the Trump administration’s federalization of the California National Guard and deployment of the Marines is legal.
As Trump’s raids ramp up, a Texas region’s residents stay inside — even when they need medical care
As the Trump administration intensifies deportation activity around the country, some immigrants — including many who have lived in Texas’s southern tip for decades — are unwilling to leave their homes, even for necessary medical care.
Brink Bites: Prescribing Cheaper Energy Bills and the Bible’s Agricultural Connections
A BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine assistant professor of medicine, Goldman spoke on a panel focused on reducing climate change’s impact on Boston, along with fellow BU researchers, Lucy Hutyra, a College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor and chair of Earth and environment, who talked about an urban cooling project, and Madeleine Scammell, a School of Public Health professor of environmental health, who discussed an effort to document city hot spots. All three are affiliated with the BU Institute for Global Sustainability, which has a full report on the summit.
Trump’s threat to Chinese international students puts academic exchange and tuition dollars at risk in Massachusetts
But on Wednesday, the US effectively pulled the welcome mat out from under the Chinese international students here, some 277,000 by most recent count. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the federal government would “aggressively” revoke visas of Chinese students, “including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”
Concerning new report reveals hidden health risks of cryptocurrency mining: ‘I can feel it in my chest’
Residents in Granbury, Texas, where a 300-megawatt mining operation runs day and night, describe the sound as similar to living next to a jet engine. “It wakes you up. I’ll be asleep, and everything will be fine, and then I’ll wake up because I can feel it in my chest,” says Shenice Copenhaver, who lives less than a mile from the facility, per The Guardian.
“Disrupted sleep causes a cascade of other issues in someone’s life. Lack of sleep is linked to depression, higher stress levels and chronic diseases like hypertension,” explains Mary Willis, assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University.