Through his first year in office, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio de Silva has made preserving the Amazon rainforest a priority, a stark reversal from his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. Lula’s enforcement agencies which have targeted illegal miners and loggers in the rainforest, have had a substantial impact. The Economist magazine reports that the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has declined 50 percent so far in 2023.
(“To Save the Amazon, Lula Must Work Out Who Owns It,” Economist, Nov. 28, 2023)
America’s Deep South is becoming the epicenter of a new HIV crisis ravaging mostly Republican Party led states from Texas to North Carolina. A poll last fall found nine out of 10 Mississippi residents support increasing funding for the state’s struggling hospital system. Community advocates say expanding the federal Medicaid program in the state, opposed by GOP Governor Tate Reeves and most Republicans, is the best way to secure the funding hospitals need to treat all patients, including those with HIV.
(“The South Is ‘The Epicenter’ of a New HIV Crisis,” Public Integrity, Dec. 1, 2023)
Long before Donald Trump inspired the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, the nation witnessed years of an alarming increase in incidents of right-wing political violence. Despite the many warning signs, America’s corporate mainstream media largely ignored the threat.
(“We’re in an Epidemic of Right-Wing Terror,” In These Times, Dec. 13, 2023)
This week’s News Summary was narrated by Anna Manzo.
