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California is facing a steep rise in tuberculosis cases. In 2023, the number of tuberculosis cases increased by 271, or 15%, from 2022, according to California Department of Public Health data released in February. The rate of TB in the Golden State has increased each year since 2020, with it now holding the highest number and one of the highest rates of TB cases in the country. And deaths are also mounting.

Although cocaine is consumed in every part of the world, its base, the coca plant, is mainly cultivated in three Latin American countries: Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. The latter made headlines in the fall of 2023 due to a report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) claiming that the area used for coca crop in 2022 grew to 230,000 hectares, a 13 percent increase compared to 2021, according to Reuters reporting. As our chart shows, this further cements Colombia's spot as the top coca producer in the world.According to figures by UNODC and the Peruvian...

Global gasoline consumption hit a record 26.9 million barrels per day (bpd) this year, exceeding the 2019 peak and defying estimates that the last pre-pandemic year was the time when gasoline demand worldwide would peak. The data, reported by Bloomberg Opinion columnist Javier Blas, shows the latest figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The same agency, which has been strongly advocating for a faster energy transition for years, had predicted just this year that 2019 was the peak demand for gasoline globally. Back in June, in its Oil 2023 annual report, the IEA said that “Growth is set to...

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has thrown support behind the implementation of carbon consumption charges, a move that has sparked debates and concerns during COP28. While the intention is to address environmental concerns, the repercussions are already causing ripples. One immediate impact is the anticipated increase in consumer pricing across the board. This added cost is expected to affect various sectors, potentially impacting the everyday lives of consumers. Critics argue that such charges could disproportionately burden average citizens, raising questions about the equity of the proposed solution.

A lead United Nations agency overseeing food and agriculture policy is expected to issue a road map in the coming weeks which will call on the West, including America, to dramatically reduce its meat consumption. The UN's Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) will publish its so-called global food systems’ road map during the upcoming COP28 climate summit in Dubai which will kick off on Thursday and extend nearly two weeks until mid-December. FAO's first-of-its-kind document will recommend nations that "over-consume meat" to limit their consumption as part of a broader effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Bloomberg reported.

A lead United Nations agency overseeing food and agriculture policy is expected to issue a road map in the coming weeks which will call on the West, including America, to dramatically reduce its meat consumption. The UN's Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) will publish its so-called global food systems’ road map during the upcoming COP28 climate summit in Dubai which will kick off on Thursday and extend nearly two weeks until mid-December. FAO's first-of-its-kind document will recommend nations that "over-consume meat" to limit their consumption as part of a broader effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Bloomberg reported.

Researchers have revealed the face of the 'Connecticut vampire' using forensic facial reconstruction.In 1990, archaeologists excavating a 19th century grave in the town of Giswold, located in Connecticut, United States, found that the human remains were arranged to form skull and crossbones, a practice performed during The New England Vampire Panic to prevent a suspected vampire from rising from the grave.The New England Vampire Panic was a period of terror and mass hysteria during the 19th century, caused by an outbreak of consumption that was blamed on vampires.Consumption, known today as tuberculosis (TB), is an infectious disease caused by the...

Germany could be completely out of gas by February, the country’s gas agency has said, with some experts saying that the country needs to cut consumption by 30 per cent to make it through the crisis intact. A reduction in gas consumption of up to 30 per cent may be required if Germany wants to make it through the coming winter intact, some experts have claimed, while the country’s gas agency has expressed concern that the nation could run out of the hydrocarbon by February.

Someone with a sharp mind and the capacity to do a lot of research spent time putting some numbers together: 1 Train has 100 cars, 2 engines and weighs 27,240,000 LBS 1 Train carries 3,000,000 gallons of oil. 1 train uses 55.5 gallons of diesel per mile. It takes 119,000 gallons of diesel to go 2150 miles from Hardidsy, AB to Freeport, TX. Keystone pipeline was to deliver 34,860,000 gallons of oil per day. It would take 12 trains and 1,428,000 gallons of diesel to deliver that amount. PER DAY! 521,220,000 gallons of diesel per year. The oil will still...

California residents were asked to voluntarily conserve power again Friday as a heat wave baking the U.S. West strained the state’s energy grid and raised the possibility of rotating outages. As temperatures spiked on Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an emergency proclamation that suspended certain permitting requirements, allowing power plants to ramp up operations if necessary to meet the demand for electricity. The proclamation cited the “extreme heat peril” facing the state this week. The California Independent System Operator, which runs the energy grid, issued a Flex Alert for 6 to 9 p.m. Friday. During those hours, people are urged...

NEW YORK, January 10 (C-Fam) Even with adjustments for longer, healthier living, the UN’s latest population figures show rapid aging and economic unpreparedness across the globe. By each of the three metrics used in the latest UN report on aging, only Africa is projected to avoid the harsh effects of aging in the coming decades, a world where the number of elderly is projected to more than double, reaching more than 1.5 billion. According to World Population Prospects 2019, by 2050, one in six people will be over the age of 65, up from one in eleven in 2019, as...

Georgian-born American artist David Datuna has eaten a banana used in an art work by Maurizio Cattelan, which had sold for $120,000 (£91,000). The artwork, titled Comedian, was on display at Art Basel in Miami, one of the world's most high-profile art fairs.

Most of the articles you read decrying the purportedly wretched state of the poor in the United States, blaming prosperous people for the "inequality" of our "income distribution" (as if rich people got that way by expropriating the earnings of the poor, because someone "redistributed" their income to the rich) are phony.  They rely on income reported to the IRS and ignore the substantial untaxed benefits supplied to low-income people. A new study from the public policy research group Just Facts corrects for this ignored income and finds that our poorest 20% consume as much as the average in...

Despite some slowdown in the pace of growth, solid economic indicators, like a rise in consumer spending, point to positive signs for the U.S. economy. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Friday that disposable personal income (DPI), a key gauge for retail spending, rose 0.4 percent, or $63.2 billion, in May. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) grew 0.2 percent, or $27.8 billion, and was up 2.3 percent from May 2017. Real DPI, income adjusted for taxes and inflation, increased 0.2 percent in May, and real PCE decreased less than 0.1 percent, the BEA said. The PCE price index was up 0.2...

In last month’s Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected that it now expects record U.S. gasoline consumption this year This projected increase follows several years of lower gasoline demand that resulted from persistently rising gasoline prices over the past decade. From 2002 to 2012 the average retail price of gasoline rose nearly every year, from an annual average of $1.39/gal in 2002 to $3.68/gal in 2012. Consumers responded to these higher prices in multiple ways, which cumulatively led to falling gasoline demand. Some even suggested that U.S. gasoline demand had permanently peaked, as a result...

Raffi Melkonian asks -- as relayed by my colleague Tyler Cowen -- "When can median income consumers afford the very best?"Tyler offers a list of some of the items in the modern, market-oriented world that are as high-quality as such items get and yet are easily affordable to ordinary people. This list includes iPhones, books, and rutabagas. Indeed, this list includes nearly all foods for use in preparing home snacks and meals. I doubt very much that Bill Gates and Larry Ellison munch at home on foods -- such as carrots, blueberries, peanuts, and scrambled eggs -- that an ordinary...

With China's official headline GDP number printing at decade lows, the positive spin on the increasingly negative data out of China has been that this is all a part of China's transition from an export-oriented to a consumption economy. However, there is a problem with this narrative: malls and shopping centers in China have been, and remain, increasingly empty suggesting that the narrative of the  resurgent Chinese consumer - especially in the aftermath of the biggest stock market bubble burst since 2008 - is greatly exaggerated. Case in point: Reuters asks this morning "why are malls closing if consumption...

Most people who visit Calistoga -- a town in the Napa Valley -- come for the wine and the spa treatments; few come for the literary history. But they could: one of the most romantic honeymoon getaways ever written about happened one hundred and thirty five years ago. Instead of mud baths and geysers, picture an abandoned mining shack infested with snakes, poison oak, and rusty nails. Now picture a sickly writer and his new wife spending their first two months of married life living there. Sounds crazy, right? But that’s exactly what Robert Louis Stevenson — author of the...

If you listen to the news on the economy or financial markets, you have probably heard statements like “consumption drives the American economy,” or “consumption is 70% of the economy.” But in a new book out that follows in the footsteps of Henry Hazlitt’s classic “Economics in One Lesson” — though in a much more fun package — titled “Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You about Economics,” Forbes and RealClearMarkets Editor, and senior economic advisor to Toreador Research and Trading John Tamny challenges this and much other “conventional wisdom” on taxes, regulations,...

Regular readers are familiar with my narratives on the U.S. Greater Depression, and (in particular) some of the government’s own charts which depict this economic meltdown most vividly. The collapse in the “civilian participation rate” (the number of people working in the economy) and the “velocity of money” (the heartbeat of the economy) indicate an economy which is not merely in decline, but rather is being sucked downward in a terminal (and accelerating) death-spiral. However, even that previously published data, and the grim analyses which accompanied it could not prepare me for the horror story contained in data passed along...