Free Republic

[Video 7:38] Human Feces, Other Biohazards on San Diego Sidewalks Cost City Nearly $1 Million Every Year NBC 7’s Alexis Rivas takes a look at the issues behind filth on public streets, and the price tag for cleaning it up. NBC Universal, Inc. Taxpayers in San Diego spend nearly $1 million each year sanitizing sidewalks from biohazards, including needles, personal hygiene waste and human feces. It’s a problem that is not only gross, it's also a major public-health threat some say the city isn’t doing enough to fix. “Maybe this is really gross,” said Sherman Heights resident Essence McConnell, “but...

LONDON — Scotland has become the first country in the world to make period products freely available to all who need them, after final approval was given to a landmark piece of legislation in Parliament on Tuesday. The measures are intended to end “period poverty” — or the circumstances, and in some cases, prohibitive expense that have left many without access to sanitary products when they need them.

The tampon tax will be abolished by the summer, George Osborne announced last night. The Chancellor said that legislation for a zero rate of VAT on women’s sanitary products will be introduced next week as part of the Finance Bill. The move came after David Cameron was forced to beg EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker for permission to reduce the rate from the current 5 per cent minimum allowed under Brussels rules. The prime minister had to use a European summit on the migrant crisis to plead for help on reducing British rates on female sanitary products.

A school dropout from a poor family in southern India has revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple machine they can use to make cheap sanitary pads. Arunachalam Muruganantham's invention came at great personal cost - he nearly lost his family, his money and his place in society. But he kept his sense of humour. "It all started with my wife," he says. In 1998 he was newly married and his world revolved around his wife, Shanthi, and his widowed mother. One day he saw Shanthi was hiding something from him. He was shocked...