According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, cosmetic procedures among men rose 2 percent to more than 1.1 million since last year. Hoping to maintain their youth or enhance masculine features, men are undergoing surgeries for face-lifts and body fat reductions. Men are also receiving temporary treatments like Botox injections. Baby boomers make up a large portion of these clients. However, 75 percent of the 18,000 men who had gynecomastia, a male breast reduction, were between the ages of 13 and 19. Although new technology allows outpatient treatment and less recovery time, studies show that male patients are either not as tolerant to pain or are less satisfied with their results than women. Men are also becoming less shy about cosmetic surgery, unlike a decade ago when they would enter through the back door of a doctor’s office, according to Manhattan dermatologist Howard Sobel.
Source: Wall Street Journal
The United States, Australia, and Italy are among the 10 countries with the highest income inequality in the world. Released in a 2011 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, one of the greatest effects of the economic crisis is the growing rate of income inequality around the globe. There has also been a significant increase of income inequality in countries like Germany and Sweden, which, prior to this past decade, had historically low levels of income inequality.
Source: Huffington Post
Millionaire households are on the rise, growing 12.2 percent in the past year, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group. The United States leads the field with 5.2 million millionaire households, followed by 1.5 million millionaire households in Japan. Singapore has 15.5 percent millionaire households, making it the country with the largest percentage of millionaires. Though the millionaires represent only 0.9 percent of the world’s population, they control 39 percent of the world’s wealth.
Source: Wall Street Journal
A new survey by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers found that higher education, elementary and high schools, transportation, and other areas are facing billions of dollars in budget cuts as well as rising taxes or fees. The survey found that states expect to collect less tax revenue while also spending less money in the coming fiscal year. The cost of Medicaid is also rising due to many people losing their jobs and their health insurance. However, improving state tax collections is still not enough to make up for the end of the federal stimulus money. The report also found that in the coming year, states will only have about $2.8 billion in federal stimulus money for balancing their budgets, a drastic decline from the $51 billion this year.
Source: New York Times
A recent study has shown that between 2004 and 2008, there was a 20 percent increase in American women giving birth at home. With most of the rise occurring in non-Hispanic white women, home births statistically show an improvement in birth outcomes: Both preterm and low-birth-weight infants have dropped over 15 percent. In the 25 states studied, 87 percent of home births were planned. Home births make up less than 1 percent of United States births.
Source: NPR
Forty years after President Nixon launched the War on Drugs, a June 2 report by a private global commission on drug policy lead by ex-Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso declared that the drug war has failed. In response, the White House drug policy office said the United States’ overall drug use has dropped to half of what it was in the late ’70s. In the past five years, there has also been a 46 percent decrease in cocaine use among young adults and a 68 percent drop in employees testing positive for cocaine. The commission recommended ideas like offerring health and treatment services to those in need, as well as investing in activities to prevent young people from taking drugs in the first place. However, the White House said there were no plans for legalization because “illegal drug use is associated with voluntary treatment admissions, fatal drugged driving accidents, mental illness, and emergency room admissions.”
Source: USA Today
Although police waited until after the food was served, three members of the international Food Not Bombs movement were arrested on June 1 in Lake Eola Park in Orlando for illegally feeding the homeless. The three were charged with violating the city’s ordinance that restricts group feedings in public parks. The ordinance applies to feeding more than 25 people and the members had fed 40. Each person received a $250 fine, but unlike the other two who were released from jail early, Douglas Coleman is staying in jail and will let the legal process take its course.
Source: Orlando Sentinel
On June 3, the United Nations AIDS agency said in a new report that increased funding for early treatment of people with HIV could significantly reduce the number of infections spread through sexual transmission. After a nine-nation study that showed that HIV medicines can make patients less infectious, patients getting earlier treatment also showed that they were 96 percent less likely to spread the virus to their partners. Billions of dollars will be needed to obtain the agency’s vision for the future—“zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths.” The report also said that in the last decade, there was a 25 percent decline in new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths.
Source: Washington Post
The late 20th century’s growth in farm output has slowed down so much that it is failing to keep up with the demand for food, due to population increase and the rise of affluence in once-poor countries. Consumption of wheat, corn, rice, and soybeans—the four main crops that supply the most human calories—has created an imbalance between supply and demand, where some grains have more than doubled in cost. These price jumps have increased hunger problems for tens of millions of poor people in countries like Yemen and Uzbekistan. Recent scientific research found that climate change is one of the main factors of the destabilized food system. Although scientists had predicted that climate change would be manageable for agriculture until around 2080, they now believe that some of the weather disasters like floods, droughts, and heat waves that destroyed harvests were caused by human-induced global warming.
Source: New York Times
State parks across the country at risk of closing are attempting new strategies to stay open, including trying new fees, becoming more volunteer-heavy, and pushing to drill for oil and gas beneath trails. Since 2008, state park finances have been cut significantly, with some parks closing altogether; in a news release on May 13, California announced they will permanently close 70 of the 278 state parks this fall. In states like Washington, parks are no longer receiving state money and will instead implement new entrance fees to the parks. If a bill is approved by the Ohio legislature, drilling for oil and gas will be allowed in Ohio’s parks—the parks would directly benefit from revenues.
Source: New York Times
This article appears in July 2011.
