While life expectancy is rebounding in parts of the world, white deaths drive a further US drop
Life expectancy in the United States continued to drop in 2021, while rebounding from the pandemic in many other high-income countries, according to a new preliminary analysis that found the U.S. decline was driven largely by deaths among white Americans. Life expectancy is the age to which newborns could expect to live if every year of life were identical to their birth year. In 2020, that expectation dropped sharply in the United States, as it did across many nations rocked by the pandemic. In 2021, as more people became vaccinated, many “peer nations” began to see life expectancies rebound, according to the new study.
Teenager charged in fatal shooting of girl in NYC
Police said they had arrested a suspect in the fatal shooting of a teenager near her high school in the Bronx Friday, the latest shooting in a monthslong string that has left New York City shaken. Jeremiah Ryan, 17, of the Bronx, was charged with murder in the killing of Angellyh Yambo, 16, who was shot as she walked home from school. At a news conference Saturday, Deputy Police Chief Timothy McCormack said Yambo, another 16-year-old girl and a 17-year old boy were struck by stray bullets fired by Ryan Friday afternoon. The names of the boy and the other 16-year-old girl, who survived, were not released.
Fire chief killed while responding to Nebraska wildfire
A fire chief in Nebraska was killed while responding to a wildfire that has burned nearly 30,000 acres in the south-central part of the state, destroying farms and prompting evacuations. Darren Krull of the Elwood Volunteer Fire Department died Thursday when the SUV he was traveling in crashed into a water truck in “zero-visibility conditions” created by the smoke. Krull, 54, was in a Ford Expedition driven by Justin Norris, the Phelps County emergency manager. Norris, 40, was in stable condition Friday. The truck driver, Andries Van Aswegan, was not injured in the crash. The fire, in Gosper and Furnas counties, was 30% contained Saturday morning.
Pakistan parliament ousts Imran Khan as prime minister
Imran Khan, a former international cricket star turned politician who oversaw a new era of Pakistan’s foreign policy that distanced the country from the United States, was removed as prime minister early Sunday after losing a no-confidence vote in Parliament. The motion to oust Khan was passed with 174 votes, two more than the requisite simple majority. Analysts expect that lawmakers will choose opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif, a member of a Pakistani political dynasty, to serve as interim prime minister until the next general election, probably in October. Khan is expected to run in that election as well.
Spurred by Putin, Russians turn on one another over the war
With Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct encouragement, Russians who support the war against Ukraine are starting to turn on the enemy within. Citizens are denouncing one another in an eerie echo of Josef Stalin’s terror, spurred on by vicious official rhetoric from the state and enabled by far-reaching new laws that criminalize dissent. The episodes are not yet a mass phenomenon, but they illustrate the building paranoia and polarization in Russian society. There are reports of students turning in teachers and people telling on their neighbors and even the diners at the next table.
With Macron and Le Pen leading election field, a fractured France decides
French President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, holds a slight lead over Marine Le Pen, a hard-right nationalist, according to the latest polls. But his comfortable advantage of more than 10 percentage points has evaporated over the past month as his dismissal of debate and failure to engage have irked voters. With the vote spread over two rounds starting Sunday, many people still undecided and an expected abstention rate of up to 30%, the election’s outcome is deeply uncertain — an example of what President Joe Biden has repeatedly called an “inflection point” in the global confrontation between autocracy and democracy.
By wire sources