Average U.S. life expectancy drops in 2021 for second year in a row

By HealthDay News


Average U.S. life expectancy tumbled from 78.86 years in 2019 to 76.99 in 2020 

and to 76.60 years in 2021, a new report found

 Photo by toysf400/Shutterstock


Researchers report that life expectancy in the United States dropped in 2021, continuing a troubling trend that began in the first year of the pandemic.

Specifically, average U.S. life expectancy tumbled from 78.86 years in 2019 to 76.99 in 2020. It then fell by a smaller amount in 2021, to 76.60 years, the new report found.

One thing was different about the latest longevity numbers: Losses in life expectancy among White Americans were largely responsible for that continuing trajectory, the new study found.

In 2020, Black and Hispanic Americans were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic amid chronic health disparities.

The research team speculated that the reason for the changing dynamics in 2021 could be vaccine hesitancy among some White Americans and a resistance to pandemic restrictions, including in states with disproportionately White populations.

"We already knew that the U.S. experienced historic losses in life expectancy in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What wasn't clear is what happened in 2021. To our knowledge this is the first study to report data for 2021, and the news isn't good," corresponding study author Dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, said in a university news release.

"Early in 2021, knowing an excellent vaccine was being distributed, I was hopeful that the U.S. could recover some of its historic losses," said Woolf. "But I began to worry more when I saw what happened as the year unfolded. Even so, as a scientist, until I saw the data it remained an open question how U.S. life expectancy for that year would be affected. It was shocking to see that U.S. life expectancy, rather than having rebounded, had dropped even further."

The emergence of the faster-spreading Delta and Omicron COVID-19 variants played a big role, the experts said.

"Deaths from these variants occurred almost entirely among unvaccinated people," Woolf noted. However, he believes that "what happened in the U.S. is less about the variants than the levels of resistance to vaccination and the public's rejection of practices, such as masking and mandates, to reduce viral transmission."

Lead study author Ryan Masters, an assistant professor of sociology at University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and an affiliate with the CU Population Center, added that high rates of obesity and heart disease, along with inequities in access to health care, only made matters worse once the pandemic began.

RELATED Pandemic's unequal toll on people of color underlines U.S. health inequities

"Those same factors made the U.S. more vulnerable than other countries to the mortality consequences of COVID-19," Masters said.

For their study, the team used official data for 2018 to 2020, and then provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics for 2021. They used modeling to analyze the changes in life expectancy. Previous reports using the same modeling have been proved accurate when final numbers were available, Woolf noted.

Not only did longevity drop further in the United States, but America fared worse than 19 other wealthy countries during the pandemic.

The life expectancy decline for communities of color was huge in 2020 by all historical standards, but that did not continue in 2021.

Hispanic Americans maintained life expectancy between the two most recent years, after dropping 3.7 years in 2020. Black Americans rebounded 0.42 years in 2021, compared to their decline of 3.22 years in 2020. No estimates are available for Asian Americans, Native Americans or other demographics because of data limitations.

The study was posted Thursday on the MedRxiv preprint server and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale School of Public Health epidemiologist not involved in the study, said the findings were important as well as "heartbreaking" for the "real lives lost."

"Yes, greater coverage of vaccination may have stemmed some of this suffering," he told the Washington Post. "But we also have had an overriding desire to put the pandemic behind us for over a year now in the United States, which shaped our decisions to forgo basic protections at a personal and community level, throwing us all into harm's way."

More information

The U.S. COVID website has more on COVID-19.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

THIRD WORLD USA

Detectable levels of uranium found in two-thirds of U.S. water systems

By HealthDay News

Between 2000 and 2011, 2.1% of U.S. water systems had average annual uranium concentrations that exceeded EPA maximums. Uranium was detected in water systems 63% of the time during compliance monitoring.

 Photo by Rewrite27/Pixabay

Two-thirds of U.S. community water systems have detectable levels of uranium, and the highest levels are in Hispanic communities, according to a new study.

"Previous studies have found associations between chronic uranium exposure and increased risk of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, kidney damage and lung cancer at high levels of exposure," said researcher Anne Nigra, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.

Even at low concentrations, uranium, a radioactive metal, is an important risk factor for chronic diseases, but there has been little research on chronic uranium exposure from tap water. About 90% of Americans rely on community water systems.

To learn more, Nigra's team analyzed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency records for 139,000 public water systems that serve 290 million people a year.

RELATED U.S. Supreme Court upholds Trump rule limiting Clean Water Act

Between 2000 and 2011, 2.1% of those water systems had average annual uranium concentrations that exceeded EPA maximums. Uranium was detected in water systems 63% of the time during compliance monitoring.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ingesting large quantities of uranium can cause several cancers and damage kidneys.

Semi-urban Hispanic communities had the highest levels of uranium, as well as selenium, barium, chromium and arsenic, the study found.

Elevated levels of these metals were found in Hispanic communities independent of location or region, raising concerns for these communities and the possibility of inequalities in public drinking water, according to findings published recently in The Lancet Planetary Health.

The consistent association between elevated levels of uranium and the other metals in the drinking water suggests a failure of regulatory policy or water treatment rather than underlying geology, Nigra and colleagues said.

They noted that Hispanic Americans have a number of health disparities, including increased death due to diabetes, as well as liver, kidney and heart disease.

"Additional regulatory policies, compliance enforcement, and improved infrastructure are therefore necessary to reduce disparities in [community water system] metal concentrations and protect communities served by public water systems with elevated metal concentrations," Nigra said in a Columbia news release. "Such interventions and policies should specifically protect the most highly exposed communities to advance environmental justice and protect public health."

More information

There's more on uranium at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Hyundai Heavy Industries plans to develop unmanned ships

By Song Chang-sup & Kim Tae-gyu, UPI News Korea

Hyundai Heavy Industries is trying to develop an unmanned ship by 2030. 

Photo courtesy of Hyundai Heavy Industries

SEOUL, April 8 (UPI) -- South Korean shipbuilding giant Hyundai Heavy Industries aims to develop a remote-controlled vessel by 2025 and a fully autonomous ship by 2030.

The Seoul-based company said Thursday that its CEO Lee Sang-kyun had revealed these goals in his YouTube message to employees. HHI is the world's largest shipbuilder.

In addition, Lee disclosed the corporation's long-term target of increasing its sales from $7.2 billion in 2021 to $13 billion in 2025 and $17 billion in 2030.

"The development of autonomous ships is one of our top priorities because this can substantially reduce maritime accidents and increase efficiency by finding out the optimal routes," an HHI spokesman told UPI News Korea.

"We have worked on this technology for quite a long time. Other players also are paying attention to the technology," he said.

In 2020, the South Korean government started developing self-driving ship technology, a $133 million project that is slated to continue through 2025.

Earlier this year, the Nippon Foundation and Mitsubishi Shipbuilding operated fully autonomous ship navigation systems for a 728-foot ferry in Japan.

Companies globally also have conducted research on the technology required for remote and autonomous operations, including sensors, system integration and wireless monitoring.

Included in this list are companies such as Kongsberg, Toshiba, Rolls Royce, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, BAE Systems and ABB.

The International Maritime Organization is preparing a regulatory framework for ships with varying degrees of automation.

For example, the organization began discussing legal regulations for the ships' safety in 2018 and came up with a roadmap for regulations last year.

"Just like self-driving cars on land and unmanned aerial vehicles in the air, we will see autonomous surface ships at sea in the not-so-distant future," Daelim University automotive Professor Kim Pil-soo said in a phone interview.

"In fact, autonomous driving technology is much more important for ships than for automobiles. When developing unmanned ships, however, more sophisticated technologies are necessary because any accident can lead to catastrophes at sea," he said.

CHESS

 #ChessMusical

Murray Head - One Night In Bangkok "From CHESS"

 

ChessVEVO

From the album CHESS THE ORIGINAL RECORDING by Benny Andersson, Tim Rice and Björn Ulvaeus. Featuring Tommy Korberg, Murray Head and Elaine Page.

Listen to the full album here: https://PolarMusic.lnk.to/5OO9MfKAID Music video by Murray Head performing One Night In Bangkok. (C) 1984 3 Knights Ltd., Under exclusive license to Polar Music International AB

British zoo announces rare dusky pademelon birth

April 8 (UPI) -- A British zoo announced the birth of a rare baby dusky pademelon, a species sometimes known as a "miniature kangaroo" or "dusky wallaby."

The Chester Zoo in Cheshire, England, said zookeepers spotted the new baby when it started peeking out of its mother's pouch for the first time.

Dusky pademelons are native to New Guinea and some nearby Indonesian islands. The Chester Zoo is one of only four British zoos to care for the endangered species.

"Dusky pademelon infants are born just 30 days after a successful mating. Beginning life the size of a 'jelly bean,' they stay inside the mother's pouch while they grow and develop until they emerge almost six months later," the zoo said on its website.

STATEHOOD OR INDEPENDENCE 

More than 800K people still without power in Puerto Rico

By Adam Schrader

April 8 (UPI) -- More than 800,000 people were still without power in Puerto Rico on Friday after a fire caused a massive blackout in the United States territory.

Millions of people were left without power Wednesday after a fire at Costa Sur, one of the island's four main power plants, according to the company LUMA Energy.

The firm took control of the transmission and distribution of electricity from the territory's bankrupt power authority last year.

"Our LUMA teams continue to work together with [the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority] to respond to the massive blackout in all the island. Power restoration activities are still underway," LUMA said in a press release.

RELATED Much of Puerto Rico remains dark after power plant fire

"At this time, the cause exact reason for the interruption is still being investigated. Given the size and scope of the outage, we are working hard to restore power as quickly and safely as possible."

LUMA said that work would be needed through Saturday in order to finish restoring power to the island but that more than 760,000 customers had regained power as of Friday evening. The company said that there did not appear to be any damage to power lines.

Josué Colón, executive director of PREPA, said during a press conference that workers had reconnected power in at least five power plants but that two of the four largest plants, Costa Sur and EcoEléctrica, remain without power.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said in a statement to Twitter on Thursday that about 100,000 customers were without water and sewage because of the blackout.

Schools were closed on Friday for students after the blackout, the Department of Education said in a statement.

Power also temporarily went out in the intensive care unit at Mayagüez Medical Center but was eventually restored, Puerto Rico Health Secretary Carlos Mellado López said on Twitter.

State Department: WH gift records for Trump, Pence missing

By MATTHEW LEE

April 8, 2022

A man walks past boxes that were moved out of the Eisenhower Executive Office building, just outside the West Wing, inside the White House complex, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021, in Washington. The State Department says it's unable to compile a complete accounting of gifts presented to U.S. officials by foreign governments during the final year of the Trump administration due to missing White House data. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department says it is unable to compile a complete and accurate accounting of gifts presented to former President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials by foreign governments during Trump’s final year in office, citing missing data from the White House.

In a report to be published in the Federal Register next week, the department says the Executive Office of the President did not submit information about gifts received by Trump and his family from foreign leaders in 2020. It also says the General Services Administration didn’t submit information about gifts given to former Vice President Mike Pence and White House staffers that year.

The State Department said it sought the missing information from National Archives and Records Administration and the General Services Administration, but was told that “potentially relevant records” are not available because of access restrictions related to retired records.

The State Department’s Office of Protocol reported the situation in footnotes to a partial list of gifts received by U.S. officials in 2020. The office publishes such lists annually in part to guard against potential conflicts of interest. A preview of the 2020 report was posted on the Federal Register website on Friday ahead of its formal publication on Monday.

The report notes that the lack of gift information could be related to internal oversights as the protocol office neglected to “submit the request for data to all reporting agencies prior to January 20, 2021,” when the Trump administration ended and the Biden administration began. However, it also noted that there had been a “lack of adequate recordkeeping pertaining to diplomatic gifts” between Jan. 20, 2017, when Trump took office, and his departure from the White House four years later.

The State Department report comes as House lawmakers have opened an investigation into reports that Trump had taken boxes of classified materials with him to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after leaving office last year. The National Archives and Records Administration has asked the Justice Department to look into the matter.

The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, meanwhile, has identified an almost 8-hour gap in official White House records of Trump’s phone calls as the violence unfolded and his supporters stormed the building, according to two people familiar with the probe.

Regarding the 2020 gifts, the department said it had “made attempts to collect the required data from the current authoritative sources ... but it has confirmed that potentially relevant records are not available to the State Department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol under applicable access rules for retired records of the Executive Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President.”

“As a result, the data required to fully compile a complete listing for 2020 is unavailable,” it said.

Gift records for Trump administration officials such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Central Intelligence Agency chief Gina Haspel are included in the limited 2020 report, as are records for other senior diplomats, Pentagon and CIA officials.

Treatment for opioid addiction often brings discrimination

By GEOFF MULVIHILL and CLAUDIA LAUER

1 of 4

 In this Nov. 14, 2019, photo, Jon Combes holds his bottle of buprenorphine, a medicine that prevents withdrawal sickness in people trying to stop using opiates, as he prepares to take a dose in a clinic in Olympia, Wash. The U.S. Department of Justice made clear, Tuesday, April 2, 2022, that barring the use of medication treatment for opioid abuse is a violation of federal law.

 (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Danielle Russell was in the emergency department at an Arizona hospital last fall, sick with COVID-19, when she made the mistake of answering completely when she was asked what medications she was on.

“I said yes, I was taking methadone,” said Russell, a doctoral student who also was in recovery from heroin use. “The smart thing to do, if I wanted to be treated like a human, would be to say no.”

Even though her primary doctor had sent her to the ER, she said she was discharged swiftly without being treated and given a stack of papers about the hospital’s policies for prescribing pain medications — drugs she was not asking for.

“It becomes so absurd and the stigma against methadone especially is so strong,” she said, noting that other people in recovery have had it worse. “You’re getting blocked out from housing resources, employment.”

It’s a problem people in the addiction recovery community have dealt with for decades: On top of the stigma surrounding addiction, people who are in medical treatment for substance abuse can face additional discrimination — including in medical and legal settings that are supposed to help.

This week, the U.S. Department of Justice published new guidelines aimed at dealing with the problem: They assert that it’s illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act to discriminate against people because they are using prescribed methadone or other medications to treat opioid use disorder.

The guidelines don’t change federal government policy, but they do offer clarification and signal that authorities are watching for discrimination in a wide range of settings. The Justice Department’s actions this year also show it’s taken an interest in the issue, reaching multiple legal settlements, filing a lawsuit and sending a warning letter alleging other violations.

One of the government’s recent settlements was with a Colorado program that helps house and employ people who are homeless. A potential client filed a complaint claiming she was denied admission because she uses buprenorphine to treat her addiction. As part of the settlement, Ready to Work is paying the woman $7,500. Stan Garnett, a lawyer for the organization, said Thursday that the organization’s staff is being trained to comply with the law.

“It’s terrifying to be told by some authority — whether it’s a judge, or a child welfare official, or a skilled nursing facility — someone who has something you need is telling you you have to get off the medication that is saving your life,” said Sally Friedman, senior vice president of legal advocacy at the Legal Action Center, which uses legal challenges to try to end punitive measures for people with health conditions, including addiction.

Friedman said advocates and lawyers will cite the new guidelines when they’re making discrimination claims.

Dan Haight, president of The LCADA Way, which runs addiction treatment programs in the Cleveland area, said a suburb where they wanted to put a clinic at one point nixed the idea because of a moratorium in place on new drug counseling centers.

“We’re not looked at as another medical facility or counseling office,” Haight said. “We’re looked at because we do addiction.”

The new guidelines suggest that such broad denials could be violations of the ADA.

Overdoses from all opioids, including prescription drugs containing oxycodone, heroin and illicit laboratory-made varieties including fentanyl, have killed more than 500,000 Americans in the last two decades, and the problem has been growing only worse. That has frustrated advocates, treatment providers and public health experts who see the deaths as preventable with treatment.

Even as the crisis has deepened, there have been glimmers of hope. Drugmakers, distribution companies and pharmacy chains have announced settlements since last year to pay government entities about $35 billion over time plus provide drugs to treat addictions and reverse overdoses. Most of the money is required to be used to fight the epidemic.

It’s still to be determined how the money will be deployed, but one priority for many public health experts is expanding access to medication-based treatments, which are seen as essential to helping people recover.

But there’s still a stigma associated with the treatment programs, which use the medication naltrexone or drugs that themselves are opioids, such as methadone and buprenorphine.

Marcus Buchanan used methadone from 2016 through 2018 to help end a decadelong heroin habit. During that time, he was looking for work near his home in Chouteau, Oklahoma — mostly at factories — and could never land one.

“I can nail an interview. It would be the drug-screen process” when he’d explain why the results showed he was using methadone, said Buchanan, who is now an outreach coordinator for an opioid prevention program. “Every job, more than 20 probably, during those two years, was a door shut in the face.”

Dr. Susan Bissett, president of the nonprofit West Virginia Drug Intervention Institute, said people who are in treatment programs often hide it out of fear that they could lose their jobs.

She said she wants to reach out to business leaders and encourage them to hire and retain people who are using the medications.

“The next step is helping employers understand this is a disease instead of a moral failing,” Bissett said. “We don’t think about substance abuse disorder the way we think about diabetes, for example.”

One of the places where medication-assisted treatment is sometimes restricted or banned is in state drug diversion court programs, which are intended to get people help for addiction rather than incarcerate them.

Fewer than half the states have specific language that prohibits judges from excluding people who are taking the medications from participating in diversion programs or requires that they allow its use as part of the programs. That finding is based on an Associated Press review of legislation, administrative court orders and drug court handbooks that guide state drug diversion court programs.

Some states allow individual courts to make their own rules, while others only include language saying people can’t be excluded. Judges in some states still require defendants to taper off the medications and allow the diversion programs to decide whether the medications are appropriate for each person enrolled.

The Center for Court Innovation is trying to steer the drug courts into creating policies and programs that support people taking those medications instead of incentivizing them to stop.

“It can be frustrating, because nobody needs to tell a judge they need to allow someone to take blood pressure medication,” said Sheila McCarthy, a senior program manager for the Center for Court Innovation. “But for some, there is just a disconnect about the real effect these medications have on a person’s daily life.”

Veronica Pacheco has been off methadone for nearly a year after being on it for more than six years to treat an addiction to pain pills.

She said some people in the medical field — a physician, a dentist, a pharmacist — seemed to treat her differently after they learned she was on methadone treatment. They sometimes assume she was going to ask for new prescriptions for pain medications.

“I felt like I had a sign on my forehead saying, ‘I am a methadone person.’ The minute someone has your medical record, everything changes,” said Pacheco, who lives in the Minneapolis suburb of Dayton. “Now that I’ve been off it, I can see the night-and-day difference.”

___

Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Junkie (novel) - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Junkie_(novel)

Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict is a novel by American beat generation writer William S. Burroughs, initially published under the pseudonym ...

The diary of a drug fiend : Crowley, Aleister, 1875-1947. n 80057223 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

WHITE PRIVLEGE 
In outcome of Whitmer case, some see freedom, others danger

By SARA BURNETT

1 of 6

Michael Hills, the defense attorney representing Brandon Caserta, speaks to a scrum of reporters after Casterta was found not guilty of conspiring to kidnap and weapons charges outside the Gerald R. Ford Federal Building and Courthouse in Grand Rapids, Mich., Friday, April 8, 2022. Jurors have acquitted two defendants, Daniel Harris and Caserta, of all charges in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer but couldn't agree on a verdict for two others. 

(Daniel Shular/MLive.com/The Grand Rapids Press via AP)

Outside the Michigan courthouse where a jury did not convict any of the four men charged with planning to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a defense lawyer said jurors saw the alleged plot as what it was: Dirty FBI tactics and “rough talk.”

The men — who were heard on audio during the trial talking about killing Whitmer, blowing up a bridge and other violence — didn’t say anything shocking, attorney Michael Hills said. He noted one of the defense witnesses he considered calling to testify planned to assert that he’s “heard worse from pregnant mothers up on the Capitol.”

“If I don’t like the governor and it’s rough talk, I can do that in our country. That’s what’s beautiful about this country. That’s what’s great about it,” Hills said. “So hurrah, freedom in America. It’s still here.”

But to others, Friday’s outcome following a weekslong trial was a chilling reminder that the political violence that is raging across the U.S. too often goes unpunished. From attacks on social media and elsewhere that disproportionately affect women lawmakers, to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the plan to abduct Whitmer, people are increasingly angry and feeling emboldened to act on it, they say.

WHITMER KIDNAP PLOT TRIAL

Whitmer kidnap plot: 2 men acquitted, hung jury for 2 more

EXPLAINER: Charges in Michigan Gov. Whitmer kidnap plot case


Gov. Whitmer kidnap plot jury ends 4th day of deliberations

Whitmer, a Democrat, has blamed former President Donald Trump for stoking anger over COVID-19 restrictions and refusing to condemn right-wing extremists. On Friday, her office said people across the country are experiencing “a normalization” of violence. A Democratic state lawmaker said the threats posed won’t be taken seriously “until someone dies.”

“The plot to kidnap and kill a governor may seem like an anomaly. But we must be honest about what it really is: the result of violent, divisive rhetoric that is all too common across our country,” Whitmer’s chief of staff, JoAnne Huls, said in a statement. “There must be accountability and consequences for those who commit heinous crimes. Without accountability, extremists will be emboldened.”

Whitmer wasn’t a trial witness, didn’t attend the trial and has not directly commented on the proceedings, but on Saturday, she alluded to the trial’s outcome.

“I have often been asked why the heck do I want to keep doing this job. And after yesterday I’m sure we all have to ask that question maybe once or twice,” she said during a speech at the Michigan Democratic Party Endorsement Convention in Detroit. “But here’s the reason: Tough times call for tough people and we are going to get through this together.”

Four men — Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Brandon Caserta and Daniel Harris — were arrested in October 2020. Federal prosecutors said they wanted to kidnap Whitmer because they were angry over pandemic restrictions she imposed, and saw her as a “tyrant” who needed to be removed.

The charges came at a particularly divisive time, with debate raging over the pandemic and just weeks before the 2020 presidential election between Trump and Joe Biden. Armed protests were occurring at the Michigan Capitol and elsewhere in the U.S., and in the streets of many cities, demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd at times turned violent.

Prosecutors presented evidence at the federal trial in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from undercover agents, an FBI informant and two men who pleaded guilty to the plot. Jurors also read and heard secretly recorded conversations, violent social media posts and chat messages.

Defense attorneys argued that the men were entrapped by the FBI — pulled into an alleged plot they would never have participated in if not for the government and its informants luring them. They painted the men as wannabes who were frequently high and easily influenced, or in one case, a former member of the military who wanted to brush up on firearms training.

Before returning their verdicts, the jury said that after nearly five days of deliberations they could not agree unanimously on all 10 of the charges against the men.

Harris, 24, and Caserta, 33, were found not guilty of conspiracy. Harris also was acquitted of charges related to explosives and a gun.

The jury could not reach verdicts for Fox, 38, and Croft, 46, which means the government can put them on trial again.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge said after the verdicts that “We have two defendants that are awaiting trial and we’ll get back to work on that.”

Hills, who defended Caserta, said the outcome was a message to the government that the FBI’s actions were “unconscionable.” He said the federal government should “let it go” rather than take Croft and Fox to trial a second time.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican, tweeted after the verdict that the “FBI and DOJ need a complete and total cleansing. ... All the rot must be removed and these agencies must be restored.”

Others were stunned by the jury’s decision, and said it set a dangerous example.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat, called for an end to “the hatred and division in this country” and said she is “Deeply concerned that today’s decision in the Whitmer kidnapping trial will give people further license to choose violence and threats.”

Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist called on elected officials, parents, teachers and others to stand up to “these hateful actions and teach our kids that there is a better way.”

“Our differences must be settled at the ballot box, not through violence,” he said. “We need to be honest and clear about what causes violence by extremists and do all we can to address the root cause of it.”

Michigan state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, a Democrat, noted on Twitter that a man who threatened to kill her in 2020 was acquitted.

“The next time you ask why we can’t get good people to run for office, consider today’s verdict,” she said, adding, “This won’t be taken seriously until someone dies.”

___

Find AP’s full coverage of the Whitmer kidnap plot trial at: https://apnews.com/hub/whitmer-kidnap-plot-trial

PRISON NATION USA

Juvenile lifer seeks reprieve amid broader push for leniency

LONG READ

By FELICIA FONSECA

yesterday

Carmen Briones holds up photos of her husband, Riley Briones Jr., who is serving life in prison, on Feb. 22, 2022, in Anthem, Ariz. Riley Briones' attorneys are asking a federal appeals court for another chance to argue his sentence should be cut short based on improvements he's made behind bars since being convicted in the 1994 death of Brian Patrick Lindsay when Briones was 17. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca)


FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Shortly after Riley Briones Jr. arrived in federal prison, he cut his long, braided hair in a symbolic death of his old self.

WAIT, WHAT? 
As a leader of a violent gang and just shy of 18, Briones drove the getaway car in a robbery turned deadly on the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian Community outside Phoenix in 1994. He was convicted of murder and given a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

In prison, he has been baptized a Christian, ministers to other inmates who call him Brother Briones, got his GED and has a spotless disciplinary record, his attorneys say in their latest bid to get the now 45-year-old’s sentence cut short.

“He’s clearly on the side of the line where he should be walking free,” said his attorney, Easha Anand.

The U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for that possibility with a 2012 ruling that said only the rare, irredeemable juvenile offender should serve life in prison. Over the past decade, most of the 39 defendants in federal cases who received that sentence have gotten a reprieve and are serving far fewer years behind bars.

Meanwhile, more than 60 legal experts and scholars have asked the federal government to cap sentences for juvenile offenders at 30 years, create a committee to review life sentences in the future and reconsider its stance in Briones’ case.

But the move toward greater leniency has been gradual and not without resistance.

Briones is among those whose life sentences have been upheld in recent years, though he still has another chance.

Prosecutors in his case have opposed a reduced term. They argue despite Briones’ improvements, he minimized his role in the gang and its crimes that terrorized Salt River amid an explosion of gang violence on Native American reservations in the 1990s.

___

Briones began serving prison time in 1997 for the death of Brian Patrick Lindsay, a Northern Arizona University honors student who was home for the summer and had picked up a solo shift at a Subway sandwich shop.

Briones drove four others from the notorious “Eastside Crips Rolling 30s” gang to the restaurant on May 15, 1994, one of whom was armed with a 9 mm pistol, according to court documents. Lindsay was preparing food they ordered when one of the gang members went outside to talk to Briones, came back inside and suddenly shot Lindsay in the face. He pumped more bullets into Lindsay as he lay bleeding on the floor.

They had planned the robbery to get cash for guns, prosecutors wrote in court documents. They weren’t able to open the cash register but took a bank bag with $100 and the food the dying clerk had prepared.

Briones instructed another gang member to kill a maintenance man whom they saw earlier clearing the sidewalk, but they couldn’t find him, court documents state.

Prosecutors said the murder was the most egregious of the violent crimes that Briones helped plot and carry out on the reservation about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Phoenix. But there were others that demonstrated a “murderous, unrepentant and unapologetic attitude,” prosecutors said.

The gang members set diversionary fires while they firebombed a rival’s house and did drive-by shootings. They stole cars and firearms to carry out the crimes. They also hatched plans to kill a tribal judge, federal prosecutors and tribal police investigators but didn’t follow through, according to court documents.

Briones was arrested at his home in 1995. Along with murder, he was convicted of arson, tampering with a witness and assault with a dangerous weapon. Three of his co-defendants were sentenced to life. One cooperated with prosecutors and received a lesser term.

___

Bennit Hayes can’t imagine that version of Briones, whom he served time with at the federal prison in Beaumont, Texas. Hayes said he learned about Sunday chapel services and a Bible study group that gathered on the prison yard, and Briones welcomed him with a big smile and a hug.

Hayes said he respected Briones because he never talked over others, he studied intently, and he worked hard and encouraged others to lead better lives. Briones prayed for anyone who asked, Hayes said.

“God blessed me not only to have the camaraderie and the brotherhood but to see genuine change,” said Hayes, whose sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2016. “He was the light in the candle that I put up against everything else going forward.”

By then, Briones had cut his hair that fell past his waist, abstained from food for 40 days and surrendered to God, said his wife, Carmen Briones.

“Riley made that decision,” said Carmen Briones, who is enrolled Pascua Yaqui. “He said, ‘I have to have a different life. I can’t have the same life I had before.’”

The couple met while they were teenagers attending a youth camp at Arizona State University. They had a daughter who is now 30 and got married in 1999 while Briones, who is San Carlos Apache and Salt River Pima-Maricopa, was in prison.

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Briones’ case became eligible for resentencing after the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama. It was part of a series of cases in which the court found minors should be treated differently from adults, partly because of a lack of maturity. The court previously eliminated the death penalty for juveniles and barred life-without-parole sentences for juveniles except in cases of murder.

A handful of the defendants in the 39 federal cases — most of whom are minorities — have been released from prison.

The Feb. 17 letter seeking reform from the Justice Department pointed to statistics that show the median sentence for adults convicted of murder in the federal system is 20 years — nearly half the median for the juvenile offenders.

“Taking a life is really, really serious, and I don’t belittle that at all,” said Mary McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at the Georgetown University Law Center, one of the signatories. “But a full life in prison when you’re a juvenile and you’re talking about 40, 50, 60 years in prison is exceedingly excessive probably in almost every case and not consistent with typical sentences for homicides, even adults.”

The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

A decision in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 gave Briones an opportunity to plead again before a district court judge to lower his sentence. But before he got the chance, the U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hold the case until it decided another one, Jones v. Mississippi, meant to clarify rulings in two other cases regarding juvenile offenders.

From there, Briones’ case went back to the 9th Circuit.

A three-judge panel ruled against Briones, and now his attorneys are asking the full court to reconsider. The federal government’s response is due in May.

The California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims rights group, said changes in the law that continually allow juvenile offenders to get another shot at freedom are damaging for the families, communities and the criminal justice system.

“Some of these crimes are just very horrible, and the impacts on the families are substantial, and they never go away,” said the group’s president, Michael Rushford.

The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth has long argued the changes a person makes once they’ve entered prison should matter, and juveniles offenders should be able to live as adults outside prison walls.

“If the facts of the crime are always going to be the overpowering force, then Miller isn’t going to be meaningfully interpreted to outweigh all this positive growth,” said Rebecca Turner, who tracks the federal cases for the group.

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The federal court in Arizona has resentenced more of the juvenile offenders to life in prison than any other state. Texas has two juvenile offenders who are serving life but weren’t able to be resentenced because of how courts interpreted Miller v. Alabama. South Carolina resentenced one inmate to life.

All three federal cases in Arizona were from Native American reservations, where the federal government has jurisdiction when the suspect, victim or both are Native American for a set of major crimes, including homicide. The penalties, in general, are stricter than if the crimes happened off the reservation and the cases ended up in state court.

Branden Pete, who is Navajo, got a mandatory life sentence for raping and then killing a woman by throwing rocks at her head on the Navajo Nation in 2002. A judge considered his dysfunctional upbringing, substance abuse issues, prison disciplinary record and the brutality of the crime in resentencing him to 54 years in prison in 2017.

It’s the third-longest resentence among defendants, not including those whose life sentences were reaffirmed or didn’t get a chance to plead for less time. The resentences range from 15 years to 70 years.

The other Arizona defendant, Johnny Orsinger, is serving life for the deaths of four people in two incidents when he was 16. Orsinger, who is Ute and Mexican, also committed the crimes on the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. A co-defendant in one of the cases, Lezmond Mitchell, was executed in 2020. He was the only Native American on federal death row at the time.

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Prosecutors in Briones’ case acknowledged he’s changed for the better and expressed remorse but argued he should remain imprisoned for life because he hasn’t accepted responsibility for Lindsay’s death and minimized his role as a founder and leader of the gang that spanned other tribal reservations.

The U.S. District Court judge who resentenced Briones in 2016 said he considered Briones’ troubled childhood that included abuse at the hands of his father — with whom the gang consulted — along with Briones’ alcohol and drug use, and immaturity. He also noted Briones had been a model inmate.

“However, some decisions have lifelong consequences,” the judge wrote.

The trial for Briones and his co-defendants was the first prosecution in Indian Country under a federal law meant to enhance sentencing for organized crime. During the trial, prosecutors played the 911 recording in which Lindsay told dispatchers through a mouthful of blood that he had been shot. His parents were in the courtroom.

“I can still almost hear that tape,” Paul Charlton, one of the prosecutors at the time, recently told The Associated Press. “And if you had been through that trial, if you had seen the callous and remorseless way in which these individuals faced the evidence against them and their lack of remorse at that time, most people would be as I remain today, unsympathetic to Mr. Briones’ arguments.”

The Salt River Police Department declined to comment. Emails and phone messages left at a number listed for Lindsay’s parents were not returned.

In a letter to the court during Briones’ 2016 resentencing, Sharyn and Brian Lindsay said the passing of time hadn’t made their lives easier or mended their hearts.

“Isn’t a lifetime without our son enough without having to go through another court proceeding?” they wrote.

They established an engineering scholarship in their son’s name at Northern Arizona University.

Briones now is at the federal prison in metropolitan Phoenix, about a 50 minute drive from Carmen Briones’ home on the Salt River reservation. She hasn’t seen him since last May because of pandemic restrictions, but they keep in contact through email and phone calls.

She said releasing Riley Briones from prison would mean they could be a family in a more meaningful way. But whatever the 9th Circuit decides won’t change who her husband has become, she said.

“He’s still going to continue wherever he’s at to minister, to mentor, to be a positive example and give guidance to those who he has contact with,” she said. “We’ve had enough appeals come and go that ... wisdom would tell you just pray and see what happens.”

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Fonseca covers Indigenous communities on the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FonsecaAP