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VISUALIZING Facts USA: COVID-19 meant millions of EXCESS DEATHS last year ...Arizona Highest Rate

HYPERLOCAL SHOCK FACT: Arizona had the country's highest rate of excess deaths last year, with 29% more people dying than expected.

Rhode Island was the only state that did not experience excess deaths.

 

COVID-19 caused most of 2021's excess deaths  Preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that 3.4 million people died in the US last year. That’s 17% higher than expected. The data also suggests that common causes of mortality, like heart disease and cancer, led to fewer deaths than in previous years, while coronavirus deaths rose. USAFacts parsed the data to clarify where excess deaths rose the most in 2021. Excess death metrics compare the expected number of deaths in a place over a given time to the actual number of deaths that occurred. The CDC measures these excess deaths to understand the burden of mortality associated with the pandemic. COVID-19 was the third-most-common cause of death in 2020 and 2021, below heart disease and cancer. Coronavirus as a primary cause of death increased 10% last year, while heart disease deaths dropped 7% and cancer dropped 5%.  COVID-19 was the leading cause of death nationwide in December 2020, January 2021, and September 2021. Arizona had the country's highest rate of excess deaths last year, with 29% more people dying than expected. Rhode Island was the only state that did not experience excess deaths. Get more perspective with our interactive map and discover the rates in all 50 states from 2017 to 2021. Click here to get started. Who experiences poverty in America?  Americans comprise fewer than 5% of the world’s population but earn more than 20% of the world’s total income. Despite this, one in 10 Americans lives in poverty. To mark the end of National Poverty in America Awareness Month, here are the metrics of who experiences poverty in the United States. Last year, the government considered a family of four impoverished if their household income was at or below $26,500 a year. The national median income for a family of the same size was $90,657.   The percentage of people living in poverty reached 11.4% in 2020, the first rise in six years.    The number of people experiencing homelessness grew for the fourth consecutive year in 2020, rising by 12,751 or 2.2%. However, the number is 10% lower than in 2007 when the Department of Housing and Urban Development started collecting the data.   In 2020, nearly one in five homeless Americans were children: 106,364 children total. How many Americans are food insecure? See the answers and more in this article.  One last fact Increased exports plus higher consumer spending led US gross domestic product (GDP) to grow at an annual rate of 6.9% in the final quarter of 2021. GDP grew 2.3% in the third quarter of last year.

Is Suburban Sprawl Ruining the U.S. Economy?...The New Ex-Urban Segregation

Here's the copy provided with the video:

"America's suburbs are sprawling again.

Over the 20th century, real estate developers built large tracts of single-family homes outside of major cities. The builders were following mortgage underwriting standards first introduced by the Federal Housing Administration in the 1930s.

Over the century, those guidelines created housing market conditions that explicitly shut out many minorities. Experts say it is possible to update these old building codes to create equity while fixing some, but not all of the problems of American suburbia.
Last year, single family housing starts rose to 1.123 million, the highest since 2006, according to the National Association of Home Builders, however, options for prospective homebuyers remain lean.
> Experts say the problems of America’s housing market relate to past policy decisions.

In particular, they say restrictive zoning codes are limiting housing supply. These codes are based on 1930s-era Federal Housing Administration guidelines for mortgage underwriting. That includes “no sidewalks and curvy dead-end streets,” according to Ben Ross, author of “Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism.“

Ross and others believe that more must be done to manage residential real estate development. Ross lives in Montgomery County, Maryland, which recently revised its zoning code to bring more population density to the area. The county didn’t have many alternative options — 85% of build-worthy land is already developed.
Strict zoning laws favoring single-family homes have limited the supply of land available for multifamily construction and hampered production of more affordable housing. With land limited for multifamily projects, the price of that land has jumped and made those projects unaffordable for builders.
-- Today’s homebuyers are paying for past sprawl by drawing on credit to finance their lifestyles. -- Meanwhile, the cost of public infrastructure maintenance is weighing on depopulating towns across the country."

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Feb 1, 2022

 

ESPORTS GAMING ATTRACTS SIZEABLE INVESTMENTS FROM TRADITIONAL OIL MARKETS

Look who's doing more than placing bets on a growing new industry: MBS

A report 

25 Jan, 2022 11:10

Saudi prince buys major esports company

Savvy Gaming, owned by Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman, has reportedly purchased ESL and FACEIT for $1.5 billion

 

 

ESPORTS GAMING INDUSTRY ACQUISITION DEAL

Saudi-backed Savvy Gaming Group buys ESL in a $1bn deal

Arab News | January 25, 2022 16:35

RIYADH: The Saudi-backed Savvy Gaming Group has acquired ESL Gaming Co. for $1.08 billion amid plans to merge it with the esports platform FACEIT.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022, Handelblatt reported, citing an announcement from ESL FACEIT Group.

The group, backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the acquired the esports platform FACEIT in an earlier $500 million deal.

“Our merger with FACEIT, along with the backing of SGG, will give us more know-how, capabilities, and resources than ever before to deliver on this vision,” CEO of ESL, Craig Levine, said.

“Whether you are competing or watching, doing so socially or at a professional level, every stage of the pathway will be improved through this merger,” he added. 

LINK TO INTERVIEW: https://www.esportsinsider.com/2022/01/esl-faceit-group-ceo-interview/

MH-6 Little Bird: An EGG You don't Want to Mess With