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The map shows where radioactive fallout from 12 years of above-ground atomic testing in the Nevada desert spread during the 1950s and 1960s. Utah and Nevada are almost completely blacked out, and the dark ink spreads across the Midwest and as far north as New York and Canada.Our government has never been forthcoming about what radioactive fallout did to the folks living under those clouds. Even in my hometown of Salt Lake City, people who have suffered cancer, leukemia and other related illnesses and who have lost family, friends and neighbors don't realize how that fallout may have affected them. (Mary Dickson, 9/23)

Recently, former Baltimore Sun reporter, “The Wire” creator and editorialist-at-heart David Simon announced on Twitter that his newest TV project, a nonfiction miniseries “based on events in Texas” won’t be filmed in the Lone Star State. His reasoning was simple. The state’s abortion law, the most restrictive in the U.S. as it essentially bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, precludes it. When closely questioned on this point (which is apt to happen on the social media platform), his response was, if not perfect, at least in proximity to it. Skipping over the more profane moments (another Simon trademark), he observed: “I can’t and won’t ask female cast/crew to forgo civil liberties to film there.” Or, as he later explained: “My first obligation as an employer is to the people working on the production. I can’t ask them to locate in Texas and forgo civil liberties. Not ethical. Ever.” (9/23)

As the government wrestles with lowering health care costs, one strategy gaining momentum is allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for brand name drugs. There is no doubt that such a move would lower the nation’s drug bill. But it would also lower the revenues of biopharmaceutical companies and that, in turn, will reduce the number of new drugs produced each year. (John LaMattina, 9/24)

Schools should be safe, affirming spaces where all students are set up for academic success and provided with equal opportunity to pursue their talents — not a source of discrimination and harassment. Sadly, some Texas state lawmakers are working overtime to make life harder for transgender and nonbinary students, a group of young people who already face significantly increased risk for bullying, depression and suicide. (Amit Paley, Ricardo Martinez and Emmett Schelling, 9/24)

The $3.5 trillion economic reordering bill now moving through Congress contains a long-held Democratic goal—one that was even endorsed by President Trump several years ago—to empower the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower drug prices. Yet, prices are already negotiated by large and powerful health insurers. While the federal government is an even larger payer, it is far from clear that size is what matters in solving America's drug pricing problem. (Karne Mulligan and Darius Lakdawalla, 9/23)

With Democrats' dream of passing a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill in peril, recent reporting suggests that they may get one item on their wish list: a new, permanent federal entitlement to paid family and medical leave. The primary question appears to be whether the proposed entitlement will be modeled after Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's (D-N.Y.) FAMILY Act or Representative Richard Neal's (D-Mass.) universal paid leave proposal. But passing either of these proposals through a rushed, partisan process could hurt workers and endanger Social Security and Medicare. Moderate Democrats would be wise to put this effort on hold as part of Senator Joe Manchin's (D-W.V.) "strategic pause," and to consider alternative paths to paid leave. (Kristin A. Shapiro, 9/23)

More than 70,000 people in the United States died from drug-related overdoses in 2019. The nearly fourfold increase since 1999, fueled by the opioid epidemic, underscores the need for new strategies rather than the failed punitive approach that has criminalized generations of Americans without dealing with their underlying problems. Other countries have shown promising results by setting up overdose prevention sites where people can use illegal drugs under the supervision of trained staff able to offer clean injection equipment, help in the event of an overdose and counseling on treatment. However, any plans to replicate those efforts in the United States have been hindered by the Trump administration’s perverse use of federal drug laws and the apparent refusal of the Biden administration to get involved. (9/23)