Black women in the U.S were, on average, six times more likely to be murdered than their white peers for the years 1999 through 2020, according to an analysis of racial disparities in U.S. homicide rates to be released by Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. It also indicates that Black women are more likely than white women to be killed by guns. The study is the first to analyze homicide trends spanning two decades among women aged 25 to 44—the ages when women are most likely to be murdered. The findings are published in The Lancet(link is external and opens in a new window).

It is well known that homicide rates among Black women in the US are disproportionately high compared to white women, and that Black women tend to be murdered at younger ages and at higher rates than other women of color in the US, including Native American and Alaska Native women. Despite this, data on the disparities remains limited.

“As a scholar whose research examines intimate partner violence, I have long known that there were disparities in homicide rates between Black and white women. To uncover the fact that Black women are murdered at rates as high as 20 to 1 is heart-breaking and underscores the urgent need to make substantive structural shifts,” says Dr. Bernadine Waller, lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral research fellow in the Psychiatry Department at Columbia University Irving Medical Center with a dual appointment at New York State Psychiatric Institute.

The study findings also show that:

• Homicide rates among Black women were significantly higher than for white women in all 30 states analyzed, with the biggest differences in states with the highest racial inequities.
• The greatest disparity in homicide rates was in Wisconsin in 2019-2020, when Black women were 20 times more likely to be murdered than white women.
• Black women in the U.S. were more likely than white women to be killed by a firearm, particularly those in the Northeast and Midwest.

The evidence suggests a strong link exists between higher homicide rates and the effects of deeply entrenched racial inequities—which manifest through factors such as educational attainment, unemployment, and wealth distribution—across the U.S. This suggests that measures to reduce structural racism in the U.S could help prevent elevated rates of homicide among Black women. Understanding how disparities in homicide rates change over time at state and regional level may help identify areas where intervention is needed most.

The authors used CDC WONDER public health data to carry out a cross-sectional analysis of homicide death rates for Black and white women in the U.S. between 1999 and 2020. The analysis focused on women aged 25-44 years in the 30 states with enough homicides (more than nine in any year) for analysis.

Results were produced for five time periods: 1999-2003; 2004-2008; 2009-2013; 2014-2018; and 2019-2020. The method of homicide was analyzed for four U.S. regions: South, Midwest, West, and Northeast.

The findings indicate Black women in the U.S. consistently had higher homicide rates compared to white women between 1999 and 2020. The overall homicide rate among Black women in 2020 was 11.6 per 100,000 population, compared with 3 per 100,000 among white women. This was virtually unchanged from 1999, when the rate among Black women was 11.6 per 100,000 compared to 2.9 per 100,000 in white women. While disparities in homicide rates fell between 1999 and 2013—due to a decrease in homicide rates in Black women—they increased from 2013 to 2020. At the state level, there were differences in how disparities in homicide rates decreased or increased between 1999 and 2020.

Homicide rates among Black women were higher than their white peers during all periods in every state analyzed. While the greatest inequities in homicide rates were in Wisconsin in 2019-2020, when Black women were twenty times more likely to be murdered than white women, the greatest disparities overall, were in the Midwest, where Black women in 2020 were over seven times more likely to be murdered than white women.

Notably, states with the greatest disparities in homicide rates were in parts of the country with a high proportion of people of low socioeconomic status living close together. These areas also tend to have histories of slavery and lynching, and are places where especially tense Black Lives Matter protests took place at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our findings indicate that the greatest inequities are in the areas of the country where concentrated disadvantage is pronounced. Thus, focusing on historical structural racism’s long-lasting legacy in the U.S. is imperative. Efforts aimed at reducing disproportionate homicide deaths among Black women can be implemented through addressing the role of structural racism when it comes to policies and practices that increase Black women’s risk and lessen Black women’s access to much needed resources,” said Victoria A. Joseph, a co-author of the paper and a data analyst in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

Gun deaths among Black and white women in the US increased, with women in general more than twice as likely (odds of 2.44) to be killed by firearms in 2019-2020 compared to 1999-2003. However, Black women were more likely than white women to be killed by a firearm (odds of 1.38).

The odds of gun deaths among Black women increased over time compared to white women. In 2020, Black women in the Northeast were three times more likely than white women (odds of 3.02) to be killed by a firearm, while firearm homicides among Black women in the Midwest were more than six times higher (odds of 6.31) than among white women. In the South, Black women were around one and a half times (odds of ~1.5) more likely to be killed by a firearm. The West’s sample size was too small to be included in this part of the analysis.

“Available data indicate that homicides in the US continued to escalate in many areas of the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, which also intersected with widespread national protests after the murder of George Floyd. These trends reflect systems that have long disserviced communities of color, and underscore that sustained investment and vision to support underserved communities are critical to reverse racial injustices that impact health and wellbeing.” said Katherine Keyes, senior author of the paper and professor of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

The study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health, grants L30 MH131137 and T32MH096724.

*Data on the 30 individual states included in the analysis can be found in Table 1 in the Article.*

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various author’s articles on this Opinion piece or elsewhere online or in the newspaper where we have articles with the header “COLUMN/EDITORIAL & OPINION” do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Publisher, Editor, Reporters or anybody else in the Staff of the Hemet and San Jacinto Chronicle Newspaper.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has approved the first-ever U.S. military transfer to Taiwan under a program generally reserved for assistance to sovereign, independent states.

The State Department notified Congress of the sale on Wednesday. It said the material would “be used to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities through joint and combined defense capability and enhanced maritime domain awareness and maritime security capability.”

The package is modest — only $80 million of what Congress had set aside as a potential $2 billion — but the implications of using the so-called Foreign Military Financing program to provide it will likely infuriate China.

Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, has repeatedly not ruled out the use of force to reunite it with the mainland and vociferously protests all U.S. arms sales to the self-governing island.

However, previous arms sales to Taiwan have been approved under other authorities that do not necessarily imply statehood. U.S. officials were quick to say that the provision of FMF funding to Taiwan did not represent a change in policy. It’s a position the Chinese are sure to disagree with.

In explaining the change, two U.S. officials said: “The United States has provided Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to Taiwan for years. FMF simply enables eligible partner nations to purchase U.S. defense articles, services, and training through either FMS or, for a limited number of countries, through the foreign military financing of direct commercial contracts (FMF/DCC) program.” The officials were not authorized to comment publicly and did so on condition of anonymity.

But the language used implied that Taiwan is or could be compared to a “nation” or a “country” — something China has fervently opposed, blocking Taiwan’s full membership in any number of U.N. and other international organizations unless it is identified as part of China.

The only other time the U.S. has provided a non-nation-state with military assistance under FMF was to the African Union, an organization of sovereign states based in Ethiopia, according to American officials.

The notification, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, did not specify what military equipment or systems would be paid for under FMF, which commits U.S. taxpayer dollars to pay for the supply of materiel to foreign countries.

But, it said items that could be covered would include: air and coastal defense systems, armored vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, drones, ballistic missile and cyber defenses, and advanced communications equipment. It added that protective gear, an array of small, medium and heavy weapons systems, ammunition, armored and infantry fighting vehicles could also be included.

In addition to equipment, FMF may also be used to support training for Taiwanese military forces.

Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, welcomed the FMF being provided to Taiwan.

“These weapons will not only help Taiwan and protect other democracies in the region, but also strengthen the U.S. deterrence posture and ensure our national security from an increasingly aggressive CCP,” he said in a statement, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration announced Tuesday it will send an additional $250 million in weapons and ammunition to Ukraine as part of its ongoing support of Kyiv’s counteroffensive.

The weapons will be drawn from existing U.S. stockpiles and will include mine-clearing equipment, artillery and rocket rounds, ambulances and medical gear, among other items and spare parts, according to the State Department.

“The package will help Ukrainian forces on the battlefield and support its air defenses as Russia continues to launch brutal, brutal strikes against the people of Ukraine, including attacks this past week,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.

The State Department said the package contained AIM-9M missiles for air defense, High Mobility Artillery Rocket System munitions, 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition and more than 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition.

The U.S. would have already run out of funding for the year to provide additional stockpile equipment to Ukraine but earlier this year realized the Pentagon had overvalued the equipment it had already sent, which freed up an additional $6.2 billion in funding.

Ukraine has already received more than $43 billion from the U.S. since Russia invaded last year. Those funds have provided weapons systems like howitzers and millions of rounds of ammunition to fight back against the much larger Russian military. Due to the intense and bloody land war, now in its 18th month, much of the ammunition and weaponry has already been used up.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. international outlook has undergone a major shift in recent years, a new poll shows, with a majority now expecting that U.S. relations with allies will stay the same or improve but that U.S. dealings with traditional adversaries like Russia and North Korea will only grow more hostile.

Two years into the Biden administration, the assessments look much different from four years ago, at roughly the same point in the Trump administration. Now, 60% of U.S. adults say relations with adversaries will get worse, up from 26% four years ago, according to the poll from the Pearson Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Just 21% say relationships with allies will deteriorate, down from 46% then.

In general, 39% expect the country’s global standing to worsen, compared with 48% who said that in 2018. Crucially, the United States’ own sharply divided domestic politics influences views of the country’s standing abroad.

“Those results really, clearly show that it’s hyperpartisanship” affecting how confidently or bleakly, respectively, Democrats and Republicans see the U.S. standing abroad, said Sheila Kohanteb, a political scientist and executive director of the Global Forum at the Chicago-based Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts.

In terms of the opinions that people in the U.S. are expressing on U.S. dealings abroad, the key factor is “political bloc sticking with political bloc,” Kohanteb said.

Four years ago, three-quarters of Democrats expected U.S. global standing to suffer. Now, roughly that same percentage see stability or improvement in the near future. By comparison, about 6 in 10 Republicans predicted improvements in 2018; now that same percentage expect the current administration to stumble.

Other countries are “probably laughing at us, waiting for us to fall apart,” said Kristy Woodard, a 30-year-old Republican in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She said she saw the economy and U.S. leadership as suffering under President Joe Biden.

“I don’t think we really have allies anymore because the United States is just a joke at this point,” Woodard said.

But David Dvorin, a 49-year-old Democrat in Pittsburgh who works as a price specialist, said Biden was winning respect abroad by rallying international allies to respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The war in Ukraine has shown the leadership of the Biden administration, to be able to hold most of Europe together,” Dvorin said.

Still, as Russia amps up its assault on Ukraine, tensions with China grow over Taiwan and other issues and the U.S. confronts North Korea and Iran over those countries’ nuclear programs, similar percentages of Republicans and Democrats say that relationships with adversaries will get worse in the next year.

The Pearson Institute/AP-NORC poll also shows strong support for a U.S. foreign policy that protects women and minorities around the world — even though few people think the U.S. is doing a world-beating job of protecting those same interests at home.

Majorities of U.S. adults said they see preventing discrimination against women and minorities around the world as an important U.S. foreign policy goal and that the U.S. government has significant responsibility for protecting the rights of those groups. And 78% of people in the United States believe the U.S. should withhold financial support from other countries that are failing to protect the rights of women and minority groups.

However, only about 1 in 5 U.S. adults thinks the country is leading the world in safeguarding the rights of women and racial, ethnic and religious minorities, or LGBTQ people. Many think the U.S. is among several countries that are doing it well, but about a third say there are other countries doing better.

Rick Reinesch, 61, of Austin, Texas, who works as a project manager for a consulting firm and describes himself as a Democratic-leaning political independent, calls safeguarding the freedoms of women and minorities abroad “essential” for the U.S.

But the increasing Republican and Democratic divide at home means Americans’ performance on that point is a “mixed bag,” with rights deteriorating in states most influenced by former President Donald Trump’s dismissive outlook, he said.

Chris Ormsby, 53, of Edmond, Oklahoma, an administrator in higher education who describes himself as a political independent, pointed to women’s rights in Iran, where women are spearheading weeks of protests triggered by government demands that women cover their hair, as among the rights issues playing out overseas.

“Maybe we can take more proactive steps” abroad on that, Ormsby said. But “I think there’s other things to worry about, nuclear proliferation and things like that.” He called slowing climate change by moving the world away from fossil fuels a priority for U.S. policy abroad.

That all makes for a strange split for those charged with shaping America’s policy on protections of human rights, Kohanteb, the Pearson Institute official, said.

“American policy is not as adamant about protecting our own rights as Americans believe we should be doing abroad,” she said.

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Winter is here early this year. Usually here, in Southern California, we do not see snow or rain until middle to late January. The forecast is for more of the same. It appears this is a similar story in major areas of the U.S. Will this year bring us a white Christmas?

Starting this week, the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) Manufacturing Index released their November reading. This is a good leading economic indicator (LEI) of the economy and helps gauge changes in the business cycle. Changes in this index are highly correlated to changes to the gross domestic product (GDP).  It is the difference between new orders and inventories which is a good measure for future production. The market was expecting an increase over October’s reading of 48.3. Anything below 50 is believed to indicate the US economy is in a contraction and if over 50 reflects the economy is in expansion. For the fourth month in a row the number came in below 50 and surprising Wall Street came in below October’s reading at 48.1. This is near the low of 47.8 in September.

New Orders Index read 47.2 in November, a decrease of 1.9 when compared to 49.1 in October.  This reflects a higher rate of contraction for the fourth straight month. There are six top industry sectors and of those, five contracted and only one expanded from the October performance. Other Manufacturing Indices (OMI) reporting a slowing trend include Employment, Inventories, Customer’s Inventories, Backlog of Orders and New Export Orders. Rising Manufacturing Indices include Production, Supplier Deliveries, Prices, and Imports. There are no indices expanding at this time.

Economic forecasts for 4^th quarter performance surged in November to 1.7%. After this report, forecasts dropped to 1.3%. Economists are debating if this is the bottom and if in future months this will be reversed both in the U.S. and globally.

With the Federal Reserve lowering rates mid-cycle labeled as an adjustment, the economy is expected to turn upward in coming months. It is also argued that the Fed did too little too late. Others argue that the trade tariffs have impacted the economy and the economy can’t move forward until this dispute is resolved. Reviewing the corporate earnings, most companies have lowered expectations and have seen results come in above them. This is a case of, “not as bad as expected.”

There is more data to come and most expectations are that 2019 will end strong. December is historically known for its strong performance. We will have to wait and see how this quarter plays out and what the reports show us through this month and in January for the 4^th quarter. This is a different winter.  Stay prepared and on your toes.

If you have questions on a particular company or investment and would like our feedback, contact us at my email below. Our team will research and respond to you with our recommendation and opinion.

Andrew F. Kotyuk, CIMA* is CEO and Principal of Alpha Wealth Management LLC. For questions or investment topics please email me afkotyuk@alpha-wealth.com.

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