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See COVID’s toll on California’s life expectancy in new CDC longevity report

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See COVID’s toll on California’s life expectancy in new CDC longevity report


It was the year COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, and the pandemic’s startling death toll in California and elsewhere appeared close to being reined in.

Instead, life expectancy in California fell by more than 8 months in 2021, dropping the Golden State to 10th place in the nation, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An analysis of all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that babies born in California in 2021 could expect to live 78.3 years — down from 79 years in 2020, when California ranked fourth in the nation.

The decrease, which was reported Wednesday by the CDC’s National Vital Satistics System, revealed that the promise of COVID-19 vaccines — along with other public health measures — was not enjoyed uniformly across the nation.

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While life expectancy dropped in California and 38 other states, it increased in 11 others and held steady in the District of Columbia. (New Jersey logged a gain of 1.5 years between 2020 and 2021, the best performance among the states.)

In 2019, before the coronavirus reached U.S. shores, the state’s overall life expectancy at birth was 80.9 years, with an expected life span of 78.4 years for men and 83.3 years for women. That put California in the No. 2 spot, just slightly behind Hawaii. (The states were so close that Hawaii’s overall life expectancy that year was also reported as 80.9 years.)

Then deaths during the first year of the pandemic shaved 1.9 years off California’s life expectancy at birth. Only 15 states weathered larger declines. (New York saw the biggest drop, losing 3 full years of life expectancy between 2019 and 2020.)

Expected life spans in the Golden State shrank by another 0.7 years in 2021, according to the new report. That was the 27th-largest decline, putting it in the middle of the pack. (The biggest drop was in Alaska, where it plunged from 76.6 to 74.5 years.)

This map divides states into quartiles based on their life expectancy at birth for 2021. The darker the state,the longer the life expectancy.

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(National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System)

The life expectancy of Americans as whole fell by 0.6 years to 76.4 years, according to the new report. CDC researchers attributed that decrease primarily to high numbers of COVID-19 deaths and fatalities from accidental drug overdoses.

Hawaii retained the longevity crown in 2021, with a life expectancy of 79.9 years.

That was a full 9 years longer than in Mississippi, which ranked 51st among all states and the District of Columbia. A baby born in the Magnolia state could expect to live 70.9 years, according to the new report.

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The states that rounded out the top five overall in 2021 were Massachusetts (79.6 years), Connecticut (79.2 years), New York (79.0) and New Jersey (also 79.0).

Joining Mississippi at the bottom of the list were West Virginia (71.0 years), Alabama (72.0 years), Louisiana (72.2 years) and Kentucky (72.3 years).

More broadly, “states with the lowest life expectancy at birth were mostly Southern states,” the report said. “States with the highest life expectancy at birth were predominantly Western … and Northeastern states.”

Women were expected to outlive men in every state in 2021. The life expectancy gap ranged from a high of 7.6 years in New Mexico to a low of 3.9 years in Utah. The average gender gap for the country as a whole was 5.8 years, according to the report.

In California, the expected lifespan was 81.4 years for a baby girl born in 2021 and 75.3 years for a baby boy — a difference of 6.1 years.

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For the most part, the states with the largest differential between the sexes had lower life expectancies overall. Meanwhile, states with the smallest discrepancies between males and females tended to have higher overall life expectancies, the CDC noted.

A chart that ranks states according to the size of their gender gap for life expectancy at birth in 2021.

This chart ranks states according to the size of their gender gap for life expectancy at birth in 2021. New Mexico had the biggest discrepancy, while Utah had the smallest.

(National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System)

CDC researchers also calculated the remaining lifespan for Americans who were 65 years old in 2021. The nationwide average was 18.4 years — 17.0 years for men and 19.7 years for women.

Life expectancy at 65 is always greater than life expectancy at birth because the pool of people who survive to their 65th birthday excludes those who weren’t able to reach that milestone.

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The risk of death in the first year of life is particularly high — the U.S. infant mortality rate in 2021 was 5.44 deaths per 1,000 live births — and actuarial life tables from the Social Security Administration show that it takes until age 49 for the mortality rate to reach the same level.

In 2021, 65-year-olds in Hawaii had the most years to look forward to, with an average remaining life expectancy of 20.6 years. That was followed by Connecticut at 19.9 years, Massachusetts at 19.6 years, and Minnesota, New York, Vermont and New Jersey at 19.4 years.

Mississippi ranked 51st on this longevity list as well, offering 65-year-olds an expectation of 16.1 more years to live. West Virginia also had a remaining life expectancy of 16.1 years, followed by Alabama, Oklahoma and Kentucky at 16.4 years.

California beat the nationwide averages for 65-year-olds with a remaining overall life expectancy of 19.3 years. That included 17.8 additional years for 65-year-old men and 20.7 years for 65-year-old women.

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What to know about ‘celebratory’ roll call vote at Democratic National Convention

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What to know about ‘celebratory’ roll call vote at Democratic National Convention


The Democratic National Convention hosted a “celebratory” roll call Tuesday night, but two states initially passed on casting their votes.

During the roll call process, each state and U.S. territory announces the votes its delegates will give to each candidate. In this case, the delegates votes were cast virtually ahead of the convention to avoid ballot challenges, but the organizers kept the convention tradition, allowing representatives from each state to say a few words in casting their votes in a party atmosphere.

California and Minnesota, the home states of Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, initially passed before going again at the end to close out the roll call vote.

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Harris was then streamed in to say a few words from a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Democratic convention live updates: Lil Jon brings in party as Democrats nominate Harris

What is the roll call vote?

During roll call, each state and U.S. territory announces the votes its delegates will give to each candidate. The Democratic National Committee opened a virtual roll call on Aug. 1, and by the following day she received the 2,350 majority of votes needed to secure the nomination.

The delegates are people who are chosen during primaries and caucuses to represent the party at the conventions. Candidates usually win delegates based on the party primary elections, but the this year delegates shifted their votes from President Joe Biden, who earned delegates in the primaries, to Harris after Biden dropped out.

The states typically go in alphabetical order, and the chair of the sate delegation gives a short speech while announcing their votes.

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Watch the 2024 Democratic National Convention

The convention is taking place Monday through Thursday this week at the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks, will be the main venue for the DNC. Chicago has hosted the Democratic Convention 11 times, most recently in 1996 when the United Center saw President Bill Clinton was nominated for a second time.

The convention will air live on its website, from the United Center in Chicago between 6:15 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern (5:15 p.m. to 10 p.m Central) on Monday, and 7 p.m to 11 p.m. Eastern (6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Central) the other days.

USA TODAY will provide livestream coverage on YouTube each night of the DNC, Monday through Thursday.

Contributing: Rebecca Morin, Joey Garrison, Maya Marchel Hoff, James Powel



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A Tesla Semi crashed and caught fire on a California highway

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A Tesla Semi crashed and caught fire on a California highway


A Tesla Semi truck crashed into trees and caught fire off the side of a highway in California early Monday, causing road closures on I-80 for almost 16 hours. As reported by KCRA 3 News, Cal Fire crews first headed to the crash site near the Nevada border after 3AM local time.

Firefighters doused the Tesla Semi with thousands of gallons of water to cool its lithium-ion EV battery pack down to a manageable target temperature of around 100 degrees Fahrenheit while waiting for its cells to burn out. Around 4PM the crew got the batteries to a safer temperature and began work to move what was left of the Semi to Tesla’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. The highway was fully reopened after 7PM.

California Highway Patrol told KCRA 3 that the driver of the Semi was taken to a hospital after walking away from the crash. Now, authorities are investigating the cause of the crash, including whether the driver had fallen asleep. The Semi was operated by Tesla, which often uses the class 8 commercial truck to haul freshly made EV batteries from the Gigafactory to its Fremont, California car manufacturing plant. In this case, it was not pulling a trailer, so it seems the Semi’s own batteries were burning.

It’s not the first time big Tesla batteries have caught fire in California. The company’s Megawatt energy storage batteries went aflame at a local utility in 2022, shutting down part of a highway.

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A Future Without Involuntary Servitude? In California, It's Long Overdue | KQED

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A Future Without Involuntary Servitude? In California, It's Long Overdue | KQED


In the past, I interviewed a woman who repaired the industrial-sized laundry dryers at the California Institution for Women in Chino while incarcerated. While teaching at Vacaville’s California Medical Facility, I met a man who did landscaping in front of the prison’s religious buildings. There’s a meat cutting facility at Mule Creek State Prison, and a poultry processing enterprise at Avenal State Prison.

Behind bars in California, people make everything from socks to American flags.

There’s plenty of potential occupations for people who are incarcerated. Some jobs are underpaid, and some don’t pay at all. But legally, every able-bodied person is supposed to work. It’s written in the state’s constitution as a form of “involuntary servitude” — or, as many see it: slavery.

This fall, if passed by voters, Prop. 6 would amend the state’s constitution to no longer require people who are incarcerated to work. Finally, 160 years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, we have the opportunity to put an end to a direct remnant of this country’s most inhumane system.

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How did we get here? Let’s start at the top: the federal government. As you might have learned in history class, the 13th Amendment ended slavery, right? Well, no.

It states:

​​Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

That exception (“except as punishment for crime”) creates a loophole for states to force people who are incarcerated to work without compensation.

The application of this exception varies from state to state. California is one of eight states where involuntary servitude is still a legal form of punishment for a crime. (There are eight other states where it’s explicitly stated that “slavery,” verbatim, is a legal punishment for a crime.)

With nearly 200,000 people behind bars, California has the most populous incarceration system of all 16 states where this form of punishment is legal. That massive amount of people working for free, or in some cases a few cents per hour, plays a valuable part in the Golden State’s economic system — one that generates the third-highest GDP in the United States.

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Now consider that African Americans account for nearly one-third of all incarcerated people, but only 5% of the state’s total population. Do you start to see how slavery, far from being abolished, is actually alive and well?

Members of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children pose for a photo outside of the California State Capitol Building in Sacramento. (Courtesy of Dr. Tanisha Cannon)

“W

e’re not just simply trying to change the language,” says Paul Briley, Executive Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, of involuntary servitude. “We want to change the practice.”

During a recent video chat, Briley gave me a bit of a history lesson on the roots of the issue in California.

It starts with California’s first governor, Peter Hardeman Burnett, a noted racist and slave owner originally from Tennessee. Burnett got into California politics on the tail end of the Gold Rush, after leaving Oregon, where he was also politically involved. While in Oregon, he helped the state legislature establish a lash law, which required people of African descent to leave the state or else face punishment in the form of whippings.

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“(Burnett) wanted to create a white-only west,” says Briley, adding that Burnett also advocated for California’s Fugitive Slave Law, which put Black residents who’d escaped slavery at high risk of being sent back to Southern slave states. The underlying ambition of the law, Briley says, was to keep this new state’s Black population to a minimum.

In 1852, the same year California passed its Fugitive Slave Law, the state also established its first mainland prison, San Quentin.

“There’s a direct correlation between slavery and mass incarceration,” notes Briley. And so — aiming to abolish not just the language but the practice — “that’s at the core of our mission: dismantling the entire prison industrial complex.”





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